991.2 Exhaust Mods, Alpine Range Rally 10 and more Porsche Banter

hold on.

Is that you?

Is that you, mr james mcgrath?

yeah, andy gaunt, it is, and I'm actually looking at you.

The viewers can't tell this, but I am looking at you and I have missed your slightly odd looking hairdo and your beautiful face well, it's funny you talk hairdos because, uh, that's the first thing I noticed with you, and I noticed it on your most recent video.

You've had a haircut, you're back to tinting.

I am back to tinting.

Yeah, my 90s friend's Chandler do didn't really pass the Ruthie Baker test, my wife, she made me get a cut in the end, basically.

Yeah, do you know what?

They hold a lot of sway, don't they?

cut in the end basically, yeah, do you know what they?

They hold a lot of sway, don't they?

They really do?

Yeah, they really do.

I didn't mind it.

But you know what, after the last couple of months of doing numerous exhaust mods to my car, even I was getting fed up with the old you know middle part flapping in my face when I was getting hot and yeah, it looked like you were trying to do, stefan Edberg, but it was really giving, just hibernating through winter energy.

Yeah, that's pretty much it.

That's pretty much it.

Well, we're back, curving Canyon, baby 2025.

Isn't it good?

It's so good, and do you know what?

So James and I were talking to each other prior to this and we know we get out of practice when we don't record, so we're going to try today.

You're good, you're just drinking a coffee, what is that?

It's a coffee.

It's a coffee in a Yeti mug.

Okay, no, fair enough.

I was just about to say we're going to try today to be professional.

Dude, it's Friday afternoon.

It's been a long week.

I need a good slap in the face with a coffee and on that bombshell, welcome to kirban canyon.

I've missed you saying that.

It's funny, isn't it?

It is so when we use FaceTime.

Sometimes we just use FaceTime audio, but not to get too inside baseball on how we record this thing that we do once every six months.

But today we're on video and it's working.

We can see one another.

Yeah, it's on.

Very cool, like Donkey Kong, very cool.

Dude.

So I've got to admit something before we really get into the agenda.

About a week ago and I think this is just a product of how busy I've been recently with you know, just life, but I felt like I was cheating on you a good, a good week and a half ago.

So here's the scenario Andy Brooks of Nineworks fame sends me a note over one of the I don't know 20 WhatsApp Nineworks feeds that I get pinged at constantly.

I need to figure out how to stay up more.

You know, stay more up to date.

But Andy hit me up saying hey, you want to record with us on the pod.

Here are some details blah, blah, blah.

Next Tuesday.

One, I assumed it was the Nine Works podcast, it wasn't.

And two, I assumed you were going to be there.

As we got started, I suddenly realized it was just going to be the James McGrath solo show with Andy.

Even Sibley didn't turn up.

It was just me and Andy talking cars.

What the hell Okay.

It was fun, but without my podcasting partner there taking the piss out of me and saying intelligent things, I kind of felt a little bit left alone.

I feel a bit like Zelensky right now.

I feel like you've come at me in public so I can't really respond in the way that I want to.

It was the bad.

Positive we do the best podcast.

It's the best podcast.

You know everyone's going to listen to our podcast.

It's going to be brilliant.

It was a fantastic, amazing podcast.

So hold on.

So was it the Nineworks podcast or no?

What was it?

No, was it the Nine Works podcast or no?

What was it?

No, Speaking of Inside Baseball, it's just an additional podcast reporting that Andy's doing for the Nine Works.

You know, God status, people, the hero status, what have you?

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

So it only gets released on Patreon and it's H-O-W Head Over Wheels.

So it's basically Andy and I talking about my Porsche ownership story and honestly, it was loads of fun.

I mean, you know, Andy Brooks is a really nice guy.

He was sitting in his garage with his new quote unquote SE behind him, which was getting all of my attention, and yeah, we just spent, like you know, 45 minutes talking about my world of Porsches.

Really, I was quite flattered that they invited me on, but sibley didn't turn up just you and him just having a good, a good time, huh I'm telling you, man, since the end of uh 9-11, sibley's gone big time and I'm just too small time for him obviously.

Yeah, andy was probably like hey, we got james on from, also amateur, and sibley was like chump, you do that solo and that's.

That's the thought.

I better get a haircut for this, what like?

It looks like you took it seriously, exactly.

Well, okay, well, uh, I just need to process that for a minute.

Uh, it does.

I don't want to use words like betrayal but you know the the good that has come from it, andy, is that just you know.

A week later, here we are getting Curban Canyon started for 2025.

Okay, so I'm impressed with that coffee.

I mean, here's my classic Melbourne latte, but it looks comparatively it's not the usual bucket size that you go for.

Well, you haven't seen my drink, Minnesota bread.

What is that?

A big gulp, Dude.

So this actually is a big gulp.

I didn't buy it.

Ruthie brought it home.

To be fair, Ruthie brought it home from the gas station.

Don't, don't hold up, hold up, hold up.

You can't go putting this on Ruthie.

She brought it home from a gas station because she knows that's what you like.

Yeah, but this coffee is actually in a smaller Yeti mug it is.

Yeah, it's good for like a small size Starbucks coffee and it keeps your coffee warm for hours.

That doesn't look like it would fit in the classic Porsche cup holders, though right?

