Selig & Stretton: Fund Your Passion Podcast Episode 3

Amanda Stretton: Hello. My name is Amanda Stretton. Thank you for as always for joining us on the Fund Your Passion podcast brought to you by JBR Capital. Thank you for all of the comments and the feedbacks that you’ve sent in from our second episode. Rich Clark definitely proved to be quite the guest. Lots of you have told us just how much you enjoyed hearing from him.

Now, I hope as the lockdown’s continued to ease and more of us have had our jabs, we may just be getting closer to recording this in-person in North London at JBR Capital HQ when, of course, founder Darren Selig has promised to buy me lunch. For the time being, we are remaining in our Zoom rooms. Welcome to you, Darren.

Darren Selig: Hi, Amanda. We’re back.

Amanda: We’re back and continuing.

Darren: Episode three, yes.

Amanda: Episode three. It’s amazing. We’ve got so much to talk about.

Darren: I know. I’ve got my notes, ready.

Amanda: We’re going to crack on. I’m carrying on with our the regular Yaris GR watch, this month’s purchaser is our friends at Supercar Driver, Adam and the team who bought from Top Five Five. That’s Jonathan Franklin, Supercar Driver and, Darren, your ex-colleague Stephen Halstead. We need to be getting some commission for this.

Darren: We do. I have worked out where my next commission comes from on the Yaris.

Amanda: Where?

Darren: From you.

Amanda: From me?

Darren: It’s going to be your next car. You said we need to find you a car that is small, it’s cool. I don’t know whether the dogs will fit in. I know that was the criteria. I don’t know. What do you think?

Amanda: I’ll tell you what, I’ll go and take a look if with the seats are folded down, the dogs can go in, because then it’s got legs. Would you do financing on the Yaris?

Darren: Yes, why not.

Amanda: Okay, cool. We always talk about this. It’s a recurring theme that the market is still really busy, isn’t it? Have you seen any slowdown in the demand that you are seeing?

Darren: Not at all, thankfully. It is absolutely rocking. We just don’t know what to do with ourselves at JBR. We are just inundated. Like I said on the previous podcast, it isn’t just specific to JBR, it seems to be happening right across the market.

That’s what we are hearing from other lenders, from our dealers and brokers. It’s absolutely crazy mental out there. I’m sure our guest on the show today will confirm that. We’ll hear from him what he’s seeing in the marketplace. That’s the best place to get the data from, the people on the grounds selling the cars. As a finance company, we are not seeing any letdown at all.

I think our staff would probably like it to be a little bit quieter because they have been working some extremely long hours. We are very thankful. I would like to take the opportunity just to thank all of our staff and colleagues for working so hard. It has been long hours. It’s very tiring. It’s just unbelievably exciting. I just– like I said, have never seen anything like it in the last 20 years.

Dealers have reopened their doors. You now can go get your free coffee, Amanda, and potentially stop for lunch if they have the in-house café. Restrictions on COVID have started to lift. Life, as we knew it is slowly starting to return. I would personally prefer it if Boris did still ban international travel rather than reinstate for the Summer because I do think that may be a turning point in where we see demand and the market just simmering down a little. People go on holiday and they’re relaxed and they forget about car buying and find other things to spend their money on.

Amanda: I’d duck if I was you. That was contentious.

Darren: I know. I’m just thinking about the business, to be honest, all of us passionate car buyers and stuff. I do think ability of stock, as I mentioned last time, is becoming scarcer, that may also have a dampening effect as just cars that don’t exist in the market. Your car supply has been restricted and push people to used cars. Used cars, the good cars are going. Get in there quick and call us to fund it.

Amanda: Yes, sorry, I was going to say, we’ll see. We’ll keep it on that train because that’d be quite interesting if it does slow down and people start being able to spend their money elsewhere.

Darren: I was going to say, just looking through all the stats and the loans and applications that we’ve been seeing since we started March the first, we have now seen, oh gosh, it’s like almost going towards £100 million of proposals in the space of a couple of months, just insane, but some very fascinating trends coming through there on what people are looking to buy. Porsche, it seems to be the most popular brand coming through with a whopping 15% of our applications coming on Porsche product. When I flick through to see, well, what is it that people are buying in Porsche? GT2 RS, GT3 RS, and Taycans. Taycans are unbelievably popular. People are really going into the electric thing.

