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Car
Ford RS 200
The Ford RS 200 is a special rally car from Ford, made to handle rough roads and loose surfaces. Here, they’re saying the suspension on one they bought wasn’t good, so they went looking for a suspension solution.
Part
seven post suspension rig
A seven post suspension rig is a machine that holds a car and pushes on it in controlled ways, like different road bumps and forces. It helps engineers test suspension parts without having to rely on random real-world roads.
Company
KW
KW is a company that makes suspension parts for cars. They’re the ones they went to in order to improve the car’s suspension and test it properly.
Place
Nurburgring
The Nürburgring is a very famous race track in Germany. People use it as a benchmark for how good a car or driver is, because it’s long and challenging.
Term
oversteer
Oversteer is when the back of the car starts to slide more than the front. It can feel exciting or scary depending on how controlled it is.
Place
Fuji Speedway
Fuji Speedway is a well-known race track in Japan. The hosts are saying it has lots of tricky corners where the car can lose grip as you turn in.
Term
decreasing radius
A decreasing-radius turn gets tighter the farther you go into it. That can make the tires lose grip because the car has to turn more as you’re already committed.
Term
off camber
Off-camber means the track surface is slanted so the tire isn’t as “square” to the road. That can reduce traction and make the car feel like it’s losing grip.
Term
cup twos
“Cup 2s” are a performance tire model. If it’s cold, the tires may not warm up enough, so they don’t grip as well.
Place
Laguna Seiga
Laguna Seca is a well-known race track in California. It has a famous section called the Corkscrew that makes it feel especially tricky and fun.
Place
VIR
VIR is a race track in Virginia. It’s known for hills and twisty sections, so it feels like you’re really driving—not just going fast in a straight line.
Place
Barber Motorsports Park
Barber Motorsports Park is a race track in Alabama. People like it because it has a good mix of fast and twisty corners that make driving interesting.
Place
Road America
Road America is a major race track in Wisconsin. It’s known for long stretches of fast driving, which makes it feel especially intense in the right car.
Car
Ferrari F40
The Ferrari F40 LM is a special, more race-oriented version of the famous Ferrari F40. The idea here is that Road America’s long straights would really suit a car like that.
Place
Road Atlanta
Road Atlanta is a race track in Georgia. It’s known for being challenging because the track changes elevation a lot, so it’s not just about straight-line speed.
Place
Button Willow
Buttonwillow is a race track in California. They’re using it as an example of a track where the car’s gearing can let you stay in a higher gear most of the time.
Term
gearing
Here, “gearing” is how the car’s gears are set up to trade off acceleration versus top speed. If the gearing is “long,” you shift less often because the car can stay in higher gears longer.
Car
Pratt and Miller C7R
Pratt & Miller builds the Corvette C7R for racing. They’re describing it as a true race car, meaning it feels focused, intense, and you have to stay on top of what the car is doing.
Place
Monza
Monza is a world-famous race track in Italy. They’re saying it would be cool to drive, but the real experience might not match what you imagine.
Place
Laguna Seca
Laguna Seca is a race track in California. They’re saying they know it well, so it feels easier to drive confidently through the corners.
Term
grip
“Grip” means how well the tires can hold the road. If the track gives you good grip, the car sticks better in the corners and you can drive more confidently.
Car
991 GT2 RS
This is a very hardcore Porsche 911 built for track use. It’s known for lots of grip from aerodynamic downforce and huge power, so it’s the kind of car people imagine when they want to go fast on a circuit.
Term
PDK
PDK is Porsche’s automatic gearbox with fast gear changes. It’s designed to shift quickly so the car keeps pulling hard when you’re driving aggressively.
Term
downforce
Downforce is the “suction” effect from the car’s shape and wings that presses the tires onto the road. That extra grip helps the car turn faster and feel more stable at speed.
Topic
Lime Rock go-kart track
Lime Rock is a well-known racing place. In this episode they’re talking about it as the ideal track-day location—especially for fun, kart-style driving.
Term
Group S
“Group S” is a racing category/ruleset name. It tells you the car was built for a specific kind of competition rather than being a regular road car.
Car
Audi S1 E2 Quattro
This is a famous Audi rally car that used Audi’s Quattro all-wheel drive. It was built to win in rally racing and is considered a rare, high-performance legend.
Car
Audi Quattro
Audi Quattro is about a car having all-wheel drive, meaning power goes to more than just the front or rear wheels. The podcast brings it up because those cars are known for strong grip and rally-style performance. It’s a key part of Audi’s performance history.
Place
Nürburgring
The Nürburgring is a legendary race track in Germany. People use it to test and compare how fast and how well cars handle because it’s challenging and has lots of twists and elevation changes.
Topic
DTM cars
DTM is a major German touring-car racing series. When people talk about DTM cars, they mean purpose-built race cars from big manufacturers, and they’re often a highlight at historic racing events.
Car
C43 AMGs
They’re talking about Mercedes-AMG C43 cars—AMG is Mercedes’ performance brand. The “C43” is a specific performance trim of the C-Class.
Car
Nissan R32
The Nissan Skyline is a performance car model line. People talk about it because it has a strong racing background and a big enthusiast following. In the podcast, it’s mentioned as part of a discussion about famous race cars.
Term
on the limit
“On the limit” means you’re driving as hard as the car can safely handle before it starts to lose grip. The fun (and challenge) is keeping it controlled right at that edge.
Place
Bathurst
Bathurst refers to Mount Panorama Circuit in Bathurst, Australia, one of the world’s most famous road courses. It’s known for steep elevation changes, tight sections, and the “climb” feel the hosts describe—plus it hosts major endurance races.
Term
six tenths
“Six tenths” is a racing way of saying you’re pushing pretty hard but not at full maximum. Think of it like “about 60% of what the car could do,” not a specific number you can measure on a dashboard.
Term
runoff
Runoff is the extra space next to the racing surface that helps slow the car down if you miss a corner. If there’s more runoff, it can feel safer to drive closer to the edge.
Concept
rally stage
In rally racing, a “stage” is a specific stretch of road where drivers race against the clock. The hosts mean city streets can feel like they’re being driven like a timed competition route.
Term
flock cameras
These are camera systems that can read license plates automatically. Cities use them to enforce traffic rules and catch certain vehicles, so driving behavior can change.
Term
Assetto server
They’re comparing real canyon driving to an online racing game. The point is that some people act like public roads are a virtual track.
Car
GTI
A GTI is a sporty Volkswagen hatchback. People who are into cars sometimes throw events to show off their new GTI or a new car they just got.
Term
JDM
JDM means “Japanese cars for Japan.” Car fans use it to talk about Japanese models and parts that have a certain style and reputation.
Topic
cars and coffee
“Cars and coffee” is a casual car meetup where people gather in the morning to show their cars and hang out. It’s a common way for car fans to meet locally.
Car
Porsche 911
A Porsche 911 is a famous sports car from Porsche. It’s known for its distinctive design and strong performance. Here, the host mentions it to explain that they don’t usually drive cars cops want to stop—except in this case.
Car
G 37
The Infiniti G37 is a performance-oriented Infiniti model. It’s the kind of car that can be sporty, but the speaker is saying they still don’t usually get stopped for violations.
Term
roadside sniffer test
A “sniffer test” is a roadside emissions check. Police use a device to detect what’s coming out of your exhaust to see if it looks illegal or out of spec. In the story, it’s set up so drivers feel pressured to stop.
Car
Corvette
A Corvette is a well-known American sports car made by Chevrolet. Here it’s the car the speaker is driving during a police stop related to a license plate issue.
Term
dealer plates
Dealer plates are temporary plates that car dealers use on cars they’re moving around. The speaker explains they were using dealer plates but forgot to put the plate on correctly, which is why the officer noticed.
Term
clutch in
On a manual car, “clutch in” means pressing the pedal that lets you change gears. The speaker does it quickly when they realize the police are watching, then turns the car off.
Term
state ref
“State ref” refers to California’s State Referee program, where vehicles are inspected to determine whether modifications meet emissions and safety rules. Enthusiasts often run into this when they have older cars, engine swaps, or non-stock parts. In the transcript, it’s used to explain why California can be a tougher place to keep a modified car legal.
Term
single barrel carburetor
A carburetor is how an older engine mixes fuel and air. “Single barrel” means it has one main opening for that mixture, which is a simpler design than having multiple openings. The host is pointing out what kind of carburetor is actually on the engine.
Term
half a cam
A camshaft controls when the engine’s valves open and close. “Half a cam” sounds like the host is saying the engine has a milder cam setup than what the other person assumed. It’s used here to explain why the engine behaves and sounds the way it does.
Term
tinted windows
Tinted windows are darker window coverings that reduce how much light gets in. The speaker says it made it harder for police to see inside the car, which led to more stops.
Term
cat back
A “cat-back” exhaust is an upgrade to the exhaust system starting at the catalytic converter and going toward the back of the car. People do it mostly for sound and a little extra breathing.
Term
wheels and tires suspension
People often modify a car with new wheels/tires and suspension changes. That can change how the car sits and handles, and in the story it’s part of what makes enthusiast cars stand out.
Term
871
“871” sounds like a shorthand for some specific engine or performance setup, mentioned alongside alcohol fuel. The transcript doesn’t give enough detail to say exactly what it refers to.
Term
carbon doors
“Carbon doors” means the doors are made from carbon fiber, which is lighter than regular metal. People use it to make the car feel more performance-focused and to reduce weight.
Term
gutted
“Gutted” here means the car was stripped down—less interior stuff and comfort features. That saves weight, but it can make the car hotter, louder, and less pleasant for commuting.
Term
no AC
“No AC” means the car doesn’t have working air conditioning. If it’s really hot outside, the cabin can get uncomfortable fast—especially on long drives.
Concept
first run jitters
They’re describing that nervous feeling right after you buy something new or finish a project car. You’re not totally sure how it’ll behave yet, so it takes a little driving to feel confident.
Concept
road trip
A road trip is when you drive a long way for fun, usually with stops along the route. In this story, they’re treating the drive as the main part of the experience.
Concept
project car
A project car is a car you work on yourself—fixing it up or upgrading it. They’re saying it feels great when you finally finish the work and can enjoy driving it.
Term
lowering your car
Lowering a car means making it sit closer to the ground. People do it for looks and handling, usually by changing the suspension parts that control how high the car rides.
Term
all night hall
This sounds like an all-night stretch of working on the car and then starting it in the early morning. It’s the kind of thing people do when they’re getting ready for an event or race day.
Term
dynoed
“Dynoed” means the car was tested on a machine that measures how much power it makes. Tuners use it to see what changes improved the car.
Term
alignment
Wheel alignment is how straight your wheels are aimed. If it’s wrong, the car can pull, feel weird in turns, and wear tires faster.
Term
pole
“Pole” sounds like they mean a test run—like the car doing a measured pull on the dyno. It’s how they collect the power/torque numbers.
Term
to the wheels
“To the wheels” means the power measured at the tires. It accounts for losses inside the drivetrain, so it’s usually a more realistic number than engine-only ratings.
Car
EVO
“Evo” is short for the Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution. It’s a turbocharged car with all-wheel drive, and it’s popular with enthusiasts because it’s quick and fun to drive hard.
Term
second gear burnouts
A burnout is when you spin the tires to make them slip and heat up. Mentioning “second gear” just means they were doing it in a specific gear to get the wheelspin they wanted.
Car
GT86
The Toyota GT86 is a fun, lightweight sports coupe. People talk about it as a future classic because it’s relatively affordable but still feels special to drive.
Car
C8 ZR1
“C8 ZR1” is the top, high-performance version of the Chevrolet Corvette for the C8 generation. The point they’re making is that it’s a big deal historically, but it costs too much for most people.
Car
BMW M2
The BMW G87 M2 is a newer M2 model from BMW’s performance lineup. The host is basically saying that newer cars may become harder to buy later, even if they’re popular now.
Car
Subaru BRZ
The Subaru BRZ is a small sports car meant to be fun in corners. It’s designed to feel light and responsive rather than just fast in a straight line. The podcast compares it to the Miata because they share a similar “easy to enjoy” sports-car vibe.
Car
Mazda MX-5 / Miata
The Mazda Miata (MX-5) is a small two-seat sports car. It’s designed to be light and easy to drive, so it feels fun even without huge power. People compare other cars to it because it’s a classic formula for enjoyable driving.
Concept
modern classics
“Modern classics” means cars from the not-too-distant past that people expect will be remembered and collected later. The host is basically saying it’s harder for today’s cars to become widely owned classics because they cost so much.
Term
manual transmission
A manual transmission means you shift gears yourself using a clutch pedal. Many enthusiasts like it because it feels more connected to the driving.
Car
Toyota GR Corolla
The Toyota GR Corolla is a sporty version of the Corolla. It’s made to be more fun to drive while still being usable as a normal car. The podcast mentions it as a close match to what someone wants.
Car
Toyota MR2
The Toyota MR2 is a small sports car. It’s designed to handle well, and it has a layout that helps it feel balanced. The podcast mentions it because it was one of Toyota’s more sports-focused cars.
Car
Toyota Celica
The Toyota Celica is a sports car model from Toyota. It’s generally known as a smaller, more performance-oriented car than a typical commuter. The podcast mentions it when comparing which sports Toyotas people liked.
Car
Challenger Hellcat
The Dodge Challenger is a muscle car built for strong acceleration and a bold look. The podcast is talking about whether a high-performance version (like the Hellcat) might become a classic later. It comes up because people are thinking about which modern cars will be remembered.
Term
32% APR
APR is the interest rate on a car loan. “32% APR” is extremely high, meaning the loan can cost you a lot more money than you’d expect.
Car
Ford Edge
The Ford Edge is a family-sized SUV that’s built for daily driving. The podcast is talking about buying one with around 100,000 miles and whether that’s still a reasonable point. It’s basically a question of value versus risk at higher mileage.
Term
military ID
Military ID is used to prove you’re in the military. Some car deals or discounts are only available if you can show that ID.
Term
salvage title
A salvage title means the car was considered a total loss after an accident or theft. It usually makes the car harder to insure and can hurt its value.
Car
E36 M3
The BMW E36 M3 is an older BMW M3 from the 1990s. People still want it because it’s considered a real enthusiast car, and it’s become a status symbol with younger fans too.
Part
Vortech P1 SE
A Vortech P1 SE is a supercharger. It helps the engine make more power by pushing extra air into it, kind of like giving the engine a boost.
Part
302
“302” is shorthand for a Ford 5.0-liter V8 engine. They’re saying the supercharger was installed on that specific engine.
Part
E cam
An “E cam” is a performance camshaft. It changes how the engine’s valves open and close, which can help the engine make more power—especially with other mods.
Car
Acura Integra
The Acura Integra is a compact car that’s made to drive more like a sports car than a regular commuter. The Type S is a higher-performance version. The podcast brings it up because someone thinks it’s beautiful and likes the way it fits the performance category.
Car
Alfa Romeo Giulia
The Alfa Romeo Giulia is a luxury sedan that’s made to drive more like a sports car. People talk about it when they’re considering something more exciting than a typical commuter car. The podcast reference is about whether the car is still reliable enough to keep running.
Term
rod knock
Rod knock is a bad-sounding noise from inside the engine. It usually means something inside the engine is worn out, and it can get expensive fast if you keep driving it.
Term
exhaust leak
An exhaust leak means the exhaust system isn’t sealed. That can make the car louder and can also let fumes escape where they shouldn’t.