No, it doesn't To be fair, it doesn't fit in any cup holders.

Actually, it's useless Great.

Well, hey, so we've not recorded, obviously, since november.

My god, has the world changed in that time, uh?

But the way we figured today is you know what it's just like for for you all listening in.

It's like just catching up with a porsche mate you haven't spoken to in ages.

That that's kind of what today's conversation is going to be about.

Right, like what have we been up?

Yeah?

yeah, yeah, exactly, you know, I mean I I don't want to say you were too lazy to do show notes, but but yeah, let's, let's just play it that way, shall we lad?

okay, I'm reasonably sure I sent through show notes including a video of the week which I'm sure you have pulled over from end to end.

I have watched the video of the week and it's another video, Andy, that just kind of gets me excited but also kicks me in the nuts at the same time, because it's a very visually appealing video of the week.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, we are definitely going to talk about that.

But you know what?

We do have an agenda.

I'm going to flip it a little bit.

Last night so it's Friday night here.

Last night in melbourne, and often on a friday night, we'll do, we'll get pizza.

I go to my local pizzeria pick up a couple of pizzas, and if there's one thing I really dislike in the world, it is the person who sits in a public place, be it outside a store, in in a cafe, on a train, watching YouTube or something else, or TikTok on their iPhone with volume that the rest of us can hear.

Right, like?

That is completely obnoxious, right?

Agree?

Yeah, that's just rude.

So I was sitting outside waiting for my pizza.

I was watching your latest exhaust video in public, so can you imagine all these people looking at me as I listened to just sequence after sequence after sequence of revving with different valves?

open valves closed.

Hybrid revving just the Porsche one revving and then the sole sports exhaust revving.

People were looking at me just ready to absolutely strangle me.

But are we at the end of the pipe videos and do we have a conclusion?

You must be so sick of whipping on and off exhausts, man, Well, you know.

So, first off, I think that's now my trademark, If I have any kind of trademark.

You know, prior to this it was stabbing airbags.

I think that was my trademark.

Now it's making exhaust videos, where the action just does not stop.

I've gotten so much feedback from people interested in exhausts about how they like that rapid style and over and over, however, you can hear it.

But no, the journey is not even close to completing.

So when John Gaydos at Soul Performance reached out to me in late autumn last year so like October time frame and came to me with this idea both very excited about it we talked about what the progression of videos could look like and, long story short, we came to about a list of six or seven, six or seven combos.

That would make a lot of sense, and the idea was let's try and put together a series of videos that really help people make a decision do I just get cats or do I get the headers?

Yeah, do I get both?

You know, we wanted to help people figure out what kind of configuration makes sense.

Um, but it was based on the assumption that I was ultimately going to end on valved exhaust with sport cats, where in the last couple of months people have been so excited about the x-pipe I'm having to make more videos with the x-pipe and then we also threw in well, how about the the cat bypass as well as the cats?

So it you know if you can imagine like a three, three dimensional puzzle.

I'm just continuing.

It's exponentially so.

I'm like six videos in now and there are probably going to be another six Because, also, with every combination like take the cats, we want to hear what the sport cats sound like against the cat bypass.

Okay, well, that's fine, that fine, that's.

You know two different configurations.

But you also want to hear what it sounds like with the stock muffler and the stock headers, and you also want to hear what it's like with the valved exhaust and with the x pipe.

So actually comparing those two pipes means, if I was to do it properly, 12 videos, and that's before I get onto the headers.

So no, that's, that's getting a little bit insane.

But, um, yeah, there's probably going to be at least another four or five, maybe six videos coming in this series and I hope at some point before the end of a year I actually settle on what I want.

Um, but it does.

It keeps changing.

Like I was convinced that, as much as I'd like to have a full sole exhaust, I think I'd settle with the, the factory valve muffler, with the cats and maybe the header.

But then I put the sport cats on with the valve exhaust and dude, it just sounds so good.

It sounds so good.

I'm now like convinced.

Okay, well, if I put the headers on, I'm gonna get all three, I'm gonna, I'm gonna stick with the, the original hypothesis, which is all three parts.

So I, I just don't know, I don't know so a question for me, as as as an audience member playing along when I was watching it night, one thing that struck me was the difference in volume between, say, version A and version B, whether that's stock cats or soul cats or whatever.

Is that purely a function of that's, an actual representation of the volume difference, or is some of that based on what mic you used on the day or how you've mixed it in in post-production, or do you think that's a somewhat accurate reflection of the of the volume difference?

I well, I know for sure it's not.

It's not perfect, yeah, because I'm involved because I'm not trying to pick apart your video production.

Oh, no, no no, it's a really good question, because every time I go to the edit there are a few things I'm changing like.

So I'm, I'm filming it in the same location and typically on days when this, when the wind speed is below four miles an hour, right, so the days when it's super windy I won't go out.

So the the wind speed has to be below four or five miles an hour.

Um, I'm using the same mic, I'm using the same camera there.

I'm using the same camera.

I've got like little Sharpie marks, you know, on the volume, so I know exactly how my mic should be set up.

I have noticed that I have been recording slightly further away or closer or to the left, so I'm not recording at the exact same distance to the car, but it's all all within like a meter.

Yeah, it's reasonably good science, yeah, yeah, yeah.

