Should You Invest in Supercars? Tom Jaconelli on Why Supercars Are a New Asset Class

Tom, what's the best supercar to own?

The best supercar to own? It depends on many factors. If you're talking just about driving experience, then, you know, you do far wrong to get anything other than a Ferrari. You know, hypercars, you can go Pagani, Zonda, you know, that's. That's just driving and ownership. Because you look at investment as well. You know, you look at. If you bought a Zonda 10 years ago and paid a couple of mil, it's now worth, you know, probably 8 or 9 mil potentially. So it depends what you want from ownership. Are you looking at financials? Are you looking at the driving? Are you looking at the relationship with the car, the reliability, the. You know, are you going to have issues, you know, because you look at McLaren, one of the best brands in terms of the driving and the performance. But we know if you're buying a McLaren, you should expect a few little niggles, a few little issues.

So I've got the McLaren question, because I nearly bought one and my business partner was like, do not buy a McLaren. So we'll come to that. But okay, so what about an everyday supercar? Is there anything that ticks all the boxes?

There's definitely cars that tick all the boxes. I mean, the ultimate everyday supercar, a lot of people say there's the Turbo S, 992 Turbo S. That for me, lacks a little bit of soul, though. The new one is very, very good, but it's definitely something you can take anywhere. Everywhere. It's a little bit understated. Unbelievable performance, Holds its money very well and is generally pretty reliable. For me, I'd probably go GT3 touring as the ultimate everyday supercar.

What's the difference between that and a Turbo S?

So gt, it's a GT car is set up a little bit more aggressively. You know, it's more. A little bit more track focused, but it's got no wing compared to the normal GT3, so it's understated. So if you know, you know, and you get, you know, the enthusiasts will know that's a GT3 touring. But to the regular eye, it just looks like a normal Porsche. So you can take it everywhere, but it's just got a bit more driver focus about it than a Turbo S. Yeah.

And what is the most exciting supercar you've ever seen or driven?

The most exciting Thrill. Thrill. I mean, erect. I mean, these behind me. I mean, I remember as a kid first getting in a Bugatti Verum with my dad, and that still, to this day is probably the most thrilling, most excited I've ever been. When you go in one of these as a kid especially, it's like you're on a roller coaster as you put them down that fast. It's still unlike the experience of being in one of those is still unlike anything else.

Yeah.

But it's also very smooth and comfortable. So, you know, there's other stuff that you can get more scared by because these are four wheel drive. They're. They're pretty solid on the road. You can get in something like a P1, a McLaren P1. They're a lot hairier. Right on a knife edge. Yeah. So, you know, that's thrilling in its own way, but, yeah, a little bit scary. I'd prefer to be on one of these, I think.

Yeah. What about the F40? I mean, that's my all time favorite car. Like classic car, I guess they're quite.

Yeah. Do you know what? It's been a while since I've been in one. You know, they are the poster car. They are so many people's all time favorite car. But, yeah, I haven't, haven't driven one in a long time. Again, I've been in one when I was a kid. We don't sell a lot of F40s. It's just probably slightly too old for what we normally sell. But, yeah, the iconic car is the F40.

What's the worst supercar you've ever had in the showroom or had the disgrace of owning or driving McLaren.

Yeah. The worst ones for us are ones that have issues that are almost unfixable. So we've had some cars, McLarens, normally that have a few issues and they're in McLaren waiting for parts, waiting for something to be sorted, which can be, you know, just had a car in McLaren for eight months.

Wow.

And it's only just been sorted. So those for us are like. It's dead money. Yeah. It's stock we can't sell. So in that respect, they're. They're the worst. I mean, it's not just McLaren. We've had some other cars, Ferraris as well as the occasional problem. But, you know, most of the stuff is, you know, there's not anything that sort of highlights to me as a really bad supercar. The guys before I started working here, they, they tell a story of. We had a Koenigsegg, one of the very, very early ones, which apparently was a nightmare. You know, had a lot of problems. I think it, you know, broke down a few times. I know that the brand has Gone. Yeah, you know, way better now, and I'm sure they're more reliable, but that, that's a car that. A lot of people that were here before me always say, oh, don't go near a Koenigsegg. But I think that's old news now.

I guess when you don't make that many cars, you know, if you're Volkswagen, Audi Group, you can put all the money into the research, the testing and all of that. I don't know how many cars Koenigsegg.

Made back then, but, yeah, it probably.

Was one of them.

Yeah, it's that. So it was probably one of their first cars, you know, and any growing, you know, growing pains of building a brand, especially a car manufacturer, you know, it's acceptable, I think.

Have you met Christian?

No, I haven't.

I would love to. We've been on Christian von Koenigsegg for five years. Christian, if you're watching or if anyone knows Christian, this is one of the biggest shows in the world. You need to be on this show. To me, he's the Elon Musk of cars. What do you think?

He's definitely building legendary status and the brand is getting stronger and stronger and he seems just like a cool dude. Looks like a cool dude. So, yeah, get him on for sure. Yeah.

Okay, so what is the worst depreciating sports car you've ever had? Or generally in the brand worst depreciating?

I guess if you look at list price, the depreciation can be huge on certain cars, but a lot of people don't pay list price. You know, Aston Martin are notoriously bad depreciation, but if you're buying a new Aston or you can at least used to get a massive discount, so that softens the blow. McLaren were the same. You know, you could get 50 grand off a 720s quite easily, but if you paid the list price, you know, you're going to shoot, you know, 100 grand quite easily. I mean, SF 90s one in front of us, they were. Some of them were 500, 550 grand new. And quite quickly they got down to 400. So that for an owner, you know, over 100 grand appreciation in less than a year is. Was pretty bad. Yeah, you know, there's quite a few. You know, most of these cars do depreciate, unfortunately. But yeah, it's about buying it right and getting the right deal to begin with. And that would just help with the depreciation.

Yeah, well, I just bought. It's about two weeks away from Being delivered. The newer model dbs, not that limited edition one, is it? Did you say? It's the Evolution?

Yeah, the ultimate.

Ultimate. That's it. But yeah, that was the list of that specs was 303. And paid one in the. One in the 140s, I think it was terrible color, which helped.

Yeah, yeah. Depreciation on strange colors can be worse.

Well, now you can wrap them. Well, it's hot. It's like highlighter yellow, but maybe with a bit of green mixed in. But I just send it down to Yanni and for three grand he'll wrap it.

That's the thing. And strangely, we actually find these days, the more unique the better and the more weird the better. Sometimes people like wacky stuff.

Well, that Bugatti is a unique way.

Yeah, that's pretty out there.

It's like a stick of rock, isn't it?

Yeah. So, you know, personalization, customization, especially if it's done at factory, can be a good thing. And, you know, something I've learned here is it's not all about what we like as people, you know. Cause what we like is, you know, one man's trash is another man's treasure, you know. Yeah, we're not selling to us, although normally it bodes us pretty well in buying stuff we like. But there's definitely stuff that we're like, oh my God, it's horrible. And it sells like that.

