25-Year Rule Imports, 2026 Performance Cars & BAT Market Truths | Full Throttle Talk
Full Throttle Talk
25-Year Rule Imports, 2026 Performance Cars & BAT Market Truths | Full Throttle Talk
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Part
bumper
A bumper is the part of a car that is at the front and back, meant to protect the car during minor accidents. They can be made of materials like plastic that help reduce damage.
Concept
Charlotte Motor Speedway
Charlotte Motor Speedway is a famous racetrack in North Carolina where many car races happen. It's a big place for racing fans and often has events like car shows.
Concept
car show
A car show is an event where people show off their cars. You can see many different types of cars and sometimes there are prizes for the best ones.
Car
Porsche 356
The Porsche 356 is an older sports car made by Porsche, famous for being fun to drive and stylish. It was produced a long time ago, from 1948 to 1965.
Concept
Gator Crawl
Gator Crawl is a car rally event in Florida where people drive their cars on a fun route. It's a chance for car lovers to enjoy driving and meet others who like cars.
Car
Porsche 911
The Porsche 911 is a famous sports car that looks really cool and is known for being fast and fun to drive. It's been around for a long time and is loved by many people who enjoy cars.
Car
Ferrari 296 GTS
The Ferrari 296 GTS is a high-performance sports car that uses both a gasoline engine and an electric motor. It can transform from a coupe to a convertible, allowing for an open-air driving experience.
Term
haptic buttons
Haptic buttons are special buttons that vibrate or give a little feedback when you press them, making it feel like you're actually clicking something even if there's no physical movement.
Car
Ferrari SF90
The Ferrari SF90 is a super-fast car from Ferrari that combines a gasoline engine with electric motors to provide extra power and efficiency.
Car
Chevrolet Camaro
The Chevrolet Camaro is a sporty car that looks tough and is built for speed. It's one of the classic American cars that many people like to drive for fun.
Car
Ferrari Testarossa
The Ferrari Testarossa is a famous sports car that was made by Ferrari. It has a unique look and a very powerful engine, and it's often associated with the luxury and style of the 1980s.
Car
Porsche 296
The Porsche 296 is a new model that Porsche is working on, which may include new technology like hybrid or electric systems. It's part of their effort to modernize their cars.
Concept
Formula 3 car
Formula 3 cars are special racing cars that are built to compete in a specific type of racing series. They are very fast and are often used by drivers who want to eventually race in bigger competitions like Formula 1.
Concept
three wheeler
A three wheeler is a type of vehicle that has only three wheels instead of the usual four. This can change how the vehicle is treated by laws and regulations in different places.
Concept
go-kart
A go-kart is a small racing vehicle that you can drive on a track. They are very quick and easy to handle, which makes them fun to drive.
Term
tube chassis
A tube chassis is a frame for a car made from hollow tubes. It's strong and light, which helps the car go faster and handle better.
Term
carbon fiber
Carbon fiber is a very strong and light material used in cars to make them faster and more efficient. It's often found in high-performance vehicles.
Term
suspension
Suspension is the part of a car that helps keep it stable and comfortable while driving. It includes springs and shocks that absorb bumps in the road.
Term
horsepower
Horsepower is a way to measure how powerful an engine is. The more horsepower, the faster and stronger the car can be.
Term
Hayabusa
The Hayabusa is a fast motorcycle made by Suzuki. It's famous for being very powerful and is often used in racing.
Term
sequential transmission
A sequential transmission lets you change gears in order, like 1-2-3-4, without having to use a clutch pedal. It's faster and easier to use, especially in racing.
Term
paddle shift
Paddle shift means you can change gears using buttons or levers on the steering wheel. It's a faster way to shift gears without using a clutch pedal.
Term
internal combustion
Internal combustion means that the engine burns fuel inside it to create power. Most cars use this type of engine.
Term
RPM
RPM means how many times the engine spins in one minute. Higher numbers usually mean the engine is working harder and can go faster.
Car
Chevrolet Corvettes
The Corvette is a fast sports car made by Chevrolet. It's known for looking good and going really fast.
Car
Ariel Atom
The Ariel Atom is a very light sports car that doesn't have a traditional body like most cars. It's designed for speed and handling, making it popular for racing on tracks.
Car
Ariel Nomad
The Ariel Nomad is similar to the Ariel Atom but made for driving on rough, off-road surfaces. It has a stronger build to handle bumps and dirt better.
Term
front lift
Front lift is a feature that lets the front of a car go higher off the ground. It's useful for getting over things like bumps or steep driveways without scraping the bottom of the car.
Concept
Caterham Seven
The Caterham Seven is a small, light sports car that is very simple in design. It's famous for being fun to drive and is loved by car enthusiasts.
Concept
Formula One car
A Formula One car is a special type of race car used in the highest level of motorsport. They are very fast and have advanced technology to help them race better on tracks.
Term
FP3
FP3 stands for 'Free Practice 3', a practice session in Formula One where drivers can test their cars before the actual race.
Car
Toyota MR2
The Toyota MR2 is a small sports car that has its engine in the middle, which helps it handle really well on the road. It's fun to drive and has a lot of fans who appreciate its design.
Car
Toyota GR GT
The Toyota GR GT is a high-performance sports car made by Toyota. It's designed to be very fast and compete with luxury brands like Porsche.
Car
Plymouth Prowler
The Plymouth Prowler is a cool-looking car that has a unique design, almost like a hot rod. It's not very common and is known for being more about style than speed.
Car
Porsche Caymans
The Porsche Cayman is a smaller sports car that is known for being really fun to drive. It's designed to handle well on the road and is a bit less expensive than the more famous Porsche 911.
Car
Honda Prelude
The Honda Prelude is a two-door car that was popular for being sporty and fun to drive. It has a cool design and is known for being reliable over the years.
Car
Toyota Supra
The Toyota Supra is a powerful sports car that many people love for its speed and style. It's known for being great on the road and has a lot of fans from the past and present.
Car
Ford Mustang
The Ford Mustang is a classic American car that is known for being fast and looking really cool. It's been around for a long time and is loved by many people who enjoy driving.
Car
Ford Mavericks
The Ford Maverick is a small truck that is easy to drive and good for everyday tasks. It's designed to be affordable and can even save you money on gas with its hybrid option.
Car
Subaru BRZ
The Subaru BRZ is a small sports car that is fun to drive and easy to handle. It's designed for people who enjoy driving and want a car that feels sporty.
Car
Buick 27 Model
The Buick Model 27 is an old car from the early 1900s that shows how cars used to be made. It's interesting for people who like classic cars and want to learn about their history.
Car
Alpine A110
The Alpine A110 is a stylish sports car that is designed to be light and quick. It looks cool and is made for people who love to drive fast and enjoy the experience.
Car
Mazda Miata
The Mazda Miata is a small, two-seat car that you can drive with the top down. It's really fun to drive and is known for being light and quick on the road.
Car
Lotus Elise
Car
Renault Clio V6
The Renault Clio V6 is a special version of a small car that is made to be really fast and fun to drive. It has a unique design and is loved by fans of sporty cars.
Car
Renault Clio
The Renault Clio is a small car that is great for driving around town. The five-door version makes it easier to get in and out, especially for families.
Car
Acura RSX
The Acura RSX is a small, sporty car that people enjoy driving because it's fun and looks good. It's known for being reliable and a good choice for those who want a stylish ride.
Car
Nissan Skylines
The Nissan Skyline is a fast car that many people admire, especially the special GT-R version. It's known for being really good at racing and has a lot of fans around the world.
Car
Ferrari 550
The Ferrari 550 Maranello is a fancy sports car that is very powerful and comfortable to drive. It's known for its beautiful design and is a favorite among people who collect cars.
Car
Shelby Cobras
The Shelby Cobra is a classic sports car that is famous for being really fast and powerful. It's a favorite among car lovers and is hard to find because many people want one.
Car
Ferrari 250
The Ferrari 250 GTO is a very rare and beautiful car that people love to talk about. It's famous for being fast and winning races a long time ago, and now it's worth a lot of money.
Car
Lamborghini Gt 350S
The Lamborghini 350 GT is a classic sports car that is known for being very luxurious and fast. It's one of the first cars made by Lamborghini and helped make the brand famous.
LIVE
to be at car shows going, hey, I love your video.
How did you do it?
And I'd be like, oh, wrong guy, the guy with the guy with hair,
he's your answer.
But, but don't you think that's crazy that considering there
was actually a built in solution for that and the dealer,
let alone the manufacturer didn't let the consumers know about
it and they let their consumers be agitated about it for three
years. And then their hack is to come up with this an ugly
steering wheel. Doesn't that seem bizarre to you?
I mean, it wasn't like an over the air update where they know
it was always later. It was always there.
Yeah. And I had to ask on Ferrari chat and then that it took
like three days for someone to get back with me because that
just tells you how many other people didn't know about how
to do it. It just it makes no sense.
And now driving the car with the haptics locked out and the
steering and the dash isn't changing.
It is unbelievably brilliant because otherwise you're driving,
you're just being annoyed like every 15 seconds, like,
where the hell is it doing this?
Hey, that that.
Welcome to Full Throttle Talk.
The podcast where horsepower meets conversation from
supercars to classic legends, high revving tech to motorsport
mayhem. We covered all straight from the driver's seat,
whether you're a gearhead or racer or just love the thrill of
the open road, you're in the right place. Buckle up, hit the
gas and let's go full throttle into today's episode.
This was me.
Was it Friday or Saturday that downhill country?
It was the Saturday.
So we were driving and I don't remember the routes like you
probably know the routes, but the there was a coming through a
little bit of town and we were going at a really slow speed.
And it was the weirdest thing because there was a Subaru that
was in front of the guy leading.
Then I was the second and the Subaru was going down this little
turn and he got attracted by all of us.
And as this car, this thing came to a hard left turn.
He didn't pay attention and he ran his car right off the edge.
The Subaru into an embankment, right?
So in the time it took me as I'm driving to glance over and watch
this guy run his car into an embankment, my buddy had stopped
short up ahead on a one way bridge.
And literally in that time it took, I kissed the back of that.
His rubber bumper, the bumper at or whatever, the big impact
bumper bumper at. Was this the beginning of the first day?
No, it was at the end.
It was at the end of the second day.
You are not selling.
No, no, middle of the second day because I drove the car back
and the car was fine other than I've been through three bumpers on
this car. Let me just tell you this.
That's why I like these little plastic ones.
They no damage to the car.
They kind of collapse and it all works.
You might be a tailgater, Dave, just where it's worth.
And neither one of you is telling me I'm going on rallies.
You just don't want me behind you, Tim.
That's really the key.
You know what I realized you're doing is you're just creating work
for yourself, for your shop.
Unfortunately, yeah, it's not paid work.
We pulled over.
I can't remember.
I think this was the day before all or I can't remember.
Yeah, that was that was that too.
I think that was the other Friday.
But yeah, Tim, you you may or may not like it, but you won't know
until you try it.
So yeah, North Carolina is easy.
Your your your place is there.
Your car is there.
Your your support is there.
I mean, I don't know, Dave, which one would you do target Carolina?
No, I would probably have him start with the Rueclos rally, excuse
me, not Rueclos, some.
Ruckus, Blue Ridge, Ruckus, which is going to be in Virginia.
We're back in the spring and then we're there for the summer
and then we're there for the fall.
But other than that, we're not there.
So we miss a lot of them.
But hey, listen, this is full throttle talk.
Welcome back and we've got a really fun show for all of you today.
We're talking about what did you do in cars this week?
Automotive news, which will be a lot of fun.
And then new for 2026 cars that we are excited about.
I had to basically, you know, talk Paul into doing that segment
because he doesn't seem to be excited about any of them.
I'm not I know, I know segment four.
Did I change this one?
Oh, yes. New year is here.
What cool cars we can now import because they just reached the ripe old ages
twenty five. Paul likes that one.
Yes, I'm much more excited about that.
And then we have a couple of bonuses and we do have a listener question.
So, guys, let's just jump right in.
What did you do in cars this week?
David, you are first and you finally watched your GT3RS.
Well, yes, because I actually had to because I've driven it enough now
that it required a bit of a wash.
I did a couple of events and the way we record the shows and whatnot.
I wasn't able to talk about just the timing of this one, which is a event
that was at the Speedway at Charlotte Motor Speedway out in Concord,
which had a tremendous.
It's like a five hundred car car show.
That's some terrific cars out there, including a whole bunch of Ferraris
from Rick Hendricks collection.
Some of them, Tim, I know you would be quite excited to see.
So I'm just let me cover this up so you can get a couple of shots here.
And you can see what we got here.
We have a few different.
This Monza, I thought was really quite amazing.
I've never seen one of those in person.
Not street legal, right? They're not street legal.
I don't know. I think there's some carve out.
They're originally not street legal legal.
And then they figured out some way.
I don't remember the whole thing, but I do.
Were you at Car Week when they kind of launched them
and there was like 20 of them or something around? Yeah. OK.
Yeah. That's a pretty wild machine, though.
Like I said, I'd never seen one of these things in person.
I thought that was pretty wild.
Yeah. But what's the deal with no windshield? Come on.
I get it. Look at the helmet in the foot well.
They see the little tiny little windshield or whatever.
I don't know how. Yeah, exactly.
The helmet. I'm thinking, I mean, there's there's my there's my car there.
And then a three fifty six and a and the magenta
new body car that's my shop manager's car that we built here at the shop.
So after that, the little baby needed a bath.
So we had to bring her back here, give her a little wash.
And now I've got her back inside under the covers.
It was a lot of fun.
And a buddy of mine bought a new GT three or new to him, 18 GT three.
That car was he took delivery 991.2 18.
And then at the same time, flipped out of his 997 GT three, 997.2 GT three
that he sold because he just felt that it wasn't a right fit for him,
which I thought was interesting.
But he was kind of caught up in that same hype of the 997.
But he was in and out of that thing in like six months.
So and then lastly, I got to drive this car,
which I took out of Mothballs here.
This is my ninety nine, nine, six, four C four S excuse me, C four, not C four S.
But that's the car I've got to drive in this upcoming rally
that I'm doing down in Florida called Gator Crawl,
which is about four weeks out right now.
And that would be about 45 cars, a combination of BMWs and and.
Wait, wait, Dave.
I mean, rally in Florida.
That doesn't sound like harmonious.
Where do we're in Florida?
Is it is not harmonious?
It's absolutely not harmonious.
It's much more for the people that I do it, right?
I mean, it's a good group of guys and the Keith Ennis,
who's a friend of mine out of Jupiter, he puts this on every year
and it runs out of the mission in down in how we on the hills.
And, you know, it's like lots of straight lines and right angle turns
or straight lines and right angle turns.
So a little of that.
But there's enough twisties and some stuff that they put together
in some little side trips to go off into the
the average, no, not the average blades, but like off into the thwomps and what not
to make it interesting.
And there's some cool farmland and things and it's visually interesting.
So I'm looking forward to that.
I'm just picturing you're going on the freeway.
You exit, they have a little like autocross set up in a parking lot.
You zip through that back on the freeway.
You do that over and over again.
There's more than that. There's more.
I know, I just love poking fun at Florida.
I know, but I can't drive this car, which is my normal rally car,
because it's still in it's still getting its nose repaired,
not from this repair from the last repair, which is actually a bit worse.
The floor. Maybe you should put like police,
whatever those big bumper things they are.
That sounds like a better fit for that car.
I need a cow pusher on the front of it, like a route, like a safari car.
Exactly.
The Florida car vibe is significantly different from any other car vibe in the
United States, especially around Porsches.
I didn't realize until I went to the Moda Miami thing last year
and all the guys that showed up when their GT3 RS is that's where I first
realized the GT3 RS has become the new sort of Lambo kind of car
because he's, you know, there's a lot of them and it's not the typical high nerd.
It was more of the flashy Instagram types that were driving them.
But here nor there.
That's probably just a unique to Miami thing. Totally different.
You know, I liked it.
It was totally different scene.
There's a, did you, have you ever gone to DRT or heard of DRT?
I haven't heard of it. What is it?
DRT is down to Miami. It's, it's a, it's this weekend actually.
And it's a really nicely put together show by Alvaro, it's Weck
and this team, it's Weck that puts this on and it'll got an email for that.
Yeah, I will.
Stands for like Doss, Doss, Rennan, something, yeah, German word.
Doss, Wiener, Schnitzel, Schnitzel, perfect name.
Let me get this car out from behind me here.
This is going to just depress me all day.
It is depressing.
It's all this car too, by the way.
Paul, what did you do in cars this week?
Well, we talked about last time I finally drove the snake on Friday.
It was kind of a two monumentous things.
It was one driving the snake, which it's amazing.
