Cheap Tesla FSD Insurance?; Corvette E-Ray Review; Q&A

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All right, folks, on this episode of the program,

I am in Sedona, Arizona on a scout in the Corvette Eray,

while Zach is at home scratching his balls.

We talk about a new insurance that might cover Tesla's FSD.

And we hypothesize about what to do with a free trailer,

which is a very real possibility.

It's the Smoking Tire podcast.

Let's go.

Oh, boy, fucking hell.

What's up?

I am in a much nicer hotel than this lobby makes it look like I am.

I love this lobby makes it look like I'm sitting in a Hampton Inn

and I'm really in an O'Bear.

I don't know the difference, but I know that behind you,

there's just like, you know, the dark, dark fake wood and that's all I see.

So it looks like you're sitting, you know, in your like your armoire

inside your hotel room.

Yeah, kind of.

But like the way what happened was, you see, I'm on this scout for Rodentrack.

I'm doing 1,300 miles in four days in a Corvette Eray.

And so yesterday, I drove 520 miles, the same, the same, no longer than you

and I did in the Porsche Turbo because we drove highway.

So I drove the Eray to Vegas and then I did Valley of Fire.

And then I drove the Highway Canyon to St.

George and then I drove the back roads into Zion.

So I left my house yesterday at five 15 a.m.

And I arrived.

I did not.

I took a break for breakfast in Baker at Denny's.

I posted that picture on Instagram.

I don't think that Denny's has heat, by the way.

I have never been so cold inside of a restaurant in my life.

The consistency of the cheesy eggs is unmatched.

But but but it was I had to go back out to the car to get my jacket.

And it was like, I think not even as cold.

Were they doing that thing with, you know, they're running AC as if it's packed

and they're like accounting for all the body heat.

But there's one over there.

He's made. Yeah.

Or or it's like the guy standing over the grill also has control over the control.

Maybe that's a problem.

You know, so I got I left my house at five 15.

I made it to Baker by.

Seven like I was flying early early morning.

Nobody on the road seven thirty not irresponsible, but just on an unimpeded

motion, you know what I mean?

That type of drive.

And stop for breakfast.

And then I just kept going the whole rest of the way.

I didn't stop other than for gas the rest of the way.

Made it to Zion at about three.

So that was like, you know, ten hours or so driving yesterday.

Yeah, I hit the gym dinner and the place I went to dinner had no alcohol.

So I had a 20 M.G.

And I went to bed at eight thirty and I was wide awake at about four forty five

this morning and like ready to go.

The first breakfast place opened at seven.

So I did some writing and had coffee, got a breakfast burrito.

The second this place unlocked the doors and I was on my way.

And I thought I could get an early check in here in Sedona so that we could do

the podcast and I could be in like my room.

And when I got here, no one knew anything about the early check-in that I requested.

And rather than just being like, nah, your room isn't going to be ready by this time.

They were like, maybe it will be.

So I had a very stressful hour of maybe it will be, maybe it will be before

coming down here to this coffee room, a coffee bar where I am now.

And like people are just like passing by over here on the stairs

and probably be on loud and shit.

When when you do the scout stuff, like you're driving a route you've pre-planned,

obviously, but do you need to stop and take notes about things?

Is that slow your down or do you only stop if there's a problem that needs to be marked?

Well, so most frequently.

So I make the route in Google Maps, right?

First and generally, like I'm pretty sure it's going to be good.

But also I need to like, you know, find a coffee shop, find a gas station, find this,

you know, find a good place to take a big group photo, find a place for our photographer

to set up for like a group drive-by shop with a big background.

And so most of the time that one's actually the hardest.

And I'll tell you why.

And you would know this, but the audience may not.

The photographer is going to want to shoot the front of our cars,

meaning they want a background.

So as I'm driving, what I'm seeing in the front of me isn't what they're going to be looking behind me.

So I'm looking for a backdrop that's in my mirrors.

You know what I mean?

So if a photographer is shooting at the nose, then whatever's behind them.

So and then I just use not voice notes, but the notes app in the phone and like voice to text.

And then I can I just make little short, handy comments.

And then when I get to the hotel, I turn that my little short,

handy comments into like a document that I send back to the events team.

But I do I stop and take photos of like the car in pretty places so that I can

like promote the thing on Instagram.

But as far as like prepping for the route, it's like, like, for instance,

the place I thought we were going to have lunch yesterday turns out they don't serve fucking lunch.

There's a dinner restaurant.

And so so you know, you have to figure out, you know, OK, well, that's that's a no go.

So like, where where are we going to eat?

Whatever. So it's stuff like that.

But generally, the couple of stops I have to make

are offset by the fact that just by nature of me being a solo car,

I'm going to be able to go a little quicker than a group of 20 cars can go.

Of course. You know what I mean?

So it offsets. It's close enough.

I usually get we usually get pretty good.

I usually can we get it to the minute these drives.

We get it pretty tight. It's nice. Wow.

Yeah, like a Swiss. It's pretty tight.

Yeah, we get it. We've we've we've done enough of them now.

And today's drive was like pretty sick.

I mean, you've done some of it.

You know, wake up in Springdale, you at the entrance to Zion.

So the first thing you do is you go up, go up the wall of the park

and, you know, at sunrise, just epic.

And then that other bit, you know, on the other side of the tunnel,

the north side of the Zion Mount Carmel Tunnel is actually like super sick

for about 10, 15 miles, a little icy this morning for the array.

So that was fun.

It's a good thing you had all the drive.

All it'll drive helps, but PS4S is when it's 22 degrees can only do so much.

I didn't have any whoopsies,

but I had a little bit of a little bit of a puckery slide under breaking.

You could just tell that the compound was really hard

and not kind of not gripped up because the tarmac there is very good.

So the road was very the road was very cold.

I mean, it was like it felt like, I mean, I was there at it was it was the first.

You know, I've got my breakfast burrito at 7 a.m.

Sunrise was 7 first light was 7 15 sunrise was 7 34.

So like I was out there like at first light.

I was like the first first set of tracks on this road.

It was a little bit.

It was a cold.

You know, you could feel a road is cold.

It was like that. Yeah. Yeah.

Beautiful. But the but the drive that drive.

You go today, you go through like the drive from Zion to Sedona.

You go through like four different climates and

the shift from one climate happens like incredibly like abruptly.

Like you're in a forest and you like go around a corner and and it's just.

End of end of trees.

You know what I mean?

Yeah, corner, corner, corner and like now what now you're in an open desert.

You know what I mean?

And then you like all of a sudden you're in a desert and like dip down into a

valley and then it's like lush, you know, rivers and whatnot.

It's pretty pretty pretty amazing drive.

It's amazing. It's there.

And I did that road trip last year.

We drove from Atlanta home and the drive from like through Moab and then

dropping into Zion was just the most amazing change within a few hours.

Like you said, desert to like high forest than dropping into Zion.

If anyone, if you're listening and you like make the time to do that

at some point in your life, it's fantastic. Yeah.

This and this route is like it's really interesting.

I think I think the passengers will really like it because you have

some fast sections and you have some very pretty sections and they're like

not the same like you have to go kind of slow during the pretty sections

where they're like very tight and technical like through Zion.