Yeah.

So, yeah, yeah.

And so are these. So if you're not watching, you're listening. We're sat in Romans International and Tom, who's the co owner, we've got three Bugatti's behind us. So you'd assume these would be a great investment, wouldn't you? I mean, what do you say they make 50 a year, if that.

I mean, the Veyrons are, you know, they stopped making them how long ago? Probably 10 years ago or maybe seven or eight years ago. So they don't make them anymore at all.

So, yeah, are Bugatti's a good investment for anyone who can afford one?

Well, so far they haven't proven to be the best investment. As I said, this one of this Tiffany Grand Sport Vitesse we sold about five years ago and we've just sold it again. And there's very little difference in the value.

And what's the normal price of something like that of a Ron.

So the Vertes, that's a special edition, which was a convertible and based on the Super Sport, which is the higher level, a regular Veyron, this one that's just come in literally yesterday. That's going to be about 900 to 950. And again, they cost over a million new. So it's actually proven to be not a great investment. But I think long term, these cars are so iconic, they've changed the game completely. They will eventually, and everything else around it has gone through the roof. You look at F40s, look at Carrera GTs, F50s gone mad. And these have sort of stayed the same. So we'd like to think that they will eventually catch up. And the longer sort of history goes on, I think the more special and important they'll become.

What's the most nickable car? We had a video go wildly viral on this when we asked someone else this, because it's quite shocking. But, yeah, what's the most nickable car?

I mean, definitely a Range Rover. I mean, they are. You know, we get. Not only my wife's car has been stolen twice, Range Rover support, but we found it both times because it had a tracker. But, you know, we count with forever talking to people that have had their Range Rover nicked. London is particularly bad for it, to the point where now insurers are refusing to insure them. You've got to have at least a ghost immobilizer or, you know, something that basically makes it harder to nick. But even then, you know, these hackers, they're always ahead of the game. But, yeah, Range Rovers just seem to be the most nickable. And you kind of look at Land Rover and think, surely you can come up with something. Porsches don't really get nicked. McLaren so far don't seem to get nicked. Ferraris are getting worse. Recently, they've seemed to work out how to nick Ferraris. But, yeah, other than that, Range Rovers are definitely the worst. And I think it's because there's so many of them, they blend in. So a black Range Rover Sport is the most nicked car in the country.

My MD just found that out. She has a black Range Rover Sport and she's like, I don't want one.

Yeah, wrap it yellow. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

So Back to the McLaren and the Bugatti Veyron. Do you think the reasons they either drop a lot and the Astons or don't go up as much as you would think, is the running and maintenance cost something to do with that?

Definitely. With Bugatti, you know, these cost a lot of money to service. How much talking? At least 20 grand, sometimes more.

20 grand plus just for an oil change.

Just for an annual service, you know. But we've had services that cost a lot more than that. And then the tires.

You meant to say, what's the highest service you've ever seen on a Bugatti?

I mean, we've probably had. Well, if you include putting a warranty and a service pack on it, you're talking about. Can be over 100 grand for a yearly service. Yeah, we've had. Because if you've got to change the tires and the wheels and how much.

Are the tires to change?

Tyres are at least five grand a.

Tire, and you can't get, like, ebay.

Cheaper ones, and each three tire changes, you have to change the wheels.

And how much are the wheels?

And the wheels, I think, are 20 grand each. Something like that.

So it's the price of a regular car per wheel.

Yeah, it might be a bit less than that. It's been a while since we've actually gone through the rigor of having to do that, but it's, I think, at least 10 grand a will. So it's. It's. And that puts investors off. Yeah.

Is it mostly investors who buy?

I think it is now. When it first came out, it was obviously anyone that wanted the latest, the most special thing. Now Veyrons have sort of moved into that sort of classic car status. So it is more investors, as much as they're pretty usable to drive. But now it's the Chiron. That's the people that want the latest. The latest special Bugatti. But these are now crossed over to be more of a classic investment car. And I think people are seeing them as massively undervalued now.

Yeah.

And you don't have to service them every year if you're going to put it away, you know, every two years is probably fine. They actually. Bugatti just brought something out where you have a collector's package for servicing and a user's package for servicing, and the collector's package is a lot less because obviously less worried about you using it and something going wrong. So, you know, Bugatti is starting to realize there's. There's ways of, you know, more people buying them.

Yeah. So with things like high inflation, lockdown. Have you seen people start to buy cars more for investment than just for general use?

Yeah, there's been. It's happening again now that sort of goes through these periods of, you know, when other things aren't so good. You know, you look at the stock market crypto, things that maybe aren't performing as well. People start to look at different assets. And I feel like it's happening more and more. And as people see the potential, you know, we've seen cars go crazy in value over the last two years since lockdown. Especially like you look at the Ferrari market, the halo cars, the F40, the F50, the LaFerrari, you know, they've gone up a million pounds in, in the space of, you know, a year, year and a half. You know, sometimes they move 500 grand within, you know, a few months. So people are starting to think, right, and especially with the narrative of electric cars is coming in, combustion engines being banned, all this kind of stuff, it's helping people see these cars as proper collector's items. So, yeah, it's. And, and now at the moment, especially in, I think in a recession, pending recession, these cars are starting to become their own asset class. So people, you know, people of wealth are thinking, right, I want a property portfolio, I want a stock portfolio, I want maybe a bit of crypto. And they're now thinking, I also want a car portfolio. And it's generally the higher end stuff that's going to have, you know, the most potential to increase in value. But, you know, a lot of our clients now, you know, we sold the TDF last week, which is that the A12, F12.

Sorry. Yeah.

It was only done 100 miles.

Wow.

And the guy that owned it before, I think he paid 600 or something for it. We just sold it for close to a million. He's never driven it, he'd never actually seen the car, so he just bought it too early as an investment. A very shrewd investment it turned out to be. And the next guy is probably gonna do exactly the same. He's just bought it, he doesn't want it on the road. He'll have it. He'll have it in his garage. He can sit in it, he can.

Look at it, put it in those big bubble wrap vacuum pack things.

Yeah, but, you know, it's a smart, it's a smart play, I think, but you've got to choose the right car. Ferrari's gonna be the best, I think, but Porsche is not far behind. Lamborghini, potentially. There's some out there that I think could be good investments now that the V12 is, you know, no longer in terms of pure combustion. But yeah, there's definitely a moving kind of market in terms of more and more people being attracted to cars as an investment.

So I want to ask you about some of the. Your tips for what might. Obviously you're not giving financial advice but some of your tips in a moment. What's the total value of the stock in this showroom? I mean, do you know? Do you have to guess?

We did this exercise about a couple of months ago and it turned out it was 30 million.

Wow. 30 million quids worth of cars in one show.

We've got three Bugatti's here and we've actually got another one out the back. I mean, that in itself is 7 or 8 million.

Right.

And then, you know, we've got. We've actually got over 100 cars in stock at the moment and the average value is probably 150, 200 grand. So, you know, if you do the math, it's quite quickly adds up.