I posted these two pictures of it's a famous shot on the top of the snake.
In fact, it made, was made famous by Larry Chen taking this photo of Matt
Ferris-Kuntos and you could see the charred Martian looking landscape.
That was right after the Woolsey fire seven years ago.
And this stretch of road, it's only like three or four miles on Mulhole
and in Malibu, and it connects with the rock, the rock shop,
which is a motorcycle hangout that Jay Leno goes to.
And the people who live in this area, I think they were so
excited to close this road down.
And there was rumblings that it would never open to car traffic.
It was just going to be cyclists and people walking and whatever.
They finally opened it after seven years.
And don't worry, within the first weekend, there was two crashes already.
Tons of highway patrol, tons of tickets.
I mean, it was hilarious what was going on with ticketing.
So last Friday, after New Year's, there was it had rained.
It was quiet.
I like it was like six thirty in the morning.
I decided to go up there just to just to drive it.
I haven't driven it even before the fires.
I hadn't driven it for probably four or five years before that.
And it was empty.
I mean, literally I went up and down a few times.
I parked. There was no one around.
It's a beautiful stretch of road.
I think a lot of people make more of it than it really is.
It's not like, oh, my God, the greatest road.
It's just an iconic road.
And where I where I parked up here at the top, you can see the, you know,
kind of the twisty stuff right here behind me.
There is a day that you took that picture that.
Yeah, I just drove up, parked up on the grass.
There's an actually a bigger turnout, but you can't see the road with the car.
And, you know, you can see I just that's the nice thing about my car
as I just pull up onto the curb, drove up on it, took a picture.
But yeah, it's just it was sort of it's an iconic
it's sort of like driving down Lombard Street.
It's not even like the tail of dragon, which is an interesting road to drive.
This is just three miles of really tight road
that you can get in a lot of other places.
But the amazing thing was how many people just reached out and go,
where is that road? Where is that road?
And I'm like, guys, this is like it's so cliche.
It's like the Malibu Road.
So and actually my favorite road there,
if you're in Malibu is Tuna Canyon, which is more east closer to West L.A.
And it's a one way road downhill.
I wish it would go the other way and it is just a blast.
So that's why I did.
I got to drive and I got to it's a historic road, though.
I mean, a lot of it's famous for having a lot of, you know, I think crashes.
Yeah, well, crashes, but also Steve McQueen used to, you know,
blast up in his Jaguars and all this crazy stuff.
That's what it's known for. Yeah.
But I would say the personal goal for me was this was the first time driving
my green 911, a.k.a.
Tortuga on twisty roads, kind of in prep for Hill Country Rally to see, you know,
how did it feel to do a whole day of driving in that car with my clutch leg
and all that? And it was it's doable. It's pretty good.
You know, I got a couple more months.
When's your when's the ice thing you're doing?
The hell that's less than two months end of February.
Oh, my gosh.
Well, you'll be good and physically ready for that then.
Honestly, if you're and that one's going to be more
just straight drive on the freeway there, it's going to be less technical driving.
I have a friend coming with me.
That's more of just me physically walking in snow and ice,
which I still am working towards.
But that that one actually I'm less concerned because driving
the green car manual for, you know, four thousand miles,
which I'd say half of those are going to be twisty miles.
That's the biggest thing is the energy level of using the clutch.
You know, how much energy I'll have.
Yeah, no, I get it. Well, we're excited for you.
You know, pretty incredible.
So what do we do in cars this week?
It was obviously New Year's Day.
So we had the run of all the roads in Puerto Rico and it had.
I had honestly the best drive in the Ferrari 296 or GTS I've ever had before.
We were out there for three hours long enough to make my back soar.
And it was it was unbelievable.
I've never enjoyed it.
I am actually I'm I've fallen in love with it maybe for the first time,
even though we've had it since 2023.
I originally got it just as a placeholder for a 296 speciale,
which they gave us an allocation for.
But after I read about it, I didn't want it, which is really crazy.
But, you know, they offered me a coupe. I wanted a spider.
We, you know, I loved our spider, so that was that.
But yeah, it was incredible.
But I'll tell you the biggest revelation I had in car world since our last call.
And this seems seems like a dumb thing, unless you're in the Ferrari world,
is that the haptic buttons on the generation of the 296 and the SF90
and some of the other cars were are the biggest bitch that people have.
So these reviewers will review the you guys realize we need to come out
with full throttle talk coffee or all second.
I know we're all sucking it down.
Exactly.
Very vet.
So the biggest complaints have always been about the haptic buttons.
And if you guys, I don't know if you guys have any actual experience with this,
it's a viable. It's a real thing to complain about.
So you have these two, you hold your steering wheel here, you know,
and you the paddles are back there.
The haptic displays are right where your thumbs are going to sometimes meander.
If your hands kind of come off a little bit off the, you know,
we're supposed to be holding it.
So if you relax a little bit, you activate the haptics.
And so over on the left side, you activate the cruise control.
And the right side, you start changing the screen mode.
So the whole screen, it's digital.
So it'll go from normal setting.
And then all of a sudden you're looking at a huge GPS map and all this crazy stuff.
So what I, what I had heard rumor of, but no one, but I didn't know how to do it
because it's not clearly labeled in the manual or in the digital display
is you can actually make it so that after you've been in the car for 15 minutes,
the haptics that are that everyone complains about rightfully
are locked out so you can't change them.
And you have to push your, you have to push your finger on a particular spot
on one of the haptics to reactivate it.
That's a huge, I mean, that, that eliminates all my complaints I had
about the 296, honestly, the haptics look better.
I mean, and so what Ferrari did, which is interesting is on the newer cars,
they got rid of the haptics and they now have these awkward looking buttons
there that make it look very ineligible, in my opinion.
What they should have done is they should have told the dealers
and they should have done a better job themselves telling their buyers
that you can lock out the haptics after 15 seconds.
And it's three, it's settings.
And then you have to go a couple other places.
If you guys are interested, full-throttle talk subscribers, listeners,
I will give a full explanation, put a video up and post it in the newsletter.
By the way, if you're not subscribing to the newsletter, fullthrottletalk.com,
it's free.
We're constantly pumping it full of great automotive content,
a lot of which we talk about on the show, but I would say probably about 50%
we don't. If you want the more technical drill down articles,
you have to subscribe to the newsletter, fullthrottletalk.com.
And also, if you are someone who has an inkling to write content
and you think would be great for the newsletter, do submit it to us.
We're, I haven't said no to anybody yet.
Well, one Camaro, but that was it.
But other than that, everybody else that submitted content, we put it in.
And I might have said no to that.
Yeah, probably.
You probably deleted it from Instagram before I had a chance to see it.
Tim, regarding the haptic buttons, I heard on one of the podcasts
they had out here in California, I don't know, a new Ferrari launch of some kind.
And it was your normal, awkward, pressed people, like corporate,
trying to make a big gala, pull the thing off.
No one really was that excited.
But when they said that the new model, whatever it was,
was not going to have haptic buttons, literally standing ovation.
Like that is what got everyone excited.
I agree, but that was the 849 Testerosa, by the way.
But still, if you guys, unfortunately, I can't get my pictures to show up.
I've done trying to, you know, tech support myself on Zoom.
They updated the app, but whatever.
But I was, I did load the before and after of the, if you see the button,
if you see the steering wheel with haptics, it looks so much better
than what they did to try to placate their consumers who don't know
how to go into the settings and change so the haptics get locked out.
But again, I'm going to blame Ferrari for that.
Why the hell didn't they, my dealer didn't know about it.
I asked, I complained about my to our dealer about this two years ago,
and they didn't know what to do.
They said, keep your fingers off the haptics when you're driving the car.
But you could literally lock it out.
So anyway, is this a, I mean, is this like a YouTube video?
I mean, I use those all the time.
How to, you know, connect my blue.
There isn't a single video on YouTube about this.
This is the reason I'm suggesting we should be there.
You go, Tim, there you go.
I'll write it down your haptic button.
And then suddenly, sadly, we'll be not known for Porsches anymore,
but being known for tech support on your 296, which will make me throw up
in my mouth a little bit.
I mean, people come up to me at car shows going, hey, I love your video.
How did you do it?
And I'd be like, oh, wrong guy.
The guy with the guy with hair, he's your answer.
But, but don't you think that's crazy that considering there was actually
a built in solution for that and the dealer, let alone the manufacturer
didn't let the consumers know about it and they let their consumers
to be agitated about it for three years and then their hack is to come up
with an ugly steering wheel.
Doesn't that seem bizarre to you?
I mean, it wasn't like an over the air update where they know it was always
there. It was always there.
Yeah.
And I had to ask on Ferrari chat and then it took like three days for
someone to get back with me because that just tells you how many other people
didn't know about how to do it.
It just, it makes no sense.
And now driving the car with the haptics locked out and the steering
and the dash isn't changing.
It is unbelievably brilliant because otherwise you're driving.
You're just being annoyed like every 15 seconds.
Like, where the hell is it doing this?
Anyway, that's all I have on that in that regards.
All right.
So let's move on.
Um, let's talk about automotive news.
Now I'll go first.
And unfortunately I can't load my pictures, but I will say this.
We did a interview with a guy named Caleb, Caleb Borgstrong, who is the
founder of a company called our RYN Motors.
I don't know if you guys can maybe help me out and load some pictures
because honestly, I don't know what's wrong with my zoom that I can't load
them, but let me just talk.
So he and I ended up yammering for an hour and this podcast is going to come
out today or tomorrow.
So you guys can watch it yourselves.
I think personally this car that he's produced is going to be a, I'll be shocked
if it's not all over everything automotive by within 24 hours or 36 hours.
Starting on January 10th, he's going to start doing pre-sales and he's going
to make a site live.
So why do I think, uh, why do I think this is going to be something everyone
talks about because it's one of those things that's designed to make haters
hate and it's only going to appeal to maybe a half percent of all car nerds
out there.
So what this is is a formula three car for the road.
I talked about this a little bit on the last show and the way he is selling it is
as a three wheeler.
So originally, like the laws now is if you have a three wheeler, you guys know
this, you don't, there it is.
Thank you.
Now look at what Paul's showing and hopefully our editor is going to catch
to show that image.
So you can literally have that car on the road and plate it in all 50 states,
including California.
All right.
Now why?
Because it's delivered, it's delivered as a three wheeler.
So the back is originally a three wheel or a, you know, a single wheel.
And then he sells it with an aftermarket kit that you can then, it takes three
hours to bolt up the rear axle and the whole rear assembly with suspension
making it into a four wheeler.
Yeah.
There you go.
That I didn't see in that picture.
That's pretty badass.
Oh, I'm, there you go.
So you're like, you're the weirdo of weirdos.
Like I am.
You know, this reason is pretty wild.
Well, I mean, cause it cuts, it cuts through all the bullshit.
I want to race car for that.
It's rides like a go-kart.
I want to race car for the street.
Well, buy a race car for the street.
We go.
And so the body panels are right from an F three car.
Um, and there's a, it's a mixture of carbon fiber and tube chassis.
And I was quizzing them as much as I could until I ran out of technologic or
technical questions to ask him about suspension.
He's doing everything right.
He's using all race car stuff.
The brakes, everything.
And, um, it's the start on it's like 78 grand.
And it's got, it's got 220 horsepower.
Paul, it's a motorcycle engine.
I'm not a pre-op.
Does it say is like a Hayabusa or something?
No, no, he's going to put a fricking Hayabusa motor in.
It is an option.
He doesn't have the Hayabusa motors available yet.
Those f-ing things have 300 horsepower.
Do you know that?
Oh yeah.
So are they going to, is it going to shift like a motorcycle?
Yes, a sequential sequential.
Sequential, yeah.
But sequential.
Thank you.
But it's going to be a paddle shift.
He somehow made it so that I don't know.
I don't understand the whole thing.
What about reverse?
Uh, there's a separate reverse gear.
So it's electronic, electric reverse.
Okay.
I've seen, I've seen them on like Harleys and big bikes.
They'll have like a separate, okay.
Yeah.
But so, but here's the cool thing.
It's ice internal combustion, 13,500 RPM motor.
Uh, you should have seen his face when I asked him if he'd considered electric
just to see what he was going to say.
He basically almost jumped off the podcast.
Um, but then screen went dark.
Yeah, there you go.
Exactly.
It's like me talking about Corvettes with you.
Uh, yeah.
So I'm excited about that, uh, because it's street legal.
It's frankly expensive and not that expensive.
No one's ever done anything like this before.
If you think about the competitors for that product, it's going to be
arguably the Ariel Adam, um, the Nomad.
Um, and, and there's some others that they're not coming to mind, but that
is the first one that's an actual true race car.
The only thing I could see, well, obvious you could complain about safety
and you complain about all those things, but you can complain about that
and virtually anything nowadays, especially motorcycle.
Yeah, exactly.
Um, no front lift and I'm not sure how that's going to work.
He said in Austin, the driveways, a lot of them are very steep either going up
or going down and he said he hasn't had any problems, um, clearing any of the,
you know, speed bumps and what he lives in Austin thus far, but we'll see.
What do you guys think about that?
Am I completely hyped up?
No, I think it's, it's cool.
I mean, kind of like the Ariel Adam and the other ones you mentioned when they
came out, I mean, it's the modern day, Caterham seven, Lotus seven, and it was
always this sort of subset of human that was just sort of like bizarre and
thrill seeking and just be different.
I mean, the biggest problem I see with it is let's just say you can legally drive
it in California, someone will figure out a way, whether it's plated elsewhere.
Even if you're doing everything perfectly legal, the amount of times you're
going to get pulled over and the conversations you're going to, and this
is if you do everything legal, God forbid you're going over the speed limit,
which I have a feeling would be not hard.
I mean, and I'm just trying to picture this on Angela's crest.
It would be wild and if you're driving around, I mean, I've been pulled over
by cops because of my dealer plate and they look at the car and they think I
have to be doing something wrong and they can't really come up with it, but
they basically pull you over, they'll find it some infraction just because they
don't, and that's just, you know, out here in California, especially when I'm
on, I got pulled over on Angela's crest because I didn't have my dealer plate
on a McLaren and I was intentionally going the speed limit because I knew it
was a distraction and he pulled over and until he saw a fat white bald guy
sitting in the car, he thought I was some other guy and he's like, oh, and he
looks around the car and I explain what I'm doing and he goes, well, you don't
have your plate on the car.
I go, I forgot and the reason I don't put them on a lot is they get stolen a
lot, but that's my only concern.
I think it's cool.
I mean, anytime someone's going to do something automatically interesting,
it's better than the landscape of what's new in 2026 that just made me fall asleep.
But Paul, you're, but you're, yeah, I'm not disagreeing with you, but you're
hitting the nail on the head though.
That's going to open the door up to other manufacturers.
Again, this is what I learned.
I really, so Caleb had another business prior to this one and he was very
successful and he sold it.
The guy's 28.
So we've got a kind of business.
It was a, he made a gaming computers and he sold it to a big conglomerate
and he's done really well.
He could have just basically gone off into the sunset financially, but he didn't.
He loves cars, which right there, you know, brother, right?
He loves cars.
He loves motorcycles and he wanted to create, he wanted to make that for himself.
That is the perfect recipe for somebody who's going to do it right the first time.
But, um, he didn't tell me I couldn't say this.
And so I will say it that, so that's the F three that's dimensionally.
It's the same size as an F three and the next car he's going to be making, he
hasn't, he's got some of the renders done, but is a fricking formula one car.
So he's going to make a literal formula one car with a real transaxle, which is
going to have, what did he tell me?
Five or 600 horsepower.
I didn't ask him what motor he's going to put in and I should have.
Did you guys know that the motorcycle motors, he said they all in on that
motorcycle motor with 220 horsepower is only 175 horsepower, 175 pounds.
Did you guys realize those things are so light?
Yeah, the motorcycle motor.
Yeah, yeah, they have to be.
Well, I get that, but how is it that they don't have any emissions?
They don't have the complex cooling systems.
And I mean, even though they do have radiators, they're everything scaled down
and they, and they rev, I mean, look what they rev to, you know, 13,000 RPM.
And I think they could rev more if they wanted.
But what will that thing feel like?
Honestly, it's two, it's 220 horsepower.
It's, I think he said 1143 pounds.
Well, I could tell you the last time I could fit my fat ass in something like
that was Malibu Grand Prix when I was a kid.
You remember that?
And that is close to it for those who don't know, if you grew up in the 80s
in California, I don't know if they had it elsewhere.
They had the Malibu Grand Prix, which was like, it was like grown up version
of the cheesy little go-karts.
I think you had to have a driver's permit.
So like growing up, like when you were 15 and a half, you got your permit.