And then also as you go down the wall into Sedona from the north,

like that's a busy road.

You just can't drive fast, but it's stunningly beautiful.

And you can you can trust that with like the open desert runs

because it's like windy, windy, windy, windy, windy and then like a 10 mile

straight away and then windy, windy, windy, windy, windy and then like

another 10 mile straight away.

And so you can go quick and then there's like pretty sections,

but they're not like the same.

So it's the kind of event where like passengers are not going to get,

you know, like nauseous.

Yeah. I mean, I think in some ways the person driving through a spot like Zion,

they kind of miss out because they have to focus on what the road ahead of them,

the cars ahead of them.

They can't look up at those amazing walls the way the passenger can.

Yeah.

So that's a little treat for everybody.

It's a real like top down section, you know.

Yeah.

And then tomorrow morning, I'm going to bust out of here early,

because that's what I do.

And I'm going to Scottsdale because the event ends at Otto,

my my my partner facility in Scottsdale, Eli's place.

We're going to end there and it's a beautiful route from here to there.

We're going to go through Jerome, which is this funny, funky little town

up on the side of a cliff in Arizona.

It's amazing road up and over it.

And then, you know, it's Barrett Jackson week in Scottsdale.

So I didn't even know that.

Didn't even know it.

And so our pal, Mike Musto is in Scottsdale.

So I'm actually if I get there early enough,

if I drive quickly and efficiently, it's like five hours driving from here.

So if I get there early afternoon, we could do a little Barrett Jackson,

maybe waste a little money on some stupid.

You definitely need a third project car.

No, we don't need a car, but I'm hoping to go down in the sideshow

and maybe get another set of bamboo sheets like last time.

You can get those like on the Internet.

That's so funny that you can't bear Jackson.

No, we have.

I was the first place I bought them.

Yeah, it's just like of all the things like I was thinking

car stuff, tires, wheels, maybe maybe like crocodile boots you'd find there.

But you're like, no, no, no, I want to get the same things I can get at Creighton Barrel.

The good ones are outside of car auction.

For sure. No, maybe maybe like a massage chair, maybe a fan boat.

I mean, I don't even know.

And once if I look, if this if this trailer deal comes through,

bro, our troubles are over.

Very true.

Are you buying used used sheets there that were like slept in by Tony

Stewart or some some fans person you like?

Like, is that what you're buying there?

Truthfully, sheets to sniff.

No, I'm not like sniffing.

Sniffable sheets.

People buy like Elvis's pants.

You know, you're out there buying, you know, Scorsese's bamboo.

I wasn't searching for sheets.

I was just happened to see some very soft sheets.

And I was like, these are fucking good.

So funny.

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No, but speaking of it, so this trailer thing, right?

So let's workshop this for a second.

So I have an opportunity to advertise for a company that makes really high quality

trailers, race trailers.

And Zach and I don't like need a trailer today.

We don't need a trailer today, but like long term having a trailer is like a great idea.

Absolutely.

And if if we can trade some advertising for a trailer, well, that's way better

than spending our own money on a trailer, right, especially like a good trailer.

OK, so we have this opportunity to trade for trailer.

OK, and that's cool.

But the reason it came up is because we're, you know, we're doing the ice

race with the Manx, the fat ice race in Montana in February.

And Philip Seraphim, owner of Manx, has has kindly offered to put the car

on his transporter with all his other whatever the fuck he's sending up there.

Who knows?

Probably some probably like the strato zeros put studs on some concept car

that doesn't exist, so he's offered to transport the car.

And we could fly up there and rent a car.

And that'll be that the car will be there.

Or if we get a free trailer, then Zach and I would get some kind

of delightfully luxurious tow vehicle and tow the car up there ourselves.

It's one thousand seventy five miles each way.

It's far. I mean, essentially, we would have to go.

Most of the way to Salt Lake City, the first day.

You know, it's it's it's like it's like it's most of the way to Salt Lake City.

So it's it's it would be two days each way of just fucking driving.

Now, there's, I suppose, maybe a story in that, depending on what we're towing with.

If we use if we steal like Vinnie's like mobile Starlink thing,

we could probably do maybe something fun on Patreon or I don't know what.

But maybe something with like a better live stream from the car.

But it seems like a fucking and then it would save at least two of us

from buying plane tickets, which are expensive.

And it would save us from having to rent another car, which is expensive.

Or and or get from Bozeman to Big Sky, which is expensive, but like.

But also, asterisk number three is that is that.

The ice race is the 27th and 28th.

I don't know what's on Sunday, the first.

It seems like everybody's leaving to go home on Sunday, the first.

And the event is really Friday, Saturday.

But I've been invited on the Valhalla launch, the Aston Valhalla launch,

which is the invite said March 3rd to 5th in Spain.

So I assume that means.

I leave LA on the 3rd and then land well on the 4th.

I hope it doesn't mean I leave a lot of words, but then you'd have.

But then what you know, usually you don't drive the car the day you land.

So, yeah, I don't yeah, you should get I don't really know.

I need to get I need to figure it out.

Otherwise, I'd have to I'd have to it's really not possible.

Otherwise, I'd leave you, I'd fly from Bozeman and leave you up there

to trailer this thing back all the way and now it's stink.

Can you see this now at all working?

I can see it. Yeah. And I believe you, me.

Aston said, you know, look, we we we want to get you on this drive program.

But to be perfectly honest, this is the only opportunity you're going to get.

There's not going to be press cars in the US.

So if you want to drive Valhalla, this is it.

So yeah.

Yeah, I mean, yeah, I think I'm inclined to say we

ship the car with Philip because, yeah, there are times where I would love to just

like I would tow the car back myself and have like a nice solo trip

because it goes past Yellowstone.

It's a gorgeous drive like this is such an awesome drive.

But I'm losing two days where I can't edit, produce the show,

like do all the other things.

I'm just like sitting in the car the whole time.

Whereas if we do it together with your content, I can edit you listen to music, whatever.

Oh, yeah, no, there's no world in which I abandon you to do this on your own.

That's that's not an option.

Yeah, I know there are times where it would be fun

and there's times where it would just be stressful.

But I think the Valhalla is such a rad opportunity.

And I understand they're not going to press cars, of course not.

Like it's just the liability is insane.

Yeah, it seems it seems like it's a very good problem to have.

But it seems like the press car access might take the cake here.

I think going on the Valhalla program

because you it's not like, look, let's be honest, if it was a Ferrari program,

I'd be like, hmm, I'm spending a lot of money to go to ice race.

I really want to enjoy that, you know, but Aston's programs, you drive a lot.

It's a lot of nature, you know, like, and I'm not talking about the cars.

Forget the cars, Ferrari cars, anyone's cars.

Forget that. I'm talking about an international program.

If I'm flying my ass all the way to Spain for two days,

which is on the one hand baller and on the other hand, exhausting.

I want I want a lot of seat time in the car.

I mean, that's why I want to go. I don't I don't.

And Aston doesn't fuck around with that kind of stuff.

I've I've been everything I've ever gone on with them.

It's tons of seat time.

Yeah, you get a lot of driving, you get a lot of you get a lot of content

opportunities, but you get a lot of good content opportunities with.

I mean, the only one I've been on, like they said, here you go.

