The Strange World of Supercar Values Today I recently ran across an advertisement on Pistonheads for the Koenigsegg CCR that I traded in a dozen years ago for two Ferraris.  At the time the trade “package” was valued at around £210k which I thought was more than fair.  The onus behind the trade at the time was I needed a couple of cars that were a lot more useable on road trips.  The two Ferraris were a 430 Scuderia and a 612 Scaglietti.  I kept the two Ferraris for about a year before selling the 612 Scaglietti to a friend who still has it and trading the 430 Scuderia p ..read more

Analysis of Porsche AG’s 2023 Results  Porsche AG (maker of the 911) IPO’ed in September 2022 and 2023 represented its first full year as a public company.  Porsche released their 2023 results in mid March and they had what I would call a solid first year.  However, before diving into the results in more detail, I thought it might be interesting to take a look at Porsche’s IPO and current ownership structure.   Who Actually Owns Porsche? Prior to Porsche AG’s IPO, its share capital was split 50/50 into non-voting preference shares and voting ordinary shares.  Volksw ..read more

McLaren’s Capital Reorganization is Complete On Friday, March 22nd, McLaren released the following statement below. This statement finally brings closure to what has been a long drawn out highly complex restructuring (more on this below from the Dec 2023 article) of McLaren’s ownership and capital structure.  As usual, what is highly interesting is not only what’s said but what is not.    McLaren Group Completes Successful Capital Reorganisation   Further to the announcement on 19 December, McLaren Group Limited (“the Group”) today announces its capital reorganisation ha ..read more

Aston Martin: Another New CEO Aston Martin Lagonda (AML) just announced that current Bentley Motors (Bentley is a wholly owned subsidiary of Volkswagen Group) Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Adrian Hallmark will take over as CEO by October 1st.  Hallmark will be Aston Martin’s 4th CEO since Lawrence Stroll took over as Executive Chairman in 2020.  Stroll will now have had the same number of CEO’s as Trump had Chiefs of Staff during his presidency and one more than the number of Formula 1 Teams Daniel Riccardo has driven for in the same period.    The search process ..read more

Analysis of Rivian’s 2023 Results Recently, the two COVID EV darlings, Lucid and Rivian reported their 2023 full year results.  I covered Lucid (Analysis of Lucid’s 2023 Results) a couple of weeks ago which now brings us to Rivian.  Both Lucid & Rivian IPO’ed in 2021 and have been developing Electric Vehicles since the mid 2010’s.  Lucid stock peaked at $55.21 in November 2021 and is currently trading at $3.00 per share.  Over the same period, Rivian stock has crashed from a high of $129.95 to $12.69 today.  Both have the very rare honor of making AML look like ..read more

End of Term: Porsche 911 (997.2) GT3 RS  After 7 years, it was time for our red eared Porsche 911 (997.2) GT3 RS to head to a new home.  The GT3 RS was just the latest victim of our household rule that if you aren’t getting driven regularly, you lose your garage space.  In many ways though, the fact that the GT3 RS lasted 7 years is a testament to just how great a car it is.  If you had asked me how long I expected we would have kept the GT3 RS when it first arrived, I would have guessed around 2 years.  It had a good long run up until 2022.  It was the arrival ..read more

Aston Martin’s FY 2023 Results: Turtle Flambé In his opening remarks on the Aston Martin Lagonda (AML) earnings call this week, AML’s Executive Chairman, Lawrence Stroll proudly stated: Just last weekend, the latest season of Drive to Survive was released globally. Featuring Aston Martin in episode one, the most watched show on Netflix in more than 40 countries, the series prominently brings our brand and products to millions of viewers.”   Also today, initial data released by Netflix reveals that the audience numbers for the first three days of Season 6 have been less than stellar. Wi ..read more

Analysis of Maserati’s 2023 Results Stellantis reported their 2023 results last week.  As part of the Stellantis group, Maserati’s numbers were included in the reporting.  Maserati is only brand within the group for which Stellantis breaks out even a limited amount of financial information on.  Based on that limited information, I have pulled together a brief anaylsis on Maserati’s 2023.   A Short History For Maserati, its current era started in 1993 when Fiat acquired Maserati.  In 1999 Ferrari (which at the time was 90% owned by Fiat) took full ownership and contr ..read more

Analysis of Lucid’s 2023 Results This week, the two COVID EV darlings, Lucid and Rivian reported their 2023 full year results.  I will cover Lucid in this article and come back to Rivian shortly.  Lucid caught my attention due to the EV technology agreement it signed with Aston Martin Lagonda (AML) in 2023.  Both Lucid & Rivian IPO’ed in 2021 and have been developing Electric Vehicles since the mid 2010’s.  Lucid stock peaked at $55.21 in November 2021 and is currently trading at $3.00 per share.  Over the same period, Rivian stock has crashed from a high of $12 ..read more

The SSO Awards: 2023 For the final article of 2023, I’ve put together the fourth annual SSO Awards, the motor industry least prestigious honors.  In putting the list together, I have to acknowledge, I have no real basis to be doing this (that’s better left up to the professional journalists and those that actually work in the automotive sector).  Therefore, I’ve taken the liberty to take a different approach that probably only amuses me but does give me a rare opportunity to use my very overpriced and fairly useless education.  Please excuse some of the more esoteric referenc ..read more