Amanda: It’s funny Porsche as a brand, and I’ve said this before, I’m getting ready to duck now. It’s actually always left me cold.

Darren: Yes, you have mentioned that before.

Amanda: It’s not a brand I’ve ever really particularly got excited about, but there we go.

Darren: Moving swiftly on, Ferrari, next in line, Ferrari has always been one of our most popular brands, but the trends clearly showing people are going for convertibles at the minute. That is what we’d normally see once we get into the seasonality of March onwards. People are buying 458 Convertibles, 488 Convertibles, Californias. Those seem to be the popular brands. Lamborghinis. Lambo is always very popular Aventadors, Huracán, and Uruses still very much up there. Rolls Royce’s Cullinans. Cullinans are doing exceptionally well.

Amanda: I saw one the other day in my village.

Darren: Did you?

Amanda: Yes.

Darren: Did it fit through the width restrictions all right?

Amanda: Barely. It was a bit of a shock. It does look rather incongruent. It looks a bit lumpy.

Darren: It does, but they are very, very popular and going like hotcakes. Previously, last year, there were some discounts available. You could find Cullinans at discounts from Rolls-Royce dealers. Those discounts have gone. You can barely get anything off them now because everyone is out buying a 350-grand Rolls-Royce Cullinan. Who knew? Also, Tesla is still very popular. The Model Ss and Xs and 3s as everyone dips their toe into the electrification and move to EV.

Amanda: I’m glad to see EVs are actually starting to do well.

Darren: Yes, they are. The other news on EVs that came out last week and quite a U-turn was chairman John Elkann announced the prancing horse’s first EV will arrive by the middle of this decade, as in 2025, which is quite a U-turn from the comment six months earlier from their former CEO, Louis Camilleri. He said the company would never go electric. It was obviously a bit silly to say that given they are moving to electric, but there they are Ferrari saying they’re going fully electric. Obviously, they got the hybrid car, SF 90, is in the market now. That’s proving to be quite a hit as well. Let’s see who’s going to follow Ferrari.

Amanda: I’m sure there’ll be lots of people. Now, we need to talk about today’s guests, Dean Bartle is going to be joining us today. Very excited to talk to him. He’ll be known to many people out there as one of the preeminent figures in the performance car and supercar world having worked at JCT600 Porsche, Redline, now running his own business. He represents what we think is a new generation of salesmen. Last week, we even saw pictures of him with Tom Cruise, which I am very excited to hear more about, but, Darren, as always, I know that you’re excited about hearing from him, but just tell us what your connection is.

Darren: Yes, I am. I’m very excited to hear what Dean has to say for all the reasons you’ve just said, I do think he has represented a new kind of car salesperson who can move to the online and social media forums. I have said previously that most of my guests, I’ve known them for a very, very long time, normally up to a decade or two decades. Actually, I have only known Dean for possibly five years, so not quite as long as the others, but I first came across him where he was working in his previous place at Redline Specialist Cars. Obviously, he’s moved on since then and set up his own showroom. 

We’ve always been aware of Dean. He’s hugely popular in this sector, he’s a real character, represents his new car salespersons we’re talking about, he’s hugely popular on social media with a huge following, and he just engages with clients in a very modern and progressive way that is different and different is good. I’m sure he’s going to tell us about how many cars he’s been selling and throwing in all the rich and shameless and all that good stuff, but there you go. My big up.

Amanda: Well, we’re going to be looking forward to speaking to Dean soon. Of course, since we last spoke, though, there has been lots of other news going on in the car world. We’ve seen the first official photographs of the special version of the Ferrari 812 Superfast. Salon Prive hinted at a second concourse in London in the Spring of next year, and of course the media embargo pass on the 992 GT3 which seems to go on just about every social media channel that I have looked at.