Car
gen two Raptor
The Ford Raptor is a tough off-road truck. “Gen two” just means the second version of that truck, and here they’re talking about how often it was being serviced.
Car
F-150 Raptor
The Ford F-150 is a large pickup truck. In the podcast, they’re talking about using one as a loaner and how it worked well for day-to-day needs. It’s mentioned because it can be a more convenient option when a higher-performance truck is unavailable.
Car
GTR
“GTR” usually means the Nissan GT-R, a very fast sports car. They’re saying they’ve been driving it daily, not just using it occasionally.
Car
Nissan S 15
“S 15” is almost certainly shorthand for the Nissan Silvia S15, a popular Japanese platform for drifting and turbo swaps. The speaker says they traded their S15 for the Ford, framing it as part of their drift-car lineup.
Term
GT 2860s
That “GT 2860s” is a turbo upgrade. A turbo helps the engine make more power by forcing extra air in, and different turbo sizes change how the car feels—especially how fast it responds.
Brand
Haltech
Haltech is a performance computer for the engine. It helps the car’s tune control things like fuel and spark so a modified turbo engine can run correctly and make power.
Part
R 35 coils
Those “coils” are part of the ignition system that create the spark. Swapping to GT-R (R35) coils is a common upgrade to help the engine keep reliable spark when it’s tuned for more boost.
Concept
tuned
Here “tuned” means adjusting the car’s engine computer so it runs right. If the car was used at high altitude, it may need a new tune for your lower-altitude air so it doesn’t run too lean or too rich.
LIVE
What's up, everybody? Welcome back to another episode of Very Vehicular,
brought to you by Viper Industrial. As always, I'm your host, Brian Scotto,
and today we have a really, really fun episode. Joining us is none other than the rest of the
Ballast Boys. That's right, Vinny Anatra, Ron Zarris, all of us together, and we're doing something
a little bit different today. I don't know, it's kind of like a topic roulette. We've got a bunch
of topics. Put them in a hat. That's right. They're all right here. We run through all of them.
Some of them we get pretty deep into. It's a great show. Enjoy it. I did. Everybody knows
wearing sunglasses at night is for douchebags. Fortunately, Heatwave Visual also makes apparel.
They've got great designs on everything from hats, hoodies, t-shirts, and even socks. But what they
really kill at is their collabs. For example, they have an ongoing series with Chevy that includes
the heartbeat of America shirt I'm wearing now, plus a rad series with Chevy trucks.
They've also worked with my friends at Eisenhower Racing. And who knows, maybe one day they'll be
a Scotto edition. And if you want to see that happen, head on over to their Instagram at Heatwave
Visual and get to pastoring them. Thanks. What's that old saying? Don't ever meet your heroes.
Unfortunately, this applies to cars too, as my buddy Ken Block discovered when he bought his Ford
RS 200. To say it politely, the suspension sucked. So we went to KW to fix it on their
seven post suspension rig. Some say it was misappropriated in the middle of the night from
an F1 team, and it once knocked out the power grid of a small village. But what we do know for
certain is that this machine allows KW to create any test conditions needed to best develop their
suspension across the entire product line. Go check out kwsuspension.com and get yourself a kit
developed on this insane seven post technological torture device. I mean suspension rig.
Welcome back boys. Actually, welcome back defending champions.
Of what? I don't know. Just like one of the better shows I think. Ballast Boy Defending
Champion. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. It was a good show. Early energy. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know,
a bit of reunion feel. Yeah, it's all downhill from here. Oh God, yeah, we've devolved a lot
since the last pod. I love that insider trading. You're like, it's one of the better shows. It's
my show. No, no, I don't mean my show. I mean, the ones you guys were on. Like they're good. Like
the fans enjoy the ballast boys back together. Cool. So obviously, like we both know what the
hell you guys are doing. Yeah, so we don't have to get into that. Yeah, I want to know more what
we're doing today. We're not going to talk about life. We're not going to talk about what you've
been up to. We'll probably get into it on some special. Yeah, we can get into it. But we're
going to try something a little different today. I don't have a good name for it. If we want to
name it while we're going today, we can start it. It's not that it's a new show. I want to be
very clear. I know I like it's like there's firing order that's very vehicular. There's like 19
versions of Daily Transmission. I know people don't like that, but this is just a variation of the
show so that I can bring back my good friends on the show all the time and we don't run out of
things to talk about. We're the guinea pigs. Let's be honest. Yeah, you want to call it hat trick?
Brian just said we're going to put stuff in a hat and pick it out. Here we go. We're ready to go.
That's all we got. Since it's heat wave, a heat wave hat, hot topics.
Oh, but they, I mean, are you getting paid extra for them for that one? That's pretty nice.
Yeah, I'm going to get a choker. It's kind of like a, it's more of like,
a heat wave and you said, you were thinking hot topic.
I was on the hot topic mind. I'm going to get a Led Zeppelin shirt and a choker.
That's going to be my integration. All right. So the idea here is this is like
topic roulette, right? So this just guides the conversation. It's not like a Q and A.
It's like, and also we can, we're all allowed one pass. So something comes up and we're just like,
yeah, that's not really that good of a topic. These topics are something, some of this is stuff
that the Patreon came up with. Some of it are just things that people have been like,
it'd be cool for you to talk about this. And then other topics are things I threw in there.
All right. So let's get into it. Yeah. Who wants to pick out the first topic?
Ron. He has a better luck. We'll get something good. I don't know about that.
One car, one track, go. Wow. So I think the idea there, because I wrote it short, is like,
yeah, you have one track, one car. Okay. What are you going to do? Like you get that choice,
that it's your super holiday. Any car, like race car, any car you want,
any track in the country or the world, like where are you going? I don't think we can all
say Nurburgring, but you can go first because you pulled it out. Honestly, Nurburgring wouldn't
be mine. Really? No, I love it, but it's like, I was there recently and someone was like, you need
a thousand laps before you're fast here. At least. Yeah. So it's like, you're just going to a canyon
day at the Nurburgring. But like, isn't that still good though? It's great. Yeah. I mean,
like, I don't think you're, the thing is, is one trip, one car, one track set
the fastest lap. It's like just a good day. No, I know, but here's my thing. You're not really
pushing at the Nurburgring. There's not a lot of like fun oversteer moments and stuff. It's just
like high speed and buck clenching. Yeah. I don't know. I like, I like that. Okay. But whatever,
we can get into it. We can get into it. You want to start wrong? I do not want to start because
I need a minute to think about this. I need a minute. This is a challenge. Without,
you don't have to get right into it. You can get into the pieces to think about.
Yeah. Cause I mean, I haven't driven it in real life, but Fuji Speedway is really,
really fun on the sim. You driven it. I just drove. Oh, did you? Yeah. I just drove Fuji in
January. How was it in real life? I didn't love it. It's really big, right? It's a lot of decreasing
radius and like off camber. So a lot of like turns where grip sort of falls away. Now granted,
I drove it in a 992 GT3 touring on cup twos and it was really cold. So the tires like wouldn't
heat up. And it's not a car that you want to water. But holy shit, Fuji is the nicest racetrack I've
ever been to in my life. Not only is it in this like insane area that's like incredibly beautiful,
they have a huge hotel that is one of the nicest hotels I've ever stayed in my life.
And you just like come around the track and there's just like Fuji song right there. It's
so sick. It's the coolest track. Like we go to Button Willow here. It's in the middle of
bum fuck nowhere. It smells like cow shit and it's 400 degrees by noon. Yeah. And then you go to
Fuji and you're like, this is an option. And aren't like most of all the major tracks in Japan
all within a few hours from each other too? That I don't know. But Japan's small. So I guess. Yeah.
Like there's just like a collection of a bunch of good tracks all. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh,
out there for sure. Very, very close. The back half of Fuji before onto the main straight.
So hard. It like seems really simple on paper, but it's. Oh, that corner has always been really
challenging. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh gosh. Okay, so. Here's a question before we get into it. Yeah.
What is everybody's like favorite American track? Like if like just a track you really enjoy driving?
I mean that I've driven. Yeah. Laguna Seiga probably top scene. Laguna's up there. I personally
really like VIR. Did you ever got to drive VIR? So mine would be
VIR, Laguna and Barber Motorsports Park. Barber is sick. Barber is really. So much
good on deletion. It's a close second to VIR, but VIR. The uphill, the uphill S's. The S's.
It's like. The S's makes you feel like you're like a race car driver in DTM or super car.
100%. Because it's just like you pretty much just drive straight.
And you're, you're matted and then the corner after it is a big balls corner,
like big commitment everywhere. Yeah. And then two really technical corners.
That's a big one for me. So I was going to say like, I don't know,
so many cars to choose from, but like a, like a Corvette like C7R at VIR.
And then my other one would be like a F40 LM at Road America.
Road America. Road America. Have you driven on America? Yeah.
Because, because that car is like, I've seen footage of it and it's like just raw straight
lines, like animal and everywhere else you kind of got to putt around in that back straight,
going uphill and then you kind of crest and then go down like.
Yeah. Road America is fun. I've always wanted to drive road Atlanta.
Oh yeah. I've never driven road Atlanta. Me neither. Yeah. Yeah. I actually don't think I have.
I think it's I haven't either. But C7R is fun. Yeah. I think like a big power rear wheel drive.
V8. Yeah. I took my C606 to the track like last week and I was like, wow, these are fucking rules.
They're so good. I've never, because like I haven't, I only had one big power track car and it was my
E36, but that thing was like a handful because it's like a car. Oh yeah. That's right. Yeah.
Myself. Yeah. It was like too many variables. For sure. But the Corvette was like, that's,
I don't know, driving like a fast V8 on track dude. Now imagine like the, because gearing on
that car is super long, right? So at Button Willow, you probably only shift once or twice.
Like third and fourth the whole time. Yeah. Yeah. Whereas like in a C7R.
So yeah, for me, my quick, easy answer, I'm sure I'll want something else way later,
but today right now, VIR C7R. So like just so we're, so the Pratt and Miller C7R full blown
race car. Yep. Because I've driven the Pratt and Miller C6 road car. Okay. There's a lot. Yeah,
it's a lot. I like cars that are a lot. Yeah, I know. like cars that are just like
that you really have to pay attention the entire time. And at VIR. Of all the tracks in the world,
VIR. I don't know, but it's tough because like I haven't personally driven like a lot of European
tracks. I feel the same way because like there's tracks I think are cool, but then when you drive
them, you might not really enjoy it. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Cause like I'd love to drive Monza, but
you know, I don't know, maybe in real life, whatever. Yeah. I feel like I got to pick
tracks that I have driven. You think Monza is a track where you meet heroes and you're like,
oh no, I'm flying home. Yeah. No, I've been there, but I haven't driven on the track there and it's
sick. It's really cool. Cause like I think I would pick Laguna Seca because I've driven it a bunch
and I really love that track. You have a lot of confidence there. Yeah. I have a lot of confidence.
I also, I always tell people, I'm like, it just feels like race track to me. Sure. Right. Like
if I had to like cartoon sketch a race track, it's like, that's what that feels like. It's just so
and corners where you have like the track working for you for grip, like you really super commit
to the uphill, turn six. Yeah. Oh my God. And you have good runoff. Yeah. Yeah. That's a good one.
I feel like I would do that in a modern, like I'd want to do that in a 991 GT2 RS. It's like big
downforce, tons of fucking power, three wheel drive, PDK, like just like something you can just
smash like one, like sub 120s in or something, you know, like that's sick. So I think for me,
I'd want to do something that I almost wanted to guess. Can I tell you?
You guys go ahead and guess. This is Brian's ideal track day is driving the Lime Rock go-kart
track. Yes. Mark one rabbit, but wait, which is exactly what I was going to say. Ideal track.
He has to swap the suspension the night before. So that morning, he's only had two hours of sleep,
but it has stock exhaust, so he could be on a call. Right. We're all doing.
Okay. No. Okay. I'll tell you the car. We're not that far off. No, we're not. So I'll tell you
the car. I'll start with the car. The Audi D11 V8 DTM car because so and this is a bit a little
bit backstory. We went to Audi tradition and they brought a bunch of cars for Ken to drive. Yeah. And
you know, Ken being the rally guy, like he was most excited about driving the rally cars. And
we started making the list. And then I said, Hey, Ken, we should add that to the list. And he was
like, mmm. And I was like, it's going to cool DTM cars. He's like, yeah, but it's not like the cool
era looking DTM. Yeah. The later ones that the 190 E of 02. Yeah. Yeah. And I was like, no, I was
like, I was like, he's like, very fine. If that's the car you want to drive, like if you want it,
like we'll do it. What did he say? It was the best car. He drove the best car. He drove the Group S
Audi rally car. Which like probably like six people in the world have ever driven. He drove
the Audi S1 E2 Quattro. He drove like just all the legendary stuff. And of all the cars,
he just he did lapse until Audi tradition was like, okay, you got to stop because he was four
wheel drifting through every corner. So you said 190 E and whenever I play a set of Corsa,
my go to track car is the Sonax 190 DTM car. And that would probably be the car I want to drive
because it's like, I didn't even think about DTM cars. I was thinking like production cars.
That's the tough thing about this because I'll tell you the other car that was because the DTM
cars are not fast enough to be like scary. And I bet they're hard to drive and like awesome. Yeah.
So the other car that was in my list was the HWA 190 that they just ran. Oh, yeah. You see that
they ran the classic 190. Well, we got to the three of us were at the Historic's at 24 hour
Nürburgring and the coolest thing was watching the DTM cars. I mean, they had the Sonax 190,
the A30 M3, Alsonic R32. They even had like the little later like the C43 AMGs. Yeah, that was
sick. I saw this thing today. Max for stopping was quoted like, you give me like a shopping
cart and called a shopping trolley and like I'll drive it to the limit. Sure. And and someone
commented on it and they basically said, it's not about how fast you go as a race car driver.
It's about being on the limit and nobody wants to not be on the limit. Like like like being on
the limit is more fun than going fast, which is like I've always said. Sure. Being on the limit
is fun. So anyway, that car, I think it Bathurst. Wow. Because go do sketchy, sketchy. But like
I'm also like, I'm I'm fine to like drive it like six tenths. Yeah. Although I say that and then
you go but like Bathurst is just like one, there's only four races there a year. So like it's not
something you have access to. But Bathurst was one of the coolest. Like it's one of the only
other tracks I've been to that's not the Nurburgring that I'm like this feels special. Yeah. Yeah.
Like it just it just feels so like the feels so non race track like nobody would build anything
like that today. The amount of elevation climb and how narrow it gets like super narrow. But
like the elevation climb. I mean, like you feel like you're climbing when you go to Laguna.
And then like you realize Laguna is Hunter Mountain and Bathurst is like Vale. It's like
literally like East Coast, West Coast, Mountain size instead of like how high up it is and how
big you are and like all of that. That being said, like I don't have the skill set in that car to
really put down. It doesn't matter. Like it probably be more fun and it'd probably be more
fun at Laguna where there's actually some decent runoff. Yeah. But I don't know if you're talking
dream situation where it's about the story. That's it for me. Of course. Yeah. All right. Anything
else? No, let's jump into the next topic. Yeah. That was a really hard one. Yeah, I can't my hard
whenever you have like unlimited too much so I'm like, I don't know. I'm a hard starter.
Okay, this one I think this is one we've talked about in the past.
