WEBVTT - Singer Vehicle Design Founder; Matt loves the Chevy Blazer EV 0:00:02.520 --> 0:00:09.920 Bloomberg Audio Studios, Podcasts, radio News. I'm Matt Miller and 0:00:09.920 --> 0:00:12.240 I'm Hannah Elliott, and this is Hot Pursuit. 0:00:18.000 --> 0:00:20.079 We have a very exciting guest that we're going to 0:00:20.120 --> 0:00:23.239 get straight two. But they've just put out a new product. 0:00:23.360 --> 0:00:25.079 He has just put out a new product. 0:00:25.400 --> 0:00:28.440 Our guest is Rob Dickinson of the nineties group Katherine 0:00:28.520 --> 0:00:32.800 Wheel and more recently, the founder of Singer Vehicle Design. 0:00:33.240 --> 0:00:35.559 He started the company in two thousand and nine, and 0:00:35.960 --> 0:00:41.480 earlier this month, Singer just announced their latest gift to us, 0:00:41.720 --> 0:00:45.239 the nine to eleven Carrera Coop, which is basically a 0:00:45.280 --> 0:00:49.440 wide body variant of nine to eleven from the nineteen eighties. 0:00:49.479 --> 0:00:52.319 It's a great I love this car. I mean I've 0:00:52.320 --> 0:00:55.880 always loved the shape of it because one of my 0:00:55.920 --> 0:00:59.760 friend's dad's nine six four, but with the whale tail 0:00:59.760 --> 0:01:03.080 and the wider hips. But one of my favorite stories 0:01:03.120 --> 0:01:07.240 recently about it is Barry Ritholtz actually bought one intending 0:01:07.400 --> 0:01:11.840 on butchering it and turning it electric. Remember, oh, I remember, 0:01:12.200 --> 0:01:14.440 and this one. He couldn't bring himself to do it 0:01:14.480 --> 0:01:17.960 because it was such a rare find. He figured out 0:01:18.000 --> 0:01:20.039 after he bought it that he just restored it to 0:01:20.080 --> 0:01:21.000 its original glory. 0:01:21.080 --> 0:01:23.240 Yeah, I'm so grateful he did. 0:01:23.720 --> 0:01:28.160 He eventually went on to electrify another nine to eleven, 0:01:28.160 --> 0:01:28.440 which you. 0:01:28.480 --> 0:01:30.280 Can previous episode exactly. 0:01:31.160 --> 0:01:36.880 But Rob is basically making his best version of this 0:01:37.040 --> 0:01:39.240 car Let's listen in. Ever since we had you on 0:01:39.280 --> 0:01:42.320 my TV show, I've just been obsessed with your record. 0:01:42.640 --> 0:01:44.840 I've been listening to Chrome like over and over and 0:01:44.880 --> 0:01:45.480 over again. 0:01:46.080 --> 0:01:47.800 Oh gosh, that's very cool. 0:01:48.000 --> 0:01:50.040 I thank you because I hadn't really listened to it 0:01:50.080 --> 0:01:52.840 since I guess the nineties or early two thousands. 0:01:52.880 --> 0:01:54.920 So it's not bad, no bad. 0:01:55.440 --> 0:01:59.320 It's been a reawakening the whole genre. I absolutely love. 0:01:59.440 --> 0:02:02.800 I don't know why people call it shoegazing rock. Why 0:02:02.920 --> 0:02:03.240 is that? 0:02:05.080 --> 0:02:07.760 Well, we tended to stare at our shoes and I 0:02:07.920 --> 0:02:11.000 have guitar effects, pedals and not too much rock and 0:02:11.080 --> 0:02:13.240 roll posturing at the front of the stage. But it 0:02:13.280 --> 0:02:17.360 was quite insular, loud rock music, so they called it shoegazing. 0:02:17.440 --> 0:02:20.120 It was quite the enemy coined the phrase I think 0:02:20.560 --> 0:02:21.080 very cool. 0:02:21.360 --> 0:02:23.720 Rob. Are you still in Poland or are you back? 0:02:23.760 --> 0:02:27.560 I know, I think you were just there to working 0:02:27.560 --> 0:02:28.559 on a new partnership. 0:02:29.320 --> 0:02:33.799 Yes, I'm back. I'm back. I'm back. Yes, So I 0:02:33.840 --> 0:02:36.160 got back last week. So A wow, good, quite a 0:02:36.160 --> 0:02:38.519 good visit to Warsaw. Quite quite an eye opener. 0:02:38.840 --> 0:02:42.680 I went to Warsaw, gosh, probably twenty years ago. What 0:02:42.760 --> 0:02:43.519 was it like for you? 0:02:43.919 --> 0:02:46.160 It was like Paris? It fell like Paris. It was 0:02:46.160 --> 0:02:48.680 like it was like Paris. Certainly where we were staying. 