Like that was the most exciting thing is you can finally drive a Malibu
Grand Prix car, which was basically lawnmower engine on the cartoon version
of, of, of that, you know, you know, F one looking thing.
The K one, the K one generation doesn't know how good they have it.
You know what I mean?
The guys, instead of video games, we got to drive real cars.
Yeah, that's true.
That's a good point.
Well, anyway, so I'm, it'll be interesting to see how the world
receives that my prediction is the podcast is going to come out on the 10th.
His website's going, well, I've on the 10th.
He's got a whole bunch of other Instagram car influencer types that have
also got, uh, throttled back media.
And that's going to be everywhere.
If, if again, if within, you know, Spike will be making fun of it.
Um, the, uh, you know, people will be loving it.
People will be hating on it, but everyone's going to be talking about it.
So yeah, there you go.
That's my opinion.
They making them in, is he making them in Austin?
Yes.
He's making them in Texas.
I'm not kidding.
Well, and that's just any sense of his production capacity
or anything like that, like what kind of numbers can you turn out?
Um, he gave me all of his numbers and he can basically make as many as he wants
to, and he and I were talking about to make it exclusive or not exclusive.
Well, I'll ask you guys, do you think when selling a product like that, you
should sell one to everyone that wants to buy one or you should make them
wait and make it exclusive?
If you had the ability to ramp up production and make them exclusive, would you?
No, I mean, I don't, I think, I think the ability to ramp up production.
I think you're going to, it's, you're not going to be able to.
So it'll become limited just out of capacity.
But if you were able to, I think, you know, it's, I think you'd want to
sell as many as you possibly could, but I don't think there's as many buyers as
there.
I don't think it's a very niche market.
I mean, a lot of us sitting there going cool, but I'll never own one.
I hope my friend own one so I could see it from afar or drive it.
You can't get in it.
What are you trying to say?
Well, those, those crazy cars, it would be interesting to know how many of those
things are sold just in the United States every year.
You know, there's, like I said, there's four or five of them.
I wrote an article for full throttle talk newsletter, um, you know,
comparing all the others and this will be the least expensive one.
The, uh, gosh, I wish I could remember the, the really beautiful one that comes
out of, um, England, it's a one-seater as well.
And even at that one's like 275, but I bet you collectively, the total
amount of those weird cars are that sold in the United States, probably about a
thousand, I bet you it's that many.
So that's quite a bit.
You know, we're not, I mean, but what if you throw in there, like the
Cannams and the, uh, yeah, I mean, I took sure the, the Cannam is, is the guy who
really wants to ride a motorcycle and for health reasons and age reasons, they're
on that, but I think the slingshot, I mean, that's kind of, I think the guy who
would buy a slingshot would maybe if they don't really have a passenger, we
would do that because you look less, you look less weird and slingshot.
It's, you look less weird in a sling, you look less weird in a slingshot than
that.
No, no, no, vice versa.
No, you would look cool in the, in the RYN car, but you would, whenever you
see someone in a slingshot, you're just like, that is someone I don't want to
share a meal with.
There's a profile there for sure.
And I got a buddy that sells them, right?
And he, yeah, he talks to me about the client profile, but you go in your
Florida rally, Dave, you'll see some, a lot of slingshots down there,
especially in Ocala area.
That's what that is.
Well, you see them in North Carolina too, everywhere you do.
Yeah.
It, by the way, that car is called the FP3 as in free practice three.
So he's tying it into formula one.
Anyway, I personally, I hope that Caleb is wildly successful.
So we need more young people and I'm sure you guys will agree, uh, especially
produced in the United States, crazy ass cars like that.
Cause that just makes the landscape more fun.
And if Caleb and his ilk can prove to these big manufacturers that there's
enough of us ravenous nerds out there that will buy crazy cars, then we might
actually see, frankly, what David's about to present to us more of these types
of cars as far as, uh, automotive news, David, you're up next.
Yeah.
This, I just thought this was cool.
It's this kind of follows on the GRGT news that they had introduced in, uh, uh,
the idea that the MR2 will be coming back and they've put out these photos and,
um, you know, it was a, it's always been a very cool mid-engine car.
This thing, I think looks really the business.
I think that is a really fantastic looking par.
Sorry, my, gotta get my hand over this thing correctly here.
But, uh, for those of you looking at it, it's kind of a burnt orange color or you
can't see it.
That's what I'm describing, but very neat study.
Uh, there's a three quarter view.
I wish I had up here are the rear haunches on this car that I think just look
really fantastic.
Two liter turbocharged mid-engine car.
Um, I think this thing will sell to a very specific market, but I'm told, or at
least I'm reading that it's like, like the, uh, the other cars previously
mentioned likely through or available through, uh, Lexus dealers instead of
the typical Toyota folks.
So that's something that may be coming out here later this year, which I thought
was pretty interesting too, because I hadn't heard about this car until
literally this past week.
Did you guys see David along lines of what you're saying?
Did you get, I produced that list from my article I wrote for the newsletter.
I think I posted it here on our notes about all the cool ass cars, or at least
cars that are on the coolest, you know, and did you realize how many of those
were freaking Toyotas that are supposed to have a lot?
There's a lot of Toyotas doing some stuff.
So is Hyundai though.
Hyundai is really, they're coming out with some cool stuff too.
Well, it comes down to who the founder is, you know, like the Toyota founder.
This is like his, I think he's getting ready to retire.
This is like his last raw and he's, he's a car guy and he's building stuff.
Same thing we talked about with Jim Farley, whoever the, if the, the, the guy
running the ship, you know, steering the ship is a car person.
They're going to build some cool stuff, especially at the end of their career.
Well, look, look at this.
So you have the Toyota GR GT supercar, which we talked about in the last week's
show.
Um, I think that one's really going to surprise all of us.
Honestly, I bet you that ends up being a viable Porsche Aston Martin hunter.
Yeah, exactly.
Um, then you have the Toyota GR MR2, which David's presenting.
And then I was thinking of you, Paul, when I saw this one, the Toyota GR Celica.
So yeah, that's cool.
I was like, yeah, exactly, man.
They're making that in the rally car.
That's the focus of that one.
How badass is that?
Make another Carlos signs edition, a modern, a modern version.
Yeah, but think about this.
So you have Toyota that's going to be filling in that gap because it really
aren't that many fun cars.
Yes.
Some of the Korean cars that are in that sort of affordable price range.
And I, I'm excited for all of it.
And I realized that's, you know, not like, uh, a bunch of new Porsche news.
And it is fascinating.
Did you guys notice on our list the only thing that, uh, and I'm all
the interesting to see what, uh, Paul's, uh, news is, but nobody's really talking
about any of these new Porsches and being really excited about it.
And now we're talking about Toyota's.
How crazy is that?
Yeah.
What do you think of the looks of that?
You like it?
Love it.
I do.
I do like it.
It sounds like it's going to have something like what went in the Lotus is, uh, you
know, the Lotus, uh, leases back, you know, 15 years ago.
The motor.
You said it's a, yeah, the motor, it's going to be a two, is it a two liter?
They're putting the RS motor in.
They're putting it in two liter.
Okay.
So the three cylinder, the three cylinder turbocharged 300 horsepower.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Great.
Perfect motor.
You know what MR2 stands for, right?
Dave?
Or do you know what Jim?
Something Japanese.
It, no, no, no, it's actually, it stood for midship runabout two-seater, which is,
which is kind of like a Japanese name or like, you know, like BYD, you know, whatever
that, wasn't it like beyond your dreams or something?
It's something very happy.
It's not a great, it's not like Charger, you know, or it would have like
Prowler mode or something.
If you guys are just listening to us, go do yourself.
David, do you have any pictures of the rump on that thing?
Cause that even.
I don't, unfortunately, I didn't grab any enough.
So I apologize.
But that, that design car, well it is, it doesn't even make sense how good they
nailed that one.
If you look at it from the side, it looks beautiful from the back.
It looks beautiful.
It's got really great arches on it.
When, honestly, when you guys see that, doesn't that sort of make your, don't
you sort of scratch your head and think to yourself, WTF, why is Porsche our
beloved brand giving over the fertile ground of producing a true entry level
car?
It doesn't make sense.
I mean, I think what Toyota is doing is because they have, they make so many
fuel efficient cars, they can go put V8s in cars.
They can do a lot more ice engines.
They can turbo charge.
They don't have to do hybrid plug-in.
I think they have this ability from a cafe standard point to make it.
I'm surprised some of the other big manufacturers that could don't.
Porsche is tough because they are mostly making sports cars and they're trying
to counteract that with, you know, electric SUVs and electric sedans and
now electric boxers and Caymans.
But I think, you know, Nissan or Honda, I mean, Honda should be doing this.
If there's anyone that should be making better sports cars, it should be Honda.
Well, they're trying with this prelude, but the prelude just isn't resonating with
anybody right now.
No, it's a stupid car.
It's not a good looking car.
The design is bad.
This design is great.
And I think this is like right in there.
I would consider this car if, you know, if you were looking for it, I would
absolutely consider this car.
It's in that Cayman kind of spot.
And I think it's a really attractive thing.
You'll get some nice looks driving around in this car.
It's like the last Supra.
I know it's BMW at its heart.
But that is a really pretty car.
It's a pretty car.
It's got the enthusiast market.
I'm just sort of that was the most surprising thing is this seems like it
would go after their own market, maybe cannibalize their Supra market.
But apparently they don't think so.
They don't make those anymore.
They'll ask the Supra is done this year.
Right.
Really?
Why would they?
That seems like it did very well.
They'll come out with another one.
Well, so if you guys are back in high school and you're thinking about your
first car and you, you know, there you go.
I mean, I don't I did this is what Toyota is going to reset the stage for what
people are going to want when they're older.
And this is you're seeing what will be inevitably the next
range of highly desirable enthusiast cars.
So 20 years on, bring a trailer or whatever it's called, then bring a spacecraft.
We're going to be seeing these go like 300 grand.
Yes, bring a trans and bring a virtual transporter or a Star Trek.
Assuming we're not all being carried around by Elon Musk robots and not having
to work anymore and living in a life of abundance and all these other wonderful
things, Paul, you're up next.
So this is a, I don't know how if this is going to happen, but Arizona is
creating their own version of the German Autobahn.
And it's such a government.
You know how the government loves to do acronyms?
They're calling it rapid.
And it's like they probably spent more time thinking about what to call it that
made sense, then maybe get the law to go through, which is reasonable and prudent
interstate driving.
And what they want to do, hopefully soon, because I'm, I'm going through Arizona
and March on the way to Hill Country Rally, and I'd love this to be activated,
which is unlimited speed.
So long as it was safe and prudent during daylight hours in good weather on
some of their interstate roads, including the historic 66 or what part of it goes
through there.
So this reasonable and prudent interstate driving act is supposed to maybe be proposed
very soon.
I don't know if there's a state that would do it.
It would be like Montana.
Well, Montana sort of had that.
I think they've taken it away, sort of taken it away.
Yeah.
I don't know what any chance to do this, because as we've learned over the over the
years, they'd love to say speeding is what kills.
And they, you know, all the way back to the seventies with the 55 mile an hour
speed limit.
And that was really that that was for fuel efficiency, but it was really that was
what they got the hearts and minds of the people that wanted to have a 55 mile
an hour national speed limit.
But the reality is speed doesn't kill distracted driving kills and differential
speed kills speed itself.
A differential speed, you know, in stopping.
And when we drive out from California, that's what kills.
No, you're right.
When we drive out from California to, you know, to Texas, the biggest problem
we see, like in Texas, it's 80 miles an hour on the 10, and there's no
difference whether you're a truck or a car.
And two big things that they do, which I wish California do.
First of all, the trucks are limited to with trailers, 55 miles an hour.
So like if you've driven on the five freeway, it is a game.
It is the, you think driving straight for 300 miles on the five would be just
passive, but it is the most aggressive thing because you're trying to pass
trucks, the delta of speed is posted 20 miles an hour different.
But we all know that's like 30 miles an hour difference.
So it creates this cluster, it creates accidents.
But when you get to Texas, everyone's going 80 miles an hour.
Everyone's going the same speed or faster.
But yeah, I think in the, it starts in the Texas Audubon.
Is it 110?
I used to live there.
I should know.
No, I don't, I don't remember.
Anyway, in case you guys don't know, there's this a road, it's a toll road
that the Chinese zone, I'm pretty sure that starts a little bit north of Houston
and goes all the way up to Georgetown, Texas.
And the lower part of it near Houston, I believe the, the posted speed limit is
85 and then it goes to 80.
And most people will go like 90 and then the cops really don't care.
90 to 95 and the cops don't care, except remember, I warned you about this.
If it's formula one weekend and then the cops are fricking everywhere,
just taking tourist money.
Yeah.
That's what happens.
And the other problem I've found is in California, and I think this is a
psychological problem, they post signs that say slower traffic move right.
Now, human nature, no one likes to be called slow.
And first of all, now in Texas, they say left lane for passing.
And, and, and what I found is that highway patrol in Texas on the 10 is really
good about making sure people, I've seen them come up along us and flash their
lights and scare the crap out of someone to get out of the left lane.
They didn't give them a ticket.
They just moved them out of the way.
And I think those two things with the trucks going the same speed, there's
not a huge Delta and people also staying out of the left lane because they
know it's for passing, not because they're slow.
So I think if California just changed their signs about slow, you know, stay
right, that would solve half the problem.
Can I tell you guys a fun story about driving in Montana back when it was
safe and safe and prudent?
Okay.
So we July night, this was in the late nineties.
We leased a new, do you guys remember these big Mazda Millennians, these
big sedans?
Oh, those are awesome.
Sure.
Yeah, that was great.
We had the vents that did this.
I know we just got, and they look cool.
They look modern, but we just got in real estate.
Um, we decided to take a little vacation out West.
So we drove out to Montana because, uh, Julie had some extended family that
lived in, um, Red Lodge.
And, uh, anyway, a long story short, there's no, there was no speed
limit in Montana.
And as soon as we crossed over to Montana, I was like hammer down in the max.
And I knew the max, like, I didn't want to drive off, literally
drive the tires off the car.
So I set the cruise control at like 115, 120 miles per hour.
And I was just blazing.
And if you've never been to Montana before the roads are just straight as an
arrow, you can see fricking forever, both directions.
It's, so don't think I'm being reckless.
I wasn't, and it was a new car.
I am on this fricking road and I see this, you know, thing way behind me, long
ass road.
I can see it coming for miles and miles and miles.
I was probably watching this thing come up on me for easily 20 minutes.
It blows past me like I was standing still.
It was some rancher and his effing pickup truck.
And I already told you how fast I was going.
He had to pass me going like 130 to 140 miles per hour.
There's some big diesel ass pickup truck just blaze right past me.
That was badass.
And the monster was like, I ain't giving you no more son.
That's all you got.
We, we, we drove max speed in that car for a full tank of gas.
Wow.
Breaking miles.
How long did you own that one?
It was leased.
So, you know, never got it next.
Was it happy?
No.
Well, I mean, you know, it's Japanese.
Those things are made really well.
What are you talking about?
Yeah.
Well, but you also, it probably was also now broken in properly.
So it goes faster all the time.
Like you get these cars that are just lazy and that car was probably the
probably the guy got it and goes, why is this one faster?
There's no carbon on the valve just for sure.
But so did you hear whether or not this thing is actually going to be a thing
or are they just yammering about it?
No, it will.
They're pushing it and it's not new.
They've done this law.
They, they brought it up, but this guy's really for whatever reason.
See the guy behind the law is Nick Cooper.
He's one of the Arizona representatives and he just says in rural Arizona,
when the right conditions are met, this is ridiculous.
In the end, they don't really have enough law enforcement to patrol those areas anyway.
So I think that he just says it's just, it's just going to be easier to do.
I think, I think it's really for him to just get excitement with car people in the area
and get people like us talking about it.
So kind of like that.
Does it require a special pass or anything?
Do you have to pay to get this thing?
No, it just says.
I'd pay though.
What would you pay David?
Yeah, of course.
I totally may.
I don't want to do it once a year maybe.
Oh yeah, like a toll, like, like in the Mexican toll road where you go down to Baja
and you just pay the toll and you just go.
He wants to introduce a one-year pilot program.
It would be on a segment of the eight south of Phoenix,
which by the way, going out to Hill Country, we're going to be taking eight from San Diego
all the way across their Tucson.
So I was like, this, and I've been on that road.
There is nothing there.
I mean, there, I've pulled over there just to pee in a saguaro and I've sat there
and there's for 10 minutes, not a car goes by.
So it's, it's fantastic.
And he looked at, you know, basically a lot of studies on the Montana,
when they did this in Montana with their unlimited speed.
And I don't see why it would not pass because it's literally an area that I think
a lot of these people use and it's just, you know, but we'll see.
