Inside Trader Interactive: How real-time registrations and marketplace behavior reshape dealer strategy

Welcome & Show Rundown

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Welcome to another In Wheel Time podcast. This is your place for all things automotive, the award-winning In-Wheel Time car talk show just ahead. What manufacturers and dealers need to do to survive in this rapidly changing automotive marketplace. Mr. Mars has this week in auto history. Jeff has the racing calendar, and I'll get you caught up on the stories making automotive news headlines, all just ahead. Howdy, along with Mike out of this world, Mars, over there in Neederville, we always need more Jeff Zeken sitting next to me, along with vacationing engineer David Ainsley up in the UP of Michigan. It's 55 degrees. I'm Don Armstrong. Long underwear with him. Yeah, no kidding. Well, it's not quite long underwear weather. Not quite. He's buttoning up the cabin for its winter hibernation because it won't be long now. Believe it or not, even though we're roasting in 90 degree heat down here in Houston, Texas. He's going to have drifts of four feet in next week. And a lake, uh was it Lake Huron? I think it's Lake Huron. It's going to be frozen solid. So he's pulling up the water line out of the lake and uh buttoning up the cabin this weekend. So he'll be back with us uh next weekend, actually, for our big remote broadcast. At the bears. At the bears over at the Spring Branch, the former site of the uh Spring Branch High School over there on UC West Hand. Yeah, all the stuff. The Bears Bears. All right. Our next guest this morning is uh Shannon Pinto. He's the vice president of Statistical Surveys at Trader Interactive.

Meet Trader Interactive & SSI

SPEAKER_00 1:42

Shannon, good morning to you and thanks for joining us.

SPEAKER_04 1:45

Good morning, guys. Really appreciate you uh taking the time today.

SPEAKER_00 1:48

Well, you know, you you look like a stat guy. Let me ask you this. Do you keep up with stats in football like professional football?

SPEAKER_04 1:59

Uh not as much as I do on the on the Power Sports, RV, and other and other sides of uh of the of the business here.

SPEAKER_00 2:08

Yeah, well, I mean, yeah, what's a stat guy? Always a stat guy across the board, in my opinion. But what do I know? Yeah, you know, I I've I've got a kind of a stats daughter, uh astrophysicist and all that. So I can kind of relate, and I hear where you're coming from, and certainly lots of respect for you. So tell me about Trader Interactive. What what what do you guys do?

SPEAKER_04 2:30

Yeah, so Trader Interactive is the is the leading uh marketplace for non-automotive uh listings. Uh we have a marketplace for RVs, we have a marketplace for power sports, specifically cycle trader, um, equipment, uh boat, boat marine. Um, the division that I look at uh under uh uh Trader Interactive is uh statistical surveys. And what we do is we pull together information from all over uh the US and Canada and from the DMVs, and we're able to really understand what the registrations are um across the country and package it up, and we're able to kind of give dealers, OEMs, suppliers, banks um what's happening in the in the industry that they can make better decisions.

SPEAKER_00 3:18

Give me an example. For instance, let's let's use um an 18-foot ski boat, uh runabout, open bow, you know, ski well in the middle of it. Give me give me an example of something like that. Is that is that a big seller?

SPEAKER_04 3:35

Well, it's hard for me to say right now because I haven't looked at that, but you know, we can we can get

What the Data Reveals Locally

SPEAKER_04 3:40

into uh at the zip code level exactly what is selling for that type of uh boat across the country, right? So you think about if you want to use that information for marketing, if you want to use that for planning, if you want to use it for whatever you want on the dealer side of things, on the manufacturer side of things, if you want to look at uh leasing or you know um uh what kind of um investment options you want uh with banking and things like that, all that information is there for you to use. So with your particular example, I'd have to go and look look at the information, but we have it across the country, but down to a zip code level as well.

SPEAKER_03 4:18

Would you look at it from that type of description, or would you need something more along like uh a brand name, like a schique or or something more generic like Don was talking about?