0:02:48.720 --> 0:02:51.200 We were staying in a reasonably posh hotel, could have 0:02:51.200 --> 0:02:54.760 been any reasonably affluent European city. But it was great. 0:02:55.000 --> 0:02:57.200 People are people, aren't they? Car Lovers are car lovers 0:02:57.240 --> 0:02:59.680 all over the world. There was we did an event 0:02:59.720 --> 0:03:02.320 at the at the Ferrari dealership and there's you know, 0:03:02.560 --> 0:03:06.280 must have been one hundred car spotting kids outside with 0:03:06.400 --> 0:03:10.400 their phones making their videos, and you realize you can 0:03:10.440 --> 0:03:12.880 be anywhere in the world and it's all the same passion. 0:03:13.160 --> 0:03:16.840 It's just fantastic that there's a whole bunch of youngsters 0:03:16.919 --> 0:03:19.240 who were obsessed with these cars as much as I 0:03:19.440 --> 0:03:21.680 was when I was their agents. I find it quite amazing. 0:03:21.960 --> 0:03:25.959 Are they like up on everything you guys offer? And 0:03:26.040 --> 0:03:29.160 are you taking orders already in paces as far flung 0:03:29.200 --> 0:03:29.760 as Poland? 0:03:29.919 --> 0:03:32.480 I think the car sold out. Actually, maybe we can't 0:03:32.680 --> 0:03:35.160 say that officially, but yeah, I think a few people 0:03:35.240 --> 0:03:37.240 in Poland managed to get a car. We're at the 0:03:37.280 --> 0:03:40.600 point of where we had to limit allocations to our 0:03:40.680 --> 0:03:44.200 partners around the world, so but yeah, it was really 0:03:44.240 --> 0:03:48.960 well received, just remarkably normal, and I'm not sure. I'm 0:03:49.000 --> 0:03:52.240 not sure really what I expected from Poland. Poland took 0:03:52.240 --> 0:03:55.240 off economically after the Berlin Wall came down and the 0:03:55.960 --> 0:03:59.600 father of the guy who represents Ferrari and Peghani and 0:03:59.680 --> 0:04:03.040 kind of and everyone and Baghatti everyone else in Poland, 0:04:03.600 --> 0:04:07.520 his dad entrepreneurially set up a Reno dealership in nineteen 0:04:07.600 --> 0:04:11.880 ninety two. And from that small acorn they've turned into 0:04:11.960 --> 0:04:16.760 this jumbo tron of a car selling family that helicopter 0:04:16.839 --> 0:04:19.480 around the country and you know, make huge amounts of 0:04:19.520 --> 0:04:22.279 money selling fancy cars, and it's and it's it's a 0:04:22.360 --> 0:04:25.800 testament to the entrepreneurial spirit. It polls and known for anything. 0:04:25.800 --> 0:04:28.400 They're known for sticking their shoulder in and working their 0:04:28.520 --> 0:04:32.360 arses off, and there were certainly lots of evidence of that. 0:04:32.480 --> 0:04:36.000 I mean, you have done something similar in even a 0:04:36.000 --> 0:04:38.560 shorter time period, and I want to get to that, 0:04:38.720 --> 0:04:43.080 but I think first let's frame the new car, the 0:04:43.240 --> 0:04:47.880 Carrera Coop is the new release from you from Singer 0:04:48.920 --> 0:04:51.880 and it's basically the M four ninety one, right, so 0:04:51.960 --> 0:04:54.240 it's a turbo Loook ninety six y four but with 0:04:54.440 --> 0:04:57.360 a naturally aspirated engine. Tell me about it. 0:04:57.360 --> 0:05:01.200 It's our re entry into offering something with a normally 0:05:01.240 --> 0:05:03.920 aspirated engine. But at the moment, our cars the Classic 0:05:04.000 --> 0:05:07.680 Turbo and the DLS Turbo a turbocharge cars, and a 0:05:07.680 --> 0:05:10.560 lot of our clients have been asking us whether there 0:05:11.160 --> 0:05:13.880 can be another normally aspirated car, And of course we've 0:05:13.920 --> 0:05:16.760 been planning this for a while and at the heart 0:05:16.839 --> 0:05:20.320 of the career a coup is, like all our cars, 0:05:20.360 --> 0:05:23.919 is the engine. And we've spent the last eighteen months 0:05:24.120 --> 0:05:27.680 working on a very very special engine with Cosworth, the 0:05:28.160 --> 0:05:31.040 mighty Cosworth in England, who are helping us