Is California car culture actually dying like people who are not from California say it is?
No, no, it's honestly too big. Yeah, it's annoyingly big in all the wrong ways. So let's rewind back
to like the point of it, which is everyone wants to say right now that California is the
worst place to own a car. It is here all the time. And I think it is. How is it that that is true?
I would say second worst. What do you think the worst place I just I just spent a week in New
York City and there's no way like horrific place to own a car. Do you follow any of like the the
brands out there that are doing events like wheels of NYC? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Really good
turnout super cool cars in areas that I know are huge pain in the ass. Yeah. And you have
down Delancey to get there. You have such a different car enthusiast over there. Obviously,
we're biased, but it's so much harder to own a car there. Like you got guys that have a car that
have garages like deep like in the Bronx or in Brooklyn or whatever you know, we've all done it.
You spend like $700 a month just for a parking space where you know, like, and it's too fair
to get there because you got to get a bus and it's right to get to your garage. And then you
have a limited window to operate it in every street in New York City is like a rally stage.
Like it's challenging. Yeah, but I think like just physically owning a car there is tough.
Like the laws and crap is so much easier in New York. It is. Yeah, it's not as bad as out here.
Here emissions wise like and now like with the flock cameras around and all the dumb shit because
it's gotten so big, you have all these kids that treat the canyons like it's a track day,
like it's an Assetto server. Like it's it makes it tough to be like a like a genuine car enthusiast,
you know, I think about this a lot because I've asked this or had this conversation with so many
different people because as someone who came from New York City has been to almost every
single state in the nation going there for car culture purposes and all around the world,
like there's just something special about California. Like it feels like you can uniquely
experience stuff here. Dude, absolutely. But I also do realize that like in order to be a you
have to be a criminal to enjoy car culture here. Yeah, you have to break the law. Yeah. And I think
like the one thing that was so obvious to me when we did my like GTI reveal or whatever at
in Connecticut was like we did an event in like April on a Wednesday in Bridgeport, Connecticut,
and 500 people showed up. Yeah, from all over. People came from Long Island, and that meant they
had to drive through New York City to get to Connecticut. And I'm not saying like, oh, it's
because I'm a big deal. It's like FCP Euro and I put on this event and like there's nothing else
going on. People show up. People are like excited. Not because people heard I was there, but whatever,
keep going. But I think out here, it's tough because there's so much going on every weekend that
like you can't even stay on top of like going to it. And a lot of the events are now just like
flooded with like idiots because it's like the wrong type of people going there, like having
two step competitions and everyone's vlogging everything. And it's just like, but I will say
like in California, compared to anywhere else within like a 50 mile square radius, you could have
the pinnacle of 2000s JDM. You could have the peak of 70s Porsche racing. You can have singers
and you can have whatever, like everything is here. Whereas anywhere else in the US,
like good luck finding more than one R34 anywhere close to you. I mean, look at our local cars and
coffee. It's nuts. Like all makes and we're talking hyper local, like hyper long beach only, which by
the way, if you're listening to this and you are, let's say from New York City, Long Beach is the
equivalent of like outer Queens to the rest of Los Angeles. I always see that people call the Valley
Queens and I'm like, no, Long Beach is Queens. Yeah, Long Beach is Queens. Anyone who does that,
they do the map where they're like, Oh, whatever, like, or you haven't lived in New York. Yeah.
You know why? Because there's not enough of a dangerous element in the Valley to all to make
it feel like sections of Queens. Because in Queens, you're like, wow, it's really nice.
Oh, where are we ever been to Canoga Park? Sorry.
Just catching straight. People talk shit about Long Beach all the time. Canoga Park sucks.
I like that people talk shit about Long Beach. I want people to move here. I'm good. I'm pretty
stoked with how it is. It's great. Got Michelin stars. No one knows about. There's a barrier to
entry. Yeah. So yeah, I think it's cool. a bit too much. I think the laws here are
fucking brutal. You've talked about leaving California. Yeah. I dream about leaving California.
Yeah. Just because like, I mean, I want to do this car dealership. Where would you go?
Where do you know? Tennessee, Georgia, North Carolina. Okay. So you think you want to move to
Tennessee? Yeah. He's Ron. I've been to Tennessee once. I don't even know what it's like there.
It's great. It's a wonderful state. state, but car culture wise.
And I don't know. I haven't been to a car meet there in a really long time, whatever. But
you run into the same thing. Like there, muscle car heaven, right? Like highway cars all day,
street racing, great scene out there. Not that I partake in that. But like for the stuff that you
like, it's a lot more challenging to find those kind of groups of people and groups of cars.
Oh, I know. I think that the problem here, because I want to start selling cars more for the dealership
is I like modified cars and I would love to be more of like a RMC Miami style thing while also
doing like higher end porches and like whatever, super car bullshit. But the problem is California
is bucking dealers right now because top rank just got audited. Oh, really? Like 500 cars because
you're not allowed to sell cars in California because they won't pass emissions.
Right. Yeah. But people in California want the cars. So they have LLCs in different states.
Interesting. Yeah. But unless they physically ship the car out of state,
right? Because you need the bill of lady sales tax. So now it's like if I buy a modified car,
I pretty much have to exclusively sell it out of state. Sure. Which I do a lot of to sell in
California, you have to sell it smogged. You have to sell it smogged. Has to fuck pass emissions,
do all the shit. So it's like a lot of cars that I get that I love. I just have to be like
California person wants to buy big. You're you have to have an address out of state and ship it
out of state. I don't care what happens to it after that. But you know, it's like, do you feel like
because I know right now everyone's talking about how CHP is cracking down. There's like a mandate
to crack down on plates, all these other things. Do you see that more? I ask it because like,
I'll be honest, like I don't really drive cars that like cops want to pull over. Like unless
I'm driving the 911, the Ferrari, I don't drive. Yeah. So like when I'm cruising in my rabbit,
like a cop ain't trying to pull me over, but like you're driving cars that like feet, like when
you're in a three RS, like that is, I feel like a bit of a target these days. Yeah. But I'm like a
bald white guy in my like, yeah, elder 30s, you know, someone that come on who drives a G 37.
I drive super normal, like I don't really get pulled over for moving violations in general.
So it doesn't matter. But if you're an asshole, like, I remember the time you and I went to a
meet and you got pulled over with like a different plate on your car. I got pulled over with a
Hoonigan plate. They almost impounded my car. Right. Yeah. I remember. Yeah. I will say, driving
to the gym the other day, there was a roadside sniffer test. Whoa. No way. Yeah. On,
like right off a Catella. What's that first street that you take a left off a Catella
where Mooney's is Mooney's pizza. Yeah. There was a sniffer test and what they do. And I read
about this, you don't actually have to pull over for it, but they have a sheriff right there to
intimidate you. Right. Apparently. Yeah. To go do it. But like, but I got pulled over there the
other day, like right in that same area, I'm driving the Corvette and I have dealer plates. So I
swap them on and off cars. I just forgot to look like, you know, just I forget everything. Forget
one thing when I leave the house all the time. So I'm driving the car and it like hits me as I'm
like driving like license plate on the car. I know I forgot to put it on. So I'm like coming
over the hill and I see a cop post it up and I like clutch in and this thing is like sounds like
a NASCAR. And he sees a plate immediately pulls out. So I like, I shut the car off and like
rolled like you just finished a run on a track strip. Yeah. He let me go.
He was super nice. I was like, oh my God, we were just taking photos of the car and I had the
because the license plate was on, but it was flipped around. And I was like, it just flipped
backwards. I was like, I forgot to switch it, whatever. I'm like, I'm going to my shop. And
look, most of the time, like they're doing a job. You're, you're living your life. And if there's
a mutual respect there, like you're fine. Yeah. And I was like, I'll get out and flip it right now.
He was like, no. And I was like, oh, shit. He was like, pull in the parking lot and switch it.
Oh, yeah. All right. Cool. He let me go. Really nice. So I think like cops here aren't that bad.
No, like you're not being a huge piece of shit. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I don't know. It's every,
every state in my opinion has its barrier to entry to be a car enthusiast. I think California's
is still the lowest, but that barrier does suck sometimes. Yeah. And like doing it legit, you
know, having modified cars is hard. It's very hard. Someone DM me the other day and was like,
I'm moving to California. I have a VR turbo in a mark two. Like it's currently registered in such
and such state. It's like, he's like, should I try to register in California? You won't be able to.
I was like, I'm not going to tell you what to do. I'm just going to tell you,
you won't be able to register. Yeah. Like that's it. And it's like, it's hard for people to hear
that. And then for us to still say it's one of the, it's the greatest place in the country to live
for car culture. I mean, right. And I said it's because like everybody's a criminal. I got, I
was with him when he got state right. And they tried to state ref me for my 1975 Volkswagen,
which was the best argument you ever had. I was like, dude, first off,
it's a 75. You can't state ref me. I'm like, I literally could have like a jet engine here.
I think that's why I said it. There's nothing you can do about it. And then I popped the hood and
he was like, it's like that engine's smaller than like what's in my motor, on my motorcycle,
because it was like CHP. It was a bike cop. Yeah. And I was like, yeah, I know. I'm like,
that's why it sounded so loud. Cause it was trying its hardest to get up the hill. It sounds like
you're going flat out. He's like, I heard that there's definitely something under there. I know
cars. That's what he told me. And I popped the hood and he was like, I was like, it's a single,
it's a single barrel carburetor, my friend, not a 1.5 liter. It's a half a cam. I was like, I have
like, I have, um, you know, I have power tools that make more of that.
More torque for sure. Yeah. A little Milwaukee. Yeah. I think in conclusion,
California is a blessing and a curse. Yes. Yeah. How do you feel about it in general?
I don't know if I'll tell you what I don't think I'd want to be. I don't think I'd want to be a
young car enthusiast in California. I think while there's a lot of opportunity, like that's when
you get pulled over. I mean, I got pulled, I used to get pulled over in New York once a week
in my slam GTI with tinted windows because it was just, or actually it was golf, but like
it was still, I used to get pulled over once a week because they couldn't see through my windows.
I never really got tickets, but I would get pulled over all the time. And I think the minute they
realized that like I like had my registration, like everything was fine. It was cool. But I think
as you get older, you're just like kind of immune to it. Yeah. I would say if you're big,
if you're really big into modding, it's, that's where it gets really, really tough.
Because if you're a car enthusiast of like, I really like this type of car and just put like
a cat back on it, whatever, and wheels and tires suspension, you're great. Or if you like muscle
cars, because you could literally be running on alcohol with like an 871 coming to the roof and
there ain't dick all they can do about it. They'll pull you over just to talk to you about it.
I got pulled over in the Nova, leaving my house in Venice, came ripping around the corner,
cop lit me up because I ended up in the wrong lane and he came up to me and he was just like,
all these questions and he was with me. And he's like, what's going on? And I was like,
well, I like gave the guy like some bullshit excuse. And I was like, but he's like, what's
under the hood? I was like, it's a 72. It doesn't really matter what's under the hood. And he's
like, what's under the hood? I was like, that's a 555. And we start talking. He's like, all right,
we'll get back to the house and take care of this stuff before you get back out on the road again.
And he looked at the cop and went, you're fucking kidding me, right? You're gonna let him go.
And I was like, what, dude, what? And he's like, he's like, why do you always get off?
And I was like, I don't know, man. Maybe we're just lucky. Yeah.
So there's somebody else who had their car impounded. He was listening to this going,
fuck those dudes. Yeah. All right. Next topic. Yeah. Next hot topic.
Perfect day as a car nerd.
Hmm. Honestly, pretty easy for me, at least.
Go. So it's like, I will kind of not disclose a location. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You just like,
you don't, you don't have to keep. Let's let's bring gate back there. Yeah. Honestly,
because I don't want all these fuck faces to ruin it. Not that probably any of them listening
to your podcast. No, I'm sure all actually all you guys are probably welcome. Probably like,
yeah, you situated in DMS. Yeah. Yeah. It's all to say it then. Yeah. I think for me,
it's like a morning in Malibu. It's just the best. I love like, I mean, I hate it because
it's so far from Long Beach that I never want to go, but like morning in Malibu over over like
ACH all day, cruise up the coast, get a coffee, hit some canyon roads. There's like a car meet up
there somewhere and then you like jam back down, drive down the coast. It's like the best. That's
my favorite. And there's like no real traffic over there. Like you're just cruising. Yeah.
I just did that this past weekend and it was A plus. It's the best. That's my that's my like
ultimate card nerd day. Okay. When I still lived in Venice, Ashley and I used to do that on Sundays.
We would go run the canyons, run like Paiuma and like, you know, all the way down and then
let him like drop down into Malibu and there was just one restaurant. We would always get
brunch at and we would do the exact same thing every Sunday morning. That's like just the best.
And it was just this thing that we did and like it was like just take the 9-11 out. We run
up all the same time and like it was always good. And like it was like just enough like fun roads to
drive, not too much traffic and then like cruise. Look at the beach. I used to live right home by
like 11 in Santa Monica when I first moved to California. So I used to do it all the time. It's
my favorite thing because it was like I was one exit from the PCH and you're just cruising up.
But now living in Long Beach, when you're talking about like an hour and 20 minutes of grueling
traffic to get home. So you're just like, I don't really care.
It's a lot. You got to pay a large toll to do it.
There was one time Ron and I were doing like ACH on Fridays.
Yeah, every Friday, yeah.
It's pretty off to the dollar.
You're talking leaving at 5.30 in the morning to be traffic and then driving home at noon
and still taking an hour and change to get home.
The one time I did it in the Evo sequential, gutted, carbon doors, hot, no AC. Oh my God.
We went up that one day was super hot. You had that big Evo.
I was like, Ron's going to die. There's like 100 in the canyon all the way up.
I lost like 15 pounds easily, easily. All right. Perfect day as a car nerd.
For me, new car purchase road trip. That's a good one. That's a top three for me.
Like there's no feeling like you just bought a car. It's a car you've been thinking about.
Like you've been looking for it. You find your perfect example.
And then you got to drive it. You get to know it. You do fun roads. You do highway stuff.
You really, really like immediately get that satisfaction of driving the thing in all
different situations. Like I bought my Evo RS way back in the day, 2012.
I was living in Utah. The car was in San Jose and we drove through Tahoe.
We drove through Nevada like all the and then like the mountains in Utah.
Like dude, I still think about that road trip to this day.
I love that because I think that when you get a new car or like it's kind of similar
when you buy like a project or you finish your project car, there's like the first run jitters.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It takes you a little while to like shake it out.
But I think it's cool to buy a car and drive it really far first because then you get home
and you're like, oh, this thing rules. It works. And you get over. Yeah.
For me, like that was this experience was picking up the Ferrari, Tony and I fly up to San Jose,
San Mateo. We went to San Francisco to get it. And then we just drew, we took 11 hours to get here.
Like think of how out of the way you have to go to go from San Francisco to LA and get 11 hours.
And we just wrote. That's just the standard. It's got a road trip though.
Yeah. But we were just like, you know, route one, big sir, like bounce down for photos,
stop for photos, like just cruise the whole way. Yeah. Just like enjoy the ride.
And it was definitely like the first hour I was nervous because like every light that like goes
on or weird noise. Especially in those. But like once you're on hour nine of like driving,
you know, an Italian car made in the 90s, you're like, this thing I'm invincible right now.
Like I got to LA and I was like driving like a New York City cab. Like in it. And honestly,
like it's the best moment I had in that car. Like I haven't had a moment since then.