Like you have four hours of open track, but no one else is the coffee machine

has just started cleaning itself.

I'm sorry for everybody that has to listen to that.

It's funny, it's the second time it's done it.

So what I mean, this is a dirty machine.

Fucking nasty.

And of course, I'm drinking a cappuccino right now.

So about to get fucking tuberculosis or something.

I think that machine was made by Volkswagen

because it's cleaning itself a lot.

It runs pretty dirty.

Um, that's tough.

So anyway, you know, getting a trailer would be rad because it opens the door

for drift car, track car, whatever, or just moving my car around when it's broken.

And also, well, I'm very gorgeous for the record.

I don't think one is contingent on the other.

The deal was not I'm I have to trailer the car to ice race in order to get the trailer.

That's that was a that was a they approached us about advertising.

I was like, oh, good timing because I have to get a car to, you know, far away.

There's a million other things we could do with a trailer.

But it's really mean, you know, what?

It's too bad my wife got a job because otherwise, if we if we all three went,

like she and I would tow the car back, like bring the dog.

I saw the ice races dog friendly.

And then you could like fly it to Valhalla, the car, not the actual,

you know, mystical place.

Yeah, it's funny.

I don't know.

So I'll wait until we I've told all the parties about what the moving pieces are.

Unfortunately, I think probably the smart play is to just fly

and and and do something else with the trailer.

You know, like we could because drift car, race car,

we could actually get like side by side or like a Sierra

like something, you know, not street legal.

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Like something, you know, not street legal that was very cheap and like insanely fun.

You know, I think I think like a Sierra would be.

Kind of where it's at, actually, you know, so rad.

They started doing a hill climb class with them.

I think in Florida, Christy Plessy, you know,

formerly ran Monticello and now he runs one of the new country club tracks down in

Florida. I can't remember the one in Florida.

I think it's called P1.

Yeah.

And they they have Sierra cars there and he's put up some videos of running hill

climbs with them, which seems like the funnest thing you could do.

Like running one of those at a small hill climb or Pikes Peak or Virginia City

hill climb would be so rad.

For a hill climb, a tarmac hill climb, I'd rather run a legend's car if we're

talking about small motorcycle powered stupid, stupid cars.

A Sierra car is set up for dirt.

That's not set up for tarmac.

You want to drive that dirt.

I think they work for both and they have long travel.

So if the road is kind of jittery, it's almost like a rally car.

But I think I saw on Instagram, a guy put 35s on a Sierra.

It might have been I don't think it was a it's not the kind of thing that was AI.

It was just a Sierra with bigger tires on it.

Like it didn't seem.

Not only they have tiny wheels.

That's amazing.

I think he just put bigger wheels and bigger tires.

It looked like I mean, it looked like they were like regular, you know,

four runner tires or something.

But on a Sierra, they look pretty beastie.

I mean, the buggies are doing well at King of Hammers.

Well, what we could do because the Sierra's are small and so are the legend's

cars is we could bring a Sierra car and a legend's car to a Virginia City hillclimb

and we'd see who would who would run quicker.

I think that's a fantastic idea.

It would get 10.

One of us would win and the other would die.

Is that.

Yeah, no, it would it would get it would get single digit views.

I'm down.

Yeah, we're going to exclusively do things that get no traffic from here on out.

Just say not because that's what we're choosing to do.

That's just yeah, that's just where we are.

Yeah, that's where we're headed anyway.

So it might as well really lead in.

Yeah, buddy.

So like we might as well do Sierra cars or something.

Right. Yeah, that's a good idea.

What is what do Sierra's go for?

The Echo R spec.

These are sold for eighty five thousand.

What? That's how much they cost?

These are the I think Echo R spec.

This is the new electric one, I think.

Used Echo S is forty eight.

That's why is that so much?

Isn't the Sierra car or isn't a legends car like twenty grand?

That's where we need to be.

Yeah, that's what we want.

That's too expensive.

I thought these things were cheap.

I must be wrong.

Like legends cars like twenty five grand.

I don't know, maybe, maybe I was wrong.

Anyway, yeah, once we have a trailer,

it opens the door to all manner of silliness.

But then it's a slippery slope because then I got to buy a fucking truck.

You know that's true.

Well, I mean, yeah, there's there's all kinds of like legitimate business reasons

to buy a truck, but you know, but you got to make sure that I really need one

for moving things around.

Do you want to move?

Do you guys want to move things around all that stuff?

That's that's a lot.

Not really. Not when you say you guys, if you mean like WCCS, like, no,

I do not want to trailer people shit around.

No, that's what I mean.

Right now, I mean, right now I make money on transport.

You know what I mean?

Like right now, like if I if I book a flatbed for a client,

like I get I get a 20 percent rip on that and and the flatbed company assumes all

the risk, right? So like, why do I want to trailer anybody shit around?

Like, no, I want to trailer my own shit places so that like I can take the

banks on vacation or whatever.

But you know,

I think

it's harder to make the business case for TST

alone, the latter.

Well, only if it's to get a truck to get a truck.

No, it doesn't make any sense.

Long term test vehicle, Matt Farah.

That's the pitch we have to make.

Well, I mean, look, these trailers are light.

That's true.

There could be a long term test vehicle with a commitment to tow the trailer

around for a certain number of times.

I mean, we could I mean, look, we could, you know, try to.

I mean, this would be a fucking huge waste of money,

but we could like try to like race in some kind of a series, you know,

or or something.

I bet.

Well, a legend series is probably a pretty, pretty cheap entry.

You know, you can get one of those for like $12,000.

Right.

So I would ask I would ask Graham to lend us one for that's a better idea.

Yeah, that's exactly that.

See, maybe that's the thing.

Maybe we could find hill climbs in California.

Have Graham send us a legend's car and just take that thing around and run hill

climbs like that could be really fun.

If if if that's a thing that actually exists.

I mean, other than the Virginia City hill climb,

I don't know what hill climbs exist.

Well, there was a North there's a NorCal legend series.

Oh, really?

There are races here.

Yeah. That was last year.

Oh, OK.

Well, more further research is warranted, but like not a terrible plan.

There I mean, there there could be an argument for a long term test vehicle.

There's also like I don't want one, but like if I I wouldn't buy a truck.

But if I if I had to get some kind of SUV with it with towing capacity,

like to use as a car, like it wouldn't be ideal for me.

But like, you know, at least it would be like a multi-purpose thing,

not just like a truck that like sits there collecting dust for the other 50 weeks

a year, I'm not towing, you know?

Very good point.

Yeah.

Uh, but either way, a free trailer sounds fucking money.

Yeah, nice trailer.

Enclosed, enclosed race hauler.

Like, yeah, no, it's sweet.

Like you could it's like you could like do things with it.

You could do a lot more with that.

Like we could you could take a camping if you wanted to freeze to death.

I've told that story before.

I mean, that would yeah, I you know, as much as I like carbon monoxide poisoning,

it's a good time. I just don't really think it's for you.

You got to get the mixture right.

You know, it's just like a two stroke engine.

You just really got to get that mixture right.

Don't do that at home, folks.

You've got to. Yeah.

No, if you're going to do inhalants, it should be pure nitrous oxide in various

months that you shouldn't do that.