develop it. 0:05:31.080 --> 0:05:33.560 We wanted to come with something that was a real 0:05:33.720 --> 0:05:37.880 definitive statement on what a classic air called Portion nine 0:05:37.960 --> 0:05:41.240 eleven could be when it's normally aspirated at the real 0:05:41.279 --> 0:05:43.360 top of its game. The idea was to offer a 0:05:43.440 --> 0:05:46.520 car that was kind of like the spiritual successor to 0:05:46.800 --> 0:05:49.160 our Classic, which was I guess you could say it's 0:05:49.200 --> 0:05:51.520 the car that got us on the map. We're coming 0:05:51.520 --> 0:05:53.200 to the end of building those cars, so we're not 0:05:53.200 --> 0:05:55.120 taking any more orders to those cars, and we wanted 0:05:55.120 --> 0:05:58.200 something that was the brother of that car, if you like, 0:05:58.320 --> 0:06:02.200 something that encompassed all our learn from the last fifteen 0:06:02.279 --> 0:06:05.640 years of working on these engines, whether they be turbocharged engines, 0:06:06.120 --> 0:06:10.560 normally espirated engines, the incredible high normally espiated engine from 0:06:10.600 --> 0:06:13.600 the DLS and how great can we make it? And 0:06:13.680 --> 0:06:19.200 going to Cosworths to work on variable valve timing, water 0:06:19.320 --> 0:06:24.640 cooled cylinder heads, four valve cylinder heads, optimizing the cooling, 0:06:25.160 --> 0:06:28.479 an attempt to throw everything we knew and everything Cosworth 0:06:28.560 --> 0:06:34.080 know at this ancient, really antique of an engine and 0:06:34.080 --> 0:06:36.920 bringing it kicking and screaming into the twenty first century 0:06:37.200 --> 0:06:39.039 in a way that not only gives us as much 0:06:39.120 --> 0:06:42.960 power as we possibly can and talk, but also gets 0:06:43.000 --> 0:06:47.279 us in a rather sophisticated way through the regulatory challenges 0:06:47.320 --> 0:06:49.080 that we need to to sell the cast all over 0:06:49.080 --> 0:06:52.320 the world. To build a high performing old Porschere engine 0:06:52.400 --> 0:06:54.799 is not that hard, but to build a high performing 0:06:54.839 --> 0:06:59.920 Porschere engine that gets through regulations is incredibly hard. We'retre 0:07:00.200 --> 0:07:01.960 be proud of what was measure achieved, which is an 0:07:02.000 --> 0:07:05.120 engine with four hundred and twenty horsepower, a lot of 0:07:05.160 --> 0:07:08.440 TORQ across a wide range through the variable valve timing 0:07:08.680 --> 0:07:10.800 which has never been put on an air cooled engine before, 0:07:11.320 --> 0:07:15.160 controlling the heat of the engine. Obviously REVS gives us power, 0:07:15.200 --> 0:07:18.200 but REVS gives us heat and dissipating the heat from 0:07:18.200 --> 0:07:20.720 the engine is where's the challenge. Four valve heads with 0:07:20.920 --> 0:07:24.800 water cooling help us with that and this ability that 0:07:24.840 --> 0:07:28.720 we've had to separate the fan from running off the engine, 0:07:28.760 --> 0:07:31.240 which it usually does in an air cooled engine. We're 0:07:31.280 --> 0:07:34.360 running the fan on an electric motor which sits on 0:07:34.400 --> 0:07:37.720 top of the engine and allows the fan to cool 0:07:37.760 --> 0:07:41.160 the cylinders far more efficiently. So it's a complete holistic 0:07:41.760 --> 0:07:46.760 rethink of how the air cooled nine to eleven engine 0:07:46.800 --> 0:07:48.560 can work and how it can be optimized. So we're 0:07:48.640 --> 0:07:51.040 very proud of that. That's the heart of the car. 0:07:51.320 --> 0:07:53.840 We wanted to celebrate that idea than in the eighties 0:07:54.400 --> 0:07:57.280 you could walk into a Porsche dealership and order your 0:07:57.360 --> 0:08:00.400 new portion nine eleven with the pumped up skill of 0:08:00.400 --> 0:08:04.640 bodywork of the turbo, but with Porsche's latest naturally aspirated engine, 0:08:04.680 --> 0:08:05.920 not a turbocharge engine. 