So I'm trying to factor all those things in um, and then when I go to the edit, I'm making sure that, uh, the, the volume doesn't go up and down too much.

So I am I am, you know, manipulating the volume a little bit to make sure that it doesn't go over a certain decibel level, but I think it is a pretty accurate representation of what the car is actually putting out and just thinking back to the butt dyno test where I'm actually driving them.

I think the only thing that hasn't really come through properly on the videos is that with the X-pipe it is noticeably louder in the cabin Right, like you're driving around and you're thinking oh yeah, I've got the X-pipe on and I can't shut it off.

You know, right, right, right, but it's not so loud that it's annoying.

But if there's something that stands out from the crowd it's definitely the X-pipe.

Right, right, especially when you've got the cats.

Okay, has.

Has there been, with any of the combinations so far, any kind of drone?

um, the the only thing that came close to a drone, uh was was just the straight up x-pipe, yeah, on the factory cats and the headers, um, and actually, if you, if you look at the um, the valved x pipe next to the regular x pipe, um, it's not just uh, it's not just the case of there being valves and not the actual.

The design of the x pipe is slightly different and they've they've tried to create these special resonance tubes that cancel out any drone, yeah, um, and and I think they're working, but I don't notice that.

I mean, if, on a scale of one to ten, your average exhaust might drone a one or a two, even with the valved exhaust, it's, it's a two.

The x pipe's probably like a three and a half.

So it's, it's not unbearable, but it is noticeable.

But I don't, I don't know how else they would remove that.

Frankly, I'm hearing from people who own second-gen 991s and it's such a great series that you're doing, because I think the quite significant difference that exists between that first-gen 991, the NA car and the second-gen car, I should say in terms of exhaust volume it's not insignificant and you know, having driven first gen 991s

and knowing that even with the stock Porsche sports exhaust, when you get on it the exhaust sounds great.

Yeah, not necessarily the loudest, but enough volume there versus I.

I had a, had a drive in my friends.

Uh, I've driven two, two second gen 991s, now a gts and a carrera t, both just spectacularly good cars, but both cars where I really felt like the exhaust was significantly more quiet, to the point where it just didn't feel like you were, you didn't have that.

You know, you think about the senses that get involved and come into play when you're driving through the twisties and when you're on it and how they all combine to create an overall experience.

And you know, know, so often you do things like you will shift, not based on watching, watching the tack, but actually from hearing the exhaust and knowing, yeah, there we are, I'm basically at red line.

And to have that removed, which I felt in both second gen 991s that I've driven with sports exhaust, that I just didn't have enough exhaust volume and I know the owners of these cars sort of have the same challenges.

So it's great that you've undertaken what you have in such a methodical way where you really do get that side-by-side comparison in as much as it's possible to do that on a video.

Well, thanks, man.

That means a lot because, like you say, it has been a lot of work.

And this is where I've got to give a massive shout out to my friend, chris Carbon Fiber Chris on Instagram, with his GT3 Touring.

That guy has shown up for me pretty much every time we've done it and he knows that the work involved is more than what a typical shot would do, because for a lot of these parts you don't really need to remove the bumper, you don't really need to remove the rear bumper frame.

But for the sake of getting it on video and making sure that if you're following along and doing DIY you get all the views, we've taken the bumper off every single time, so I've started actually taking the bumper off before he arrives.

Knowing this dude's like taken my bumper off six times now he doesn't want to do it again.

Are you at the point, though, I noticed on the video the most recent one where I think you made the point that, hey, you know what?

If you've been watching along with this series, you've got the DIY component covered now in previous videos, so you don't need to keep demonstrating that.

Are you at that point, at least, where you can just whip through that component?

Yeah, well, almost, I'll do a DIY video on how to take off and put on the headers, which I haven't done yet, and then I'll probably also do at least a mini DIY segment on the cat bypasses, because you've got to figure out what to do with the O2 sensors.

And I haven't quite figured out what I am going to do with the O2 sensors yet, like, am I going to duct tape them to the side of the frame or actually take them out?

You know that sort of thing.

But yeah, hopefully, after maybe one more video, I'll be at the point where the videos going forward will just be a straight up comparison and actually I'm going to try and fit maybe two or three or four different configurations into a single video, as opposed to spreading it out over four.

No wonder your hair got long.

It sounds like you've just been living in the garage like some kind of hermit for the last six months.

Yeah, you know, work's been full on six months.

Yeah, you know, work, work's been full on and, uh, actually I think, um, what's really helped actually is that, for whatever reason, my kids have sort of got to the age where the boys can come in and go out and they just want to see and say hello, yeah, my daughter's now three, uh for one video.

There are in fact actually, um, I can't remember which one it was, but there were several shots where, if you look in the lower left corner, you can just about see her sitting on the floor of the garage laying out her barbie dolls isn't that great yeah.

So I'm doing all this filming and talking to the camera and I turn around and there she is talking to barbie, you know.

But it's cool because it allows me to, you know, get on with a lot of work without having to stop constantly yeah, yeah, that's brilliant that's brilliant, and actually I don't like to toot my own trumpet, but I've got something special to celebrate today I just hit 20k subscribers on youtube ah, congrats, that's awesome, that is awesome I didn't think I'd get there.

Honestly.