How much is your insurance you have to pay every year on that?

Hell of a lot. Hell of a lot. But no claims.

Yeah, yeah, go on, tell us how much?

I think it's. It's at least 15 grand a month, I think. Wow. Yeah.

180 grand a year.

Yeah.

Have you ever had any cars nicked from your showroom?

Never had a car nicked, had a motorbike nicked. So we no longer keep motorbikes in the showroom, but never. This place is like Fort Knox with cameras and, you know, posts and it's very hard to nick a car from here. But a motorbike, someone did smash through the front window and just, you can wheel it out. So, yeah, we now keep those somewhere else.

Yeah. Wow. So the car investment market, do you think it's a major bubble because of lockdown, high inflation? Because normally, isn't it normally the case you buy a car and you expect it to go down in value and it seemed like everyday cars, Porsche Taycans 911s were major premiums on them.

I think the bubble has burst in terms of those cars, the normal cars, which are never normally selling for premiums. You know, Turbo S's, you look last year they were 40, 50 grand over lists, which is just unheard of. COVID and Lockdown and Brexit. It did create the bubble for those cars because of the lack of supply of them. Lack of supply conduct, semiconductor issues, you know, you couldn't order one. The waiting lists were huge. That bubble does feel like it's burst, not dramatically, but it's going down that way. But it's going back to normal. It's not like it's, you know, if you bought one at list, you'd still be fine, you'll still be doing very well, in fact. But the collector's market is different. That's got its own beat, you know, that's, that's only. I don't think that's a bubble at all. There's a chance, there's a chance that, you know, they've, they've peaked and they might correct and go back up again. But, you know, history will tell us things like the Halo Ferraris, they only go one way.

By Halo you mean their.

So that's their top level, the F40, the F50, 288 GTO, Enzo Laferrarie hypercar each year. Yeah, yeah. And Ferrari are very clever at building a customer base for those cars. And, you know, it's clever investors and obviously very wealthy people that can buy this.

And they make you get in a queue and earn your way up and buy four Ferraris on the journey up.

Yeah. So that's it. You're gonna lose 50 grand on one car, maybe more on another car.

But if you get, you know, once you get there.

Yeah, once you get there, you're laughing.

So is there an argument then? If you want to get into this game eventually, stick to a brand because the watch market, same. I love watches and you know, some of the APs, the Pateks, the Richard Milles, they've gone wild and you want, you want to go in and buy a Rolex Daytona or, you know, a nice Halo Patek, as you call it, and there can be a three to nine year waiting list on that, but you're always first if you've bought five or ten watches.

Yeah, it works in a similar way. You've got, you've got to play the game. A lot of people don't like playing it. They don't like being told what they can do with their cars. You know, we have people looking to sell. The new 812Competizione is one of the limited edition.

Isn't that the one that's nearly a million now or something?

Over a million now. That's crazy. I think like 1.3, 1.4 cost new five or six hundred grand. And you know, that car's only just come out, but we've had three or four people agree to sell them to us for over a million pounds. So they're making good money, they're very happy with the price and they basically, in their contract, they have to let.

Ferrari won't let them.

Basically they have to give it to Ferrari to say we're allowed to try and sell the car for six weeks or something, or four weeks, and if we sell it, they get the money if they, if they don't sell it, they're not doing their job well for one, but then they're allowed to sell them to us. But all four, they've gone to Ferrari and they've sold them. So it's frustrating for us. But you know, they're ring fencing their brand.

Yeah. Because if you go and buy, you get given these nice watches and cars, you just quickly flip them. They turn their nose up at that, don't they?

They can do some brands do you know, they don't always find out obviously, but Range Rover actually one of the worst. But they can't stop it. There's so many Range Rovers but they've been selling for big premiums over the last year. But they threaten people. The brand threatens the dealer who have sold the car initially with fines, but they can't stop it. When you own that car, you can do what you want with it. Ferrari, obviously, you know, some people don't care. They're just like, I don't care, you know, I'll do what. Especially when we're offering more money. They're like, well why am I going to take 30 grand less, you know, from Ferrari when I can sell it to you for 30 grand more? Yeah, you know, they'll take. And most of the time you can rebuild a relationship pretty quickly with another dealer.

Or when the market changes and there's a recession and they're begging for business.

Again, I'll come back see if I.

Was doing this again because I'm a, I've been a watch collector and we've got what, seven or eight cars now. So I've been building that up. If I was being more strategic and going back to the start, I probably would do a bit more research up front and I probably would pick one brand and I probably would stick to them, whether it's say Ferrari or Audemars Piguet, because I know by now I'd be getting all the best models. Yeah, like there's a blue Odemar Piguet, Royal oak, ceramic and 150 new and they immediately go for 350.

Really?

Yeah, immediately. And I've had chances to buy these watches years ago at 60, 65 grand. You know when you get invited to go and see them in their factory and everything else. So yeah, that's probably something I would do different.

It's watch the same as cars that there's no capital gains tax. Yeah, yeah, see.

Yeah, well at the moment, yeah, I mean there's not much left. The government got to tax you on but no, I mean, they're obviously. I guess you can't really class them as an asset, can you? They're supposed to be a depreciable. Yeah, but of course, once they cloth. I think the good thing about watches and cars, that stops them from taxing them is most of them go down.

That's the thing, they can't start hand picking.

No, it's only a very select few watches that go up in value. And I'm sure it's the same with Kurt.

It's the same. Yeah, but when you deal in just those cars or just those watches, it feels like we're at risk of being taxed in some way.

Yeah, but I mean, if you're doing that, you're running a business, aren't you? And you get your standard business tax. But no, at the moment, as long as you're not a trading business, you're just a private collector. No.

What's.

So if you've got, what, 30 million of stock, how long have this business been going?

So the business was started by my dad in 1994. I mean, he'd been in the industry for a long time before that, but Roman International was started in 94.

So have a stab at guessing how much total stock in 30 years of.

Cars you've sold, that is.

Do you want us to come back next week?

That's going to take some real database analysis.

More than 100 mil?

Oh, yeah. I mean, 100 mil would do in a year, easily. You know, it's got to be. I don't know, it's got to be over a bill. I don't have no idea. I mean, 100 mil a year. So, you know, it didn't all. It wasn't always that. But, yeah, you know, it's got to be approaching a bill, I'd say.

Wow, there's a lot. How does that feel?

Well, I don't know, it's lottery numbers, isn't it? I guess you get a bit blase with the numbers when you're dealing these kind of cars. But, you know, for us, it's just a. A product is a great product, don't get me wrong. But, you know, the numbers you kind of just get just seem normal to me.

Yeah, well, anyone who's been in business long enough. No, I remember I'm speaking to Aston Marigold of jls and I said to him, you know, what's the biggest lesson you've had in the industry? And he said, a million in a million, because you get a million and then there's Tax, national insurance, your manager, your agent, blah, blah, blah, your wife. And say, a billion isn't a billion, is it?

No.

Wouldn't it be nice if it was?