You know, he's got two months.
Go, go, Nick, get it, get it passed.
Go, Nick, go.
Get it passed for me.
Come on, do it for a California.
But this is what's happening.
I mean, all of us are so conditioned to thinking that other people are going to
dictate like the government and all these really smart people.
All you all are going to be in electric cars.
You're all going to be in hybrid.
You're all going to be, you know, speed kills and all these types of things.
And almost like there's a common sense practical vibe that's starting to take
over automotive again, which I'm really excited about.
We'll see if it lasts.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Doesn't hurt.
Doesn't hurt.
Yeah, exactly.
Now I put this in here and you guys can yammer about this if you want to,
but you guys are talking about this on the WhatsApp thing.
I was just reading what you guys were talking about going back and forth and I was
learning some shit and I thought probably our listeners would appreciate it as well.
Do you guys want to talk about the next thing I've got up?
Sure.
Okay.
So this is, this is what's happening in auctions.
No reserve, no listing on that.
We started this conversation on our show probably three or four weeks ago,
three or four episodes ago, and it got a lot of back and forth in the comments,
but these guys were having a conversation on our WhatsApp group, which I again,
was very fascinated by.
So Dave, and I'm going to turn it over to you if you can kind of pick it up mentally
where we were at on that, or do you want to start, Paul?
No, what I want to, Dave should start because Dave has done more auctions.
I've only done three auctions on Bring a Trailer and the last one was like four years ago,
almost no, five years ago.
Let me tee it up though.
So I'll tee it up.
So we start at the right place.
You guys were telling me that bat is pressuring, your perception is that bat is pressuring
their consignees, yes, to do no reserve auctions.
Am I, is that a good place to hand it off, David?
I don't know if it's pressure, but they definitely want to make sure that the car meets reserve,
right?
So there's this particular car behind me did not sell on BAT.
I listed it.
The action was phenomenal.
The questions were great.
The responses were right.
Nobody was trying to torpedo this car.
For the listeners?
Yeah, 79, 911.
Let's see in Talbot yellow.
Very nice looking car, rare color.
Again, so what happened was this car went up and the close date was this past Monday,
which was the first day we all went back to work.
So my take on it based on the action that I was seeing on this was that the audience just
wasn't there for this car to go and it did not meet reserve.
Now, when I was dealing with this car originally getting it listed, BAT wanted me to set the
reserve lower, but I had enough sale, sell through history with them that I think they
just said, okay, let's we'll let this guy see if we can get this number based on the color
and so on and so on.
Didn't get there.
BAT is now put in a new feature where behind their paywall, they will give the seller and the
buyer one opportunity to make a deal behind their paywall.
So you have to do it within 24 hours.
I would put up a number and then if the potential buyer would accept that number,
it would still occur for BAT and they would get their 5% up to $7,500 fee, which makes sense to
me.
Not 5%, right?
It was it's up to $7,500 flat fee, not 5%.
Well, no, 5% of the value up to a max of $7,500.
Okay, sorry.
Yep.
So it's 5% of the number.
Yeah, it's and so you're talking $3,500 or so on a car that's like this and I can understand
why they want to do that because the minute they used to just give you the name of the top bidder
and then all that would happen outside of BAT and they would lose out on whatever their commission
would be on that sale.
So in this particular case, it was a non-issue for me because after the auction, I immediately got
five different inquiries on this car and the car was sold within 30 minutes of the end of the
auction.
So at or above, I should say the reserve that I had set with BAT on the car.
Interesting.
So was the buyer the top bidder or because you hear a business on your website?
Correct.
I mean, I'm not as hidden on BAT as other people might be so people can find me on a car.
I don't know how BAT feels about that, but there's plenty of these guys that are out there selling
on BAT that it doesn't matter.
But one of the things about this auction, and sometimes it's how you can control it,
is that it was civilized.
The people asked questions.
The answers were good.
The responses were timely, not like that 2.73 RS touring that is still on.
I don't think that that's about a few more days, doesn't it, Paul?
Yeah, I think so.
But going back to Dave's auction with that Talbot Yellow, and this is sort of my frustration
because the auction did do well in terms of communication.
Dave's response, the buyers were not jerks.
They weren't trying to undermine anything.
It was just a good auction.
I think Monday after two weeks of holiday was part of the problem.
But to me, the biggest problem I think was on bring a trailer because what they ended up doing,
buyers are lazy.
They become even lazier, and they want a quick hit of what the car is.
And you look at the beginning, you just go yellow SC, cool interior, 175,000 miles.
Wow, that's this amount.
And if you look at, if you have to drill way down into your comments to see that the engine's
got a compression test leak down, if I were you, Dave, in the future, I would push them to
highlight that in the top bullet points.
Because for me, I was like, whatever happened to the engine?
That's the big concern, 175,000 miles.
Now, in the end, the engine got rebuilt at 90,000 miles, which basically fixed all the
problems, usually with those head studs.
And I wish in that, like what drives me crazy about, it's almost like AI written content on
the description of the cars.
They have this limited space.
I see them repeat the same crap.
It came with air conditioning and power windows.
And who the F cares about that?
I want to see like, hey, engine was rebuilt at 90,000 miles.
And since then, we did a compression leak down.
It's this.
And then if it's a buyer, you go, okay, this is, this is a refurbished car.
It's not a, it's sorted.
Yeah.
So they were actually pushing me as well.
I have an inch thick file.
They were still right here.
It's perfect.
They were pressing you as in bring it, bring your trailer was for your trailer, right?
So here's the receipts on this car, right?
They date back to as well as the original books on the car.
So they, these date back to like 78, 79.
And they wanted me to take pictures of all that stuff and post it up and all that.
I took one picture of the stuff splayed out on the table because all that is to me is just fodder
for some guy to poke in there and start looking back.
Oh, three years ago, this didn't get the right weight oil.
And when it was put in, let me, let me give you the flip side to that.
They were trying, right?
I mean, that's the thing about the bring a trailer guys.
What a stellar business really bring coming in just as, and the fact that they were trying to
help you deal with the questions with regards to the mechanics of it.
That's pretty cool.
Not all auction houses would do that.
Most auction houses would just beat on you to lower your reserve.
Well, it was the kind of the other way that was at the beginning of the auction.
So they have this policy or this procedure that they take you through as they're in taking your
car.
You know, they want these photos.
They can't have watermarks on the photos.
You have under undercarriage shots that you have to have.
They want driving videos.
They want all these things to lie kind of prompt you through.
They've got a whole history of all this.
It's a lot of work.
It really is.
But if you want to get the right money for your car, you really do have to go and do all that stuff.
And I think they have a nice auction.
It's really wonderful.
I don't have any real bitch about it.
Now, I don't know whether or not this thing is ever it wasn't a bad.
It wasn't flagged.
It wasn't a bad auction.
It wasn't people beating it up.
It just didn't meet reserve and it was off by a few thousand dollars.
So we have the deal done.
It all happened.
And, you know, I'll probably have another one coming up on BAT here pretty quickly.
I may list a M491 target that I've got.
So there has been some research.
And this is Paul where I can reel you in on the auction, no reserve,
net price to the seller versus the guys that run reserves.
And of course, the articles I've written have been by the big auction houses.
So they've all said the best way to go is no reserve auctions because you end up netting
more because people get more geeked up because they know they can actually buy the damn car.
Do you guys have any opinion on that?
I, you know, as professional sellers, don't you, you know,
you can get really screwed by doing no reserve?
I mean, I think I agree with I'm torn with it.
I mean, I think if you're going to do a bring a trailer auction and I tell my clients two things,
it's almost got to the point where you need a professional seller like Dave to do it.
I think if you think you novice guy who sold a car 10 years ago think you can run a bring
a trailer auction with success, you're foolish.
And number two, I think you have to sell that car like that one,
like Dave's car got sold right after auction.
If you don't get it sold during auction or right after auction,
you almost are going to kill the value of the car.
So you might.
So I'm not, I don't have the Muevos reserve for doing no reserve.
So many things on no reserve.
You better have a very special car like this car because the eyeballs weren't on it.
And you can't take the risk on that because you don't really have any say per se would be AT
as to when they will let that start and when it will finish.
Oh, I didn't know that.
Well, you do if you have enough clout like I know people who do a lot and they can say,
and it would be when I was trying to go into bring a trailer is back in just to find out.
I think Tuesday through Thursday are the best days to end an auction.
Yeah.
That's kind of what I think it is.
They won't say anything about that because of course,
I don't certainly don't think Sunday noon is a good time to end the auction.
And I think with Dave's case ending Monday right after a two week vacation,
because as we found the cell, what do we say the the sell through rate of reserve
auctions was was like was just some percent.
Yeah, it was like half.
Yeah, it was horrible.
And by the way, I looked at it today.
It was like 30%.
But this is on that, right?
This is on that, yeah, which which by the way is probably better.
I'll bet I'm curious to see what the sell through rate is on cars and bids and P car.
I'll bet you the sell through rate of reserve auctions is not as great and they'll publish
numbers because if you just group it all together, oh, it looks like we had an 85%
sell through rate, which is great.
But like, for instance, yesterday and today,
half of their auctions on bring a trailer were no reserve.
Half of them, which means.
And by the way, I remember I started capturing this data like three years ago.
It was more like maybe 35% were no reserve.
So I think bring a trailer is pushing towards no reserve because they need to make money.
They can't not have an auction not happen.
And I mean, I'm concerned that because mine did not meet reserve that the next time around I go,
I'm going to have a harder time getting them to give me the reserve I want because now I've got
I'm a you know, I'm one for six or whatever that didn't hit.
So yeah, I mean, my my suggestion to you, Dave, to to guys like Casey and anyone else doing these
kind of auctions, your goal is to use bring a trailer to build the following, get them off
bring a trailer, get them to Sunderworks, go, you know, as we talked about newsletters,
basically have a curated group of clients.
So I am grateful and thankful I don't have to use bring a trailer because I honestly,
I don't have the stomach for it.
I would just I would feel sick constantly.
So having to be on it, you're there a week, you've got to be glued to your phone looking for
every question because you'll get blown right up the minute you don't answer.
As soon as you don't answer a question about like some silly detail, then like 10 other people
start thinking you're trying to hide something like what is that?
What is the spare tire's date stamp on it?
Or you know, all sorts of bullshit.
Oh, we didn't answer that question.
There must be a body in the trunk.
I mean, some of the people go nutty.
And we can certainly and if you have anything that's special like that RS, 73 RS, anything
that's collector grade.
Oh boy, you better be on point.
And as we talked about going to No Reserve, I think where No Reserve works the best,
which means you got to have big waybos is on the high end, collectible, no excuses, no stories.
That car is so vetted.
So for instance, like some of the Jerry Seinfeld stuff that has been going through,
like they don't need a reserve.
I mean, I don't know what is 96436 in slight gray.
Would it go for 800?
I mean, do you realize that car which went for $700 or $800,000, which I think a lot of people
thought was like 40% overmarket.
It has literally pulled everything 964 wide body up.
The 9192s that were hovering right under 200 are now hovering under 300.
Even yesterday, a Red Tan Carrera 4, they made 267.
They're just the wide bodies with no tail, with a hundred and some thousand miles sold for 210.
That was a $160,000 car like yesterday.
So I mean, I'm not a No Reserve guy.
But like if I had something like that, there's a time and place.
I'm glad you didn't do No Reserve, Dave.
You'd be screwed.
You would have left a lot of money on the table.
If that was the case, I wouldn't have been.
And you've got to have a little something there.
And what pisses me off about that, even though I'm not using bring a trailer,
these are the comps that are benchmarking the cars that I'm selling.
And here's the weird thing.
I was talking to a client yesterday.
Buyers will, it just said bid to XXX.
That does not mean it's sell.
It just means that that moment in time, two people thought it was worth that.
And there's all these outside variables that influence it.
And then the buyer called a buyer for another car.
I have an SC for sale.
They call up and they go, well, hey, this car is sold for that.
I pull it up and I go, well, no, it didn't.
It bid to that.
Well, isn't that the same thing?
I mean, they associate that.
And so the only guys calling me that let me explain the difference
between bid to and sold.
How about the guys who never get to that point?
So I mean, that's a little mini rant from Paul.
There you go.
Well, but you did have a good business lesson.
And it's true, you know, if you cannot, if you build your mansion
and land you do not own, you were always going to be subject to being screwed.
And what that means basically is what Paul said about a newsletter.
So if you're building your whole business predicated on bats rules
and somebody else determining whether you're going to be successful or not,
you know, they change this, they change the other thing,
you're never really going to own a business.
But if you actually have a newsletter or something similar
where you have your own database, like what Paul does, you know,
it's taken him years to form that newsletter.
But you get a new, so business owners, this is the really, the Shangri-La, right?
You got to have your own list because every time you've got a new product,
every time you've got a new car, every time you've got a new whatever,
you just hit it to your list and those people already know, love and trust you.
You don't have to prove yourself to them.
Chances are your customers already there.
And Paul, your list is definitely less than a thousand people, right?
I mean, it's hundreds, isn't it?
Oh, no, no, no, no.
My list is the email list is 7000.
And then the social media stuff is 40,000.
But the core list and believe it or not, I've been trying to debate this
because we've had a problem where the people who are on the list
to get the newsletter of the new car, they're out of the last 20 cars.
I've only sent emails out on three of them
because they sold before I could even do the newsletter.
And so I've almost thought about, which part of me doesn't,
I feel gross about doing it, is doing a Patreon.
If you want to be like in this list to follow up on coming to be the first.
Yes, yes.
And really my goal is to make it fair.
Hold on, Paul.
You are hanging out with me too frequently, too often.
You're starting to sound like a communist or less like a communist socialist
and more like a normal human capitalist money.
I know.
I just want to be fair.
But and really it's not even fair about making a pay to be on your list.
I like that.
It's my kind of fair.
And I listened to this on a podcast and it struck me as a nerve.
Think about in your business team with housing,
there is no issue with a bidding war and you publish your house price at this.
And there's a bidding war and when there's a hot market,
very often that house sells for above list.
The place I live in now, it's I had to bid 10% over just to get the house.
Let me share with you.
Imagine doing that with cars.
I had a hate you would get.
This was years ago and Julie and I were consulting with a brokerage
that represented a builder and they were building in a neighborhood
where there was like 20 buyers for every single house.
And so the builder built like 20 freaking houses and had like another 30 lots
that they were going to sell.
What are we going to do?
And they each of these, each of the build reps had their own little,
you know, buddy's list and all the rest of it.
And they wanted to neutralize all the preferential treatment
that people are going to have.
So what they did is we formed basically not an auction by a lottery.
So all the people that wanted a car listening wanted a house.
They were, they filled out a form and they went into this list.
And then the, I don't know how they went about choosing who got to bid first,
but then they selected 20 people from the hat, let's say,
and those are the first people that were offered an opportunity to buy a house.
And if they said no, then they pulled more people out.
And you could hypothetically do that.
When you have a new car that's going to come up,
that you know everyone's going to want, maybe you just say this,
look, if you're interested in this one, put your name on this list
and I'll share it with you first.
And this is what, you know, and do your own little private auction.
You could do that.
I've gone back and forth and it's tough because
it's just philosophy.
If you post something, let's say, have you ever seen that someone puts
a car up for sale with no price?
They get all these inquiries and they associate that with,
oh my God, this is a hot product.
And I go, no, no, no, you put a price on it.
You'll know if it's a hot product.
And so then they put a price on it.
No one calls, which tells me one thing.
You could do the whole value range game, like the auction houses do
with the range that they suspect it'll sell for.
That's an, I essentially do that verbally because what happens is we get a new car,
we put it on coming soon.
We're in the process of vetting it.
We're kind of teasing people like movie trailers
and it has enough data where their next question has to be,
what is this going to cost?
How much is this?
And I have, and I don't legitimately have an exact price
because I haven't gone through everything.
I don't know, I may find something that adds huge value.
I may find something that detracts value.
And so I'll give them a range, say, hey, it's going to sell in the $80,000 range.
And then as I start going through it, I find things that add more value.
I find that the buyers are really engaged with it.
And then I realize, oh, I can have more.
But then once I put it on our website, here it is.
I've pre-chewed your food.
It's vetted.
Here's everything I know about the car.
Like literally, I probably know more than the owner who's had it for the last 10 years
and I've only had it for two weeks.
And it's this price, I can't go back.
Because I, you know, and even that, here's a funny thing is I'll have people saying,
I already took a deposit to the first guy in line.
And then another guy goes, hey, I'll pay that guy $10,000 to give up his spot.
Here's the funny thing is most of the time I've tried it.
I mean, right now, striking 100% fail.
When you put their money to the mouth and say, hey, the owner's ready to go.
