Full Throttle Talk Mar 12, 2026

Are EVs the Biggest Scam in Automotive? Magnus Walker Selling Porsches + The Smartest Way to Sell Your Car

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Car

suspension

Suspension is the part of the car that helps it drive smoothly over bumps and keeps the wheels touching the road.

Car

Porsche 911 GT3

The Porsche 911 GT3 is a special version of the 911 made for fast driving on race tracks and twisty roads. It has a powerful engine and better parts to make it handle really well.

Concept

tarmac rally car

A tarmac rally car is a car made to race on paved roads that might be bumpy or twisty. It has special parts to help it drive well on these kinds of roads.

Car

e-bike

An e-bike is a bike that has a small motor to help you pedal. It makes riding easier, especially uphill or when you're tired.

Term

simulator

A simulator is like a video game that feels like real driving. It helps people practice driving without being on the road.

Term

dry sump

A dry sump is a special way to keep engine oil in a separate tank instead of under the engine. This helps the engine work better when driving fast or on sharp turns.

Car

Lotus Seven

The Lotus Super Seven is a small, light sports car that has been around for more than 60 years. It's famous for being simple and fun to drive, focusing on handling instead of just speed.

Brand

Lamborghini

Lamborghini is a car company from Italy that makes very fast and cool-looking sports cars. People like them because they look different and go really fast.

Car

The Corvette C8 is a sports car made by Chevrolet that has its engine behind the seats instead of in front. This makes it handle better and is different from older Corvettes, so many people want to learn how to drive it well.

Concept

Corvette Driving School at Spring Mountain

This is a special school where people who own Corvettes can learn how to drive their cars really well and safely on a race track.

Concept

mid-engine dynamics

Mid-engine means the car's engine is placed near the middle, behind the seats. This helps the car turn better and feel more balanced when driving.

Term

manual transmission

A manual transmission means the driver has to use a stick and a pedal to change gears themselves, instead of the car doing it automatically. Many people like it because it makes driving more fun and hands-on.

Term

active aerodynamics

Active aerodynamics means the car has parts that move to help it go faster or stick to the road better. These parts change shape while you drive to make the car safer and quicker.

Car

Volkswagen Rabbit

Car

Volkswagen Cabrio

Car

Honda Stream

Car

Volkswagen Golf

Car

Porsche Cayenne

Car

Rabbit Diesel Rabbit

Car

Audi Rs3

Concept

electric cars

Electric cars run on electricity instead of gas or diesel. They use batteries to store power and motors to move the car, which can be better for the environment.

Term

crash testing

Crash testing is when cars are crashed on purpose to make sure they are safe for people inside. Cars need to pass these tests before they can be sold.

Concept

government subsidies

Government subsidies are money or help given by the government to support certain businesses or products, like electric cars, to make them cheaper or more popular.

Concept

electric vehicles (EVs)

Electric vehicles are cars that run on electricity instead of gas. They use big batteries to power electric motors that make the car move.

Car

Ferrari Luce

Term

OEMs

OEMs are the big car companies that make cars and parts, like Ford or Porsche.

Car

Ferrari F430

Car

Maserati MC12

Car

BMW X5

Brand

Mercedes-Benz

Mercedes-Benz is a famous car brand from Germany that makes high-end cars with lots of features. They compete with brands like BMW and Audi for customers who want luxury cars.

Term

DOT

DOT is a government agency that makes sure cars are safe to drive in the U.S. They set rules that car makers have to follow.

Car

Ford Mustang

Concept

skateboard technology

Skateboard technology is a way to build electric cars where the important parts like the battery and motors are all in one flat base. This makes it easier to make different kinds of cars using the same basic parts.

Concept

EV startup

An EV startup is a new company that tries to make electric cars. These companies are often small and new, trying to bring fresh ideas to the car world.

Concept

seating configurations

Seating configurations mean how the seats inside a car can be moved or changed to make more room or be more comfortable for people riding in the car.

Car

Porsche 718

The Porsche 718 is a sporty car made by Porsche that has its engine placed in the middle of the car. People are curious if future versions will use electric power instead of gas.

Term

private sale

Selling your car directly to another person instead of a dealership is called a private sale. It usually means you get more money for your car.

Car

Porsche 356

Car

Lotus Elise

Car

Lotus Esprit

Car

Mclaren F1

Car

Lotus Elan

Car

Lotus Elites

Car

Alfa Romeo G Tv

Car

Alfa Romeo Spider

Car

BMW E46

Car

Porsche 918 Spyder

LIVE

Check out the car and that's that that's nice of you. I'm

I'm like Sam. I'm doing what I do and I don't want to air all that

Laundry on the podcast for the public of how indecisive I am

You would think for as many cars as I bought and I've owned it would get easier to just buy the next one

It's it's not it's never easy for me. So hold on. I by the way, I've already started recording

So just so them clear your what you did in cars this week as you're showing a clown car

Is that what I'm seeing here Blair? Yes, and I just bought one too. So okay good

Oh, by the way, this would be a good time to tell you that we're actually officially sponsored by Hair Club for men

Welcome to full throttle talk the podcast for a 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 gear head eraser 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

My dad's pretty bald. I thought by this point I was gonna be bald, too

But somehow, you know, I managed to to miss that. I actually was looking forward to I normally keep my hair really short and

But my wife likes it a little bit longer

So I thought ah, you know every once in a while let it grow back out

But then what happens is after I get sick of my hair like, you know with helmet hair, you know

I should say I just gotta go back to it nice short, you know hair. So

Anyways, I'm at this stage of my life. I'm just happy to keep with what I have. That's basically my mission

Don't make me go put my hat on Tim. I'll do no

Well, I mean as far as pulling off being a handsome man in bold. Yeah, I think you got it nailed. So you're good

Well, so listen, this is full throttle talk

We've got a wonderful podcast for you guys prepared today

Obviously, we're all in a great mood because we record our podcast we invested and tell you guys this but we recorded on Friday

So we're all I think coming off having very busy weeks

And so the topic we're talking about today on full throttle talk are going to be as follows

Obviously, what did you do in cars this week?

And we're already seeing that Blair bought himself a clown car and we're gonna talk about a little bit of automotive news

And then we're gonna talk about something that actually I've been getting a lot of questions

Some of you guys are messaging us on Instagram at full throttle talk about selling your car

We had talked a lot about buying cars

So we're gonna go through the different scenarios and what might make most sense for you

And I think from personal experience having sold droves of cars

I haven't sold anything last seven years, but prior to that I have personally owned over a hundred cars

And I'm gonna take you through my own experiences with consigning whether you should just sell it outright or whatever

And then we're going to talk about this or that and this is honor of

Shenu Mapleton and we're talking about this is gonna be the Lotus edition of this or that so we're gonna talk about

You ready? Yeah, I wore the right shirt then

Okay, exactly

So you're gonna be able to shine with your Lotus expertise and then we're going to propose

Two different lotuses that we are considering and by the way, did you guys see that Lotus on bring a trailer with 8,000 miles that red one?

Did you do that? Yeah, there's which Lotus. Oh, now we got Brett Blair's attention. We got to get back on track

I'll distract you later. No, there's a gorgeous red lease that just popped up on bring a trailer this morning

With only 8,000 miles and then there's another one a sun a yellow one and then an exige

And so there's a lot of really cool lotuses and exeges that are coming up and none of these cars have any miles

Not that I'm not really sure I'd care too much on a lotus about miles

Considering the heart and soul of those cars are Toyota's but let's start out by talking about what did you guys do in cars this week?

Shenu Mapleton you get to go first

Nice. Well our

996 RR, which is this road rally spec that we've been building

You know, you guys know the 996 is kind of that redheaded step child in the Porsche community

and we bought one last year and we've been upfitting it and

so I kind I took the car for the first longer trip up to Los Angeles and

you know, we're building this car for rough Canyon roads to be compliant and work where

You know, typically low stiff cars just kind of don't excel and so driving around in you know

Downtown LA, you know where the roads are horrible the car just steamrolled all those bumps

So pretty excited about how that the car performed and we still got more work to do the interiors a wreck

we got to fix that but

Technically mechanically right now, you know, the cars, you know doing the things that we hoped it would do

Well, so what's your mission with this because this is gonna be a special series or start of a special series for 996 is right

That's what you're creating. Yeah, you know, we're trying to just let the collective driving community

Know that we work on drivers cars and Porsche in particular is kind of

Though it's not new to me personally

For my business, we haven't spent much time servicing Porsche until last year. So since then we've done g-body cars

We've done nine six fours. We actually have one in there. We're doing a full engine rebuild on suspension whole bunch of things

We've done a few nine nine sixes. So we bought this car

They just kind of showcase art our technical abilities beyond just doing basic service and alignments and things

But as a company that actually

Comprehensively tunes, you know cars and so we chose a 996 just because it's got that kind of red-headed step child

Reputation and our thought was hey, man, can't we show folks how

Fundamentally good this car is and for the money

It's the best bang for the buck if you're looking for a 9-11. There's no doubt

Well, I mean arguably the Boxster from the same generation too, but still yeah, I agree completely if you want a 9-11, right?

I mean that again the 9-11 is the iconic Porsche

So it's the cheapest way to get into the family and have a legitimately, you know

Good 9-11 experience. I agree and I had a 996 GT3 and it was actually a brilliant 9-11 to drive

Yeah, I mean have you driven one of those before I have I have and so our goal is to make our car

Handle nearly as well, but be significantly more compliant, right?

The goal is to make it better than a C2 probably not quite as well as as the net GT3

But way more compliant and frankly, you know more comfortable to drive through the canyons

What is our our stand for Shenoo road rally, you know

We just we we had to come up with our own little

Nomenclature right and so it's kind of like a tarmac rally car

So a car with a little bit additional ground clearance more compliance in the suspension

And so we kind of came up with you know 996 RR

So before you take on a project like this

Do you just you're following your guts and your intuition or do you do any sort of market research to find out?

You're you just doing what you're interested in primarily. Yeah, I mean that's unfortunately

That's for one of my problems is I tend to chase the things that I love to you know

And I and I do believe that a lot of people love driving and when you're faced with rough canyons

And what are you gonna do?

You just can't you know rattle every filling out of your head because you think that's what the way cars should be when in fact

No, you know, we can create a car that's compliant

That'll steamroll through those potholes and those bumps and and give you a great driving experience with all the grip

You're looking for you can go through the canyons quickly and so yeah, I mean that's just from my experience

You know, it's generally all the stuff that I've done over the years is when I drive a car and find the things that I don't like

Then I try to fix those issues

That's almost always the best products are made around the founder or the you know

The whole vision of one person and they're ultimately making something for themselves and sort of like, you know

You put blinders on and ignore what other people's opinions are and when you do it

As soon as you start asking for other people's opinions and then your your original vision is deluded then all of a sudden

You create a crap product. That's true for prop podcasts too by the way

Yeah, you know, it's funny you say that because there's things we've done on this car now that are very controversial

I'm sure I'm gonna piss off a few you know more than one, you know Porsche guy

I mean the car is more of an outlaw. It's not so much of a resto mod. I mean you wrote that really good article

I'd like comparing the the difference between the two and I'm more of the outlaw guy

Then I am the resto mod guy and you can see the image behind me the wheels are our different spoke count

You know, that's a pretty unconventional thing to do. We first did that on the track

And you know, we we sprayed bed liner on the front and rear facias and the rocker molding

Which I know when people see they're like, what in the hell is this guy thinking about, you know

Well, you know, if you drive in the canyons the front and your sills get all hammered chipped and scratched and all sorts of stuff

You know, you're following your friends driving through the canyons. They're throwing up rocks at you with their sticky tires

Well, here's a nice way to address that, you know and

So anyways, yeah

I like to think of all the ways I can piss people off on the podcast

So, you know, I'll go ahead and say right now that I am not the biggest 9-11 Safari fan

So this this makes a little bit more sense to me frankly to have

Something in between a little more drivable, you know more compliant more road. Yeah, this one's road-based

Yeah, you know, don't don't call my cave and a clown car Tim, but Safari 9-11's a little bit clown car

Just a phenomenal car and then you jack it up and you put big tires on it. That's not I

Think this has some merit, you know conceptually

Well, let's drive on the road and that's the whole concept here

Whereas the safaris are really built for off-road, you know, they put a square setup on the car

The tires are the same front and rear, you know, well, that shit isn't gonna work on the street

Okay, I don't care what anybody has to say you it works finding the dirt where your grip limited

But on the street, no, you know tire size is very much dictated by weight distribution

So on a rear biased car, you know, well, you need bigger tires in the rear. It's pretty simple

I think the different wheel designs because of the same design just slightly

I think that looks pretty cool. You could actually be the starter something as far as the design trend

Yeah, we you know, we've done that but I mean look

Manti racing if you get a Manti racing kit right for your GT3 RS

It has the arrow discs in the rear rich. So which is fundamentally different, right?

And so I kind of feel like they've kind of put it out there

We we did it on the Dragon and there's a different spoke on we're using HRE wheels on that car

And the the spoke count is different front to rear, but it's it's slight enough that most people don't catch it

But yeah, there we go. All right, so Blair, I hope I didn't hurt your feelings making fun of your amazing van

You can't hurt my feelings

Blair, how many kids do you have? I have three nice, but perfect size then. Yeah, exactly. It's unless he stays home

So what are we looking at for the people that are not playing on video

So so so those who can't see my camera my brother bought this Mitsubishi Bravo

It's a 1993 three-cylinder revs to 9,000 rpm. So I want you to count on

How many cars can say that

You know GT3 comes to mind Gordon Murray cars come to mind LFA's come to mind

I think so anyways what wild little car and he

He test drove it a few weeks ago and I went with him and I said well one of us has got to buy this car

It's either me or it's you but since you were kind of first on to this thing

I'll give you first ride at this. So he did buy it and

But he he needed to trade me cars the other day on on Saturday

And he said well, do you want my Miata or my K-band my Bravo?