I kind of I got to five, I got to ten and then it's been a little crawl basically from 10 upwards, but in the last three or four months I've gone from 15 to 20, yeah, which is phenomenal.

That's more growth than I've had in three, four years yeah, youtube loves regular, regular content, doesn't it?

I'll, uh, I'll have a big gulp sip, you know for that cheers 100 we need.

We need like if.

If I'd known I would have had, uh, the two blow up balloon numbers behind me, I could have had 20k behind me.

That's awesome, though, man.

Well done, congrats.

Well, well deserved, thank you yeah, thanks a lot.

So, um, speaking of achievements, I'm looking at you wearing your very nice alpine range rally t-shirts.

Yeah, I like it.

You're this one, so this is from number eight.

And we had, uh, when I did this one, you and I had just interviewed darren fister on the pod, yeah, and he'd done the.

He'd sent us both a deutsche spritz tour t-shirt very, very kindly.

I love that t-shirt and so I reached out to the artist he used and created this and you know, it's the first Alpine Range Rally t-shirt I've done where I thought you know what fuck it, I'm putting a 964 on this one.

Yeah, good lad, but we did just have.

We had Alpine Range Rally 10 in November, which I can't believe we've done 10 of these events and it was the longest one we've done.

We actually did it over four days rather than three.

Yeah, drove some entirely new roads.

One of the things we do on the rallies is they're typically just in Victoria, so we stay in one state, is they're typically just in Victoria, so we stay in one state.

But for this one, we actually drove up into New South Wales, which is, for anyone not from Australia, a state just to the north of Vic, and did it over four days so we could drive some new roads, which was a really good and interesting experience.

It meant that there was some of our favourite roads that we didn't get to do, but we got to do some other great roads instead.

To be honest, I think in doing it that way, there was some excellent driving that we got to do.

We drove through an area called Jindabyne in the Snowy Mountains in New South Wales, which was spectacular, and some of the roads through there were terrific, but overall there was a lot more kind of trudging along highways than I would have anticipated, and some of the roads that I'd heard of or seen on maps actually turned out not to be as twisty as they looked or perhaps we'd heard.

And there's a YouTube channel I follow called Ride Day, and it's a guy on a touring motorbike who just does videos of all these great roads and he's been the best source of information for me in terms of researching roads to drive and there was one road that he'd done that we got to drive on day two in New South Wales, but the interesting thing was all of the twisties in New South Wales had a 60 kilometer an

hour speed limit on them 60, you know, that's like I don't know what that is 35 miles an hour or something.

35 miles an hour.

Yeah, yeah, you guys have got really, I guess, stricter enforcement of traffic code over there, right, your coppers don't like you speeding yeah, over here yeah, it's really not.

I mean, if you got, if you got caught, it's usually because there's a cop sat in the middle of a small town, yeah, in the middle of absolutely nowhere.

Getting the guys who've been on the highway and now haven't slowed down to 35, where most highway cops, um, if the speed limit's 50, they'll let you do 65 or 70 without pulling you over, unless you're driving like a dickhead yeah, no, we are the, the, the police.

enforcement of speed here is is incredibly strict.

They will do exactly what you said.

They'll sit in small country towns and you know I'm always at pains pains to say on the first day briefing hey, when we drive into towns, first of all we don't want to be dicks, we don't want to be those guys in Porsches driving through a country town like idiots, so let's just respect those speed limits.

But also, for exactly that reason, it'll either be a cop or just a speed camera.

But you know, the problem here is if you go 25 kilometres an hour over the speed limit, you lose your licence.

Oh, wow, done.

Like it's just done, Just like straight up.

Yeah, it's like that in the UK you go over 100, chances are that's it.

Game over Licence gone.

And they're really, they're really tight on it, tight on it.

So, um, that said, on these twisty roads that were 60 the one, the one thing we sometimes have in the back of our minds and I I'm not going to incriminate anybody here, but um, is that on a super tight, twisty road I, police, don't tend to hang around those types of roads waiting to to bus people for speeding that they're typically what they do is position themselves where they know cars are likely to overtake other cars on highways, knowing that cars will speed to overtake and they'll get them there.

So, look, the 60 kph roads were.

We still managed to have some fun, which were great.

I mean, look, I had, it was was funny.

Actually, day two on one of these roads, I had one of the greatest moments I've ever had in any of the rallies we've ever done.

We were driving yeah, we're driving up this I think it's called mount browning or mount brown or something and the road surface was just incredibly smooth, one of the best road surfaces I've ever driven on, and I was behind my friend Steve, and Steve recently acquired a Zanzibar Red 996 GT3.

Zanzibar Red.

I don't think I know that one.

Zanzibar is like it's a metallic, almost coppery orange red.

It is such a spectacular color.

It's stunning, absolutely stunning, and he's running gold BBS LM's on it and it's such a it is such a good looking car and it was the first time this car had been out on a rally and I was following Steve up this road and just loving the view.

We weren't pushing all that hard because, again, there were low speed limits.

But then there was this one section where the road opened up and our lane opened up into two lanes, and so I decided to overtake Steve and I pulled alongside him and there's this moment we're driving around a hairpin and I'm next to him and I just I'm in the driver's seat and I look across at him and he looks across at me and it was just this incredible.

We're going around this corner like arms fully locked over, just looking at each other going.

