2025 4Runner TRD Pro Review; AMG GT XX; New Seats

What up everybody? Welcome to the Smogentire Podcast. Today's episode is brought to you as always. By off the record, we love off the record over here at Smogentire. And you guys do too. That's why you're always sending me emails telling me how off the record got you out of a little jam. If you get pulled over and ticketed or arrested for a moving violation, don't plead guilty. Get off the record. Go to offtherecord.com slash TST to get 10%.

And if you don't have to pay, it is very, very easy. Again, off the record.com slash TST off the record.com slash TST, that'll get you 10% off all legal services at Smogentire.com.

We love them. Don't plead guilty. Get off the record. All right, folks, on this episode of the program, Zach and I talk about the fact that tickets to our live shows in Dallas and Houston are now up on our Instagram.

And in the show notes, come see us with Christian James Hand. Hang out, bring your car. It's going to be a great time. And please come support the show. And if these go well, we're going to do more of them. But on this podcast, we are talking about the new Toyota Forerunner, which Zach and I spent a week with and went off-roading.

Giving our thoughts on Mercedes new electric super sedan. I have an update on my Myers-Manks and Zach has a all new interior in his BMW M3 plus some fabulous Q&A with our lovely patrons over at patreon.com slash the Smogentire that really keep this ship floating down the river.

Let's get right to it. It's the Smogentire podcast.

Speaking of the silver spoons, then there's the sterling silver spoon. I was trying. I was listening to AYG recently, an episode that you were listening to as well, but you were napping in the car on the way back from the Forerunner shoot.

And they were trying to think of another brand from the 80s that started with an S that wasn't sob. It was sterling.

Sterling cars. It was like a luxury brand. Yeah. Really? Wow. Camisa has one. Really? Yeah. Never heard of sterling. No. Sterling is. Yeah. So that's a good one right there. The 825. There's a the red one on from bring a trailer. That was a good one. Oh, I don't know where. Oh, that one. Yeah.

That's that's one rose a couple different one. Oh, no, Camisa doesn't have a sterling. He has a fucking. What's the other one he has?

Didn't he buy a rover? It's a row. He has a row. He has a row. This looks like a rover. Yeah. No. Sterling I think was based on Acura underpinnings. Oh, but it was even even more upmarket. Acura. Oh, boy. They made a sports car. I think, yeah, I think that was a different company. The sport sterling sports cars. That was a beetle conversion thing fiberglass.

Look at this. This is merger. The sterling 825, a pseudo Honda and one of the worst cars in history. Yeah. I mean, it wasn't like known for being good. It was supposed to be a better Honda, but it was actually like a worse. I mean, think of it.

Is there any like better? There's only like five cars in the history of cars that are better made than a Honda or Acura from the late 80s. Yeah.

Those are how would you improve on them? You can't. It's very dangerous. And the late 80s Acura legend is a nearly perfect automobile. Yeah. That's true. Like you can't as far as like a car for regular people. That is like one of the best cars ever made. Yeah. I wonder. I'm trying to find out what they did to it. That made it so terrible. I mean, I think they just made it worse. I think they just changed the body and just kind of made it worse. It's the Fiat 124 of 80s Japanese

sedans. Right? Like take a Miata. There we go. And then just make everything worse. Like this, this asks the question of like, what if a Honda had a Lincoln Continental interior? Yeah. Nobody, nobody. Oh, bro. Look at the seats. Those are the most like 80s Lincoln seats. Yeah. They're like eight feet thick. The barkal lounger's seat. That's terrible. Yeah. No, we don't want that. The steering wheel.

The steering wheel. Uh, I think very ugly. I think it also went into a bunch of plymouths. It looks like a plymouth. Oh, good guy.

Beyond steering wheel. Well, this, the tea handle, some of the actors had that too, I think. No, the accuracy. No, they had, they had a more bulbous one that resembled like like what the Lexus LS had. But it was a bulbous tea. It wasn't a tea. It was a big. Yeah, it was a connected bit. It wasn't just a full tea.

Oh, that steering wheel is definitely a, a dodge product. Well, like all I know is if someone says, Hey, I coach built that, uh, that photo that the 80, that interior that you have up, that's more like what the legend shifter looked like.

Not so tall and like cold. That's a cobra coming. It does.

I should have named it the academic cover. Holy shit. But may I never see a sterling again.

Um, and I, I feel like I'm Camisa will be, if he hears this would be insult. His rover isn't really nice. I mean,

rovers are junk, but he has like the most perfect rover and it's much prettier looking than the, um, the sterling, which is no good. Yeah.

And it's, it's a fun adventure for him. Yeah. Um, right. So a lot of things to talk about.

Uh, important things. First off, the, the notice canyon in green is available to the public now.

You don't need to be a patron to buy it. There's 20 or 30 units left on a notices website, as well as about four of the,

the night sky left, the blue ones. So, uh, if you can go get those now, if you buy both, I will allocate you the black pearl.

But you got to do it before the black pearl comes out. Otherwise they're going to be gone. There's only 50 of them. Also, I hope I said it in the intro.

I hope I didn't forget when I record the intro for the show, but we're coming to Texas, July 24th and 25th with Christian James hand.

Uh, the 24th will be in Houston. The 25th will be in Dallas, uh, at the shop club, both are at the shop club. We love that place.

There's food and beverage and car storage. It's what I would do if I could own a restaurant without having a heart attack.

I would not be able to own a restaurant without having a heart attack, but my other friend Matt can do that.

And in three different locations now. And of course, we're bringing Christian James hand, which is the only thing that gives me any kind of confidence to do live podcasts is that.

You have more confidence in yourself, my man. We've done a couple of them. I know we have, but like I feel like when we're doing live,

a live show in front of an audience doing our show is great. Our show is a great show, but I think our show is a great radio show, not necessarily a great live show.

We need to spice that bitch up a little bit and the fucking the judge is Christian. His live show is fucking awesome. And we get to watch it before doing our live show.

That's true. Selfishly, we also get to do that. That is a real treat. And so July 24 and 25 in Texas. And if that goes well, if you guys come out, here's why it's worth driving to see that show.

Because if those shows do really well, then we'll do more shows. Then we'll like run down the list of like, where do people listen from and like, we'll go there and we'll do shows.

Like, that's what this is really about. I hope people understand that.

We want to come and people have emailed, like, hey, come to here, come to here, come to here. We would love to.

But these have to go good first. So if you're like, I'd like to go, but it's, I don't know, it's an hour away or whatever.

You should probably come because if it doesn't go well, we're never going to do it again.

I don't want to fail twice. So, but the good news is tickets have been on sale for like a day.

And Dallas is 40% sold out and Houston is 25% sold out. So I think we're probably going to have a good, a good showing.

But come on down and see us. If it's an hour away, I was talking to a musician friend of ours recently who I won't name.

And he was like, we would go do a show in like Boston. And we get DMs from fans being asking, when are you going to come to my city?

And he'd ask where they were. And they were 30 minutes away. He goes, we're in your city.

Yeah. Like this, this is you should make the trip.

This wasn't someone who just didn't know about the Boston gig.

No, no, no. They knew about it. They knew about it. They're like, oh, no, but when are you going to come to Newton?

Exactly. When you're going to make the extra 30 minutes so that I don't have to make the 30 minutes.

Now, if you live four hours away from Houston, Dallas, whatever, I get it. That's kind of a drive.

But yeah, you know, we're within reason. We're within reason. Good test case.

But but if you're on the fence, it's a good investment in the future to come.

Because I mean, if you come now, there'll be more of that.

If you get in early, is what we're saying, right? You could be at the top of that pyramid.

You could get in on the ground floor. Ground floor for the low, low price of Texas gases cheap.

Here's some herbal life for you. Please sell it to other car people.

Right. Leave with products. We don't do. We don't have a giveaways.

We're working on some fun, exclusive. I was there. It's got to be. I was there.

I was on site. First one man. First one man. It's got to be you have to prove you were there.

And it has to be a limited edition collab, you know, it's got to be real and a drop.

I actually think like this, that the the fact that our musician friend who we were talking about.

When they when they we're they're talking about merch and with how they, you know, there's strategies for touring,

which some of which were very, very interesting. But it's sort of the swing back, the pendulum away from NFTs.

Oh yeah. Right. Oh yeah. Like you could only get this by physically being there.

And that's the kind of stuff that goes on your wall, you know, versus like I read an article, I think it was yesterday.

The people the pricing, the people art that is awesome. You just love to see it.

What was it? Sixty million now is a hundred dollars. Sixty nine million to a hundred. That's that. That's a hundred dollars.

You know that, you know, I love that for people. Yeah. Sure.

Be check. I hope that people. I don't know what that dude is doing right now. I assume it's a dude.

I think it is. I think I think they have the person's name in it. Yeah. They do.

If I was people, like my version of that was like, I want a huge hand of one of those black jack side pots in Vegas.

And I turned like 20 bucks into 25 Hyundai in one hand. I fucking took my money straight to guitar center.

That's a fucking victory for the day. Good night and good luck, sir. Same with him.

This guy's never going to have a fucking other scam like that. That's the greatest hit he's going to see.

Absolutely. I hope for him. He does a Tom from MySpace.

And just like, bye. Thank you for that. And I'm fucking off to.

He's going to keep making art. And now you have all the materials you could ever want.

As you try to paint his face. Yeah. Well, but now he now that digital art is valueless essentially.

What? What is the guy who's so great at digital art? Because this is a talented individual.

What, what are they going to do now? That's a good like road that wave. And now it's over.

I think while I'm looking at the Instagram, I can pull it up there doing they've done some physical art. Yeah. I think.

So yes, 69 million is going to after before taxes and you have to buy you a lot of you just don't want to be late to the NFT purchasing game.

Is that a real sculpture or digital? The top left. If that's a real sculpture, that's like pretty cool.

I think that's digital. I think that's definitely digital. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So still doing it.

It's hilarious. Still doing it. I mean, but now with with what's called 30 million after taxes. Yeah.

Still still a good hole. That's that's for me. That's check the fuck out. I think. Yeah.

I'm not going to film cars anymore. Well, you you'd find trust me that you'd have to do something.

I would do something. Yeah, no, not like videos. No, not that.

I have plenty of ideas. Yeah. We could do this. Yeah. I would just keep doing this. Yeah.

If you yeah, I would I would do this for free if I was on that. I would do this. Yeah.

And I would do stand up. And I would just take any money ever made from it.

I just give it away because you can't pocket it when you've won 30 million dollars.

You know, for the first funniest you mentioned stand up. Like I did it.

I did one open mic in 2015 and for my first time.

I did I think what would probably be considered a pretty good five minutes.

I got like pretty good applause in multiple places and laughs and stuff.

And I haven't been tempted or I'm about to do it since. I was like that.

No, I kind of wish, you know, I was like, I'm just too scary to continue.

But for the first time, like two days ago, I wrote down two ideas for like that could be like really good five minute.

You know, like if I went to an open mic and did five, it would be one story.

But it has like it was one of them is the panic attack while driving story which can be told in a way that is actually funny now.

And you know, I have to take my blood pressure like multiple times a day.

And I have a I have a favorite new dessert which is at the farmers market.

They have these sprouted walnuts.