And I said no, I want the Bravo Britain. Let's let's trade for that

so I had it all day Saturday and part of Sunday and

Had a total blast with this thing with the you know, it is so tiny right-hand drive and

So long story short, I decided parked next to my m3 in the driveway. I'm like that is just too awesome

I uh, I was sad when I gave it back to him

So I have one currently being picked up right now just outside of new york city and being shipped to salt lake

Um, so I bought one too. I bought

A year later. It's the 1994 Bravo, but it's all that one's better. That one's much better

That that one's the one to have that's the collector edition, right? I'm the turbo

Oh, of course and that one goes to 9100 rpms. I'm sure

I hope so it's

But it is um

It's a four cylinder not a three cylinder

I'm taking a total flyer on this car. The seller was a great guy, you know face time a couple of times and

So, yeah, that you know, I live in a master plan community where a lot of families have golf carts

I'm like, I don't really want a golf cart. This is my golf cart to cruise around the community

So let's ask some questions. So because otherwise shenu and I are going to compete with putting up more nerdy cars than what you just bought

Okay, and I don't have any pictures ready to go. So you see the one I put behind me. It's actually

So blare is that one of the k cars? Is it a k car class? It is a k car. Yeah, so how long is it? How long is it?

Not long

I think it's I

I think it's when I looked it up around 10 feet, but that that seems kind of long. It does not feel that way

I wonder dimensionally how that does compared to like an onward four-seater or golf cart, right?

I wonder if that you could actually take those things on

Golf cart paths legally and most planned communities because if you could

And you eat it that thing would be probably a bigger seller than you think

Golf carts are absolute pieces of junk and we have a really nice one

you know

Well, the cool thing about these vans too is if you get the right one

They've got what's called the super aero roof

and the whole roof

electronically retracts so you've got this likes

You know, uh

They they call it star gazing mode. You can flip the front seats

Backwards and retract the roof and look up up, you know through the open roof at the stars and imagine i'm gonna be doing that

No, imagine how many japanese babies have been made that way

I you know, I was gonna say blare, you know, you're about to have some fun with your wife. I think

My wife said she's like do you really need this thing? I said no and the funny thing is

She drove it on sunday. I made her drive it. We went we ran an errand

I made her drive it. She can drive a manual. She does great

But she knew why why'd you future tense that instead of bald to have fun? I mean bro's looking way relaxed

That's sorry blare

My wife said, yeah, I just don't plan on getting in getting in that thing

So this is I have nothing to look forward to and that blare is taking blare is taking the uh the segment

What did you do in cars this week to a new level?

Oh, man, I love it. I love it. Okay, so it's part

I'll just show this. Do you guys know about this car? This is that i'm showing them a topolino. Yes, isn't that awesome?

A new one. Yeah, it is. So I'm

Thank you. I'm glad you guys know about it. All right, so i'm showing if you guys are listening at home

On the home version on the audio only version

I'm showing a fiat topolino and these fiat topolinos you guys might know more about them than I do

But dimensionally, it's the size of a garia golf cart, which we have

um, and

I'm embarrassed to say gria golf carts start around 40 grand for a four-seater. It's insane. Wow

Exactly. And so this thing is dimensionally the same. I this is a ev as you guys said

Uh, I'm if you guys can't see this because you're listening

Google fiat topolino because it's new they're going to be selling them all over the united states at fiat dealers

When trump made it so that what are those little little cars called the segment you you said it a second ago?

k car k i

Yeah, so when those became legal, which was earlier this year just sold in the united states

I think we're going to see an onslaught of these cool little dudes and

Dimensionally same size as a golf cart safety wise, you know

You wouldn't think safety looking at that thing, but it's going to be built to car standards

So I think the golf cart industry is about to have a rude awakening. You know, it's about time

Tim look at that. Look at that rope to get in. That's like getting on an amusement park ride. Yeah, I know

I know but

Geez your golf cart have a rope mine doesn't

My golf cart's about to have two sliding doors one on each side

So your rope isn't going to help you when you get t-boned, right? Just to show you I appreciate van life. That's our

Van again, that's our 1990 van again that I've hot-rotted over the years to be like a b32

Porsche van. Did you guys know that Porsche made a van?

I I do know that and look at the fuchs wheels on that nice the fuchs wheels and it's got an outy

1.8 turbo with

apr aftermarket stuff is 250 horsepower convert to a manual transmission

I mean, it's the stupidest car I've ever built, but I can't sell it

Well, when you do sell it, please call me everybody says that but then I tell you how much I have in it

Then you're going like good luck

Say, okay, don't don't don't call me because I'm barely paying over 10 grand for my my van and

But but honestly, it's a it's a reminder as much as I love the hardcore

Sports cars when you drive these things you can't help but smile

Laugh only my I've owned gt4s have owned

You know bunch of 9 11's this outie r8 some cool stuff my boys my twins

They're more stoked about this thing than they are any car. I've ever but I'm not kidding

They're asking about it. They because they've written in my brothers and it's just

There's something whimsical about this and then when you drive it though

it's actually like

That little motor growls up to 9000 rpms and it's it's it's not junk to drive the shifter's good

It's you can rev match in this thing. It's actually very fun

So is this where you tell us you're sticking it on bring a trailer?

I mean, it sounds like you're doing an ad here to sell this thing and I didn't

I'm uh, I'm already sold. So this one might be a uh, no point to ever sell this

We're gonna kick it around for a while. Well, but you're gonna have a lot of great memories with that

That's gonna be a lot of fun for sure

But think how cool it is that you're this motivated by a silly little van, right?

And how much fun it is that just goes to Cheryl Blair honestly

How much for true car enthusiast you are and how you're not a brand snob truthfully? That's what it tells me

Absolutely, absolutely. This is anti snobbery. The funny thing is

When when I drove this car I the amount of attention this gets is almost like

I don't get too uncomfortable with attention. I want cars to be fun for myself or other people

But this one every grandma every mom driving a van the kids in the back

they're all pointing and laughing and

I'm not joking all like eight out of ten cars go by

And are laughing and pointing and and turning their necks. It's it. I almost got a little uncomfortable with this

but it's

You know comes with the territory you have massive amount of confidence if you can take old ladies laughing and pointing at you in traffic

I honor you

So what do I do in cars this week? That is our beachman 64, which is an e-bike

And what Julie and I did is we did some hot riding on it. So I'm putting

Leather bags on it and all their things

But what about ferry did you added the ferry on that?

And actually it came that way, but you're right. It's not an original. Oh, yeah, but I can't I don't have any

Here's the better picture of the ferry. I think the best one I've got

But yeah, so that's just been an absolute delight for me to have and that's the only thing I did in cars this week

Because other than that I just worked

I that's the truth and I didn't have any seat time in either my simulator or the go-kart track

But given that this is the start of the formula on weekend

I plan on doing at least the simulator

Let's move on to automotive news and I'll go first and I'll go through these points really quick

The obama switch, which I didn't know that was called until I started reading that the obama switch has been removed

This start stop button now

I want to ask our engineer buddy shanua question

Because I've asked other people this

And I think they gave me bullshit politically correct answers and I'm gonna ask you the question directly

Other than if it were a dry sump you explained to me how turning off and restarting engines

Is not an enormously horrible thing, especially for the top part of the engine

If the car's been sitting at the traffic and then you have to constantly start and restop it

How is that supposed to be better than?

letting the car just idle and somehow with 13 catalytic converges always or on every car when I've asked other people that

Their response told me whether they were

Green new energy types or whether they were being practical and being honest

Or they just didn't know shanua. I'm tipping it to you

Well, listen, I'm not gonna claim to be an emissions expert and it certainly starts stop technology is not in my wheelhouse of knowledge

But here's what I can say

You know the the worst emissions are generally at cold start

So in this case you've got a car that's already warm catalytic converters are already at good operating temperature

So shutting the car off

You know, it's just it's going to or shutting the engine off effectively is is going to cause less emissions

And so you fire the car back up. Well, you got nice

Hot, you know, uh catalytic converters that are gonna clean, you know, the emissions

So that's my thought on it. You know, it just engine frustrating technology. I don't like it

But yeah, the engine life though. That's the specifically. I was focused on so what where the car stopping and starting

That's the worst thing you can pretty much do to a car. No

No, I mean once when the engine is warm. It's not so bad

I mean, you know, the starter is probably gonna take the toll of this, you know the brunt of it

So I would say, you know, the starters are probably something that may read, you know

Get worn out sooner, but I don't know, you know, if the jury's out on this yet

You know, if there's enough history to see has it killed starter life, you know, or degraded it significantly

I don't know the answer

Well, fortunately, we don't have to wait around to find the answer because the president has made it so that's no longer relevant

So that that was my first bit of news which I too hate that, you know, it's ridiculous

What I find interesting about that tim is

It's it's not just enthusiasts who don't like it like my wife tries to figure out how to turn that crap off

It's it's like everybody I know

Nobody is like, oh man, I'm I'm so glad this thing has start stop, you know

It's a nuisance for everybody and I don't know if our current administration knows the answer to this

They seem to claim they do but the cost and the complexity that it adds to a car seems like

Pretty unnecessary, especially if everybody is trying to figure out how to turn it off whenever they drive their car

This yeah, I agree 100% and the other little bit of automotive news

I had was I'm not sure how much news this is but I thought I'd actually post this up because I know you guys are sports car people

Caterham

Is planning on expanding in the United States. I guess they have new ownership

Um, so I went to their website because I was trying to prepare for today's show and do some homework on these

So that these cars all start out about 50 grand, but there's one major component that's missing you guys want to guess what it is

You can buy a new cat you can buy a new caterham

Okay, and and but there's one big old part of it that's missing that you still have to supply and I'm not talking about 50 grand

I'm not talking about the money the engine the engine the engine

Yeah, and and so no matter what it's interesting on caterham's site

No matter what variant you're going because there's obviously hot rod versions of these things too

Um, they're always suggesting the same for uh,

Two-liter motor which I thought was fascinating. Duratec. Yeah. Yeah, Duratec

So you buy one of these for 50 grand and by the time you get it all sorted out

Put a heart in it, you know, what are we at 60 grand you think what do you guys think?

Yeah, a little bit more. I mean probably 75 to 80 all in is is what it's gonna run you

Yeah, I don't know. I mean, yeah

My question would be

What's uh, I assume that's a two-liter four that you would put in there, uh, but like

What's that like, you know, is that a nice?

eager

Power train is it enjoyable to use? I I don't know. I have no experience with that. So

That that that's always the

The question I have is yeah, you I'm sure you can make power

I'm sure the chassis and everything would be so engaging but for those of us who

Care about the engine, you know, and what what that motor up front or back is doing

Is that can add or detract from the experience other than just horsepower and torque?

Well, I mean

The thing to understand is it's it's a very lightweight car right about 1400 pounds

And so the experience of driving a open pretty lightweight car like that

It's more than just the experience you get from the engine

You know, you're getting the wind buffeting you you're watching the wheels turn as you're catching the car with some opposite locks

So there's so much more to the overall experience

Yeah, I think I'd I'd prefer a higher revving engine

You know, but the Duratec makes a fair amount of torque down low. So the car will just pull relentlessly

And you know the overall experience I will tell you it's a lot of fun

I mean, look the k-dromes are based on low to super sevens, right? That's that's it's almost like you you you uh

You queued up the the the Lotus segment with with a k-drome, which is great because you look at that car

I mean, it's been on the market for 70 years, right? K-dromes been, you know, selling this for 55 some years

Amazing when let's start out

But start out though. So I sent you guys a video about the history of Lotus. I prepare for our shows. I'm like you guys just show up

Okay

When did you send that video what a minute a minute before we started? No last night last night

It's not last night, but I never

Did you get this player? I didn't get it

And it's explained the whole history of um

Collin Chapman. Oh, yeah, I guess I guess I did send it and he did watch it

Yeah, exactly

I watched a good chunk of it and and but that was it the Lotus super seven

I learned was like right and I thought about these k-dromes

The super sevens are a really really old car. What was it? It's like 60 years old at this point or something

And and the fact that you can still buy basically that platform and throw throw a powertrain in there

Is like actually pretty unbelievable

Well, I I wrote an article and we talked about it a little bit last week for a full throttle talk newsletter

If you guys aren't subscribed you got to subscribe

I mean all three of us are writing articles, you know, three and four articles a week

Um, and you know, it's you like you obviously love the podcast. You're gonna love the newsletters, but one of the

One of the articles was about the fact that it's very likely that the new

I don't even know what to call it luxury and automotive is going to be lightweight

So the new benchmark is going to be lightweight. We talked about this last week with the new Ferrari 296cs, right?

So horsepower chasing horsepower numbers that I don't even see any future in that

Chasing autonomy sports car guys don't want that different colored paints. I mean come on now, right?

So it only makes sense to me that if you're trying to differentiate your new car product

You're going to be chasing lightweight, which means what cars are going to be smaller

They're going to be more nimble and you're going to see big conversations that are focused in on driver feel and all the rest of it

Do you have any thoughts on that Blair?