0:08:05.960 --> 0:08:09.000 I'm curious just in general, when you're talking about all 0:08:09.040 --> 0:08:12.880 of these really significant improvements like chassis strengthening, you know, 0:08:13.080 --> 0:08:16.960 adjusting the valve timing, all of these things. Are those 0:08:17.640 --> 0:08:21.000 part of like a vision coming from you or are 0:08:21.040 --> 0:08:24.320 those coming in response to customer feedback? Hey can you 0:08:24.400 --> 0:08:26.480 do this? Can you change this? We want more of this, 0:08:26.560 --> 0:08:29.120 we want less of this? Or is it a mix 0:08:29.400 --> 0:08:30.480 sort of of both. 0:08:31.200 --> 0:08:32.000 No, it's a. 0:08:33.640 --> 0:08:36.200 Wow, that's an easy answer, Singer. 0:08:36.120 --> 0:08:37.960 Is not much of a democracy. I'm afraid with me 0:08:38.040 --> 0:08:41.920 and my great friend and business partner Math, and it's 0:08:42.000 --> 0:08:45.520 what we want. The companies built on me wanting very 0:08:45.600 --> 0:08:48.400 very badly, a very if I could only have one car, 0:08:48.600 --> 0:08:50.760 what would it be? It would be have to be 0:08:50.840 --> 0:08:52.960 very special. The wholy thoughts of the company was built 0:08:52.960 --> 0:08:56.559 on what I wanted myself. With this with the arrogance 0:08:56.679 --> 0:08:59.320 that what I wanted is what everyone else would would I. 0:08:59.360 --> 0:09:02.480 Respect that This is how the company came about. Your 0:09:02.559 --> 0:09:04.520 desire to have if you could only have one car, 0:09:04.640 --> 0:09:06.560 what would it be? And all the things you had 0:09:06.600 --> 0:09:11.040 to do. But previously you were in this very successful 0:09:11.080 --> 0:09:13.959 band Catherine Wheel And as I said, I've been listening 0:09:14.000 --> 0:09:16.720 to to your hit record Chrome over and over again 0:09:16.760 --> 0:09:19.440 ever since I had you on TV. How did you 0:09:19.480 --> 0:09:23.319 go from like a rock star and I guess surrounded 0:09:23.360 --> 0:09:27.079 by rock stars your cousin. Your cousin is Bruce Dickinson, 0:09:27.200 --> 0:09:29.360 if I have it right, from Iron Maiden. So how 0:09:29.360 --> 0:09:31.520 did you go from this like rock and roll world 0:09:31.679 --> 0:09:36.679 to essentially building cars and starting such a successful business 0:09:36.679 --> 0:09:37.439 doing doing that? 0:09:38.280 --> 0:09:40.840 I studied car design at university. I mean, what which 0:09:41.000 --> 0:09:42.600 order did things come? And I start in love with 0:09:42.640 --> 0:09:44.640 cars at the age of five. I picked up a 0:09:44.679 --> 0:09:47.479 guitar at the age of fourteen, I went to university 0:09:47.559 --> 0:09:51.480 to design cars at twenty one. I got a job 0:09:51.640 --> 0:09:54.880 at Lotus when I was about twenty three twenty two, 0:09:54.960 --> 0:09:58.160 twenty three, and my band got a recording contract when 0:09:58.160 --> 0:10:00.720 I was twenty five, so that was nineteen nineties. What 0:10:00.800 --> 0:10:05.320 followed was fifteen years of absolute obsession with music, but 0:10:05.480 --> 0:10:08.320 also my love of car was my release and my 0:10:08.559 --> 0:10:11.040 happy place to go to while I was making music. 0:10:11.080 --> 0:10:15.120 So I think my passion for cars increased, and circumstances 0:10:15.240 --> 0:10:18.000 had me in Los Angeles in two thousand and three 0:10:18.080 --> 0:10:22.720 making my first and only solo record, and I decided 0:10:22.760 --> 0:10:25.400 to build my own perfect Portion nine eleven for myself, 0:10:25.600 --> 0:10:29.080 and that car became the genesis of singer. And it 0:10:29.200 --> 0:10:34.280 gave me the idea that what if I could create 0:10:34.440 --> 0:10:37.600 the ultimate air called Portion nine eleven, would anyone else 0:10:37.640 --> 0:10:40.880 be interested in having one of those? And that idea 0:10:41.040 --> 0:10:43.160 just gripped me around the neck and I couldn't let 0:10:43.200 --> 0:10:44.960 it go. And I was rather sick of music at 0:10:44.960 --> 0:10:47.080 that point. To be honest with you, I was. I 0:10:47.120 --> 0:10:49.000 felt I was too old to rock and roll. I 0:10:49.040 --> 0:10:52.720 think I felt I genuinely made the best music I could, 0:10:53.160 --> 0:10:55.720 and I wanted to obsess about something else. I've been 0:10:55.760 --> 0:10:58.520 so blessed. I've had two things in my life that 0:10:58.679 --> 0:11:02.040 I absolutely cannot ignore and I have had to pursue. 