The Finesse of Miami’s Luxury Car Hustle - YouTube

When you think of Miami, you think of fast cars, flashy jewelry,

and the clubs, you know?

The routine is to show off, to stun.

And they just want to show their ass.

That's what it is.

Look at me, look at me, look at me.

My industry survives on that, strives on that,

lives off that.

The car business in general is a tough business.

So, the car rental business, even more so.

Anybody that finds out that you can make money

and drive a Ferrari,

I mean, they're diving in headfirst.

There's so many real celebrities out here.

Everybody wants to be a celebrity, you know what I'm saying?

So you get a little Lambo, get a little Ferrari.

People look at you, you know, people go crazy with celebrity.

You know what I'm saying? "Who's that?"

"I want to know who that is." You know?

Money attracts money, man.

And that's the lifestyle.

Period.

If you don't got it, you want to act like you got it.

The game is finesse.

Everybody in this room has lied one time in their life.

<i>I just want to be blunt.</i>

<i>Have you been finessing me?</i>

[Miami Hustle: Luxury Cars]

[MVP Exotic Rentals Miami, Florida]

Bull. I just **** told you.

Why do you always like to act stupid? You waste time doing that--

But we paid two different people--

Dougie, we paid Matty, because Matty took care of it.

He's the one that stole them from them.

So we're paying him--

Technically, they're not his anymore.

-Technically. -Did we get paid, technically?

Did we get $1,000 for a Wraith for four days?

There you go. Where are you going?

To get my keys.

So this is it.

We're one of the only companies out here with an actual showroom.

We're not just in a warehouse.

Got every toy you can think of, starting with the Rolls-Royce Wraith.

One of our most popular cars.

Take you guys down to the 488, one of our newest cars,

and one of the nicest cars in the fleet.

Boom.

2018 488 Spider,

almost a $400,000 window.

And... if you came to spend the real money, this is what it looks like.

You know, if you come to the city, visit Miami Beach,

and you see a car on the road, most likely came from here.

So, we cater to just about anybody and everybody here.

Athletes, music artists, producers.

And then just your guys from your neighborhood blocks

that want to come stun in Miami.

I want to give a shout out to Instagram, as a matter of fact.

I think if it wasn't for Instagram we probably wouldn't be as busy

as we are today.

But I mean, when you come to Miami

you've got to snap.

You got to post the picture,

sometimes sitting on the damn car.

Which I hate. Be more creative.

Everybody can sit on the car, take a picture.

Get creative, I don't know. You know?

But, yeah.

Thanks to Instagram, we do a lot of business.

I mean the culture, it is what it is today.

You can't come to Miami and say you were in Miami,

unless you drove a Lambo, a Rari, a Rolls Royce.

I mean, it's like going to the golf course.

Everybody got to get a golf cart, you know?

But we definitely understand our clients,

and that's just where it's at today, you know?

These guys rap about the Bentley Truck,

now the Bentley Truck is my most popular car.

It's that easy, you know?

We know what our competitors do, we know who our competitors are.

Not everybody's playing clean, not everybody's playing fair.

Like I said, in the last year and a half the business has grown.

So we're kind of able to...

not worry about what everybody else is doing.

But yeah, there's definitely some competitors out there.

And guys that are in the business

that probably shouldn't be in the business,

they're just not doing the business right.

A lot of these artists, a lot of people, they all do something

to stay up until 8:00 in the morning and then start it all over again.

You know what I'm saying?

All of it done. ****, dude.

[During the course of filming, VICE was unable to confirm]

[many of the statements made by David &quot;DZ Baby&quot; Zanone.]

You know, we about to go out to go have some fun,

go meet up with a couple of my clients and ****, bro.

And you know just...

This is the time that Miami turns up, 1:00 am.

This is it, just starting.

Long ass night, boy, it ain't even started yet.

I got one minute of sleep.

One minute.

You know what I'm saying, if you're going to get it

you've got to work real, real hard to get it, you know?

No sleep, fine.

You know, a couple of days no sleep, whatever.

Can't eat today, that's fine, boom.

You know, money over everything.

Money is the motivation.

Period.

If I have 32 cars, and 30 of them don't go out,

the whole day I don't feel right.

You know, I'm going to go out there and do what I got to do.

If it's hand to hand, if it's face to face,

&quot;Yo, what's up man.&quot;

You know, because cars out here will forever be.

That's Miami

This is what we work for, man.

You know what I'm saying, like?

I'm 23 years old, if you had told me two years ago...

I'd be sitting in a Lambo, let alone owning one,

I would've laughed at you.

The cars came out of nowhere.

Never was I ever thinking about Lamborghinis and Ferraris.