No, I mean this we need more options along those lines

And that's that's what we're all like clamoring for us is please and it may like I think I said it last week

We might all just have to

Call chenille, you know and say hey, I gotta build the car that I want because nobody else will so hopefully that's not true

But along those lines though, I think chenille is truthfully

I think he's market

He's a little early to the market with his big vision as far as lightweight cars

Because there's not very many

And the biggest problem is is the brands that are mostly lightweight cars aren't the big flex brands and that could very well change

If the uh, you know flex existing brands start making lightweight cars

The whole all it has to take is a couple automotive influencers saying the new flex is lightweight

And then that's exactly what'll happen. I think what do you think it's a new?

No, I think you're spot on tim. You mentioned that and I was like, holy shit. He is so right

You know, did you say that again? Can you say that?

He's occasionally so right, you know

It feels good to be validated by the engineer

So that was it was very insightful and I think you're right because as manufacturers need to differentiate

That's it. You like the zr1x. I mean good god. I mean at what you this is we're point

We're at a point of diminishing returns and where you know this

The how much faster can a car go, you know?

And so if ferrari if lamborghini who at mclaren if they truly want to start to differentiate

Yeah, they can still do their hypercars and all this crazy stuff

But I think the more reasonable cars if they can focus on lightweight like you suggested as well as feel right

Let's deliver a car that tingles all the senses, you know, it sounds wicked, you know, and

You know feel so alive, you know, that's where I I'm convinced

You know to your point that that's going to be the future and I've got my

And you and you brought this up one of the articles you wrote too

I mean if you look to see where

Let's just say enthusiastic

Consumers of any product be it watches be it coffee makers be it, you know, I keep on putting my risk

Because it's you know watches is the best example

I mean there's tons of amazing digital watches that people want watches with lots of complications and the rest of it

I really do think that the new

Desirable car is going to be the lightweight. I mean do you guys honestly do you guys any have any desire for a zero one or zero one x?

I mean if you could get one and the pricing wasn't an issue, would you just be hell?

Yeah, I'm getting one or would it be like

Yeah, I'm not super interested in that I I am very interested in zero six and I I think I already confessed to you guys

I'm getting one next you know next year so

But the zero ones are just beyond my interest of what they're going to be capable. Why?

Because I mean how I can't use much of that and and so on the road and

So other than bragging rights, what else I'm going to do, you know with that car

I I think that I can have more fun with the zero six

Um, particularly because the engine's going to be so you know exciting and sound so wonderful

And that's that that that'll that's even that exceeds what I truly need on the road and so I said go ahead

I said it last week. I want to drive it to see if it's really engaging at moderate speeds and

A lot of guys have said that it actually is you know

It's it's gotten less critiqued than I thought it would for just being an assault when

You know from from a speed standpoint when jason camisa says it's a hell of a car

Not just because it's the fastest car ever built production wise

But because it's actually kind of a hell of a car and you can drive the thing

I'm I'm super curious about it and I'm skeptical because of what shinu said

Feels like a ton of car when you could have a zero six that revs to the moon and sounds like that

I I don't see what the additional hunter k is is for do you think you guys

Do you guys think the c8 is pushing people out of their preconceived notions about what it means to be a corvette buyer?

Absolutely and here's here's one data point that I'll give you there are more people coming to the corvette

Driving school at spring mountain than ever before

You know the mid-engine dynamics of the c8 have you know, frankly freaked out a bunch of traditional corvette

Customers to say I got to go get training and they go to the track. So that class every I mean every week

That place is just packed full of students. So I will tell you it is open their eyes and

Yeah, actually and then another little tidbit I learned from one of my industry insiders that works at gm is that the next c9

Is going to feature something very exotic and he wouldn't tell me the details. Okay

And you know, so if you think of like, uh, you know

The point is like, you know, there's a lot of gear after please similar, you know

Is it so so can we can we guess we're not

Yes, I mean I listen he he's not willing to tell me yet. But you know, we'll find out

Was it very exotic like alien tech or was it very exotic like air quote very exotic

Yeah, so something that you would expect in like an exotic car. Okay, so we can rule out arrow, right? They got big wings

Um, they got carbon, you know wheels like that's kind of you know, I don't think it's that because

Corvette's already got that stuff

So is it three seater? Maybe tim you've owned the most exotic cars. Well, I I don't want to speak for shinu

It seems like you have with your ferrari experience. What could that possibly be? I'm how exotic is a manual transmission

I'm trying to talk myself into that

Uh, exotic I personally would to your what you're saying. I bet you what they're gonna do is it's going to have

Obviously a redesign. Did you guys see the corvette?

What do you want to call it? But the cars they had on display?

I'm sure you I don't know if you guys went to quail

But the cars they had in display were just phenomenal. It looks so incredible

Absolutely. So if if corvette really wanted to eviscerate the competition

They would come out with something that really did look like the car

They had at the quail and active aerodynamics, which is what I bet it is

I don't think there's going to be a big enough take rate for a c8 with a manual transmission

Unfortunately, because if you think about the number of it's too fast, you can't keep up with it

And and I just don't think it'll be as enjoyable and I love frankly

I think pdk cars and like porches are in my ferrari. They're amazing

Um, not as engaging for damn sure

But I can't imagine having a thousand horsepower and with a manual transmission talk about

I mean barely useful. There it is people can argue all they want, but I don't know go drive one

you know

That's my thinking. Hey, so Blair automotive news looks like you're going to be waving the Volkswagen flag. What do you got? Well

Listen, I learned how to drive manual transmission and a car period

in a 1988

I think it was Volkswagen cabrio like the rabbit convertible and

We had a stream growing up of volkswagens. It was jet as galore at my house, you know

I think something something with my dad, you know, a military service in europe. I think and there you go

Volkswagen what I'm getting at is they just

gave a preview apparently in

Wolfsburg to their

Employees on what the new mark 9 golf is going to look like from a silhouette standpoint, which I have a picture of behind me here

And you know, I think what interests me about this

So they it sounds like the new mark 9 volkswagen

There's your shirako, which is so cool. You you know exactly what i'm talking about. Yep

It appears that the mark 9 golf is going to be

Tim I I can't focus if you're gonna be

Fashion rvr 6 or whatever's

Oh, man. I love the shirako. That is such a great car. It's a v. It's a vr. It's a mark one. It's a vr 6. Oh my god

Look at that, huh? It's a vr 6 that was originally in a

It's a Porsche cayenne. So it's got the 3.2. And so this this has got ridiculous horsepower. Yeah, this was this was

Another stupid three-year build

Okay

So what gearbox what gearbox is in there?

Um, one would that needs the shifter cable fixed but it's a g a gti motor or a gti transmission

Oh my god, but but did you know that the rumor is Blair that the motor that they're putting in that?

New volts wagon. By the way, would you learn to drive manual transmission in chenille?

In 1976 Renault are 12 gtl. Okay, so I learned

I gotta look up

Horrible shifter this car was the stupidest looking car. You didn't know if it was coming or going

Okay, the front and the rear looked exactly the same but it had four doors

It had a kick-ass stereo was my dad's, you know, he called it his his uh, his french mistress, you know, and

That car broke all the time. I mean, I'd park it. It was perfectly running fine. The next like a french mistress broke all the time

Broken all the time. Yeah, it was it was, you know in high school. Listen, you know, it was good

It was the car that got me working on cars actually. So

I had to drive manual and diesel rabbit

Oh, yeah

Which is great car to learn how to drive me on transmission like this has all that low-down torques. It's almost impossible to stall it

Yeah, yeah, that's that that's nice. Well, I want to hear what you have to say because I have heard rumors about

Potential five-cylinder from the rs3. You're making exactly. That's why I heard what golf are

But this article made it sound like the the mark nine was going to be olie v the id.golf

They're gonna sir id golf

And that they were going to continue to develop the the mark eight for the combustion car and maybe that's what you're referring to tim

I think what what fascinates me about this story is

And and I will continue to say it as much as I can criticize legislators

I'm really sympathetic to these

Auto manufacturers who have had this legislative train coming down the tracks at them

And they think they've got a pivot to olie v

And so they do that or they start doing that invest a ton of money and now they're pivoting away from it

Like is anybody gonna buy the mark nine id golf?

not if it only goes to to 250 miles on uh on a charge and

Costs $55,000 and so I'm just curious to see how

How this is gonna end up. I mean, I love gtis. I've owned a couple of them golf are I've owned one of those

It's I I love

The Volkswagen golf do you guys know who tim Burton is schmoo?

shimmy shimmy shimmy

Okay, so he actually I watched something was really good and he was being

By the way, met him many times super super classy guy and his wife is brilliant really really nice people

So he is on this youtube video and he's talking about the fact that the greatest scam

Ever happened in automotive was EV cars

Because essentially it was from a scam from beginning to end you guys got to watch it

I'm not going to say I agree or disagree

But mostly I agree and if you look at what's happening and that got me going on a rabbit hole

And I didn't put it on our notes, but it's worth mentioning if you look to see what the chinese have done with electric cars

Um, it's extraordinary. You can right now

Uh jilly and all these other chinese manufacturers

They can produce a whole car plant where the cars are being made by robots the whole thing in 18 months

They're putting up new facilities to make electric cars in less than two years

But here's what I didn't know and actually I should know I may have

Messaged you this you can send them your designs for your next car do a low volume producer

so you don't have to crash test them and then you can actually have a

They're the white label your car for you you send them to design you do the whole thing you ship them

I know this has been happening and with european manufacturers for a while, but I didn't know at what scale

It's actually available right now for chinese cars. You send them your design

You could start shinoos electric ev sports car where the hell you want to call it and the chinese will make it

You do less than 350 you don't have to have them crash tested

And you can be literally making your own cars mass produced brand new with whatever warranty you want to put on them

I think that's kind of extraordinary

But it also tells you like the chinese government had subsidized

Like who knows how much money

Uh, these guys are losing per car because the chinese government is subsidizing because it wanted the uh,

Obviously a chinese ev industry to dominate

But here's how dumb the europeans are they allowed those chinese cars to

Enter into their shores and they completely if you want to know to your point Blair

What actually happened with evs in europe? It's all the things you said

But it's also because the you know big brains over in germany all these other countries allowed the chinese to dump their cars

Unfairly priced into their markets and absolutely is eviscerated most of the european car manufacturers. That's actually what's happened

Stupid politicians

Yeah, so listen, you know, there's two sides of that story right and i i'm i'm more in your camp

When it comes to that i think you have to be very careful about this but without competition

Okay, the incumbents are not going to do anything different. Okay, and trying to get the

Industry to move to new ideas new technologies

It doesn't happen without a little bit of strong arming and and so there's some financial pain that comes from it and

You know again my you know, i've been saying this for a very very long time

You know having been in this auto industry, you know for 41 years now

You know, i've had a front row seat and i talk to my fraternity brothers who are all in the same industry

And we we talk about this and we like we've had a front row seat

To some of the fundamentally biggest changes this industry has ever seen and

Yeah, i mean to your point, you know right now, you know, there's this huge shake-up

There's going to be some consolidation

There's going to be some adjustments in in the various capacities that these companies have and i think ideas like

A skateboard platform that you can now put a completely different body on to this is exactly what needs to happen

You know, and this is what keeps things fresh it keeps companies competitive

And we're going to lose some of these brands because they're not going to be able to keep up with it

But why why why ev why is it that everyone has been brainwashed into believing the future is ev explain that to me

And don't say environmental because i've got something that'll

That'll rug pull you if you say that

Yeah, why ev?

I mean look it's it's a new technology that is simpler and will allow, you know, these car manufacturers some more flexibility

Um, you know for the long haul i look

without

Without some level of change, you know, I would say ice vehicles for example as clean as they've ever been and you know

It's there there's certainly a strong case to be made of lifetime emissions

You know from the manufacturing to the end of life of a car

Is is actually maybe better than the evs, but i've heard that that argument in the other direction too, but either way

Um, have you ever stayed synthetic fuel? I've either one of you ever studied synthetic fuel

All right, so if they had to put the same amount of extraordinary billions piles and piles of billions of dollars, right?

And not into evs, but to make a synthetic fuel cheaper and putting in making the icens is even more efficient

We would be vastly the all the manufacturing

None of these problems would be happening right now and

It's again, i'm a nerd and i studied this if you do synthetic fuel you can use the existing supply lines

You can use gas stations and gas pumps and you don't have all the anxiety with regards to range

And how about this the market doesn't want evs and they sure as hell don't want used ones

So all of this was an unfirst forced error, which is really going to screw automotive for i mean probably a whole generation

How are they going to come back?

Opening the door for who knows what's next because that's the nature of market economies. Well and tim

I've defended last episode and today these manufacturers being you know pawns in the political game

However, I do think to your point they they need to share or shoulder some of this

Responsibility and and blame for this because I think evs have been

fodder for the marketing departments

So it's like

This is easy money in their eyes to say oh look how fast these cars can go

Oh, this is like the new tech. So it's it's not just okay politicians

I don't believe anyways politicians strong armed us. We got to go do this

I think they jumped on board fairly willingly because you can market something radically new and much faster and

higher tech and it's like well

I think they both absolutely shoulder some of the responsibility and and what I continue to

Think is going to be so fascinating the problem with evs now from an enthusiast standpoint

I I I can't really speak to the environmental impact even though I've heard both sides of it

From an enthusiast standpoint your Ferrari luce

is going to have more or less the same

Powertrain and feel that anis on leaf has had you know in terms of it's just the question is how much torque do you want?