Yeah. It's cool to cruise around with my buddy with another Ferrari. But like other than that,
like, I don't know, it's like, I just like haven't had that same experience that like that served.
But for me, I would say nothing's better than like, whether it's finishing a project car or
just getting a new part on a car, getting it done like around six p.m. and getting out and cruising
with the boys just as it's starting to get dark. Like I like, you know, I'm saying like, and for
me, that's more of like, I don't know if I have those as California memories. I have them as like
Queens along Island. I was going to say, that was like young, young life of like
you're working on your car all day. Like you spend the whole day working on the car just to
actually like hit a car and it just works. And then it's like, you get to cruise like and then
like you get to meet up with everybody with all your new stuff with all your new stuff.
And like it's working. That's like a really, really, really good day. Yeah, that's nice.
I was thinking about that the other day because I was like, I don't know if I like have really
enjoyed cars in like a couple months now. I told Brian today that I worked on a car without any
sort of video. Like I just did it in my garage and I was like, man, I miss us. Like just like
doing it. That's all I've been doing. Yeah, it's great. It makes you enjoy it again.
Yeah. I don't know. Like recently, I just, I don't know. Like everything is either
to make content or I'm just like too busy to just do the simple thing or it's like fixing
something I don't want to fix. Fixing annoying things sucks. Yeah. Like, I really want to do
this. And I was thinking about this just the other day of like, man, I miss like the simplicity of
putting on just lowering your car and just being like, that's sick. Yeah. Like all of
everything I do now is like too big. It's like, it's so big that like when I get in the car,
like I'm so not only am I nervous, something's going to break, break because
I've turned too many nuts and bolts for it not to like there's something so nice and simple about
that. Another one I also enjoy and this is because it's the masochist in me is I enjoy
an all night hall and the car starts at 430 in the morning. No, when it actually fires
and you've like been up all night and it fires, it's great. Because if you're doing that, well,
we're different people drastically. Because if I'm doing that, it means that everything has been
going wrong. You know, like if I'm in that position, I'm pissed off. Like I'm not like,
oh, what a good day. I'm at the shop at 430 in the morning. Yeah. Yeah. That's your,
we just operate different. I had one night when I was young where me and Jay Slack stayed up all
night trying to get his car ready. And then I think it broke and we drove a different car to
H2O and it's still a great day. I think if you're doing it like with the friends and like some like,
you know, it can't be like work or like fever dream type shit. Yeah. Yeah. The closest I've
gotten to that was when I finally got the EVO done and dynoed. The dyno day took all day as
dyno days do. And at that time I had the carbon doors with nothing on them. So it was just the
skin. The car was gutted. No headlights. It was nighttime. We're in the middle of an industrial
part. The wonkiest alignment on earth. And I remember doing that pole. It had just done like
800 some to the wheels and it was cold. The tires were cold and I did second to third and it broke
all four loose and third and it was all over the place. And I was like, oh, this is the sickest
thing on the planet. Like a week later, though, we went to that like that cafe 86. Yeah. We all
cruised home from that. That was a great and that was like just like that moment. Yeah. That was
really fun. It was like you had the FD. It was spitting fireballs. I was in the RS2. Zach had the
his 06 and you had the EVO. Yeah. Yeah. The feeling of your car making it through a dyno day
and then getting to rip your project car for the first time ever is one of the best feelings ever.
Like when I built my 1JS14 and like we dynoed it and it put down 550 wheel and then I got to go
out on the street and like hammer it. Dude, it's hard to be feels better. It's hard to be. Yeah,
that's a good fucking feeling. Yeah, I wish I knew all the cars I've gotten to that point still don't
run right. Like when we did my LSE 36 and we tuned it and then brought it back to the yard and just
like ripped second gear burnouts in it. I have that. I was going through old iPhone stuff the other
day and I got to send it to you. Yeah. I found that clip. That was sick. That car sounded so rowdy.
It sounded so rowdy. It's still not completely together. Like no fenders on it. No fenders.
Things are getting held on by like clamps, but you got to rip it. Yeah. And that's such a
sick feeling. That's a good feeling. Yeah. All right. Next up. Next up. All right. What do we got?
That's a longer one. Oh wait, that one go back in. Yeah. It's the California car.
I feel like wait, hold on. That one went in. It would be funny if we just ran it back. Somebody
in the comments saw that happen and is like I probably did it and they're probably like
that's going to get picked again. What do we got? All right. What car sold today
is a future classic and why is it not affordable now? Not affordable now. Yeah. So I truncated
this, but it was basically like why like are I guess it's really like a multi-question like
are there any future classics that are normal cars today? And like we obviously have wax poetic on
like the GT86. Oh, I know one. But like C8 ZR1 is a fucking historical car. But that's not
affordable. Oh, that's the point I think. I guess the point is is like are there any modern classics?
Oh, that are easily accessible. That are actually accessible. We're just sleeping on. Because like
all of the cars that people are dreaming about now, we're not that a lot of muscle cars and
836 M3 was an approachable whatever car for the longest time. It was an approachable car.
There were kids in high school who were getting them because their parents were rich.
Then no, I don't think so. But like now everything feels like really, really open.
Like I think cars like the G87 M2 and things like that are just going to like
they'll just like be old cars. Yeah, a lot of those like sought after them.
A lot of those they're just really like inaccessible now too for a lot of people,
you know, like they're expensive. Yeah, maybe a Mark 5 Supra. I don't know,
kind of. They don't really that's like right on that limit. They don't like hit for me in
terms of like thinking like people are going to like go back get it as a classic. I don't know.
I think the GT86 slash BRZ will be the modern Miata. Yeah. Do you know what I'm saying?
Where you're like, yeah, that's a really great car. It's like it's affordable then.
It's probably still affordable. There's a there'll be a ton of them out there. But
like nothing where like I knew when I drove the EVO 8 and the EVO 9 they were going to be
modern classics. I knew the Z06 was going to be a modern classic when I drove it. Yeah.
Even just the regular C6 like there's just a bunch of cars from that from a different era.
Like, yeah, I can't really think anything that's affordable today. Yeah, the whole.
I mean, all new cars are so expensive. All new cars are so expensive and especially all new
performance cars are just on a level where like most people is just not realistic. Yeah,
what's being made? That's cool. New. That's like affordable. That's I think that's a question.
I think that's what the question that's affordable now is the biggest challenge. Yeah,
because there's a crazy amount of performance cars that are really good,
unbelievably good that are being made right now. But all of them are like six figures
or close to it. Yeah, totally. It's just kind of like the, you know, the old saying of like
everyone used to have horses. And when the car came out, only the rich had cars,
and now only the rich have horses. Yeah, I love it. Like if you think about that,
there's this world of like all cars used to everyone had a manual transmission car.
And then like the automatic came out and everything else. And now oddly,
like only the most expensive cars are available in their limited spec and like you actually pay
for rawness. And I remember like when we all used to talk about this back in 060 era of like,
it's crazy that the RS America charges you more to buy less. Yeah. And now that's like
normal. EVO RS same thing, you know, like crank windows, no radio, no AC, but you pay such a
premium. Was the sticker more though at the time? No, it was less. Yeah. But now you
actually like pay more for like more of a raw experience. Yeah, absolutely. I think of all the
ones that come to mind right now, I think the GR Corolla is probably the closest thing I could
think of. I've spent a lot of time in them. And like, look, people aren't like they have their own
enthusiast crowd. I think driving wise, there's nothing else at that price point that's anywhere
close to driving as well. I think Toyota is really the only one hitting like the affordable new fun
car with the Corolla, the 86 Supra, like I brought this up on another episode. Toyota went from
like one of the most boring brands when I was at the magazines to now probably one of the coolest
brands. Yeah, I mean, I say that like I my favorite generation of cars is like 2000s. Yeah.
Toyota didn't exist. No, no, they had the MR2 was like the only thing that was yeah. MRS.
MRS. Yeah, I didn't like the MRS and I didn't think. And the Celica. Yeah, you know what I mean?
Like everyone was making bangers. Like if you look at 2004, you're like every manufacturer was making
the coolest car ever and Toyota was like asleep. They were counting Prius money at the back.
Yeah, that's true. Prius is in Tacomas. Yeah, but no, it's uh, no, like they
were so boring. And now they're like one of the few companies that you're like, they give me hope.
They've got the 86. I forgot. I don't know why it's just not on my radar. The GR Corolla.
Yeah, I think that's probably like one of those things. But I feel like most people don't really
think about it. I feel like that would have been one of those cars that if a version of that came
out in the mid 2000s, it would be the rave. Yeah. Oh, and if it came out at the peak of like the
rally car battles with like EVO versus STI and if Toyota came in the game around that time too,
like in America, in Europe, I know it was like you had the GT4 and you had all those. Yeah.
But US market and like Nick loves the Celica GTS. I don't know why. Celica. Yeah, but
do we think that the Hellcat will be a future classic? I think so. I think for some people,
yeah, for sure. Are those affordable? Those sub 100,000? No, I don't know if they're sub 100,000,
but they're, they're right there on the edge. Because I feel like they're affordable if you're
ready to get into the most predatory loan. Have you ever heard of 32% APR? Yeah, yeah, yeah.
And do you have military ID? But yeah, those I feel like classics. Yeah. Do you think that there's
a point where like we look back 20 years from now and realize that we weren't a part of what was
actually cool car culture during this moment because everyone looks back and it's actually
everything Dodge is doing. That is what's cool. I think about it sometimes, but I don't mean
takeovers. I just mean like they're like, like I, that's another thing that like lives in a blind
spot for me is like all new modern Dodges because like it's just a big car and I don't like big
cars, but I would daily afford or Hellcat. Every time I remember we had that Hellcat that like
for like a week, the orange one. Yeah, we had excuse me, Ron, the name was Cinnamon with an S.
That's right. Because it's devilish. It's devilish. Yeah. Yeah. Because you're probably
carting around a stripper named Cinnamon. Yeah. I just definitely, it's definitely like the new
metal of muscle cars. Yeah. My drinking game at home is look for clean title ones on Facebook
Marketplace. Oh, good luck. They're wasting it on a bed by nine. Literally every single one
of salvage title from theft or crashed. Yeah. I do, you do bring up an interesting point because
I think about that too of like are the cars that we're into like are we just old heads now?
But we are old heads. But I will say like I see still a lot of young kids liking the cars
that we still like from back in the day. Like again, the E36 M3 has such a status now with
younger kids. And so does all of the Japanese golden era cars. Still, right? Like we liked
Supras, Mark 4 Supras when we were young and kids still glaze over Mark 4 Supras, right? And like
that's kind of a crazy thing is that that car hasn't gotten any. But I think that's I think
that's no different than we kind of still glazed over cool muscle cars. Like maybe not all of them.
And look, I ran zero to 60 and the rule in zero to 60 was no muscle. Right. Because I was sick
and tired of reading about muscle cars. But that didn't mean that I didn't respect like a dope
Chevelle or something. Yeah, I did it. I grew up like my teenagers. I was in Long Island. So
muscle cars ran that shit. Yeah, it's pretty aware of them. Yeah. Yeah.
Fox body Mustang was the hero. Right. The hero car. Yeah, you got a Vortech P1 SE on a 302
with a E cam. You were picking up dudes left and right. You were fucking you were swimming in them.
Swimming with gold chains. Yeah, they probably gold chains, maybe plaid shorts with definitely
with like a stripe shirt. Definitely, you know, definitely showered in cool water.
Yeah, or my baby curve. Yeah, or like the my favorite. This shit was so sick. I know you guys
know it. Gelled hair slicked back, but it's like spiked. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah. But you
can see scalp. Yeah, you gotta see. You gotta see. It has to have the perfect separation. Yeah. It's
like it's like a crop field. Can we also talk about during that era where everyone had an Italian
flag on the back of a Mustang that when I was like eight, I thought Mustangs were made in Italy.
Like growing up in Queens. I rock Z's and Mustangs are clearly made in Italy next to
Ferrari. I was not. I was not a part of that scene. I was not a part of that scene. Yeah.
So we by the way, we walked out of that saying that the Corolla GR is the only affordable and
the GT. The only one that comes to mind. I mean, I'm sure again, there's probably something that's
being made right now that might be a future classic, but I can't think of anything. The
affordable thing kills me. Sub 80 K Honda CTR. I like the Integra type S. Okay. But I think it's
beautiful. Really? Such a cool looking car. I saw one today on the way here and I was like
sick. It's got like wide old fenders and stuff. Wow. Nick's got something. I got one for you.
Alfa Romeo Giulia.
If they're still running. Right. Like, and I love an unreliable car. Like, that is my weakness.
But everything I know about them didn't match. Just got one. He did. Yeah. My neighbor daily's
one. They're great looking cars. And it's always sounds good. Comes home. Not on the back of a
yeah, he's got a loner right now.
Is the alpha loner just a BMW?
It's just a three series because every time I see an alpha, I'm like, is that a really good?
No, no, that's just an alpha because it looks like he's got one and he dailies it and it's been
fine. But just recently I heard him come home and it sounded like it either had rod knock or
an exhaust leak. It's probably got like 19,000 miles. But I don't know. Alphas are interesting.
Alphas are always in their in their own world. Yeah. Like, I don't think Alphas ever cross over
into the general car public classic. Wait, hold on. Do they still make those? Is that a new car?
Oh, yeah. Yeah, that's still in production. The sub 50k. What? Yeah. Wow. I thought they stopped
making it. Wow. That's a lot of car for that's a lot of car for 40. Yeah. I mean, granted,
you only get to drive it for one quarter of the year. That's still a lot of car for that price.
Wow. That's kind of sick. You get it with a really good warranty. I got to say, though,
if they have loaner cars, it's great because I had a gen two Raptor that was in the shop
every other week and the Ford dealership. I used to take my bicycle with me and then ride home
because they didn't have like a loaner or they didn't even give you a ride. I will say the Lexus
dealer gives you a brand new Lexus, even if you're just getting an oil change. That's nice. Yeah.
Are you are you raptorless at the moment? Yeah. I have no daily. Whoa. What do you mean? You have
no vehicle. That's Amy's car. I drove it because she's home tonight. Oh, sick. Yeah. I've been
I've been dailying the Corvette and the GTR. I mean, the and the 360. The Corvette's a pretty
deal. The four door. Huh? You've been dailying the four door GTR. No, no, no. I bought a R 33.
Oh, I didn't know. Yeah, I just got it. Oh, I think this is the first time anyone's hearing
about it. Nice. No, the four door. Please, anyone out there want to buy a great car? Yeah,
give it to you. No, I just I have a drift car. You want a Ford 34 GTT. I traded my S 15 for it.
Oh, you told me about that. Yeah. But yeah, I forgot you even own the 15. Yeah. I've just been
dailying nonsense, which is good, except ideally nonsense every day. What's the specs on the 33?
I got it from Brad. Brad Nielsen. Yeah. Oh, good dude. Yeah. Yeah. He had to sell some
shit and hit me. Wait, it's not a super modded one. No, it's a white R 33 V spec. Yeah. V spec.
It's got GT 2860s, Haltech, R 35 coils. Wow. I got a ride in that thing because
our one that we had at Hooning in was a little tired. Yeah, this one's cool. It needs to be
tuned though, because it came from high altitude. So oh, that's right. Oh, with Brad from Utah.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, good dude. Yeah, cool guy. Yeah. I don't know. I was just like,
he gave me an offer. I couldn't refuse. I was like, fuck, I'll buy this thing.