And when I tell you that these are so much fucking better than any walnuts you have ever tried in your life,

including sprouted walnuts that I get that you could get from like whole foods or air one.

These are massively better.

They're like crunchy and airy and they taste like they're roasted, but they're not roasted. They're raw.

Okay. I'm looking at a picture. They look like walnuts.

They look like walnuts. Yeah, you would know you would never the word sprouted is weird.

I don't actually even know what the fucking means.

Okay. But what it means to your mouth is that it tastes like a roasted nut,

but the nutrients are still in it. They haven't been roasted out of it because when you roast nuts, they have less nutrients, right?

See, sprouting transforms a normally dense nut into a lighter, easier to digest nut.

That is more alkaline and has nutrition.

Right. Also, if you are prone to indigestion or acid reflux,

one thing you shouldn't eat is a bunch of nuts because they're hard,

and they take acid to break down.

I'm not supposed to eat peanuts, although I can have peanut butter because they're really hard.

The sprouted nuts across the board are softer and lighter,

but the walnuts, particularly, and they're fucking delicious.

So my new favorite dessert is a little bit of whipped cream at the bottom of a bowl,

a sprinkling of the walnuts, and like just a little tiny drizzle of wildflower honey.

And like, bam, that's a fucking dessert. Sure.

That sounds really good. The story goes, though.

I finished the can of whipped cream, but there was still some fucking gas in there.

And I decided to do a little science,

and I did a whip it while doing my blood pressure.

And my blood pressure went down by five points while doing a whip it.

Interesting to know. Yeah, I'm trying to figure out why.

I don't know how that works or why that works.

I'm sure some EMT doctors are listening and they're going,

you're going to die.

Here's why it does that.

It's a vacuuming oxygen for your brain or something like that.

It is doing that.

Well, it is doing that, but like only one breath worth.

It's not like, you know what I mean?

If you're the starving oxygen from the brain is when people are like huffing balloons,

doing one like off a whipped cream can, that's not starving your oxygen and brain.

No, I wonder if it pushes all the oxygen out of your bloodstream,

then your blood pressure drops because the volume drops because of the oxygen.

I don't know. Don't email me about this.

The EMT at the entire Instagram.

Yeah, although a couple of people did mention about the biting in the lemon thing,

without you don't have to carry fruit around.

What you do is you either carry like warhead candies.

Yeah, someone messages about that.

Warhead candies will do it or someone else said like the pickle back like juice.

Like the pickle juice will do it too.

Really? Yeah, man.

We were drinking pickle juice at lemons because it was so hot.

Like we ate all the pickles.

And then I thought like, what is this like alive?

You're like wandering in the desert?

108 degrees.

You're drinking the pickle juice.

Yes, there was no water left.

No, no, we had water, but I started doing this at Burning Man.

When it's that hot and you're sweating and you're trying to just get our electrolytes back in.

That's your gatorade, is pickle juice?

Very occasionally. We also had gatorade.

We had finished the pickles and I poured some in a cup and drink.

You were that hot, it tastes great.

And Jeff Glucker looks at me and goes, what are you doing?

And I tell him and he's like, try it.

And he tries and he goes, that's actually pretty good.

I think it's like your body is just drinking out right now.

You just did a good Gluckerade there.

I saw him yesterday at Manks.

Yeah, went down to Manks to check in.

Things are coming along.

There wasn't really anything worth photographing.

The fuel cell, the motech, the dash, we're all in.

The radiator was in, the fans were in.

The oil tank was about to go in.

The engine was still there on the stand.

Engine's going in like last.

No, engines going in like right after the holiday.

Okay.

But pretty exciting.

And then Glucker wanted to drive, you know, one of the radials.

So we, not the gray one was having a new oil tank fitted.

So we couldn't drive the gray one, but we drove the red one,

which has these big balloony like sand dune tires on it.

They're not even like off road tires.

You know, they're like the sand car tires, which is real weird on the street.

Really soft.

And it also had another exhaust on it that sounded awful.

The one, the gray car that we drove had a really nice sounding exhaust on it.

And right now, that's what's scheduled to go on my car.

But they just got a new design from Australia.

And they said like the timing is right that they could like test fitted on my car and try it.

We'll see.

But the red car did not have the Australian exhaust.

You know, the third one.

The red car had the first original exhaust that I drove from like six months ago.

Oh, gotcha.

And it was not good.

Okay.

Yeah.

It sounded like it sounded like a WRX that was missing a cylinder.

That's literally, dude, that's the best.

The WRX running on three.

That's almost like Volkswagen Beetle sound.

Yeah, no, it wasn't great.

And as we said before, the one that's on the gray car, as you accurately put it,

it sounds like a Ducati at idle.

It's much more refined.

And then it sounds like a biplane.

Totally.

Up top.

That's the best one so far.

So we're going to go with that unless this other, we'll try this other one.

Maybe it sounds great.

Six speaking of updates.

I got a photo.

Wait, where's the stupid app?

Oh, it's so seat.

Folks, we got to take a quick break from the action.

Because this episode is brought to you by IQBAR, our exclusive snack sponsor.

IQBAR is the better for you.

Plant protein-based snacks made with brain-boosting nutrients to refuel nourishing,

satisfied hunger, without the sugar crash.

IQBAR's plant protein bars are packed with high-quality ingredients to help keep you physically and mentally fit.

IQBAR is totally free from gluten, dairy, soy, GMOs, and artificial sweeteners

for a natural anytime snack.

And with over 20,000 five-star reviews and counting, more people than ever are starting their days on the right foot

with IQBAR's brain and body-boosting bars, hydration mixes, and mushroom coffees.

IQBAR sent me a sampler pack.

But one flavor really stood out to me.

And that is this Thomas Keller collabed salted caramel chip.

12 grams of plant protein and only one gram of sugar with how many calories is it?

It is only 170 calories.

Nice, perfect for after-podcast before workout.

They taste good and they give me energy for when I hit the gym.

Right now IQBAR is offering our podcast listeners a special 20% discount on all IQBAR products

plus free shipping.

To get your 20% off, text, text, smoking tire to 64,000.

You got that?

Text, smoking tire to 64,000.

That's text, smoking tire to 64,000.

Message and data rates apply.

See terms for details.

We're also brought to you today from Smalls.

Smalls is killing it over here, but not literally because it's cat food.

And if they killed my cats, that would be a huge problem.

My cats are probably the most important thing in my life outside of my wife.

They are, I have almost like Stockholm syndrome.

I have to check on them all the time.

I have to make sure they're extremely happy.

We've modified our home for them.

They are literally the most important things that we've got.

And I want to feed them the best food.

That's why I'm so lucky to be talking about Smalls.

They sent me Smalls cat food.

And these protein packed recipes have preservative free ingredients that you'd find in your fridge.

They're delivered right to your door and guess what?

My for kittens love them.

That's why cats.com named Smalls their best overall cat food.

And right now they're offering you people 60% off your first order

plus free shipping at smalls.com with promo code tire for a literal limited time only.

I've actually been using Smalls to do some tests with my cats.

Monty my youngest is a bit of a picky eater.

And by making a little chart along with all the samplers of what Smalls sent me

I found out that Monty does not like fish.

Monty only likes poultry.

Fortunately I learned that with Smalls and so I've ordered a bunch more of the chicken

and the cats love it.

I put the two bowls side by side and the cats are going to the Smalls

which was started back in 2017 by a couple guys at home who were cooking their own cat food

in small batches for their friends.

Man this stuff is good.

The cats love it.

My cats seem healthy.

They seem happy.

Their coat is shiny.

And man Smalls is awesome.

So for a limited time only because you're a smoking tire listener

you can get 60% off your first order of Smalls plus free shipping by using code tire.

That's 60% off at Smalls.com with promo code tire.

Again go to Smalls.com and use promo code tire

for 60% off your first order Smalls.com

and now back to the show.

So I like how it has all these X's on it.

It's like a plastic surgeon marking off some poor lady's fat.

That's what he did.

It's like marking the things they're changing.

These are my old seats.

Very shiny.

Leathers kind of cracked up.

This is 140,000 miles almost.

146.

Yeah.

And that's what they look like when it's hard.

Oh yeah.

And you redid the outside leather or you it's new outside leather.

It's new outside leather.

So every every shop I talk to I mean I talked to two shows this one.

That looks like that tartan is rad and it's hell.

Yeah.

It's going to look good with a notice but also dude you got a matching scarf for that bitch.

I think I'm going to have a lot of leftover fabric about ten yards.

It's not just you need like three for a car.

It's not this.

People said six to eight depending but it's not the softest stuff.

It's thick which means why it's like automotive grade.

It's 16 ounce.

And when I brought it to the guy he felt he's like oh good you got.

He's like the number of people that show up with a thin soft clothing thing

and he's like this will fall apart in a week.

Yeah.

So I don't think it'd be that soft for a scarf but I could order a matching one in a soft.

What about one and two?

You can do you could get some fitted luggage.

You could have a have a suit case that's like where you put it on the outside of it.

And then I like to be.

Traverage the roof rack or something.

On the trunk.

Oh.

I don't think.

No.

I don't know.

There's something that's me and also the budget for this is getting nearer and stuff.

All right.

Well the scene looks amazing.

This green and blue and yellow scheme.

Yeah.

Shout out to all the people that someone messaged me because I was going through a bunch of different tartans

and they were like I'm a color expert and your obsidian green wrap is actually a bluish green.

Not because I was I had ordered like a bunch that were like yellowish green.

Uh-huh.

And then when I held it up and thought about that I went oh he's right.

So this is one I chose and they centered it up nice and they drew in the back seats too.

Which was a little sweet.

Awesome.

Yeah.

What about in the armrest?

No.

No armrests.

I think I think it's enough with the seats.

I mean I'll look at it and go.

Well I just changed something.

I just didn't know how uneven the wear would be.

No not put tartan on.

Oh right.

I mean redoing the leather.

I didn't think of that.

Yeah.

They still have the car.

Well I'll tell you what you should have them send you a photo.

Yeah.

Because it'll never be cheaper to do than right now.

Good point.

You know you're you're already into there.

The car's already there.

The seats are out.

I should sort of do it.

Because the armrest looks like this.

You know it's more like that.

It'll that'll drive you nuts.

It's true.

Yeah.

I mean it's text.

You should.

You should text them right now.

This is so I'll tell you what credit where it's due.

Donnie was a lunatic about this.

When I when I had to redo my door cards on the Ferrari.

He was he really really insisted that I redo the seats also

because the seats had the incorrect leather.

And he was redoing the door cards and the correct and the dashboard

and the correct connolly leather.

And and I really appreciated that he wanted it to match so bad.

You had to be pretty close to see the difference.

It's not like you know going from a car with 150,000 miles to 100 with one

to a seat with zero which you would absolutely notice the difference.

I didn't change my seats to the right leather because I wanted to be able

to not give a fuck.

And in hindsight that was the right move.

Getting that car after the gym.

Fucking sweaty.

Huck my book bag on there.

Like leave it parked out.

If I did the seats I'd have been like insane about it.

Okay.

What I didn't.

But like I think yeah.

I mean for whatever $100 or $2 or whatever it is to do the armrest.

Whatever it is to do the armrest.

What it will be.