But you take a pure asangue versus anis on morano

The powertrain is everything that vr6 you have in your shirako

It's like it gives the car

It's own unique character and almost no two engines are the same now. You're going to stack up the most exotic

pin and farina batista

Next to a test the model three

They feel the same the character the powertrain's the same those pin of farina as they supposedly sold three of them

I I know two guys

two guys who were corded

Locally here in utah and they took them out to the racetrack

Utah motorsports campus to try to get these guys to buy one and they both came off the track

I talked to one of them and I heard the other ones report of it

And just said that was that was that was not a great experience and they want like three million bucks for it hard pass

Beautiful though. And what's a lotus trying to swing it back to shinu

What's out look the gorgeous lotus ev. Oh my gosh that thing was nuts

Of the avaya the avaya gorgeous

Yeah, really cool car and you know in person it looks really wonderful has great presence

But you know again, I agree look these are halo vehicles that some of these brands, you know latched onto because they thought

You know there's going to be an ice band in 2035 so they had no choice

You know, it's it's like trying to these oems trying to make a change direction

It's like changing the direction of an oil tanker

Okay, it takes a long time to get that tanker to move and you know the oems were the same way

It you just can't switch up that quickly and I think hindsight's 2020 back to your point about synthetic fuel

I hope more investment goes into that space because I think that will be certainly

A better solution for a lot of people

It was you think shinu was killed. I mean basically what happened is they were

Porsche bought working on it. Yep. No, no, no, no

I mean it was killed from actually ever getting any momentum in the marketplace and the green energy people killed it

That's what happened and Porsche. I forget. I forget what country there are in some where they're actually making the synthetic fuel like brazil or somewhere

Right or yeah, yeah, yeah somewhere in south america. Yeah somewhere down there

But that if you guys don't know what synthetic fuel is essentially a synthetic gas

It doesn't come from dead dinosaurs basically

So research it and here the problem with it right now

And I think formula one by the way is using only synthetic fuels

Which is pretty exciting because it tells you which direction the oems want to go for 2026

I'm 99% sure that they're only running synth fuels. That's the future. Maybe maybe hybrids too. I don't know

I mean I personally I think electric propulsion is a new turbo and you know people said I you know like you want your

06 to know turbos and you want more power you put a turbo on your release, right?

I think all electric is going to be as an enhancement to a

You know an ice motor that's personally where I think everything's going to go because then you have electric turbos and all the rest of it

But yeah, so she knew did you have any news or can we move on to the next section?

well, I think you guys teed up my my news which is

you know the new class from

BMW is supposed to be introduced on march 18th and they announced that this week and and so

I think bmw styling has been a snooze fest to like

You know an obnoxious, you know kind of like, you know direction for the last 20 years in my opinion and so

The new class I feel like like that picture that's behind me

That styling is actually more interesting to me than what they've been doing cover cover your camera because when you do it

It'll just show the yeah, it's not it's not

I tried that so we I don't know what setting I got to change

She knew by the way, yeah, I think though as a as a BMW guy those are fighting words

I think the the the monstrosity of their design started like five years ago not 20 years ago

I got I got one more for you. What was that?

It's been a snooze angle

Oh, Chris bangle. Yeah bangle. I think was the perpetrator of the downfall of their designs

and

Um, so so so anyways, I I'm I'm kind of interested to see what the hell this thing's gonna finally look like

The they've been showing the the crossover suv versions and they look horrendous to me

In fact, I think frank stevensson if you guys know that name, you know the designer he did the f430

mc-12 mazorati. He actually did the

He's doing mclaren. Yeah p1 at mclaren. Yep, and I think he did

He did the original x5 and I think the the first new mini cooper. Anyhow very accomplished american, you know

Car designer. I met him once pretty pretty nice guy. Really cool. Dude, you know, and and he he actually has come out and blasted that new

suv of theirs and and I can't stand the way those things look. It's just they just the xm

Going on, huh? The xm. Yeah the xm the ix threes or whatever the hell these things that the new ones are called

It might like who in the hell looks at that and says I want to own one of those. That's a beautiful car

I mean, they look ridiculous to me. So I'm hoping that this new class is gonna kind of come back to

Something that looks more bmw. Esk, you know, I kind of did a quick research and and I don't yeah

I can't confirm this but bmw is out selling Mercedes and Audi

So even with this ridiculous styling of their cars, they're beating out crazy, you know those two other brands and and that surprised me

I I was you know, so it just goes to show you there's no accounting for good taste

But anyways, I'm I'm interested to see what the hell this new I

New classic and it ultimately look like and as much as I like to bag on evs

I think some of the designs are spectacular and if there is a silver lining to evs is you can

You can make them

A lot you can do from a design standpoint, but you just said it Blair and this is where I was this, you know

This is where my mind was going. So if you can all this said make small batch 350 or less cars per year

and

If you don't have to you know dot test and then they just become essentially

Cars you sell digitally, right? You saw them off social media and you get some influencers and there's the greatest things thing ever

And then you have a made up for you over in china and basically drop shipped over to the end user

I don't know how it all work no dealer network ship them direct no governmental over regulation make a really great looking sports car

it very well could be the

Real pivot that happens because of the big missteps that automotive is done. You could see

I'm not sure how that's gonna happen like you you still have to meet dot and nitsa requirements in this country at least

Can't they do it digitally? No, no you

I researched it

No, there's there's some crash testing that's required and other safety requirements, but I'm gonna do battle with the engineer

I'm with you in that

This guy has built cars by the way

That's that's oh, yeah, I am right

What about the the small volume producers that are out there now like um, what's the guy that's making uh, the cool

Mustangs and whatnot down in Orlando

Uh, come on guys gotta help me out here

These are like the rest of mod revolution

Yeah, yeah

So that so there's no he's taking essentially

I mean rehabbing an old chassis or restoring it

But a lot of them are brand new chassis basically and he's no crash testing selling a new car

So why couldn't you you know, you're the engineer

Why couldn't you do the exact and by the way, can't you do a lot of this?

You know required government testing uh through

Design through ai and turn in the files showing what the you know ramifications are

But he doesn't have to do any and some of these other guys

Uh aerial doesn't do it. I mean you didn't do it with your sports car, right?

Right, so we bring them in as kit cars. Okay, we register them as kit cars

So that's a completely different program every state can

Regulate what their requirements are for a kit car and and crash testing and emissions is generally not a part of that

You know back to your point about the low volume manufacturers

legislation that is not actually

Something that actually is effective because there is a clause in there about the powertrain

You have to use a powertrain that meets current emission standards

Nobody none of the manufacturers will sell you a crate motor that does that

So right now you've got this legislation that should allow small volume manufacturers to to produce a car

But they can't because there's no powertrain that meets that requirement. So right now it's kind of just

Hamstrung by that fact, you know, hopefully a crate motor will come

But but going back to my thesis you're going to see people like you sir

They're going to be able to start making lightweight sports cars and having them be all EV

Then you're going to completely qualify and if you were to and they're she knew when I was exploring this

I obviously never have heard of any of these Chinese companies before

But there were probably like four or six of them that can operate just like I said

You send them your digital files and work with their engineers and then the cars arrive. That's kind of badass

No, I listen. I've been saying this for a long time that that type of

technology, you know skateboard technology if you will

Is going to revolutionize things in the future because for all the points that you've made

it makes a lot of sense and

Consumers don't really they're pretty agnostic about the powertrains

Most people just need to go from A to B and so you need to convince them of other things and frankly practicality styling

You know the usability, you know, those are the things that I think will win over, you know clients, you know

to uh Blair's point with his his uh, mitsubishi

All that that a flexibility of configuration, right? That's really cool, man

Flipping the seats around open the roof

There was an EV startup that went bust called canoe. You know, I don't know if you guys

Yeah, I thought they looked kind of cool. They took a lot of crap

Yeah, I mean hell if you like that mitsubishi then 100 you're gonna like the canoe, right?

And so I liked it. I thought oh, this is really cool

And and they had all sorts of interesting, you know seating configurations and different things and and I think for a lot of kids nowadays

That's going to be very appealing to them. So

Hey, speaking of skateboard, can we uh rehash the Porsche debate about what powertrain's going in the 718?

I'm just kidding. We can do that another time, but

Uh, that that that's a discussion that fascinates me if they're pulling

EV out of that new set that came in Boxster

What power plan's going in there and how do they make that work?

Given that they designed the car with EV in mind, um

You know some some food for thought for another discussion, maybe

Well, I mean we have a 718 spider rs and I'm telling you right now. Uh, that is to me peak

Sports car just for that in that genre. Just so much fun. By the way, I think all BMWs are ugly after that one

Do do you own that car? Will you sell me that one? Yeah, no, I'll put you on the list

Yeah, that's that's an alpina. Yeah, alpina v6. Yep. All right. So let's move on

It's time to sell your car should you can sign wholesale sell it to a dealer or sell yourself

I'm gonna go last on this one because I have a lot of opinions

Um strongly held but poorly argued opinions. So let's talk about the true cost of each option. So, uh,

I'm gonna have you go last Blair because I know you just sold a car

So she knew you go first you have a car. I'm gonna even make it so you guys don't change the variables a lot because everyone likes to do that

so you're selling a

Okay, you're selling an Audi r8. Okay, and it's a nice car. No problems freshly serviced good tires

You're not embarrassed about anything about it. It's a strong car always buyers for those things

You tell me what your decision matrix is for deciding how you're gonna sell it

So listen, I to me I know for a fact if you sell something privately, you're gonna get you know more money for the car

That's a fact

But there's a lot of headache that comes along with that for me. That's fine. I'm willing to do that in certain cases

And so I think that when you when you know most buyers that are willing to pay a premium generally speaking

You know for a specialty car like that

They want to buy it from the guy who who's owned the car who's got the history and that sort of thing and so

I would say a private sale is is generally gonna get you more money

You said something I hadn't even thought about and that's very interesting

So you're saying you're gonna get more money not just because you're not leaving money on the table for the dealer or the wholesaler

You're saying you're gonna get more money because the consumer can deal directly with the previous owner

And most consumers especially sports cars put more value on that. That's very fascinating

Yeah, like oftentimes you you've heard this phrase buy the seller. Okay. Yeah, you know

you want to trust the person that is

Selling you this car and oftentimes that's the best way to to get the most for your car

See and I think that can be true

But I also think dealers are in the habit of getting full retail when I see take porches right now

And I see both air cooled and water cooled cars

What dealers are asking for these cars? I keep the some of the dealers I follow

Asinine dollar amounts and then they're gone 10 days later. They sell them

It's like I am convinced or have they shipped them through wholesale. That's the one thing, you know

These are nice cars. These are nice cars and and Porsche has just overheated the market right now as we already talked about

But I'm convinced that people largely

They just they put a lot of trust in dealers oftentimes. They should not let's let's let you let's let you finish

Okay. Yeah, she knew finished with what you were saying

About I mean you started you started you started out by saying that basically your preference would be to retail the car yourself

Would there be a snare?

Would there be a scenario where you wanted to wholesale it or consign it through a dealer?

Like in the order of things you're saying yeah, she knew mapleton number one retail it himself

What would be number two if you were making a decision?

So I I think going through a dealer who really knows the product

Is your is is really certainly the way to go because there are people

That are you know hitting their website calling them

You know, they got a rolodex of clients looking for certain things and so if you find the right dealer

I think that's that's that would be a very very good way to go

Which having said that I'm we're actually going to put our 11rs up on an auction site

I'm still trying to debate between bat and cars and vids, but

You know, I'm kind of curious and part of it for us too is

Is to get some awareness of a broader audience

And so a lot of people are are trying to lean me towards bring a trailer as the place to to go

And it's funny because blare you had that excellent article that you wrote about about

Bring a trailer and it got me thinking so yeah, I mean that's where my head's at anyways

So okay, so under no scenario would you wholesale it?

Have you ever just wholesaled a car? Just what's the dealer going to give me and just walk away?

I haven't done it, but it certainly is the painless way to do that

You're giving up margin and it certainly alleviates a lot of headaches

So I like it from that perspective and if if the money is not as critical to you

If you just don't want to deal with tire kickers and all the headache of selling a car

That's actually a nice easy way to get your car sold

All right blare so you have your Audi to sell what you just did

And so you have the various ways retailing it wholesaling it consigning it which is kind of retailing wholesaling

Uh, and then obviously

Which you know bring a trailer auction site. Which which direction are you going to go and why?

Well, here is a picture of the Audi. I just consigned to a dealer and they sold it very quickly actually and

And I have sold two cars through bring a trailer. So and and obviously countless just private sale, you know

classifieds whatever

You know and for me part of it is not only my gut feel on a particular car, but also

How much energy I have to go through the process selling on bring a trailer if you do it right is a ton of work

and

You know, I've sold a couple older BMWs on bring a trailer and we've driven up in the mountains

And I have a photographer and we have incredible photos and you know, it's I don't always have the energy for that

Even though it's exciting. It's fun. I've done very well on both of my sales on bring a trailer

Um, but like I think what just to get back to the point I was making I think buyers are lazy

So they see a car at a dealer

And they say oh, wow

Look at that car. They'll even take my car on a trade

And they'll help me with the financing

So I'm just going to go pay the dealer more or less what he wants and that's what happened with my r8

And so how did you structure the deal on your r8?

You just went in yeah

Well, and you guys agreed to a retail price and then the dealer said he's going to take his 10% probably

And you said okay, bob and then walked out. Essentially. Is that how the dealer was structured?