SPEAKER_04 4:30

No, we can we can look at it down to a make and model level, right? And you can go down to the length of a boat um if you're looking at an RV as an example. Uh we can get down pretty granular in terms of you know, does it have slide-outs, does it have uh how many people does it sleep? So all that information we can kind of get um um and and compile that and put it out there for people.

SPEAKER_00 4:52

So you guys are kind of like the Kelly Blue Book of Power Sports.

SPEAKER_04 4:56

Well, you know, yeah, kind of. You know, KBB has their their um their need for things like that, but we are giving a lot more information compared to uh Kelly Blue Books, right? In terms of registrations and things like that, in terms of what's happening in in the market. And then what's interesting with the trader interactive piece is we know exactly what people are searching for and what are they clicking on, how are they interacting with that that uh that that inventory on the marketplace, and we can combine both those things with the statistical

Merging Registrations with Search Behavior

SPEAKER_04 5:30

surveys registration to give a really interesting rounded view of what's happening in the market.

SPEAKER_00 5:35

So you make your money from, let's say, for instance, a water sports outlet here in Houston, maybe down at the Bay or uh Lake Condo or something like that. So if I really want to narrow my inventory down to what is actually selling in my zip code, you supply that information to me.

SPEAKER_04 5:58

We can. We can. And and look, some some dealers um look at multiple states, you know, they might want to expand in there, they might be in uh embordering states. Um, so we can give them that information to make better decisions. Like what are what are people buying? What are they looking for? What are they not looking for? Do you have it in your inventory mix? You take that up uh uh you know a couple layers up, and we can do the same thing for a manufacturer nationally, but also getting down to a zip code level as well. Are you that's pretty pretty powerful stuff?

SPEAKER_02 6:31

Are you here in Houston?

SPEAKER_04 6:33

No, um SSI is based in uh Grand Rapids, Michigan. Oh, okay. And uh and uh Trader Inactive is in uh Virginia Beach.

SPEAKER_02 6:41

Well the reason the reason I say that is we have the auto motive show here in Houston once a year in January, and they combine the auto shows with all the uh the the marine uh folks. So they divide the the venue up half and half. You could you get statistics or maybe support that uh type of venue with with your your analytical stuff?

SPEAKER_04 7:01

Absolutely, absolutely. I mean, we we again we service a bunch of different verticals outside of automotive and you know getting a sense in terms of what's happening now, um in terms of listings and what are people looking for and what are they searching, all that information can

Dealer Use Cases & Show Strategy

SPEAKER_04 7:18

be can be generated and provided at the end of the day.

SPEAKER_00 7:21

So I'm gonna I'm gonna show my ignorance here because I'm not really too familiar with let's just say uh a dealer that sells multiple models, brands of boats, and mainly recreational stuff. I'm not talking about the great big commercial stuff, but I'm talking about recreational stuff. And so I've got an inventory and uh I buy from manufacturers, probably a half a dozen of them. So I can really pick and choose from the manufacturers what I want to carry based on what is selling in my general area of Texas. Makes sense.

SPEAKER_04 7:58

Absolutely, and that's where we we work with dealers to go in uh eyes wide open to really understand what's happening in your in your market, right? Is new selling uh well, is pre-owned selling well. How do you want to diversify your inventory? How do you want to market the them? Uh, because we're also able to understand the demographic profile of who is purchasing things in your particular area. So you combine that inventory strategy with a marketing plan, you can really speak to the audience in terms of who is buying what and where and when, right?

SPEAKER_00 8:35

So do you have uh, for instance, uh like uh like an auto trader, they mainly focus on automotive. Do you have a publication, whether it's online or in paper, that that you guys supply this information to?

SPEAKER_04 8:50

Yeah, I mean, we because uh stat surveys is part of Trader Interactive, we're tightly coupled with their marketplace. So we have Cycle Trader, we got RV Trader, we got Boatmart, um, you know, so we're able to really share information with both sides of the business to really get a rounded view. And if you're a dealer, you can understand what's happening in real time with consumers. And if you also have stat surveys, you also know what are people buying um in the market as well.

