If you’re passionate about supercars but can’t afford the hefty $500,000 price tag, your best bet is to experience them up close at a “Cars and Coffee” event. For those in Los Angeles, this means heading to the Malibu Country Mart early on a weekend morning to satisfy your craving for luxury automobiles.

Every Saturday and Sunday morning, the Malibu Country Mart becomes a temporary home to an impressive array of supercars, arguably making it one of the best “Cars and Coffee” gatherings globally. Attendees are treated to a stunning lineup featuring numerous Ferraris, Porsches, Lamborghinis, and McLarens, not to mention the occasional hypercar. These are the kinds of vehicles you’d typically only see at exclusive car shows in locales like Pebble Beach or Monte Carlo.

The Malibu setting adds another layer of allure, often drawing celebrities such as Jerry Seinfeld or Jay Leno, casually enjoying a morning brew amid a backdrop of several million dollars’ worth of automotive art. You might even spot renowned Ferrari collector David Lee. Lee, who amassed his wealth through a successful jewelry business in Southern California’s Inland Empire, has curated one of the world’s most remarkable Ferrari collections outside of Modena. His collection includes two Ferrari F40s, two F50s, and a rare LaFerrari Aperta, valued between $7-10 million—if you can find one for sale. Lee is reputedly the only individual to possess all five of Ferrari’s flagship supercars, famously dubbed the “Big Five.”

• 288 GTO
• F40
• F50
• Enzo,
• LaFerrari

Incredibly, he owns each of these masterpieces in both RED AND YELLOW.

However, every visit to the Malibu Cars and Coffee event, or sighting of an exotic car on the road, perplexes me. A surprising number of these high-end vehicles sport Montana license plates. It seemed unlikely that they were all Montana residents merely visiting Los Angeles for the weekend. It wasn’t until recently that I uncovered the mystery, thanks to insights from YouTuber Cody Detwiler.

Cody Detwiler runs a popular YouTube channel known as WhistlinDiesel, boasting around 10 million followers. His channel offers an intriguing glimpse into the world of cars and the peculiarities that come with it.

“Are you tired of clicking on a deceivingly clickbaited video only for it to be someone doing the same boring crap you saw last week? Yeah me too. Thats why i never waste time uploading a stupid boring video. OK maybe they are stupid lol. Enjoy”

His most popular videos have titles like:

• Cybertruck Durability Test #1 – 35 million views
• Monstermax Drives in the Ocean – 27 million views
• Hellcat on Horse & Buggy Wheels goes to town and does burnouts – 23 million views
• Buying a Firetruck and destroying it in one day – 20 million views

And from two years ago:

• I bought a $400,000 Ferrari just to destroy it – 21 million views

I vividly remember that last video because, as someone who famously loves Ferraris, several friends texted me the link when it first came out. Here it is if you’re curious:

Even though it breaks my heart to watch, it’s undeniably fascinating to see someone take a brand-new Ferrari and intentionally try to run it into the ground. But — spoiler alert — he doesn’t actually destroy the car in that first video. He destroys it in a follow-up video titled:

The Fastest Way to Lose Half a Million Dollars

In that follow-up, which is embedded below, Cody races a 2020 Ferrari F8 Tributo through a dry farm field. As he barrels across the field, the low-cut vegetation appears to get sucked into the wheels and engine bay. The debris ignites, and the Ferrari is consumed in a massive fire. So is the rental minivan that was following alongside to film everything.

At the 1-minute mark of the above video, eagle-eyed viewers may have noticed Cody’s license plate is from… Montana:

Cody Just Got Arrested

Unfortunately for Cody, that Ferrari not only cost him $400k, but it also just cost him his freedom. Last week, Cody was arrested in Williamson County, Tennessee, and charged with two felony counts of tax evasion tied directly to that very same Ferrari F8 Tributo. According to the indictment, prosecutors allege that Detwiler “unlawfully and willfully” attempted to evade more than $500 in taxes owed to the State of Tennessee on the January 2023 purchase of the car. That $500 figure is simply the minimum threshold for a felony. In reality, the tax liability on a $400,000 supercar purchased by a Tennessee resident would likely fall somewhere between $28,000 and $40,000 once state and local sales taxes are factored in.

Detwiler was booked into the Williamson County Jail, had his mugshot taken, and was released later that afternoon after posting a $20,000 bond.