Yeah.

Or no.

No the doors because it has an airbag.

There's an oval in the door card that is where the airbag lives.

And I think they would have had to stitch around that and it would have looked weird.

Yeah.

So basically after we drove the singer I kind of thought about what they do.

And you know where do they put fabric that matches what do they do everything.

And I think this is what I came up with.

If I do the back seats there's a lot of color splash when you look in it.

But all the pillars are just going to be done OEM style because I would have been too much.

Yeah.

There's two scenarios.

There's when you're standing next to it looking in.

And then there's when you're sitting in it looking out.

Right.

And either scenario should have sort of a balance.

And like how you would take a photo of it to like show off that you did your interior on Instagram

is not how it would look when you're standing next to the car.

True.

Like when I did a wide angle photo of the safari and you could see everything on the inside.

But the photo was like from where you're like right me would be.

People were like oh my god.

But actually if you saw it sitting there and looked in you'd never see quite that much of it.

And it was much less overwhelming.

True.

What I also wanted to do the you know the dash strip across the E46.

That's pretty fun.

I wanted to do that.

But this guy as soon as I started talking he goes I don't touch the dash.

I went all right.

He's like they do a poll street.

This place is literally a special like it's not just a poll street shot up.

You give me a deal is doing a good job.

But he was like we don't do dashboards.

I mean I bet if you took him the piece he would probably wrap the you know he'd probably do a poll

through the piece and give it back to you.

I already had the pieces off.

Oh really?

Yeah.

And he wouldn't touch the pieces.

They don't want to mess with it.

Huh.

Because I think that would be a way where someone if they look in from the back of the car they would see that.

And that would give a hint and that would be a cool connection.

It is fun.

So that's that's on the list.

It's fine.

Someone did do that.

Yeah.

You're your pillars though.

Let's wait and see how those look.

Yeah.

You mean pillars OEM or?

Or are you not doing this?

I'm just going to I'm just doing them at OEM.

Oh okay.

I thought I thought you were going to do the car.

When I decided to do the back seats I was like that's enough.

That isn't it.

Yeah.

That's a lot.

Four seats in this and with the centers like that is a good bit.

I think it'll look sweet.

Yeah.

And that looks awesome.

Yeah.

Do they have to redo any of the padding of the seat underneath or anything like that?

I don't know.

They didn't tell me they did or didn't.

But I mean this all looks very like tightly fitted.

Yeah.

The bolsters like shape pretty good.

And they have a lot of foam there when I went there.

Sure.

Maybe they just maybe they just do that.

I don't know.

They probably do rebuild some of the foam.

Yeah.

And you're not heavy or fat.

But like me like I beat up a seat a little bit.

What are you going to do?

That's just physics.

Right.

In the before photo, you know, it's hard to tell if the seat because it looks a little bit, you know, like a little lopsided.

It's definitely squishy on the driver's left side bolster on the driver's side.

For sure.

Like do they rebuild that or they it looks like they probably like they did.

I don't know.

They didn't say.

Cool.

But I'm stoked.

How can do you mind saying what it costs to redo your 20 to 100?

And you bought the material.

And how much was the material?

It was like 450.

So it was like 2200 plus the material.

Okay.

So like three grand we're looking at.

Yeah.

To do it.

Yeah.

That's pretty good.

I don't know.

I've never done this before.

So.

I mean, that looks, I mean, at least in photos that looks like good work.

It's custom.

It's done, you know, it's done for you.

It's done locally in Los Angeles.

And I've never done anything like this.

But I'm so excited about it because I've never modified a car to this degree.

Yeah.

And, you know, the cost of interior is so fun.

A custom interior is a fabulous thing to be doing.

I figured more people should do it.

Make the interior match the exterior.

Make it all look really good.

Have you seen George's GT3?

No.

Shout out to Motomand TV.

His GT3 touring.

He had seat inserts, door cards, floor mats, and a trunk mat done in tartan.

And there, and it was just beautiful.

It looks great.

Yeah.

It's definitely somewhere on his Instagram.

But he brings, he brought it out to, I was at Manhattan Beach Cars and Coffee last weekend.

Shout out to those guys.

That's a great, great little, I say little, but it's actually grown quite a bit.

Cars and Coffee.

I really like that show.

Manhattan Beach has some variety.

Like, because there's like rich people in Manhattan Beach, but it's not like, it's a different,

there's also like, it's like surf bum rich.

So there's like, there's all kinds of weird shit down there that I don't really see in Malibu.

And all kinds of like, awesome beach cars.

People have really neat beach cars.

I'm sure there's a video we don't, it's somewhere, but just trust me when I tell you that that thing has a sweet tartan interior.

Yeah, it'll just make this car seem special.

It's gonna look really sick.

Yeah, it'll be very fun.

Then I can finally make a video with it.

Sure.

Oh, yeah, you've been holding out this whole time until it's totally done.

Yeah, because the interior look like shit.

I mean, all the pillars, like, the pillars are gotten so bad when I was driving the cannons with fatties.

I was, I was behind him.

And he gets on the radio and he goes, I see you have the same curtain problem I do.

He could see my pillars flapping.

From the road, he's looking in his rear view mirror through my windshield.

Oh, yeah, dude.

And so it would just look like the exterior with 405's wrap looks great with the wheels.

It looks awesome.

And then you open the door.

And it looks like rats and raccoons had a fight.

Dude, I, yeah.

Yeah.

So as soon as I saw the outside of your car, I was like, oh, I wonder how long it'll be for it to where he's happy opening the door to that car that has 150,000 mile interior.

No, the moment I picked it up was like, I have to do something.

Yeah.

But it took a long time to find the right tartan or to the thing find a shop.

It was a process.

So tartan is complex because it's a bunch of colors.

And there's tens.

Yes.

And then pictures online are, we're pretty good from this place.

Really?

But still when it shows up.

It's from Scotland.

Scotland shop.

True Scotland.

It better be.

It's called Scotland shop.

But who knows?

They were, they had amazing customers.

They had, they had really good customer service.

They helped guide me through this.

Well, I mean, listen, if it was the person in Scotland in their customer service, they had the accent.

I didn't, I emailed.

So they didn't write the accent, but I read it with the accent every time.

Yeah.

Oh, dear, he's going to look great in your M3.

That's Irish.

Yeah.

That is definitely Ireland, but also a Scotsman or woman is, it would be, is incredibly happy for fucking anybody to be interested in tartan.

That's what I felt.

That's really, you know, they were really, they were like, oh, for your car, you need this weight, you need that thing.

Really good guidance.

And yeah, that's awesome.

Hey, that is, that is, that is their main export is in Scotland.

Other than the whiskey.

There are, you know, there's like thousands of tartans on this site.

Well, they're, yeah, you register them.

You patent them.

There's like your family can own, you know, the rights to tartans.

And then you only, you can sell that pattern.

It's fucking crazy.

If you, if anyone's listening, if you any of you first graders are listening and you're like, learning to read is hard.

I think learning to read tartan and decide and determine which clan is what clan will be way harder.

Yeah.

Because that's what it was for.

And they're all named after different families.

What?

There is now.

Yeah, it's called a TRTN.

But back of the day, you like, oh, yours is the blue thread next to the red thread, but the hatching is slightly bigger.

Oh, you're our friend.

I stabbed you.

I'm so sorry.

Exactly.

Dude, the difference is, especially when you're selecting one, it's hard because you go, oh, how big do I want these squares to be?

Yeah.

I don't know.

And then when it shows up, you go, that's too many squares.

Yeah.

That's too few.

Yeah.

When you look at a photo of a pattern, it's like, what is this?

I need a, I need a, no banana for scale.

Like, what are we doing here?

It's true.

They need to have a banana in every one of these photos.

I don't think they have many bananas in Scotland.

I mean, they import them.

That's a good point.

Whiskey bottle.

There you go.

Bottle is McCallum 12 for scale.

Yeah.

Oh, man, I can't wait to see that, though.

That's going to look fucking sick.

Yeah, pick it up next week.

Yeah.

And then a new engine, right?

Okay.

I'm going to finally do the rod bearings, which is like another $2,000.

I can't believe you've not done that.

Wow.

I know, considering how I'm driven it, too.

But someone's Q2 check is making it getting well, you.

Yeah.

Oh, right.

Yeah.

Profit sharing.

Here we go.

That's awesome.

That's going to be so fucking fun.

You're not going to drive that.

You're going to fly to Pebble, though, right?

And then roll, roll our tow vehicle while you're up there.

We might actually drive up for a camping trip and stay up there

because Pebble's like four days later.

Oh.

So we might just stay in Santa Cruz.

And if you and I have to do shows like I might just take a fucking

southwest flight down and go back up or something like that.

Let's do it.

We might just do it.

We could do a Zoom show.

Or that.

But I think they'd forgive us.

Because we're all because we're driving like to Yosemite.

Yeah.

And we could do it.

If you and I are physically in different cities for reasons

that are can't be changed, and we still deliver shows over,

I think the audience forgives that.

Because we also get to leave our dog with my parents while we go to car.

We could be nice.

Oh, yeah.

I don't think because our Airbnb is not no parose, I don't think.

We'll also like leaving him there all day while we're out doing that.

Well, that's so fun.

No.

But they, uh, Manks is, they're committed.

The car will be ready.

We will have, we will have development miles driven in time for car week.

Um, you're right there.

Someone says Zach said the R word.

What?

Oh, rod bearing.

They don't.

I was like, did I just slip?

And did I just shame Gillis real quick?

Yeah.

You are right.

Rod bearing.

Um, should we talk about the forerunner?

Yeah.

We should, right?

I don't have, I didn't post photos on the gram.

Oh, you did.

You did.

Of the forerunner TRD, the new 2025.

Um, it's very dirty.

Forerunner don't tread on me.

But also this, I think this color is called like mud, mud, muds, mud,

mud bomb, mud, mud bomb, mud bomb, mud, mud bomb, mud, mud, mud something.

Um, so finally what is the first time in 15 years?

My bath.

Mud bath.

Thank you.

It's time in 16 years.

We have a new forerunner.

Yep.

And honestly like probably more like 20.

Oh, yeah.

Yeah.

If you drive one before 09, it feels a lot like.

Yeah.

Well, I mean, our, our good friend, Timmy, shout out to Timmy.

Has no six.

Um, and, and has had it since oh six, had it since new.

It's been up on 20 with this thing.

And in, I don't know, 21 over 15.

He had it repainted in that modern, it was black in the modern desert tan color.

And had the, the post facelift nose put on it.

And that motherfucker looked like the new one up until a year ago.

The nose fit.

Yeah.

Yeah, it did.

The same face.

He facelifted.

Yeah, supposed to be like a generational difference, but the facelift work.

Yeah, he facelifted his own truck and it had totally worked just fine.

And they had the, basically the same four liter V6 with five speed automatic for ever.

Forever.

Um, yeah.

So now we have, uh, this one's a hybrid.

There's a four cylinder turbo non hybrid and a four cylinder turbo hybrid.

Yes.

This was the TRD pro, which is the top, top one.

There's that, there's the pro and there's also the trail.

Something that costs the same amount of money.

They're both hybrid only, uh, trail master.

Yeah.

I think the trail master's like the more luxury version and the TRD pro.