The I was out, I was out yesterday.

I pulled over to the side of the road in the desert to get a photo of the car and

P and as I walked to the edge of the dirt turnout, I saw one of those big fucking

nitrous tanks they're doing that they're just selling now.

It's like the size of a two liter bottle.

Fucking hell.

I can't believe you can just buy.

I mean, like yeah, nitrous oxide has been like legal.

But like we had to go to like a shady ass, like industrial grade chemical store

that like supplied Dennis's office and like lie to them to get that shit.

You shouldn't be able to just walk into a store and buy a tank.

We talked about before that Walmart was selling them online for a little while.

I don't know if they knew what they were selling, but it was, you know,

it's called like happy something, very colorful labels.

Yeah.

There should be.

There should not be such a thing as direct to consumer nitrous tanks.

If you want, if you want a tank, you should have to know a guy who will rent you one

for a party like that's.

I agree.

I wonder what the business, the argument was when they got the laws

changed or the rules relaxed, like what, how strong was that pitch?

How good is there were no rules?

No, there's no there were no rules changed.

What a guy just interpreted those rules that you have to call it a food additive

and was like, you know, it doesn't say what size you could sell it in.

It was a food additive.

Yeah, I was going to sprinkle this on my pizza.

That's how they sell it is like for flavored like flavored whipped cream,

like for you for infusing drinks and stuff.

That's how they.

Yeah, I bought it by accident once I told that story.

I meant to buy CO2 cartridges.

I ordered nitrous by accident truly and I gave them away to a friend of mine

because I was like, this is not what I need.

So it's like, yeah, to the beverage you were trying to make.

Well, I was trying to make the carbonated grapes that we used to make back

at the playhouse. Fantastic.

Those are so good.

Magical, amazing addition.

Do we have we have we informed the audience about the greatness of carbonated grapes?

It's a quick, easy thing.

And it's it looks like magic.

It tastes like magic, too.

Yeah, more important than even look like magic.

So basically what you do is you get a thing called a whipping siphon,

which is basically one of those like old school

seltzer slash whipped cream containers like you'd seen an old timey movie.

It's like a big metal or glass thing with like a big trigger and a nozzle.

And you screw a single CO2 cartridge onto it.

I'm sure Zach has a photo.

There it is. And so the main thing that this is is to use either CO2 or nitrous

to create like foams or whatever.

But another thing you can do with it is you can put a bunch of grapes in there

in the thick grapes in the whipping siphon and then put some apple juice in there

with the grapes and then you get CO2.

I guess did you try it with nitrous? Did it work?

I didn't even try it.

So it doesn't. Maybe it would work.

It definitely works with CO2.

So you then fill this the whipping siphon with a lot, you know, a full thing of CO2.

You just you attach it goes and you bleed out a little bit of the air.

And then you let it sit in the fridge for what was it?

Like two hours, maybe a couple hours?

Yeah, something like that.

And it makes your rocks, people call it.

Yeah, make them around lunchtime and the ready around dinner time.

And then you bleed out the gas.

And and for about, I don't know, 15 minutes,

the grapes become carbonated, like bubbly, like so you eat one and pop it.

And it's like a like pop rocks and it bubbles inside the grape.

It's fucking awesome.

It's really cool, delicious.

Tastes really good.

It's got this mouthfeel and it just it's very it's a very impressive dessert

that's not very complicated, but it's like healthy ish, too.

I mean, it's just grapes and apple juice.

There's nothing else in there.

So it's not super, super overly sweet, you know, if someone wants to.

But they're there.

That's a real like impress your friends trick.

Yeah, yeah, it is.

If you're in college and you happen to be having.

A Molly night.

Let me just say that that is a great end to a Molly night.

Ask me how I know.

Yeah.

Given the people on mushrooms, I'll lose their minds.

Depending on where they're at in that particular journey,

they might be like, get this food away from me.

Yeah, it's a demon food.

Yeah, exactly.

Well, why'd you why'd you do that to the grape?

Fucking demon food.

The the e-ray, say, speaking of, I wanted to circle back on that real quick.

Just the e-ray.

We'll talk about it in full when we get back.

But I have to say 97 percent of the time,

it's the same as a as a stingray.

You've you don't plug it in and you don't really drive around with the engine off.

The end when you get in and turn it on, the engine turns on.

And when you turn it off, the engine turns off.

You know, and it's essentially.

A C8 Z 51, you know, 95 percent of the time.

If you get to like three quarters throttle,

you get you activate the front axle and it and it pulls harder.

But besides that, I mean, it looks and it looks better.

The body color, you know, stuff looks looks really nice.

Does it do any torque fill like when, you know, while accelerating?

I mean.

Well, it doesn't have a.

It only has one e-motor and it's on the front axle.

It doesn't have a gearbox motor generator at all.

Right.

The gasoline powertrain and the electors completely separate.

So you don't you don't get any e-boost at all unless you either have

like over 50, 60 percent throttle input and or you have a traction discrepancy

between front and rear.

Other than that seems like it's more oriented towards traction at full

acceleration and then in slippery conditions.

I think what I meant is, you know, if you floor it, but you're low in your RPM range,

so you're still building your power and torque towards those peaks.

Does it fill in that a little bit?

Do you sense the difference compared to normal?

Yes. Yeah, it adds power at the low end of the gasoline power band.

Yes. And so effectively you can,

you know, if you're in manual mode, let's just say,

and you're kind of puttering around in sixth gear at like 50 miles an hour.

And and you, you know, you you hit the pedal.

It definitely gives you a lot more torque at 2000 RPM than you otherwise would have.

It's good at that.

It's good at helping to make that quick pass or or,

you know, it helps you avoid a double down shift, you know, things like things like that.

But and if you accelerate in the corner, in a corner, you can feel,

you know, the torque pulling the front the way that you have the wheels pointed.

But at the same time,

the steering is really heavy, even in torque mode that's got adjustable weight.

And it's the steering is really heavy and it's really darty.

It's got two 75 fronts, which are that's a big wide tire for a mid-engine car.

You know, the Ferrari 458 has like two 55s, if not two 45s.

And so and even I think the ZR1 only is like two 65 or maybe two 55 at the front.

I think the extra weight of the battery and the motor and all that stuff,

the power unit up there might necessitate a wider tire, but it it it cut it catches

ruts in the road and so it darts a lot,

which is not something that mid-engine cars tend to do, because usually they don't

have very wide front tires.

Let's see the front tires of the ZR1 ZR1 X is two 75.

Well, that's the X.

That's the all wheel drive.

So we want the rear wheel drive car.

If the rear wheel drive car has narrower front tires or maybe it doesn't,

I don't know, because the ZR1 was fucking darty also.

But they told us it had like the racetrack alignment on it.

And when you and I drove that black Z06, what we call the touring spec,

it wasn't darty because it had a road alignment on it.

Yeah, very true.

This e-ray could could because it's a press car could have a racetrack

alignment on it, although given that GM has openly positioned this as sort of

the road trippers Corvette, given that the steering,

I mean, literally, this is a two hands on the wheel car almost all the time,

which is odd.

That's weird.

I wonder if it is alignment because the Z, so the ZR1 front tires,

regular ZR1 are also two 75s in the front.

