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Reviewed: Lucid Gravity; SP40 Restomod

The Smoking Tire

Reviewed: Lucid Gravity; SP40 Restomod

191 annotations

Zach and Matt kick off with two very different targets: the “800 plus horsepower electric minivan” Lucid Gravity and the SP40 Speedster—“a not Resto mod, but totally new, old, cool thing from Argentina.” Lucid’s comfort tech gets credit for easing back pain, but the hosts nitpick heat settings, camera behavior, and an instrument-cluster layout that wastes screen space. They also dive into steering feel, air-suspension expectations, and EV/enthusiast-car buying logic—plus a deep detour into restomod identity and how to keep classics street-legal.

0:00 --:--

00:55

Term

electric minivan

An electric minivan is a minivan that runs on electricity instead of gas. Because it’s electric, it drives differently and uses a battery and electric motors rather than an engine.

01:00

Car

SP40 Speedster

The SP40 Speedster is a custom/updated car project. They’re presenting it as a fresh take on an older style, with the “Speedster” idea meaning a more open, roadster-like driving experience.

05:17

Term

heated seats

Heated seats are car seats with built-in heat. They warm you up, but the host says some systems can get dangerously hot.

05:32

GMC Acadia

Car

GMC Acadia

The GMC Acadia is an SUV. The host says its heated seats get extremely hot—so hot it leads into a story about someone getting burned.

06:33

Concept

hand controls

Hand controls are modifications that let someone drive using their hands. The host mentions them because the driver couldn’t feel heat normally, so the heated seats caused injuries.

06:33

Chevrolet Blazer

Car

Chevrolet Blazer

The Chevy Blazer is an SUV. The host tells a story where a driver with hand controls had the heated seats turn on, and because he couldn’t feel his lower body, the seats caused serious burns.

07:18

Company

General Motors

General Motors is a major car company. The host says a person sued GM after getting burned by heated seats, and then GM’s bankruptcy later affected whether they had to pay.

07:59

Subaru Outback

Car

Subaru Outback

The Subaru Outback is a practical crossover that’s shaped like a wagon. People often buy it for everyday comfort and usefulness. In the podcast, it’s mentioned because someone liked the heated seats and knows an owner.

08:22

Term

dial

Here, “dial” means a knob you turn to change settings—like the car’s heat level. They’re saying the heat was set too high, and turning the dial down fixed it.

09:07

R-Class R63 Amg

Car

R-Class R63 Amg

The R-Class is a luxury vehicle meant to carry people comfortably. The podcast is specifically mentioning the R63 AMG, which is a more powerful version. It’s brought up because it combines family-car space with a performance-focused trim.

10:55

Porsche Carrera GT

Car

Porsche Carrera GT

The Porsche Carrera GT is a very rare, very high-performance supercar. It’s the kind of car that collectors and enthusiasts pay attention to. The podcast is mentioning it in the context of high-value cars and how they’re handled.

15:08

Cyber truck

Car

Cyber truck

They’re talking about the Tesla Cybertruck and how its interior feels very bare-bones. The host points out there’s no center console and the dashboard design is very simple, which makes it feel different from most trucks.

15:15

Term

center console

The center console is the area between the two front seats. It often has cupholders, storage, and buttons—so if a car doesn’t have one, the cabin feels more stripped down.

15:21

Oldsmobile Curved Dash

Car

Oldsmobile Curved Dash

The Oldsmobile Curved Dash is an early classic car model. The key thing people notice is the curved dashboard shape and a simpler interior layout. The podcast is mentioning it because the cabin design is very different from modern cars.

15:31

Term

Spartan interior

A “spartan interior” means the cabin is very plain and minimal, with fewer features and a no-frills layout. The host is saying the Cybertruck feels especially bare-bones inside.

What up everybody? Welcome to the Smoking Tire Podcast. Today's episode is brought to you by

Off the Record. We love Off the Record here and you guys do too. You send me emails, DMs on Instagram.

You comment all the time that Off the Record has saved your backside. They get those points

off your record. It could save you insurance money. It could keep your job safe. All kinds of reasons

do not plead guilty to a moving violation, but instead to get off the record. And when you use

OffTheRecord.com slash TST, you get 10% off all legal services booked through Off the Record.