Yeah, pretty much. I sold my 85 karara through these guys as well and I had no intention to do that

I thought that was going to be a bring a trailer car

But you know, they have a lot of tools if you find a good dealer

I think that is key that you can build a relationship with

But they had a lot of tools looking at every

R8 that was for sale and a lot of data around what has sold

That the general public doesn't have access to so with my consigner

It was a very consultative

We sat down and they flipped their screen around and said blare

This is what all the r8s have brought and are are are being asked right now

Here's how york yours compares and them there's not a lot out there

We could be competitive if we started here and then they asked me basically what's your reserve?

What can we not go down below?

When when we go sell this and so there's a little bit of like stop there

Stop there because that's that sounds like an honest person you're dealing with okay

So they weren't trying to draw there weren't the problem with consignment ultimately

Is they're going to get paid their 10% no matter what your net is and so they'll get the car consigned

It's like going to an oxel to ferrari through uh

I forget what auction house it was and I had somebody else represent me so I didn't want to deal with it and the um

I gosh, what's what's the big one where they put a lot of ton of pressure on the sellers?

I was

The long story short is the auction house beat the crap out of him to get him to lower the reserve

And I would have been better off wholesaling the car. I would have made more money now

So the the technique that I suggest to most everyone and you're you did it is go to an honest dealer

But you hell you don't have to anymore. You can go to classics.com. You can go to haggardy.com

You can really bring a trailer. It's got a kick-ass database

Find out what the app what the car is worth and then when you go to a consignment dealer

If you know you can wholesale it for like if you get a wholesale offer

So that's the first thing know what the car is worth the second thing is go to a dealer and say I just want to sell it

I know what these cars are worth. I know you need to mark a margin

What's the bottom line of what you're able to get me for it and then you really have an understanding what the market is

And so what I do and I'm you know, this is what I've always done when dealing with a consignment dealer

Is I'll go to them and I'll say look this is my bottom line and you all can keep anything above that

Right that you you guys that's it and you don't come to me and asking me for take less than that

Don't hit me up for a bunch of mickey mouse storage fees and transport fees and charge me a thousand dollars of detail

The car and $1400 for pictures that's on you and if you don't sell it you're going to lose that money

I mean to me that seems like the honest way to do it

But most of these consignment dealers anymore what they're doing, especially the ones on bat is they're charging

Do you guys know they charge 10 percent?

Hmm and they don't absorb the selling costs

So the buyer is paying bat. They're up to 7500 bucks through or whatever it is

But then when you're using one of the bad approved sellers

You're paying usually around 10 plus if he can get you to pay it and if his hard costs for getting the car for sale

And you'll be I I just it's gotten they're almost it's too expensive

And I know you have to do a lot of conversing with the person and making sure that

Some naysayer doesn't trash your car and auction all the rest of it

I get that not that much work considering how much money you might be leaving on the table

So I I think it's worth noting that this dealer for me only charged me 5 percent to consign it

So as far as I was concerned, you know, just to be able to literally go drive it downtown

Drop it off and at the end of the day, it cost me a few grand

And I think they're already going to get close to retail and by the way

They said if there is something that comes up at a ppi or whatever

They have a service shop and they they said they were willing to give me

Discounts on some of the maintenance or the repairs that required because now they're incentivized to get this deal done

So, you know, I I've had decent experience. Am I gonna do that with every car?

No, my 9-11 was about to go on bring a trailer and

But they had a buyer for it and I had a number in my mind

I I thought I could get for it

And they were right there and they took they took 5 percent. It was like done

Here's the tell to know whether or not a consignment dealer is lying to you. Ask them what they pay you for the car

That's the answer and if they're telling you a number that's lower than what they're telling you

You can get it at auction because they're waiting to beat you up and get you to lower your reserve

Or take a lower net than what you think for yourself. I've done this before

I mean, I mean, I've been on the I've never sold cars. I'm not a car dealer

But that's how you got to do it. You got to put a floor under it

otherwise

You're going to leave money on the table in ways you hadn't thought of

And there is risk like chenille. You put your 111 rs on bring a trailer, which again, I love abused

And let's say that kind of flames out and people don't you know

Now you've got a public record of what the market thinks your car is worth

It's hard for you then to go consign it for 20 grand more or for you to put it up for sale

And so there is a a certain amount of risk. You're assuming by running that through a public forum like that

Yeah, and I mean, I think you just got to have the confidence that you think, you know, you're being reasonable about it

You know, look, we're not trying to get $250,000 for Lotus. Okay. There's people trying to get $350,000 for their resto modded

Lotuses, you know, and so we're we're trying to be more reasonable about it and

But I have to I have if I can interject one thing with the slight change

I love the design of that r8 and walter de silva that design kind of I was getting jaded with mid-engine designs

Man, I love that r8 when it came out. I felt it was like one of the first changes like the f4 30 was out at the time

I was getting kind of that

Blah blah ze with gorgeous car designs. Yeah, walter de silva. I in my background

I've got the alpha 156 that he did so cool. The guy was it one of one of the great car designers

So I had I couldn't help but that

That car so so special to me to answer my own question going forward when I have a car for sale

I'm gonna sell it for myself

I'm gonna put it on bring a trailer and by the way your lotus is the perfect car to sell on bring a trailer

Because it just had a bunch of higher level media hype and people might just buy it for the hype now speaking of hype

You guys won't like this pivot, but it's still a good one. What do you guys think the magnus car is going to do at rm auction?

God, man, I don't

You think I had a magnus car

I I bought a magnus car a 67. Why it wasn't the it wasn't the greatest experience. Was it too?

Okay, now this was way back before he became magnus, okay

And he hadn't I'm gonna just tell the whole story. He had bought the car

He didn't do much to it

He put different seed inserts and the rest of it and why did I buy it at the time because I wanted a 9 11 hot rod and

Um, I was influenced by the fact that he definitely was somebody very passionate about cars

I mean magnus is a really classy nice. He just is a really great guy just is okay

Cool, and so we and I thought well this car was a great car

And then I got into it and I found out that it wasn't a great car

And he I don't think he knew I'm gonna say that but this car was an absolute piece of shit

And the the firewall was riveted in okay that went so I had to have some bodywork done to it and the body guy

I'm not making this up when he was stripping the fenders found out that whoever did the bodywork had used pennies to fill the rust holes

Unbelievable well, yeah, why didn't he why didn't he know that about his car? I'm not going to go down that path because I'm hoping that he

Yeah, you thought you're buying the seller like in this case is a cool car, but

Let me finish this with him just for a second and you're right. Okay. What you just said is right

And I shouldn't in that particular case

I should have done more homework and I was over buying the seller

Right, but I don't think he actually knew and I'll tell you why I don't think he actually knew

Because I went and did some homework on that car before I decided to restore it and then I found on pelican

Breadcrumbs which led me to the people that did do the bodywork

Now did he buy the car knowing it was in that condition?

Or did he buy the car like I did and found out it was in that condition afterwards and then decided to get rid of it

I don't know. Okay, but it all worked out. I mean we ended up restoring it and it sold at auction

We didn't lose any money on it. So in that case I was pretty happy

How did the car drive?

Um, you know, honestly, I didn't give a rat's ass. I just wanted to get rid of it when it was done

I just wanted it. So it was it was so much. It was so much heartache

Compounding and this was right before the labor rates in southern california went bonkers with cost of restoring these things

Um, and out what's more is I love love old Porsches

I love all the nerdy the guys that know these cars

I just can't even imagine a more analytical group of people and from a car enthusiast perspective

They're interesting and they're fun and I love just the whole vibe. I just do

Uh, but it is very exhausting because they will take an old 911

Which you everyone says is the best thing ever and some of these guys are so freaking smart

Is they'll find tiny tiny little picky ass details and if they post it in the wrong place or whatever

Everyone's gonna think the car wasn't restored correctly. So by the time that car got done

I hired somebody named Dirk lair

Who paul kramer hooked me up with by the way and that dirk was an absolute freaking

Rainman of old Porsche stuff and he went to look at the Porsche at the place

I had restored and he made a list of all the things that he saw was wrong with it

They told me the car was perfect

I send them the list and to this day. They still hate me for actually having taken in that layout level of responsibility for the final product

But I'm sure they'll never work on another car with me because I didn't know what I didn't know

They said it's perfect. It's ready to go Dirk went and made a list and the things that he found were things

They should have known. That's all I have to say about that

Well to answer your question. I think the magnaz cars are going to bring insane money

Um, but it's I don't think they will you don't nope

I don't think they will I don't I don't think I think they're at the end of the day

Um, I'm not sure if I don't want one. Do you?

I mean Tim you said you said it last week the cult of Porsche the cult has never been more

Longhood more of a fever pitch right now. Longhood market. Long. That's why that is dead

This is why he's this is why he's selling half of his collection. I believe because he knows

This is the pinnacle and we're going to start cresting over that. No bro

He can capitalize right now. No the pinnacle what the pinnacle was years ago

R67s. No, it was I know that market really well the pinnacle for longhood porches came and went years ago

Years, but he's got a lot of stuff. He's got a 996 gt2. He's selling and

But a fever pitch all time high and then and then it comes from the god of

Porsche culture. It's like people are gonna lose their minds. I wouldn't I

Car it drives really well. I feel like I'm very particular about that stuff

Which is why I asked you how his car drove and I just think people are gonna say

The hell with it. This is I can own Magnus walkers. I can't believe what people are paying for porches right now

And then you sprinkle that on top of it. I still think we're at the what but what portion what porches you're talking about

I mean, are you aware of what the older longhood the air cooled stuff is doing?

Well, I just saw I follow three two careers all the time and a black on black on black with 74,000 miles

Just sold on bring a trailer the other day nice car was the same miles my car had it's it was a g50

It was like an 87 88

96,000 dollars. There was nothing interesting about this car. It's like this thing is not cooling off yet

I think 992s are going to start cooling off. Those are g bodies 964 is 993s and all the but I'm telling you the older ones

The mid-year anything not I mean you could argue even the mid-years on back that market's been flat for a long time

Just look at Hagerty and I and personally I think that's insane. I think the best ports

Look if you look at for example a

79 11 s or a 73 2.4 and you drive one of those cars

And it's a nice car like people say the g50 and all that you can go drive a 901 transmission car

And if the bushings are good, it's brilliant and all I'm saying is

The old the older long hood 911s that market

peaked

went down and it's flat line and though I

Completely don't understand why people have more passion for those older cars. I do understand why it's because people your age Blair

You're in your 40s, right people your age didn't grow up with them. I didn't grow up with them either

I mean i'm 55

But the older guys that long for those cars

If you go to an old portion of me those guys are older than me

Right there those guys are in their 60s and their 70s and they already have their cool car

So unfortunately or fortunately, I don't see that market coming back same with 356s by the way

But but I heard him say he's selling 18 cars and there's only a couple long hoods all the yet

So maybe that's true with the long hoods all the other stuff

We're not seeing that sunset. I wish it would I'm not seeing it yet

I mean to Blair's point. I I do believe the cult of personality adds a halo effect and a premium to cars right or wrong

You know, I you know as an industry guy as a car guy as a engineer in this space working on them

I'm not affected or interested in the of the the celebrity piece of that

You know, that makes no sense to me

But you know to to what I always tell people you've got to get a ppi if you buy a car

I don't care who you're buying it from get a ppi get an independent ppi

So that you can make sure the car is correct

Um, or at least they'll pick out the pennies that were used, you know, instead of proper body work or other obvious things that a

reasonable ppi would be able to catch

Yeah, that's that's another topic for another day because I've made students on ppi's but it but generally

You're I don't think you're wrong if you're trying to avoid like a huge pitfall

Well, let's let's see by the next full throttle talk. We'll see some auction results

I think it's happening and this weekend, isn't it? I don't remember might still be a couple weeks

Oh, yeah, you're right Blair. I think you're right. Yeah, but we'll see what the auction results are

And so be fun to see it will be fun to see there probably be some outliers and I have to say

Some of his best cars he's not putting for sale. He has got a really cool

1964 that's slate gray has red interior

He had rod emory put that, you know, perfectly done louvers and the front vendors it

When you see it it's like, oh my gosh, it's just a gorgeous car paints great

But a lot of his other cars are rough and ready. They're true sports purpose fun cars

And I don't think they're going to sell for a premium and that that market unless, you know

Look, I'll give you a real ultimate example

There's been some of his cars that have sold and they sold well once

But then they went back for sale and they didn't sell very well at all. So we'll see we'll see. I hope you're right

I genuinely hope you're right. I I genuinely hope i'm wrong and magnus makes a fortune from selling these freaking things

And I hope that he then puts that money towards a lot of old lightweight cars. That would be amazing

So let's move on to segment four this or that lotus edition. Let's talk lotus

What are the variants that no one is talking about that could be the next big thing?

Let's do this or that and I think I think I set this up pretty good, right?

I'm trying to put some guardrails on it. Did you do you have pictures player by chance?

Are your this or that's for lotuses?

He's going to pull out the heavyweight guns. You want to go first player?