Trail hunter.

Sorry.

In the TRD pros, the more like Baha e version.

Um, so we went off roading in it and, uh, Zach also took it camping and drove it around the city, drove it on the highway.

Um, honestly, like a lot to like, if you ask me, like, there are many people that are concerned that it's a hybrid, but like, it's basically like a Prius hybrid.

And Toyota is pretty much mastered this type of hybrid.

I have, I really have no concerns about this type of hybrid coming from Toyota.

I agree.

These, these cabs I take home from the fucking airport have like 800,000 miles on them.

Yep.

They're all Priuses.

Yep.

I'm pretty sure this is going to be fine.

It was a big factor in my wife and I buying a RAV4 hybrid instead of like a CRV.

Yeah.

Because they've been doing it forever and they do it well.

Yeah.

That kind of hybrid.

So it's, it's got a whole bunch of extra torque.

Um, so it's 326 horsepower, 456 pound feet of torque, which is a gain of 178 pound feet of torque from last year.

And it's 139 pound feet of torque extra from the, the current gen, the new one that's just gas.

I mean, it's, it's a second quicker to 60.

Yep.

And either the current gen gas or the top trim V6 from last year, even though it's 800 pounds heavier.

And even though it's 800 pounds heavier, it feels much, much lighter on its feet.

Yeah.

Because of the torque, because of the hybrid.

And the suspension I think.

The way they calibrated the steering and the suspension, it just, it doesn't roll in the corners or anything.

Yeah.

I mean, it feels like we drove it up a canyon road and it felt exactly like any other crossover you would drive today.

But in terms of like body roll and stuff, but I think it actually roads slightly better than the Mazda CX50.

We'll talk about that later.

I was impressed with the ride on the road.

I thought the ride, that was very nice.

And I thought the ride on the trail was pretty good too.

Yeah.

I mean, it for, for effectively a fixed suspension.

Yeah.

It was, it's, it's these Fox Q S3, which is a mono tube.

It's not an independent reservoir, Fox shock, but it's nice.

I think it was, it was nicely dialed in.

I mean, it, uh, other than, um, you know, we learned, uh, with this hybrid four cylinder because we got the transmission really hot.

It had enough power, uh, to get up some really challenging stuff.

Seemingly easily without going into low range.

Um, and other off roaders that we've used have not necessarily needed low range in these particular section of trail.

Yeah.

But we would advise, uh, based on what we learned to go into low range when things start to get steep and rocky a little earlier than maybe you would have before.

Yeah.

We were surprised we got stuck on an obstacle and we did it over again with low and it was totally fine.

But it was, uh, and then the transmission got hot also.

Well, the transmission got hot in for high, not in for high when we were doing some rock crawling.

And it didn't seem like the engine was working very hard.

Right.

Nothing else seemed like it was out of place, but the, the, the trans temp went up.

And then, um, we did it.

We went back around and, and we did it again in low range.

And it was the trans, the trans temp didn't move at all.

So I guess that's the lesson there.

And we also, we didn't have, there's so many gauges available on this like three pod digital system.

We didn't have the trans temp gauge up until we got the warning.

Well, it took you a while to find it.

It did also take a while to find it.

Um, so we, we might have noticed it.

We weren't sure if the temp was creeping up because we were using four h the whole way.

Or did it spike suddenly on that one obstacle?

Yeah.

Which we were there for like 20 seconds trying to get up this thing.

Yeah.

And then it spiked.

Yeah.

And other than the warning, nothing bad happened.

And the temp went from like 50% to, it's, there's not a degrees, but it went from 50% to 80%.

And we went into low and just continued.

And over the next few minutes, it came back down to where it should be.

And then it stayed there.

So, um, you know, nothing bad happened.

But in the video, you, it, because we did it in real time, you'll see we kind of think something is wrong.

And then, um, we'll have to figure out.

I think that I do, we do, we're going to do a voiceover bit that I'll explain exactly what happened.

But like at the time we were unsure about why it did that.

Yeah.

But we thought about it later.

This is why like articles are better than videos sometimes.

Yeah, they are.

I mean, this is why, uh, you got to revise it.

Um, I do think the, the ride is impressive for the, the breadth of abilities for a fixed compression shock.

Like you can adjust it manually.

But versus like, Ranger Raptor has Fox Live Valve changes all the time adaptive blah, blah, blah.

Colorado does not have that.

So that's more like this one.

But this is a piggyback reservoir.

So it's not like there's no tube to a reservoir like over in the trunk.

These things were really good.

It felt like you could do more, more Baja type stuff with this than old four runners.

But it's still rock crawled great.

And that's where this thing's bread and butter.

Yeah.

Um, I would, uh, now every, the biggest question so far is four runner versus land cruiser for kind of the same money.

Mm hmm.

I think I liked the four runner a little better.

I think I just liked, I think I liked how it drove on the road a little better than the land cruiser.

I think I liked the steering a little better.

I think I liked the shape of it a little better.

Uh, like the roll down tailgate.

I don't need the third row.

Um, what about sightline?

So, so I haven't driven the land cruiser.

But in the four runner, we both complained about the view over the hood.

It's a huge, it's a big truck hard to see.

Yes, you have forward facing cameras and they have guidelines for your tires.

Yeah.

But you have to use them a lot or just get, maybe we're just not comfortable with.

No, I'm tall.

Like, I'm six foot three.

Like you're, you're not, there's not a lot of people that are taller than me that are going to be driving this.

Like it's okay on the road.

You'd still turn, you'd, you'd still run over a four year old straight up in the first eight feet in front of the car.

You're, you're going to run over a four year old.

You can't see that.

But it's fine to drive most of the time off roading at even mild uphill inclines.

You cannot see the trail.

You can't and this doesn't have like the Bronco has that those clever corner markers that are also tie downs for shit on the roof.

And that's a great way to know where your wheels are.

And this didn't have, there's like a hump.

It's small, but it's just not as obvious.

You just have to rely, you have to use that camera.

And although the tracers for where your wheels are going to go are cool, the camera itself is a pretty wide angle.

And outside of that center two or three foot wide band, it gets warped be like real fast.

So considering how much you have to rely on it to do any kind of crawling, it's mildly annoying that it's not a little better.

Yeah, I agree.

With Bronco, Colorado and Wrangler, they all seem to have a much better physical indicator on the hood of where your tires are.

And the Land Cruiser just has a lower hood relative to the driver's seat.

Like you can just see better straight up.

Yeah, it's a very tall hood.

It has like the fake hood scoop, which maybe just to make room for everything that's under the hood.

Now, maybe if you don't get the TRD Pro and it has the less meaty hood, it has the less, it doesn't have 35s.

Maybe that's somehow is a little better.

Well, the Pro is also slightly taller than like one of the other 400 off-road.

So everything about your sightline gets taller and worse with it.

But the actual like, you know, the trail we did was pretty challenging.

Like there was a place where you had to like reverse and adjust.

It's not just pick a line and go anywhere.

You know, there's, you do have to make adjustments and there are places that damage the car.

Well, we had spots where like you had one wheel in the air.

Yeah.

You're on three, teetering on two, doing like a wheelie up the hill is pretty legit.

And it got up this trail really, really well.

And it got back downhill as well.

It's very good at going downhill safely.

The hybrid system with the engine braking in the right, in that mode is really, really good.

But the whole time, because the last time I was up there was in the electric G-Wagon.

I just like, other than the range, man, electric off-roading is just so, so pleasant.

It's so nice to have either, especially if you can have four motors.

If you've got a G-Wagon, or if you've got a Rivian quad, or to a certain extent, the tri, you know,

and you've got this infinite torque work, and oh my god, and it's just quiet.

You can hear every bit of gravel, what every tire is doing.

Oh, that's the best.

Just windows down.

Yeah, that's great.

I agree.

What did I say?

It's like the closest to hiking, but you're motorized, you know?

Yeah, yeah.

It's like a hiking motorized wheelchair.

Yeah, it's really nice.

I didn't have many complaints about this.

It's expensive.

And that's a financial question for people.

I mean, it's 70 grand.

And the last TRD Pro, even adjusted for inflation, I think I calculated it was like 57.

Yeah.

So this has more stuff, but that's a big jump.

I mean, it does have some pretty, it pretty, it's got the disconnecting sway bars.

True.

From the Land Cruiser, it's got all the different drive modes.

From the Land Cruiser, those shocks, it can tow 6,000 pounds.

It can, the Bronco, none of the Broncos or Wranglers can tow that.

True, it does the most.

Yeah.

It does tow more than that.

It's, I don't know like, I recognize that I'm like a little bit separated from maybe the average

four runner purchaser, but like, it doesn't, it doesn't feel that expensive considering

it's the top, top trim.

There's basically no options.

This is it.

You just pick a color, and that's the price, basically.

And I think it does a lot of things really well.

Yeah.

And I think four runner people, I mean, it remains to be seen, right?

Will it be durable?

We don't know yet.

Right.

True.

But like, for the first new four runner, I think, I actually think, despite some people bitching

about it being, you know, the hybrid and more tech and whatever, I think like four

runner people will actually like it a lot.

It's super usable when we took a camping.

And the highway driving is great.

All the ADAS stuff works really, really well.

It's better than a bunch of other SUVs we driven lately.

I like all the cubbies, the storage shit.

The storage is really good.

You open the tailgate when you're camping.

The trunk is very tall because of the battery, but we use it as our dresser, which is awesome.

But then you've got cubbies in the back.

You can put water or gear, paracord or whatever.

You can use it as an organizational system.

And that was via a bunch of stuff through Toyota.

Like the Dometic fridge and like Yeti storage boxes and coolers and like ARB stuff and rigid

stuff and roll that into your financing.

Just sweet.

The one thing I really didn't like is the sound of it, like the exhaust sound.

It clearly has some type of TRD performance exhaust on it that I sort of wish it didn't have.

And in the, you know, there's your on-road drive modes.

It's like normal sport eco.

And then there's like the five or six off-road drive modes and gravel, sand, snow, rocks, blah, blah, blah.

And like so many sports cars now, it defaults start up to normal mode.

You drive around in normal mode.

On the highway, it, if you're going like 60, which in LA, sometimes whatever.

If you're going certain speeds, it's crazy drony.

And you have to click it into sport so it keeps the engine above the drone.

Yeah.

Like all the time, pretty much.

It was like 1,500 RPM it droned.

Yeah.

Now it still sounds what's funny is I think the V6 powered four runners had a drone most of the time because it's a V6.

Yeah.

But this is almost like reminds you of that.

And it's not very pleasant.

It doesn't sound great on the inside or the outside.

Like when I was standing outside and you were driving past like, oh, it's not great.

Yeah, it's just.

But like major Raptor's a V6 doesn't sound great to me.

It doesn't sound great.

Nothing in this class.

It sounds good.

Not only the G3, it sounds bad.

Yeah.

The V8 sounds good.

Yeah.

So this is OK.

But I would like take that exhaust off and just put the regular four runner exhaust back on.

But I would want a two course power.

It could be quieter.

Someone would trade you, you know, find another four runner owner and be like, I will trade you your stock exhaust for this drony thing.

But in general, I liked it.

I thought it was pretty nice.