They're like, oh gosh, you know.
And what they next do is they throw their poor wife under the bus.
And it pisses me off because I was like, hey, let me call your wife.
I'll bet you money.
If you are in my shop or talking to me about a car,
car guys were kind of wooses.
Our wife, we're there because our wife already said, okay, for sure.
And the, and I posted one of my newsletters was something like,
hey, your wife called and said it was okay.
And then I went on to say like, hey, stop throwing your wife under the bus.
You know what?
Just say you can't afford it.
No, Paul, next time someone says that to you, here's what you do.
You say, you know what?
Let's call her.
I'll put it on speaker.
I'll put it on speaker.
Let's ask her right in front of you.
And you know what?
Then they're going to admit that they're like, no, no, no, don't.
She'll be so mad.
All right.
Segment three new for 2026 cars.
I would feel we'll go through this relatively quick
that we're all excited about or should be choose the maybe two or two.
Yeah.
Anyway, that's it.
So we're the two, two to four cars new for 2026.
So you guys are already excited about I or are excited about I'll go first.
Paul's my for whatever reason, I can't share pictures today,
but Paul's putting the first one up, which is the catarum.
Now this is an electric car, which kind of, you know, I was surprised I liked it,
but it's a catarum project V that car starting out only selling in the UK,
but they're going to, they already said they're going to sell it in the United States.
You said, yes, Paul, I get your protest.
All right.
You know what?
I'm going to just because of that, you got to go find a picture of a Corvette C8 ZR1X.
My internet just went down.
Yeah.
Well, so I'm excited.
I think that's going to be a cool car.
I really liked the one that David put up.
Thank you, David.
I really liked the one that David put up earlier about the Toyota GR MR2.
That car is going to be phenomenal, especially because you know, they're not going to reprice it.
And it's going to have a nice engine.
It's going to be nice.
It's a gas powered car.
Yeah, I don't even think it's going to be like a mild hybrid.
I think it'll be just an internal combustion engine with probably a turbo, which I am fine.
Yep, totally.
I want to say 250 horsepower, maybe something like that is what I read.
All right, so I bet you I bet you it'll weigh under 3,000.
Do you think they'll get it under 3,000 pounds?
Oh, I bet you they will on it too.
Yeah, it's it's just hard.
It's hard with, you know, all the standards.
But here you go.
Here's your electric thing.
Okay.
It's pretty.
It is pretty.
The back actually, the back three quarters looks best, but that's there you go.
Don't you think that looks cool?
Okay.
What car from the like, what car from the 70s that look like?
Guys, oh, it looks like a Dino.
Freud, you know, Opal, Opal GT.
Maybe with the flowers.
They could Opal GT or Aston Martin and Aston Martin for the B pillar back.
Well, I do like it's got like these really many flying buttresses.
And I can't tell if that's like a glass cover that hovers over the trunk.
Like is there a space between the trunk lid and the glass cover?
I couldn't tell.
Those are just really nice.
I didn't get a lot of interior pictures, but I the only thing I really like about the interior.
Well, first of all, obviously, because it's electric, there's no manual.
That's really too bad because it looks like a great car.
I mean, go grab that Toyota engine because that's a very lotus thing anyway,
and go stick that the MR2 engine in this car.
And then you've got something.
But the one thing I do like about it, if you look at the interior,
it's got like old Jaguar toggle switches.
See them?
Like with the little things to keep you from hitting it.
And then one of my favorite features on like old Mercedes had this.
Remember the round vents where you could, and actually a little pro tip,
if you have an air cooled 911, those Mercedes round vents fit where the clock goes.
And it makes a really cool air vent.
Because have you ever driven an air cooled 911 with one gauge out or any gauges out?
Sure, sure.
It's like a monsoon.
It hits you with so much air because that front scoop shoots in there.
And if you take one of these Mercedes style,
ocular, you know, spherical air vents fits where the clock goes.
And you have not air conditioning, but you have a hairdryer.
Hey, Paul, you can keep talking as long as you want to.
I am going to talk about the Corvette ZR1X.
I know what you're trying to do.
You're trying to talk to me the next time.
Well, folks, we are out of time.
But listen, I just want to say 450 vent fits in there too, Paul, by the way.
Oh, perfect.
In that whole mess.
Oh my God, you guys are really trying to drive me crazy.
Let me just get it out.
All right.
So this last one, I know, I do think this is incredible,
but the new C8 ZR1X.
I'm just going to say it.
You guys don't have to say anything.
But they just, the dyno results on the ZR1 are coming in.
That car at the crank.
And this is a question I have for you guys because I honestly don't know.
That car at the crank is 1200 horsepower, the ZR1.
The ZR1X with, I think it's going to have an additional 182 horsepower.
So you're talking about a car at the crank.
It's going to be 1300 to 1400 horsepower.
Which, you know, you could say, well, remember the X is all wheel drive.
Does Porsche do at the crank or at the wheels?
I mean, they say at the crank, but it's all German cars traditionally have always been
conservative.
Whereas typically domestic cars have always, outside of the 60s,
where there are sandbagging for insurance, outside of that,
generally American cars have been more generous on their horsepower ratings
than European cars, especially German.
But I don't think that's true anymore because those guys could run a follow the law.
I mean, I don't follow really what, you know, the difference.
I mean, I don't see as much, remember, you know, growing up or in the 80s and 90s,
we would do go to dyno days.
I remember there would be events where we would run cars in dyno.
I don't see people doing dyno days anymore.
Hennessy is the one that did the dyno results on the zero one that I just told you about.
That's a very Hennessy thing to do.
Of course, he's going to modify him.
But, you know, you guys don't, in the, as far as the automotive world,
if you're selling a hypercar, if you're selling this or that, the other thing.
And one of your brag points, one of your unique selling propositions was horsepower
or performance.
And I'll use Porsche as an example.
You know, GT3RS, guess, you guys saw the video with Jason Camisa.
And I had a problem with that video.
I'll tell you about it.
But go ahead.
Oh boy, here we go.
Oh yeah.
Oh yeah.
You are okay.
Okay, hold on, hold on, hold on.
But the Corvette eviscerated the GT3RS on a track.
It did it by two seconds.
I don't know if you know about racing, son, but that's it.
It was apples and oranges.
Apples and oranges.
Okay, here we go.
Let's go.
If there was a GT, so here's the problem I have.
And I love Jason.
That video is fantastic.
And there's no question that the Corvette is an incredible machine.
And I think the Mustang was comparable.
But really, you had the Mustang and the Porsche were in the same class.
And what really the competitive car to, which is Porsche doesn't have yet,
is the GT2RS.
The GT2RS is really, really the apples to apples.
For the ZR1.
For the ZR1.
I think they should have had a Z06.
That's more.
But the GT3RS now, even at list, is still $80,000 to $100,000 more than the ZR1.
But take out the price.
It's not about price.
It's about horsepower, weight, and all that.
I just think they're in different leagues.
It's like having a GT2 class race car competing in a GT3 class race car.
They're in different classes.
And of course it's.
But they're not.
Those cars race against each other in class.
GT3s are racing against ZR1s.
They do.
I don't think they're racing against a ZR1.
There's no way they're running 1,000 horsepower.
They don't race ZR1s.
I said it wrong.
But they're racing against Z06s.
Which that's my point.
That comparison shouldn't have been done with the ZR1.
It should have been done with the Z06.
Because that is the comparable car I think to the Corvette.
And when the G, you know what I'd rather see is when the new GT2RS comes out,
now let's go benchmark it against the ZR1.
It's going to kick its ass.
No, I don't think it will.
And beyond bench racing, armchair quarterbacking, all this crap,
here's the funny thing I've heard from several automotive journalists
who've done these benches.
They all commend the Corvette and how amazing it is and how good it is.
There's no one questioning its prowess on the track and the performance capabilities.
But the irony is, I think Matt Farah talked about it.
They did the performance car of the year.
He drove all the cars, said the Corvette's great.
At the end of the day, all the journalists grabbed keys to drive home,
to drive back to the hotel and do the road test first thing in the morning.
And Matt was talking about how he hid the GT3RS key so he could drive that car or the GT3.
Whatever.
Basically, even though the Corvette was better on the track,
he would have rather driven the Porsche on the street.
And I think ultimately, you can say it's the Porsche Cult thing or whatever.
It's the Porsche Cult thing.
That's what it is.
But I also think-
I feel the same way truthfully.
You know, and I do dug into that video, though.
They were all commenting.
I mean, who's the driver?
I can't remember.
Randy Probst's comment.
Randy Probst.
Yeah, he's great.
Yeah.
But he even was saying that the Corvette just doesn't feel like the Porsche.
I mean, there was no question that it performed better than the Porsche,
but it just doesn't feel.
And I think it's quality.
I think it's materials.
But that's where the price, that's why it's a price.
Yeah.
What is it, a third less than the Porsche?
I think you guys are both projecting, to be honest with you,
because I watched that video three times,
and because I was trying to take notes for the sake of the show
to try to win an argument against you morons,
which I'm clearly not going to do.
I'm just going to fix this.
You know, but the reality of it is, is the C8, ZR1,
and now you have the ZR1X.
So David, along your logic, OK?
I can't believe you guys are playing with me today on Corvettes.
This is awesome.
Basically, Dave and I are going to filibuster you.
I know.
Well, OK.
Well, let me ask this one last question.
All right.
So if the ZR1X, the average on that one is going to be $250,000.
And that car is going to be unbelievably fast.
All-wheel drive, the whole thing.
You tell me what the competitor is for that thing,
at a quarter of a million bucks.
Are you talking about price and performance?
Is that what you're talking about?
Yeah, but you're just basically, you're changing the rules,
because you want to throw in, you're making the horse power.
I was like, now the outlier.
But Jason never really talked as much about price
as it was capability on the track.
And this was the.
But they're track cars.
Right?
Yes.
And he was talking about equalizer.
And I said, like, only problem was,
I want to see this comparison with the GT2 RS.
I don't think Ford's going to have anything more performance oriented
than the GTD.
The GTD and the GT3 RS, I think those are close competitors.
And I think, sadly, I think it's a great effort by Ford.
I think, sadly, weight is its nemesis.
And I don't think they can get around the weight.
But, and I think, though, the Corvette,
I would have rather seen that as a Z06 competition,
because I think those, at least on a performance level on paper,
are similar.
But like, what the Corvette did, I mean,
it was only two seconds a lap faster with double the horsepower.
Do you know how, do you know how time works?
I mean, it's a lot.
Two seconds a lap faster after a 12 or 15 hour or 15 lap.
It's minutes faster.
But here's the funny thing is when they go to a long track,
like the Nurburgring, they were really close.
Yeah, but they were really close.
They were really close, driven by non-professional drivers.
No, they were each, they didn't have the same driver.
They were not, they were not.
They were GM engineers.
And if you go through, and I'm so glad we're debating this,
Paul, I actually roped you in.
Yes!
OK, so they didn't.
If you watch this, who's that guy that Mishda or Misha,
or whatever, right?
The guy that's basically famous for driving the N-ring faster
than basically anybody else.
He did a, he watched those guys weren't growing up on the curbs.
They weren't the GM engineers.
They weren't driving the full track.
And he said, he thought that if you'd put a real, you know,
someone who's actually experienced in the Nurburgring,
a real driver in there versus guys that are engineers that,
you know, drive, you know, you guys get the difference.
I don't have to tell you.
Yeah, yeah.
It's your risk tolerance is how willing you are to kill yourself.
That's a just a high amateur and a professional driver.
So why didn't they put the pro in there?
He thought four or five seconds.
I don't believe it.
I don't know why.
It seems like if you're going to take all that expense,
I can imagine what it costs to close that track down.
Take it over.
Do that.
Why would you hire a hot shoe?
They used those same drivers when they were dominating the US
tracks and beating, oh, guess what?
Your GT3 RS and all the US tracks as well.
And as the 06 and as the R1.
Look, you guys, how's the guy going to go ahead?
Take down.
I got to get a voice in here in this deal for God's sakes.
Porsches and Corvettes have been racing side by side
for years and years and years and years.
Each one keeps coming out with variants and improvements
and so on.
I don't mind that they didn't.
They raced.
They used the ZR1 X or a ZR1, excuse me, against the GT3.
And it outperformed it.
It did in that video.
I believe all that.
Price difference is fantastic.
There's a big difference, but there's always been a big difference.
People still want the Porsche more by and large.
So when the GT2 RS comes out, it's going to, you know,
I think it's going to take a million dollars.
I know.
OK, but Tim, let me ask you a question.
Let's just say the Corvette, the ZR1,
was the same price as the GT3.
Just say that they were the same price.
Even though the Corvette is better dynamically on a track,
which do you think people will buy if they were literally the same price?
We're old farts.
Let's just admit it.
Our cumulative age is like 160, right?
So, you know, but we're like a tortoise.
Exactly.
I don't think the younger generation,
and I know you're going to argue with me, but I do think it's true.
I don't think I think they're falling in love with the Corvette
more than Porsches, more than even Ferraris or Lamborghinis.
This younger generation, if you're to believe the Instas,
if you're to believe, look, OK, so let's assume there's somebody on this
listening or watching us right now that's younger than say 40.
What do you guys think?
Chime in here.
What do you think happens with Corvette?
Are you carrying around your biases against it, you know,
that are rightly earned, if you ask me?
Or do you not necessarily see the new balanced shoes and all the other things
that Paul likes to wear?
That's all I see.
Ask my wife.
She'll give you an earful about Corvette.
Yeah, but she's your age, bro.
I don't know.
It's hard for me to get out my bias, but then when I also,
like we were at a cars and coffee this weekend,
and there was like eight or nine brand new Corvettes,
no ZR1, but Z06 and all that, and we're looking at them.
And we're like, you know, it's almost like the first draft of a Ferrari 296
that really didn't make the cut.
And it just, and then you're like looking at like this could,
like a 296 is so pretty.
And did they bench it off?
Would they bench the car off the 488 or something?
Or which Ferrari did they bench?
No, it's an all new chassis.
It's an all new car.
No, not the ZR1, but the Z06.
No, wasn't it benched?
458.
458, yeah.
So, and it's like the Z06, but that was off the Corvette.
There wasn't zero.
There were Z06s there.
And I'm sitting there looking at like, they started off right.
And it's, it's like these angles and designs and,
and the problem I have with Corvette, and they've already,
since the C8's been out, it's already starting to do this.
It just doesn't age well.
It just starts, it's like, I always equivalent to like Wrigley's gum,
like the first time you chew it, like, wow, this is awesome.
And within 10 seconds, you're like, get that shit out of my mouth.
It's just like chewing on tar.
And that's how I've always felt about Corvette design.
Yeah, but we are driving things that look like glorified bugs, bro.
I know, but I've never argued the fact that Corvettes have democratized
speed and performance.
And for years, every, you know, track days, even the C5 era,
you could get a C5, brand new at the time in the early 2000s,
go out to the track and be competitive.
Whereas if you bought a BMW, you definitely had to do a shit ton of work.
If you bought a Porsche, you had to do some work.
And the cost of running was three, two, three, four X.
There's no question that they were the value buy.
But the end of the day, I just, I never really know.
I don't think it's a USP now, because you don't hear anyone complaining
about the interiors of the new cars, the new C8s, the new,
so they got their interior.
Exactly.
The design is subjective.
I personally like it.
I think it looks fantastic.
They got to do a square steering wheel to get fat old guys like me in the car.
So I get it.
Yeah, exactly.
But you know what, though, let's move on.
How about that?
All right.
And Paul, thanks.
Well, agreed to disagree.
Thanks.
Well, listen, guys, in the comments, what do you think?
I mean, you know, you don't worry about Paul's feelings.
You know, hurt his feelings, tell him how he's wrong,
and how the new C8 changes all the rules, or tell me I'm wrong.
It doesn't matter.
Let's have some finer comments, please.
All right.
Dave, why don't you go next?
I think the world's done here, Paul.
Yeah.
Well, I'm going to kind of, I'm keeping it going again,
just going to don't have the history of it, unfortunately.
But I think that you will be able to buy,
you won't necessarily get delivered.
So I'm cheating a little bit, but later this year,
you're going to be able to start ordering the GT2 RS.
So I'm kind of excited about this car, right?
I mean, I think it's going to be,
it's going to propel Porsche right back to the pinnacle again.
700 plus horsepower, likely conservatively rated,
electric turbo assist, styling wise,
it'll probably be similar to this variant,
meaning that if you looked at a 991.2 GT3 versus a 991.2 GT2 RS,
bigger scoops on the front and some minor styling differences,
but those cars do still look remarkably similar.
I think it's going to be a phenomenal car.
It's probably going to have a sticker over 500 grand or something like that.
Well, that even matters.