Looking East, we’ve had the Shanghai Motor Show which now has taken place which is exciting. MG have released the concept of their new EV sports car, the Cyberstar. The big news from Bonhams last week is that the huge experience and popular James Knight is leaving the organization. Under his stewardship and very often his gavel.

He was responsible for establishing some of the world records that they have notably for the Ex-Works Austin Healey special test car NOJ393 that sold for £843,000. Red5, Nigel Mansell’s Formula One, Williams Renault FW14B which sold for a staggering 2,703,000, and for the world’s oldest surviving Rolls-Royce that achieved three and a half million back in 2007. Of course, Bonhams have also ventured into online marketplaces as well with their purchase of The Market. What are your thoughts on that?

Darren: Yes, they have. They bought this business called The Market, which is an online auction marketplace and you just go on and you can bid the asking price and you’ve met and reserved and you’ve bought a car or you just keep bidding and bidding. It does seem to be a trend towards that over the last 12 months of COVID. A number of auction houses moved online, done their auctions online, set up these marketplaces and they do seem to be working. The rates that they’re selling cars at, as we discussed last week, are extremely high. They’re over 85%. I don’t know whether that’s because it’s online or just that people are just out there buying cars or combination of both.

Amanda: I guess also people are more familiar now with buying cars online with their new cars, and there’s all sorts of new car buying platforms emerging. We’re so used to buying things online now, it doesn’t matter what it is.

Darren: Yes, I think that stigma before of having to turn up in person is clearly gone. Everyone has had to innovate in the way they operate their businesses and us as human beings have been innovating the way we do our shopping or purchasing. We’ve all been pushed towards that and it does look like it works. It’s an obvious move. Of course, it does compete with platforms such as ad lovers collecting cars. This won’t be the first or the last one to appear.

Amanda: We need to move on to our guest who has joined us fresh from selling cars. As we mentioned previously, he is one of the new generation of car salesman Dean Bartle. Dean, a very warm welcome to the Fund Your Passion podcast. It is great to have you with us.

Dean Bartle: Good morning.

Amanda: Hello, and you were actually late joining because you were selling cars.

Dean: Yes, absolutely.

Amanda: That’s always positive, we like that.

Darren: What are we selling Dean? Come on, tell us. I’m so intrigued to hear what it was.

Dean: We do a variety of different cars ready. This one’s on an F12 Superfast, so one of my favourites.

Amanda: We can talk about favourites a little bit later on. Before we start, let’s talk about–

Darren: Hold on, Amanda. I was looking for someone. I did say that I was looking for someone to lend me a Ferrari to give it a try Dean, what do you reckon?

Dean: I’m just sold it, Darren, unfortunately that one here.

Darren: I missed the boat again. I can’t believe it.

Amanda: Dean, before we talk too much about cars, let’s talk about Tom Cruise. What was going on? How did that come about? It all sounds very exciting.

Dean: Well, it was exciting to be honest with you. I’m still pinching myself. Even today I think about that exciting day last Saturday. I was just mopping my floor in the showroom which is preparing it for customers coming in and everything. A group of people turned up to the left hand side. I have a large mat area outside the sliding opening doors of the showroom. It says DMB Collection on that. He had his COVID mask on and aviator sunglasses. I didn’t know who it was at all.

He said, “Hey, man, what’s DMB Collection?” I said, “That’s just me. It’s Dean Matthew Bartle. My initials. That’s all.” He said, “Are these cars for sale?” As I got closer to him, of course, you’re thinking to yourself, “This guy looks like Tom Cruise.” Then he talks again. Then you think, “He sounds like Tom Cruise.” All of a sudden you’re like, “Oh my god, it is Tom Cruise.”

It was absolutely bizarre. Lovely chap. He came in. We spent well over an hour with him actually showing him around the place and letting him know about how I came to be, if you like. He was brilliant. He was really good. He’s passionate about cars and bikes. We had a really good chat with him. It was fantastic.

Amanda: Come on, did he buy anything? What was he interested in?

Dean: I think he’s been filming up in Pickering I think in North Yorkshire, doing the train scene for his new Mission Impossible film. It’d be good to get on that one, wouldn’t it? That will be quite a good film.