It's definitely like the Tacoma, the four runner and the Sequoia are real like meaty like UFC interiors.

The interior looks like the UFC octagon and like those things.

Everything's like big and chunky meaty.

Whereas in the Land Cruiser line, it's a little, it's less of that.

It's a little more not dainty, but like.

Yeah, but we can look at a picture of the butt.

Some of the buttons in the Land Cruiser are literally smaller.

Yeah, yeah.

And the buttons in this thing are a little more like dainty and wide.

Yeah.

So that you can always hit them with your big paw or whatever.

Yeah, like the Simpsons or is it the Simpsons where he gets, he's like mash ball on phone.

Yeah.

Yeah, so let's see the Land Cruiser interior.

Land Cruiser interior is more like the fold of the full one.

Yeah, that is definitely a little more dainty than the I need.

I just want a higher res.

This is only like 600.

Oh, that stinks.

Still, like it's pretty, it's pretty trucky.

But it looks like it's trying to do lean a little more towards what you might have seen from.

It looks actually like a rain, a two generations ago, Range Rover, but with a bigger screen.

Yeah, well, you know what?

I think these volume buttons and HVAC buttons are the same as what you get in the four-runner.

Those three are, but everything else around it is much softer and more like you would see in Alexis.

Gotcha.

Same steering wheel for sure.

Same steering wheel with different exterior to the steering wheel.

The wrap is different.

Yeah, yeah.

The climate controls and like certain things are the same, but like all the surfaces are different.

Yeah.

Well, it drives different.

And they just make the four-runner and the Sequoia TRD like way like chunkier.

Yeah, it's all like some hard plastic, but it feels durable.

Yeah.

Everything needs to be on the ball truck.

If your hands are covered in mud, like we want you to be able to operate the buttons and wash it out with a hose.

Yeah, but we'll have a video of that soon, but it was pretty good.

It was.

It was pretty good.

I just got dropped off the Cannam Pulse Electric Motorcycle, which is kind of neat.

Let me find it.

Yeah, we don't have it over a second.

Okay.

Yeah, look at this thing.

That.

It's like a sporty sort of city bike.

It's a street fighter style, but it's electric.

It's electric.

Yeah.

And it's pretty cool.

It's fun to ride.

It's light and agile.

And it has really neat brakes.

Like it has, you know, regular brakes of right hand brake and a foot brake.

And obviously your left hand isn't doing anything but steering because there's no clutch, right?

But in addition to the throttle, you can twist the throttle forward away from you to regen brake, which when you're going into a corner,

hard is the natural motion of your hand.

So it's pretty cool.

Well, okay, because when you're like when you're breaking on the motorcycle into a corner,

you do more brake, front brake than rear brake.

But when you use the regen, it's rear brake.

Yeah.

Okay, interesting.

I mean, look, I haven't like mobbed canyons yet with it.

And it's easy to break gently without activating much regen at all.

And there's a three, one, two, three off of a regen.

So you can toggle it not infinitely, but like, you know, in some kind of way.

I put it up to max.

And at max, if you really do it forward, like you, I don't know if you can lock the rear wheel, but like it's a pretty hard...

You probably can't because they probably programmed that out, but that's close.

Yeah.

Around the city, that seems really cool though.

Yeah.

How do you regen?

And then you go to the canyon for a minute because it runs out of juice and then you just turn it off.

Right.

So the juice is the problem.

I filled it up.

I charged it, you know, in my house.

And it charges in about an hour, which is nice on a level two.

But it says 48 miles to empty.

But it was full.

Wow.

And last night, I wrote it from my house to Venice for dinner and back, which is like 12 miles.

And it said 30 miles when I got home.

So it seems that the, you know, it's light and it's agile, which means it doesn't have a big heavy battery, which means with someone that's tall and fat on it, it's not going to go very far.

Which is sort of the downside because this thing costs $13,000.

You know, it's too bad because it's actually like fucking awesome to write.

If you had a commute, a regular commute of like 15 miles or less, this would just be kickass.

It would be so awesome.

It's like flying a glider.

It rips off the line.

Yeah.

I think it maxes out at 85, but it is comfortable to ride on the highway.

And like it pulls pretty hard from 70 to 85.

Cool.

And with the regen, the display screen is really, really clear.

The gauges are really clear.

Like there's little different stuff you can do.

I bet it feels like Starward pod racing because you had the instant twerk of it.

It's fun.

And it is.

I don't know the exact, can you look up the weight of it?

I don't know the exact weight, but it feels light and agile.

It's probably not like 390.

It's like a Harley.

That's funny.

It does not feel 390 pounds.

Man, they really, maybe because it's all just in the battery.

So it's concentrated like down low.

But it really does not feel.

It's got, yeah, 8.9 kilowatt hour battery.

Oh, it's 80 mile an hour top speed.

The speedometer goes above 80.

Oh.

Maybe there's that little extra.

I don't know.

Yeah.

But it's, it is like, maybe it's just because it's a shorter wheelbase.

Or the weight is down low because the battery's down there.

And there's not much weight up high.

I don't know, but it does feel very agile and fun.

I bet it's a cool way to get around it.

Yeah.

And I used to do this too with electric motorcycle.

I was like, oh, the range is so limiting.

That's really dumb.

But there's plenty of cars we love that are only good for one thing or two things.

So, all right, if you have a good amount of money or you have a really consistent commute,

you could buy this and just, I bet it's a really fun experience.

Yeah, it is.

Thanks for the experience.

Yeah.

It's super fun.

Like, it is, it is in terms of urban riding, I think it is more fun than a regular motorcycle.

And it's not that powerful.

I mean, you can look up the 47 horsepower.

Like, that's not that much.

But if you're, if you're getting 47 horsepower at, you know, at zero and whatever the torque number,

I assume it's probably the same.

You know, you're ripping off the line.

And no one, you know, you're silent.

So you're just gone.

But the time anyone thinks anything of you, especially lane splitting, like, dude, half throttle,

I am out on this thing.

It's awesome.

I, for me, personally.

You ride it the way model three drivers drive.

Yeah.

For me personally, though, like, I don't, I think I would need to be able

because it's electric.

And because like, I, unlike a car, like, I just don't want to be stopping in my day-to-day life.

Like, you know what I mean?

Like, my electric car does not have the longest range.

But I'm certainly not stopping in days of running errands to, to charge.

You know what I mean?

Like, if I can only really go 40 miles, like, I can't get to Pasadena.

That's true.

Like, I'm going to Malibu and back is pushing it.

Like, ooh, that's like, you know, I don't think you could do.

You don't think you'd have to charge in Malibu?

Well, I'm going to find out.

I'm going to go out there this weekend.

And fortunately, there is a charger.

Yeah.

You know, the live wire store.

Actually, that's fine.

That's chargers.

So I'm going to go out there confidently knowing I can charge.

But like, when I rode the live wire, like, this was a thing.

Like, the live wire was awesome too.

The live wire was the same feeling of flying a glider.

But the whole bike was built like a Harley, meaning it was made of metal.

And like, that, it had just an amazing solid feeling about it.

It was a beautiful thing to ride and use.

It was awesome.

But I can only get like 60 miles out of it.

And it was like $18,000 or something at the time.

I don't really, yeah.

It's really limiting.

You have to look at an area where the metropolis,

the metropolis that you use is 20 miles basically.

Yeah.

Because Pasadena has another city.

It's in the county.

But I like it.

But Ellie is a big sprawl.

For sure.

And then there's people whose use case doesn't, doesn't include.

I need to go 60 miles.

But like, my use case for two wheels is like, I have to go to somewhere that's far,

not that far, but LA far, at a time that is deeply inconvenient.

So like, Vespa or any other motorcycle.

You know, if I have to go downtown and rush hour,

I have to go to the valley at rush hour.

Motorcycle is my only option for that.

I don't have time for that bullshit.

Yeah.

So like, but I need to be able to go do that without also just like sweating the range.

You know, which sucks because like, I hate it's not, it shouldn't,

it shouldn't be about range.

It should be about efficiency.

And this bike seems to do about three miles per kilowatt hour when cruising.

Which do them, do the math 8.9 kilowatt hour times three.

Hey, baby, it's 2087.

Yeah.

That's not great.

I bet if 120 pound little Italian man or whatever, you know, rides it,

it's probably much better.

Right, they test it with a jockey.

It'd be funny if the EPA test for this is a very small, you know, weight.

I mean, I'm right or weight.

So I'll have like an Instagram review of it.

And maybe I'll talk about it later if something really interesting happens.

But like, so far, it is really, really fun to ride.

But I just have to really pay attention to the, to the thing.

And it's, you got to get the cargo box for this because you don't want to ride this thing

around without being able to carry some groceries, you know,

or put your helmet on there when you're doing errands because that's what this is for.

This is like a step up from, from a, from a high end scooter.

Which is fine.

It's like cool.

I would, but if this was, if that was cheaper,

I would potentially like switch from my Vespa to that.

You know, but I, but my, I got my Vespa of $5,500.

Right.

I could sell it today for 5,500 and one.

Yeah.

You know, and the fuel efficiency is so good.

It's 70 miles a gallon.

Right.

You know, come, like, it's pretty clean living in this cheap.

Yeah.

So there's no, you, like, cause this, this, that's a really fun experience,

electric motorcycles.

But like, most motorcycles actually have a very good value proposition,

whether it's dollars for speed, dollars for fuel efficiency,

dollars for time savings, because you can park it fucking anywhere.

Like, they're, I mean, they're dangerous.

That's the flip side of all of those things.

Right.

But the other, the other side of being dangerous is like,

a lot of good reasons to use a motorcycle for stuff.

But if they're too expensive and you can't, and you can't, you know,

they're also so fuel efficient that why make them electric?

Yeah.

You know, it's fun.

It's a niche thing.

Yeah.

But we'll have a, hopefully, I'll have some more.

Do you want to go to the people or something else you want to do?

I just want to show you this Mercedes.

A Mercedes-Benz shirt.

They're new AMG GTXX.

Yeah.

And we're not, AMG, we're not copying Ferrari XX.

Right.

We're going to play a game called, do they make this with AI,

or do they actually make this?

That is AI.

No.

Sorry.

That's...

Oh.

Oh, that was it.

I was just people dancing in a DJ's and shit.

Oh, this is it.

Okay.

Wow.

What is going on?

So much is going on.

There's a lot of things happening here for a car.

For audio people, go on Instagram and go to Mercedes-Benz AMG

and look for their thing called Moments Made in Motion.

Yeah.

It's quite the AMG family came together.

Here's what it looked like.

Wow.

So many influencers were there.

I don't know any of them are.

So that's why I thought it was AI first.

I just saw Alicia Keys.

Okay.

That's George Russell.

Yep.

That's Roger Federer.

Yeah.

Okay.

And the car.

So we've got...

It's got the side profile of an elongated GT63.

It's got the mouth of a Maserati Gran Turismo.

And it's got the rear end of a Nissan Z.

Is what I see.

This was just like...

This was a lot.

This is such a crazy event.

It looks like a rave that was thrown for a car.

Fireworks.

Fireshooting.

What I really want to do is pause.

I want to pull out...

I'll find a foot.

Yeah.

And pause the aerial view to see what's around their little party.

Because it looks like it's factories.