SPEAKER_03 9:20

So, how how when you say real time, how real real time are we talking about? Because I'm I'm thinking, like Jeff said, the automotive show comes up at the end of January. So if I'm a big RV dealer in Houston, uh, because you can't buy a car at the at the automotive show. You can look at them, you can set it up and all that, but you can buy a boat and you can buy an RV if you want. So if I'm that RV dealer and I'm going, can I come to you and pull data so I can decide what inventory I want to take? Is it that real?

SPEAKER_04 9:52

It's yes, absolutely. Because you know, with the with the uh on our marketplace, an RV trader or a cycle trader or boatmart, people are looking at stuff right now. So we we get a stream of everything that's happening in real time, right? When someone asks for it, we don't want to give them you know, minute by minute because it's not very useful. We want to aggregate that, put it in some sort of like this is what's happening in a week, in a month, and you know, a quarter, a year, 30 days, 40. Yeah, absolutely. So that's absolutely something that we can provide um our customers in terms of hey, what do you want to take over to the show? What's actually resonating with consumers right now? And that way they're not taking a whole bunch of stuff that they don't need.

SPEAKER_03 10:37

Or they can't sell.

SPEAKER_04 10:38

Or they can't sell, absolutely. Yeah, I mean, the interesting thing with the with the internet now, and you know, and and this is very um uh relevant to automotive, people

Consumer Access, Privacy, and Carfax-like Reports

SPEAKER_04 10:48

are doing a lot of their research before they come to those shows. They're coming to the shows pretty much to to pull the trigger on things, right?

SPEAKER_03 10:54

Put your hands on it so you got a feel for it, you know what you're looking for.

SPEAKER_04 10:58

Exactly, exactly. So, you know, the the type of research people are doing is is also very different. So making sure that you have um uh you know a stock of what people are looking for is is extremely important as well.

SPEAKER_00 11:12

So, as a consumer, do I have to pay you to access your information?

SPEAKER_04 11:18

Well, on the stats survey side, we're only available for like businesses like what I'm saying, banks or dealers or manufacturers. Now, on on the marketplace side, consumers can go in there like a dealer and sell their um their units, right? If they want to sell an RV, if they want to sell a boat, if they want to sell a motorcycle, an ATV, whatever it is, there is an opportunity for them to push their um you know their unit that they're not, they don't want any more to um other uh dealers or or other private uh citizens to to purchase as well.

SPEAKER_03 11:52

So does that transaction become part of your data that you're watching for a certain area?

SPEAKER_04 11:58

We don't get any of the private information, um, we only get the dealer um information. Um so if the dealer sells it to a uh to a private citizen such as myself, that's all registered in in the DMVs and and that information we uh we do get access to.

SPEAKER_00 12:16

Interesting. Does the information that you supply to the dealers let's say for instance that the the boat was in an accident and it got repaired? Do you happen to make note of that?

SPEAKER_04 12:28

Yeah, it's it's funny that you're saying uh saying that uh we actually are starting to put that information on our website. It's kind of like Carfax, where we have a different version of it. Um that's actually being uh applied to each of the listings on the on the marine side. We're looking to open that up for other uh areas that we also do business with.

SPEAKER_03 12:49

Interesting.

SPEAKER_00 12:51

So yeah, go ahead, Mike.

SPEAKER_03 12:52

Well, I'm just kind of wondering, I'm envisioning the RVs, the motorcycles, the the jet skis, cars, all that stuff. Do you get into

Beyond DMVs: Multi-source Market Intelligence

SPEAKER_03 13:00

other areas or is it kind of based on the fact that you can get your information from the a DMV or a database type thing?

SPEAKER_04 13:07

Yeah, that's a great question. I mean, the DMV information is just very base information, right? I I know where something was was registered, I know when, I know what it is, but it's it's very basic. So we we kind of get that basic information and we supplement it with all sorts of other sources. We got information directly from the the manufacturers, we get it from dealers, we get it from banks, so we compile all that and kind of give a really uh rounded view of what's happening in the market. So it's just not one source that we're depending on. We are actually gathering it from many different bits of information to kind of get a good view.