Williamson County Sheriff’s Office

The charges were filed not only against him personally but also against his business entity, WhistlinDiesel LLC. His first hearing is set for November 19. Detwiler immediately addressed the arrest on Instagram, posting photos and video footage of himself being escorted in handcuffs, along with the caption, “Won so big they thought I was cheating. (100% real not AI).” In a follow-up post, he claimed he had “ALWAYS paid ALL of my taxes” and insisted he had received no notice of any issue prior to six officers showing up at his door.

The indictment doesn’t mention YouTube, the farm field, or the fiery videos that made the Ferrari infamous. It focuses purely on taxes. But prosecutors didn’t need to explain the backstory. The car was publicly documented, its use was documented, its destruction was documented, and its Montana plates were documented. In other words, the entire chain of events that normally requires investigators, subpoenas, and months of legwork was already laid out in high-definition video for tens of millions of viewers to see. And that brings us to the part of the story that explains why I always saw Montana plates at Malibu Cars and Coffee — and why those plates can trigger criminal charges like these.

The Montana Tax Evasion Scheme

As it turns out, Montana allows anyone — including non-residents — to form an LLC with almost no friction. Once the LLC exists, that LLC can “own” a vehicle. And if a Montana LLC owns a vehicle, that vehicle can legally be registered in Montana, even if the real owner has never set foot in the state. For exotic-car owners, that creates a buffet of financial incentives. The most obvious perk is tax savings. Because Montana has no sales tax, a buyer, like Cody (allegedly), can avoid paying their home state’s massive levy. Instead of handing over $30,000 to $40,000 in taxes on a $400,000 Ferrari, they pay a Montana LLC service a few hundred dollars a year and stick Montana plates on the car. The taxes on a $7 million LaFerrari Aperta would run between $500,000 and $700,000, depending on the state.

But tax savings are only part of the appeal. States like California impose strict emissions requirements, biannual smog testing, and significant penalties if your car can’t pass. Older Ferraris, Lamborghinis, Porsches, and imported supercars often fail California’s CARB rules or require expensive modifications to comply.

Take a Ferrari F40, for example. An F40 was never built to meet California’s modern emissions standards, and many cars that were imported decades ago only passed with temporary exemptions. Today, an F40 that fails a smog test might need catalytic converter retrofits, updated oxygen sensors, evaporative system repairs, or a full aftermarket emissions package. That kind of work can easily run tens of thousands of dollars… or more. And actually, that’s the best-case scenario. With some cars, there’s simply no guaranteed path to compliance at all. A Montana registration conveniently sidesteps all of that. Montana doesn’t require smog checks, and it doesn’t care where the car is physically located.

Here’s the crucial detail most people either misunderstand or deliberately ignore: you are legally required to register your car in the state where you live and the state where the car is primarily kept. If you live in Tennessee or California, or Florida, and your Ferrari spends its life in your home garage, that car must be registered in that state.

For years, this loophole flew mostly under the radar because exotic cars were a niche hobby and social media didn’t exist. But now every supercar, every plate, every VIN, and every garage location is documented online. Many of these cars have their own social media accounts tracking their every move.

The moment a car appears in a YouTube video, an Instagram reel, a TikTok clip, or a drone shot from a Cars and Coffee event, it creates a trail of evidence. Tax authorities no longer need investigators. They need Google, social media posts, and a cup of coffee. And in Cody Detwiler’s case, they needed exactly one piece of content: a video showing a Tennessee resident driving a Montana-registered Ferrari through a corn field before it burst into flames.

On paper, the charges against Cody are serious. Each count of felony tax evasion carries a potential sentence of one to six years in prison, along with fines, civil penalties, and full repayment of any taxes the state determines were intentionally avoided. In reality, though, Cody is far more likely to face a financial reckoning than an actual prison term. Because this is a non-violent, first-time financial offense, and because he has the means to repay the tax bill immediately, Tennessee will almost certainly push for a plea agreement rather than incarceration. That would probably involve paying the full tax amount, covering interest and penalties that could double the total, and agreeing to a period of supervised probation.

But the bigger consequence may be what his case triggers next. Cody may have inadvertently just set the Montana license plate loophole on fire for everyone in the US. And for that, I bet he will not be welcomed at any Cars and Coffee meetups anytime soon.