No, it won't because the people that can afford it can afford it, right?
And they'll sell every single one that they can make.
There's no question that they will sell every single one that they will make.
So I think that's a car I'm certainly looking forward to this year as well.
Now, here's one.
This is going to be way off the reservation for you guys,
but I'm also thinking this is going to be a cool little machine.
This is the slate pickup for those of you who haven't,
this electric, Paul, I know,
and I bet you're going to see these babies running all around California.
I'm certain of it.
Well, I think the problem with those is by time they actually come to market
where the price tag is going to be, there's going to,
I think the Maverick's going to be more appealing.
There's going to be some other cars that are more appealing.
That whole car was the slate, which is an Amazon product, was really on the basis,
and this is where they kind of got screwed,
that there would be a tax credit and really keep this truck under 30 grand.
And I think there's no way,
and I think they're going to have too much competition for cars that honestly are better.
You mean ice cars, you know, Maverick.
Yeah, I mean, I would love to see the song come back
with a new version of the hard body to compete with the Maverick.
That would be really rad.
You know, go back to these little small pickups.
I just think that the only competitive advantage the slate had was price,
and that is pretty much gone.
Well, and buying a truck from Amazon too.
Honestly, there's something about this sort of little mini,
cute little car though, and you can reconfigure it into a five seat SUV at the same time.
I think that the idea that it's you wrap it, you don't paint it.
Who's the buyer? Who's the buyer?
It's probably somebody in there.
You know, it's a it's a late 20s.
It's a, you know, millennial type as well.
You know, I think that's kind of the buyer for this car.
It's not a guy like me, but I think it's going to do well.
I like this little car. I think it's cool.
What I like about it, isn't the car itself,
is that it might push other manufacturers to compete against it.
I think they'll get killed in the market.
But you sometimes need that kind of competition to get the the static companies.
I thought the Maverick would force all the manufacturers to make cool pickups,
and really the Maverick sort of sitting by itself.
And maybe this will open up a new truck where people aren't driving F 350s around by themselves
and commuting in them, and they're driving cool little pickup trucks that are useful.
Yes, but it wasn't there a law that recently changed that made those little mini pickup
trucks legal again? Wasn't there some sort of?
Well, that was K trucks.
That was Trump just talking about it.
And I'm not sure whether or not that's happened or not,
or there's been, I mean, anything about that.
They're still not manufactured here.
You're not taking a K truck on the freeway.
Do people even care about electric cars now that we own the largest?
We own Venezuela and has the largest oil reserve on planet Earth.
I think people care.
I think what happens in urban areas, if you're commuting,
they are take out the fuel economy and any of that.
I just think they are really nice things to be in if you're stuck in traffic commuting.
That's where their value is.
And in urban areas, any big metropolitan area, they make sense.
Outside of that, I don't think they're ever going to have a strong foothold,
at least not in the near future.
All right, so in case you full version of this thing has only about 150 mile range as well.
So that's kind of that's small.
You have to buy the bigger battery and whatnot,
which is going to bump the price up as well.
I just think the idea of the customization, people love this idea of mass customization.
Check out their website, look at it.
I think it's kind of cool.
So I think that products less about the product itself and more about the ease of buying it
and the ease of paying for it.
So if Amazon makes it so that it's easily accessible and obtainable,
then it'll be a success.
If they try to sell it on the merits of the actual product, it won't be a success.
And given Amazon how they go about selling stuff, that's exactly what they're going to do.
They're going to make it painless and everyone's going to, you know,
and it'll make it so that that'll be the easy, all I'm buying some diapers and my,
you know, kid needs a new car, click, add to cart, and then it shows up in two weeks.
Amazon prime.
Exactly.
Amazon prime.
You know, that's how they're going to do it.
I would if I had, you know, I mean, that's, that's the, you're right, Tim.
That's their competitive advantage.
That's for sure.
For sure.
All right.
So you are up next and just remind everyone, this is new for 2026 cars.
We're excited about.
Well, so here's the thing is,
there are some exciting cars you listed like the Toyota, GR, Krol and stuff.
Those are all cars that exist.
Save this for the next segment.
No, no, I know.
I just don't have a picture because I, this whole subject, it irritated me because there
are some good cars like the Toyota BRZ, you know, the BRZ there or the Subaru version,
the Krol, GR Krola.
There are some cool products out there, but they, they're not necessarily new.
The one new car that I would have been really excited is if Nissan really said,
we're going to make a manual Nismo Z.
That, which I thought by now they would realize, hey, this is going to sell.
This is going to help Nissan, which is on life support.
I love the Toyota MR2.
I just don't see that.
I think we're still too far away from that being in production for in 26 as a 27 model,
even that.
The Toyota thing we talked about last week with the V8, that's really cool.
I don't know about that.
So when I went into AI and just said, hey, what's new?
It just vomited SUV, electric vehicles.
I just looked at it and I was like, it is so freaking boring.
So then I was like, okay, well, give me fun enthusiast cars,
something that I want to buy, honest to God.
And I kept on drilling down like, no, no, no, better enthusiast cars.
Here's what it gave me is the new for 26 enthusiast cars, Ferrari EV SUV.
I mean, oh man, you got to tell I just want to commit.
I just want to commit Harry Carey.
That's going to be 500 grand.
Those things are going to be 500 grand.
That'll be the fastest.
That'll be the fastest.
Well, people that are coerced into buying them because they want to get on the list
to buy the special Ferrari.
You watch that'll be the fastest depreciating car in the history,
faster than a Pinto, faster than anything else.
It'll be like that in the Cadillac, Salik or whatever.
They'll be like fighting this down.
It'll be like Pinewood Derby downhill racing.
Bottom depreciation.
So the next one was the Toyota GR GT Lexus LFA thing we talked about.
That is actually the only viable competitor.
And then this just actually made me sad.
Porsche 718 EV variant.
Because for next year, now Porsche has already stepped it back
and they're going to make ice gas-powered 718 boxers and Caymans.
But for next model year, they're not ready to produce those.
So the only thing you're going to get for that model year is EV.
And that to me, when I read those, it's kind of sad that nothing new for 26
or even 27 model year being sold in 26 is that interesting.
And to me, which we'll talk about the next subject, the only thing interesting,
and it's almost like watching this lottery that we know what's going to happen,
is each year, the 25-year rule, we're like,
okay, we already know for next year what's coming in 22.
Don't tee up segment for yet.
But I want to say something to what you were just saying.
So I know you guys aren't Formula 1 fans, but I'll say this for those who are.
The new 4...
I am. I just get... I forget to watch.
Okay, well...
I'll do drive to survive and I'll catch up.
Do you know in 2026, there's an all-new car.
And the car is physically smaller and has a new power plant.
I hate they call it a power plant.
And what's interesting is half the horsepower has to come from the electric motor
and the other has obviously comes from a tiny little six-cylinder,
probably like a 1.6 or 7 or 8 little six-cylinder with turbochargers and the rest of it.
But here's what I thought was interesting.
Every single Formula 1 team has to run synthetic fuel.
And one race just to fill the tank with synthetic fuel is $20,000.
Now, that's an interesting point.
But what I thought was really fascinating is Formula 1 traditionally has been the leading edge
of what automotive is gravitating towards.
Stylistically, colors of exterior colors of cars, technologically.
So Ferrari and all the other manufacturers are now going to be putting emphasis
behind making hybrids that are going to be using synthetic fuel.
That goes to the premise that I had a long time ago,
that the whole EV thing is going to be replaced by effectively a hybrid.
And the all-electric cars don't really have their place
if they can make synthetic fuel so that it's obtainable.
And you can go to the same distribution is already in place.
And you can put synthetic fuel in and it burns clean.
I don't see how there's going to be a lot of big market for EV cars, full-electric.
Will, but do you think what they're going to do is they're going to be not plug-in,
not plug-in EV traditionally, but they will be the wheels will be powered by electric motors
with a gas-generating power plant that is more efficient of synthetic fuel.
I think the plug-in is more efficient.
You could put a bigger battery in it, all kinds of other advantages to it.
And again, look to see what the leading manufacturers are doing, their plug-ins.
Like on a Ferrari, when I drive a Ferrari, if you put it in,
if you put it in, there's like four settings on the Manantino.
If you put it in, I think it's not race, but the one right before that.
The EV motor gets actually powered by the gas motor if you're driving it hard.
But if you put it in one of the lighter settings, it drains the battery.
So that's what I, you know, and the bias against hybrid cars, I already see going away.
And when Formula One, especially now that Formula One is going to be on Apple,
and it's not going to be some sort of hard to stream type deal,
everyone's going to be able to watch it if they have an Apple TV subscription.
And if EVs become the thing, you're going to, in my opinion, that's the direction for it.
Do you have any opinion on all my rambling there, David?
I mean, I don't know that that, that in and of itself is going to move the needle enough
in general. I mean, as far as just F1 and so on, but, you know, all the time.
I mean, I like your hypothesis that, and it is, if you go on past history,
Formula One has been the tip of the spear for technology that ends up trickling into cars.
I mean, we, we still don't have DRS on cars.
Well, we do, I guess we do the GT3. Actually, on that video,
you're right with Jason Camisa was showing how the wing went open and closed.
Yeah. So I think there is that chance. I'm curious to see, you know, how successful that system is,
how it's going to generate. And maybe they're calling it a power plant, because they realize
it's not going to be an engine powering the wheels. It's going to be a power supply to
charge the battery to power the wheels. I don't know what it's going to be.
They're just trying to be fancy and not call it an engine or whatever. And by the way, DRS is illegal
on F, they're not that I saw that in 2026. It's not funny. That is, I mean,
here's what I think is that was such a valuable part of making F1 sort of interesting with passing.
And I wonder if halfway through the season, they're like, Oh, gosh,
that what happened to the world? If all of a sudden, Formula One said, you know what,
enough with this nanny state green crap, wait, let's go back to V10s.
Yeah, yeah, exactly. Like, like with giant wings, early 90s.
Santa Michael Schumacher when he was cutting his teeth and the more and then mortality rate would
go up. Well, the hearing, the hearing of all the spectators would go down.
Segment four, a new year is here. What cool cars can we now import?
And then they just reach there because they just reached the ripe old age of 25. So like you,
David, the ripe old age of 25, what are your favorites? I'm way past the ripe old age of 25.
I'll tell you that. A smorgasbord of stuff here starting with this roof, our turbo,
which, you know, I think we're talking 2001. I never really knew much about this car. Paul
probably knows more about this particular car than I do. I think it was at three different
variants, 500 to 525 horsepower, obviously turbocharged, all the roof goodies, including
their wheels and styling. These are not cheap pieces. They didn't build a lot of them. I mean,
I don't even know. I think the numbers probably well under 100 of these that they ever built.
So I've seen auctions and so on where these, this car is going to do 400,000 plus dollars
for one of these. Well, when the US market opens up to cars that like what you're pointing out now,
but are you sure that wasn't importable in the United States prior? Because I think it was.
No, it wasn't. Well, when there was RAF, you know, in Texas, which was
roof's first like US or one of the early US. Yeah. And then it's no longer in Dallas,
it's no longer part of it. You could essentially buy some of the parts, but really EPA wasn't
allowing you to bring that car in, which you could tell the cool part was on the top of the
fenders. So remember 996 turbos had that big scoop in front of the rear wheel. Yeah. And it
didn't look very elegant. It was just kind of a cut out with a plastic insert. Here they made
on the top this cool scoop and that I thought was the neatest feature. And the wild thing is,
like Dave said, they're, I think people have been already trickling them in even though before,
and they're, you know, on a Canadian plate or whatever it is, but they're already definitely
$400,000 cars. But I think in early pandemic, they were like half of that, if not less and not
selling. I remember telling my dad ago, I think these are good deals. Soon as the US opens up with
this 25 year thing, it's like two or three years before that, those cars start to go up in value.
So if you want to know, if you want to make money on cars, those would be the ones to buy.
And you can import them and just stick them in a warehouse and just, you know, basically
maybe hit the home run on that. You have a couple other, I have no idea what this
Renault thing is, David. I'll go with the Renault first then. This is, I never,
I knew nothing about this damn thing either. It was like, I just did a little, what can I
import now? Yes, very French. You would get your photo shot at every single gas station you ever
stopped at. Or just shot. It's called an Aventime, I think is what the name of this is.
Obviously 2001, it is some sort of combo of two door SUV, five passenger vehicle.
Can we move past this one please? Let's go to the next one.
I mean, the only thing cool about that is, and that's, that's like a legacy car that they keep
doing modern versions. And they're always, these city runabouts weird. And I think way back in the
day, I think it was Renault, they took a, the predecessor back in the 80s was called a space.
And they basically put a full F1 underside. It was an F1 car that looked like that. And it was
hilarious. It running laps on the Nurburgring. I mean, picture, like you're talking about V10,
turbo, old school F1 in a minivan. Paul, you are winning the game on weird nerd
knowledge off the truck space. That's the section which is wonderful. You guys took all the good
stuff though by the time I got to pick all this stuff. Well, let me ask you guys, have you guys
driven a modern French car, like a modern-ish French car I built in the last 20 years? Have you
guys driven one? Oh, no, I had an R5 turbo, but that was me. Okay, it's a mixture between a Korean
car and a Cadillac from the late 80s. That's what they feel like. Yeah, they are awful. They are
perfect. Aside from the Alpine. Yes, boy, that would be. And by the way, just going back to the
last 26th, the only thing I saw that was halfway interesting is Alpine is looking at bringing
a little electric SUV into the US market. That sounds horrible, but the silver lining behind
that is if they got their foot in the door with a stupid little SUV, what that might mean is an A110
or 310. What is the sports car? You got it right. Yeah, that comes in the back door. Now, I know it
would need a massive redesign, but that was like the only glimmer of hope of 26th was a stupid
electric SUV that would open the foot wide enough to get a cool car in maybe in a couple years.
Did you notice that the Alpine and that Caterham that I pointed out earlier looked very similar,
especially from the back three quarters. Have you guys seen one of those Alpine
A310s or whatever they are? Have you seen one? Have you seen one, David?
No, they're cool. They are. It has shockingly good road presence. I was totally surprised.
They don't look as dinky as a Lotus, Elise or a Miata. They look
beautiful. They look like a compact Cayman. They're like a tighter fitting Cayman. I know
the journalists had one in California running around. I think it was a customer's car. They
all got to drive it. I saw them in Germany and here's the irony is several Porsche designers and
engineers bought those to his car. They could get corporate leases and they bought those to drive
around. That is amazing. All right, so this next one I actually really like too. This is really
cool. It's very cool. The Beetle is new, but now 25 years old. This is obviously a Beetle RSI
as a six cylinder, which I have no idea how they jammed. The R6, right? The R6. Under the hood,
there's a six speed manual. I like the styling. I always liked that little, that second version
of the new Beetle where they squatted up the top of it a little bit and made this car a little bit
more interesting to look at. Kind of dig the little spoiler on the back of it myself, but
this was a all wheel drive car as well. So a neat little machine. I didn't even begin to tell you
value. I don't know. Maybe somebody looked it up, but it can't be a ton of money. And I bet you
it's a lot of bang for the buck if you were to buy one of these and bring this car in.
Yeah, 150. That's all they made. That's all they ever made of it.
I think some of the US market turbo ones we got towards the end of the production.
They're too new to be interesting, collectible. And they have this sort of teenage girl stigma
attached to these cars that hasn't left. That's what Dave liked it. Yeah. But I think down the road,
I think they'll have like a weird cult following, like the Shirakos and stuff. No, I do. I do because
they are actually interesting to drive. And when you do get them set up to look like a performance
car. Who's going to buy that over a GTI from the same era? Dave. Nobody. Dave. No, he won't.
By the way, listen, my wife had one of those bug convertible things. Worst car ever.
Oh, they are. Those were terrible. Those are plastic pieces of crap that just broke. And the
number of those that I... Oh, just those were terrible cars. This car just feels like it would
be a lot of fun. Yeah. That would be different. But people in America would look at you like you
are some sort of like, I don't necessarily give a rat's ass that people think when I'm driving a
specific car. I look at my collection and you'll see that I'm telling the truth. But if you're
scooting around town and something that looks like a hoted up bug that's about 25 years old,
I don't know what kind of attention you're going to be attracting. Paul, that would be good.
It would be good in your market, Paul. You could rock that. I'm going to Laguna Beach with a
shitsuit on my passenger seat. That is what I'm trying to say. Yeah. Let's go. Let's go. Let's have
some fun. Paint it pink and I am proud of my... It's a little sleeper, you know. So as we mentioned
before, 26 new cars that were interesting, that was an oxymoron because what was really
interesting is 2021 or 2001, 25 year rule. Here they come. And although dynamically, these never
did well. I mean, I had a Renault R5 Turbo 2, an 80s car. This was Group B homologation.