It looks like it was held in an industrial party.

I say do it on a budget.

Yeah.

Let's just see some still photos of the car.

So do you think...

Are you saying that that event was AI?

When I first saw it, I thought it was AI because I went...

There's no way they did this.

I mean...

But then I saw Russell's face.

I mean, that's obviously him actually there.

Yeah.

But in the first like snapshots...

And this is I think me being an old man shouting at the cloud.

I was like, I don't know how many of these people are.

So is this just AI?

And then there's like fire on a stage in the zoom out.

And I went, this can't be real.

But for releasing a car.

Right.

The question is, did they have a real party?

Or was it a video shoot that their ambassadors were at?

Like do you think they had a party and filmed it?

Or that they...

I think they had a PR event.

Okay.

And they filmed it and people were there for an hour.

They probably had AI edited.

Maybe.

That could be why.

I think AI is getting very good.

So I go, is this real or not?

All right.

Let's look at this car.

Oh God.

Okay.

It's...

Yeah.

So we've got...

I think it's weird looking.

It is weird looking.

Basically, it looks like Mercedes has built a Tykon with a Maserati mouth.

Yep.

And Maserati headlights.

And in the back, it looks like a Nissan Z rear end.

It looks derivative.

Oh, excuse me.

Not Nissan Z.

More like a Hennessey Venom GT.

Yeah.

Three round tail lights on either side, flanking a digital screen.

12.

I can say things.

It says so AMG.

Yeah.

That's a tough car.

So electric hypercar sedans.

Do we care?

Well...

How do we define hypercar sedans?

Because the Panamera...

Sorry, not Panamera.

The Tykon Turbo, which is insane and super, super fast.

Yes.

Is that a hypercar sedan?

I mean, I think it probably counts.

Tykon Turbo GT.

It was...

It puts up numbers on a racetrack that are in line with what car...

What you would be considered supercars.

It certainly accelerates.

Sure.

And it runs 9s out of the box.

I think that counts.

Yeah.

I think the Sapphire would as well.

But at the same time, I don't give a shit.

I don't personally lust for a Tykon Turbo GT.

I want to try one when it comes out.

The new one.

Yeah, let's have a go.

Let's try it.

But I bought the slow Tykon.

Right.

And not because that's the one I could afford.

I could afford a nicer Tykon.

But I think it's kind of a waste of money.

That thing's like 400 horsepower.

I fucking put my foot on the floor yesterday.

Scooted around a bunch of people.

That would have been a three-year downshift in the LC500.

It's like driving, you know, the week before.

Cars quick.

Here's what I think is happening.

Yeah.

The EQS and EQE flopped.

Because they looked dull.

Yeah.

I mean, they were the ugliest thing Mercedes has made in a long time.

Because a lot of the cars, AMG GT, great looking.

They're SUVs.

I think they're pretty good looking.

They look like back to the future two cars.

They were bars of soap that were 40% down in their life.

I mean, it was just so ugly.

I bet this...

Look, it's 1,000 horsepower.

So that's basically in line with Tykon Turbo.

They're going to have this...

That's going to be the number that gets everyone's attention.

And then they'll sell more of the ones like you bought,

which is like they'll have the normal AMG GT, just not the XX.

Yeah.

And then it says charging time five minutes for 400 kilometers,

which probably means it will be able to accept like 500 kilowatt charging,

which is great if there are any 500 kilowatt chargers.

If you can find it.

Yeah.

Top speed over 360 kilometers per hour.

That is well over 200.

So I think this...

I think this is them relaunching their electric cars

because they have sunsetted EQS and...

But it has like the butterfly steering wheel like the AMG1.

And I mean...

Look, I think the back looks cool.

I don't think it's ugly.

I think it's derivative.

I don't think it's ugly.

I think the front is kind of just okay.

If I'm not that into the front.

Like I really wish...

I can't believe I'm saying this, but I really wish they would retro-future

the 90s Mercedes.

Like the W124.

I wish they would retro-future that.

That's something.

Have some blocks around that.

The W124, the W129.

I wish they would do that.

Like Hyundai with that...

With that, you know...

Yeah.

This...

I mean, it's not ugly, but like...

Do people want this?

This is a thing that people...

That they think people want.

Like a thousand horsepower electric sedan.

Like...

Have you seen any...

How are they on sales?

GTs.

Yeah.

I mean, I don't think they sell enough that we would just like see them around.

I've seen zero customer-owned cars.

No, I've seen one.

I've never seen a customer-owned sapphire.

Yeah.

And rimmots, you know, they have not...

I don't think they've sold out.

Like, I think...

I think they have now, because it was a key to getting a tour beyond.

Oh.

Yeah, that was smart.

Yeah, you had to be a preview...

Yeah, the loophole...

You had to be a previous Bugatti or rimmots customer.

Oh, by the way, there's still a few of those.

Waiter, write a contract, Montaille.

Damn.

That's genius.

Yeah.

All right.

We'll go to the people.

This doesn't do anything for me in concept form.

Meaning the concept of a thousand horsepower Super Sedan.

I just don't really give a shit about...

Now, if they build one, would I like to test it for a couple days?

Yeah, sure.

Can it be fun?

Yeah, that could be fun.

But I wouldn't spend my money on that.

Let's see.

Let's go to the Patreon.

Our patrons, of course, get exclusive early access among other things to tickets to live shows.

They get a 24-hour head start on buying all tickets to live shows.

They got early access on the notice watches, early access and exclusive access to our tactile

turn pen collab among many other things.

They get extra podcasts, live shows, ask questions, add free shows.

You get a whole lot for your money over there at theoldpatreon.com slash the Smogentire podcast

to the questions.

Granny Shifting, not double-clutching like you should says, oh, if you and Zach were patrons,

what user names would you select when asking questions?

Now, that is very good.

It's a good question.

It's tough.

I'd probably...

It depends.

Would I want to be like something like disgusting or would I want to be something that was

like probably related to my cats?

Pop to mind was in check engine light, which is like in cell.

Wait.

Oh, in C-L.

Like I could do I-N-C-L or I could do I-N check engine light and people, only two people

would get it, but...

Yeah, no, the in cell, that, I mean, that's very funny, but also...

I don't want it, I'm not.

You can't joke about that.

Out cell.

Like, yeah, you'd be...

Yeah, it's like you can't joke about doing a Nazi salute.

Like, it doesn't matter if you joke.

I agree, you can't.

Yeah.

I agree.

Like, even if you were joking, you're...

Even if you do it twice in a row.

Yeah.

No, no, like, oh, he wasn't joking, but I'm saying there are people who like kind of do it

as a dumb joke, but like, there's still going to be that photo of you doing it.

So...

Every year there's a story like someone dressed as Hitler for Halloween and then gets in a fight.

Like, how come people are mad at me?

Well, do you remember...

Do you remember Halloween Hitler?

No.

2011?

Ten?

Ten.

Was it that big party you wanted to?

No, when it went to Halloween party at the bar in Redondo Beach.

There was the poor house, the pitcher, the poor house.

Remember that bar?

Yeah, the mall.

And I was dressed as Walter from the Big Lebowski.

And I took home a girl who was dressed as sexy Hitler.

Wow.

Do you remember that?

I was wasted a bit.

It was...

It was something.

It was really a match made in...

For you broke the bed that night, you're just like a channeling all of the...

Jesus.

Walter and sexy Hitler.

Yeah, walking to a bar.

Yeah, I'd probably...

It would probably be like...

I would take one of my cats and then imagine...

That they were like the 15th air on a royal blood longing in the UK

and come up with a name for them.

And that would be my username.

What would be yours?

I would just...

You'd use the CO.

I would do something with check engine light probably.

Okay.

Yeah.

So it could either be in cell or cell a bit.

Cell a bit will be fun.

Celebrate good times.

What do you just think of?

Stage M3 clinger.

That's kind of funny.

It's kind of an old joke though.

What I'd like to...

I'm pretty sure a lot of our users switch up their names for fun

and you can just keep writing new jokes.

I do not have the answer to Andrew's question.

Maybe if a patron or a commenter has the answer.

My sister's Cayenne GTS comes with a very nice air suspension.

How does the ride quality compare to the BMW X5's air suspension?

And are they expensive to replace or maintain?

Well, I don't know about the X5.

I've never driven an X5 with air suspension.

So I couldn't tell you.

I haven't driven an X5 in 10 years.

Since the M?

No, since we rent...

We got a press car in South Carolina once.

Or I did.

Maybe I did.

But yes, they're expensive to maintain if they go bad.

My Ticons CPO warranty fully covers air suspension.

There's no wear and tear on air suspension.

It's covered. That's fully covered.

So if I had a car with air suspension,

I would probably want to have a warranty.

And most cars with air suspension have a fixed suspension.

Conversion kits specifically so they can live on reasonable lives without it later.

I think it's expensive because you see a lot of cars in LA that have air suspension collapsed.

Yeah, there's like a meme in like the area where we...

Not a meme.

It's like a thing...

Sorry.

I'm calling a thing that me and my wife joke about a meme and that's bad.

No, that's called life.

Yeah, there's a thing in life that Hannah and I are always pointing out air suspension

and blow out marks and ranger overs and stuff around our neighborhood.

Yeah.

Because the old people.

It's the old people eventually it goes and then they just don't get rid of it.

It just sits there and they get a new Mercedes.

They park a running story.

It's like, get rid of this fucking shitbox.

Tough owed says how feasible would it be to emulate the ride quality of a lucid air in an older car?

I have a lucid air and a BMW 530i.

The air handles better, flatter and yet is more compliant over bumps.

Are any companies out there making adaptive dampers for older cars?

Or would it take more than that to really accomplish it?

I think it would not be possible to make your E39 ride like a lucid.

I think there's a little too much going on there.

Yeah.

I mean, you can get adaptive dampers on the aftermarket.

Yes.

There are a number of companies that sell kits that do that well.

You could also get really good expensive regular dampers.

No, but aren't most companies that make adaptive dampers are designed to replace an OEM adaptive damper?

Well, no, didn't like on the focus.

Yeah.

Didn't you design to replace the OEM?

I'm pretty sure you get piggyback kits that go on from KW or from Tyne or whatever that have the gyroscope and all that shit.

What's it called?

DSC.

Oh, yeah.

The dynamic sport controller.

There's a lot.

Yeah.

Those exist out there.

Yeah.

They just be expensive.

I mean, looking EV has so much going for it here.

It's got the battery and the low center of gravity.

There's no engine.

So they have all kinds of possibilities with their front suspension that you don't have.

Right.

Because you have an engine there.

They can do shit with their control arms and put things in places that with an engine, you can't do that.

They could also do lighter springs up front than you can because they don't have an engine.

So that's part of it.

They also have a lot of computing power in that car to control those dampers.

Yeah.

It might be even more sophisticated than what you get from the aftermarket.

Yeah.

I would say you could just get a really good pair of sophisticated dampers from any reputable company

and just make sure the springs are comfortable enough and that would get you a long way.

I'm pretty sure Lucid stole the ride and handling guy from Lotus.

Really?

Yeah.

I think so.

Lotus is like, yeah, I don't think that's a that's a replicable thing to do.

Lotus is the Y combinator of suspension and setup.

Yeah.