0:11:02.120 --> 0:11:05.520 By the way, Rob was that a family love? Because 0:11:05.520 --> 0:11:09.280 doesn't Bruce Dickinson also raise PORSCHEZ. 0:11:09.559 --> 0:11:14.640 No, absolutely not, that's emphatic. He does a bunch of 0:11:14.640 --> 0:11:16.760 other things that he's got an airship company, if you 0:11:16.800 --> 0:11:18.960 can believe it. He's not really a car guy. I 0:11:19.040 --> 0:11:19.920 got the car genes. 0:11:19.960 --> 0:11:22.400 I think in the family you say, nobody writes a 0:11:22.400 --> 0:11:24.720 book about how to do this, But at this point 0:11:24.760 --> 0:11:28.360 if anybody has now done a blueprint that a lot 0:11:28.360 --> 0:11:31.160 of people are trying to emulate it, certainly a singer. 0:11:31.400 --> 0:11:35.480 I'm really curious, you know, to know what was the 0:11:35.960 --> 0:11:40.080 hardest part of getting to success for you in terms 0:11:40.160 --> 0:11:43.400 of to get you to the point of, oh, we're 0:11:43.440 --> 0:11:47.200 gonna be okay, Oh we've made it. And also what 0:11:47.440 --> 0:11:51.440 separates singer from all of the others that have tried 0:11:52.360 --> 0:11:56.640 and not been able to really establish a foundation that 0:11:56.920 --> 0:12:01.440 feels permanent rather than a we're here and then we're gone. 0:12:01.920 --> 0:12:05.840 Were excellent questions. What's what's smart? People you are? I 0:12:05.880 --> 0:12:10.480 started this business with a blissful disregard for business. I 0:12:10.520 --> 0:12:13.080 started the business with my father in law, who's a 0:12:13.360 --> 0:12:17.199 risk taking, wonderful man, who said he gave me some money, 0:12:17.240 --> 0:12:19.720 so just just go and have a go build build 0:12:19.760 --> 0:12:21.680 the car you want. And it was with that spirit, 0:12:22.320 --> 0:12:24.640 that sense that I don't know where this is going, 0:12:24.720 --> 0:12:27.280 but I'm going to build what the car I want 0:12:27.320 --> 0:12:29.360 and something good is going to happen from it. That 0:12:29.480 --> 0:12:32.560 was as far as our business plan got in two 0:12:32.600 --> 0:12:34.920 thousand and eight. And I do think that the people 0:12:34.960 --> 0:12:39.000 that have clearly been inspired by us and and and 0:12:39.040 --> 0:12:42.200 some of those folks have created some wonderful stuff, some 0:12:42.240 --> 0:12:44.080 of some of the some of the some of the 0:12:44.080 --> 0:12:46.800 people who've copied us have been a bit shameless with it. 0:12:46.840 --> 0:12:49.720 But I think what they have done is attacked it 0:12:49.840 --> 0:12:53.160 like a business, and they've come at it going, well, 0:12:53.160 --> 0:12:54.839 there's some blood in the water here. You know what 0:12:55.000 --> 0:12:57.080 thing we're doing, we can do it. If we change 0:12:57.200 --> 0:12:59.160 the this a little bit and this a little bit, 0:12:59.240 --> 0:13:01.000 we'll be out and maybe you offer it a little 0:13:01.000 --> 0:13:04.360 bit cheaper. I mean, that is not where Singer started from. 0:13:04.440 --> 0:13:10.440 Singer started with a rather hypoalutant, artistic, passionate sense of 0:13:10.480 --> 0:13:14.040 an understanding of our subject matter and and and a 0:13:14.520 --> 0:13:19.400 deep sincere wish to celebrate Porsche itself. Singer was always 0:13:19.840 --> 0:13:22.440 Porscha writ large and Singer rit smaller. I knew that 0:13:22.600 --> 0:13:25.560 was going to be essential if we were going to 0:13:25.679 --> 0:13:29.840 have any sense of being viewed differently to the