They just stopped making it. And then back in the early 2000s, they came out with a Clio V6,
which was really... I mean, you got to remember late 90s, early 2000s. Remember, everyone was
doing these heritage cars, restomods, the prowler, other cars that were harking back, the new Beetle.
And I think the Renault Clio V6 was probably the best iteration. So cool looking. I mean,
this is one for sale. Just like an R5. Just like an R5. There's one of those.
It's a sale in Puerto Rico, actually. My friends got it for sale. So sadly, in the automotive review
world, in period, they didn't do well. Short wheelbase, top heavy, heavy. They were 600 pounds
heavier than the base Econobox. I didn't even put a picture of the interior, because going back
to what you said about Cadillac and... I mean, they're just... The interiors are... They look
like they're made by French play school kiddie company. They're just garbage. Which, by the way,
the R5 Turbo I had, that was... It was a leotard inside.
Exactly the same. Exactly.
But when cars get to be a certain age, their lack of performance dynamics get forgiven
and I mean, look at the Alpha 4C. It's cool now. It got trashed when it was a new car,
because it was shitty at everything compared to its competitors. Now it's just a beautiful car.
And I think these are fun. I've only seen one in person. My neighbor back in 2008 had one in the
US. I still don't know how. And I haven't seen it, but I know he has it. And I said, please,
if I ever get a chance to drive it, it'll probably be don't meet your heroes, because it'll probably
suck. But I don't care. It looks so cool. I would love to take this on a rally.
But the car... And so just to give you an idea, this silver one here sold on collecting cars.
It was a Spanish car, so it was left hand drive. I was looking... A lot of them were right hand drive.
This one sold in January of last year. There's not many of them. They don't sell very often.
It only had 6,000 miles. So it was collector grading. Good thing it had 6,000 miles,
because I think with 10,000 miles, the interior would look like garbage. I think they just don't
wear well. Sold for $56,000 in Spain. I don't know if the US has a respectable number.
Of all of our folks listening right now, exactly how many do you think are still interested in
a Renault Clio V6 Phase 1 from 2001? Yes, exactly. Let's move on.
I'm doing this for me, not them. I know, exactly. It's all about you.
But to tell you the truth, the car that really interests me, because my first new car was a
Accurant Tegra in 87. And I've always loved... I mean, I'm not a big front wheel drive car,
but if there is a car that nails front wheel drive, it's the Integra Type R.
The... I guess the first Integra Type R was the third generation Integra. They're here in the US.
Really nice ones are collectible. They sell for $50,000 on up. And then after that, we didn't get
it. And what was cool about this was we did get the Integra RSX. And the RSX was actually a very
pretty design, arguably prettier than the previous generation. And they did do a Type R for the rest
of the world. I think... And we go back and forth of right-hand drive, left-hand drive. Skylines
do really well because they only came right-hand drive. Like there was no left-hand drive variant.
With this, with these, what they call it, fourth-gen Type R, they only came right-hand drive. And
they were mostly in like New Zealand, Austria, even UK. I don't think got very many, if any at all.
So you wouldn't mind driving a right-hand drive car?
No, I've driven right-hand drives. We've sold a couple of Skylines. The hardest thing about
right-hand... First of all, you think it's hard to do the shifter. That actually comes as second
nature. I would say the initial thing is staying in the center of the lane. That's a little awkward.
You find yourself kind of like on the curb like you're delivering mail. But once you get past that,
I would say the hardest part is if you're going to turn left on an uncontrolled intersection
and there's a car in front of you or, God forbid, you're going to pass someone on a country road,
you actually need a passenger. Because you can't see... Imagine being behind a 18-wheeler...
Would you drive a right-hand drive car? Would you buy a right-hand drive car, David?
I would. For the right-hand drive, yeah, I would.
I think a real car... If you're a real car guy, you'll drive a right-hand drive car.
I knew you were going to say that.
And so what's cool about the Integra Type R, this generation Integra Type R,
is some of the downsides, it's got that beautiful almost 9,000 RPM revving motor.
Well, stop there. Stop there. Do you know the difference between the motor in that car versus
the normal Integra? That one in particular that you're showing, do you realize that those motors
were built to basically race specs? Yeah. They're forged in turtles.
Exactly. Totally. That's what makes that... And you can still, supposedly, the
Jap tuner guys will know better than me. But they'll... The motors on those cars, you can still
buy new from Honda or have them, I don't know, some access?
I don't know, but that was the cool about it. I mean, this was really F1 technology ending up in
a road car, which made them so dominant. And really, the downside of the previous,
the Integra Type R that we got was it was a 1.8 liter. It was low on torque.
This was a 2 liter. The torque went up, which I think made it more interesting. Cool interior.
All the reviews I could find, they raved about it. And now granted, I was translating Japanese
reviews into English. So who knows? But to give an example, I found one. Have you guys looked at
Japanese used cars, like dealers like me and Dave, have you looked at their listings for cars?
I try not to. They're kind of funny. So this was one on some Japanese website for sale.
I wanted to compare it to the Clio. It was a 6,000 mile car in Japan. A 2002 model year,
they came out in 2001, but I think they called them 2002s. And it so it was listed for $29,000
for sale. I mean, I don't know, once you imported Terra shipping, let's just say you're in $45,000.
You know, a 6,000 mile US Integra Type R right now is probably over 100 grand.
And you're saying you're saying if your choices, I know these are interesting cars for you guys,
you guys chose cars you thought would be interesting, but would you buy any of the cars you
guys are? I would buy this in the Clio. Would you buy any of yours that you suggested?
I would. Again, it's all a function of price. I'm sure not buying the Evan time, but you know,
would you buy the roof you would buy the Beetle? Sure. At the right price, I would buy the Beetle.
I would buy Dave's roof and I'd buy this Integra. I mean, this Integra would be a blast.
I got you guys both feet. All right. First of all, a GT.
The Corvette. No. 96 GT3 RS. Finally.
That's a good choice. 25 years old. I don't even need to go past that. So those cars in particular,
I think are massively underpriced. Don't make sense to me. The last analog feeling,
911, all the things. And awesome car. I don't know what those prices are going for right now.
I haven't checked. The next would be a Ferrari 550 barcetta. This would be with manual transmission
and those are very limited edition cars. They made less than 550 of them. And the last one I put
up, I don't know. I've seen one of these at an auction is the Porsche 911 again in 996,
the Carrera 4 lightweight club sport variants. Have you guys seen one of those before? I think
they're all white and they hardly made any of them. So it's basically like an RS,
but it's got a wide body and it's all wheel drive. So those would be my three choices.
So the GT, the GT3 RS is a great choice. Now that is a collectible car,
similar to like, even if you look compared to later 997.2 GT3 and GT3 RS.
There's a huge difference in value from a performance standpoint. It's mild, super mild.
In fact, if anything, the RS variant is just more annoying to drive on the street.
You've driven one? Do you know from experience? I haven't driven a 996 GT3 RS. I've driven a 997.1
and .2 GT3 RS. I agree with what you just said. And when you look at what the 996.2 GT3 RS is,
we're talking same engine, subtle, subtle difference, a little less weight. I think it's
going to follow along the same ilk where I think it's a cool collectible and you never see them.
I think as a driving, like, oh my God, driving difference. Is it going to be worth two X? And
by the way, look at the market of just cars that recently sold. Peacart Market had a 10,000 mile
one in Florida that sold for 290. And by the way, they came white with red or white with blue. That
was it. I think, let me see. I just lost the page. I think they're selling now for a collect. And by
the way, they all have no very few miles. Well, here's a 41,000 mile one that Friedman's asking
269 and it's not exactly moving. Is this a US bill, Paul? US bills?
These are already here in the US. So what would be the ones in Japan? How much are the ones in
France? How much are the ones in Belgium? Let's see. Here's one in Netherlands, 24,000 miles.
It was the last asking price, which is in September, was 310. Here's a Paris French one.
Oh, it just says for sale. It's actually at Goodings Christy, RMSotheby one.
Here's another Netherlands one with 24,000 miles for 306. Let me see if I can find any.
Here's a UK one that actually sold with 16,000 miles for $139,000 and that was eight months ago.
I don't know. Maybe right hand drive. No one wants a right hand drive.
Well, I think one with miles that's not a garage queen, like the first half of the ones you mentioned
will probably sell for what a GT3 non-RS 996 is selling for in the United States now.
Here's a good example. Here's one that sold 10 months ago. It was on bring a trailer,
but it was in Germany. It was a German deliver car. It had 29,000 miles GT3 RS club sport and it's
sold for 200,000. That seems like a really, that's a shit ton of money. That's interesting.
That was 10 months ago, but when you zip forward to like four months ago, that number has already
grown by like 80,000. I think to the point being is I think it might have already.
It's the import ability. That's what's running them up. Like I said at this top,
that same thing happened. That's the threshold. Exactly. The same thing happened on 964 RS is
you could buy those in Europe forever, but you couldn't import them. And as soon as they became
in the window, then the values went through the roof. Yeah. All right. So you guys have time for
another segment? Sure. All right. Do you want to skip this? Do you want to skip and do the
listeners or do you want to do number five here? I rather do five. Do you want to do five,
rather do five? Well, so we have a choice of we could talk about winners or losers.
Or we could talk about Chinese import bodies. I prefer not. I mean, I don't know. That's kind
of why I like it. Go for it. I don't care. Well, we talked about it in the last show.
Well, you know what? I want to do this question because he actually asked it and I told him
I'd read his question. David, do you have that handy? You can read it or do you feel? I do. Yes.
Whether or not it's tough to read is a question. It's more of a comment here.
But let me just preface this. If you guys have any questions or comments, we read everything.
We really value what you guys have to say. More of this, less of that. Anything that you
can think of that you want us focusing more on. And also remind you, all of you, make sure you're
subscribed to the newsletter, full throttle talk.com. And we are looking for contributors.
We've got some really, you know, people that are, you don't even have to be the world's greatest
writer. Who cares if you don't have a writing background. If you have a passion for the types
of things that we do, um, or maybe you've got something that we maybe should know about,
send the article in, you can message me down below that my contacts are down below or the
easy button is just to drop it on Instagram and say, look, I've got an article on, you know,
some weird thing you guys have any ember development about. And let's see if it's a good
that chances are I'll say, yeah, because we love it. And we love all things automotive. So David,
go ahead. I think we debated this on our, you know, WhatsApp chat versus here on the show. But
I think Tim, you might have pushed out a newsletter piece on it as well. But this is the
concept of the folks having making repop bodies, complete chassis on 9 11's over in China and
importing them here. So this particular question or comment, interesting discussion. And first,
I've heard of this, are they making both short wheelbase and long wheelbase versions? First
question. Okay, so I know Tim, you've had some back and forth with these guys as well. I have one
thing I didn't mention C mentioned, forgive me if somehow I missed it, was an assessment of the
quality of these new bodies. I think this would, this is what determined viability of this option.
And he goes on, I'm not going to read the entire piece here, he goes on to talk about some repop
parts and things like that that didn't fit quite right and had to get some OEM parts.
But a few flaws that would kill an aftermarket body, do the holes meet up properly with the rear
suspension spring plates, for instance, and on and on. So then great, if not, then you may be
looking at significant costs, which you do not anticipate. So he's basically making the argument,
and you know, I'm kind of in the same place here, and this falls into the category of, would you
buy one of these import bodies, as opposed and use it as opposed to trying to resurrect your existing
long wheelbase, short wheelbase, you know, Long Hood 911, that's all rusted out using parts from
Dansk or restoration design. And at the time that Tim was discussing this, I couldn't figure
out if he was trying to put me out of business in the restoration of Porsches here, here in the
US, but I think it's just the opposite. It'll make the car. Yeah, it's just the opposite.
It's just like, I don't like it, but it won't put you out of business. David will help you.
It'll help you 100% because you're going to be able to, it's like when I was restoring our 67s,
and Paul was restoring his little project car, every single frickin panel in that car had to be
touched. And if I could have bought a replacement body, and just to, I think the guy's name was
Dave Yorsey, right? Is that the? It's not in the notes that you posted. I don't know if that's
whose name. I want to get his name right because I want to acknowledge the fact. Yeah, David,
Yorsey. Don't you know him, Paul? Maybe. I don't know. Probably. It's like, hello,
my name is, I need a picture of your car, and then I'll know who you are. Yeah, you're slicing.
But he did say this. I don't know if you caught this in Paul. I think you'll remember this. He
said, I did find this, by the way, on Pelican Parks this week at Frankfurt. Anyway, there was a
company, it was a dance that was making 9-11 reproduction cells. Do you remember Paul? This
was probably over 10 years ago. It was at the Porsche SWAT meter, something I don't remember,
the details. But there was actually an entirely new, made in West Germany, 9-11 body. Didn't
have the exterior panels, but the chassis was there that they were sort of like saying,
this is going to be for sale soon. Do you remember that? I don't know what happened.
I kind of do. And I wonder if enough of us old codgers just sort of like,
like complained enough, like the heresy of it, and they decided to shelf that project.
Yeah, because it didn't happen. It never happened. I mean, if you say that, oh, if back then,
because you had to touch every single panel, you would have been loved to have just bought a new
body. But it's like a 67S. Do you really think, even though that would be maybe better in every
way from a cost and finished product, you would be willing to go down? I mean, think about the
Porsche nerds. They freak out if the transmission numbers were not indistinguishable. Like he's
talking, you have to buy replacement. You have to disclose it. Like, can you imagine trying to
run that on bring a trailer? Like, you're not going to re-vind that car. Look at the RS listing.
They're freaking out because the guy who hammered the number was a little drunk that day,
or whatever it was. Well, okay, that's a 67S. I value your take on that's right.
I think you're building a pure hot rod. Like you just got, you're like, you have a, I mean,
my big question is how does this get a VIN number? Well, you know how. You know how I do.
Well, like you're going to sell that. Yeah, you just take the front cowl from a donor car and then
like you sort of grab. I don't know. Now, even if that came up for me to sell, I would be very wary
as a dealer. Yeah, let's listen to David saying, go ahead, David. You were just saying, I'm saying,
I mean, if you're just building it for yourself, you don't, you're not looking at it from, I'm
going to build this and then resell it. It might be fantastic. It might be a stiffer chassis now.
I'd want to lay my hands and eyes on one. And if what you said, Tim was accurate, I mean,
they were suggesting this thing was 20, 25 grand or something. Yep. Painted with body panels.
Painted. Delivered. Yeah. Yeah. Well, delivered, even with, even with tariff, that would be a question
for me. I would have, because I would think you'd be seriously into tariff right now, which would
jump that price a lot. Well, but what is it called the SB 11 or something, the small vehicle?
SB, SB 500 or SB 100, SB 100. Okay, so that means that a manufacturer like Revology Mustang
can use repop bodies. I don't remember the name of the company, but they use repop bodies,
they're using that government carve out and they can make, again, don't remember how many cars per
year. It's in the hundreds. And if they keep their total production or that amount of cars,
they can essentially sell cars with their own VIN number on it. They don't have to use a chassis
from the 1967 Chevy, you know, must and then weld it on and the rest of it. They can actually
Kirkham Cobras, we're doing that. They're buying pulling the aluminum bodies. Okay. So isn't that
the issue, right? Because it's the difference between a repop car, a Cobra or, you know, a
super performance GT 40, those kinds of things. What are you buying? What do you mean?
But here's the thing is, those cars are cars you can't get the original like,
like you, you know, Cobra is original Cobras, original GT 40s, those are like unobtainable.
You guys keep on, you guys keep on picking on these outlier cars. Let's just look at the basic
but that's my only thing with that. And I like the idea of it. The problem with the 9 11 is
there's plenty of donor cars. That's right. Plenty of donor cars cost an enormous amount
of money to bring up to snuff. They do. And but I think that's going to be the argument isn't
like, Hey, do I take, do I find a really good SC that's just kind of like tired cosmetically,
but a good chassis SC, let's say you find one for 25 to 30 grand for a good foundation SC
that you're going to use as a hot rod where you don't have to go do a lot of bodywork.
You're going to strip it down and repaint it. Do you do that and you haven't and you can back
data to do whatever? Or do you buy this other thing, which let me give this flip side to it.
So when we were restoring the 67s, John had what would he call it the graveyard or something,
right? And so every time he needed a part for our 67s, he go out to this like huge junkyard he had
behind his body shop with his welder and weld off some part and patch it under our car. I mean,
the whole thing was about but okay, exactly. So how much of my 67s after hell of his craftsmanship
was actually original to the car? Not a lot. And furthermore, that's a weird car. That's a
historical car arguably. But if you, how many dead cars not worth restoring are there out there
that you can, if you had a VIN number, you can legally, you know, I don't know how much of the
original car has to be welded into the new chassis, but you can legally do that. And all of a sudden
all these near dead cars that are just piles of rusty shit are all of a sudden being resurrected
into road going cars again. That's great for your business, David.