So it's the same thing.

Or it's just interacting with the e-motor for some reason.

Maybe the programming is a little bit weird.

It could be.

I mean, it doesn't necessarily torque vector at the front.

It goes, well, it kind of does, but it's a motor into a differential torque vector.

So it's not like it's not like having what here's I'm trying to say.

Sorry, I wasn't very good at saying this.

Unlike the Porsche 918, the Acura NSX, the Revuelto and the Temurario,

which have two motors up front and have that sort of magical steering.

This doesn't have that.

The steering feels sort of like a regular Corvette, but heavier in a way that I

don't love and dartier in a way that I don't really think benefits this particular

setup, but with I'm going to leave open that it could be a press car alignment.

Because I was curious if it's a weight thing.

So the internet says that the the electric drive unit weighs 80 pounds.

Overall, the car weighs 300 pounds more than the regular like Z 51.

So and a lot of that mass is obviously in the middle where the battery is.

So I'm wondering if like a hundred pounds of more pressure in the front.

No, I know, but it's still a couple hundred pounds, you know, more for everything.

But it's but I was like, is there 300 pounds pressing on the nose?

Therefore pressing on those front tires that's making it super dirty.

But 80 pounds doesn't seem like a ton.

So maybe to your point, it is a press car alignment thing.

It could be press car alignment thing.

And and it's maybe I should just follow up with them when I give the car back.

Because I I like a lot of it.

The seat is comfortable.

The ride is nice.

You know, the you know, they got rid of the wall of buttons.

The new the new interior does not have the wall of buttons anymore.

The new interior, you know, it's still got the square wheel, which I don't love.

But outside of that, the new interior is really nice.

Their button layout, the HVAC layout, really nice.

I really like it's a nice place to spend time.

But

thirteen hundred miles with it with two hands on the wheel, you know,

trying to kind of fight it to the ruts is like these like these muscles in here.

Like in between my like man boobs and my arm pits,

like those muscles get real tight from doing that after for like hours and hours,

you know, oh, yeah, your little upper peck.

Yeah, that's why when I do these trips in like

Bentley's and shit, I'm just one hand on top.

Right. That's what they're meant to be very relaxing.

I'm just trying to figure out what to do this trip in in April when it's actually

time. I'm thinking I'm leaning towards the Cadillac CT for Blackwing.

I think would actually be if they still have one of those in the fleet.

I think that would be kind of a delight, actually.

That is such a good car.

I mean, it's the better M3.

Yeah, I think it's a fantastic thing.

That's kind of it's always overshadowed by the CT five Blackwing, obviously.

Of course.

But I think the smaller car is actually yeah, there's the new interior.

Yeah, really, that's much better.

So you've got the double cupholders.

You've got the new gear selector.

The gear selector is the same, the new drive mode selector.

It doesn't have the sort of ambiguous hockey puck anymore.

It has just this big toggle for your drive modes.

And then it's got the row of hard buttons for the climate stuff.

It's got a row of digital hard buttons above that for like seat heater

and what like vents you're coming at.

And then you've got your your touch screen, which is

similar to how it's been with that.

But I never had a problem with GM's touch screen.

No, that was good.

And I think that hockey puck for the drive modes always seemed like

too big a wrench for the bolt being turned.

You know, it just seemed like heavy springs, kind of difficult to turn.

And maybe they're trying to go, oh, that's that's what feels expensive.

But it just seemed like so much to just control the just to cycle through

drive modes when even Corvette themselves in the past made that a much simpler button.

It just took up so much space, I didn't get it.

Yeah, yeah.

And, you know, the one that the one that I'm driving is expensive.

It's one hundred and thirty three thousand bucks.

It's a lot of money for for something that

feels really almost exactly the same as the Z 51 car most of the time,

although it does look a lot better with the wider, wider body and the paint take

paint to match, you know, everything.

So it's a cool car, though.

I mean, I think I hope that it finds its its target audience.

But for me, for the same money, you know, I'm a zero six no wing guy.

You give me you give me a zero six road driving spec.

And that's pretty that's pretty great.

And and, you know, in two years, when a ZR one's a hundred grand,

boy, is that going to be something, you know, that it might be a little longer

than that, but they'll get there eventually.

I bet you it's not.

I mean, well, from twenty twenty three to twenty twenty five for zero sixes to get

there. So I bet you it's two, three years.

CR ones will be there too, for sure.

Remember the markup on zero sixes?

Like if you got one early at if you got one at list, you could flip it for over

it was a four hundred grand.

Yeah, crazy. It was crazy.

Really, really crazy.

Should we go to the people?

Because my list is over.

Yeah. Do you want to talk about the insurance thing?

Oh, yeah, let's do that.

I'm not right. Yeah, you're right.

So I just saw there's a company called Lemonade.

Yep, which is not an insurance company I've heard of.

Maybe have you heard of them, Zach?

I have. They were started by a guy's

named David something.

He he's the most reasonable voice, in my opinion, on the all in podcast with

Chamath, Polyopotea, David Sax and Jason Calcanis.

So it's David Freeberg, I think.

So Tech Engineer made a lot of money and then he started this lemonade company.

By the way, all three of those other people you just mentioned are among the worst

people on the planet.

I agree.

And I like the show when they first started it and within two years became,

in my opinion, David Sax just repeating talking points and makes sense that now

he has the job he has.

But David Sax was a horrible human.

And the other two of them have the worst takes on stuff of fucking anybody.

They have all consistently horrific takes on any issue.

Yeah, I think in the very beginning it was OK.

And it quickly became we're just billionaires and that's all we care.

And David Freeberg always seemed like the more measured voice.

He's like he always he always counter was the counterpoint to so many of them.

And I just couldn't listen to it anymore.

But anyway, he started this company called Lemonade,

which based on the article is going to kind of leapfrog from other insurance

companies have put the dongle in and they'll track your driving and they'll

price you accordingly.

And I think that's what they're going to do.

But now they want to involve their insurance is specifically designed to work

with Tesla FSD.

Yeah, so on the one hand, it's interesting to see an insurance company that is

in theory, willing to cover a private user while using a semi autonomous system.

Having said that, a couple of things here.

One, it only really sounds like progress because it's it's actually not like

what we want here is for the person who

designs, manufactures and sells that software to be covering it.

This is still an insurance policy that you the end user purchases for your car.

So even though it integrates with FSD

in the way, a similar way, probably that one of those OBD dongles integrates

with your telemetry, maybe a little bit more tighter.

This is still this is not something Tesla is buying to provide for people using it.

This is something you buy.

So you're still responsible.

This is a level two system and you're responsible for what happens in this car,

whether you're using FSD or not.

OK, so what they're saying is they're they're using lemonade's usage based risk

prediction models to distinguish between human on autonomous driving.

That doesn't sound like it sounds like they should.

The car should just tell this thing between human and FSD, shouldn't it, Zach?

That doesn't sound that sounds like bullshit, right?

Well, I assumed that the car would talk to lemonade and say, we're in FSD mode now.

We're not in FSD mode now.

I mean, so lemonade's pitch is that the car with FSD with, you know,

quote, a car that sees 360 degrees, never gets drowsy and reacts in milliseconds

can't be compared to a human.