It would be lovely. You could just close the doors tomorrow.

Yeah. Right, let's talk about a bit of top tips on maybe what you think might appreciate. So I was speaking to Carl a few weeks ago and the Testa Ross has sort of started to go up. But the model before it, the 355, that's even more recently gone up, the 355. And I think the model before it was the 348. And that's still quite cheap. That's like in the 70s. And so Carl was like, that's the next one to go. It's got to be, if you look at the history. So let's say someone's got a 50 grand budget, what do you think? You know, maybe the next one to go is.

I mean, Ferrari's always got the biggest potential, but you've got to find the model. You know, my knowledge of the older stuff is not great, I'd admit, because we deal mainly in the latest stuff. But, you know, the 348 was never as loved as the 355, as far as I know. So I think the model needs to be loved a bit. I mean, for me, if I had 50 grand, I'd be probably looking more at some of like the German muscle cars, like the C63AMGs, you know, maybe even an RS6 V10, you know, they don't make them anymore. The C63, they don't make a V8 anymore. The R6, they don't make a V10 I haven't done for a long time. But those cars, right, because they are the last of something, you know, and.

So we're looking at scarcity here then. Limited supply, is that important?

It's important if you can find a special edition version, you know, like the C63 507 edition, which is much rarer, probably more. Yeah, will cost more anyway. So it's all relative. But, you know, I'd personally look at those kind of cars also. The maintenance costs are less, you know, so some of these older Ferraris, you know, they might go up 20 grand, but you, you'll spend that maintenance cost. So, you know, the older German manufacturers don't cost as much to maintain. So I actually think, you know, fast forward 10 years, those cars won't cost you as much. They're super fun to drive and, you know, they're, they're sort of iconic, the last of them. So, you know that that would be where I'd spend my money.

I mean, have you seen the price of the. Those old Ford Cosworths and things like that now?

Yeah, that's.

Yeah, I mean, that is mad. I remember those and they were like 20 grand.

Yeah, that's nuts. Yeah. So maybe that's what will happen to some of these AMGs and stuff. But yeah, it was a bit before my time, those Cosworths. But yeah, I regularly get reminded by people that are older than me, those are the ones. Yeah.

Okay. 100 grand. You got 100 grand budget, where are we putting that 100 grand?

I guess I look at sort of analog cars as well as, you know, the best potential investments. I look at now an R8 V10 manual. You know, don't make manuals anymore. The R8 is about to be completely finished as a combustion engine car. So, yeah, an R8V10 manual, probably 70 or 80 grand. I think that has got potential long term. Maybe a. Maybe a 997 GT3. You know, those cars are loved. You know, they've got a proper cult following. And yeah, still quite analog. Look, cool.

By analog you mean?

Well, manual computers, you know, there's so much tech in, in the new cars that, you know, those older cars from pretty, you know, what do they call them?

The Widowmakers? No traction, no abs.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. A bit scary, those to drive, but. But yeah, that. In that sort of bracket. Yeah, yeah. I'm sticking to sort of German theme, it seems, but yeah.

Okay, and then what? Quarter of a mil? You've got a quarter of a mil. Are you putting that into two cars, one car? And which ones?

I. I'd probably go with one car, I think quarter of a mil. And even consider McLaren on this one. Right, so McLaren 675LT. I think that is probably the best McLaren they've built so far. It's got again, a real cult following. They're about 2. Between 2 and 250. I think long term they could be a very good car, but. And aston Martin Vantage GTA. They're a bit less than 200, but last and naturally aspirated V8s. Manual, again, more of that analog theme sound. Unbelievable.

Yeah.

And again have that proper cult following which I think is important for collectibles. If you've got like a bit of a community around a particular model. GT8's got a really good, strong community where all the owners chat. All the owners, like know each other. They know that all the different cars, you know, those cars, I think have got good potential. Mercedes SLS is another one goal wing not making another gold wing. And they, they keep going up. So it's quite. Yeah, when you get to 250 choice, yeah, there's some good choice, all right.

And then money is no object. What, what's doing the best money no object.

Then you start talking, yeah, hypercars. And that's when you can make some serious money. You know, you look at Ferraris, you know, the LaFerrari for me is probably the best car out at the moment. It's gone from 2 million to 3 million in the space of a year. But obviously you can go further up into the proper unicorns, the McLaren F1, the Zondas, the Porsche GT1s, you know, then you're over 10 million into 20 millions and things like that. But, you know, that's unlikely to happen for most people.

Yeah. What's the most expensive car you've ever sold?

Most expensive car we've sold, We've sold a lot of cars that are around 3,4 million, because again, we don't deal in older classics. You rarely get the ones that are stupid money. But, you know, LaFerraria Pertas are now 4, 4 to 5 million. So we sell quite a few of those. We have sold McLaren F1, but back when they were about 3 million. There are obviously now 20 million plus. But yeah, we sell. We're consistent with our sort of threes and fours and fives, but don't tend to get involved in those older, older stuff that go for just, you know, tens of millions.

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Right now it would be the LaFerrari. We sold three this year already.

Wow.

And have more clients for them. So yeah. Right now if I could just stock this place with laughs. Is that what you call it?

Laughs and bugs.

And bugs. The bugs are a little bit harder to sell, to be honest. Like. Yeah, that took us almost a year to sell. Hopefully this one will go quick. And that one currently is an off market car, which I think now that one sold. That one could.

What does off market mean in your off market?

Just means it's not advertised.

Right.

So it's in the showroom. In the showroom it is for sale. But we're just not actively.

A famous person who owns that then.

Not especially. Not especially.

But someone who doesn't want any attention.

Yeah, he just, you know, sometimes you can actually get a better sound. It's more the people that are buying them. Sometimes they like to buy them off market. They quite like knowing, you know, in their little clan, oh, I bought that car and no one knows about it. It's quite, it's a bit more special doing it that way. Yeah.

And what's the most you've ever made on a car?

Hopefully the person that bought it is not listening.

Well, how would they know?

Yeah, I think about three or four hundred grand.

Probably on one car you made three to four hundred in one deal.

The thing is, when you buy them, you know, when you buy them outright, a lot of people at this level do sell a return where you, you have to be the middleman. But when you actually go and spend your own money.

Right. So you could have held it, you could have timed it.

Well, exactly. Yeah. So yeah, if you hold it and wait for the perfect time or wait for the perfect customer, you know, and a lot of time the seller doesn't have many options. If you're trying to sell a 3 million pound car. There's not many people with a checkbook or the brave, you know, are brave enough to go and buy it, but we've done it multiple times and, you know, you can go and make a lot more money that way, but you've got to have the cash in the bank and be able to make that decision right there and then.

Yeah. I know quite a few watch dealers who got really hurt because they had a load of stock that they paid top money for when the bubble was at its peak. And then. Cause when it popped there, I left with all this stock that's dropped a lot. Has that ever happened to you?

It happens. Not as dramatic as it all drops overnight. My dad will tell me. In 1989, I think it was that kind of did happen.