tuna 0:13:29.920 --> 0:13:32.040 crowd or the custom car crowd, it had to be 0:13:32.080 --> 0:13:36.440 something that was there reasonably cerebral, the sense that we 0:13:36.480 --> 0:13:39.439 did understand our subject matter and we were obsessed with it, 0:13:39.520 --> 0:13:41.960 and we were going to we were going to present 0:13:42.040 --> 0:13:45.439 this new, this second life for this old Porsche nine 0:13:45.480 --> 0:13:49.439 elevenument in a way that was genuinely reverent and respectful 0:13:49.559 --> 0:13:51.679 to Porsche. I don't see any of the people who 0:13:51.679 --> 0:13:55.120 are copying us doing that as usual with custom car companies, 0:13:55.120 --> 0:13:57.880 that everyone's beating their chests and saying, look how good 0:13:57.920 --> 0:14:00.160 we are if we beat our chests at all. It 0:14:00.200 --> 0:14:02.640 was like, look how wonderful this portion nine to eleven is. 0:14:03.000 --> 0:14:05.320 And that's a very subtly but very different message. 0:14:05.320 --> 0:14:06.319 An important nuance. 0:14:07.000 --> 0:14:10.319 Something I read about Tom York being very upset about 0:14:10.320 --> 0:14:13.120 all the bands that have copied Radiohead, of which there 0:14:13.200 --> 0:14:16.439 have been many. His producer, a guy called Nigel god 0:14:16.440 --> 0:14:20.680 which something like Tom likes to think that anyone strumming 0:14:20.680 --> 0:14:24.800 a guitar morosely. He invented that. I see both points 0:14:24.840 --> 0:14:29.520 of view. Everyone copies, everyone steals. I mean, I've done it. 0:14:29.520 --> 0:14:32.040 It's just how you live with yourself afterwards, isn't it. 0:14:32.080 --> 0:14:35.400 As I say, we didn't invent restoring and modifying old cars. 0:14:35.520 --> 0:14:39.000 Who am I to judge when it comes to your 0:14:39.280 --> 0:14:45.160 first question, I think enduring. We managed to endure, and 0:14:45.360 --> 0:14:50.680 I can assure you that through twenty and eleven, twelve, thirteen, fourteen, fifteen, 0:14:51.080 --> 0:14:55.920 it was extremely hair raising that sense that sell the 0:14:56.000 --> 0:14:58.560 tenth car, and I'm thinking, God, we sold ten cars. 0:14:58.560 --> 0:15:02.280 That's incredible. Surely everyone on planet earthly on one of 0:15:02.280 --> 0:15:05.560 our cars, has probably ordered one. And the fact that 0:15:05.600 --> 0:15:09.360 we are hemorrhaging money, we probably should turn this off 0:15:09.400 --> 0:15:11.440 and build the tenth car and go home and do 0:15:11.480 --> 0:15:14.800 something else. And then we got to fifty, and then 0:15:14.840 --> 0:15:17.800 we got to one hundred, and then I started to think, 0:15:18.160 --> 0:15:22.960 hang on a minute, this may endure, and this may continue. 0:15:23.040 --> 0:15:25.160 And I think there was that point, but there was 0:15:25.160 --> 0:15:28.040 seven or eight years when it was like, you know, 0:15:28.440 --> 0:15:33.640 extremely difficult. The cars are ferociously, ferociously complicated to create 0:15:33.680 --> 0:15:37.440 to the standard that we aspire to. Incredibly expensive. Everything 0:15:37.600 --> 0:15:39.920 is three times as expensive as we thought it was. 0:15:40.240 --> 0:15:42.960 We built the very first car and sold it for 0:15:43.040 --> 0:15:47.320 three hundred thousand dollars and spent one point one million 0:15:47.400 --> 0:15:51.920 dollars building it. Wow. Is that is the lunacy. 0:15:52.240 --> 0:15:53.080 That's a gut check. 0:15:53.760 --> 0:15:57.040 That is the lunacy of which Singer started. 0:15:56.720 --> 0:16:00.680 And what's the most important part. So I've been lucky 0:16:00.760 --> 0:16:04.440 enough to see some of your work in person, and 0:16:04.560 --> 0:16:07.520 I'm just drooling when I'm looking at the gauges and 0:16:07.600 --> 0:16:10.640 the carbon and the design, and then I hear about 0:16:10.680 --> 0:16:13.960 the Cosworth and the Red Bull, you know, or Tuthill 0:16:14.160 --> 0:16:17.720 or whatever people you're working with. But what's the most 0:16:17.840 --> 0:16:20.400 what are the most expensive parts of what you're doing? 