Again, that's OffTheRecord.com slash TST. Don't plead guilty,

get off the record. All right, on today's episode, Zach and I drive the Lucid Gravity

800 plus horsepower electric minivan. And I spend the morning with the unbelievable SP40 Speedster,

a not Resto mod, but totally new, old, cool thing from Argentina. Absolutely stupor dug it.

Really cool. Stick around. It's the Smoking Tire podcast. Let's go.

Okay, I'm going through bad thoughts. Oh, okay. Shout out again. Hey, everybody. Shout out. Right on

top. Tom Segura's show, Bad Thoughts on Netflix is really, really fucking funny. There's a skit about

a very, a very Christian person, like a real Christian, not, you know, not a Christian,

not like a real Christian, who like goes to heaven. And then it's not, it's not what she expected.

That's a good bit. I think they had that in the trailer and I was like, ooh, I like this is

very, very funny. Yeah, it's like everything is boring. It's a very funny bit, but everyone should

watch that show. We watched Icy Hot, which is my name for heat rivalry. Oh, is that, you're into

that now? No. The gay hockey show? We went to dinner with our friend. Should I name him? You know

him. I don't know if it matters. But he, he knows scripts. He knows shows. Like we have a

similar sense of humor and he sold it so hard, no pun intended, to Sarah and I and we're like,

all right, we'll go watch this. And it was like, there's a lot of soft core. There's a ride. There

is like, it's like going to watch the travel channel and expecting to see hockey.

All right, I'll make sure to skip that one. You can skip it. Yeah. Spike spent all the weekend at

the Indy 500 on and on about the boys. I'm going back to that show after watching two seasons because

it's apropos. Which I'm like, all right, it's very hard to sell your friend in the show. Even

someone you trust, like, I don't know if everyone else feels like this, but when someone's like,

you should watch this, I instantly put up a wall and try and give a reason why I shouldn't. It's

kind of dumb. Depends on who I'm talking to. No, it's dumb. And I'm not that much of a TV guy.

I have a very limited TV time daily to allocate to anything. So it's got to be fucking good.

Not going to sit there for six hours, watch TV. Spike was on and on about the boys. I came back

and I said, Hannah, I think we have to start watching the boys. She's like, I watched half

an episode. She's unwatchable. And I was like, that was just the end of it. I don't know. It's a

team effort for you. It's got to be. It has to be an agreement. You would like it because

it's ability to predict where we are now. I mean, that's just started a long time ago,

but it's not a fun prediction. No, no. So I think in the line of media that accurately

describes our current world state, which inherently makes it depressing, right? Which you

like. This is the fictional version of the type of content you'd like, but you might not enjoy

that because you'd be like, I can just read all, you know, the ground. I liked, like, don't look up,

you know, Adam McKay type fiction. I liked that. So I probably, I probably would like this, honestly.

This might be one of those things that it's like Adam McKay, but not funny because it's pretty,

it's like very gruesome. I heard it's gruesome. Yeah. Yeah. It's more serious. So I mean,

it's good. I'll add it to the, then it goes, you know, it goes, it goes into the elliptical

machine category. Right. And I just watch it by myself on the elliptical machine. You know,

there we go. How's your back? Is it okay? No, it's not. I mean, it's not, it's, it's 5% better

than it was a couple of days ago because of the Lucid's massage seats. No, those helped a lot.

They do. They're good. They're pretty solid. We all the same PT place. And when I'm done there,

they give me the heated vibrating belt, which I don't know, does something or nothing. Not really

sure. The massage seats in the Lucid feel almost exactly the same. The heated, the heater cranks

and it goes, and I'm like, oh, so today when we, Sarah goes, you want to take my car to drop,

you know, your Tucker off? And I said, no, I'm going to take the Lucid because the seats

form better than Toyota seats. They massage and heat like, yeah, it's way better. They are pretty

good massage seats in our car. Yeah. We can talk about that car in a minute, but can I just sidebar

for 30 seconds because it'll probably be more, but it won't be much more. When Han and I got the

GMC Acadia that we drove on that road trip to scout the event that I'm actually driving in next

week for road and track, the heated seats in the GMC Acadia, and I found GM heated seats in general

are almost unbearably hot. Okay. Like it's crazy how hot GM heated seats get in my personal experience.