How fucking good is this it?

was just it was just phenomenal.

And then, prior to that, we'd pulled up in this little town for lunch and you know we were getting ready to leave.

It was hot man it was.

It was baking hot all three days like, uh, high 30s, which I don't know what that is in fahrenheit, like 200 or something it's about 100, it's that's hot as balls yeah, yeah, yeah, and it was.

You know, being in an air-cooled 911 with, you know, questionable air conditioning and a whole lot of glass is is, is not necessarily the most comfortable place, but but we were pulled over in this town and parked under all these trees just relaxing for a minute and this kid came down with his, with his dad and his grandfather, and was just looking at all the cars, just couldn't believe it.

So we had him, you know, he got to sit in all of the cars and stuff like that and he was just having the time of his life.

And my mate Trev, who has this his car is a car that formerly raced in what was called Nations Cup here in Australia.

Raced in what was called Nations Cup here in Australia, so it raced at Bathurst and Sandown and all these places and then became a car that I think got second outright in the Targa, tasmania.

So it's a car with actual motor racing history and he's redone all of the race livery that used to be on this car.

He's done it himself by hand.

It looks amazing.

So he's got all his pet food sponsors all over.

It just looks incredible.

It's a race car on the road and so this kid gets to sit in that, and you can just imagine how stoked this little dude was.

So, no, look, it was a great run.

I got to drive my mate Ger uh, my mate Gerard.

He's got a Carrera T that he's not had for that long uh 991.2

, uh, with manual and gee, that was a fun car to drive.

That is a lot of fun, that car.

I really really enjoyed it, drove that on some great twisties in New South Wales and actually one of the moments of the rally was also on day two.

We actually took a wrong turn so I'd done the nav.

And something I hadn't anticipated was this one road that was supposed to take us to our final destination that afternoon ended up being a gravel road and it kind of felt like it was going to become a gravel road as we drove it.

But we had I think it was 10 minutes of driving this road.

We turned off the highway and this road looked like it was driving off into.

You could see mountains beyond and it was kind of flat.

Then there were, there were, uh, wind turbines everywhere and it looked like something from the cover of an evo magazine, just this weird kind of moonscape you know, like you might have in I don't know some of the stuff I've seen from like places like scotland and stuff and for whatever reason, it was like everyone just we turned off the highway, this road was entirely ours and everyone just-, again, I'll be careful what I say, but everyone just opened up and it was just amazing

.

And we're just driving along in this kind of tight formation and then suddenly we get to the end and realise it was gravel, so we all had to turn around, which wasn't so bad.

Because it meant we then got to do it in reverse, which was magnificent as well.

So, no, that was good and it was funny.

The second last day we had, we got up, we're in this hotel and my mate Trevor, who's got the race car, comes limping into the breakfast area.

His knee has locked itself out, like it.

He's like, basically his leg is straight and can't bend, so we're trying to work out okay, well, that's, that's not going to work with a clutch, so we're trying to work out okay, who's got an automatic car, could he potentially swap with someone?

And he says, oh, listen, there's a, there's a thing I can do.

If I lie down, I can kind of lie on my stomach and mel gibson, lethal weapon, yeah, like arch my back and it just kind of goes back into place.

So he, somehow he manages to do that and it's and it's all good.

I'm like, oh, thank god, that's a relief.

And then my phone rings and I said I look at my phone, it's my mate anthony, who's with us, and I answer the phone.

I'm like, hey, man.

And he's like, hey, dude.

I'm like what's wrong with you and he's like I've got food poisoning.

So he'd spent the whole night vomiting and was in a really, really bad way, like literally could not drive.

There was no way he was going to be able to drive.

So we went to the hotel and we said, listen, this has happened.

He's eaten here and he's got food poisoning.

You guys need to look after him.

So they said, yeah, we'll keep him in his room, we'll give him the room for another night.

So so the rest of us then took off and and had this great day of driving, actually an incredible day of driving.

But, um, yeah, anthony couldn't, couldn't drive.

But then he messaged.

But he messages me at like uh, three o'clock and he's like all right, I'm coming, like all right so he did he did the drive.

He kind of did a bit of a shortcut, but he did most of it on his own, just-.

Did he slap on an adult diaper?

Yeah, I don't know.

I may surprise you to learn, I didn't ask.

That would have been the first thing I asked yeah, yeah, of course, but anyway.

So he made it, which was great.

I had one mechanical issue on the trip With Little Green.

Yeah, it was great.

I had one mechanical issue on the trip With Little Green.

Yeah, it was a bit of a weird one On the first day we'd hit.

There's this great road that we do, but coming it's sort of an out and back, and driving that road on the way back, there is it's not even a pothole, it's like a dip in the road and you have there's just this temporary road hazard sign that warns you it's coming up, but the road hazard sign is positioned I don't know two meters before the dip.

So you're coming around a bend at full noise.

You see the sign, you go wait, what Cool?

And when you hit it it's and it's an impact.

It feels like it's ripped the front end off the car.

It's that bad.

And so, anyway, I hit that and it was nasty, everyone did.

And then we stopped a little bit later on and suddenly I noticed that I was parking the car and every time I was maneuvering it and turning the steering wheel to the left, I could hear this like groaning oh no, and that, just that, got in my head a little bit.

It didn't.