Darren: As an extra, definitely.

Dean: Let’s see [laughs].

Amanda: We ask all of our guests this question. Obviously, I think we’ve got some idea judging by how busy and how high flying you are. Just how busy is the market for you right now?

Dean: It’s good, actually. It’s really good. Obviously, it’s the right time of the season for sports and supercars now. It’s quite a seasonal thing in sport cars. It’s going really well. We’ve got a nice steady flow of sales and things at the moment. It seems the whole market has picked up really well. Everybody I know in this world is doing really well with this. All good.

Amanda: I don’t know if you heard Darren’s, the patterns and trends that he’s seeing as well. Are you seeing the same thing? Lots of convertibles, lots of sports cars?

Dean: Yes, pretty much the same throughout really. It seems even volume sites, I think are doing particularly well. Again, I think listening to what Darren said earlier, I think a lot of people if they’re not going on holiday and things like that, of course, they’re thinking what else can we do if we can’t spend the money on holiday, we may as well treat ourselves to something nice. I can understand why the market and the motor sector is booming really.

Amanda: Let’s get back to the start. Obviously, you told Tom– I feel it’s only fair that you tell me. How did you get involved in cars, because I’ve heard that you’re actually a very accomplished singer?

Dean: [laughs]

Amanda: you just give us a few bars of something. 

Darren: Bars of chocolate to be honest.

Amanda: How did it all happen?

Dean: I think, as a kid, a lot of people don’t know this. I don’t necessarily tell people on the Instagram as such or anything like that, but I went to a stage school and a drama school as a kid, so I did a lot of shows growing up as a kid as well. We were singing and performing, as a young budding thespian at the time I guess, which was great. Which ultimately led me to be working at the Haven Holiday Parks as the entertainment team there.

That was really good for me, I felt, because that gives you some really good foundation for confidence as a young kid. Being able to perform in front of 1,000 people in fact, we were a large park that I worked on. I was a presenter, DJ and male vocalist at the time. Speaking to people was just like second nature.

Darren: That does explain why you’re so good on social media and your video recordings there, because I’ve always thought you’ve been a bit of a star in that. I was just like, where’s this confidence come from? He’s so good at it, but there we go. Who knew?

Amanda: How did you switch into cars then? Going from the stage at Haven Holiday Park?

Dean: I think I’ve always liked cars. Growing up as a kid, my father was a police officer in the traffic department and he was always got to drive. Back in the ’90s they were like Escort Cosworth RSs and these were really cool traffic cars back then, not like today. Occasionally, he’d come home for lunch or something, I was just outside in awe of this amazing car because we couldn’t ever afford a nice car like that back then. It was lovely that my dad drove one for work. I was absolutely fascinated by them then. I guess that’s where the passion started I guess.

Darren: Did you get to go in the car and put all the flashing lights on and press all the buttons and stuff?

Dean: Got permission on my 13th birthday. I’ll never forget that. They were trialing a Granada Cosworth four lite. It was an unmarked police car so, he had authority to take me out. It’s a memory I’ll always keep with me and treasure.

Amanda: I bet that was fun.

Dean: It was.

Darren: That’s every young kid’s dream to do that.

Dean: It was, yes absolutely.

Amanda: Dean, what was your first automotive job then?

Dean: I did very short stint for Citroen actually, so that was in 1996. I feel old but 1996 it was, actually. I was bringing everybody down to buy the first Saxos back then because they were free insurance of course. As a young kid it was great, so I ended up getting on myself and then I dragged all my mates down there. The sales manager says– I keep bringing all these people into buy cars, so he said, “I’ll give you a tank of fuel,” and then of course he said, “I’ll offer you a job.” That’s how the car game started for selling, yes.

Amanda: Then of course, you’ve also worked for Porsche, JTC600 for a long time. Porsche must have been– I know I’m quite open and honest, they’re a brand that leaves me pretty cold, but it must have been a fun brand to work for?

