TheStradman Breaks Silence on Burned Lamborghini, $1M IRS Audit, & Car Market Bubble

**James Stradman** (0:00)
$2.7 million is what I paid for the car.

**Graham Stephan** (0:02)
And what do you sell it for?

**James Stradman** (0:03)
I sold it for...

**Graham Stephan** (0:06)
No.

**James Stradman** (0:07)
And I will drive this car more than anyone's ever driven in Koenigsegg!

**Jack Selby** (0:13)
What's the craziest thing you've seen in the car market?

**James Stradman** (0:15)
Where to begin? There's more money in the market than ever before?

**Graham Stephan** (0:21)
You believe that maybe some of it's fake?

**James Stradman** (0:24)
I know it is.

**Jack Selby** (0:25)
Anyone who's in the business know that there's some fishy stuff that happens at those auctions.

**James Stradman** (0:28)
I had a plan. I had an idea. I turned a $600 video camera into $10 million.

**Graham Stephan** (0:33)
What triggered the audit?

**James Stradman** (0:35)
I owed like a million dollars.

**Graham Stephan** (0:36)
Holy crap.

**James Stradman** (0:38)
I was in a dark place. It was tough. Then I just have to turn it on for the camera.

**Graham Stephan** (0:42)
Is marriage on the horizon? Soon. When are Strad kids gonna happen?
James, thank you so much for coming on The Iced Coffee Hour.

**James Stradman** (0:56)
Thank you for having me.

**Graham Stephan** (0:57)
So you just did this video where you went through the entire value of your car collection. It's almost $4 million worth of cars. I'm so curious, how much has your collection gone up in value over the last year?

**James Stradman** (1:08)
It's crazy because a year ago, I had the Koenigsegg and I don't have the Koenigsegg anymore, but I never owned the Koenigsegg outright.
If I owned the Koenigsegg outright, or if we include that in the total value of my car collection, then it was actually way more a year ago. Probably would have been like five, six million.

**Jack Selby** (1:23)
Five, six million. See, the fact that there's such a variance. It could be five or six.

**Graham Stephan** (1:27)
It's off by a million, for sure.

**James Stradman** (1:29)
A car like that, though, is like, how do you value that car? I didn't own that car outright also. But yeah, there's a huge variance. The car market right now, guys, crazy. Every day it's different.

**Jack Selby** (1:38)
What's the craziest thing you've seen in the car market right now?

**James Stradman** (1:40)
Where to begin? Like, seriously, I saw a GT2RS, paint to sample, nonsense, whatever, $2.4 million asking price for a 2RS, a 911, for $2 million.

**Graham Stephan** (1:52)
Okay, but that's asking.

**James Stradman** (1:54)
No, I know, I know. But still, like, I saw that this morning, $2.4 million for a 2RS. I mean, 458 Speciale Aperta, those are like $2 million. I mean, everything is just out of control right now.

**Graham Stephan** (2:05)
The one thing that shocked me, I blinked and the price of a 430 Scuderia, $700,000. I remember when those were like low 200s for a solid car.

**James Stradman** (2:16)
Yep, I had one.
And I paid low 100s. It was a salvage title. But I paid low 100s. I think people are starting to realize after Ferrari dropped the Luce, it's awful. It looks like the Apple car with the Ferrari logo. It looks like a Prius. A Prius actually looks better. Like the worst thing I think Ferrari has ever done in their history was this car. And immediately I've talked to every dealership, Ferrari drops the Luce and instantaneously, their phone is off the hook and everybody wants the good stuff.

**Graham Stephan** (2:45)
So you know what's crazy is I learned today, they actually sold 500 units of that car, $300 million of revenue for Ferrari. And they said that they did all of this in two months when they were expecting five or six months.

**James Stradman** (3:01)
You can say whatever you want, right? You can control the narrative, like that's the Internet nowadays. You can say whatever you want for, I can say whatever they want. Ferrari is one of the most powerful brands of all time. They have so many clients that will just buy whatever, right? Because they need to maintain their resume. They got to stay at the top of the list. And I don't know if you guys saw, but the new F80, their new like halo car, an Aperta convertible version was just spotted in Italy. And they're going to build like three, 400 of those. So these Ferrari guys are like, oh, we got to get a Luce. We don't want a Luce. We want nothing to do with it. But if it helps us get an F80 Aperta, they're going to do it. So when you say 500, it's like, there's so many Ferrari collectors around the world that are just going to buy anything. I mean, look at the apparel they sell. They sell everything, and everybody eats it up.