I don't think it felt any different, but I must confess that on the subsequent days I there were times where I just thought I don't know what's going on there and it and it kind of just mess with my confidence in the front end of the car a little bit.

So one road that we love.

I just sort of sat at the back and trundled along, just not wanting to weight it up too much.

To be honest, I think it was just a bushing or a rubber or something, so I don't think it actually was anything to be worried about, but it was playing on my mind for the remainder of the trip, unfortunately.

And have you had it checked out since, or it's sort of gone away?

well, yeah, so no.

So I I had, uh, I I got home, took the left front wheel off to have a look and there's a, there's a rubber boot that goes over the cv joint and I could see that that boot was torn and I could actually grab it, push it in and out and it would make the exact noise, right.

So I'm like, oh, that's all it was.

So I took it to my friends at Nine Auto.

They replaced that, that was no problem, got the car back and I was happy.

But I didn't listen for whether or not it was still doing it or not, because I was so convinced that I'd identified the cause.

And then, a couple of weeks ago, I noticed it was actually still doing it and it was doing it consistently every time I got in the car and I couldn't work out what it was.

So I took it back to Nine Auto and the day I took it to them I get in the car that morning it's not doing it and I'm like, of course it's not, of course it's not.

So I take it to them and I said I said, listen, good luck diagnosing it, because for whatever reason, sod's law, it's not actually doing it today.

So they've gone over it top to bottom, gone over everything on the front end.

There's nothing they can see or identify that would do it.

I I'm not surprised by that.

I think it's virtually impossible to diagnose something like that if you can't even hear it.

Right, uh, so anyway, um, we'll just uh, I'll just keep driving it till a wheel comes off mid corner.

Yeah, yeah.

Well, so you said earlier that you know.

I mean, it's been several months since we recorded the last pod and that was with Tommy in November.

Ish, um, the world has changed a lot since then.

But there's been quite a lot of movement and things happening in the Porsche world, the 992.2

, you know, electric vehicles here and there, maybe actually a reverse slight reverse in policy on some of the EVs.

But before we get into that, what I've got to ask you is have you looked at any of the cars recently?

Are you still as in love with Little Green and committed to her or him as you have been?

Because when these things start to happen in the Porsche world, like the 992.2

, I don't want a 992.2

.

But for whatever reason, in the last couple of weeks I've been thinking, well, maybe I'll go and see what's out there.

Couple of weeks I've been thinking, well, maybe I'll go and see what's out there.

These other people are getting new cars.

Maybe there's something in my future, but there isn't going to be.

But like what about you?

oh no, look, always looking.

I I'm definitely I'm in this space at the moment, where little green is is is occupying a space in my world again of I will never let that car go.

Yeah, sometimes I vacillate on that, but I just can't see that happening.

I agree with you.

So two things.

First of all, when you look at pricing on second gen 992s, second gen 992s I, I just can't see value in those cars versus buying something else.

You know, for us something like a gts.

Yeah, I've seen the reviews on the new gts.

It looks amazing.

You know I watched lee's I, I watched catchpole and you know they're all talking about how great it sounds, how incredibly well that hybrid system works in terms of delivering power.

It doesn't.

You know, there's no turbo lag anymore.

It doesn't feel like a hybrid.

I love it all, but for us here that car's close to half a million bucks, bloody hell.

And here's the thing right.

For half a million bucks I could theoretically get a 992 GT3 for less than half a million bucks.

Oh, really bring that up is?

I recently had a ride in a first gen 992 GT3 touring Australian 70th anniversary special edition, which is a special edition car that really just has some a slightly different color, I think, and some badges on it.

But I got this ride, not just out on the street, but actually this dude, john, who came on a drive with us, great guy, and I chased him up Mount Donabuang, which is a stunning road, and we got to the top of the hill and I said, hey, john, how about you take me for a run back down the hill?

And I'm a terrible passenger, right, I hate being a passenger, but going in this GT3 touring back down the hill and then obviously back up to the top again, honestly, man, the difference between.

I didn't quite realise the difference between a GT3 and a regular Carrera.

It is such a different experience.

Every single sense was just synapses popping.

You know, just, I'm sitting there, the sound, the brakes, the acceleration, the cornering, the turn in all of these things just absolutely blowing my mind.

And so the idea that I would go and buy a brand new or near new carrera s versus a couple of years old gt3, or even, you know, my, the dream is still a second gen 991 gt3.

That me too.

Yeah, yeah, that's the, that's the car for me, yeah yeah, that absolutely.

and uh, this this summer is hopefully the summer I'm gonna to get to drive Chris's GT3 Touring.

I've been giving him shit recently, actually because I still haven't yet got behind the wheel of that, but you know, if I was in his shoes looking at me, I probably wouldn't want me driving that car anyway.

So he's completely forgiven.

What's he done to that?

car.

What mods has he done to that car?

anything, um, yeah, I mean, he's not not too many, doesn't need much right like well, that's the thing straight out of the box he did a bunch of mods on his, on his 991.1

turbo and they were, all you know, very tasteful and really cool.

So far on the touring here, um, he's installed the sole x pipe and he really or the or the x pipe delete right, basically is what it is muffler delete, um, and he's really happy with that.

He's got a numeric shifter waiting to go in.