And quote, that was the co-founder, president of lemonade.

OK, read the rest of that quote, please.

So quote, our existing pay per mile product has given us something no

traditional insurer has a unique tech stack designed to collect massive amounts

of real driving data for precise dynamic pricing.

Lemonade autonomous car was built on that foundation.

So they analyze how you drive.

They price your insurance based on your risk profile.

When they they're saying by bringing in FSD, which drives in theory the same

across all the cars removes more of that risk.

And up here, they say lemonade is claiming a 50 percent cut in per mile rates

for Tesla owners that have the company's semi autonomous FSD system in use.

So I would really like to see how this works, because what they're saying

in some of these quotes is some real bullshit and exhibits some huge blind

spots, for instance, go back to that quote you just read about the car seeing

360 and reacting in milliseconds.

While, yes, the car can do that.

Fucking living in the real world shows you that also these cars can do wildly

unpredictable things that a human would never do straight up like a human wouldn't

do that, only a fucking haywire ass computer would make that type of choice.

Second, I don't know if there's any

actual data outside of the bullshit from Elon Musk that says

that the cars using FSD are, in fact, safer than cars not using FSD.

I don't know.

You know, we like Jason Camisa.

We talked about this briefly.

He said the new FSD is much improved over the first version.

So the early versions of what his experience was one, that's not data.

His experience was one ride.

Right.

I'm also saying that our experience with FSD from two years ago when it was first

launched and we were seeing a lot of problems when people were posting their

videos on YouTube was also somewhat anecdotal.

So I think we need to see updated data from 2025 and into 2026 that shows either

a reduction in human interactions or like saves or a reduction in accents and stuff.

Because previously the cars were driving through red lights, making weird

right turns, drifting out of lanes, doing a lot of things like, as you said,

that a human driver would not choose to do in those moments.

And yeah, and also like you literally cannot trust Elon Musk.

Like his, his report about himself and his company was bullshit.

And so there is no independent authority as far as I mean, NITSA, but really,

they haven't settled anything that shows that this is in fact safer.

And in fact, in many cases, it's not safer because it can lead to complacency,

which is what you see a lot of the times when these people die.

They over trust the systems and they're not paying attention and they're supposed

to have been taken over because it's not, it is a level two system.

It's not an autonomous system.

And I mean, as just like I was saying, but I talked to my friends in Florida last

week, they're regular folks, half of them drive Teslas and they're all just like,

well, I'm a bad driver and it's better than me.

And like, that's like not good math.

Well, I think an additional question would be,

what does that quote you've highlighted?

OK, I'd like to say Tesla's driven with FSD are involved in far fewer accidents.

Then what?

By what percentage?

Under what circumstances?

Like if you have that data, it would be incredibly beneficial to share it

because Tesla hasn't been forthcoming about that data.

Yeah. And I also am curious what lemonade's

coverage is should an accident happen because one of the things Tesla is

unfortunately famous for is an FSD accident will happen often tragically.

And then they will blame the driver and say that FSD was disconnected moments

before the crash and well, it doesn't matter because this insurance is your insurance.

It's not Tesla saying we have this insurance for our system.

So you're in.

Yeah.

But I'm wondering if lemonade is saying FSD is involved in fewer accidents when,

you know, if another situation arises where the FSD disengages milliseconds

before an accident happens, is lemonade going to say, oh, well,

that was an FSD driving, that was you driving, will their terms be changed?

Is there a fine print like that?

I don't know.

Yeah. And I mean, last thing is any insurance that black boxes, your car

can only be bad for you.

Like it you you do not want your insurance company

to have that kind of data about what you were doing in your car at other times,

other than the second you got into an accident and need to make a claim.

I'm just saying as a consumer advocate here,

like all those things that you put the O.B.D.

shit in your car, those things fuck people.

Those things really, really they can look at things as simple as going a few

miles an hour over the speed limit or a variety driving more at night.

If you drive a bunch at night, they can go, well,

your risk profile has gone up because you drive more at night.

Right. The pricing adjustment can work.

It can work against you.

And that's pretty much why it's there is to really look at you and go, oh,

well, you're in the strange case.

You do these things.

Your prices actually went up because we see X, Y, Z.

Yeah, I agree with you.

Yeah.

I don't hate the idea and now lemonade's

lemonade's pitch is is per mile insurance.

And so look, if I got a whole bunch of cars,

I don't drive very many miles on each one per year.

So that could potentially be a very appealing way to price insurance.

I'm not against a per mile insurance policy at all.

But I don't.

The coffee machine is calling bullshit back there.

I don't I don't I don't see anything.

I don't see any evidence that indicates it is actually safer.

And I don't see any evidence that over time,

this company will not use this data against their own customers.

Because why wouldn't they?

You know, that's what insurance companies do.

I mean, very true.

It says, imagine like you want to go get imagine you went to get one of those

super expensive body scans, right?

Like the full body joint, you know, where they look for cancer and whatever

and you pay for it, you cash.

You go to a fucking different city than you live in.

Imagine that just like automatically went to your insurance company like for

better or worse, you know what I mean?

Like, you don't you don't want that like at all.

You know what I mean?

Like you want you want to be able to be in control of what that company knows

about about you in that moment.

You know what I mean? So.

Sure. I think we'll we'll see how many customers are interested in this knowing

that, you know, it's because people love convenience and savings.

And, you know, if the carrot is big enough,

a lot of people will hand over that data if they're advertising, you know,

50 percent savings for a lot of people, that's a really significant

amount of money and enough to just hand over their data.

But it's only I guess it's true.

And Teslas are already like incredibly expensive to insure.

So if you got fucked with insurance on your Tesla, you know,

you know, maybe it is appealing.

But I just I'm smelling a lot of bullshit in that fucking press release.

A lot of bullshit.

I just doesn't nothing about it seems good to me.

See, encourage.

Any. Should we? Huh?

I was going to look up car insurance rates over time,

but it's based on inflation.

So I'm sure they're yeah, that would require some extra extra math thing.

We don't need to be doing right now.

Let's go to the people over at Patreon, patreon.com slash the smoke entire podcast.

We love you guys keeping the ship floating down the river in times of drought.

You have provided the buoyancy on this particular ship.

And yeah, it's been a good time.

When we share clips of the podcast on the Instagram,

I don't think the outside world understands the username game,

the username game that's happened over there.

Zach posts the clip and I'm like, and two in the pink, one in the stink says.

Yeah, it was great.

People are catching on to the game.

It's fantastic. Good interneting.

Our patrons have invented their own game and it's really fun.

It's called make a username that makes us laugh.

Yeah.

And I can't read them because Zach's in a different state right now.

So you get on get on it, baby.

So these are going to be leftovers from the last show we didn't get to.

Czechoslovakian interior decorator says he loved your monologue about how much

you want to smoke cigarettes and a yellowbird in Tokyo.

Is there another car road heater combo you would consider coming out of retirement for?

Oh, there's so many.

There's so many times when having a fucking grit in a car is the right thing to do.

Crossing the desert in a Rolls-Royce or driving or driving a Rolls-Royce at night

with the Starfield ceiling. That's the shit.

You want to do that cigar, cigar car.

That's a cigar car. That's a cigar car.

Hmm.