When rates went really high.

Yeah, I think it was that and stuff. Did literally half in value overnight. I think he talks about an XJ220 that they had and it literally halved in value overnight. But in this market, and as far as I've known, it can happen. And it's happened a little bit recently into this new car. Premiums have sort of dramatically tailed off. Electric cars has kind of the whole narrative around electric cars seems to change. And values kept dropping of electric cars. Of electric cars. So Porsche Taycans, we had a few and we kept reducing them and reducing them and still reducing them. Trying to find buyers. They've now sort of feel like they've found their level, but it's more like a gradual kind of. Yeah, but, you know, there's a little bit of pain to have, but as long as you keep buying more stock.

Fresh about turnover, keeping the volume, you.

Know, when you've got 100 cars. Yeah, you can keep buying the new stuff that's fresh in will make the money. Yes. You have to pick up a couple of losses here and there, but, you know, when the vast majority make money, you'll be fine.

And do you have some clients that, you know, you've bought and sold the same car multiple times or you've got clients who you bought 10 cars for, taken from.

Yeah, happens all the time. We have some clients that sell us their car and a month later they buy it back. All right, they've regretted it. Yeah, you know, we've. We had an. A Porsche 918 Spider, we going back some years, but the guy sold it to us and I think three months later he bought it back for quite a lot more. He sold it for. But yeah, we have a lot of people like to sell a Bunch of cars or people like to sell four or five cars all in one go. Yeah. And that, you know, tends to work out pretty well. Yeah, you know, we can. Yeah, you send five trucks, get them all arrived back at once. Is quite, quite. You know, those deals are good.

Yeah.

But then, you know, there's people. We shop and change so regularly, you know, I've got one client in particular. He probably buys a car every two weeks.

Every two weeks.

Literally every two weeks. He gets bored so much.

You must love him though.

Yeah, I mean it does my headaches. He literally calls me more than my wife. But no, he's.

Every two weeks.

Pretty much every two weeks. He's normally got six or seven cars.

He must be getting killed on depreciation.

He does all right, actually. Surprisingly does pretty well out of it. He's pretty surprised. Smart with what he buys and sells them on sale of return. So he doesn't take the hits all the time.

I do know that feeling that when you have a certain amount of cars. Yeah, you do. Like you should think, I don't need this. This is just sitting there, what's the point?

And I think people get. People love the process of buying something new and they're kind of like, oh, I bought it now. Like the fun bit's over.

Yeah.

Yeah.

You'd hope that the honeymoon period of a new car would last more than two weeks.

Yeah, you'd like to think so. Yeah.

Yeah. Because I normally change my. Every day every year. I kept the Turbo S for five years because it was so I couldn't beat it.

Yeah.

But yeah, I know that I'm normally every year, but two weeks.

Two weeks, yeah. It's mental. I mean I'm a six month guy. I think after six months I get the itch to change up to something else.

Well, your best position, aren't you to do that?

Yeah, well, I try and have my. I quite like having my car. Do you know what I mean? So it's like as much as I could take something home every night, it's just, you know, then you've got to connect your phone to it and then you gotta. Yeah, yeah. You know, gotta ask the guys to clean it and. Yeah, I just rather have my own car. Yeah.

So if 3 to 400 is the most you've made on a car, what's the biggest loss you've taken?

Biggest loss? It's probably 100. I think we've lost a hundred before on maybe a couple of times. I think. I think my dad's had bigger losses Before I was here, I think that XJT20 was. Was one. He goes on about 30 years later, because he always reminds me, back in 1989, remember? So, yeah, it's good, you know, because I'm compared to him, fairly inexperienced. Yeah. So it's good to have people in the business that have been. A lot of our salespeople have been here 20 years plus as well. So it's a good mix of new, fresh blood and old, you know, old, old heads.

Yeah. So what's the most underrated car out there that goes under the radar, that's just solid in every way?

Most underrated car. Let's have a look around.

RSQ8.

RSQ8. Thing is, the people that got them know they rate them very highly.

This is 150 grand cheaper than the Urus, which is the same car.

The same car, different badge. Underrated. My previous car, I think, is massively underrated and undervalued as an AMG gtr.

Right.

Track focused. I used it every day, but. And it's for. For 100 grand. 110 grand for me. I just think they should be so much more. Yeah. And you get the, you know, you get all the looks of like, oh, my God, it looks like a supercar. It drives like a supercar. It's a Mercedes, but sounds amazing. I feel like there should be more. I wanted to stop making them as well. And, yeah, that's probably, you know, probably what I'd go. Yeah.

And what about the most wildly overrated car? What is it they say, Mutton dressed as lamb or something like that.

Mutton dressed as lamb. The most overrated car.

Lambo SVJ. I don't know.

They're pretty cool.

Yeah. But 100 grand more than the Aventador.

That's the thing.

Plus, because I have the Aventador and.

How much different is it? I mean, Suj is now? Yeah. 400. 450. Compared to.

You couldn't put more side skirts and vents and.

Yeah, it's not the prettiest thing in the world, but.

Sorry, I'm asking you the question I shouldn't be answering. Yeah, but surely the Cullinan.

I mean, that is the Cullinan. The thing is, when you drive the Cullinan and you're in it, you get. You get it.

Right.

I know it doesn't look to everyone's.

Taste and it's a lot.

And it's a lot of money. Yeah. So in that. Yeah. It shouldn't be.

So you don't. Don't think that's overrated. You think that's all right?

I. I get the appeal. I wouldn't have one myself, but when you're in it and the smoothness of the ride and the quality of the materials, you get why it's so much money. But yeah, it's. It's not, it's not for me. Bentaygas are not really for me. Again, similar sort of thing. I mean, the pura sangui, from what I'm hearing, which is the new Ferrari suv, that could end up being the most overrated because they're 400 grand plus.

They look great.

Do they? Yeah, I'm not sure. I haven't seen one actually in the flesh yet. And everyone. There's huge hype about them. Yeah. And the people that. The clients I know that have been to see it are all pretty unimpressed, or quite a few of them. Unimpressed.

Yeah.

So that, that at the moment feels like it's slightly overrated, but we'll see.

Yeah. Right. You are only allowed to own three cars for the rest of your life. You've got a daily driver, you got your classic and you got your super or hypercar.

What are they?

What are you choosing?

So my hyper would be Zonda. The Zonda is my favorite car. We had one in the showroom on the first day I started here and it was just. That was like I was in love. And they've just gone crazy in value, but still, I just, I love them. That would be my hyper, my everyday car. I'd probably choose a C63AMG. I love them. They do everything. Four seats, so get the kids in the back. Sound amazing, look pretty cool and everything works, you know, all the tech, the sound system is good, you know, that for me is my perfect daily driver. And what was the other one?

The classic.

A classic. Well, my Zonda is kind of my classic, but yeah, let's call that your hypercarp. Okay.

Yeah.