Now remember that here's how the games play. Just remind you guys you put up two cars

Okay, and and then we all vote this or that and you it's succinctly as you can

You try to explain, you know, why those two cars are the ones you chose

And maybe if you have an opinion of which you would choose but hold off until

shenu and I have had an opportunity to cast our votes cool

Yeah, absolutely and a couple of podcasts ago

We did talk about the fact that i'm very interested in lotus amiris of orate gts and lotus elises

So I didn't go that direction and and I made a comment in shenu

I want your take on on all this stuff because you are the lotus guy

but

Those cars I I made the comment that lotus was brilliant to partner with toyota because those powertrains don't scare us

I picked two cars that are scary to me and I have talked about

Maybe co owning each of these cars with a friend of mine

Who's also an engineer who's not terrified every time the car makes a weird noise like I kind of am so the first one is this

Is a lotus elise or sorry lotus a spree the the ultimate wedge

car

And this is a I believe it s2. It's the 2.2 cylinder or 2.2 liter four cylinder turbo and I have heard

Now shenu I want your opinion on this some some guys say the four cylinder turbo is better than the

v8 twin turbo which

My original thought was yeah, could that possibly be true?

But from a simplicity lotus ethos lightweight, you know chuckable revvy car

A lot of guys like that four cylinder. All right number two is number two is I mean

Every miata guy if they don't want to load us along

They're missing something. I I would love

listen to uh, gordon murray the way he talks about lotus elons and

So my my buddy and I always say come on what we've got to get a lotus salon at some point

I can't imagine there's a more fun car to take in the canyons to rip around town

But I am terrified to own both of these two and they both traded recently on bringing trailer

That yellow picture wasn't but a car just like that for a low 30 000 range before the 10 percent buyer premium

And or buyer fee so those are my two their cars that I always think about

The esprit is gorgeous. It's like

Every car sports car should look like that and the elan I have a feeling I haven't driven it

Every sports car should drive like a lotus salon from everything I've heard

I love these two cars and that's a really beautiful picture too if you guys aren't

Watching that is a lotus salon. She knew it helped me out. Isn't that the s1?

So I I don't know the generation is well enough, but it does look like an s1 to me. Yes, and s1 and uh,

it's

Let's take a half step back. Here's a spree

Wasn't the motor a Renault motor? Do you guys remember?

I don't remember I don't think it was some motor some crate motor from somebody's gonna message us on instagram and call us a

Bunch of fools for not knowing this and and so my name is shenu mapleton if you want to send send any nasty messages

For not knowing the lotus hierarchy of old cars

I'm throwing me under the bus

Listen, I like the esprit. It's okay to me

It's it is one of the iconic lotuses, but I don't really think it

Really fulfilled what they were truly about which I think the elan does

Um, you know that that particular esprit you put up was a peter stevens design

You know peter stevens. He did the mclaren f1

Wow, he did. Yeah, and if you look at even like a the m100 elan

peter stevens did that car so the lotus elan from the 90s

Which was a front driver and kind of people most people thumb their nose at it

It actually has aged very well, you know the styling of it, but yeah, um, are we picking uh, our favorites yet?

Well, let's just do one by one so we don't jumbled up like we always do every week

So we have to choose one of his two cars

Yes, what you would you what he'll and you go last i'm trying my best to herd cats with you guys

All right, so this or that chenille. What would you choose between the elan or the esprit?

You're doing a great job by the way. Thanks. I'm taking the elan all day long over the esprit

I I'm not a big fan of the espris the way they would drive. It's just a little bit too big gt for me

The elan epitomizes everything lotus is about so you know to me, that's my choice

I 100% agree looking at that picture

I I was gonna say excites me, but I didn't want you know Blair to think I was meaning him

So the car behind you, okay?

It's the dome, but that is such a sweet little car. I've never owned one of those things

I've never driven one. I'm actually embarrassed to say

Um, and the simplicity of that car is absolutely brilliant and I agree completely so there you go

And you guys listen if you're listening, uh, or watching make sure you do watch that video

I maybe we'll put it in our newsletter about calling Chapman and about lotus

Man, talk about a guy with an interesting history. I did not know any of that

Did you know chenille all the things of course?

Yeah, I've been you know a big fan of his for for a long time

But even the way his life ended and how you know, I don't know if how much of that came out, but it did

Yeah, yeah, I was really young

You can't have a guy. Yeah 54

You know, I mean you can't have a guy that's that brilliant without having some frankly warts, you know

He was very very innovative and when you look at some of the things that guy did and innovated into racing and into the auto industry

It is he's clearly genius level

What were the things to stand out to you? You're you you're a huge passionate

Yeah, this and yeah, yeah

I mean look, you know, I actually you know made a list of stuff because you know, the guy has you know

Look seven f1, you know championships. How many manufacturers can state that right?

But some really cool technical innovations the monocoque chassis. Okay, which is pretty ubiquitous now

He was the first okay a stressed engine design, you know, he was the first

Aerodynamic wings, okay wings, which are now so common everywhere

He is the one that brought that to the to the to the racing, you know stage

I mean, what's a stressed?

What's a stressed engines engines bolted directly to the chassis?

Yes, it's part of the structure part of the structure exactly and so

Yeah, you know another really interesting thing that wasn't so much engineering, but it was still a big innovation

and I actually mentioned in one of the videos I created recently about

He was the first guy to bring sponsors to racing. Okay

He I mean like people are like, what are you doing? You know, well, hey, I need money

You know to to run my race team and so he was the first to do that and now I mean obviously without sponsors

You surely couldn't fund a 250 million dollar, you know race budget for f1 team, right?

Let's take a quick side trip. Did you guys see what the f1 drivers in 2026 are getting paid salary?

Did you see how much money they're freaking making?

Holy crap

freaking

Louis Hamilton 50 80

Louis

Louis Hamilton 70 million

right

He's making 10 million more than max

But the the least the the guys racing for Cadillac who are season formula one dryers

Sergio and

Yeah, they're getting paid

I think it was three million or five million. Yeah, something like that

But I'm just thinking if so if you're in the grid

And you know one guy is making 70 million and you're making five million which is still 400 grand a month

Remember this guys. I'll live in monaco's. They're not paying any taxes, right?

So I don't know how that actually works ego wise. That's gotta be a thing

It has to be

You guys want to tell you you guys want me to tell you a fun story about formula one? You'll love it

Please it will go back to our topic. All right, so we are friends with

Lando Norris's brother Oliver Norris and he came here to Puerto Rico and set up our simulator

So I was obviously asking him for as many fun formula one question or having as many conversations with him as I possibly could

And asking what some of these drivers are like when you meet them and it's just you and them and all these other things

He said a lot of funny things, but here's the funniest story. So I was asking him about the um

Who's the guy that races for Aston martin?

The the sun. Oh, who's stroll stroll. Okay, right stroll. So so he goes

I gotta think where to tell my story without feeling like i'm

Breaking in confidence

All right, so all those guys started out in go kart racing and they all knew each other this current crop of drivers

Minus Alonzo and Lewis who are older than them, but they all knew each other in formula one racing

All right, I'm so go kart racing and all of their dads

With almost no exceptions or really rich and he would tell he Oliver was telling us that at the go kart racing all over europe

that the

fathers

We're starting to compete for fanciest ass trailer. Okay, so

This is it gets really hilarious. All right, so fanciest ass trailer

So they would all have these big rvs and shed and then you know, okay go kart racing, right?

Guys are just like it's ego fest times a thousand

so then

It was sent essentially like a truce on the on the uh, you know rvs and then they started buying old

um last generation formula one

hospitality vehicles

And that's what they were bringing go karts in so they basically okay

Everyone started doing that all these billionaires started doing that and then finally

Lance strolls dad. I forget his name again. Anyway, so he stroll. Yeah

Lawrence. Yeah, so he he starts showing up and he has all the same exact beautiful trucks and everything

But theirs has all the pop-outs and the pop-ups and just is the craziest ass thing

But now

Lawrence stroll pulls the ultimate trump card

He starts flying his son to all these races and this private livery matched helicopter

Nice

It's so he was telling me the story

Because I was asking him

So what are the formula one drivers actually like when you meet him in real life and his

Again, I don't want to talk at a church here

But he did say in essence that some of the drivers

Have grievances towards some of the other drivers for experiences that they had back in the days of go karting

And they take him to this to this day, you know, and I just thought that was a funny back story

Yeah, it ain't that so call it call on Chapman interest amazing story. I didn't know about any of those things that you just said that's incredible

Yeah, really really really incredible and you know, they to

I think Lotus's racing successes kind of ended there

But I think they continue to have some innovations. Um, but it's it's been kind of languishing, you know

I think there's been a handful of things that they've been able to achieve

After he passed away, but that's all it's oftentimes a pretty common thing when when that innovative founder that

kind of uh

Eclectics, you know crazy guy leaves or dies then the rest of the organization doesn't quite have that same fizz if we can use that term

What so where the name lotus come from Blair knows because he watched the video

Well, the part of the video I got is they didn't know exactly maybe his wife his wife

That was the answer. That's what they believed his wife. Yeah, which by the way, I did not know sounds like she was a real hot shoe

Total like pushing him along the way and at times was even a little faster than him in the when they first met

And in business too. I mean she they they seemed like that was really a historic, you know

So, uh, this or that I think you're buying that. Um, a little lotus. All right, so

Your next I would love that. I might have to yeah, man

You know, honestly, that might make a great car for you to enjoy the spring and summer. So shanu. You're next with this or that

Okay, so let's see. I've got to put up a couple of cars here

You know, I've got collin Chapman there, but let's you know to to your earlier point

That um, you made

You know, I think that

I I couldn't

Not put up a

Super seven, you know a car that was introduced in 1957 that is still being sold today, right to your point earlier tim

Here's a car with long legs. So that was choice number one for me because I feel it's it's the singular

Most iconic car they've they've ever produced. Have you driven one?

I have I have

I I've driven a right and a catering. Yeah, I've driven a catering. Yeah. And so, you know, again, it's it's you know

To me, it's just the evolution, right? And and so

It was a lot of fun, you know, just a really fun fun car just um, you know

A step up in safety over a motorcycle, but uh jest, you know, and so

To interject some of my favorite videos on youtube or when these british guys are driving

Caterims and they've got I don't know what those hats are, you know, the it's not a fedora

Is it or like it's just one of those driving hats and they're in the like the scottish highlands

Driving a catering that is like bucket list for every car guy. It is well at least it is for me

I love watching those british dudes driving those things on great roads

Yeah, and I think there are a number of companies where you can, you know, rent or as they say hire a catering

You know to to drive there. So 100 i think that's a great idea. We should do it. We should do it as a as a group

Man, that would be a lot of good. There's a race series an organized race series for those things. I think it's only yeah

Yeah, that's that's that's interesting. I'm gonna ask you some questions about this because I really don't know

I'll lay or fiberglass back in the 50s had to be aluminum

The um, yeah aluminum, okay. Yeah, because I don't think fiberglass technologies really existed then

Okay, so we have the original

Oh boy super seven or we have oh an s1

Elise series one elotus elise, right? Which to me was their next big innovation

Look at that thing

gorgeous and 30 years later that technology still holds if if you're into lightweight sports cars and so

You know the innovations there from the extruded aluminum, you know tub, you know

When you learn that they they rivet, you know, the this tub together and glue it and that's the way the chassis is

Is put together. It's like what that's a that's that that's a mind-blowing

you know

Uh epiphany if you will when you learn that but yeah to me that's the next car that I so talk to me

When ics ones that comment i've made about the 2 zz and the reliable toyota power plants

That's what always comes to mind with this rover built engine, right? Right. What what do you make of that motor?

Yeah, you're not wrong blare. I i'm not a big fan of the rover. I had a sport 190 that we kept at the the racetrack

So a series one car and it had this rover motor and you know, they were notoriously

Bad for overheating and you'd warp the head. We had to take the head off

Nobody would work on it in this in in the us. We had to send it to england to have it redone

You know and so that kind of issue is a bit of a headache and yeah, that engine's just it's okay, you know

um, it does, you know

the later version was better um and

You know, there's a lot of people that have done case swaps over, you know in europe

And I think that's that's a more appropriate engine, you know

But you know, it's not that the rover motor is bad per se

But be prepared for some reliability, you know challenges

That uh, you know, we didn't face with a series two cars with the the two zz toyota motors

So how does that compare to never driven one how to you know, a series two elise?

But how does that car compare to a series two elise an actual feel?

So it's it's even more nimble. Okay. It's even more tossable. Okay. It's it's a little bit more, you know, uh

Sintillating in that you get more, you know feedback from things, you know, the the car just you you know

It's it's funny when you when you peel off another

Two three four hundred pounds from a car. It's not what it was though wasn't

Wasn't a four hundred pounds lighter lighter than the s2. Yeah. Yeah. That's pretty incredible

Yeah, it really it showcased everything that company was about in my opinion and so

It's it's the one that I put up as my second choice

So more questions. I think blare and I both have a secret crush on those s ones

Uh, those cars are old enough now that you can bring bring them in legally into the united states a left hand drive one

Ideally, obviously, correct. And why are why are people not doing that?

They are they are actually doing that, you know, there there have been a number of cars that have been imported

Um in in recent, you know recently because of that and and so yeah, you'll start to see more and more of them

You know, again, it it takes a

Hardy individual who's willing to tolerate those the same, you know, reliability issues

You know, and then there's some guys that just are taking them to a cars and coffee

And they're not really doing much with them too, you know

So so you've got both varieties that are bringing them in some of who just want their collection to be

complete with an iconic lotus and and so

I think that if you plan to drive the car, you know, the good news is there are some, you know

Good vendors over in the uk that have, you know, the components that you can order and and get brought over

And as if you're handy enough, I mean the car is pretty simple. You can you can work on it yourself

All right, so blare, what would you choose?