I mean, a yellowbird in Tokyo commuting is like about as good as it gets.

I would say like, oh.

Like, you know, while

I'm going to have to come back to you on that one.

I don't know if I can top it, though, but I would say that that.

Oh,

while off-roading, slow off-roading with a grit and in like an open open vehicle.

That's lovely. That's very good.

Like that's more a joint situation because it's, you know,

well, I guess they both, they all come from the earth.

Can't can't be endorsing things like that, even though when there are no roads,

there are no laws.

Well, you'd be a passenger, of course, in that situation.

Oh, of course.

No, I was so set setting.

This person, nobody cares about my G 70.

Doug Demiro on his last podcast said he doesn't understand the VR6 hype.

And to him, it's just a way to market an unremarkable V6 engine.

Do we see it as another V6 or do we think the engine is special?

I think it's a weird engine.

I think it's weird and interesting and we are an interesting is enough.

I think it has a unique sound.

And the big thing about it is it's one cylinder head.

So people, you know, go on the internet, basically, if you look at it from the top,

it's like to take an inline six and every other cylinder, just move them a few

inches apart, like you were, you know, spreading your fingers like that.

So it's not a big V.

It's a very narrow V, but it can use one cylinder head.

And that leads to the interesting sound it has.

And I think it's unique and cool.

And the biggest thing for me was I was into Volkswagen's in the 90s.

Turbo technology wasn't great.

And so this was like a cool sounding quote, big engine that were in these cars.

And nowadays, it wouldn't make as much sense as having, you know, the two liter

E a triple eight engine is amazing.

But back then it was like it wasn't good.

Yeah, I think objectively, it's not a great way to make effective power.

But when you no longer care about going fast to enjoy a car, weird is enough.

Ryan Alexander asks, what is our

favorite bespoke engine from a brand that didn't make it to the wider product line?

His example is Jaguar never used a detuned version of the XJ220 engine.

Bespoke.

Well, there's some there's a bunch of good options.

You've got the nine five nine engine, the sequential turbo,

which is a bad motherfucker, but you understand why it never made it anywhere else

because it was incredibly complicated and silly.

I guess you did get lesser RB engines in smaller skylines.

So that doesn't count.

And I was thinking McLaren F1, but we got we got lesser powered BMW V12s.

You know, in the eight clack.

Yeah, and you got and you got the the you know, the S 54, which is the half of that

engine, really.

Audi has never really made any like

low powered five cylinders like all the five cylinders in the R.S.

Those are those are pretty unique.

I guess the V10 did make it into the S6 and S8.

So that did that made it to the V12.

Lambo's never put the V12 of the LM002.

But that's like 40 years ago almost at this point.

So and now two liter, four liters are so good.

They have no reason to a lot.

A lot of times with this stuff, it's a packaging thing, too.

You know, you build a you build the car around the V12.

You can't put a lesser version into.

I mean, one Lamborghini doesn't make, you know, a commuter sedan or crossover,

but you can't fit that in there and just straight up won't fit.

Aria Zand says

he liked the episode we did talking about how vantage values are confusing.

He's got a 2010 six speed V12 that has

barely cracked 100 grand mark in Dubai.

Are are some marks just going to plateau regardless of the drivetrain?

They plateau for longer.

Aston's, you know, if a Ferrari takes 25 years to go around to be the the

appreciation cycle, Aston's take like 40 years.

Like those 80 the late the 70s and 80s Aston V8 vantage that now is like 300,

400,000 bucks, those things were like those things were 80 grand forever.

Way long after Ferraris of the same time period

and Porsches of the same time period took off.

Aston's need much longer to be appreciated.

And that's like really all through their company's history.

I would still you give me you give me a 2010 V12 vantage with six speed.

That is a fucking hold.

That's a that's a hold.

Mark my words.

It's also a fantastically fun thing to hold on to.

You know, you're not bored.

It's not just an investment car.

Like that is a fun, exciting thing to drive around.

Sob 93 AeroPress launch says how long do you run cars?

How long is a long enough drive to keep a car happy?

They have a two and a half mile commute

and they don't like to drive their M3 on it because it just doesn't seem like it

gets warmed up enough. So like when you start cars at WCCS,

how long do you guys idle for them for?

Well, when we're doing our startup in warm ups like for the shop,

we run them until the gauges go up to operating temperature.

When I'm driving an old car of mine,

I wouldn't two and a half miles is not enough.

I mean, I feel like 10 is got to be like a minimum.

I wouldn't commute in a very old car if it was only two and a half miles.

I don't think the car would get up to temperature enough.

I really don't.

Probably not. I feel bad.

My car to your house or when I drive to your house or to WCCS.

Yeah, it's all it's all so close.

Yeah, it's I do I do too.

I won't I won't drive my my spider between my house and the office because it's too

close and nothing will get warmed up.

The Manx gets warmed up faster.

The Manx can get to operating temperature really fast and stays there, which is nice.

Yeah, so that that I can.

But other than that, I normally don't.

Matt Paradim, titties says, is there a car from childhood that we thought was

incredible back then, but turned out to be super lame as an adult?

I don't know about super lame, but I always thought the Chevy Beretta was cool.

And I don't think that's aged particularly well.

Yeah, I don't think there was a lot of those cars.

A lot of them 90s, late 80s and 90s sort of sporty coupes, right?

Just like sporty coupes that they don't make anymore like the Pontiac Grand Prix

GTP, you know, which was the super charged like wide boy,

you know, vaguely IMSA adjacent kind of thing and fast and looked kind of tough.

And then I remember when I finally valed one when I once, you know,

I was in college and I got in.

I remember the whole interior like every instrument was kind of orangey red.

And yeah, they used a lot of very round injection molded plastic, much like the

outside, and I went, this looks cheap now.

Yeah, but like the engine was rad and the thing pulled pretty hard,

but it just looked it was just odd inside.

Very I don't almost like a concept car in a bad way.

Well, that whole that whole 90s GM era of the injection molded plastic is just

well, yeah, you know, even by the standards of of the time, that was that was

heinous, even that even brand new was heinous.

It was so bad.

But like those those types of cars when I was a kid, when the when the Dodge Avenger

coupe came out, I mean, actually it looked kind of tough.

Like if you didn't know any better, a Dodge Avenger and a Dodge Stealth

were not that much different, you know, even though they like really were.

Yeah, very true.

Stealth was a 3000 GT effectively.

I think the biggest thing is when I was a kid, I assumed a loud V8 powered car

was always quick ish and then as an adult, like 80s, Cadillacs, Suburbans.

I mean, things that sounded like dragsters and had, you know, 150 horsepower.

Someone who works at a Subaru dealership said,

truth be told, most of us, the dealership don't like the new outback either.

We talked about that on the last show.

Panama bread says he's driven Cayman boxers in canyons, but doesn't find them

that exciting if he drove them on the track with that changed their opinion.

For reference, their Canyon cars are an R33 GTR and a 911 SC and he drives them

at like a six, seven tenths pace.

No, I don't think a track would would change your mind.

I think you can get a feel for what a car is in a canyon and boxers and

Caymans are are great.

They're great cars, but they're not like for everybody.