0:16:20.480 --> 0:16:23.320 Like how do you get to to three million dollar 0:16:23.400 --> 0:16:24.040 price tags? 0:16:24.640 --> 0:16:27.080 The engines at the helf of it. Just the sheer 0:16:27.120 --> 0:16:30.720 amount of artisanal work that goes in to every corner 0:16:30.760 --> 0:16:34.160 of the car is ridiculous. I mean, we stopped trying 0:16:34.200 --> 0:16:36.400 to count how many hours go into the car. I 0:16:36.400 --> 0:16:41.800 mean taking taking a chassis, a monocoque metal you know, 0:16:41.880 --> 0:16:45.400 the metal underpinnings of a portion nine sixty sixty four 0:16:45.440 --> 0:16:49.120 that that was engineered and tooled probably in nineteen eighty five, 0:16:49.240 --> 0:16:53.680 and you can imagine the tolerance is that is that 0:16:53.800 --> 0:16:55.960 is not a Swiss watch of the car, although it's 0:16:56.040 --> 0:16:59.120 a fabulously built car. And then trying to you know, 0:16:59.200 --> 0:17:04.679 disassemble it, strip it and then put attached carbon fiber 0:17:04.720 --> 0:17:09.520 bodywork to it for lightness and strength and everything else 0:17:10.080 --> 0:17:14.800 and have the door gaps be perfect and have everything 0:17:15.920 --> 0:17:18.240 visually be perfect and all the surfaces to be perfect 0:17:18.960 --> 0:17:24.480 is stoundingly difficult to do, and it takes both skill 0:17:24.560 --> 0:17:27.399 and a lot of pile. So the body work alone, 0:17:27.480 --> 0:17:30.359 I mean we were we sometimes spend up to eight 0:17:30.480 --> 0:17:34.800 hundred hours making sure the body is ready to be painted, 0:17:34.920 --> 0:17:37.760 and that's not painting regards, just preparing the gard for 0:17:37.800 --> 0:17:40.480 it to be painted, so every gap is perfect, every 0:17:40.560 --> 0:17:44.600 radius is perfect. Is this when it comes to how 0:17:44.680 --> 0:17:48.640 we managed to endure my insistence that we couldn't let 0:17:48.640 --> 0:17:55.080 the standards drop. It was both the perhaps the wisdom 0:17:55.119 --> 0:17:59.000 in us enduring because it's given us a reputation for quality, 0:17:59.400 --> 0:18:01.239 but also one of the things that were so so 0:18:01.440 --> 0:18:05.119 hard to convince convince everyone else around me that we 0:18:05.200 --> 0:18:08.080 still had to produce cars that were exquisite and magnificent 0:18:08.160 --> 0:18:11.400 in their quality. And of course, when you're struggling, that's 0:18:11.400 --> 0:18:12.800 the last thing you want to do. You want to 0:18:12.800 --> 0:18:15.480 cut some corners, you want to save some money, you 0:18:15.520 --> 0:18:17.320 want to do this, that and the other that most 0:18:17.320 --> 0:18:19.720 car companies do, and you build down to a price. 0:18:19.760 --> 0:18:22.720 We've never built down to a price the price of 0:18:22.800 --> 0:18:25.560 our car. The margin that most car companies put on 0:18:25.640 --> 0:18:28.280 top of their work our cars would be ten million 0:18:28.320 --> 0:18:30.919 dollars if we did that. The margins on our cars 0:18:30.960 --> 0:18:34.399 are tiny, and that's the difficult for some people to 0:18:34.400 --> 0:18:35.800 believe sometimes. 0:18:35.280 --> 0:18:37.679 But terrafs our terriffs. 0:18:39.240 --> 0:18:44.760 Yeah, no, terriffs touch wood for us. I'm not something 0:18:44.800 --> 0:18:47.760 that's that's really punishing us at the moment. The fact 0:18:47.800 --> 0:18:51.320 that we have a factory in England and a facility 0:18:51.359 --> 0:18:55.840 in England is helping that that our DLS cars and 0:18:56.040 --> 0:18:59.560 a few of our turbos are built in England, which 0:18:59.640 --> 0:19:03.680 obviously doesn't have the the the issues that what on 0:19:03.840 --> 0:19:06.679 tariffs in America does. And the majority of our supply 0:19:06.800 --> 0:19:11.320 chain is here within the US, so right now touched 0:19:11.359 --> 0:19:13.840 with the tariffs, aren't aren't affecting us? Which is which 0:19:13.880 --> 0:19:14.680 is which is great. 