SPEAKER_03 13:44

So, could could a company, let's say in wheel time, that was interested in knowing who is selling cars, what where's the hot cars in the Houston market area? Could somebody like us come to you and say, hey, we want these zip codes or this market area of Houston, we want to know like who's selling the most cars or the top three cars?

Limits: No Auto, Deep RV/Marine Insights

SPEAKER_04 14:06

Yeah, so obviously we don't do cars, but any if you want to know for RVs, we can definitely tell you who are the top uh selling dealers in Houston. And because we're we're collecting and and know who is selling that, we also know what they're selling, you know. We we and because we've been in business for for decades since the 60s, uh we're we have data you know on the RV side for the last two two to three decades in terms of who's selling what and when and how and stuff like that.

SPEAKER_00 14:35

Very interesting. Yeah, well, listen, it's great to talk to you. We sure do appreciate you taking the time to explain all that to us. All of us car freaks wonder about that sometimes and go in, well, let's see. There is this little travel trailer I've been looking at. So you would have that information, and probably your dealer would also have that information.

SPEAKER_04 14:54

Yeah, absolutely. And we we try to tell dealers to use it as much as they can go in with all eyes open and make a decision that that's based on data.

SPEAKER_00 15:02

Well, you know, hunting season's coming up down here in Texas,

Closing the Interview & Takeaways

SPEAKER_00 15:06

and uh, we're kind of looking for a little two-man travel trailer so we could take the wife out there in the hill country. Yeah, up to the deer camp. Two-man. Two-man, yeah. Well, there's that. But Shannon, thank you. We appreciate your time, man.

SPEAKER_04 15:20

Thanks, folks.

SPEAKER_03 15:20

Really appreciate it. Yeah, that is very interesting. Thank you very much.

SPEAKER_00 15:24

Yep. Um, all

Racing Calendar Highlights

SPEAKER_00 15:26

right. Well, just ahead. Jeff has the racing calendar, and uh, Mr. Mars has this week in auto history, and I'm gonna bring you some of the stories making automotive news headlines this week, and we got some goodies for you. The Unwheel Time Car Talk Show is back in a flash. You've waited all summer and it's finally here. The Tailpipes and Tacos Fall 25 Cruise In Car Show. It's been a while, but the popular Tailpipes and Tacos Cruise In returns to the Loopy Tortilla Tex Max in Katy, Saturday, October 18th. Make any donation to Shirley's kids and get a free breakfast taco. There'll be mimosas and bloody merry's, too. Get to the best cruise in of the year. Tailpipes and Tacos Car Show, Saturday, October 18th, 8 to 11 a.m. Cruise in, make a donation of any amount, and grab a free Loopy Tortilla breakfast taco. Tailpipes and Tacos only happens at the Loopy Tortilla Tex-Mex in Katy, 703 West Grand Parkway at Kingston Boulevard, just south of the Katy Freeway. Join the Car Camarottery, and your car will automatically compete for one of three Chili Pepper trophies at no charge. Paul is here, and what better way to celebrate than with a free taco at Tailpipes and Tacos Cruise In Car Show, Saturday, October 18th, 8 to 11 a.m. It's the cruise in you won't want to miss. Loopy tortillas, tailpipes and tacos in Katy.

SPEAKER_05 16:40

Time to fire up those engines and pay tribute to the folks who make freedom possible. Is rolling in for Veterans Day weekend. Friday night, downtown cruise. Saturday, 400 of the coolest rides in Texas. Proceeds, help veterans, shelters, food pantries, and scholarships. Sponsored by Craig's Jewelry, November 7th and 8th, Main Street, Bastro. Don't miss it!

SPEAKER_00 17:11

No, I think one of the things that we miss in that is not only the commercial itself, but we miss the music. Have you listened to the music behind it? Yeah, yeah. Music's good. The little picking and grinning.

SPEAKER_02 17:22

Yeah, little occasion stuff going on. I've I've got a hankering for Popeyes now.

SPEAKER_00 17:26

Really?

SPEAKER_02 17:27

Red beans and rice.