Okay. So an older classic, I probably have an old Porsche. I love the bad boys Porsche. I like the old Targas. Always like the Targas, the way they look. They're kind of retro cool, but yeah. Maybe not the best for investment, but yeah, if I could have a cool classic, it would probably be an old Porsche.

Yeah. Would you rather, or do you think it's easier to sell one Bugatti or ten 30 gram Fords? One Bugatti, but surely there's only like ten people in the world who buy a Bugatti and one of them is currently in house arrest in Romania.

He is a Bugatti buyer. It's just the work involved. The work involved in selling one Bugatti can actually be pretty minimal and very enjoyable when you're selling a car like that. Yeah. Selling 10 forwards is 10 sets of photos, 10 sets of paperwork, 10 sets of customers to deal with. 10 sets of potential problems. You know, with one Bugatti. Yeah, it's one deal and normally they're quite straightforward, the deals when you sell something like that.

Right.

So, yeah.

Do clients ever come to you and want to pay in cash or in watches or in bitcoin or in NFTs?

Yeah, we get all sorts of inquiries. Yeah, we get people asking, can I pay fully in cash? We can only take. I think it's ten grand in cash, legally. So, yeah, that's where you draw the line. Crypto, we get asked all the time. We don't accept crypto in the way that we don't have a Romans crypto account, but we have a company we work with who instantly turn it into cash, so we know there's no risk of.

So they paid to them and then.

They convert it into cash and we get paid. So, yeah, we don't take the risk.

But they're still essentially buying a car in Bitcoin or crypto and then watch it.

Yeah, we get. People ask. And my dad. My dad's more of the watch guy. And he knows what watches are worth. I don't really know, but he'll take. He'll do some deals. Taking watches against car, for sure.

Yeah.

We've taken in like random stuff as well, like horse carriages and things like that. That was carriage. Yeah. But they got a horse for a minute. No, no, not a horse. Thoroughbred. But yeah, the horse carriage things, which actually can be worth, like, quite. Quite a lot of money.

You've got to know where and how to sell them.

Yeah, and how to value them. That's the thing. We would always go via someone else to value it and they'll buy it, but we can sort of effectively take it in. Yeah.

Do you have any celebrity clients? Any people that people would know? Mainstream?

Lots.

Can you name any? There must be. Surely there's some that not going to harm you to say who they are.

There's. Yeah, there's lots of people over the years, like a lot of the famous car buyers who are the likes of Rod Stewart, Simon Cowell, we've dealt with for a lot of years, you know, a lot of footballers, you know, there's a lot of musicians. It's the kind of people you'd expect. But, yeah, look, they like to be under the radar. They don't want to see.

But surely some of them don't like to be under the radar by the nature of their personality.

The ones that I deal with, and, you know, I'm talking some of the One Direction boys, some of the. They're pretty under the radar, yeah. They don't want to be seen buying a flash car or. And to be fair, most of them are not actually buying flash cars they actually like. And even the footballers now, you know, 10, 20 years ago, I think the footballers wanted the flashiest Lambo. Now they're very much, I want an suv, I want a, you know, a G Wagon or a Range Rover. So that in general, I think celebrities want to be a little bit under the radar. It's more the smaller celebrities, more the Z listers, the influencers. They're the ones that want to be people like me. Up and coming. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Interesting. Is there one person that's alive that's not a client of yours that you'd love to have as a client? One person that's alive who would be the perfect client? You know, they're just going to spend.

Masses and you know what, he doesn't live in this country, but I'd probably say Floyd Mayweather. Right. As long as I don't actually. I don't like the guy, but if you see his car collection, it's insane. So he'd be a mega client for sure.

Yeah. Would you take Andrew Tate as a client?

I'll take him, yeah. He's banned from everywhere else. We'll take him, yeah. For sure.

How do you sell anything to anyone?

How'd you sell anything to anyone? I think, obviously, everyone's got their own methods of selling. It's, you know, for me, it's about creating desire. And, you know, whatever you have, if it's a great idea or a great product, first of all, you've got to have that. But it's then how you present it and creating that desire, whether it's how you put it on your website, whether it's how you put it on your social media, how you have it physically in the showroom, whether you're presenting an idea or a product physically, that presentation of that, I think, is vital to selling it. So, yeah, it's creating that desire.

So, like, if you're presenting a car like this, how might you do this differently than if you're presenting a Ford Fiesta, for example?

Well, I think, especially when it comes to luxury products, you know, These are not things you need, these are things you want. So creating desired by perfect photos, you know, making sure the colors of the car are resonating on camera. You know, a social media post, maybe a little video. Just little things to make people think, oh, my God, like, I want it, I want it. And it's. It's how you do it online. And then when you come down to the showroom, obviously it's got to look perfect. It's got to look absolutely, you know, unblemished and just looking pride of place in the showroom. You know, we try and space everything out here so that, you know, there's space to walk around it. You can really get a nice feel and that's, you know, that's going to make them fall in love.

Is there a scarcity element to selling cars? Whereby if you've sold enough cars and they sell really quick, you find it, you get better sales.

A scarcity element in.

As in, if I want that, but I know tomorrow someone else might come and buy it.

Yeah, yeah. I mean, that's. Yeah, we don't ever use that tactic unless it's actually genuine. And a lot of people think we're not being genuine when we say, look, we'll take a call on a car and we'll say, look, we've actually got three inquiries in this car and people think, oh, it's just a sales Tony. And then the next day it's sold and they're like, what? Like, I can't believe. You know, oh, my God. And they're like, pissed off.

So it does work. Even when people know scarcity works, like, you know how to sell. But I bet it still works on you in that, like, I'm the easiest person to sell to in the world.

It does work, but. But, you know, it's.

You just want to do it truthfully.

Yeah, yeah, I think there's.

But you must have cars that come in and then literally they're gone.

Yeah, we have. I mean, there's so many cars that sell before we advertise them. So that's why we encourage people to actually inquire if they're looking for something in particular, because stuff arises and the prep process can be quite long. So if you take a car in, might need a wheel refurb, it might need a touch up here, it might need a new windscreen or something like that. And it can be, you know, we sometimes have cars here for like a month before we put them for sale.

Yeah.

So actually inquiring. So we get a lot of inquiries from people that are looking for particular stuff, and we sell them before we even get to advertising. Happens a lot.

Who's the best salesperson you've ever seen in your life and why?

My dad is. Is up there. I mean, he has.

Let's say your dad's name and give him some marks.

So my dad, Paul Giaconelli, he is, for me, the oldest.

He's the goat, is he?

Yeah, he is the goat. He. He can sell ice to the Eskimos. He has a natural gift of the gab. And he won't even know what he's selling a lot of the time.

Yeah.

Do you know what I mean?

Is he old school?

He is. He is old school. You know, I'm quite different in the way that I want to know everything about the car. I want to know all my facts are right and I'll give like a truthful, honest opinion and I'll talk myself out, talk customers out of deals quite often. And then I realize I've talked them out of it, but long term, they actually, they kind of think, oh, actually I can trust this guy because he's not selling. Whereas my dad is just like, bam, bam, bam, bamboozle people. And then before they know it, they're walking out the door with a 500 grand car. He's brilliant.