I always saw them but it wasn't...

I knew it was way out of my range.

I knew I would never drive a car like that,

let alone own a car like that.

And then it was somebody's birthday, or something like that.

And I called somebody, and I say,

&quot;Hey, man. What does it cost to rent one of these?&quot;

Came all the way down to Miami to pick the car up.

And people just went nuts.

It's like I was a real celebrity.

It was the adrenaline, bro, it was a drug.

I'm like, &quot;Damn, this is awesome. This is awesome.&quot;

So as much as I could,

I'm renting them out, renting them out, renting them out.

Start taking pictures, posting them.

Once I started taking pictures, I was getting hit up,

&quot;Hey, man. Yo, nice car. Where can I get a car like that?&quot;

And then...

I started making money.

Because I started sub-leasing them.

<i>So what does that mean?</i>

I would rent a car and I would bring it to somebody else,

because they couldn't rent it.

And then I would charge them a lot more.

So it was a nice little side hustle at the time, because I'm like,

&quot;Alright, cool.&quot;

I saved up $980,000 between me, my brother, and my other partner.

I got that $900,000 from music,

club promotions, drugs, hustling.

My company down here in Miami is South Beach Exotics.

I own 50 percent, I partner with a private... person

to help me insure the cars

Really, my thing is... when they come into town,

they come to me, because I'm not a dude that'll look out.

Know what I'm saying? I'm not a dude that'll,

&quot;What's up, bro. You know, the insurance ain't good, alright.&quot;

I mean, I'm going to take that risk that nobody else will take.

It's a facade, man. It's a facade.

People come down here and spend thousands of dollars just to be seen

and noticed.

People want to feel what it feels like to be a millionaire for a day.

You know? And I can supply that.

Miami is full of a lot of fakes, you know?

I don't really like talking down on anybody,

but it's full of a lot of people that say they they do what they don't.

You know?

I just got a call last minute to pull up at a video shoot.

So, they're shooting a little music video.

**** like this happen all the time, sometimes.

You know, I get a call, my boy call me,

&quot;Yo, what's up, man? Pull up.&quot;

Sometimes it's sketchy and in the middle of...

nowhere.

But... it is what it is.

Money talks, **** walks.

And sometimes you pull up on people that actually got a decent amount

of followers and a decent amount of clout.

I mean, the cars and the music go hand-in-hand.

So, you know. And then he becomes a potential client, boom.

Add him to my clientele.

I always wanted to do music.

I started as a rapper, and that kind of picked up down here.

I was kind of like a childhood star for a while.

I got signed to Interscope.

I got signed to them, I was signed to them for about three years.

I got shelved.

<i>Whose contract are you signed under?</i>

I'm signed with We The Best, which is DJ Khaled's label.

<i>You're signed as a...</i>

Producer, production.

I recorded a couple of real big Grammy Award-winning songs.

And I signed a nondisclosure, so...

I guess I can talk about, I mean, I'm allowed to talk about...

what I've produced, right?

<i>You would know the specifics of your non-disclosure agreement.</i>

<i>You know what I'm saying?</i>

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well...

I got paid really good in the beginning.

I got paid really good.

As the label grew

and got a lot more exposure, they just hired new people, I guess.

Not that they were better than me, just that...

I'm used when they need me.

The money that I have now, now it's all off cars.

Everything that I have now, every dollar I make now is all off cars.

Since 2015, I've made about...

$4.5, $5 million, just off exotic cars.

Renting to celebrities, renting to regular people,

pulling up to music videos.

We've done videos...

with pretty much every rapper you can think of.

Now I want you to meet the second Matt.

Our in-house photographer, I call him the shooter.

Matt's kind of the **** in the office,

so he kind of gets along with the...

the rap artists.

So for that reason, I think they understand each other.

I kind of do have that reputation as being the one that has the most

attitude here.

And then when he's doing a late night pickup,

and then the car doesn't make it back to the store.

All you have to do is track it,

and you'll find it at the local strip club.

That's where he spends most of his after hours.

But in his defense, he does meet a lot of people out there.

He socializes and networks while he's out there, so...

he does bring us in some good clients from there too.

You got to spend money to make money.

Yeah. Matty is the nightcrawler.

Yeah, the i8s going out for one day and then the Maserati is...

just coming back to the office.

Or I don't know if he's taking it home, or what the **** he's doing.

I don't know. I'll figure it out.

Alright, so we just got to Wynwood.

We left the shop.

That's where everyone meets up.

Pretty much meeting up, that's how I first got into the car scene

was hanging out with all these guys.

If it wasn't for the regular cars or tuned-up cars,

I would probably never be in this exotic car scene.