SPEAKER_00 17:30

Do you eat Popeyes? I do. Definitely I do about the red beans and rice. And and where do you go? Popeyes. Where? By your house? Because the Popeyes by the house. Well, I just check it. Yeah, ours closed down.

SPEAKER_03 17:46

Pardon me? Ours closed down. It's all boarded up over here now.

SPEAKER_00 17:51

Have you checked your phone messages uh in the past half hour, Mr. Morris? Apparently not. Okay, well, I'll let you deal with that. Um uh hey, Inwheel Time, invite you to join our live broadcast every Saturday, 10 to noon central on inwheeltime.com, Facebook, and YouTube. We hope you check us out. If you miss us, uh, you'll be able to connect us connect with us through your favorite podcast channel. Hey, a couple things I wanted to point out. Tailpipes and tacos is next weekend. We had a prior commitment with the uh Spring Branch High School

This Week in Auto History

SPEAKER_00 18:22

uh Foundation, and so we're gonna be going there. But uh I wanted to remind everybody that's listening out in the Katy area, tailpipes and tacos at the Katy Lupi Tortilla. And uh we hope that you will uh attend. Attend, yes, eight to eleven uh next Saturday there. And um we you hear the spot for uh the uh Spring Branch Foundation. So um that's going to be we'll be on the air 10 to noon out there. All right, just wanted to make sure that everybody was on board. Understood. Time now for the racing calendar by Jeff Zeken, sponsored by Texas Muscle Car Club Challenge.

SPEAKER_02 19:01

Thank you for that. We've got IMSA last day today. Is uh the Petite Lemon's in uh Atlanta, it's going to be on Peacock at noon today, Eastern 11 o'clock central. So it's gonna be on here in just a few minutes on NBC. And then you've got sled dog racing coming up, coming up in December. We're gonna do that. Are the dash hounds involved in that? Uh no dash hounds, they're too short, they're little tiny legs.

SPEAKER_01 19:21

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 19:22

Uh, then you got mushers in in uh March of next year. Formula One is gonna be on the 19th, which is next Sunday. Uh I think they're gonna be wrapping up their season here in about another few months.

SPEAKER_01 19:33

A few months.

SPEAKER_02 19:34

Yeah, this is a long season. Um NH NHRA is this weekend. They're at Texas Motorplex. Good luck up there to everyone. Uh Craftsman Truck, they're off. They're gonna be back next week at Talladega, I believe on Friday.

SPEAKER_00 19:47

I cannot imagine a truck doing 200 miles an hour. Well, yeah. Talladega. You know, Talladega is two and a third miles long. Is it a third? I thought it was two point six. Maybe it's two and two-thirds.

SPEAKER_02 20:02

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 20:02

It's it's long. It's it's listen, you got to get the binoculars out. You're sitting in the grandstand to see them in the back stretch. Yeah, that's all.

SPEAKER_03 20:08

Yeah, they've got room to get wound up too. That's why they're doing all that speed.

SPEAKER_02 20:12

And then Xfinity is uh today, Las Vegas Motor Speedway, and then you got the Cut Boys is tomorrow again, Las Vegas Motor Speedway. So good luck to everybody out there. And wear your helmet, put your seatbelt on.

SPEAKER_00 20:24

Yeah, um, yeah, because you know, NHRA in Las Vegas is always the Halloween event. And then right after that event in Las Vegas, then they go to SEMA. But Halloween in Las Vegas is crazy. Matter of fact, I saw a thing on the internet yesterday that uh the uh couple that uh decorated their house for Halloween had to call the fire department. Oh, well, yeah. Did you see that at the window?

SPEAKER_02 20:51

That was on earlier in the week, and actually the fire department uses that house for training. Yeah, and they use it for people to check their own.

SPEAKER_00 20:56

But you drive by and you look at it, the fire is intense. What it looks like inside the house. It's all lighting. It's all lighting and done uh on the on the in the windows.

SPEAKER_02 21:05

And they have smoke that bellows from the rafters to make it look like it's on fire. And they they interviewed the police chief. He says, Yeah, it's it's unique. Uh it's a little scary to look at. It's it serves a purpose for training.

SPEAKER_00 21:17

Interesting.

