Goodbye, Hoovie, and good riddance!

The SLR can finally appreciate in peace.  

source: Hoovies Garage

So, Tyler Hoover sold his SLR roadster. 2 weeks ago, I just found out, because I don’t follow him. I never liked the guy. There’s something very off about him and I just can’t dedicate my time to his content. But I did watch his SLR videos. Purely out of curiosity about how long his tenure as an SLR owner will last. It did last longer than I anticipated. My prediction was that he’ll own it for a couple of months. Why is that? YouTubers are clout chasers. They go where the money is. Some are more honest about it, while others are deceptive.

Just look at the Murcielago. The Murci is in a hype bubble for the last 5 years. And it is mostly driven by a big car YouTube channel. A huge Lambo guy, I only feel respect towards him, but this Murci hype is beyond fabricated. That heavily pushed “scarcity of the manual cars” agenda is why the Murci is in this bubble. The manual Murcielagos are not scarce. But because of the 25-year-rule and the lack of interest in the manual Murcielagos back in the 2000s in the USA, it is a rare car in the USA today. It’s the perfect storm that created the perfect conditions for this agenda to execute itself. Fair game, props to Ed. But you can only blindfold so many buyers and in 5 years the LP640 will turn 25. Then what? Only time will tell. Nonetheless, this is a case study for everyone in the car world - from dealers, to manufacturers, to enthusiasts. While the Murcielago is a sweet, gorgeous car, I don’t think it’s worth that much today. Maybe in 5-10 years. It’s just old and unreliable. And it’s old in a bad way - internally, some parts date back to the Countach. While this may sound romantic to enthusiasts, the ownership is far from that. I know people who’ve spent north of 100k just to keep theirs running thanks to the recent hype. No one talks enough about the effect on the parts prices because of such “the latest hot shit”-type of car promotions. 

It’s nuts. And I’m glad the YouTubers left the SLR alone. 

Tyler was the last of the big YouTubers to do so. I just hope his ex-SLR found a forever home and not yet another clout chaser. 

So, why is that the YouTubers fail to benefit from owning an SLR? My guess is that their audience just fails to relate to it. 

Everyone (almost) has seen a V12 Lambo, I see them all the time and I live in Bulgaria. While they’re still expensive, they’re also accessible. It’s an immediate choice for almost anyone who’s in the market for a supercar. There are already more Revueltos than SLRs. The annual target for the Revuelto is around 1450 cars PER YEAR, multiply that by 10 and you’ll see their total production target is 14 500, which may exceed the numbers of the Aventador - around 11 500. That means there will be 26000 V12 Lambos that will be produced for 20 years. Insane numbers and this answers why you don’t see an Aventador or a Revuelto in collector’s garages. They’re just not special and they’re everywhere. No one wants to spend 800k on a car that the rich guy next to him may have. That’s not how collector’s cars work. Collectors want something very few have seen and even more so - have driven. They collect unicorns and the SLR is one. 

Same story with Ferrari. The average person can’t differentiate one Ferrari from another, so, to them they’re all “Ferraris”. The Porsches are in the millions, they’re not even worth mentioning. But you get the point - Lamborghini, Ferrari, Porsche - they’re everywhere and one can see a couple of those on a Friday night. That makes them somewhat relatable and accessible. For the npcs to relate, they need to see it, to touch it in order to believe in it. That’s why car content creators gravitate towards relatable cars - it generates them attention, which generates them money. 

The SLR is not that. The SLR is boring to the npc, because they haven’t seen one, haven’t touched one and the only association they have in their heads with the car is the comparison to the CGT and the Enzo. They can’t relate to it in any way. It is a Holy Trinity car with a mythical status with “auto transmission and bad brakes”, because that’s what they’ve heard from people who’ve spent 1h with a press car.  The brakes are fantastic and the auto trans makes sense in a car, designed to casually go above 300+km/h.

But they can relate to negativity and hate. Almost every big car YouTuber has tried at least once to hate on the SLR. Whether it’s about the maintenance costs, the brakes, the hood price, the oil change, the auto trans … you name it. It’s much easier to create content with negative narratives when your audience can’t relate to the experience. Read that again and next time you watch your fav car content creator listen to whether they hate on cars just to make their case and produce content for likes. That’s why I can’t stand Shmee. Recent Doug DeMuro, too, especially his podcast. I believe in the state of mind that if you don’t like something, you just ignore it. “Today I woke up and I’m going to make a hate video about the SLR for likes/money.” LMAO. That’s just fucked up in my opinion. 

Last year, I was 1 on 1 with Shmee and I asked him when he's getting an SLR, ironically. The guy froze. As if I asked him, if he killed someone. I hit a nerve for sure and he just started repeating everything you can hear about the car from his videos. And then I was like “Oh, I have one.” And he immediately went “Wow, really, that’s amazing? How is it?” And I just looked at him and told him “I thought you knew how it is?” and I left. Case in point they have NO idea what they’re talking about, just repeating the same shit over and over again. But the npcs love that sort of content. 

Anyways, the SLR is steadily appreciating organically, without any hype balloons and now without the YouTubers. Good riddance!