Yeah, you guys ready?

Vamonos.

Honestly, I'm not going to lie, I race them.

I go race cars all the time.

I mean...

I guess you can say I like speed.

I've gotten my few shares of tickets in these cars.

Which is kind of an awkward conversation having with my boss,

like, &quot;Hey, I got a ticket in the Ferrari.&quot;

Well, yeah. You know how that goes.

My boss might hate it, but I take the cars with me

to either the strip club, or I go to the clubs with some clients.

But if I'm not in the car, then they probably won't take me serious.

It's kind of a lifestyle.

Whether it's Lil Pump,

to the local D-Boy in the neighborhood.

They've seen the car, they want to ask you a question,

&quot;Man, how are you driving that car?&quot;

And I don't lie to them, I tell them, &quot;Hey, look it's a rental.

If you want to rent one, here's my number.&quot;

And they just... and from there, I got a new client.

Yeah, I own this car outright.

I got...

in my name and my company's name, I got about 16 cars.

In total, between everybody, all of my partners, we have 32 cars.

I'm about to go to Mr Jones and go kick it with Busta Rhymes,

and my boy Cuban Link.

It's important for me to come out because I network, you know?

I meet a lot of people that I don't know through the people I know.

So... especially the celebrities and different things.

The nightlife out here, it's about how you pull up,

you know what I mean, to these clubs.

So I say, &quot;Hey, man. If you ever need cars, you ever need something...&quot;

&quot;I can do it.&quot;

If I'm out on the street and I run into whoever,

Future, Lil Wayne, Busta Rhymes, Kent Jones, whoever--

<i>Do you know those guys?</i>

I know all of those guys. You know, I know a lot of the people.

My relationships, I'm still building a lot.

And that's why I go out.

I go out to network.

You know, to meet these people.

<i>Do you think that people are desperate for fame?</i>

Of course. People do crazy things.

It's all social media now, that's it.

Social media is the biggest **** that's out there.

These celebrities are nothing like...

what you think they are.

<i>If somebody opened up your life and they said,</i>

<i>&quot;We want to get to know the real you...&quot;</i>

If somebody really... wanted to get to know the real me--

<i>Because I want to get to know the real you.</i>

I...

<i>I want to know the real you, brother.</i>

I'm not a good person, bro.

I'm not.

<i>I just want to be blunt.</i>

<i>Have you been finessing me?</i>

Part of it, yeah.

I mean, this game is...

a lot of it's fake.

<i>Is this actually your...</i>

<i>really your whip, just be honest bro.</i>

Royalty Exotics owns this whip.

I work with them real close.

I make a lot of money for being 23 years old.

Is it all clean money? No.

Have I robbed a lot of people?

Yeah.

Not gunpoint, not violently.

My mind is something that never stops working.

I've burned so many good bridges...

being selfish.

Do I drive exotic cars every day?

Yes.

Do I rent exotic cars out illegally?

Yes.

Do I get to go and chill with celebrities every day?

Yes.

Am I a celebrity myself?

No.

Maybe that's just what it is.

I don't know.

I just want to be liked.

Still to this day.

I'm a nobody that wants to be a somebody, I guess.

But I'm going to be a somebody.

With or without you guys.

With or without the world.

I'm going to be successful.

Period.

In whatever it is I want to do.

And I'm sorry, I'm sorry for...

for...

making this harder than it had to be, I guess.

<i>Maybe we can just film you riding out.</i>

Alright.

[South Beach Exotics and Royalty Exotic Cars both denied]

[having any affiliation with David Zanone.]

[David late confirmed to VICE]

[that he had lied about his affiliation with those companies.]

[He never owned 50% of South Beach Exotics]

[and the owner of the car he posed with is still unknown.]

[We The Best Music Group]

[denied having any affiliation with David Zanone.]

[David still maintains that he is affiliated with the label.]

It's a very competitive business.

And sometimes the people that we're competing against...

they shouldn't even be on the court with us.

And I know a bit about that because I didn't start the business...

the way I'm running it today.

I opened up a dealership first.

Put a temp tag on the car, or a dealer tag,

and sent it on its way.

No trackers.

But yeah, back then I didn't know what I was doing.

Sending it out,

not verifying insurance.

I'm not going to throw shade or stop anybody from doing it.

But there's definitely guys out there that we see

on their Instagram, you know, &quot;exotic car rental company.&quot;

And they're sitting there with four or five cars that they got from...

whoever, and they're trying to build the fleet off.

You know I started just like that, so, you know, here we are today

with something real.

Sometimes you see people get in the business for the wrong reasons.

But... you can't blame them.