Yahoo Finance

Let's get some finance in your feed. How about that? You may have seen some of these pictures on your social media feed, that is, or rather, was vintage Ford car valued at over $1 million. Now it caught on fire on its way back from being displayed at the Monterey Car Show in Pebble Beach. Well, guess who else was at that show, our very own Prass Subramanian was at the car show with some pricey vintage and modern cars, one of the biggest alternative asset classes here. I mean, you saw this at the show here, but you've got some other takeaways as well, like what was the vibe there? So, so real quick, they had a wedge-shaped car special class at Pebble Beach Concours and that Ford Probe designed by the Italian design house, Gio, was there. It looked kind of funky, super 80s or early 90s kind of design. So I saw it was like a picture of it too. I should probably send to you guys later but I saw the next day, being transported caught fire, I don't know why, but it's a total loss for the car, really one of one car, you can't really recreate that so really sad. But speaking of that classic car market, you know, it was a big weekend of auctions that week, right? So, a lot of expectations. Hagerty was looking at probably $460 million total outlay in terms of total auctions, came in at 391, 392, kind of a big miss there, a big miss from what people expecting, a lot of the higher end, $1 to $5 million cars, including Ferraris, didn't sell. Cell through rate went from 62 to 52%, 10% cut. So, a lot of concern that is there a correction happening in that classic car market? It's been rising a lot steadily since post-pandemic, or since pandemic, so maybe that's why and maybe we're seeing a little correction there.

Yeah, I heard a certain car maker giving more customization options as well. I mean, what can you tell us about that and how people are buyers are leaning into that customization?

So we saw a lot of this there with a lot of the newer automakers in the luxury space saying, "How do we stand out? We got to customize, offer one-off type of designs." Millions of dollars. Of course. Oh well do you want to custom like embroidery on your headrest, things like that. So Bentley spoke to the Bentley CEO. They noticed that their cars are pretty hot but they have kind of an older sort of name but what's happening is that they're bringing younger buyers with better designs, more sporty designs, but also the younger buyers want customization. They want special exhaust kits, they want different colors, stitching, types of work on the dash. So, they even have an option for a stone inlay for the dash, right? So, these kinds of things are the increased prop margins but also bringing in younger buyers going from 60s to 50s to 40s now, late 40s, so good for them.

All right. A lot of holders or Bitcoin perhaps, remittances that might be coming into these vehicles as well. Pras Subramanian, thanks so much.