Nice. Yeah. Good. Yeah. It's cool. You got to drive it because I know you've wanted more. Yeah.
Yeah. It's like the one, it's because it's an actual Japanese car I fit in. Yeah, it's a big car.
But you're a big no right hand drive guy. No. I gotta say, I don't mind. Every once in a while,
Tommy will send me like a link to like a left hand drive car because they made them for the
Middle East. I really don't mind driving right hand drive, except for talking to people about it.
Like I don't like some dudes like, is that like that you're driving on the other side?
Is that from London? Cool. Yeah. You know, it's always interesting to me. And it's like,
whenever someone says this to me, to anyone who listens to the show, I'm sorry. But if you come
up to me and we start talking about my RS2 and I say, I imported it from Europe and you ask,
why is it not right hand drive? My response to is going to be, you need to travel more.
Because like for some reason, people think everything outside of the US is right hand
drive. Right. All right. Before we go on to the next one, we're going to take a quick little break
because Vinny drank too much water before he came on. And it's hot in here. It is hot.
It's so sorry. No AC. Yeah. Guys, join the Patreon because we need money for air conditioning.
Send a mini split over here. Actually, I got, I got such a, I got at the weirdest ad that came
into my email, but I can't do it, but it's for a mini split unit. Are you kidding me? Yeah.
I'll send it to you because where the hell am I going to put it? I'll put a mini split in the
garage. My garage is a fucking 10. If you guys put a mini split, it wouldn't do anything. You guys
hear me shilling HVACs next week. I know why. All right. Take a quick little break. Oh, hey,
everybody. Here we are for another story time interruption brought to you by my good friends at
FCP Euro. If you're at all familiar with my builds, you know that I'm not really good at,
let's just say this, I'm the king of scope creep. I had an Audi Coupe Quattro that I was going to
build into a 500 horsepower driver. It was a pretty simple established recipe to do this.
But no, instead, I decided to make it into a 1000 plus horsepower race car that still doesn't run.
The bad news is is I also scope creep maintenance. The other day went for a nice drive in the RS2.
It was a spirited one, hit some canyon roads. Everything was great until I went around one
corner and I heard a very familiar clunk. This clunk to Volkswagen and Audi guys is nothing
other than a blown start bearing. It happens a lot, especially when driving slammed cars.
And while most people would probably be dismayed at the tedious task ahead of them, not I,
I saw this as an opportunity. Yeah, an opportunity to finally fix that clicking CV joint. Get after
the bushings or the brakes that needed an overhaul. You know, head on over to FCP Euro and just
fill the cart with everything I can find underneath suspension brakes and even steering. Hey,
why not? And you know, then take apart other parts of the car and probably never put it back together.
This is kind of what I'm known for. If you too are like this, you can go to fcpuro.com and scope
creep even the most basic maintenance. FCP Euro doesn't judge. They'll be your plug
to this horrible bad habit we have. One of my favorite things on the planet was like Scotto
when you have a conversation with him and he pulls out his phone and he's clearly texting or
emailing or doing whatever. The secret code is you can still talk to him and it gets processed
and filed and it goes in a line and then he'll put his phone down, do whatever and then just
look off into space and then answer your question. Like 20 minutes later, it's crazy. It's crazy.
Usually if I pull out my phone, though, I just want everyone to know it's usually like a full
panic moment. Yeah, when I realized like, oh, I didn't do X. Yeah, it's like it's either like
something really important or it's like, I was supposed to pick up my kid. We should finish the
podcast first. Yeah, I was gonna say it's like he's he's sexy to figure it out. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Let's pick out of the hat. All right. Okay, this is a this is an interesting one. I think we might
be able to get through this one quickly, but it's a multiple choice. Good car on crap tires,
blah car on great tires or okay car on okay tires. And like we don't have to call out brands,
but like we all like everyone has driven a car on absolute garbage tires. I'm going on C
100% C. Okay car, okay tires. Yeah. Like you feel like at a certain point it's good enough.
GR 86 on 300 treadwear having fun. Yeah. Subaru STI on whatever you're having a good time,
but having a great car having a shit car on great tires gonna be whack 100%.
That was going to be my choice. No, it was a good car bad tires. I love I love good car
bad. No, I said bad car good tires is whack. Oh, yes. Yeah, yes. Yeah, completely agree. But
you like the you'd rather just like middle of the road. Yeah, middle of the road car, middle
of the road tires. Good time. Yeah. You're thinking good car bad tires. Yeah. Yeah. Example.
Chris Harris driving a Mercedes, I think it was a C63 on Space Savers, which is great.
Was like he basically said it was like the 1000 horsepower hack. Like it made a 400 horsepower
car feel like a head of 1000 horsepower. E92 M3 on all seasons. Like it's like driving in the rain
or in the snow, but a little more predictable grip. Right. So like you really get chassis dynamics in
a way of like you could be on the limit, but you're not like at 100 plus miles an hour. See,
I don't want to be in a car that feels capable, but the tires are it, which is very scary. Yeah.
To me, like that, that feels like you end up in a bad spot, but I guess it depends on the situation.
It depends on the car a lot too. But now we know Scott, I was going with B. I'm going with D.
D is crap car on craft tires. All right, but let me, let me make the argument for it. No,
I have a good argument for it. You guys remember my blue wagon, the ugly blue wagon. No, I
don't. So it had, it had, yeah, I guess it was green. It had like dry rotted blizzaks. Oh,
yeah. Dry rotted. The car wasn't allowed to not have dry rotted. It had
rotted blizzaks. And this thing was so much fun. Yeah. Because it drove. It drove like it had.
That's what it was. Like it drove like it had 1000 horsepower, but because it only, and it still
has like 220 or whatever, but like you really couldn't get yourself too out of control on it.
Like a good car with crap tires, you can find yourself in a really bad situation, right?
But with this car, it was like, it made the crappiness of it actually kind of fun. Like
it was a proper handful, not too much of a handful. Like you, you're in like a, like a
zero, you know, like a, like what you were saying before, like imagine driving a C seven R on craft
tires. Yeah. Or just cold slicks. That's extreme. And cold slicks suck. Yes. Absolutely. But
like there's something about like you can make a crappy car actually fun with crappy tires.
Yeah. Cause I, I had that E 30 M three for a bit and I was like really underwhelmed by it.
And I was like, yeah, this car's just like, I don't know. It's not that much fun. And someone
said to me, you have too good of tires because they were like, they didn't, I had Yokohama AO 52s
on it. And they were like, they didn't make tires that good back. So like you're driving this
170 horsepower brake horsepower car with gripped up race 200 treadwear tires. Like you need
shit tires. So it's like all over the place. AO 52s now are what that era's full blown
racelike used to be, right? Yeah. Or probably even better, probably better. So they were like,
you needed a car, you need a tire that's like loose, something that you like the car plays
around. Yeah. And you can really feel it. Yeah. And I was like, Oh, that actually makes a lot
of sense. So I got to test this because those dry rotted tires like rotted, like they don't
actually hold air anymore. So I was like, Oh, I have to swap them off. So I had a set of Toyo,
like R ones or whatever, which is like their track. It's like better than the triple eight
R or whatever. And I had those sitting on a set of wheels mounted. They were five by one 12s.
And I put them on the 200 and I took it for a cruise. And it just made the car sound like it
was breaking because like every corner I go into like all like the tires ripping out go anywhere,
but like all of the like any kind of like flexibility, pushing or whatever, anything,
any compliance. And it just like, it felt horrible and like ruin the car. I was like,
now the car feels really crap. I'm sorry to do this, but we're on the topic.
And it's staring me right in the face. And I cannot say it. This car is a good car on crappy
tires. You have the most bunzo tires ever on this car. I know. They're just some
bullshit. Like I want to change them for you. And the worst thing is, is I have good tires for the
car. I just haven't mounted them. They would even just look cooler. And this is why center locks are
not actually cool, even though I won't get rid of them, even though I could, because center locks
are a pain. It's not as easy to just take my wheels off. I have to like go find the tool. I have to
do this. I have to get like a friend by to torque it. No, I'll come by with a gun. Oh, you have
the gun. I have the whole gun. Oh yeah. We'll bust those puppies on. You gotta get the key first.
I gotta get set of towels for it now. So yeah, we gotta find the key too. Do you want to tell
the chat about this? No, they know. I told them in the last episode. And I told them with saying,
by the way, if you happen to work in a Ferrari dealership, I could use your help and no one
reached out, which means no one who works in a Ferrari too. Does it Mongo? He says he could
probably help me. And then obviously Victoria Bruno said, does she help me too? Oh yeah,
that's right. Yeah. I was going to say Sally, but I don't think she works there anymore.
All right. Moving on. What do we got as the next one here?
Scotto, you have such nice handwriting. Do they know that you have nice handwriting?
Yeah, it's because I work graffiti. It's the one upside of writing graffiti.
Being ran through the system at 13. The manual transmission is facing extinction.
Does it matter anymore? So I'm going to be straight up. I added this one because
it was a topic I wanted to talk about with you guys when we got into the best driver's car.
And I was saying, like, I don't think it could be on the list because it's not available in
a manual. And you were like, I don't think that matters anymore. Yeah, it's tough because I think
it's another one of those like, I don't know, it's hard because Toyota, again, is doing a great
job of manuals like the 86 is fun to drive in manual, I think. And they put the Supra out
with the six speed manual. I haven't driven one of those, have you? It's good. Yeah. Yeah,
that's cool. Yeah. So I don't think it's going extinct because like those mustangs, which I think
they got a little too soft. Like I didn't actually love the manual on the Mustang. It felt too like
you could just like throw it into gears and the clutch is too easy. Porsche still doing a pretty
okay job with it, although like when you're in sport mode, it won't let you like, it has to rev
match for you and shit, which is interesting. Oh, you can turn that off. No. Yeah. Remember,
you and I drove that and we talked about this like, I felt like every time a Mustang comes up,
but we drove that one Mustang where it was like, it was doing too much. Like the manual was blipping,
like you would just all you had to do is slightly lean on the shifter and it would
blip the throttle. Whoa. Yeah, it was pretty wack. So I think kind of defeats the purpose in a way.
Yeah. I don't think it makes it extinct though. I think that there's still some good ones out
there. But I think the question is, is like, does it matter if the manual really goes away?
And I think like where my position on this is, is that I still drive cars from 20, 30 years ago,
where automatic sucked. Like I'm in the process of buying another car
that like, I really have wanted for a long time, but it only is available in the U.S.
and an auto and I need to manual swap it. And the manual swap is actually not easy.
Like it requires cutting the tunnel out. It has to be some Audi.
It has to be some nonsense. It has to be an Audi. It's a, but whatever.
It's a green wagon thing, but newer. So it's, it's, it's just a car I've always wanted,
but like it was only, there was very, very few manuals sold and they're like hard to find.
And, but like in automatic from the nineties is like unbearably bad.
It's terrible. Is it a car that's already been brought up today?
Some somewhat. Yes. Okay. Yeah. So you know what it is.
So let the, let the chat figure it out. Let the chat figure it out.
I have, I have a mark for Supra twin turbo automatic. Oh, you still got it?
Oh, okay. Yeah. Yeah. It is the worst driving vehicle ever. Yeah.
In automatic 97 Supra. Holy shit. Dude, the JZX when I bought it had that same exact auto,
same transmission and it was garbage. Like it just like, you even want to just,
you know, you ought to manually shift it. It just, no, it's, there's,
Slushbox comes with all the right, but then you have like, there's a reason it was called
a Slushbox. But now it's not that. Now the DCTs and like all the dual clutch things and even
like some of the like Toyota automatics, dude, no, the eight HP is, is crazy good.
Yeah. But, and by the way, for those who are not that familiar with the eight HP,
so the eight HP is a ZF transmission that's an eight speed and they have learned to basically
create a simulated clutch for it. So you can tune it where you can actually put a clutch pedal in
the car that works like on, it's kind of like an on off switch, but still like, no, you can,
they have hydraulic controls for them now, which literally moves hydraulic that then moves like
a potentiometer to like control the clutch release. That's insane. I mean, the amount of
programming that's like going into that. Like people are not doing sequentials because
Oh, it's way cheaper. It's cheaper. They're, they don't need services. Yeah. They're heavy,
they're big. Sure. But you can also, they don't clunk. But you can go to the track,
like sequential shift every corner. Yeah. And then you can throw it into automatic and like
cruise home and eat Chinese food on your lap. But my thing is like, because I'm doing a manual
swap in the Supra and I decided I want to just put a V 160 in it, the original six speed trans
and everyone is like, why not ZF8 swap it? Yeah. Whatever. Yeah. That's how I feel about it. Because
it's cool. And I appreciate the technology. I drove Ron's Evo sequential. If you want a sequential,
you're not going to be satisfied doing this. No, with the little joystick thing. Like you want
a sequential. You want the experience. Smash that same row in and like feel it. Like you want all
that stuff. If I don't, then I just want a manual. And if I don't want that, then I just want
an automatic. I don't want this like weird middle thing. That's a great option for guys that are
building track cars that are trying to get faster. Yeah. Well, big reason that people started to
develop them was because they could handle so much power. Yeah. So like they can handle well
over a thousand horsepower and like a lot of other transmissions just can't. Yeah. I mean,
I'm buying a V160 swap off someone because they put an 8 HP in the car. So I think there's a time
and a place for it. But like my case use my use case for stuff is like, I don't just not want it.
I don't know. I my opinion on it is that like it's very, very car dependent. Like some cars
really should be DCT because they're engineered around it. And some cars absolutely need to be
manual. And I think a lot of the new cars are engineered around like a dual clutch style. Like
think about the ZR1 that you drove, the C8. Yeah. No, you don't want manual. You don't want manual
on that. It would be a it disaster, right? Like it would kind of defeat the purpose
of what that car is. So I think this is like where I have like I am definitely aging past you guys
because like for me, I don't give a fuck if it like holds the power band like an extra 300.
Like I enjoy shifting. Yeah. Like I just enjoy that part of it. And I enjoy driving manual
transmissions that aren't fun to drive. Like Ashley's F100 was manual. Yeah. It's trash. I'm
trying to buy a new farm truck right now. And it's like I want another manual. Actually,
one of the vehicles I'm looking at right now is a manual with a high low rear,
which means that it's a force. It's an eight speed. And it's like it's not you know how
difficult and annoying that'll be drive up the hill to my farm. Yeah, it'll suck. You're shifting
60 times. I like that too. I'm super about that. But I think some cars actually become worse if
they're a man. What's your stance on like a manual g 80 m three? I don't want it. Really? No, it's
like a new modern thing. Like the it just feels out of place. Yeah, like I'm I feel like similar
to you. I feel like a little like like traditional in the fact that's like if I want a cool, fun
manual car, like I want to shift the gears. I don't want to play with like a of course,
like a retrofitted like auto that mimics a manual. Like I don't give a shit. You know,
like I'd rather just blow this transmission, put another one in. But with like newer cars,
like I want the thing that's better. Like I'm not going to get a manual g 80 because I'm like,
oh, it's six speed. You're like, you know, the auto is better. Like it's way better. You know,
like that car is such a big nice like luxury car. Yeah, auto probably suits it better.
But you like your Ferrari more gated. Yeah. Oh, yeah. I mean, that's a car that yeah.