Well, yes and no. Yes and no. I mean, if it turns out production, there's just something about and
there will always be something about having the original car. Whether it's been put back together,
I got a 74, nothing 74 that we're working on in the shop right now that is a rusty pile. And we're
putting in all kinds of new body panels. But, you know, at the same time, the guy's willing to spend
that money. I don't know if I said to him, hey, here's a, here's a full tub that you could buy
for $50,000. He can't buy it yet, but why don't you ask him, see what he says. I don't think younger
people care. I'll come back. I don't think younger people are going to care. I think people do. I
absolutely think people would care a lot personally. I do. Because I guarantee that no
matter what this Chinese company does, it will not be exactly the same. Well, I mean, yeah, but
that's true for this stuff to know. And we'll see. I don't know. I'm not sure I'm willing to throw
20 grand down to test the theory here. So if somebody else out there listening is, please call
me and we'll build one for you, right? 50-year-old German metal is not more special than brand new
Chinese metal, right? It just isn't. And I think, yes, maybe it's a metallurgy perspective. It's not.
I think the perspective of the who the person is, it's going to spend the money to build it.
Sadly, I don't think Gen Z is going to build one of these. That's not your average buyer or the average
person who's going to take on a project like this. I think they're a bit older. And I think they're
going to be having one eye on future value. And they're like, hmm, when I go to list this car and
bring a trailer, do I want to tell us this is a Chinese body swap? Or do I want to say this
back date started with a 78 SC or 74 Carrera? And I think the, just the value on the reseal. And
sadly, I wish people just built cars for them the way they wanted to, but they build them
because they asked me like, I'm building this, what is the future value? They're worried about
the exit strategy before they've even started the project. You really think that's good. There's no
future in what the long hoods, for example, Paul, if that's the only market, because there's just
not enough of us left that are going to know this future is going to be is going to be the hot rod
part of the 911 market, kind of like what Rod Emery did with the 350s. Now, the difference to
this is, you know, like when we talk about dance and building reproduction stuff, and I know he
talked about the OEM muffler, do you know a lot of the almost all these classic parts that are
Porsche parts? They're made by dance. They're made by other people and go buy a fender from Porsche
and see how well that fits on the car. It doesn't. So stamped over in Taiwan too. I can picture. Oh,
yeah. Oh, yeah. I can picture now going, oh, hey, why don't we just connect with this Chinese company?
We'll buy ourselves. Oh, my gosh. Oh, they're selling. Even if you put it out, totally different
story, right? Well, but this is all branding bullshit then, guys. I'm sorry. I'm really lost on this.
I agree. It's bullshit. But the end of the day, imagine the consumer, even if they know it's
a Chinese rebranded thing being sold by Porsche, they would pay that premium just to say, hey,
I got a Porsche from Porsche chassis, even if they know where it really came from. But going back to
here's the question, they kind of did a test this, you know, and Porsche came out with a
new magnesium case. You know, the case that no one wanted in the first place.
Oh, it was a 7R case, right? 7R case that's new from Porsche. I've already talked to mechanics
that have been building engines. They're crap. They don't like them because they're not made
by Porsche. They're made by someone else and they're not great. They're crap in what way?
They're just, they're not the quality. First of all, magnesium cases weren't great to begin with.
There was a reason why they lived such a short life and everyone goes, hey, if you're going to
build a cool hot rod, do it on aluminum case. But then, okay, Porsche has a chance to sell you this
new version that maybe will make your car that's valuable numbers matching now in whatever weird
way, more numbers. But you guys keep on leaning into the same, you're supplying your own set of
facts to this conversation, which really isn't doing the conversation justice. You keep on saying
both of you guys, you guys are definitely ganging up on me today, which I can handle my own, but
you guys are both implying that the quality is going to suck. That's what you're lean to is.
So if the quality doesn't suck, Mr. Van Epps, and if the quality doesn't suck, Mr. Kramer,
if it's just as freaking good and it comes, it could be better. It's going to be better.
Why wouldn't it? It could be, but I just think it's a hard, it's going to be a hard battle. It'll
be a hard sell. What's the difference between a knockoff Louis Vuitton bag and a real Louis Vuitton
bag? Okay, so where are most Louis Vuitton bags that are sold in the United States? Where are they
made Dave? I don't know. I'm setting you up son. We're in China. We're made in California.
Most Louis Vuitton bags, one of my coaches used to work for Louis Vuitton. He said Louis Vuitton
for the longest period of time, try to keep it a secret that all the US bags that are sold in the
United States are made in freaking California. Hilarious, but true. Now I want to tell you guys
a quick story and you tell me whether this is still this is valid. Okay, I'll go quick. We're
in Italy. I don't remember the town. We will go into a foundry and there's this guy that's making
that represents that that's the son of this grandson of the who doesn't matter. The history
doesn't matter. This guy is casting new Ferrari 250 series motors and you can go in there and buy
a new cast short block, all the bits and pieces, but let's just focus on the short block. One of
the guys that was with me was part of this tour was looking for the very thing, but he wanted to
have it stamped with his VIN number because originally his, his, his Ferrari wasn't numbers
matching. So the guy at the foundry had, they had an exclusive contract with Ferrari that the
only, and so he would sell it. I think my numbers are right. He would sell a new short block to my
friend for 25 grand with no stamping. If it went, if it had the Ferrari stamp on, he had to buy it
through Ferrari classic and it was like a quarter million dollars for literally the exact same thing,
but the stamp was on with the numbers matching. Okay. Now I walked out, he stayed in, I lingered
and I was looking at some other stuff and I heard them making a side deal where he was going to have
his engine stamped outside of Ferrari classic. Okay. That would, that actually happened. It's
Italy. That happens, but okay. Okay. Well, okay. And Porsche did the same thing. Porsche was selling
restamp blocks. He just talked about it. So are you telling me right now that my Ferrari 250
California, whatever the heck it is, 250 California short wheelbase with a restamp, do I have to,
people are disclosing that they're restamped and they're not the original cases. I got news for
you. It just, it's matching. And they don't do that in Porsche world either. So does that minimize
the value? That's why Porsche doesn't give out the numbers anymore on your, they won't give you the
number to let you know what the original holder number was. They killed all that for that exact
no, no. I mean, right now 69 older, you can get a card X. But answer my question. My question is,
is, does that make the car worth less? It's officially numbers matching. It was made by a
Ferrari authorized vendor, you know, six months ago. Does that make it less valuable?
It potentially does based on, if you're talking about like a 73 s, which they made a lot of,
even a 73 s, they made a lot of, they made 1500. I think on a car like that, it does because you
have enough comps where there is no questions, no stories. And this one has a little bit of a story.
If you're talking about a Ferrari 250 California or a Narch Spider or something that there's like
10 of, like, I think it's going to matter less because when do these come up for sale? So I think
it just matters on the production number. But if you want a really good 73 RS, you can go get one.
They're not hard to get. You want a really good speedster. You want a good any 9 11s are their
mass production cars, you know, go back to the premise. So let's just say, even though they're
hard and they're not, they're rare and they don't come up to 50. If you had two that were available
and one had a restamped motor and one had an original motor, which is no damn money.
You wouldn't know. They said the market point. If you're trying to tell me that somebody's going
to deceive the public, that's a different story. I mean, you know, I'm assuming that that knowledge
is known that somebody's out there saying, okay, this is a restart brand new motor, blah,
blah, blah, not the original. Well, I'm trying to tell you guys, the market doesn't really care.
I'm sure there's outliers that care, but the market doesn't really care mostly for the
reason that Paul just said, but the market doesn't really care. And here's, here's where I'm going.
This is the reason I think it's a great opportunity for you, David, not something to be worried about.
I think the world would love a affordable longhood. And just to Dave's question that
asked the question, they are making these from the F bodies all the way to nine 64s.
And I also read that they're going to make 993s too. So they're making basically the whole run
of air cooled chassis. So in essence, they're going to sell as a core chassis and they're
going to supposedly sell it as a core chassis painted with the body panels already on it.
And they're going to put it at a crate and you're going to, they're going to ship it to
your driveway near you. And I personally think if you can, if you can make the numbers, ship them
to Mexico, that's what I'll do. I'll build them and ship them out of the country. Well, I, I don't
know. I mean, I mean, even look at, even look at someone like Gunther works. There is nothing
about that. That's Porsche left. I mean, they're carbon bodies. They're starting with the 993
because they want to start with a legitimate 993 chassis number. And here's a company that's
making literally any, the whole car. There's very little left except for the, I think he said the
cowl and there's like two other parts just so that it's part of that car. And I don't know
if that's for legal reasons, you know, to sell the VIN number, but the chassis is original. It's
just the external exterior stuff is. Oh, no, no, no. There's very little original. Really? Oh,
yeah. It's just like the VIN and the cowl and the rest of it's a carbon body. It's all carbon.
But you're saying the tub, if there's a tub on a unibody, you're saying that's not original
either. No, there's very little of that. That's I didn't know that. Wow. Now, I don't know about
Singer. I think Singer might be different. It starts with a full car. I mean, there, there,
you're getting the real tub there for sure. Gunther works do. I do think you're getting
it. They start with a full car, but what ends up as what's left of that car? Very, very little.
It's literally a VIN number. If you could make, go ahead. I'm sorry, David. I was just going to say,
if you were going to do that and do some custom something, right, that you're,
you bring this thing in and now you've built something like a Gunther works or like a Singer
out of it. That's kind of a different mindset or a different positioning than it would be to
just create another brand new, you know, like, like repopping a 69 Camaro kind of thing where
you're repopping that C. I just don't, I think those are two different market segments.
So this, I don't, I'm not into old 60s muscle cars. I think they're cool though. But if you
look at what Ravology is selling, there's, there shall be cars for the GT 350s and whatever,
they sell for basically the same price as the original car. And you guys know those people
are as anal as Porsche people are. So they're filling hot rods. They're not, they're not
trying to even build a recreation. They're building a resto mod that that's, that's where
you step in a different world. Now, I mean, look at Roof. Roof isn't doing their carbon tubs. He's,
he told me they're made at a company in Italy that we talked about, I think, on the Alpina episode.
So like, let's say Dave decides, I'm going to build a Sunderworks, Sunderworks special edition.
And he gets these bodies from China. And the end of the day, no one cares about who this player is.
It's just going to be, here's my special car. I basically create a new body. I do this, this,
this. It's going to be, I mean, yeah, if he wanted to become a manufacturer, that's what I'm saying.
That's what I'm trying to express to you guys. That's right. That's fine for that. Not like,
hey, I'm going to go recreate a 67 s. No, no, no, no, no, I'm not suggesting that I'm saying
somebody. I mean, that's, thank you, David or Paul for really me in. I really do believe that
there is a market for something sub $100,000 that is going to be an F body, G body type experience
that in the, that's a different buyer than these super analytical types that are carrying about
every single detail of an old car. That's a different buyer that I think you could come out
with David, if the numbers made sense, you could make probably, I mean, just putting numbers to
20 or 30% on one of these things and have a brand new, even we willing to warranty it for a year
or two, whatever, you could sell crap out of those. There is a segment of people that don't,
they want the old car experience, but do not want to buy an old car. And you could,
you could produce that. And I think that's what we're going to start seeing. We could very well,
there's people doing that with 2002s. All you guys know all of this, but you know, there it is.
That's my whole premise. That's the reason I'm excited. It'll be interesting. I mean,
it will happen. We'll start seeing him come in. There'll be shitty ones to begin with and eventually
they'll get a foothold and it'll make sense.
If any listener out there has actually got one of these or thinking about it,
please give me a call. I'd love to learn what you know and, you know, what the delivery lead
times are and all that kind of stuff. It'd be interesting. It wouldn't be. It might be something
that we end up doing. Well, again, going back to our original premise, we need to basically
encourage anybody who's making anything cool and automotive to absolutely do it. Even if it's
a money losing prospect for them, still do it because we want to talk about it on our podcast.
Absolutely. Exactly. All right, guys. So let's get to our fourth topic next week. How about that?
I was like, no more. Yeah, we're done here today, baby. We're two 15 in right now.
If we cut the show down to two people, we could probably stretch it to four hours.
Yeah. It'll just be the Paul show. Yeah, basically. I think that's your secret
fantasy, by the way. You can just look at yourself in the camera and talk to yourself.
That'd be it. Hey, that's my life.
All right. Well, so listen, your homework from today's podcast is obviously like subscribe.
Definitely you do all the things because that helps us to get the word out. We are doing this as
mostly a passion project. Subscribe to the newsletter. Again, please do subscribe. I mean,
leave a nice comment on YouTube or Instagram or wherever else. If you're on iTunes,
that really makes a difference as well. Look, all these silly algorithm things make a huge
difference as to whether or not the show gets discovered. And we certainly appreciate your
continued support. Do send your questions and you can message us over on Instagram,
or you can message any of any three of all three of us down below. All of our contacts are down
below. Make sure you guys, if you're looking to get into the, you know, obviously you know enough
about these two, you can trust them to send your portion of business. I work have worked with these
guys for a long period of time and reach out to them. If you're ready to buy or sell something,
call Kramer. If you're ready to restore something or buy or sell something in the other on the other
coast, Dave's always got something cool and one of his storage containers behind his garage.
All right. In the meantime, you guys have a fantastic day. We'll talk to you on the show
next week. See you guys. Bye guys.
About this episode
Exploring the automotive landscape, this episode dives into the 25-year rule imports, highlighting unique vehicles like the Roof Turbo and the Renault Aventime. The hosts discuss the implications of importing these vehicles, including the quality of Chinese-made bodies and the potential market impact. They also touch on the excitement surrounding upcoming 2026 models, including the Toyota GR MR2 and the Porsche 718 EV variant. With a mix of humor and expertise, the conversation navigates the challenges and opportunities in the classic car market, offering insights for enthusiasts and collectors alike.
bumper
carbon fiber
car show
Caterham Seven
Charlotte Motor Speedway
Formula 3 car
Formula One car
FP3
front lift
Gator Crawl
Acura RSX
Alpine A110
Ariel Atom 500 V8
Ariel Nomad
Buick Model 27
Chevrolet Camaro
Chevrolet Corvette
Ferrari 250 GTO
Ferrari 296
Ferrari 550 Maranello
Ferrari SF90
Ferrari Testarossa
Ford Maverick
Ford Mustang
Honda Prelude
Lamborghini 350 GT
Lotus Elise
Mazda MX-5 / Miata
Nissan Skyline
Plymouth Prowler
Porsche 356
Porsche 911
Porsche Cayman
Renault Clio - 5 doors
Renault Clio V6
Shelby Cobra
Subaru BRZ
Toyota GR GT
Toyota MR2
Toyota Supra
Original notes
This week on Full Throttle Talk, we kick off the new year with one of our most wide-ranging—and opinionated—episodes yet.
We cover the return of legendary roads as The Snake in Malibu reopens after seven years, along with the first real twisty-road shakedown of a rally-prepped air-cooled 911. There’s also a New Year’s Day drive in a Ferrari 296 GTS, where the steering wheel haptics controversy is finally settled. We dig into recent GT3 RS outings, the revival of a 964 C4, and why analog still matters more than ever.
In automotive news, we share an FTT exclusive on RYN Motors and ask the question nobody else seems to be asking: can a Formula-style car for the road actually work? We also discuss the rumored return of the Toyota GR MR2 and Arizona’s very real attempt at building its own version of an Autobahn.
Looking ahead to 2026, we talk about cars that are actually worth paying attention to, including the Caterham Project V, the Toyota GR MR2, the Corvette C8 ZR1X, and why the Porsche GT2 RS still counts.
The 25-year rule takes center stage with newly eligible icons, including the Porsche 996 GT3 RS (EU), Ferrari 550 Barchetta, RUF RTurbo, Renault Clio V6, and Honda Integra Type R (DC5).
We also break down what’s really happening in the market, including no-reserve versus no-sale auctions on Bring a Trailer, Speedster values finally waking up, and what’s truly winning—and losing—heading into 2026.
Plus listener questions, aftermarket body quality debates, and why details still matter.
No hype. No influencer nonsense. Just real car ownership, market insight, and strong opinions.
Connect with us.
Paul Kramer, 714-335-4911, [email protected], Instagram and Facebook @autokennel
David Van Epps, 704-799-7680, [email protected], Instagram and Facebook @sonderwerks
Tim Harris, 512-758-0206 (text only), [email protected]
Full Throttle Talk
Tim Harris
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