I mean, I I love a Cayman, but I may not have bought one if it wasn't

a GT four or a spider, you know, that the extra little bit that you get

with the GT four and the spider to me is a is a discernible difference.

So if you're driving a regular 718 or an S,

you know, OK, they're not going to be that fast, maybe not that exciting.

If you drove a GT four or spider, you might feel differently.

But also like it's OK to not be into them like nobody said you had to.

But there's there's not a lot of really well made,

reasonably affordable mid-engine cars out there.

And so you're you're limited into in your options in that sort of genre

to really Lotus, Porsche and what else?

I mean, nothing, nothing else, really.

Yeah, it's also dynamically very different from what this person has.

It might just not be for them.

Sure. Yeah, it's OK. That's OK.

How the irony of this question.

This is from Powerstroke to like Cummins.

And they ask why username.

Good username.

They say, why are cars sexualized so much compared to other modes of transportation?

Um, you know, design trim levels and parts are all subject to this push rod

suspension. I mean, that's just really the action that's not really sexualizing.

But I do think, you know, the trend of describing car like car design is like

this voluptuous thing you want to fuck is something we've all done maybe earlier

in our careers, but it feels like very old time and low hanging fruit.

Yeah, cars and people both have curves.

OK, I don't know.

I think I think if you want to see horny, you're going to see horny.

You'll see horny if you're if you're a really horny, you're going to see fucking.

You're going to see titties everywhere.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, you're 13.

You go to the fruit section of the grocery store.

Yeah, yeah, I think that I think that's really what it is.

I don't, you know, I'd have to ask a horny rider what they think of a train.

And then we'd see if this theory holds water.

I've seen that France walk in.

I would say it's not limited to scars that he gets more excited than anybody

about anything, almost jealous of that power.

All right, fully loaded diaper says, I'm interested in purchasing either an E 36

M3, a nine, nine, six, nine, eleven or a nine, nine, seven dot one nine, eleven.

I'm focused mainly on evaluating the potential repairs and maintenance,

maintenance costs of each.

What analogies would compare these in terms of painfulness?

Like he says, is the M3 a light kick in the shins while a nine, nine, six is a

shotgun to the chest?

I don't think we need analogies, but like let's talk about the costs of owning

these three different German cars.

Porsches are a lot more expensive than BMWs.

I mean, a lot of stuff is harder to access.

I mean, did this person indicate wrenching themselves or paying somebody?

Do they say? I didn't see. No, they did not.

Well, if you're doing it yourself, certainly the BMW was way, way easier than the Porsche.

E 36s are, you know, fairly straightforward as far as European cars go.

And Porsche's everything is hidden.

You need a lift. You need to get under there.

Like that's that's tough.

If you have money for a nine, nine, seven, you should not be buying a nine, nine, six.

But but they're not one is not easier to.

I I I.

I don't think one is significantly more expensive to fix than the other.

At this point, you know, you're talking about a 20 year old Porsche versus a

17 year old Porsche.

They're they're going to be kind of a wash in terms of I think the only thing my

brain goes to the the construction of the interior in E 36 is notoriously bad.

And I think the Porsches are better made in that way.

So you have less bullshit that shakes apart.

So you'll save some money there.

But, you know, when the mechanicals go down or need maintenance,

they're very expensive for sure.

Yeah, let's see.

Uh, a check engine light bulb remover club says,

where do we think the market is going for high performance SUVs?

Who are the second and third owners of these?

It seems unlikely it will ever be enthusiasts who buy a used one as a weekend toy.

Well, there's precedent for this.

I mean, there have been high performance SUVs on the market for,

you know, almost 30 years at this point that we don't we don't need to speculate.

They depreciate to zero that they end up in the junkyard.

Occasionally they'll find a renaissance,

meaning like we over when overlanding

Cayans became popular, specifically the 04 and 05 turbos were bolstered because

people wanted to turn them into overlanders, whereas the base and the S did not get that.

So that was a sort of unforeseen thing.

And that was only the case because the first gen

Cayans had the off-roading equipment and most high performance SUVs don't have that anymore.

So

my prediction based on all available evidence is that these things will depreciate to zero.

But I think there will always be a fan base because

if there was a fan base that bought them new, that means there's going to be people

that can't afford it new.

Same as facetans, fast sports cars, fast anything.

People like horsepower and they will buy it when it falls into their price range.

What's up? We could end on this.

Send Preludes, one of the most clever names we've seen.

There was a Reddit thread discussing sports car definition.

What is our definition of a sports car?

Our definition of a sports car?

So on Reddit, I guess people were ranging from hot hatches can be a sports car to no,

no, no, it has to only be two seats and have a small trunk.

I get.

Let me just say I'm not annoyed at this person

for send Preludes for asking the question.

I understand why they would want our take on this.

But I get.

Annoyed by the endless debate on places like Reddit and whatever over the definitions

of stuff or things that are always like things that start with people who are always

saying that how come people are always saying that these aren't

that my WRX is in the sports car?

So to me, I guess a sports car.

Doesn't necessarily need to have two seats.

It should have two doors, should not be a sedan.

And it should be a car that makes compromises in other areas for the benefit

of higher performance, so it'll have a stiffer suspension, but it'll handle better.

It'll have an inefficient engine that makes more power.

It'll have specialized, you know,

equipment that is designed for either performance or engagement.

But generally, I would not call sport sedans or sporty SUVs sports cars.

I would call coupes, convertibles.

They could be big or they could be small and they could have a back seat or not.

But I think it I think sports cars defined as a vehicle that's

compromised in terms of its practicality in order to be smaller and more compact

for performance.

I totally agree.

I think it's similar to when like the term athlete,

if someone describes themselves as an athlete, in my mind,

their focus of their profession is a sport of some kind.

But you can be an athletic person, but you know, like your day job is accounting

and whatever.

So you have sporty attributes, the SUV can have sporty attributes or the sedan can

have sporting or athletic attributes, but it was not did not spend its time in

the factory or all day trying to perfect itself to be an athlete or a sports car.

Right.

It's not it's not the sporty version of the regular sedan or the sporty version

of the regular SUV.

It's usually kind of its own dedicated.

I don't want to say its own platform, but the Nissan Z, the Miata, the Mustang,

these are not shrunken down versions of other things.

It's their own thing.

That's kind of where I would define a sports car.

I guess that's a little easier than saying, well, where would you define

supercar and hypercar and all that kind of shit?

And everyone sort of has their own definition of that.

And I don't really give a shit where people draw those lines.

But I think a sports car definitely starts starts with that being a two door

Cooper convertible, for sure.

Right. Yeah.

Because I think I think the hypercar super car thing will keep the definition

will keep changing because power keeps changing and adjusting, you know?

Yeah, like a supercar from today has more power than a quote hypercar from 20

years ago. Sure. That has to be adjusted.

Sure. All right.

OK. There we go.

That was a good one to end on road and go to the gym.

I'm going to go to the gym.

The gym is good.

I'm going to get my room finally go to the gym, go to bed early and wake up

early as fuck and drive another fucking 500 miles because apparently this is

just what I do now. Apparently I just lap the desert.

Yeah. Thanks, everybody.

Thank you to our patrons. We love you guys.

Zach's going to somewhere else and I will be back for the podcast next week.

We appreciate you. See you then. Bye.

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