Dean: Yes, it was a fabulous brand to work for yes. I actually did a short time again at Volkswagen which was really good. I got head hunted for Porsche, which was good. I sold one of the General Manager’s wife a car. He asked me at the end, would you fancy to come inside and have a chat with us? He said, I’m the dealer principal at Brooklands, which is obviously Ferrari and everything now in Leeds. Of course, Porsche is one of the brands under the Brooklands title and it was great.

I went along now, I was very happy, I was 21 years old, I had a Golf GTI as a demo. I wasn’t bothered if I got the job or not. I think it was my sales manager when I told him, I said, “I think I’m going to go for this job at Porsche”. He said, “It’d be too big for you that, Dean”. That spurred me on a bit really to think I’ll go for it, that was in April 2000, and I left there in October 2014. Yes.

Amanda: You always need encouragement like that, slightly negative encouragement, but that is probably the most effective type of encouragement, isn’t it?

Dean: Yes, it is really. Yes, absolutely. No, it’s a brand I very quickly got adapted with, and I was very enthusiastic about the brand. I loved it, I thought it was fantastic. I just spent most of my time in the showroom really talking to the customers because they actually knew more about the cars than some of the salespeople and staff there.

Amanda: Really?

Dean: I learned from them really. Yes. It was fantastic. Yes.

Amanda: Darren alluded to your social media presence, obviously at Red Line. There’s lots of pictures of you online, handing over cars, lots of big smiles, happy memories of all of that?

Dean: Absolutely, yes, of course. It was brilliant.

Amanda: Anything that stands out?

Dean: It was a good idea really, I suppose. I mean we sold that many different cars to different celebrities and just normal people. I think it was great to get them on the Instagram as well, because it’s a big thing isn’t it? I think to share people’s excitement online can only bring positivity as well and that’s what I did really with them. It was really good for everybody, I think.

Darren: The piece that I really like, and I love seeing on social media, everyone works hard, but people have like really worked hard for years and years and dreamed of buying a particular car. Then you’ve sold them a car, and they’re literally beaming with this huge grin like, I’ve finally done it and that’s on your Instagram. I love those ones. Those are my favourites. More than the famous people in all the cereal purchases. It’s just the guy whose dreamed of one car and he’s made it finally and he’s gone and bought it. Love those ones.

Dean: Yes, it’s the same for me really, as well. Even at Porsche back in the days, you’d be those people who perhaps just retired and they were just treating themselves to the first little sports car. Being able to be a part of that really just gave you a good feeling. It was nice. Still get a buzz out of that now today. It’s great.

Amanda: Quite rewarding, I guess actually also being able to help people realize their dreams.

Dean: Absolutely. Yes, of course. I mean, I think with the help of financing as well, you’ve got to understand that some of these cars hold very good residuals and people don’t realize even today actually what they can actually afford to get into. If you’ve got a good knowledge of that and you can quite pleasantly surprise them that they can actually get into this car for the same payment and then you’ve really made the day. You’ve made their dream come true. 

Darren: You make my day as well, Dean.

Dean: Yes.

Amanda: How much of a big move was it leaving all of that and actually going independent and setting yourself up in your own shop?

Dean: Yes, of course. It’s always been a dream of mine to do something like that. It was certainly a leap of faith, shall we say, to do that. I think having had the confidence of good people around me to make the move and start it, I’ve nearly 20 years experience selling cars, I’m very proud of my reputation, I was overwhelmed with the support I had, I thought if I can’t sell two or three cars a month with that experience, then there’s something wrong. I may as well give it a go. Yes, that was my first month. I thought If I can sell one or two, I’ll be okay. I ended up doing nine. That was it. I was off.

Darren: Have you sold any Yaris GRs?

Dean: Yes, I have actually. Yes. I’ve got one in now, yes.

Amanda: We might need to talk.

Dean: Right, okay.

Darren: There you go. I’m on commission-

Amanda: We might need to talk.

Darren: -because if I can talk Amanda into a Yaris GR, I’m going to get some commission for this, I think.

Amanda: Yes. I’ve got two Rhodesian Ridgeback dogs. Big. Big dogs. They need to get in the car. They need to get in the back. Will they fit in?

Dean: I think the back seats unbolt, yes.