Right, got it. Do you know much about the Hartley family?

Yes.

Yeah. So Carl's become a friend of mine since I interviewed him on the podcast. Would you regard them as competition?

They're probably one of the closest dealerships to what we do in terms of how we operate. They're a family business like us, father and son. And, you know, they've got a great business. You know, they are similar to us in ways, but we have our own way of doing things. They have their own way of doing things. We have different clients, some crossover. But look, I respect them a lot. I think they've got a great business and a name that's very, well, very well known. But, you know, we do things our own way and, you know, we don't tread on each other's toes very much at all.

Would you see yourself as a competitive kind of person? Like, do you like competition? Does it inspire you or. Or not?

It does inspire me. You know, I don't. Yeah. One of my drives and motivation is to be the best. To be the best dealership. You know, it's not to make the most amount of money. It's all about having the best operation, having the best premises, having, you know, it's more about the client and them, their perception. But, yeah, in terms of sort of. Do other dealers kind of get under my skin? No, they don't. I think this market is big enough for lots of different players, and we'll have our little niche and they'll have their own little niche. But, yeah, you know, on a daily basis, there's. There's cars that you really want. You really don't want to lose them. And sometimes you do, obviously, and it ends up on their Hartley site or someone else's site, and you're like, damn, lost that one. But we'll get the next one.

Yeah. So I've got a Ferrari Testarossa. If. If I gave that to you, what do you. What do you think? It's about 15,000 miles. What could you give to me for that?

My knowledge of all the cars.

Every time I come to. Like, every time I go to cars, I end up buying a car. And I said to myself, why don't I come back and sell one this time?

I'd rather buy the RSQ8, I think. You know what, As I said, my knowledge on older cars is not great. I would assume roughly, that car must be 125 grand. Is it something like that? We don't really deal in them, so I'm not. I'm not kind of like actively buying them or underwriting them. So I don't know. I could be wrong, but it seems like 125 grand car to me. Maybe 150.

Okay. Harry asked me. Harry's our producer. He said you need to ask Tom to rate your cars.

Okay.

So I'm going to do it. So just out of ten. So Lamborghini Aventador, 20. 15. 20,000. 15,000 miles, gray. Rate that out of ten, it's got.

To be a solid eight. I mean, I love the Aventador. I'm a big Lamborghini fan as well. So, you know, I think that car has got so much presence, you know, it's. I guess if I had to rate it to get the 10, it'd want to be 500 miles.

Yeah.

And maybe. Maybe not gray. I don't know. I'd prefer it black or maybe orange or. Or something.

Do you not think, though, that these oranges and greens and yellows, a Lamborghini Aventador is already enough of a statement?

Yeah, yeah, I get that. I get the appeal of a gray one for sure. I. I personally would probably have a black one, but. So, yeah, to get the 10.

Yeah, I'll take an 8.

Yeah.

1989. 9 I think. Is it the 993? Anyway, 911 Turbo. The. With the.

What's that? Is that the 993?

Yeah, I think it's 993. It's done 80,000 miles. It's the. It's the. What they call it guards.

Red Gods red. Yeah, yeah.

The thing is it the Fuchs. Is that how they call it?

The Fuchs alloys? Yeah, yeah.

How would you rate that?

Yeah, I mean, without seeing it, it's hard. It's. It's got to be. It's got to be a seven. I mean, 80,000 miles is quite high. I guess maybe it's a six. Sorry. Maybe if I saw it, it would go up.

But yeah, on the surface, 5,000 miles. Aerial atom.3. I think it's 3.5. Is it? How do you rate that out of 10?

For fun? That's got to be a 9 or a 10. Again, I don't know the full spec, but they are the most amount of fun you can have in a car. I think for that money, you know, we've got our track day in a couple of weeks and we're desperate to take the area we've got over there.

There's nothing like that on the track.

Although someone did actually put one in a barrier. One of our track days. Oh, no, it was a.

Catering to spin them is so easy.

Yeah, yeah.

You need to run off areas on the track.

Yeah, yeah. Goodwood can be a bit. Bit hairy.

All right. So yesterday I bought my wife an RSQ8. Paid one 111 for it. 5,000 miles. Right. That.

Yeah. I think RSQ8 is a great SUV. And especially if you want. If you want something a little bit more understated, I think it's a 10. It's the best car that's, you know. You know, it's based. Well, the Lamborghini Urus is based on it. That's what my dad's wife drives. She absolutely loves it. So, yeah, that, I think is one of the best SUVs you can buy for 100 grand.

Ish. Okay. Highlighter yellow. Aston Martin DBS. 145 grand, 20,000 miles.

I mean, highlighter yellow. Is that a real color?

Well, no, it's not the official term. It's just when I sent it to Yannis to be wrapped, he just called it the highlighter color.

Okay.

So he's obviously taking the piss out of me.

I mean, if I was offered that car to buy. Yeah, I'd probably be rating it a 5 on the color. But then again.

But that's why it's so cheap, though.

Yeah. Well, that's the thing. If you bought it at the right money, then. Then it becomes a 10.

Yeah.

But in terms of how easy that car is to sell compared to a dark gray one.

Yeah.

You know.

Yeah. I mean, it looked like you're paying 155, maybe even 160 in a Aston dealer for a similar car.

Yeah. And I think unique is good. You know, I think, you know, if there's only one yellow one on the whole market and there's 99 people that don't want a yellow one, but there's one person want a yellow one, they're.

Going to pay top.

They're going to pay good money for it. So it's. It's. Yeah, it's all about the supply and the demand and, yeah, as much as most people want a gray one, everyone wants a gray one and there's 19 gray ones for sale. So, you know, it's sort of horses for courses, really. Yeah.

All right, thanks. So quick fire round now. So we'll do a quick fire round on the show. Can you mix family and business?

You certainly can, because I'm doing it. It's got its challenges. Like, you know, me and my dad work pretty well together because we're quite different. You know, he's a bit more sort of manic, I'm a little bit more laid back and it's. So we don't clash that much, but, you know, there are going to be times and he, to be fair, has taken quite a lot of a step back in the business. So he. He trusts me, He. He allows me to put my own, you know, print on things, so very rarely it becomes an issue. But, you know, I can imagine if we were both here 100% of the time, it would be much more difficult.

But it can be done.

It definitely can be done. And I think when you're.

Because a lot of people, People say you shouldn't mix family and business, don't they?

Yeah, I mean, I think it, you know, being a family member of this business, you're more driven by it. You know, I'm not, You know, I came into business with not. I don't own a share of it, but I was hugely driven because it was my family business and I don't think.

So you want to prove yourself even more.

Yeah. You want to prove yourself, you want to help. You know, when I first started here to say.

Oh, it's just.

Yeah, exactly. Yeah. You really. Yeah. You've got to prove yourself not just to my dad. Had to prove yourself to the rest of the staff, you know, even the clients.