Every car, you know, they get hired out to do that shit.

People get stolen and they do that well.

But gently used marital aid says when two comparable cars are even incompetence or one is slightly

more capable, when, when do you simply say screw it and go with the one with more character?

I made that choice.

I wanted to get in 06 when I wanted out of my Hummer so bad I was looking at STI and my friend,

my family friend owned the dealership so getting the STI would have been very easy.

I was looking at an EVO.

I was an EVO 8, I believe.

And then I went to go look at the John Cooper Works Mini.

And the John Cooper Works Mini was like $5,000 more expensive, had less power.

It wasn't all-wheel drive.

And on paper, it seemed like a way worse deal.

But I think I made the right choice.

I think for me at the time having that, that Mini was rad.

It didn't, those are 53s.

They fucking ripped.

They're so fun.

And they felt, to me, they felt like, more like miniature BMWs than something else.

Actually, I thought, I felt like my car was built really well.

And it doesn't matter that objectively the STI and EVO had a better 0 to 60 or whatnot.

barbecue sauce on my titties.

If you both, if California actually fell into the ocean

and you both had to evacuate and start over, what state would you move to?

Oh, man.

Probably Colorado would be lovely.

Yeah, it's fantastic there.

Yeah.

I like the Pacific Northwest, maybe Washington state.

But I think I'd be more likely to go to Colorado.

Washington has so many good things, but the rain and the clouds and everything in the winter.

It's just, I think it's too much.

Colorado gets a lot of sun.

Yeah.

Or maybe back to Connecticut with my family, but not because Connecticut is so great.

Although, Greenwich is beautiful.

Bush did 997.

Appearing on Zurich watches, they're funky.

I've never really handled one.

They Zurich, they specialize in weird ways to show the time.

So they have jump hour.

They have retrograde.

They have these weird little like tumbler things.

They're funky.

And if you want, you know, I wouldn't, I probably wouldn't buy one to wear every day.

But if you want like a, like scroll down, Zach, if that, that one,

the, the, the Artemis tumbler thing on the rises.

Oh, yeah.

That's, so that, the one on the left is called a retrograde.

I think it's cool.

Yeah.

The hands go from one to 12 and then click back and start over.

And the one on the right is called a tumbler, where that's the whole thing in the center spins

and the, and displays the number that is, I guess, one of the numbers that's up is the hour.

And then, and then it points at the, you know, at the minutes.

Wow.

So they have a, you know, they're like 1500 bucks.

They're, they're not super, super cheap.

They're, they're pretty well made, I think.

Very unique and weird for the price.

Yeah.

I mean, look, once you have a few watches, you start looking for like weird ways to display the time.

And like, you know, different stuff.

Yeah, get choked.

Exactly.

And these offer like complications that are typically more expensive from other, you know, Swiss manufacturers

or whatever.

But they're neat.

Yeah, they're fun.

Um, uh, Jake Shores.

Oh, okay, doing, okay, I think that's a, I think we've answered Jake's question earlier in the show.

Other cities.

If these go well, then we will go to other cities.

Um, uh, farting in the tartan.

Uh, the only scene in F1 that bugged me was when JP and his manager were driving the Mercedes

on what was clearly a test track, which I've seen in 100 videos and not an actual British road.

Yeah, where they're driving in the AMG GT down the road.

And it's like that track road that is for commercials that looks like.

I mean, point taken.

I don't care.

We've driven around there.

There's plenty of b roads that look just like that.

Location spotting is a different, is a whole other thing.

Um, crankshaft fondler.

I took my non-car obsessed mother to the mini track experience in Palm Springs because she's always

talking about how cute the new mini Cooper's are.

The son of the year award.

She loved the experience and she's going to buy.

Oh, she loved the experience and the JCW mini.

She drove on track and is going to buy one to start getting into auto cross.

Good for your mom.

Cool rules.

Yeah, that's awesome.

That's a good son right there.

TST sugar daddy.

I have an addiction to shitbox BMWs.

Uh-oh.

Hi, Armin.

Currently I have a 128 eye and an E70 X5 diesel.

What can I add to round out the fleet thinking a Z4 coupe or something funky and classic?

Ooh, a couple of ways to go.

Um, clown shoe.

You know, uh, shitbox.

You could get a, you know, a clown shoe with the 2.8 and non-M clown shoe.

Uh, you could get an E38 seven series.

Oh, seven series is all right.

Yeah.

Yeah, they're, they're fun.

And they're, they have transitional area era computers.

So that'll be an adventure.

Um, you could get a.

I mean, there aren't like no six series but they're so hard to maintain.

Oh, yeah.

So good.

Yeah.

What is that an E 20, E 28, E 29, E 26, E 24, E 24?

Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.

Whatever.

E 24.

Shark no six series.

Yeah.

Shark no six series, a Z3 non-M coupe or a E 38 seven series.

Printed.

Uh, Mr. Nailhead says, uh, oh, with the 4th of July coming up, what's the best explosion you've ever seen that was done for entertainment?

Hmm.

Interesting.

When I worked on the Bull Run reality show, they blew up everything.

Oh.

They blew up all kinds of stuff.

The pyro budget.

That the fucking guy on that show was like Danny fucking McBride in Tropic Thunder.

He was nuts.

And him and Goldberg were best friends and they were fucking nuts together.

And he, they would, uh, they're exploits five gallon gas cans full of, full of gas and just wrapped in fucking primer cord.

Like 50 times.

And they would just like lay them and it would look, you know, they'd fucking hit it and it would look like a strafing run from dom.

Yeah, we're like.

And woof.

Was that like as you guys are driving and the people in the contest are driving?

Yeah.

Wow.

They did one where they put like three of them gas cans in the bucket of a backhoe and like put it up over the thing and set them off like over the car.

They blew everything up.

That's amazing.

I have nothing even close to that.

Yeah.

That's good.

Uh, okay.

Let's see.

Honker, bonker, boinky, doinkies.

I like that.

Oh, so many words.

Okay.

My wife of 21 years has developed an anti-car mentality over the last couple of years.

She simply cannot handle the anxiety that she gets while riding passenger.

But she's less anxious while driving to the point where she doesn't want to go anywhere.

She feels more comfortable in public transit like buses and trains, but our retirement plan has been buying an RV traveling the world.

And now that seems far fetched.

I love her and support her.

But what's a car guy to do when his wife doesn't want to go for a driver weekend, get away anymore?

Well, a couple of things you can do for I mean, I would say the RV is probably out unless she all of a sudden decides she likes driving the RV.

Um, my wife doesn't like going up in the canyons with me.

You know, when we go on road trips together, she drives like for like all but the long highway transit sections.

My wife drives on road trips, which is fine with me.

I drive a lot for and I go out on the canyons like by myself or with friends.

So I mean, it doesn't, she doesn't have to partake in your hobby.

Now, maybe instead of the RV, maybe you get one of those like round the world like cruise tickets or something.

Um, maybe you visit places that are, you know, visit places by air that are great to you to use.

Probably try that to get around like Tokyo and London and, you know, whatever.

Go to Venice and fuck with a water taxi.

Uh, maybe instead of an RV, you get a boat.

You do it on a boat.

If that's, if that is, that's the way to get around.

You could see a lot of like that.

The world that way.

Yeah.

Um, I would also say you might, she might have like tri-therapy if you haven't.

Because if she's, if she's so anxious now, like, if she didn't have a problem and now she can't ride in a car,

but then can't ride in RV, which is like a very different driving experience than a canyon road sports car shit.

Like to me, that doesn't sound like you're a car guy and she's not a car girl.

It sounds like she's freaked out to be in a car.

She's not driving.

Yeah, maybe like agoraphobia or just like, just there's something else happening there.

And if she's not seeing a therapist, she probably should.

Yeah.

And this could possibly be something.

And we are not therapists, but like, believe me, I anxiety like this,

that could possibly be something that could be fixed with medication and therapy.

If it's not that she doesn't want to live that life with you, but she just can't get out of that hole.

That's a, that's a different thing.

That's not a car question.

Right.

Um, uh, Randi says, if you were buying a veteran car, would you rather have a gas car, steam car or an electric car,

any particular models in mind?

Oh, gas car.

I'd want to have a chug a chug.

I want to sound.

Yeah, it's got a chug a chug.

All those, it's cool.

It's cool.

You got to really know what you're doing with the steam.

Yeah, I don't know.

Yeah.

It's, it's weird.

The cloud behind it is huge.

It obscures the whole car.

No, I would want a gas car.

Yeah.

Um, models, I have no idea.

Whatever.

It doesn't matter.

What you, the one you, what you really want is one that like doesn't exist anymore,

and people won't know to like look for.

Like that Yale, like that's, that's like SEO death that thing.

But also the more obscure, the harder it is to repair.

Oh, I think even if it's not a, if it's not an olds or a Ford,

you're not getting parts like you, you have to make everything anyway.

Uh, the actual Dave, uh, hundred, the hundred to 150 K market for use sports

and exotic cars is really interesting right now.

Uh, if you lived in, uh, Venice, California, I assume, wanted a weekend car.

How would you decide on what to upgrade your?

Which sports cars best for Venice Italy?

Yeah.

Not allowed to drive in.

Upgrade your 997 Carrera to ideally manual gearbox.

Uh, however, as they get more exotic, that becomes harder to find.

A 991.2 McLaren 570 Audi R8 Corvette C8 3LZ or something else.

I would like, I think the, the biggest upgrade from a 997 there,

in terms of like performance, but also, I think is the Audi.

I agree.

Yeah.

And it will feel, it will feel exotic, like the McLaren,

but will be better made and probably hold value much better than the 570 will.

Yeah.

Corvette will feel like a step down unless you drive really fast.

Like it's a great car, but I think, I think opening the door quality wise,

exterior wise.

Yeah.

But you'd probably not be happy with the quality of a Corvette after a 997 honestly.

And it feels much more claustrophobic than the 911 engine.

Uh, I mean, a 991.2, if you can get a GTS, uh, that, that's a ripper right there.

Um, they're, they are fabulous.

If you can get a GTS with a stick, you're in the money.

Um, I don't know if you, if, I guess you probably can for that price.

Um, that would be a delight.

But if you want to feel like you're really getting an upgrade, uh, you want an R8.

And if you're in Venice and you don't have room, you know where to keep that motherfucker.

We got you where it was side spulious Caesar.

That's great.

Very good.

I like that.

Uh, where the buses in Panama as scary as they seemed because they looked very sketchy.

Yes, they worked very sketchy.

The, the Diablo's Rojos.

Yeah.

Those aren't like the buses that like most people take every day.

Most people like, they used to be, but most people take like regular buses now.

And the Diablo Rojos are like, apparently they have opened the drag strip.

And they're now just, just drag racing them at the drag strip.

Sankin racing.

Yeah, which is much safer.

Better than highway.

It was real shady.

Door open 100 miles per hour in a school bus.

With holes in the tires.

Yeah.

Like all of it.

All of it holds in the treads.

Yeah.

Sketchy.

Uh, bad gardener says, how do you feel about buying used cars from dealerships?

Uh, they're usually checked over.

But you don't get to interact with the previous owner, which gives you an idea of the car's

previous life.

I'd say more often than not, you don't get to interact with the previous owner of a car.