Amanda: I’d have to unbolt the seats?

Dean: I don’t know. I’m not sure.

Darren: Amanda, you do know the old joke, don’t you? “How to get four elephants into a mini?”

Dean: No.

Amanda: Yes.

Darren: Two in the front, two in the back.

Amanda: That’s a terrible joke.

Darren: A terrible joke but yes, obvious.

Amanda: Because you set yourself up in October 2019, we then go into what is an unprecedented global handbrake stop. How have you dealt with it? How has these last 12 months period been for you? What are the challenges that you’ve seen?

Dean: Yes, of course. October ’19, when I started– It was March, wasn’t it? We found out about it. I did have a feeling thinking, “Oh, my god, what am I going to do?” I’ve been through a recession period when I worked at Porsche. I think fortunate people who’ve got money still got money. They still buy cars but obviously, it wasn’t anywhere near as busy as what it should have been, obviously, because people was a bit scared about what was going on in the economy. Fortunately for me, I came in on my own. It was locked down but I felt I had to work, I had to still keep the Instagram going and things like that. I was still, fortunately, selling cars.

I thought, “It’s really good to be able to use the click and collect system that just show people out there and try to restore a little bit of faith in people and say, “People are buying cars.” People will say, no, it’s good to see that Dean’s still busy with cars. That’s what I did. I was just there every day just doing the best I could to make the best of it. Of course, after just a couple of months, it just absolutely blew up. Buying cars and literally got rid of all the stock. It was crazy.

Amanda: How hard was it then replacing the stock in that situation?

Dean: I think I’ve been quite fortunate really in the fact that a lot of people, I suppose, know who I am in this industry. I get lots of phone calls and messages and things and DMs saying, “I’m going to sell car, is this of interest?”

I don’t have to go looking too much, although I am quite proactive on Autotrader and Piston ads and look at privates and things like that. There’s two sides of it really, those people who were really concerned and thought I’m going to have to sell my car because I don’t know what the future is going to hold, and then there’s other people at the same time who sat there, twiddling their thumbs thinking, I’m just going to buy a car. You could actually directly buy a car, with the right money and then sell it. It works.

Amanda: We’ve talked about you being this new generation of a car salesmen. We are in this digital age, which is unfamiliar to many people. We’ve got things like YouTube, Instagram. How would you see your client’s buying habits? Do they like social media? Presumably, most people who are buying cars off you actually know what it is they want to buy before they even get to you.

Dean: Correct, absolutely. There’s still a good proportion of people who are not really on social media who will just buy cars from Autotrader and things like that but the majority of it for me is all social media. I’ve noticed a big difference with that. For example, if a customer rings up and they know you’re obviously on Instagram and then they go, “Oh, is that Dean?” I say, “Yes, it’s me.” Then I automatically, it’s like the guards are down because they’d been watching me and they’re like, “Oh my man, it’s on the phone.”

The element of trust is there then you see. Which makes my life a lot easier. It’s a nice way to do business. I think it’s great and it softens everything and makes everything that much more pleasurable.

Amanda: Big smiley face helps as well. You’ve talked about this really strong social media presence as well, but you also team up a lot with other influencers, TG, Archie Hamilton. Putting yourself out in the public eye like that obviously just has these real benefits to the business, not just in terms of actually the car sales, but also as you say that trust, familiarity with dealing with you.

Dean: Absolutely yes. It’s nice because we’ve become very, very close friends actually. They’re actually all coming up today as a matter of fact, but basically, it’s to get involved with them. I think if you can hop onto their channels and things and then again, it’s exposure, isn’t it? Any exposure is good exposure for the brand and then people will check out. Your following goes up and I’m only myself, I don’t share with anybody else. I can’t be anybody else. It just seems to work really well. Everybody rings up to say, oh, I’ve seen you on TG’s video or we talked to Alex or whatever it might be.

Amanda: Does it take up a lot of time? Do you find it distracting from the actual sales process?

Dean: It can take up a lot of time. It’s important that I reply to everybody on Instagram and things like that. When I’m at home, I drive my wife’s crackers because my phone is always attached to my hand. I’m trying to find that balance at the moment with moving here to the new site. So these last couple of months, really getting everything set up. It’s been good. It’s getting there now which is great.