Yeah.

You know, and. And you have to build your own reputation and, you know, it takes some years at the beginning. Yeah, you do just get sort of. Yeah, that's the son. That's the son of the owner. But, you know, you build respect and you build, you know, momentum in your role. And, you know, eventually you get the respect and you get, you know, especially from my dad, I think he's been able to take a step back on the basis that he's. He's seen what I've brought to the table. Yeah.

What's the most crazy part, actually, remember you've ever had either way, where maybe someone wanted to trade in a VW Golf for a Bugatti or a Bugatti for a VW Golf?

I mean, we get people looking to part exchange lawnmowers for Bugatti's, really, but they're obviously time wasted. The Bugatti is out of many of them.

So you get people in the piss. You get the Bart Simpson type calls.

You get a lot of that. And Bugatti seems to attract them more than anything. So you get all sorts of stupid stuff.

Yeah.

The genuine ones, I don't know, you get some really weird, like, customized cars and you get cars that, a million miles away that, you know, it's like a normal. Like, I've got a Ford Focus, but I'm in Indonesia. Can I part exit for, you know, a BMW M4 or something? We're just like, really, like, can we really be asked to do like that Deal sounds so complicated. Yeah. And, you know, surely you can buy one in Indonesia. Yeah, but, yeah, so we get. There's a lot of poor quality inquiries, we'll say, but yeah, we always want to take stuff that we can, we can sell again ourselves. Yeah.

Can money buy happiness?

I think it can, but it's, you know, it depends totally on the person, you know, it can't. If you're unhappy in life, money is probably not going to make you happy. But I think if you're happy in life, money can make you more happy.

You know, just sometimes looking at these cards give you a nice little tickle, a nice little buzz. Like a childhood dream come true almost.

I mean, the product here is. Is amazing. So when you, you know, you think of all the different places you could work in, in life. Yeah. I mean, there's nothing else I'd rather be surrounded by. So in that respect, I'm happy working here because I think the product is next level. Does if I made a million tomorrow or made a hundred grand tomorrow, would that make much effect on my happiness? For like a minute? Probably, yeah. I think it's about finding happiness within yourself before money becomes part of the equation.

Yeah. What's your biggest mistake?

Biggest mistake? There's nothing that's really springs to mind that I've been like, oh my God, do I remember when I made that huge fuck up? There's lots of little ones. For me it's all about not making the same mistake twice.

What about the biggest car mistake, the.

Worst trade or biggest car mistake?

Did you have to go grovel into that ever because you're like, dad, I.

Just lost 50, I mean one yesterday. Actually I bought an M4 CSL about five months ago now. We'd actually sold three and then I was like, right, I'm going to buy another one. Gave ten grand over list for it. We just sold it for 20 grand under list, I think. So that was a 30 grand loss or something like that. So that was pretty painful. But you take the rough with the smooth. Yeah. You know, there's always going to be and we always say put it down to experience. Yeah.

Biggest regret.

Biggest regret. I mean sometimes I regret not coming into the business before because I went to university, I traveled quite a bit and I kind of didn't really have my business head on until I was probably 25ish. So I sometimes regret going to uni. I feel like I could be further along in life. I could be. Have more relationships, I could have better knowledge. But then I look back, I did have a lot of fun. So I'm kind of like, I made great friends, I saw the world. So it's not really a regret. But in terms of my business and my career, that is probably. I could have got into it a lot earlier and I'd probably be further ahead.

Most brutal life lesson.

Brutal life lesson. I don't know if I've had any brutal life lessons but you know, there's life lessons everywhere around me. You know, there's. I've learned so much from being here, you know, learning how to deal with people, staff. You know, there's people that have left that I really didn't want to leave here. And I learn how going forward, you know, to treat your staff, to grow your staff and see things from their perspective, you know, and it's not all work, work, work, work. It has to be, you know, they're a person just like myself and they need to be constantly encouraged and constantly, you know, grow the growth of a person, I think is what I've learned is imperative to keep great staff.

What are you A, most excited about and B, most scared of for the future?

I'm definitely scared of AI.

No, we were just talking about that. I watched this documentary on AI robots and. Oh, my God. Oh, my God. We are this close. I mean, there's. Sorry, I jumped in. This is your question. But we are this close to giving autonomy to A.I. i. E. They can make the kill decision.

Yeah, I think I might have seen that.

Is that not paran. Pandora's box.

Yeah.

Genie's out of the bottle.

That's it. Yeah. Yeah. They're just. They're gonna be ahead of us as a race.

We would be inferior. Why would we be necessary? We would just be a. Consumption good. Like the Matrix.

Yeah. Yeah. They could just end us.

Yeah.

Instantly.

Just use us for our.

It's pretty scary. And it's. You know, it needs to be managed massively by, I don't know, the government, the techies. You know, it's. Yeah.

It seems the techies involved don't take responsibility. They're like, well, our job is to just do the tech.

Yeah. I mean, there's quite a few movies, isn't there, where they sort of take over and it's becoming more predicting our own annihilation. And the other thing that was a bit scary was, I think I listened to a podcast of Elon Musk and Joe Rogan where they talked about these microchips where they can implant microchips which can affect your emotions and affect your abilities. And, you know, that's not too far out either. And that's. That's kind of scary because it's gonna alter, you know, genetics and alter perception so much that you won't know what's real and what's not anymore. Yeah. So that's. That's a bit scary.

Yeah. Okay. So what's exciting?

What's exciting? I don't know. Life. Life in general. You know, it's. You know, I'm a fairly new dad, so building my family is massively exciting to me, you know, in terms of this business and this industry. You know, it's. There's only so much, I think, in this business I want to grow. I think it's now we've become a size where I don't really want to get any bigger, just want to get better. You know, it's already quite a lot having 100 cars in stock compared to 50 what we used to have. So. But I'm excited. I'm excited for, you know, what comes next. I mean, you know, I don't know what happens next, but, you know, it's just the endless sort of rat race of just making things happen and building. Keep building momentum and just becoming a better. A better operator.

So, final question. This show is called Disruptors. What does the word disruptive mean to you?

The word disruptors? I guess it's someone or something that comes in to an industry and does something different, which forces the industry to change and to do things differently. If you can come into this industry and show there's a better way of doing things and everyone else starts doing it, you've disrupted the industry.

And where should we follow Romans International? Where do you want people to do? You do social yourself?

I do a lot of the social myself, yeah. I kind of. That was one of the first things I did when I started, was build our social presence. And Instagram is probably our biggest Omans International. We're quite active on Twitter, omanscars, we've got Facebook, we've got TikTok, we've got LinkedIn. But YouTube is a big one for us. I do a lot of videos where I present and give quite a lot of information across which a lot of clients like. I need to do more videos just finding the time. But, yeah, YouTube's a good one to find us for sure.

Well, it's been amazing to be sat in the middle of a hundred hunks of sexy metal, Tom. So thanks for taking time out of your day to have us.

Pleasure. Thanks for coming. Appreciate it. Cheers.

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