And it's weird that new cars get that hot because my dad has a friend. I have a friend too. There's

a car guy. His name's Chris. Chris L. Don't want to use his last name. And you'll find out why in

a second. Chris L. was a friend of my dad's from back in the day. He's my father's age.

Family friend. Christopher Lloyd. Got it. Christopher Lloyd. He was in Back to the Future.

So hot. Christopher Lloyd is a paraplegic. Okay. From an accident unrelated to cars. Okay. But he had

a Chevy Blazer fitted with hand controls. Okay. And that was like his car. Cool.

Totally, you know, as far as a gentleman, you know, fucking strong ass upper body and was as

mobile as a dude in a wheelchair could possibly be. Okay. But obviously, no feeling in the lower body

as tends to happen with many paraplegics. Oh, I know where this is going.

Well, in his Blazer, somehow the heated seats got activated. Not intentional because he can't

fucking feel his butt anyway. Right. And they were so hot and he couldn't feel anything. He got

second degree burns on his lower part of his body from the heated seats and had a proper lawsuit

going against General Motors that he won. And this was in 2008 and GM went bankrupt and didn't have

to pay him. Straight up. He got stiffed. It got wiped out. I mean, obviously, they didn't want to

go bankrupt, but for them, they're like, hey, the good news is all our lawsuits go away.

It got wiped in the bankers. But imagine what I'm thinking as I'm here in 2026 driving a brand new

GMC going, these seats are crazy hot, dude. Well, my cousin has an outback, I think. They had

him and his wife, whatever. They have a pretty new Subaru. Same thing happened. They got, I think,

what was assessed as first degree burns, but he just took it to the dealership and was like, hey,

you need to turn these down and they did. And I was like, you could have sued. There's like a dial?

There's always a dial. There's always something. I don't know how they did it, but he could have

sued, but they just didn't think about it. They just brought it in, but it was getting way, way

too hot set on three or whatever. The lucid set on three. After like 15 minutes, I just turned it

down. No, the lucids are not. To go back to the lucid, sorry about that sidebar. To go back,

a little depressing for you there, but to go back to the lucid. As far as I know,

they're not hot enough to give you second degree burns. Okay, let's talk about the gravity,

because now you and I both drove it. I drove it, spent a few days and you spent a few days in it.

It's my opinion that 800 horsepower minivans are objectively good.

It's like the R63 AMG, which is a rad thing every time I see it. And I think this is a very

good looking car. I walk up and I went, I think it's really good looking for what it is. I went,

wow, why do I really like this shape? Because it's a giant wagon. It's a humongous wagon.

It's either a big wagon or a small minivan. Here's the thing. I think it's a minivan. I

think it's shaped more or less like a minivan is shaped. Because it's got the stubby your nose,

because there's no fucking engine up there. True. It can be more minivan shaped than if it was, say,

a big Volvo. That's a valid point. So like, I don't think that's bad. Like, what's funny about

you brought up the R class Mercedes right away. Guys, support is coming in today from

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As Mercedes was trying to avoid at that time building a minivan, like sprinters, like vans

weren't in any way cool at all in like 2004 when they were developing that thing. So they were

trying to build a minivan that like didn't look at all like a minivan. They could be like,

this is not the minivan, but like now when fucking Demiro talks about it, it's the 500

horsepower minivan. Like car nerds are like super stoked that this is actually a minivan.

I think it definitely looks like a minivan. I think it looks more like a minivan than this

only because there are like windshield. This has a steeper angle from the hood to the windshield,

but the back is definitely pure minivan. I think they do a pretty good job at trying to make it look

as little like a minivan as possible. Once you get inside of it, the fucking dashboard,

the layout of the seats is like 100% minivan. Very true. I was next to a cyber truck in this

thing today and I just thought about that poor driver in there who has no center console,

who has no like curved dash in front of them, which we should talk about because it's not

perfect, but like that is such a Spartan interior in that vehicle and they cost similar money and

similar power and all that stuff. What a thing to drive. Yeah, I mean, I think...