0:19:14.760 --> 0:19:17.080 And your customers are the majority of our customers also 0:19:17.119 --> 0:19:17.600 in the US. 0:19:18.760 --> 0:19:22.119 Ah, yes, fifty about it's it's staying reason to be 0:19:22.119 --> 0:19:24.920 consistent of our fifty percent of our clients are in 0:19:25.320 --> 0:19:28.879 North America. But as as we were talking about our 0:19:29.040 --> 0:19:35.600 global partners, we were we're having increasing success internationally and 0:19:35.640 --> 0:19:38.560 that's something that we're obviously putting putting some effort into. 0:19:38.920 --> 0:19:42.240 By the way, did you guys buy Willow Springs? Is 0:19:42.240 --> 0:19:44.920 that like a proving ground now for center or what's 0:19:44.960 --> 0:19:47.200 the idea with that alliance? 0:19:48.080 --> 0:19:51.199 We didn't we didn't buy it. We aligned ourselves with 0:19:51.240 --> 0:19:55.400 the people that did and and and I think we're 0:19:55.880 --> 0:20:04.520 very much perhaps helped steer and focus what Willow Springs 0:20:05.200 --> 0:20:08.680 could become. Willow Springs is a fantastic place that I've 0:20:08.720 --> 0:20:12.280 spent years visiting, and there was in the it was 0:20:12.320 --> 0:20:15.119 in the it was at risk of being turned into 0:20:15.440 --> 0:20:20.080 into probably a building site. And we have had some 0:20:20.119 --> 0:20:24.760 wonderful experiences at racetracks around the world, the Thermal Racetrack 0:20:24.840 --> 0:20:29.600 here in California, lagoona Saka, of course, the Magarry Gower 0:20:29.880 --> 0:20:33.520 Track in Japan, which if if your listeners haven't heard 0:20:33.520 --> 0:20:37.159 about it, it's worth looking up on Google. It's an 0:20:37.200 --> 0:20:41.120 amazing track that was built on a hillside just outside Tokyo, 0:20:42.160 --> 0:20:44.719 which we've been to. And this idea formed to us 0:20:44.760 --> 0:20:49.280 that we could partner with with with with some developers 0:20:49.359 --> 0:20:54.560 to bring Willow Springs back from death. Improves improve what 0:20:54.720 --> 0:20:57.480 is inherently a very very dangerous track at Willow Springs, 0:20:57.560 --> 0:21:01.159 make it fantastic for everyone to use, but also have 0:21:02.080 --> 0:21:06.080 an aspect of there being a singer club there and 0:21:06.640 --> 0:21:10.280 for our clients and our non clients, and turn the 0:21:10.320 --> 0:21:13.600 track into something that was not just for everyone, but 0:21:13.720 --> 0:21:17.440 could also be used by OEMs for testing and everything else, 0:21:17.480 --> 0:21:20.719 and making it something that's literally on our doorstep here 0:21:20.760 --> 0:21:23.640 in Los Angeles. It's an hour and a half from 0:21:23.760 --> 0:21:27.639 LA and it's our most important it's the only real 0:21:27.760 --> 0:21:33.600 southern California track of note that, and it seemed like 0:21:33.640 --> 0:21:36.840 a no brainer that we should attach ourselves to it. 0:21:36.920 --> 0:21:40.200 Created in nineteen fifty three, Yeah, known as the fastest 0:21:40.280 --> 0:21:45.320 road in the West, very historic, iconic track now owned 0:21:45.320 --> 0:21:48.879 by Cross Harbor Capital Partners. I'm very curious. You know, 0:21:49.000 --> 0:21:52.720 Singer has never done lap times really or any sort 0:21:52.760 --> 0:21:59.640 of public benchmarking on track. Does this alignment now mean 0:22:00.200 --> 0:22:06.119 you guys might release some more performance oriented data about 0:22:06.160 --> 0:22:07.800 the cars. 0:22:07.840 --> 0:22:12.160 Probably not, No, I mean it's it's it's it's I mean, 0:22:12.200 --> 0:22:15.320 our father fast around the track, but that the idea 0:22:15.359 --> 0:22:17.920 of beating our chest and saying they're faster than someone 0:22:18.000 --> 0:22:20.840 else is never appealed to me, and I don't think 0:22:20.880 --> 0:22:27.600