Amanda: Darren, are we going to see you on social doing some?-

Darren: Ooh

Amanda: Instagram, live–

Darren: Well, if you’d asked me this question last year, I would have definitely said, “not a chance”. I never thought I’d do a podcast to the honest so who knows, maybe we’ll try a bit of video and social media. Come up and seen Dean and you’d give me the competence to record from there.

Amanda: Hey, you’re going to do a review for him.

Darren: Yes. Let’s do that. We could sing a song together. I mean, I’m terrible. You’ll have to carry me, obviously.

Amanda: Do you still sing at all, Dean? Do you sing?

Dean: Yes, but obviously, the hospitality industry is being hit really hard, hasn’t it? So I do feel sorry for those guys.

Amanda: Yes.

Dean: It has been quite difficult. My wife actually has a– we have a bridal shop so that’s being quite typical as well. I think back in August again we’ve got our next gig. Hopefully, we’ll be back on it again. I absolutely love that. Just me and my best friend entertaining people, where you can forget about the stresses about everyday life and just go out and enjoy yourself and entertain people which is brilliant.

Darren: When your mates have parties and there’s a Karaoke machine, do you like hog it or do you let other people have a go?

Dean: No. Every time I go to a party, everybody says, “Come on Dean, you get up and sing” and stuff like that all the time but it’s quite nice to a have a little bit of a chill time yourself, if you can.

Amanda: Dean, obviously, you are very well respected. You’ve been in the market for many years. You’ve seen trends come and go. Where are you on this whole combustion engine verses electric thing? Do you see a shift and do you see it either positively or negatively impacting your business?

Dean: I’m all for it, really. I always have been since day one. I was a Tesla owner myself and obviously the performance which is great. So I had that over 18 months before I sold that very recently. I get it. I think they are fantastic. I mean that they are brilliant, I’ve sold quite a few of those. I’ve already got the high chargers installed here at work already in preparation for that. So I try– I future-proofed the business here.

There’s still going to be that love though for the combustion engine, and I think in this sector, you might enjoy the performance and everything, the technology of these new cars but there’s nothing like a V10 or a V12, popping and banging. I think that will continue always especially because this might be a third car for people as opposed as a first car, so that’s why I think we’ll continue to well with this type of car in the future.

Amanda: Finally, Dean, what is your dream car? We like to get a bit of a poll from our guests. Darren’s is an Enzo, what would yours be?

Dean: Enzo, Darren? Nice.

Darren: Yes.

Dean: Nice choice.

Darren: Thank you. Quite-classy, right?

Dean: Being a Porsche man through and through, it has to be a Carrera GT. That’s the dream one day but they certainly appreciating very, very quickly at the moment.

Darren: That is also a great choice and still remains to be quite an undisputed choice in terms of value. I don’t think the Carrera GT has fulfilled its potential yet in values.

Dean: No.

Darren: They’ve just stayed stable for quite some time, then it’s popped up to like £650k  stayed that level for some time at some you’ve seen getting up towards the 800k, which, I guess for the market is a little bit choppy, but that car is going to be a million quid car over time surely.

Dean: Yes, I’ve said it for years, even about five years ago said this will be a million-pound car without a doubt. It’s the last of the proper analog supercars if you like, and it’s a very special car. Indeed. Yes.

Darren: I’m agreeing with our guest again. Look at that.

Amanda: Oh, well, there we go. Dean, it’s been an absolute pleasure. Thanks so much for joining us.

Dean: Pleasure. Absolutely.

Amanda: Now, as always, we would love to hear your feedback, so if you’ve got any comments or if you’ve got any ideas on cars that we’ve talked about, please do drop us a note and let us know. You can obviously engage with us across social media. We’d love to hear from you. You may even be able to persuade Darren to, I don’t know, do a turn in front of the camera. That’d be very exciting, but for now, that wraps up this episode. From me, Amanda and from Darren, we’d like to say goodbye.

Dean: Goodbye. Thank you.