Lucid has issues obviously, but just seeing the cyber truck and knowing, having driven it,

what it has and does not have inside, like man. It would be one thing because it makes you look

like such a loser to drive one. It would be one thing if there was some level of trade-off,

right? Like if it was actually awesome inside or awesome, like something. But the fact is,

it drives like basically every other EV. Like it doesn't like steer by wire. I admit is interesting,

but I don't like it. This doesn't have it obviously and steering is quick enough. I don't care.

I hate the steering wheel. You hate the steering wheel too, right? Yeah.

So I actually texted or I should say a Lucid representative who we're friendly with

and has always been super helpful with our reviews, information, whatever. Texting me and said,

hey, I'm here if you have any questions. Are you liking it so far? Whatever.

And I said, whoever put this wheel in here needs to be fired out of a cannon. And he said,

I actually think they were.

Can you just get a picture off of the, because if you haven't seen it,

talk about a fucking step backwards for a car company. So the Lucid Air was a product that

is, was flawed in execution, but like pretty A plus an intent, you know, like the software was,

was, was funky and, and they couldn't quite get there with stuff, but there was a lot that's

like really right about the air. And then the interior of this is objectively better

in almost every way, but they put this fucking squeal. Yeah. And it's a squished wheel. It's a

squished wheel. It's a, it's like an oblong wheel. Yes. And it is, I have to say, other than the

nine and three, and even sometimes then, other than the nine and three, it is awkward to hold

however you hold. There's no other. Because it changes your leverage with the actual steering

mechanism. You absolutely fucking nailed it. When you rest your, your, when you have a circle and

you rest your hand, it droops with gravity naturally, right? With a circle, it droops in a way

that we're like used to. Well, it's uniform. It's uniform. With the top of this, which is almost

flat, it's like having your hand on a seesaw, right? Yeah. And it, and the leverage, it makes it,

and because this car has a very quick steering ratio, it makes it like dart around. I'm going to

push back on you. I'm going to sell you. I'm going to be PR for a second. This is actually an adjustable

steering ratio steering wheel, Matt Farah. So when your hands are at the nine and three position,

you have a lot of leverage, right? But when you put your hands at the 12 and six position,

suddenly it's a smaller steering wheel and it's a quick steering ratio. You're joking,

but that's literally what happens. You have actually, in a joke, in a bit, you have accurately

described. It's not even a negative truth. That's 100% what happens. If you start a turn

by bringing down the side of the wheel and then mid turn, you grab one of the flat

ends of the wheel, the rate at which you're adding angle to the turn or subtracting it changes.

Yes. And your effort has to go up. And that's what I hated about it because I would, I did,

I drove back from Hollywood today, took a lot of 90 degree turns. I would initiate the turn

with my right hand on three. Right. And it was easy, predictable, like every other car we drive.

And then I'd have to move my hand to the top. And all of a sudden, the effort of my shoulder had

to go up by like 100%. Like it's suddenly more difficult. It does not make anything easier

other than if you're going straight, you can rest your hand on it. Sure. But then what happens?

Okay. And you know what the worst part about this is, Klapman, and this photo shows it perfectly.

If you're not watching the video version of this podcast, that's okay because I'm going to describe

when you have a wheel, like, all right, when we went from circle wheels to the flat bottom

wheel for the first time, it was in a sports car. And it was to help you get in and out of the car,

sliding your legs underneath the steering wheel. Like that's kind of why we started that in the

first place. And then it got more like yokey, I guess, as we started to do this motorsport theater.

Ferrari started putting all the fucking knobs on the thing. Lamborghini did motorcycle blinkers.

It all was like motorsporty. I think the flat bottom came from motorsport also,

though, because like if you're hopping in a race car, swinging in quicker is easier.

Yeah. There's flat bottom like sparkle wheels and stuff, like those import tuner wheels from back

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A twisting force that causes rotation. More torque = quicker acceleration.

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