Well, it's funny. I'm looking up right now. I'm bringing a trailer. There has only been one

Elise

One Elise s1

Uh in in the last

Well, since 2023 september of 2023, there's only been one

And there were a few of them in 2023. I wonder why there were like four of them

But it looks like they go for, you know, a nice one 25 grand. Um, I mean

The the super seven is iconic. That's the one I want to drive in scotland

That's the experience I want but look at that s1 and that picture behind shinu

I'm I'm taking the uh the Elise series one. But see this is the crate you're hitting your nail on it, brother

That's the crazy thing about these little leases just looking at it makes you happy

And you're not there's no ego vibe. It's just freedom. Isn't that what you when I'm seeing both of your guys's backdrop cars?

That's how I feel they're inspiring

It is that's that's that you just nailed it if there's just fun cars

There's no pretense. It's all about the driving experience. It's just about having fun and and and that's what you know

That's what I love about this hobby, you know

Is is that there are these cars that are there that you can just have fun and just like the the miata that's in your backdrop

You know, it's like what a fun car to drive

Tim before we get before we get your answer, which we we think we know what is coming

Are the door sills as wide as on those cars they are in an s2 because man, it's hard for me to get into an s2

Blair it's gonna keep you nimble brother. You you you gotta you know, listen man

We got to get you into some yoga or something. All right. We gotta work on these brother

Go get the fat shot up. You got glp's three that'll straighten you right up son

Okay

Yeah, the sills are wider on a series one car. It is the ingress egress is certainly harder

But blare it's gonna keep you young brother. Come on. You gotta step on you gotta step on the seat

Uh, but blare look at the ones that are on if you go to classics.com

You finding one that's left hand drive that's stateside

Those are like hens teeth rare and the ones on bat because I look uh are almost always right hand drive

Which I don't want to have to learn. I'm just you know

Unless you're in a Mitsubishi Bravo, then it's worth it, you know to rearrange your brain

But I think since you're driving at five miles an hour, so it's fine, you know

Uh, okay, so I mean, what would you choose blare for what would you oh, yeah s1 all day for me?

Yeah, I think you

Well, I mean, I'm showing my 54 triumph tr2, which the guy I bought it from made it essentially look exactly like a

Um laman car from the 50s and just did a masterful job restoring it. So I've got my old ass car

It scratched with that thing. So I definitely go with the s2. Of course, you know, it's funny to say that now the s2 is pretty old too

Yeah, yeah, you know, but I would go with the s I would go the s1. Sorry. That's definitely would be my choice

Yeah, yeah

Truly though if we were in scotland and we could rent either one of those things I would take the super seven

For a for a few days

Oh for sure. Definitely for sure. I mean that bring your rain bring your raincoat. All right. So guys, you ready?

Yep. All right. Here are my two 340 r versus s2 60 and

This is the 340 r

Oh blare is already left. All right. Okay. There's a 340 r. I that is based on the s1

Um, I've never seen

Yeah, both. Oh really? Oh, I didn't know that. Yeah. Okay. I personally

Uh, I love these cars

If you know stars align, I'm definitely going to get one and I'll probably only look at it

You know, but I mean, it's so cool that car if you guys don't know what a 340 r is imagine a

Lotus elites meets a mclaren senna meets, um lego sat. I don't know rector sat

You sent a video of this car. I mean, I can only imagine it is an absolute riot to drive

All right. Well, I'm gonna guess mr. Mapleton's driven one. Yes

I have I have that car is great. You know, it it came out what 26 years ago. Isn't that amazing?

Yeah, it just it was, you know, again one of these kind of pet projects within the company and

It the the front of the car actually also kind of

Gives you a hint of what the series two car was gonna end up looking like and so

Yeah, it's a step in car. There's no doors

You got to step over the sill over the the side of the car to get in

And drop yourself in a lot of fun

Um, you can see that side panel is kind of clear so you can kind of see through it

So those are some things that a lot of other brands, you know started to you know, incorporate into their own cars and and that naked rear where

You know that one exhaust is all exposed. Yeah, so there's an aerial atom four, you know

But that's that that has always been very very, you know, open car, you know in in that manner

Well, this these aren't my two choices

But I had a curiosity should know and Blair if you had to choose between that

An aerial atom four and I didn't like particularly the aerial atom three being honest with you

It was actually a little bit too much the road for me

I'm not a four supposedly makes it so that the it's not so oversteery twitchy

But if you had to choose between aerial atom four and the Lotus 340 r and this isn't my this or that but I'm just out of curiosity

What would you guys choose?

I'm taking a 340 r because it's it's it's I was gonna put that car up as one of my choices, but I thought it was too obscure

Um, the 340 r all day long. What about you Blair?

I would say if it comes with a mechanic

I would take the Lotus if I actually have to live with the thing for a couple of years whatever

I would take the aerial and track the crap out of it

You know, they're not that great at track cars when you go to track events. You don't see a lot of aerials, which is kind of

No, you don't it's um

So I think the that Lotus is definitely cooler. Mr. Suspension experts about to set it straight

Go ahead. No, listen. I mean guys. I bought my first atom, which was an atom two in 2007

Okay, then I got an atom three in 2010 and then I have a spec race atom that we wheel to wheel race

We ran the the the west coast winter series for for for aerial and so

I got a lot of seat time on the track and on the road with aerials of all varieties and so

Look, the atom is like a classic 9 11

It undershers turning into a corner and overseers exiting and it and you're constantly dancing with the car

You're constantly working the steering wheel if you don't like that experience

You're not going to like the atom because it feels loose. It's nervous

It's it can it we've had more than one customer the car scared them and they sold it, you know

And so it's not as predictable. Um, you know, it's rear biased

Yeah, I mean frankly and especially the earlier cars, you know, some of the suspension stuff was was just off

So the four the four has a longer wheel base, right? Isn't that the main difference? They tried to move

Go ahead. No, I think the real difference is they actually spent some time trying to engineer the

Pushrod bell crank suspension, which I think they kind of it was more of a design exercise in the past

And here they actually spent some effort

Dialing it in, you know, I can I can go talk ad nauseam about some of the some of the issues there

But the the four which we delivered a four, you know last year, you know, it's a much improved car

Significantly improved car and those cars are 100 right around there

Around 100 grand and what's the wait time on one?

Well, that's where the problem is, you know

That one took a four and a half four years, you know, another one that we had on order took over four years and seriously

That's incredible

It's ridiculous, but that's an amazing business. How many cars are they making per year?

Oh, it's not an amazing business. They're not making any money, you know, delivering taking four years to deliver a car

That's just it's it's fundamentally flawed. Yeah, there was an adam 3rs

Just sold a couple of days ago on ring a trailer and the drive video of that thing that the turbo noises that thing made

I'm with with sequential shifter. I thought now that's an experience. I would love to have

Well, just not sure I want to own one

Yeah, I'll have I get it. I picked I'm understanding. Well, so my

That that car is in my garage in our shop right now that very car that very car. Is that the one that's sold on bring a trailer?

Yeah, so this is an s 260 that someone put I think a really fetching livery on the car is originally black

I guess a matte like it, but this is an s 260 edition. It was a final edition was matte black

Yeah, I'm not going to even pretend to be an expert at this. She knew this. I'm tossing the ball to you

So an s tell us about this car

Okay, so it's it was the last of the

exeges

that

We received in the us our train, but uh intercooled supercharged to about 255 horsepower

It has the updated

Arrow so the front fascia front clam, you know has different styling from the previous exige

The rear, you know wing is more functional than the previous wings

Um, yeah, just just a great great final, you know, goodbye from lotus to the to the us market

Really really good car, but yeah that car is um in our shop at the moment the gentleman who bought it

He sent it to us and we're going through it and for the most part it was pretty good

You know, there's a few things we're changing to the car for him some reliability related things

But then also a couple of performance enhancement things as well

All right, so if you have to choose between this 340 r or this the s 260

Shanu, what are you going to choose?

340 r all day long. Okay

Blair

Is is that a supercharged?

Yeah, two zz in the 260

It is

Yeah, i'm i'd take the uh the exige and i do not think that livery is fetching at all. I think it's awesome

Well fetch fetching is good

I was

I was trying to keep it British. That's a they say fetching when somebody's there's no reason you should know that i'm just a freaking

Nerd

All right, I thought that was a derogatory term, but i'm wrong anyways

I I take the exige a little more of a car car again. I would track the crap out of it

I think they look awesome. I want that I want the intake right above my head. I would love that experience

I definitely would take the 340 r

And now so here's the ultimate this or that all three cars are up you could only choose one

I just thought of this twist. It's pretty good though. You can only choose one to take home

You have the beautiful gorgeous the lawn behind Blair

You have the s1 at least behind chenille and you have the 340 r behind me

So mr. Mapleton, which one are you taking home and you can only choose one you can't flip it

You have to keep it for 10 years. It could be your only sports car

You know look man the the 340 r because it is just that's my style of like crazy

So absolutely that car sold and bring a trailer for guess how much

50 grand

This is crazy right 70 grand, but still that looks like a really

Stupid crazy fun amazing way to spend 70 grand

All right, Blair if you have to choose between one of the three what you're gonna choose

Well, if it's good enough for gordon murray, it's good enough for me

and I would take the lotus a lawn and would just

Hoon that thing up the mountains in utah and that

The 340 r is cool. Just not i'm on a little more beautiful car ideally fair enough. Yeah. Yep. I

That's good logic. Nope. That's not beautiful

It is not and I would choose the 340 r. All right. Do you guys have

Time for a listener question. You guys want to hold off on this one for next week

It's fine. Let's do it. Yeah, let's do it

Okay, we've got actually a lot of listener questions and most of which I just answer myself

If you guys have any listener questions when you're in the newsletter at fullthralltalk.com

If you hit subscribe that goes to me and so I'll just oftentimes if it's a simple question

I'll just answer it. Otherwise, I'm going to save some of them and I put them in our spreadsheet

We use them for the show. All right. I'm going to go to the first one because it's the easiest one

Cars we regret selling that we would buy again

So, you know, you get to go first you have to choose just choose one for the sake of time

Yeah, a 74 Alfa Romeo g tv

Damn, didn't you have to think about it?

Wow, my my second daughter still gives me a hard time about selling

Old little alfie as she referred to Alfa Romeo g tv Alfa Romeo g tv

So that was a spider or you have to help me out here. Wasn't it julia? Yeah, it's a coop

Gorgeous cars. It was a julia though, right?

Um, I don't think it's the julia. Um, is that like a g tv 1600 or a two? No previous to all that. Um

So it's it's basically if you see here, let me let me bring a picture for you guys because

You'll when you see it, you'll recognize it. It's the classic

g tv cars and

In fact, here's one that looks very similar to the one. By the way, there's the 67 s after we restored it

I was telling you guys about it earlier. There it is. Um, oh, yeah, nice

All right, so well while he's pulling that up. Thank you. Maybe I'll say I am so

The the Porsche Colt is getting crazy and I'm like, maybe I should have just hung on to my 3 2

It was it was like so sorted

But the car I will say is my 2002 e46 m3 in phoenix yellow. It had like 20,000 miles on it and

I should have I was babing it too much. So I wanted to sell the car

Um, I if I could go back in time, I would I would just keep that car and just

Beat on it use it like crazy and just keep it make it what I wanted

Okay, so the show is showing is alpha. Is that the actual one?

That's well, no, that's not the actual one, but that's you know a 74 g tv. So

Yeah, it's it's one of the classics. They they they sell for a lot of money. Um

There's uh this this rest of mod company in the uk alpha

Alphaholics, yeah, oh, yeah

Incredible version of that. Yeah

So I'm almost sure and alpha experts out there feel free to make fun of me for not more knowing more about this

By the way, we do have an alpha. It's actually julia's car her uh julia quadrifoglio right there

That's great color. By the way, tim. I love that. Isn't it awesome?

Oh, yeah, it's such a sweet car if you guys ever have an opportunity to drive one of those

You absolutely want to drive one of those so much fun

I've driven a two liter

Sport, you know, but never the quadrifoglio drive the quadrifoglio because it's everything that jeremy clerkson says it is

In terms of the actual experience driving it. So it's just absolute fun

Um, I don't remember what you're talking about

So what's the car you regret? Oh, well, alpha holics, which is the secret of Alfa Romeo and

Unbelievable

Yeah, you know, it's interesting. I've written some articles on for full throttle talk about all these rest no mods

They either like I was really curious what they do in resale and you there's enough data points out there

And what do you guys think? Where do you guys think? Oh, do you think these resto rods of resto?

You know nice alphas and porches and all the rest of it. What do you think those things do on resale?

Do you think they hold their value lose value or increase in value with your perception?

They go up in value or at least hold it for sure

Is that your perception?

That's my perception. Yeah, that's my I think so too because of what modern cars are

It's like, well, if you if you want something that awesome

You can wait in line for five years or you just got to buy somebody's and pay up for it

Most of them lose value

And I was really surprised by that and the reason that they lose value is because people want to have build their own

And the more personalized some of these resto rods have become and singer i'm talking about you

The the harder it is uh to find somebody who wants what your perception of great taste is in the car

They want to buy and so they'll just get in line and buy it

So someone willing to pay a million dollars for a resto at 964 is going to line it exactly the way that they want it

There will be a business opportunity for someone in the future to take some of these

Restor-rided cars

Pagani is doing this you can send your Pagani over to um and Porsche is starting to do this with the 918

You can send your car to Pagani and Pagani will completely strip the chassis down and remake it exactly the way you want it

Did you guys know that they're doing that?

Yeah, they should I mean that that's something that makes sense. Yeah, absolutely

So what do you ever get away?