Oh cool, um, he's playing around with the idea of um getting some new wheels, like painted wheels, to go with the car and then he's also playing around the idea of getting like a racing livery and you mentioned that earlier about your friend, yeah, putting putting one on that car before.

Chris has got the idea of it, not the martini stripes, but you know the liveries that essentially they're very uniform and they go front to back and they, you know they sort of deviate in the middle.

They go across the doors.

Even a couple of different shades of color change as you get to the back, kind of like the RSR.

Yeah.

You know he's been playing around with a couple of different designs there and he got a quote from a local shop the other day.

They wanted like nine grand to put on a racing livery and they said we'll throw in free ceramic coating afterwards.

Oh wow.

Well, actually he's already got, you know, a $1,500 ceramic coating job on.

So to do that, they've got to scrub off $1,500 from his car, basically, and then put the livery on and they'll put it back on for free, I mean, and something that's going to be temporary.

Anyway, long story short, he's got some decals online and this summer he's going to try and have a go doing them himself, and I've got nothing but respect and also dread and fear for him doing it, because the times I've tried to put decals on well, didn't they blow?

off in the wind those did those did um, but uh, no, just like doing the porsche door decals that I've got now.

I tried to do those first.

I followed all the instructions from all the YouTube videos.

You know the lubrication, the squeegee, blah, blah, blah.

Could not, for the life of me, get rid of the bubbles, just couldn't do it.

And imagine putting those not only all over your car but on a GT3 Touring.

I mean, if I put them on my Carrera, like I did the Yellow Stripes, and they were a fuck up, I just pulled them off right there and then, before Cars and Coffee, I couldn't care less.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

But if that had been a GT3 Touring with nine grand's worth of livery on, oh my God, forget it.

No, no, not doing that, yeah absolutely not.

So you asked me the question, I'll put it back to you.

What me the question?

I'll I'll put it back to you.

What about you?

Are you thinking, maybe, something in the future?

What's, what's it?

What are your plans?

Look like well, or hopes and dreams, maybe?

well hopes and dreams.

In all seriousness, the more I drive this 991.2

, the more I am just like confident that it is the car for me, unless a 991.2

gt3 touring or a a GT3 drops out of the air and arrives at my door.

I'm not going to be getting rid of it anytime soon.

But the new owner of Bluey contacted me recently.

So I sold Bluey just over a year and a half ago at auction.

It went to an owner on the East Coast.

That owner, a year or so later, having tracked it, has now sold it on to somebody else at the track and that owner got in touch with me.

And just the fact that he got back in touch with me and I was talking about bluey and reminiscing about bluey, I half wondered if he was going to offer to sell it back to me.

Right, honestly, I might be tempted to buy Blurry back or get another 996 or an older car to do you know for another project.

Yeah, but it's I mean, of course it's a money thing, but it's more a practicality of space.

Yeah, I've got a three car garage, which now I've got a lift in it it's really a two car garage.

Yeah, you can park the two SUVs side by side in the two-car carriage.

Yeah, you can park the two suvs side by side in the two-car space but you can't really open the doors anymore, so I park my kind on the street or on the driveway.

But I'm really half seriously thinking about a garage condo, one of those, yeah, off off-site special condos.

I can put a loft in there, I can watch tv, I can work you know, because I work from home and down below the loft is enough stall space for maybe three or four cars, and if that is the case then maybe another 996 project or something similar will be in my future.

But as far as an expensive purchase on a you know, a Touring or a GT3 or what have you, that's not coming anytime soon.

It's interesting the idea of buying back a car you've had before, isn't it because it, you know, there's such a nostalgia there, such a desire to to relive it.

You know, it's like getting back together with an ex um.

Yeah, I think that's what it is I wonder.

I I wonder if it would deliver or not, or or if you'd just get it back and be like, yeah, that's right, I had my time in this and I moved it on for a reason.

If my ex had, you know, traveled the world and shagged a hundred strangers, I probably wouldn't be too excited about getting back together with her.

But if my ex had just been to a yoga retreat for a few months and had come back in better shape, maybe I would be tempted to give it another go.

Ruthie, if you're listening, I'm sorry it's taking this, oh goodness, uh needs.

I don't know.

I think, um, it would depend on the condition, of course, but I wouldn't be interested in buying back any of my other cars, apart from the 997.1

.

That still holds a really special place in my heart and I know the owner of that one as well and he's been taking great care of it, and he took my lobster claw wheels off.

But apart from that, it's still exactly the same.

I love lobster claws on a 997.

Michael Bath pulls it off.

I love them.

He's one of yours.

Lobster claws on a 997, that's perfection to me.

I just think they're such a oh you like no, I love them, I love them.

I think they're such a great wheel.

I hate seeing them on anything else.

Like you see, people put them on like a 996.

I always think that looks weird.

But yeah, on a 997, I, I, I, absolutely love it.

Do you know what?

I'm the same with my GT4.

That car was, yeah, I had to had to move it on to to use the money for other things.

So I have I've got unfinished business loved that car.

It was such a good thing.

So, yeah, I would take that car back, Although, do you know what?

No, I won't say that I was going to say something disparaging about the guy who bought it.

Let's just say that wasn't the most enjoyable sale.

You're right with your big golf head.

Excuse me while I take a sip from my big gulp.