And I like single clutch. Like I think I've driven both like mine, like it's kind of annoying
sometimes, but like it's it's like pretty fun. It's pretty fun at anger. It's actually the
opposite. Like it's unfun in traffic. Yeah, but I tell people all the time, like I love the gated
car. I think it's super fun. It's like, you know, if you want it, it's a big expense.
If you do a challenge, TCU in that car, dude, it's awesome. And single clutch again,
is this weird thing where it's like, it's fun because it's this weird point in time where
they were like, we're going to make a manual transmission, but it's going to shift that was
the highest tech at the time. Yeah. And it's like, it's cool for what it is. Like it's not the fastest
is not the smoothest, but it's like, it's unique and it's fun. So when I was a journalist was the
introduction to the DSG, the DCT, right? Like all that stuff was just coming out.
Yeah. Mercedes, you know, Mercedes had SMG and like everyone was like introducing
these like automated manuals. And you know, in the beginning, they were all kind of clunky.
And there was that there was always those journalists who were going to be like,
but it's just faster than you can. You can't shift that fast. I'm like, I don't know why I care.
Like I'm not on track every day. Who's who's the is everyone the get some bitches guy?
Absolutely. Hero. Yeah. That dude's amazing.
But like who care, you know, like the, the, the shift time thing is like crazy.
Yeah. And I'm like, I'm like, I don't know like if I, if I care that much. And I think that
I got to experience those when they were still all slightly clunky. Yeah. I didn't feel like
their crap experience was there. Um, good learning, you know, getting to kind of learn there.
I don't know if I have like driven other than like in supercars,
like a modern system that I was like, wow, this is really good. But like in a supercar,
like I don't really care. Like I almost rather have paddle shift because it feels appropriate
and that's what I mean. Like it's very appropriate to the car. Like to see even just a base C8 Corvette.
Yeah. Like that. I will say this though, because I own, I mean, that was technically my car.
Yeah. Get into that. But like that's a whole other story. Fuck you, Jeff. But um, but that was
like, I will admit there were times I wish that car was manual because it was kind of boring
just driving around town. That transmission is actually a good point to talk about like the
single clutch being more of an experience because the DCT in the C8 is so good. Yeah. That it leaves
three quarter throttle, you shift and it just, you're like, that's insane. And it's really nice.
Like it's incredible for a car, but like it loses some of the soul, right? Yeah. Because like you
owned a DCT E92. Yeah. That was like this weird, like almost smooth, but still raw DCT. It's like
they wanted to leave a little bit of kick in it. Yeah. Like it still kicked gears and stuff.
Yeah. What do you think about like the opposite, which is retrofitting like automated manuals
into old cars? Not down. Like it's just like silly. Yeah. Like, I mean, like people are like,
you know, so if you're building a hill climb car and you need the tents, sure. But like, wait,
wait, what do you wait? Like you said, like, I mean, people are putting, you know,
eight HP and a mark for a Supra. Yeah. I mean, I guess that's that's okay with. I thought you meant
putting like a single clutch automated manual until like a people are, I mean, people are putting
obviously Volkswagen kids are putting DSGs into like older cars and stuff like that,
which is crazy because there's like a lot of sensors you got to get to work well.
People are putting like PDKs into other cars and stuff like that, which is kind of crazy.
Yeah. But yeah, I'm all for hot rotting. Like I think it's cool. That's what you want to do.
It's just like, I'm not as into it as I was, because I don't really have the same amount of time to
like dial stuff in like that, you know, like putting an eight HP in a car means you're going to sit
there and fuck with calibration for weeks, months, you know, like, and I just don't,
I have this like eight HP dream that I realized doesn't exist. Oh yeah. You know what I'm saying?
I think it's like, it's like the threesome dream. Like you think you're going to have a threesome
and it's going to be fine. It's not going to have drama that follows it. You're just disappointing
to people or like, like in the end, it's just weird. Like everyone knows that story, right?
That's always where the pod goes. We're past an hour, moving into it. But like,
but like, but you know what I'm saying? Like you think it's going to be great. It's never what
you think it's going to be likely. And then you have this whole situation where like,
it's like project cars in general. No, I know. But like my dream with the eight HP is that I
could build something that I could flip a switch and it just becomes a normal car. And then it can
become rowdy, you know, like for example, I've researched eight HP all wheel drive systems for
my S eight, because like that's a car that I'm conflicted doing a manual on because it's a nice
big, large car that is kind of nice as an auto. But it's also sort of like, but you can't really,
it's not fun unless you can shift the gears because the, you know, it's just, it's one of
those things where you're cool to have best of both worlds. Yeah. Yeah. That's a rare, I think
that's a rare example of it. That's good. That's a car that the doing a crazy trans swap in the
juice is not worth the squeeze. You'd have to obviously do everything else to go along. Yeah.
You need like a couple of hundred, you'd need like a couple more hundred horsepower to make
it. Well, you need a V10. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. So let's say V10 swap, eight HP, all wheel drive.
Yeah. And then thinking that that's just going to like mosey on in traffic is weird.
It's weird. That's where the dream falls apart. Yeah. Yeah. And that's where like project cars,
maybe it's that maybe it goes back to the California question. But to me, like project cars
change so much because here where we live is no matter where you want to drive it, you're going
to sit in the absolute shittiest traffic relentlessly, no matter what. If you want to take your car out
on the weekend, unless you're an old guy that wakes up at six and is home by eight, like you've
got to build something that traffics well. Yeah. And I think that's what maybe changed project
carring a bit for me because I'm like, man, building a good road going car in California
means like it's got to be comfortable. It needs air conditioning and needs to like
you got to just sit. Yeah. You know, it's got to just idle without overheating.
Like right now I'm in between. I'm like starting to feel like I have to buy another car like this.
No, no, no. Second time he said that. But you already said you are in the process of buying
another car. Yeah. The other ones already bought and being delivered to somewhere right now.
But that one doesn't count. No. Yeah. It's like basically a parts car. Okay.
I'm glad nothing's changed. Nothing is changed. It's funny because I've spent like the past
whatever 20-some-odd episodes telling people I'm going to cut down the fleet, but then
something came along and I just had that. They know better. I just had to have it. Of course.
I need to know. Just tell them. But you won't even be excited by it. It's not even something you
care about. Yeah. Here's the worst part. I've already owned it once and sold it. Oh God,
it's that red fucking Audi. No, it's not. The clothes. It's the
fucking white one. No. The D11. The D11 V8. Yeah. Oh, thanks. You buy that. How does it get
eight? It doesn't even move. Did you spend more? No, no. I didn't buy the same
one back. Oh, another one. I bought another one that's a bit cleaner. Oh, okay. I support that.
But got hit in the front. But I just so happened to have... Wait, was it fixed or it still was?
Cleaner? No, it's like a small accident. But I just so happened to have the hood, the fender,
and the bumper in my storage for that. And it's like there's not that many of those cars left.
I can at least put it back together. At least I put it back together and then move it back
into this world. Oh, because that's what you have to do with your time. I have no time for that at
saving outies. You need to... Yeah, I am... Why 100% captain save a hoe when it comes to outies?
I will look at something and go, I could fix that. That's like him seeing a kitten on the street
and being like, I got to rescue this. I am an outie rescue. Yeah. That's basically what it is.
Wow, you... Yeah. That's a shirt. Yeah. I wish... I always think about like if cars could talk,
you know, and like Brian's like, I'm gonna save you. And it's like, oh, great, this rich guy's
coming to save my life. Finally. And then he drops it over the farm next to all his other cars.
And it's like, oh, fuck, I'm never leaving. It gets to the farm and it sees the shed
and all the parts in here. We've never seen them here at the farm.
That's a good children's book. If you want to write it, let's start writing it.
Children's horror story. Getting parked next to the XR4TI. Oh, no. I used to be nice.
Why is the hood open? It's so rat. I wouldn't eat me.
Oh, the realization that Mike, that like, a bunch of my cars are basically living the movie Saw
every day. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You still have that yellow golf that sat on top of the container.
Yeah, I still got that. I got big dreams for that one. The foster car comes over and sees that
thing. They're like, don't look at... No, don't look over there. Why is there an electric motor
behind him? Don't ask. Is that a male truck? Oh God, no. I forgot I had that.
Oh, yeah? I forgot about that. Is it still in the garage? No, I moved it outside because
the synchro's in the garage now. Holy shit. No. Have we even picked anything out of the hat?
No, no. We're still in the automatic transmission manual. I'm going to bring it back. I'm going
to plan this plane. Okay. So I have been for the past year... It was a crosswind, so just put it
down quick. So for about a year now, I haven't owned a daily car, like a daily driver. I either
drive the Vanagon, the Rabbit, the RS2, which I haven't driven in months. I left it at the farm
thinking that that would be a good idea because I would drive it more and then I just don't,
which was dumb. So I need to bring that back here. Plus it has no air conditioning.
Sick. And then the S8. So that's a rotation of stuff that I've been driving recently.
And I don't know. I just am starting to be like, why do I live such a difficult life?
Do you know what I'm saying? Because I had to have like just some of it,
just like some days are just really difficult. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, some days you just got to
do business. And as you said that, I was like, fuck me and Scott over so similar. In the weirdest
way. What? You know how you always say we have the same cars, but different format?
You're like, bizarre me. Yeah. Because we do own the same cars. But then I'm like,
I'm literally daily in nonsense. Yeah. And I was going to drive the GTR here until I realized,
huh, I just forgot to put insurance on it. Yeah, that happens. And I was like, oh,
that's, I was going to get in. I was like, oh, this is stupid. I need to call my insurance company
tomorrow. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Because like you have a two week grace period from when you bought it.
And I think it's like today. And I was like, oh, yeah. But I'm like, you know,
we're on the same wavelength on a lot of things. Oddly. But here's, so here's what I was sort of
narrowing down to. I either was going to buy, as you know, because I've been searching is a RS4.
Yeah. I love it. But then there's a piece of me and maybe this is like this like
practicality or something. I don't know. I don't really know what to call it.
That like maybe just owning like a big automatic car again would be like a good car to own.
Yeah. I can't because I loved having an A8L. I gotta say the D4 like it's just like it just
does regular life. Okay. You turn it on. It goes. You turn it off. You don't worry about it. Yeah.
This is a whole other topic, but like I want to buy a daily. I want like a car just to drive.
I cannot decide on a vehicle that I'm willing to spend my money on that I want to drive like as
like a car. No, I'm not a single car. I almost bought a brand new Prius. And then I was like,
I can't do that. If you had to buy a brand new car right now as a daily that was like under
60 grand, what would you buy? Under 60 is tough. Under 60. And that's the thing is everything's
so fucking expensive. Yeah. I mean, but like any like because under 60 is in like under 60,
I think I would get a new forerunner. Those actually the brand new forerunner is great. Yeah.
I think I'd buy a new forerunner. I drove the Tacoma with that motor and it's great. Yeah.
But don't all like the like don't all like the off road people hate it. It doesn't matter.
Because it's like a nice vehicle for 60 years. It looks good. We're not off roading. I mean,
I like I have the GX the GX 460 and it's great for that. Yeah. It is oil changes and forget.
That's it. And it's when I need to drive somewhere. Yeah, sure. Sometimes it's sad that I'm not
driving something cool. Like right now the Lancia like all the panels are off of it,
getting repainted. The Evo's doing Evo things like I have nothing fun to drive right now
other than the FD but like the GX is always there. It always works. It'll haul whatever
like it's great. It's great to have. I love it. Yeah, I need another truck. I can't decide what
truck to get new trucks are too expensive. And new trucks are too expensive. That's a
that's a whole other topic. Yeah. All right. Hats back into the hat. What do we got here?
It's something. Yeah, yeah, you're up. I read the most recent one or do you read the one or
whatever he can get it. Your favorite automaker and the car you wish they made. Nice.
Hmm. You want to kick it off? Sure. So I think just to set the rules for this, right? It's like
Ron's going to say Mitsubishi and then just say cars. Cars in general. I was thinking about it.
Mitsubishi Evo 11. Next. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I almost strictly own dead brands.
Lancia, they make one car and it's God awful looking. Oh man, I just realized that about you.
Yeah. Yeah. Dead car guy. Don't you also like wasn't there like,
didn't you also like a dead auto like American brand because you were talking about building
a muscle car? Didn't you want like a Pontiac or something? No, no, I wanted a Chevelle. I wanted
a 66 Chevelle smokey Unix style. Yeah. But yeah, those things are sick. Oh man. Yeah.
Favorite automaker in the car. I wish they made. I mean, technically Lancia is back.
So they're built. They still build cars. build one car
and they have a rally two car that's actually pretty sick. It's they sold like 60 of them
already. It's crazy. But that's race car stuff. God, I don't know.
That's a hard. I mean, what are you? What's your favorite automaker?
Current automaker. I mean, I don't care. You can make it. You could. This is make believe.
I mean, of everything they have, like as a whole, probably Toyota. Okay.
Obviously, Porsche is pretty close because like the Cayenne diesel, absolutely sick,
three RS, like nobody's arguing against that. But Toyota, like the entire lineup is amazing.
Yeah. Yeah. Toyota goes so hard. So the Toyota current gen and the car that I wish they made
now is like a two door all wheel drive light six speed turbo car. So basically they're like
current GT for what the GT for? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Because the Corolla, it's cool, but it's too big.
They make the Yaris overseas, which is amazing. I wish we got that here. But it's also like a
little stubby whatever, like I think something like the GT for like a little more closer to
super shape, all wheel drive four cylinder turbo light. Yeah. That'd be sick. Yeah.
By the way, I don't know if I can share this, but I'm gonna share it. One of the listeners of the
show sent me a photo of a Yaris GR parked in Texas outside of Toyota. I've seen that. Yeah. But I
think that so they was like, I was like, who are they working on development? But and next to it
was a GT for? Yeah. Oh, wow. Yeah. Oh, so they have a big center in Eagle Rock, I think it's called.
They have a proving grounds there, which is pretty new. It's really, really sick.
And the GR like dudes, the development people for GR are there in Texas. Yeah. Yeah. I think
that's what we sent me. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. The Yaris will never make it here though. I know,
which is such a shame because I think small cars just don't work here. It's so sad. They bring
them here and they don't work. It's my car didn't work. You realize that they don't work. All of
our cars. Yeah, dude, it's crazy. It's crazy. Like an R35 in Japan feels like a fuck. Oh,
yeah. Yeah. Yeah. What are you, Audi? We know it. No, actually, no, actually, I think the one
that would be cool is I think I was split between two. I don't know, like, Audi's like the one,
but like, I don't know, like what I would want Audi to make like they've gone, they've gone so
far from what I like that, like, I just don't even know if it fits in their package anymore.
You know what I'm saying? Like the R6, like, that's cool. Like, I don't know. It's just not
dreamworld. Yeah, I know. I just, it's like, but to ask Audi to build basically a GDSTI
is what I would want. Right. Or an Evo. Do you know what I'm saying? But like, I just,
I think that's totally fair. I just think that's so outside of the brand for them now. But the RS3's
close ish. I guess so. Like if you made the RS3 a little more like athletic. Yeah. But I'll give
you the car that I wish it would be a low buck rear wheel drive VR6 powered Volkswagen.
Modernized VR6. Like, imagine if the Scirocco was a rear wheel drive car. Yeah. Yeah. You can never
with a, with a, you know, like if you, if they were able to build something that's basically
a Volkswagen version of the GT86, I think it'd be super cool because I want, I think that that
market needs competition. And I think the best place for that market to get competition is from
the Germans. Yeah. So like, I think being able to bring something like that over would be good.