SPEAKER_02 21:18

Mr. Mars.

SPEAKER_03 21:19

Yes, sir. Uh, this week in auto history, sir. We found quite a few things in this week in auto history that were rather interesting. For example, in 1901, the very first Detroit auto show opened with two electric and two steam-powered cars. Now, that uh kind of gives you an idea how long we've been jacking around with electric cars and still haven't figured it out. Now, William Metzger was the only automobile dealer in Houston, I mean in Detroit at the time, and so he was an organizer of this big event. It was held at the Light Guard Armory, and it stayed there until 1907 when the newly formed Detroit Automobile Dealers Association held their own show. Now, this was in 1907, and that first event took place at the beer garden near the Belle Isle Bridge. So that kind of tells you where that headed. Then uh 1913, Ford introduces the moving assembly line at their Highland Park plant. Now, this is the first moving line assembly line they put it in operation and it revolutionized their drastically the reduction the production time for the Model T. It took 12 hours prior, and they got it down to just 93 minutes to build this car, and that's one of the reasons they could build so many of them, and they actually got it so cheap and put so many of them out there into the market. 1919, General Motors actually acquired Chevrolet. Now, this is kind of a weird deal because originally um Chevlet was founded by Louis Chevrolet and the GM founder, William C. Durant, because Durant got killed kicked out of GM because he tried to buy killed, killed out of kicked out of Ford. I mean GM because he was trying to buy Ford, overextended the company. They almost went bankrupt, so they fired him. So he went over and helped form Chevrolet, which in turn started buying a bunch of other companies and any of our he ended up getting back into GM as the uh leader of the GM, and that's where kind of moved Chevrolet into becoming the most popular and profitable brand that GM had for several decades. Then in 1926, the first U.S. highway numbering system approved to um because they had all these auto trails, so they started they had created all these little road associations, and you couldn't figure out how to get any place. So they did this, and this is kind of what it looked like when they started doing it, and they standardized it with the joint board on interstate highways actually coming around and making everything uh and became the American Association of State Highway Officials, acronym AASHO. I'll let you say that, Don. And then they they got the numbering systems rationalized and standardized. Now, the way it worked, in case you didn't know, numbers such as uh U.S. Highway 1, US 66, that's how they simplified

Industry News: Ford Supply & Lending Probe

SPEAKER_03 24:08

it down to where they were going north and south, etc. Then in 1945, post-war auto production resumes in the United States because they had slowed this during the war effort because everybody had to make tanks and cannons and all the good things that you need for armies. And so they resumed the civilian production in October of 1945. Now, brands like Forge Shrival and Chrysler actually saw record sales and reshaped the U.S. economy during this time because all the people, all the pinup demand for cars because they couldn't get them, plus the people returning from the war effort, uh, really wanted to buy cars, so they really sold a lot of cars. 1973, the OPEC oil embargo begins. I know there's a lot of people out there that don't, they weren't here, they didn't understand what was going on there. Uh, and I did not understand that this global energy crisis was caused because um the Arab petroleum exporting countries decided they were going to embargo everybody in the world that helped Israel during their one of their little short wars, and so that's what they did. But what that in turn did change consumers. That's where we started buying smaller, more efficient cars, and uh got us into the 1970s automotive landscape where all the horsepower went away, killed the muscle cars, and just changed everything and started us down the path we're in now. 1998, Mercedes Benz and Swatch launched the smart car. I always loved the name of the smart car. It uh it was a little two-seater, it was designed for urban mobility, very compact, fully fuel efficient, very niche big niche vehicle. And I remember when they brought them into Austin, I drove one of them actually, and they thought, oh, the college kids are gonna rent them and take care of them and all that stuff, but in Texas, it doesn't work, it's just too far. You've got to drive 20 miles to get any place. The car wouldn't go over 50 miles an hour, at least that one that year wouldn't. So that was kind of uh they moved it on out, took it away. So then uh in 2013, Tesla launched their supercharger expansion, and this is where it really started getting where electric vehicle infrastructure started coming out, and they extended the routes across America. This is the way it looked. They um it helped with the EV adoption and pressured competitors, everybody else that was trying to build their cars and build their EV cars, they had to have a way of charge them so that they could go further. So now we're kind of working around. Hopefully, one of these days we're gonna standardize on something that all the EVs can handle and even all the EVs can do, and that'll help the market a whole lot. But until then, that's just some of the things that were this week in automotive history.