Do we want to take a break?

Do you need to go to the bathroom?

Anything else you need to get done.

After that big boy, I might need to go for a slash in a few minutes.

I'll be honest with you.

Hey, so listen.

When I sent you the show notes, which you suggested I didn't, I was really worried that the agenda was a bit scant, but thankfully we've managed to fill some time.

I do want to get on the video of the week, though.

Yeah, yeah, let's do it, let's do it.

So there's a dude named Stefan Merkel who's launched this channel, soul Drives.

I don't think it's been running that long on YouTube.

I've never come across it before, to be honest.

So I've seen his videos for the last, uh, probably six months and you know it looks to me there's, I'd say, reasonably clear influence from, from people such as cars with luke.

But yeah, I love his style.

You know he really benefits, obviously, as luke does and and other content creators do who are based in Europe.

You know really benefits from the scenery.

You know most of his videos are filmed in the Black Forest in Germany.

I mean, fuck even the name the Black Forest.

Come on, I was going to say I mean, we've said this before the setting makes such a difference for these videos.

We've said this before the setting makes such a difference for these videos.

Yeah, I'm I'm kind of tempted to actually recreate the first 30 seconds or a minute of that video, driving around the frozen tundra of minneapolis with all the same shots and just see which one is more visually appealing, because I can drive around a corner, I can, I can drive in a straight line and capture the audio on the, but with the trees and the moss and the, the atmosphere, yeah, yeah, that's completely different.

Yeah, it's not taken away from the video or the car.

No, no, no, no, no, god, no, I agree.

And and this the scenery is is, yes, a stunning backdrop, but his cinematography's choice of composition etc.

I'm really a big fan of.

I also really like his style.

He just it's like he drives along in the car with the camera on and occasionally remembers that he needs to talk to you.

It's like you're just sitting in there as a, as a passenger, and what I think he has done really well in this video.

So the video is him driving a 992 GT3 PDK through the Black Forest on a reasonably wet, misty day.

It's so nice, it looks so good and he's done a really great job.

In the back end of the video, where it's just basically in-car footage of him driving, he does a great job of capturing the sound but also the sense of speed that you feel.

He doesn't look like he's driving, um, in an irresponsible way.

He's.

He's blurred out the the speedo in in in some of the footage.

So obviously he may or may not be fracturing a speed law or two, but he doesn't look like he's driving.

He's not being an idiot, right, he's, he's just on a spirited drive yeah, but you really get a sense of it.

You get it.

That's to me.

I was watching it thinking, yeah, that's kind of what it feels like to me when I drive in the twisties.

It feels like I'm pushing on yeah, yeah, definitely, and you know watching it again here as we, as we talk.

He's definitely ripping poor old luke off.

I mean it's, it's basically yeah, there's.

It's basically yeah, there's influence there, there's influence there.

There's a shot of him in a gorgeous car in a gorgeous forest and the footage is of him walking around the car taking photos with a giant DSLR.

I mean, the only thing that couldn't be more cars with Luke is if there was an espresso store in the background handing out coffee.

Hey, you know what?

We all wear our influences on our sleeve somewhat right.

Yeah, that's true, like it's funny, there's another.

There's another content creator I've seen in uh, out of switzerland actually, who's driving things like the susten pass, and uh in in uh second gen 991 gt3s and a lot of his footage is very reminiscent of Cars with Luke.

But you know what?

It's a good format and it works.

But I actually like Stefan.

I've watched a bunch of his videos.

Now, like I say, I really like his way of speaking.

I like the way he talks about what he's doing.

He doesn't.

I like people who content creators who don't try and make themselves look like heroes.

He's recently just dropped a video with a 996 turbo and he talks about driving it and how it lets him practice heel and toe and you know he's like there's one corner he comes into he's like oh yeah, that was actually a good one.

You know, he kind of acknowledges that he's not the greatest, he's not Chris Harris, and he's okay with it.

You know, I like of acknowledges that he's not the greatest, he's not chris harris and that he's okay with it.

You know, I like that, I like his stuff yeah, yeah, well, I mean in all seriousness, there is nothing to that I can say that should really detract from this video because it's, it's excellent.

Yeah, it's really.

It's a really good video, uh, so yeah, I haven't come across him before and I've just hit the old subscribe button, so, uh, I'm looking forward to getting more content from him in my inbox.

Yeah, yeah, and we will put a link to this video on our Instagram.

If you remember where that is, it's Kerbin Canyon.

You remember that podcast?

It was getting quite a lot of hype.

Last year it was Said the person making all the hype.

Oh dear.

Well, my friend, this has been good yes yes, yes, definitely.

I'm looking forward to 2025.

I've got, I've got a plan.

I've got all sorts of plans.

I'm excited.

Are you excited?

for the year ahead.

Do you know, I am, uh, really, really excited.

I got another rally coming up soon.

Uh, I got hopefully some big moves going on this year.

This, this could be.

This could be a big year for me.

All right, my man all right.

Well, thank you everybody for checking in.

This has been carbon canyon, I've been james at auto amateur and andy has been andy of last rasp yeah, I still am, and uh, we'll see you on the next one cheers guys, bye, take care.

991.2 Exhaust Mods, Alpine Range Rally 10 and more Porsche Banter

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Porsche 911

Toyota Tundra

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