Uh, if you're buying it on like, bring a trailer or wherever.

Um, I, I would treat both scenarios the same.

I, I don't like, I would do a, if you can do a PPI, if not.

I mean, I bought this Tycon site unseen, but I have a very long warranty that's tall,

full coverage and so I was like, all right, whatever.

Fine, you know, but, um, it looked, it looked fine.

Car facts.

Yeah.

Whether it's from a dealership or an individual car facts, you would, you would do the same

due diligence.

Ideally, you would go look it in person.

If you can, you drive it.

If not, you'd have a mechanic look at it.

You know, I would do the same thing either way.

Uh, it might be better if it's at a dealer because your dealer might be willing to just bring

the car over to the mechanic.

Whatever, like my brother, he's bought nothing but used cars.

And a number of times he's bought a used car from a nice independent dealership.

And he got home in like a week later, there was a problem with the car.

And that dealership went, oh, that's our bad.

And like, they repaired it or they paid for the repair.

Whereas if you buy it from an individual, like they're just going to say that's not my problem anymore.

So that is a benefit of it.

Uh, the, uh, uh.

Okay, B Mike says I've owned my mark eight golf R for four months now.

And I have to say many of the YouTube car reviewers comments about the capacitive buttons

were hyperbolic based on my lived experience.

Have you ever had a similar experience where you didn't get the hate for certain features

of a car after you experienced it for yourself?

I did use those mark eight golf buttons and they suck.

I did too.

They would.

I also hated them in the ID4.

Yeah.

Uh, it's possible that that's quote journalist problem where if you live with it,

like maybe maybe you don't adjust the temp as often as we think you would.

And therefore you don't have to touch those stupid things.

Yeah, I mean, we, we, we do refer to a lot.

Like, oh, this could be journalist problem.

This could be journalist problem.

It's hard to think of exact specific scenarios right now.

Like a lot of it is like maybe if it was my car and I set all my favorites on the radio,

then I wouldn't care so much about a scrolling knob or something like,

like things like that.

Um, if I, maybe if I only ever drove one car,

then I wouldn't care about this certain thing as opposed to I'm getting in these different cars, you know.

Um, but the new Ferrari, a multi interior.

Yeah.

Doesn't have any capacitive buttons anymore.

Yeah.

Also sometimes we're right.

So, right.

Exactly.

Yeah.

Oh my God, that steering wheel is gorgeous.

How great those buttons.

So many buttons, but they're all buttons.

They're, they're square and they're, they're, and then a start button with it's made of metal.

That's red instead of that stupid thing.

Uh-huh.

And everything about this is better.

Uh-huh.

And they, and even though it's just a steering wheel and like 20 horsepower and a,

oh, but wait, hang on.

Have they made a, a weird shaped touchscreen there?

Is that a big touchscreen?

That is a big touchscreen.

A big touchscreen.

So that's going to be car play ultra, but what's funny is I wonder if the screen actually

goes to the edge or if it, if the functionality ends here.

Yeah.

I don't know.

We'll see.

But, uh, it's funny.

I just can't quit you.

I can't quit you touchscreen.

That's awesome.

Uh-huh.

Uh, but no.

Yeah.

So there's definitely stuff where we go.

Okay.

This might be a journalist problem.

It usually has to do with scrolling radio stations or things like that.

Changing settings that we're changing a lot.

But maybe I feel like when the NSX launch happened, which we weren't on,

everyone hated it.

And then it was found out later that the tires those cars were on were like,

all seasons.

Yeah.

And everyone was like the handling of this sucks.

And then when we drove it, it was on PS4.

Yeah.

It was awesome.

Yeah, I mean, there's definitely cars that people shit on and I drive.

And I go, oh, actually, this isn't so bad in vice versa.

There's cars that people go, I read reviews.

And I'm like, I'll read reviews sometimes.

I'll look at a review.

Some reviews someone's written where they've driven the same car as me.

I go, I know that press car.

And I don't know what the fuck.

Very different opinions.

Yeah.

I've been, dude, I mean, I've told you about the conversations I've had with Jethro

at some of the track events.

Sure.

Where someone will say a car behaves a certain way and me and Jethro

look at each other like, how is that even possible?

We don't understand how the car has done that.

Yeah.

That's crazy.

Kat Faris says regarding the, quote, fireworks at Daytona being fake comment

from the F1 movie, I wanted to report that I was there

and it was a real fireworks show.

Whoa.

What?

Did you think it was fake CGI?

I did.

Oh.

Because I literally thought, like, why would they shoot fireworks at that time?

It seems low and there's sparks landing on the road.

That, and I'm happy to be corrected.

So when you said fake, I thought you mean it's like,

because that they wouldn't actually do that during the last,

during that portion of the race.

I thought one, they wouldn't do it during that portion of the race.

Two, it wouldn't be that low altitude.

Three sparks wouldn't land on the road.

So I thought it was fake in three ways.

But I am corrected.

Oh, I just thought it was fake in terms of unrealistic.

But yeah.

Because they did it.

They really did it.

A bunch of drivers complained it was distracting.

You fucking bet.

Imagine the Joseph Kaczynski would be down with fake fireworks

when real fireworks are so easily available.

You know what I mean?

That guy likes reality until reality doesn't, isn't available.

Oh, you're right.

You know, just keep it just by fireworks then to CGI.

They'll just look better.

Also, you know, just right.

I'd rather have the real thing in like,

the real things available.

So if it's Florida, fucking light it up, bitch.

Like no one cares.

Explorer ST says, changing market conditions,

bring about opportunities.

What are the top opportunities for manufacturers right now

if they're able to pivot on a moment's notice?

The first thought is to continue the internal combustion boxer

Cayman.

What would you say?

To put a big block in everything and turn it to the ground.

Mercedes should get rid of that four cylinder in the AMG C63

and those variants.

That's one.

Two is I think Ferrari should absolutely be selling manual

transmission cars like yesterday.

It would sell all of them.

They'd sell all of them.

They don't even sell a lot of them but they really should.

And Aston should go back to or add an NAV 12

instead of the turbocharged one.

I know the turbo is amazing but just the sound of NA.

And I don't need 800 horsepower.

Like I'll take a nice 580 with a screen please.

And I think, well, manufacturers.

Yeah, I mean, I think at affordable,

a new affordable mid-engine sports car in America.

I think Toyota could do it.

If Toyota's benchmarking the Alpine and the Cayman,

they have a variety of usable power trains.

And I think they could possibly be the ones to do it.

I think Cadillac, having a sports car,

it's probably the right time if they were able to do a C8-based

Cadillac car.

But, yeah, did you see, right before we started the show,

Dodge is our Chrysler,

whatever the fuck, Stellantis is reviving SRT.

I did not see that.

I saw they recalled the charger because it's not loud enough.

It's really pedestrian.

Oh, that's funny.

Let's see, AMG spot, that's pretty good.

Use Julia's are really cheap under 30k for quads

and 15k for forebangers.

Exactly, it's a daily.

Do I need another rescue?

Possibly problematic for and car, I don't know.

How much more do you think they'll drop at one point?

At what point would you jump into one?

15. That's for Zach.

Well, someone, I left this reply up from regular Cat Reviews

because they say they have a Julia Quad

and they would skip any of the $30,000 pre-2019 ones

as they had all the teething issues.

And like belt services, three to four grand,

depending where you live.

Four grand for a major on these cars?

Yeah.

That's crazy.

225.

I mean, the problem with a cheap expensive car

is that it's cheap for a reason.

Yup, it's cheap because someone didn't,

we got fed up with the cost of maintenance

and said fuck this thing.

I would have to research because I think the quad is stunning.

Every time I see it, I turn and look at it.

I don't know if I'd buy the two-liter one,

just because if I'm gonna do it, I want the one that's fast and fun,

but then I'm basically buying an Italian M3.

Yeah.

And like you said, like I got my car for 15 grand.

What a great deal back then.

Yeah.

I spend two to four a year on it fixing it

and dressing things up.

That is, so.

Yeah, there's no, for me, there's no,

at what point would it be cheap enough to jump in?

Because if it gets that cheap,

you are asking for a monstrous bill.

It's getting that cheap for a reason, I think.

The car's pretty and sounds good.

It should never get that cheap

unless it's a fucking nightmare to keep running.

That.

Because if it's reliable, it will stay popular.

Yeah.

Avora.

Yeah.

Any load is a good example of why.

If it works, it has a floor.

Yeah.

It's only when the car doesn't work

and has a fucking, a horrific list of needs,

you know, that cars depreciate to zero.

Yeah.

Many Finney says e-rays are depreciating fast.

They're popping up for sale in the high 80s

with under 20 K miles.

Is there a better daily four-season sports car

in that range?

I don't, I mean, if you, I mean,

unless you can get a Carrera S, a four S or something,

that's a great four-season sports car.

Yeah.

They're fantastic.

These are the last questions, by the way.

I have to piece, so.

I know.

You have a meeting, too.

Christian says I've seen some 2025 Karma Riveraos for sale.

I feel like it would be a fun review to watch

since no one covers them.

SEO death, my friend.

No one covers them, and that's,

it's, no one's looking for Karma Riveraos, unfortunately.

Go watch my review from 2011, same car.

Nice cam says, use DBX 707s can be had for 150 to 175.

Is this a good value for what you're getting?

I love the 707.

Not a platform shared with anything.

The 707 has the gearbox update, the more power,

the suspension update, all that shit.

They're fast as fuck.

And fun in the candidates.

Yeah.

In any terms, they are fun.

Yeah.

They're a good time.

You tracked one in fucking Vegas at one track.

Yeah.

So if you're talking about, you know,

that's the price for one with low miles

so that it still feels like a pretty new vehicle,

I would say you are getting good value for money

because most people perceive that as 250 plus.

Yeah.

And it's still, they're still selling it.

It's still new.

It still looks like the one they're selling right now.

Yeah.

So the Rolls Royce move.

Yeah.

So, I mean, assuming there's a warranty on that of some kind,

yes, it is.

All roads lead to Cookville, Tennessee.

How does the Lotus Evora 400 compare to the Amira?

And how did, oh, Jesus, how do they compare to a Cayman?

I feel like we literally talk about that in the Amira video.

I mean, I think I really have to piece her

and I'm sure you'd like to hear this question address specifically,

but I can pretty much guarantee you that if you go to our

YouTube channel and watch our Amira video,

we talked about that exact thing.

Yeah.

Because you spent a lot of time with the Evora

and this was the comparison.

Yeah.

So that's our show for today.

Thank you, everybody.

Thank you to our patrons.

Come see us in Texas, July 24th and 25th.

While tickets last, we'll have the link for tickets in the notes for this show.

But it's also up on our Instagram bio.

They're affordable.

There's going to be food and beverage there.

Bring your car, bring your friends.

We'll hang out and talk and drink.

And it'll be a good time.

Plus, we all have the privilege of seeing Christian James Hand,

which is really going to be a fucking treat.

Thank you to everybody.

We'll see you later.

Goodbye.

2025 4Runner TRD Pro Review; AMG GT XX; New Seats

About this episode

Sterling 825

Toyota TRD Pro

Request an Explanation

Want to learn more?

Help improve this episode

More from The Smoking Tire