SPEAKER_00 26:43

All right. Thank you, sir. Um, got a couple of stories we want to get in here. A fire at a New York aluminum plant that is expected to affect production of Ford Motor Company's F-150 truck for months will sap up to one billion dollars from the automaker's earnings, according to Evercore ISI analysts, whoever they are. This story from Automotive News. Meanwhile, Ford is pausing production next week of the F-150 lightning electric pickup in Dearborn because of the aluminum plant fire, according to a union official memo shared with workers at the plant, viewed by Reuters. Uh, they said the Rouge Electric Vehicle Center will be off next week. Ford began using mainly aluminum-bodied vehicles on its F-150 truck in 2014 to reduce the weight of the vehicle. And bankrupt subprime autolender Tri Hol Tri-Color Holdings appears to have been a pervasive fraud of extraordinary proportion, according to a lawyer helping oversee its liquidation. Uh, they said that on October 3rd, underscoring the scale of the company's alleged misconduct, even as investigators continue to unravel its finances. Initial reports indicate potentially systemic levels of fraud, according to a presentation made in court by Charles R. Gibbs, who is representing the court appointed trustee. While Gibbs didn't elaborate on the nature of the fraud, a preliminary examination of Tricolor's record shows that at least 29,000 loans pledged to creditors were tied to vehicles already securing other debts, according to Bloomberg. Roughly 40% out of some 70,000 active tricolor loans, which were used as collateral for bank warehouse lines and asset back scrutinizations, whatever that is, contained attributes identical to those of at least one other loan, according and including vehicle identification numbers, according to people involved in the probe who asked not to be identified. It's a big mess, and I bring that story up because Tricolor is located here in Houston. Houston. Several locations. Great. Way to go. Yeah. Hey, we'd love to

Station Breaks, Events, and Sign-off

SPEAKER_00 28:52

hear from you. Shoot us an email. The address here is info at inwheeltime.com. We are back right after this quick break. You own a car you love. Why not let Gulf Coast Auto Shield protect it? Houstonian John Gray invites you to his state-of-the-art facility to introduce you to his specialist team of auto enthusiasts. We promise you'll be impressed. Whether you're looking to massage your original paint to a like new appearance, apply a ceramic coating, install a paint protection film, nano ceramic window tent, or new windshield protection called ExoShield, Gulf Coast Auto Shield is where Houston's car people go. Curbed your wheels? Instead of buying new, why not have them repaired? How about a professionally installed radar detector? Gulf Coast Auto Shield does that too. Get a peek inside the shop and look at the services offered by getting online and heading to gcautoshield.com. Better yet, stop by their facility at 11275 South Sam Houston Tollway, just south of the Southwest Freeway and get a personal tour. Gulf Coast Auto Shield is your place to go for all things exterior. Call them today, 832 930 5655 or gcautoshield.com. Rev up your engines. It's time to roll back in style at the back to the panel. Car Show. Join the Spring Branch Senior High School Foundation Saturday, October 18th at Cornerstone Academy, 9016 Westview Drive in Houston. Classic cars, trucks, and motorcycles, family fun, food, music, and memories. There's something for everyone. Proceeds benefit local students and programs. Don't miss the shine, the chrome, and the nostalgia. 10-2, Saturday, October 18th, back to the Past Car Show. Springbranch Bears.com slash Car Show for more information. In Wheel Time will be there too. That's it for this podcast episode of the In Wheel Time Car Show. I'm Don Armstrong, inviting you to join us for our live show every Saturday morning on Facebook, YouTube, Twitch, and our InWheeltime.com website. Podcasts are available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, iHeartPodcast, Podcast Addict, TuneIn, Pandora, and Amazon Music. Keep listening, and we'll see you soon.