Yeah, you're you you you've coined a new term that I'd never heard resto rod

You know most of us say resto mod, but um, I actually kind of like the resto rod

You know that that's I would I'd never heard that one. I would have gotten it right, but I'm out of coffee

I love my lovely coffee assistant just went to pick up the kid

So I don't have anybody to keep me uh

Completely infused. All right, so I have many that I regret selling and there's one of them. That's a 2000

Yes, the pista and uh, so we sold that you know and then I've but I've got a whole host of cars

I regret selling that one. I definitely miss um

Why what do you miss about that car versus other ferrari's you've had?

Well, I mean there's personal attachment to it because

Ferrari abused us before we could get one. So there's that

Okay, and Julie and I got to pick to select all this the what nots on so had we not been moving to Puerto Rico

I'd still have that car because when you bring a car like that

That's not a hybrid or a plug-in and into Puerto Rico

They'll charge you 30 of what they think it's worth

You have to pay an excise tax on top of whatever cost and so that's the reason when you see a piece in Puerto Rico

Which there are some they're extraordinarily expensive, but I I miss that car that car felt special

The special special ferrari's feel really really really special

I'm not sure if the new ones are going to feel that way, but the old ones definitely did

Um, I was doing a track day with the Porsche club once and there was a guy who brought his pista out there

And that was so cool. And I can't imagine many

Pista owners are doing that with their cars, but man, what I had a scooter ria that I regret selling

I have a had a two night or a 997 a gt3 rs that I regret selling

But I'd not really regret selling to the extent that are the ferrari's, you know

But yeah, a long list. I regret selling my o5 at least honestly. I wish I still had that orange car. That was a great car

I mean, I don't want to start crying. So I'm not going to go down my my road of regrets. We want to see you cry

Let's keep going. Let's really dig into this, you know, Julie

We're we're doing some hiring in one of our businesses and one of the questions that I ask is

Um, can you tell me a mistake you made and what you like?

What'd you learn from it? Right?

And so if the person when answering the question can't remember a mistake that they made

You pretty much don't want to hire that person and the person immediately pops up with a list of mistakes that they made

That's way too long. You don't want to hire that person

You want to hire the person's you want to hire the person's

Contemplative and then they come up with something really thoughtful and tell you what they learned from it

Which is like one out of a hundred people that actually think like that

But when Julie asked me what you know, she asked me that very question

I said, well, I regret selling like 20 cars and she goes, oh really what cars?

I just knew exactly what they were and she didn't say anything. So anyway

Uh, yes. All right, so I'll go on to a next. Did we go? Oh, I think we asked everyone, didn't we?

Cars you regret selling?

Yes, okay. All right. So this one's a long one and now that the real okay. This is someone. I'll just summarize this there. Um

Someone who secured an allocation for a new gt3 touring

I'm concerning other options due to significant increases in cost due to price hikes tariffs walking

Walking the fine line between I can or should I because well financially I can comfortably afford it

I'm still struggling to rock my head around purchasing it and now I'm I think he meant a new car for $300,000

That was once in the low 200s. Um, he goes on to say this would be a fourth vehicle in my household

I'm not a daily driver or anything I could track serves the whole purposes of cruising with my family back road trips and road trips

And he kind of goes into some more detail, but I find myself going

Back and forth on the question of should I be considering?

buying

I'm summarizing here is the touring versus say for example a 9 11 t

And that's the essence of his question. So let's just the other thing he said about the t which is

Why I don't love the idea. He said I can buy a t for 180 and dump a bunch of money into modifying it making it faster

And still be a hundred grand ahead

and that was

So, you know with that in mind, maybe I'll start and just go for it say well

First of all, I mean it sounds like he can't afford the gt3 touring

But he's having a hard time wrapping his mind around having that much money tied up in that car

And it's a fourth car

I would say by neither of these things, you know, don't forget the hype with the touring right now incredible car

I love those, you know, I think they're the best modern sports car on sale because you can get a manual with it

Again, I would take a winged car, but nonetheless

And I kind of hate the idea of buying a t

And trying to make it faster and and and more performant. So I would say do neither of those things

I don't know what your other three are. I would for a fourth car

I'd go buy a 987 boxer spider. I would go buy a 356

I would go buy a lotus salon, you know that not going to be popular with the Porsche

So I say do neither it sounds like he doesn't love either of those options

So just go buy an older Porsche of some kind and make it fun

What you said at the top of really, I think what's if no one wants to say out loud

But you did say it and and I agree with you is there is a price point

There is a a point where cars are getting to you know, where they're just too valuable to drive

When you have to start running it through the filters of miles and condition and all these other things when you're when buying it

Automatically puts you into a mindset of losing money. It really does suck the fun out of the game. I think

You know if you have to think like that. So what do you think chanel? What do you think he should do?

Look, he says he can afford it if driving a manual gearbox is important to him

Um, that engine is something special and he can order exactly what he wants and he can enjoy it

You know, he's gonna feel some pain when he strokes that check

But the memories that he's going to you know gain from owning that car again

Assuming he's actually going to take those back road trips and enjoy the car with his family

He can afford it do it man. I mean, it's a cool special car

No one's going to ever look at that car and say this is lame. I mean look a 911 t is okay

It's a turboed car. It doesn't sound frankly that great in my opinion

And you're paying a lot of money to get yourself into a 911

I would actually argue that that's less of a value because of those reasons

um, you know getting a naturally aspirated

manual gearbox

911 that people still covet and look up to and say it's cool

He can have a you know a wonderful time. I say go for it man stroke the check, you know, don't look back

You're gonna have a great time with that car

If he asked to choose the two of them and he can't go with neither of the above

I agree with chanel. Yeah, just just spend the money and get the gt3 not the modified t

Okay, so I've had I've had one

I had a 992 touring when they first came out a friend of mine

You guys remember the white collection that guy that had all those white porches

All right, so I've known I've known him forever and he was a Porsche VIP. So he would sell me his allocations

That's how I got my spider by the way

Um, yeah for sometimes he'd give him to me, but sometimes he'd sell them to me

He and you didn't like that car. I didn't like it at all. Honestly. I didn't like the nine

And I'll tell you why and this and I'm answering this guy's question directly

He specifically says back road family use all the rest of it awful car for that the noise and I'm not talking about the engine noise

the

If you don't get the back seats one of those cars the noise that comes from those tires

And I know you're gonna say I had the wrong tires on it and maybe it did but the noise that

It dominates the whole experience. So if you're driving that car and you're thinking it's gonna it's it's not a gt car

It's not a grand touring car. That is a gt3 with no wing. Do not fool yourself

Okay, that is not a car that's going to be comfortable going on a long trip on and furthermore

I'll say is that the gt the 992

With the rear steer and all that noise is a vastly

I'm gonna make mad people mad, but it's my own opinion and my own experience inferior to the 991.2 touring. So

Answering your question. I wouldn't get the tip. Go ahead. Sorry

Would you rather have a modified t or you're also going for plan c or option c none of the above

I I personally think the 911 I personally think the 911 t is awesome

And I think if you can get one that's a little bit a couple baselines above a stripper

That's a great car

But I'll tell you what I would do personally and you guys were focusing on the manual thing

Did he actually say he only wants a manual because you guys were both cluing in on that?

I don't think he did. I mean, why would he choose that car otherwise?

Well, the reason I didn't okay, so behind me

Is what I would choose. I would go for okay

So by the way the nine the touring the 992 tourings are selling for I don't even know what those things are selling for now

300 grand. I think he's right. Okay. I would get

That not the speedster because those things are now going for huge money. I have both of those cars

I would get the 718 spider rs

All day that car for me is a brilliant freaking car. It has the same motor in it

You know, I know it's not a manual. I adore that thing

I mentioned it earlier and then probably what I would get if I were to

Maybe talk them into getting two cars because after all if you have four you might as well get five

um is maybe that 992 touring now it boosts his price range up or

a uh, I used 991

T or not. Yeah, that's it didn't 91.2 T. There you go

Those would be probably my choices and you can get one of those for 115 grand and there you go

I will say tim the first time I drove a 992 dot one gt3 touring. I was a little

Underwhelmed and and why it wasn't so much. I didn't notice the noise as much

But I like road noise obnoxious noise. You don't want to hear kind of noise

What bothered me is I felt like

Everything felt so light

It this is gonna sound so blasphemous the clutch the steering the shifter

I got shades of my golf gti like

I want more mechanical. I want

I want more visceral and so why the other thing I think for a fourth car

We don't know what your cars one two and three are and maybe they're not all sports cars

Maybe it's a couple of dailies and whatever so I think gt3's modern gt3's are not good

fourth

Toys I think they're good like

Alternative to your daily that you can use all the time because they're getting

Fairly refined with a killer motor in the back of it. The last thing I'll say is I drove the 992.2 gt3

I think they improved the shifter. It's it feels better. I've got the st

Yeah, right exactly. Yeah, and so I really like both those cars

But I was a little underwhelmed and the refinement I felt in that touring

I was like, well, of course, this is a rad car. But for 300 grand

My goodness, you can do a lot of stuff with that. What would you do one car for 300 grand?

We'll start wrapping up the show. What would you do? I agree with everything you just said, by the way

If it is a fourth car, it's not special enough

If it was my fourth car, I would I would go 997 gt3 rs, you know dot one 300 grand buys you

one of those all day long but

It sounds like he wants to get the family in it. He wants to do some touring in it

Maybe but I would not do 992 at all if it was a special car that I just

Wanted to preserve value on no way. Yep. So one 300 thousand dollar car. What are you gonna go with?

So I haven't driven the 992 touring but I did drive the 991 touring

Which I liked and I I think you can get one for about 300 grand. So that's where that's where my money would go

I think I think actually those cars are now

Holding pretty strong around 250 260. You know what though when the hell did that become not becoming an enormous amount of money

I mean did something happen? Tell me about it. Yeah

It doesn't even make and this is what I will always say it's one of my big gripes and I like

Air-cooled cars that don't have wings and I like the shape of a 911

But if you're gonna buy a gt3 get down for us and take it to the track put a wing on it and go track it

100% I agree. I'm not a big touring guy in gt3. But the touring isn't a touring car. That's the thing

So get a wing on it and go and go beat the crap out of it. Yeah, it's all relative fellas

When you're used to like small lightweight, you know cars, uh, the gt3 is a touring car. Okay

She knew it's that's true. She knew it's staying on brand. So listen guys. That was full throttle talk for this week

Thank you for listening to us. Thank you for watching us

If you have any show ideas, please make sure you send them to us

You can just you know, when you subscribe to the newsletter, make sure you're subscribing to the newsletter hit reply

We get your show ideas and your questions or you can message us over on instagram guys. Thank you for a fun time

I really appreciate it. What do you guys want to talk about next week? Anything top of mind?

cars

Cars and forest has got to be cars, right?

Maybe some motorcycles. Yeah, I want to hear more about that thing

All right, I'll send you I'll post some ideas and what's happened. You guys tell me what you think we'll vote cool

Awesome. All right. It's great. Have a great week. See you guys fight

About this episode

The podcast dives into a variety of automotive topics including personal car projects, with a focus on a unique 996 Porsche road rally build designed for rough canyon roads. The hosts discuss the merits of the 996 as an affordable, capable 911 option and share insights on tuning and customization, including controversial styling choices. They also touch on the challenges of buying and selling cars, sharing personal experiences and advice. Alongside this, there's casual banter about recent car purchases, automotive news, and a special segment on Lotus models, providing a blend of technical discussion and enthusiast storytelling.

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Original notes

This week on Full Throttle Talk, the crew dives into one of the most debated questions in the automotive world: Are electric vehicles actually the future… or the biggest scam ever pushed on car enthusiasts? We break down the economics, the narratives, and what the shift toward EVs really means for people who love driving. But that’s only the beginning. We also discuss why legendary Porsche collector Magnus Walker is selling part of his collection — and whether this signals a broader shift happening in the collector car market. This Episode Covers: What We Did In Cars This Week Blair spent the weekend with a Kei van… and ended up buying one. He also drove a Ford Shelby GT500, proving once again that the best automotive experiences are often the most unexpected ones. Automotive News We discuss several developments shaking up the industry: • The disappearance of the controversial start/stop button • Plans for Caterham to expand in the United States • Early looks at the fully electric Volkswagen Golf Mk9 And the bigger question behind it all: What happens to driving culture if everything becomes electric? It’s Time To Sell Your Car — Now What? Eventually every enthusiast faces the same decision: How do you sell a car the right way? We break down the real pros and cons of: • Consignment • Wholesale to a dealer • Selling privately • Online auctions like Bring a Trailer Including the hidden costs, misaligned incentives, and why some cars should never go to consignment. This or That — Lotus Edition We debate some Lotus models that could become the next collector breakouts. Tim compares: • Lotus Elise 340R vs • Lotus Exige S 260 Blair looks at: • Lotus Esprit S4 vs • Lotus Elan S4 Which of these could quietly become the next big collector cars? Listener Question: The $300K Porsche Dilemma A listener secured an allocation for a Porsche 911 GT3 Touring, but rising prices and tariffs are pushing the cost toward $300,000. The dilemma: Buy the GT3 Touring… or buy a Carrera T, modify it, and keep six figures in the bank? We break down the psychology of enthusiast purchases, regret math, and how to think about high-end car decisions. If you love: • Analog sports cars • Collector car market insights • Honest enthusiast conversations • And smart automotive ownership decisions This episode is for you. Subscribe to Full Throttle Talk and join the conversation. 🚗🔥

Full Throttle Talk

Tim Harris

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