And I think that they could still build a somewhat raw car as Volkswagen, where like, I don't think
BMW can build a car that raw anymore. Do you know what I'm saying? When I say raw, it's really just
like, it's really just simple. I think that that's just a, would be a really fun car. And
episode we're going to make for your channel is like, I really love the simplicity of like,
my old Volkswagen's, but like, I wouldn't want to not own a rear wheel drive car. Yeah. Yeah.
Like, I think like just a better sports car. And I like Volkswagen. So like, it works well,
that would work well for me. So that would be, that I think would be the one for me.
Like, I'd love to see Porsche build another front engine transaxle car, like a new 944.
I think that's cool. But it'll never, yeah, just, no, it'll never happen. Yeah. But that's what,
I guess that's what this question is about. Yeah. Dream it up. Yeah. The Volkswagen,
I think it would be the one for me. Okay. I think that'd be it. Like,
and it doesn't have to be a VR, but like a VR. Yeah. VR format. Yeah. Yeah.
The brand I've always found myself going towards for the longest time, BMW. Yeah. So I would go
BMW and what I'd want them to make would be something that took inspiration from Bengal era
and put a sick fucking NA motor and something. Like,
Bengal era BMW made the craziest road going engines for pedestrian cars.
Big Screamers. Just big Screamer, like small displacement, lots of cylinders, ITBs, like
do something like that in a car like, you know, the M2 or something, make it a little raw, but like,
less power, tons of revs. I mean, it's it, you know, because I've loved BMW as a brand forever.
And I think they always make incredible engines. I mean, even current, like B58, took the world
by storm, you know, like, I just think that they kill it. It would just be cool to see
like a more analog, naturally aspirated take on it. Do you think they're not building those or maybe
I would imagine the reason they're not building anymore is just fuel efficiency stuff.
Oh, just emissions. Emissions in general, like you have to do, yeah, fuel efficiency is a horrible
one too, because like to get that kind of power, you need crazy compression and you need the like
catalytic converters have to be whatever, like I don't think in modern emissions era,
and like all the gas mileage that they have to reach. I don't want to call you out, but I love
that like the minute we start talking about new cars and emissions, you're like, yeah, like the
secondary air pump and like the cattle, I don't know, just these things they have to do.
Yeah, the garbage, I don't know. Like, I don't know, all the things we take off our cars.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. But it's like, because it's all the hybrid systems and stuff they'd have
to put in place so you can fucking skirt around, you know, miles and stuff. Like it's all nonsense,
right? Yeah. I mean, like Auto Stop Start was like a feature that they were like, oh, we could
game the miles per gallon, because if you're not moving and the car is off, then you're not
zeroing and you should move easy. And now it's like, then we would hybrid for all that shit.
By the way, Auto Start Stop is my least favorite feature in any car. The dumbest thing ever.
Because as people are probably starting to realize now, is that those only really work on brand
new cars that work well. My A1 would Auto Start Stop and then not restart. And then would just
start that would start just doing this really create it would like freak itself out and I would
have to pull off, turn the car off and recycle it because the ECU would just bug out and sometimes
it would happen because I just stalled and then I would stall and then like I would go and like
press the clutch manual with Auto Start Stop. What the heck? Yeah, the second you clutch in.
Yeah, and then when you yeah, and then I would clutch in and then I would stall and I would try
to be restarting as I'm trying to restart the car. And then you then you do the starter buzz.
Yeah, luckily, luckily, you can go in with the you can go into the whatever VDAC or whatever
it's called and and you can delete it. I just I just the second you said that I just imagine
like you have some like hot start issue and you have Start Stop too. So you pull up to a light
and your car turns off and then it tries to turn itself back on it's like and everybody is around
you just takes off. You're like, I can't imagine that's going to do well as cars become less
reliable. I currently have a car like that. It's not mine. But it's something you it's what I
drove to dinner that night. Something you're gonna love. Yeah, so my friend bought a flat top range.
Oh, yeah. Yeah. And he was like, yeah, he wants to come out and drive it. So, you know, I was like,
I'll just cruise it around. So I drive it to and from the shop every now and then until it left
me stranded at Mitsuha. And by the way, I literally walked to the shop and then rode my bicycle back
because it does the thing ready. It drives fine. Yeah, it's fine. But sometimes if you like,
don't step on the gas and the perfect procedure. Yeah, either not bog it down or goose it too
hard. It'll stall. And if it stalls, it won't start until the engine cools all the way back
down. Is that what it does? Yeah, yeah, yeah. So is it the V8? Yeah, yeah. So
it has to cool all the way down and then it starts drives fine. But if it's and it'll run for like
an hour, like I left it running, I drove it around, it's fine. Yeah. But if it stalls, it will not
start back up. We are both. We both have garbage aficionados garbage aficionados. There is a
Land Rover 25 feet that direction on the other side of the wall of that Ferrari that like I
keep forgetting actually works now and I keep forgetting to drive. But I think back to like how
bullshit that V8 is. I mean, you realize it's a Buick engine that was like sold to Rover in a
really bad deal that I think like I think that there's some blackmail that forced Land Rover to
keep using that engine forever. Or it was just a really sick deal and the castings were so used
that the blocks were getting porous. So you had a brand new block that was getting porous and it
was dropping cylinder liners brand new engine but the casting was so old. Yeah. And let like and like
Nick close your ears but like the British are great at a lot of things. Yes. They're really
good at making brown food. Yes. They're very good at dry gravies and such very good at dry
humor. Yeah. Right. They're good at colonialism. I was going to say empires. Yeah. They're good
at that. They're good at that. Yeah. The one thing they're not good at is anything that has to do
with electricity. Yes. Which is great. Wait a second. Nick runs all the runs. I will actually
cosign on that. I will caveat that like it's just cars. Yeah. Because I will also die on the hill
that British Home Electrical is goaded. And there are so many reasons why our plug is safer. Go
Google it. It's boring. But electrical in cars. 100% cosign. I'm with my American brethren on this.
I would rather like chew glass than do a British cars wiring and I've done it. And I will say
I meant it because he saved my ass. That is true. He saved your wiring. Right. Right. Right. So
they get really good at it because they have a lot of practice. Yeah. Yeah. But when you were
starting the car that night the headlights were flickering like a 90s rave. Stranger thing.
Yeah. Like it's like. And then it started and I looked over and I just gave me the thumbs up and
was like I have never been happier to drive a Vanagon home tonight. Driving the Range Rover makes
every trip into something that could ruin your day. Of course. I literally was going to the shop
to do a one minute task and I was like I'm hungry. I'm going to stop and grab something to eat.
Then my fucking car didn't work and I waited and I tried to start it and then I got it to run and
then it died and I had to fucking pay some dude five bucks to help me push it into the parking
lot. And then I had to walk with like. Well then I had to eat my lunch in the car so I could carry
my laptop with no AC to the shop. Yeah. With no AC to sitting in the sun. Yeah. Then I have to
walk to the shop. It changed the course of my whole day. Yeah. But the thing I don't understand
about it is that these cars are goaded for like driving through Africa. Yeah. But that's like the
diesels and they're figured out. Right. They're really there. The diesels are very simple. The
non turbo diesels especially. They're made to be fixed with a screwdriver and form equipment. Yeah.
But like we actually had a problem with our Land Rover where the ignition like the actual key
wouldn't like click over. Yeah. And it's like a known problem. Yeah. Right. It's a known problem.
And you have to like you just sit there and you have to shake the key. Oh my God. And it will
eventually start the steering wheel. You're doing the steering wheel. You're doing the key.
And there was one time where like her and I went camping and we were like out in the middle of
nowhere like BLM land. And we sat there for an hour and a half. Yeah. Just doing that. That's
where that many are looking at. And you're like yeah. And you're just starting to go. It's
getting dark. Yeah. It's getting dark. I borrowed that truck once. Yeah. To go pick up tires.
Like I don't know why. Sounds right. But I picked up like a million Toyos in it.
Yeah. So I'm like strapped them to the roof and shit. I don't even understand.
But I took it and I was on like a bikini or some shit because I picked it up from your house and
then went and grabbed coffee. And then I'm like I get in it and I can't get the key to turn. Yeah.
And I'm like what the fuck. So I call Ashley and she's like oh yeah. She's like you know it's like
the G spot. You don't really know where it is but it's up there. So just turn just like push the
key up and jiggle it. That's until it goes. And I was like for like 10 minutes and when it worked
it's like I've never turned the key off again. Yeah. And that's a glimpse into the conversations
with my wife. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. No. You eventually finesse it. But you never like it's you never
get it on the first target. Like you get close but yeah. All right. Had time.
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Block cameras versus car culture. So this has actually been like a big topic the past two weeks
because a lot of things have happened. Yeah. So there's a fight right now in I think Troy New York
and where basically where the city council has like banned the flock cameras but the police
don't want to turn them off and they've actually like they've actually entered a state of emergency
in the town because like it's this huge fight. I don't know much more detail on that but I read
the headline but right now like everything is about like the introduction of flock cameras because
things like takeovers and street racing is a reason to put flock cameras. What is it gonna do?
Well this is what are they gonna do? Dude do you know you know how crazy they are
with flock cameras. So let Ron run on flocks because I think because there is a lot around
our neighborhood. With the second you start. Long Beach is one of the cities that's turned
flock cameras on. Yeah and they not only read your plate your registration see that you're
driving it but also see marks on the bumper they have telltale things where even if you cover up
your plate they can identify who's driving it where what days and thankfully there's a law still
in place right now where that data can only sit around for something like 30 days and you need
a warrant to access it but still like. That's what I mean like nothing's gonna happen from all this
shit. But it all exists and once it's all there like nothing's stopping them from being like
okay well you drove your car without a plate you get a ticket immediately or like you missed
your registration you get a ticket immediately or. Scary window into life in the UK boys.
Yeah 100% you guys live that. And it's like to me I think that's the grossest violation
of human privacy that we have right now in the world. Like I I'm firmly on destroy them all.
Like what if instead though it's like just for like calling people out for like running
black wheels as I sit here with a black wheel car behind me. By the way I haven't changed them
because it's just annoying to take the sidewalk. Flock trolling would be unreal. You get an
official state letter saying that you run black wheels please change the color. Yeah paint your
body kit do suspension before you do wheels. I think it's a tough one because like part of me
is like it'd be great to fucking eliminate sideshow culture and shit that ruins cars. I agree.
There is like but really none of those dudes are running plates anyway.
But also they're all running Hoonigan plates. Sorry. They're not gonna they're not gonna catch
these people they're not gonna do anything. The problem with it is that how I feel with
like everything and I'm a big like AI doomer right now but it's like all the fucking all this
technology is just gonna get it's gonna progress and then they're gonna use it to do things like
you were saying before and then it's like then we're just getting ticketed for everything and
can't do anything fun and it seems like it's a safety thing and I agree like to a certain extent
like if someone gets kidnapped or if a car gets stolen they could track it like that's great.
But that's great in a perfect world and that never ever pans out that way. It just doesn't.
I mean I actually am curious of Nick's opinion on this because like I read Max Power in the
late 90s and early 2000s and that was the beginning. What was they what were they called
Gatsos? What was the what was the name for the camera? Yeah Gatso is a generic speed camera.
Yeah it just identifies the plate and it's triggered by speed alone. Yeah they've subsequently
introduced average speedcams so there are gates every mile or couple miles and it does the time
calculation slow down so you can't game it. However this is why in the UK everybody runs the gel
plate. If you google this it's a type of plate with raised lettering which is aesthetic but it
tricks the camera and it can't see it. It's like hairspray on the on the plate in the old days
but from a sort of more general like privacy point of view we're so like the frog in the hot water
in the UK with it. We're just used to if you drive into a gas station and if you don't have tax
and registration on your car, bam a cop will show up because they get summoned. Cop cars driving
around have like the cameras in 360 they scan all the cars they drive past. And you have had that
here for a while the finding like warrants. The cars with flock on the car. The last piece of it
is that it's the slippery slope towards paper mile. It's really a backdoor to paper mile.
If California does paper mile it'll be the thing I'm out. Like that'll be the straw that
breaks the candles back for sure. I'm not I'm not taking defense of paper mile but the reason
for paper mile is because our roads are serviced by gas tax and there's so many EVs that they're
not paying the gas tax. So what has to happen if that happens is we either get rid of the gas tax
and then everyone goes paper mile or we or we figure out that only EVs pay paper mile. Yeah.
Because like that's the whole the whole reason is like and there's also an argument that EVs
weigh so much that they're actually creating more and that's why like your registration costs more
for your truck than your car because it's all weight based because it's damaged to road. And
look I'm not sitting here defending California and their misspendings in any way but that is the
that's the reason behind it. Yeah. So yeah. Yeah. I mean the flock camera thing I think is like I
think to your point it's like I get the reasoning why but I actually think flock cameras can destroy
car culture faster than anything. Hard to agree because the minute that you get a ticket because
your headlight is not X number of inches off the ground because you've illegally lowered the car
like that's stuff that like cops won't pull you over for but is a crime. Right. And like that's
the thing I think a lot of us don't realize is there's so many crimes in the book but if AI is
attached to flock and just anything that is yeah imagine you have a decibel reading decibel reading
like easy like I mean anything that they can a sniffer. Yeah. All of those things become something
that now and then you can attach it to just which out out here would be hard because I know like
you talked to like guys in New Zealand and they're like can't drive shit on the street.
No that's Australia too. Germany. Yeah. Similar. I mean that's why you know think
about it but you think about it happening in California and you're like dude the closest
racetrack is three hours away. Yeah. You know there's not a single drag strip. There's not a
single racetrack. There's not a single anything. It's like what do you do. You know a lot of people
I mean just the car culture thing. I have a friend who's from Pittsburgh and he pit race
just closed and he's been like buying up cars over there because like these guys are like
what am I going to do like older guys are like I have all these track car but I'm not going to go
to summit because it's too far but yeah I don't want to drive this on the street like I bought
this car to be a tractor and they just sell them because it's like you're just like well I'm over
it what am I going to do. It's like what would a lot of Californians do if you're like I literally
really can't drive. Oh the industry would be decimated. Yeah yeah and like I do agree like
in the deeper side of what you're talking about like it's just bad for like our our rights because
like you live in a surveillance state. Right. And it's like it's something like because anybody
can buy that that data too so they know all of a sudden like what your habits are where you go
what you do every single day and that just gets sold then it gets sold to the highest bidder and
then you know you're getting active ads on like where you're driving. It's the exact same thing
about having accelerometers and black boxes tied to insurance. Yeah. So if you if you accelerate too
hard your insurance gets dinged your premium goes up can you imagine. Yeah I like that was
something that people voluntarily put in their car. Could you imagine being that much of a wet noodle.
Yeah I'll take that feature. Like could you imagine like two bucks off a month. Yeah got my
good driver discount. Like I just can't even imagine being like yeah that's what I want in life.
And not like that's the tough thing is we're not going around and like we break the law you know
this and that and you know it's like no we just want to enjoy our enthusiast cars and it's such a
small percentage. And that's why I made the joke earlier today of like to be a car
enthusiast in California. You have to be a criminal. You're not actually committing crimes that
matter but you're a criminal because you've illegally lowered it. You've illegally done this.
And it's like all of that stuff isn't against the law in Arizona but it's against the law here.
Yeah. And it's like that becomes a weird thing. Yeah. Anyway yeah. Flock camera so
Flock them. So yeah it's I don't know like if you guys still follow like
Jalopniks and those. Oh yeah I forgot. Like that's a big conversation right now is just where
that's all going because like it will become a question of like you'll you can never do something.
What do you got? Yeah shut the fuck up brother. Next one. All right fine. Fucking great. Talk about
our muscle cars still cool. Yeah of course. I don't I don't think they're as culturally
relevant. Yeah. Now like old school muscle cars you're talking about like 70. Yeah I think what
the question refers to is like you know everything from a 55 you know Chevy to like a mid 70s muscle
car. Say I guess yeah. I wouldn't say a Fox body. I wouldn't say anything like that. I think it's
like what we think of is like our dad's era. It's one of those things where like because I just
built my dad's Chevelle and I drove it around and like kids don't like go crazy about it. But I
think there's like a respect. Yeah. It's like how when we were kids like you probably weren't
into like model T's and shit. But like if you're right right right. That's cool. Cool. That's yeah
very unique. Yeah. Yeah. I will say like when I first started coming out to California like 2012
like 13 whatever and you had the Nova everywhere we would go it didn't matter people would go
nuts over your car. The Nova. I feel like that has started to get a little less and less. The
Nova is the only car I have ever owned that has ever attracted a girl. I was I was on
Abbott Kenny and Venice Boulevard. Yeah. I was sitting at the light and a girl walked by she
like looked at the car looked inside winked and then like walked over and started to talk to me
and I was like what are you doing? Why are you here? Like do you have one of these? Do you know
how many like do you want cubic inches? Like what do you want to talk about? You want to talk about
rear ends? Like what are we talking about? Because I don't know why you're here. Like it was such a
like for so many years of building cars thinking girls thought they were cool and I was like wait
is it happening? Is it a muscle car that makes it happen? But I don't think that would happen today.
That happened in like 2000. That happened to me today in the GTR. I went to see but this might
be the argument but the GTR is the new muscle car now. Yeah. I similarly to you was like very
taken by some. No, I was dying to do and I was like like this girl's on the street and she like
waved and was like and I was like does she think I'm just like weird for driving a car on the
right side? Yeah. Yeah. I was like there's no reason that. No, but culturally GTR is a super
hot. Yeah. For sure. And I think a lot of that space with muscle cars is gone now.
Because I think about this when I look at movies because I think there's still this
like there's still like this expectation of like oh we're going to do this really cool
chase scene. It's going to be in a muscle car and it's like that's because like 60 year old
directors and actors think that's cool. They just want their moment. Yeah like I just like
because I've worked with other people who are like oh it'd be cool and we could be like an old
Camaro or Chevelle and I'm like no. Yeah. Like an old 190 or like E30 or 9-11 is like way cooler
now or GTR. Which is so fun to like to see that happen in movies like as our generation you're
like oh yeah. Yeah. No and I think it's because it's just speaking to like a different audience
and I so someone actually asked a question. Someone asked a question on one of the earlier
parts when I did like a Q&A and I think they asked me like what do I think is going to happen to
older car culture. Like will it continue. Which I thought was actually a really good question.
Prices have gone down. down but I was talking about how like there's certain
things I think won't go away. I think traditional hot rods will always be cool because they created
hot rodding. Yeah. But I don't think Duesenbergs will continue to have an audience. No. I think
that Chevelle's, Camaro's like you know that era Superbirds whatever like those standout cars from
that era will continue to be cool. But I think there's a lot of other stuff that will just disappear
like the 40s era cars will disappear. Because that's nostalgia stuff. Yeah. But I think you think
about stuff that has like real culture around it that isn't just like nostalgia culture. Yeah.
Because I mean I know a group of dudes who are into like shovel head and pan head. Yeah. Harleys.
But that is but that is their muscle car. Yeah. That's what I mean. But I think that like they'll
always be that respect for the thing that was cool. Like muscle cars were inherently cool.
They're always going to be cool. And there's always going to be kids who are young that are like oh I
like you know old American fucking iron. Like I just feel like I see a lot less of that now.
It's definitely on a downward trend. We're like it was definitely like oh you turn 19 you go get
some old shipbox 70s car. But that's the thing too is those but now everyone's buying shipbox.
The cool people got priced out. Yeah. It's always it's always that one. The cycle is is that whatever
is cheapest today is the kids that have a ton of style but can't afford it. They make it cool.
Then it just evolves to then people with money like just kind of culture vulture the thing and
then overdo it and it dies off. And then the cycle repeats itself. I think it's like I think
there's also an element of less and less pop culture talks about it. So like when you were
playing Gran Turismo there wasn't an option to drive. There were like two and they were horrible
to drive. Yeah. And it's like that wasn't it. Everyone was driving GTRs or like cars that
aren't cool like 3000 GTs. Yeah. Cool but just not as cool as they seemed they were in GT.
But I think that but I just wonder like in 10 years from now will we be even so far removed
that it does feel like the Model A or the Model T to like the I don't think it will.
I don't think it will. I think also there's like a I don't know maybe I'm looking too deep into it
but there's also like kind of a polarization of Americana like really really heavy Americana
is kind of like a polarizing thing to some people. You know I see what you're saying.
And like a muscle car is like really like American flag like you know I don't know maybe
that's more like a fringe thing but like even when you look into the guys who love American cars
yeah like the sort of the the whole audience around guys like Cletus and and you know Weston
and all of that like they're not building 60s. They're not these are the oldest the oldest car
I think Cletus is built was mullet. Maybe no he had like a 67 something with a diesel swap. Yeah
but like his fast cars yeah mullet was 80s. Yeah and like I mean Weston has built like
he built like an old charger with the RV motor in it that was sick and I think you still see a
spark there like I don't think that'll ever go away right like and and aesthetically there's
some brands that are entirely based around that like ruggedness old school Americana style
and that's cool they're doing a good job but I think the JDM stuff and the Porsche stuff has
just gotten so popular. I mean look there's people right now who do nothing but watch Tony
Angelo stay tuned and you know that's a really good point. And Finn again who are like what are
you talking about. All the roadkill guys yeah we do have a limited window I guess sometimes. But
I just don't feel like I see it but also I talk to Tony like every day and he his audience is older
yeah I know like Tony Tony's audience is like he says it all the time they're like in their 50s.
Yeah so you're talking about are they cool to like younger generation. When I say cool I mean like
is it cool like we're not cool anymore because we're older like is it cool to young kids. Yeah
that's what I was thinking about. Like if you're walking down the street and there's a Chevelle
like yeah because we can't say is it cool to us because of course we're going to be like yeah
yeah great yeah I was just talking about a smoky Unix 66 Chevelle like you know no that's I think
the question is like do they stay cool forever because when I was a kid the muscle car seemed
permacool yeah like it just was like this and that's like when I was in the muscle car guy moved
to California and was like I kind of want one I got my Nova and I still look at my Nova and feel
like that may be the coolest car you know what I'm saying like it's up there like it may not be the
car I like the most but there's just something about that car that I think is really really cool.
I don't think they'll ever be like as it's hard to say like a Model T is uncool it's
just it's not uncool but it's not cool yeah you know like you wouldn't like if someone's like you
want to take my Model T for the weekend you'd be like not a stock one like I'm like a like a Model
T like Hot Rod's cool yeah yeah yeah for sure yeah yeah but like I've driven Model T's in a Model
A's like it's it's saying it's a novelty is nice like it is some dorky ass shit yeah I'd rather have
the horse yeah I'm just like if we're going to model if I'm gonna drive a stock Model T I'd rather
go give me a couple years back yeah yeah yeah no knock on the man no knock on the man he probably
is listening but like ACP has a Model T like that's the person who enjoys Model T. Yeah and he likes
wearing a tweed hat when he drives it yeah that's cool that's what you're into yeah yeah and again
it's not uncool but it's not cool and I think a muscle car will forever be cool like you see one
going down the road like last time we did the pod you drove your dad's car here and I was right
behind you and I was like that has so much just presence yeah and that's never gonna change yeah
do you think that's because culture made that car cool meaning like at the time when that car
was new like you had all these movies grease and like all these things that like that like just made
it cool no it yes but if you think about like if this were a math equation and I'm bad at math
it's like you have big powerful motor you have cool looking shapes yeah it's got chrome it's got
racing stripes it sounds meme you're like it's fucking like you know like on a very granular
it checks the boxes yeah yeah it's like if you're like baking a cake you're like it's got chocolate
chunks yeah it's got ice it's like are our speed boats ever gonna be uncool yeah no absolutely
not speed boats will always be cool just like cocaine yeah they go together exactly muscle cars
same bucket on that note back to the hat yeah wait wait I want to hit one last thing on
this I want to hit one last thing okay I feel like a project car in LA traffic my
temp meter is like getting towards the red so um I mean now I think I lost what I was gonna say
all right back to that nice one back to the hat again up to Ron all right um there's only oh is
is it up to me to pick wait is it you oh yeah I think Vinnie picked that one yeah all right cool cool
silver cars discuss wow this was actually someone sent this to me as a dm wow they just said it just
said silver cars yes or no and that was it I was like it's like you and I had a conversation about
this week so it came out of silver cars but it depends on the car 100% yeah if you asked me
even three years ago I would have said absolutely not never ever yeah but some cars 996 turbo
hold on I'll put CGT CGT silver I think I think anything other than silver you bought the wrong
colored car which I normally yellow is cool it is but it's not the silver I don't know what it is
that car it just works it did silver really well in GT silver if you own a CLK whatever GT1
whatever that was like it has to be silver silver I love silver cars I just think it's like it's
very case dependent yeah I had that silver 997 GT3 and I love the way it looked but I wanted a more
like fun car and I was like the silver doesn't hit for me on it yeah but like I think it looks
beautiful you text me the other day because you said I have a r8 for sale and you asked me if I
was interested yeah and it's like you're I was like well calling you said silver and it's like
weird because I actually when I close my eyes and think of an r8 it's over see it in silver yeah
like that is the color for it is that is that what the press car color was like what they launched
with what was the one I gave you when you were in turn it was a silver yeah so when I bought my 360
I had drove up there to go look at the car because I thought it was silver and I was like excited
for that because I thought oh I actually really like like crazy looking cars and in silver which
you didn't know you didn't and then I got you didn't know it was champagne no I've never
heard the story well yeah so you got there and she was wearing champagne and what happened well
he was part of like Haggerty's drivers club so they took pictures inside it must have been
like fluorescent lights yeah like very cool tones yeah they went over and they were like
pull out the yeah yeah so I was like it's not selling yeah I was like oh it's silver great
and I got up there and I'm like oh it's kind of like a champagne you're like I didn't even know
they made that yeah I thought you bought that on purpose I mean I did because no no I didn't
you bought it because the price no I went to go look at it and I was like oh this is like gold
not silver I thought it was silver so that was like another thing I was like oh but I think
like the 360 and silver is beautiful yeah yeah I agree with that Ferrari Grigio is amazing yeah
solid silver yeah all right so I think it's really easy to pick cars that are great in
silver but what's a what's a bad silver car I think if it's like a sort of boring car
silver like makes it worse most m3s yeah like I don't like silver m3s
I like the weird one for me is uh b5s4s are iconic because the race cars were silver
but I don't think I'd want a silver be like like the Imola yellow the Nagaro blue even the red
they're like such good colors yeah I think you said it I think that's it has to be
a really cool shape yeah for silver to work yeah silver is like a complementary color to a cool
car I have like silver 911s or just like a for me like and I like they work like it makes sense
and I get it but it's just like I would never see I think there's just too many say I think silver
base 911 not into it right older like g bodies and stuff look good in silver but like a 997
newer 991 whatever in silver gross but then you see a gt3 rs in silver beautiful because it's got
fucking vents and it's got a lot of black accents I will admit like the new gt3 rs I saw one passing
the other day in black I mean in silver with all the black yeah it looks nice because the car's kind
of it was on the bronze wheels yeah it's like if a car's kind of crazy but it's got
silver kind of like helps tone it down a little bit yeah it's not as flashy yeah I think the problem
with silver is that like owning a silver car is actually great no the problem with silver is that
we just overdone it and here's my new because like g35 g like that whole error was all so it was
variations of silver and charcoal you want to hear my new lukewarm take I like lukewarm
what happened to silver is what happened to pastels now is because silver is a great color
and it looks beautiful on a lot of cars but we fucking ruined it when every single car yeah
all silver you're saying silver is flat black no I'm saying the pastels no but I'm saying but
like flat black is the same thing flat black was really cool until no I actually
disagree with that I think it's pastels because flat black wasn't like mass adopted by uh automakers
like remember back in like 2010 like only Mercedes and so yeah like 2010s flat uh pastels were cool
and now like every Kia forte is like you know yeah and they just and they do them so badly to
yeah every every truck is offered in a every jeep harab I feel the same way about like nardo gray
hate nardo gray but it's a really good color I thought you love nardo gray hate nardo no wow but
it's it's actually I want to buy a car and one of the colors it comes in is that and I'm like I
don't want what car is it a guillardo oh nardo on a guillardo it's kind of nice nardo on a guillardo
nardo guillardo I don't want it because it's it's tasteless supercar meets tasteless color
Audi owner you know and you're like it's just too bad but you painted your s14 nardo 10 years ago
now okay I mean it's like Ashley's 944 is dolphin gray which is basically the 70s version I mean
my 3rs was the gray black enough it was darker yeah but I mean that's like a pastel and I love it I
just think that it's like the same shit kind of happened where like it just you think about like
from 2000 like 2000 to 2010 like you drive on the road every car was silver puter oh yeah
gold like you know or black and now I think we're hunter green yeah that was 90s yeah 90s
had good colors 90s had great 2008 financial crash color change is a documented thing I'll
throw the graphic on the screen yeah nice wow it has to do with the cost of paint so paint
it's cheaper to paint a car like white black or silver so like the push to do that instead of
having colors because colors are more expensive yeah like now reduce into paint and like and they
offer all the car like they don't charge you more for a red car unless it's like a special
option color so like they really pushed those cars more yeah I love a good color car now
like yeah I'm in a big color car for me before like the rabbit changed me because before that
white 9-11 black nova black assay like all my cars were either white or black at the white outie like
the coop I was originally planning on painting white like everything I had was not a color
and then I bought the rabbit and I was like I never want to buy a car that's not
a color yeah now I only have white cars pretty much except for the 360 oh really everything's
white or black kind of sucks I think colors they also I colors just and not that I care about
resell clearly I'll ever sell anything but without a doubt color cards just sell better
depends if it's a good color depends I love red if it's good and rare I love red cars you
really yeah they're almost like always I think red that's right cool but I get it because the
reds a Ferrari color Cole Cole had a red 996 turbo and he had a really hard time I wanted it so
bad I thought it was so cool and he was like yeah people just don't want it yeah crazy all right I
think we've got one left yeah I actually thought it was going to take us longer to run through this
I figured it's been two hours how much longer did you expect this to go on and you invited us at
night I know every time every time okay this is a question that I get in a lot of different forms
this is great because it's the last one we got a veto so we could just be like nope oh we all still
have a pass whatever yeah sorry there's a bylaw section 1974 part c says that you cannot pass on
okay what is it okay this car this is this is a culmination of a lot of people asking me
love a statement that has a pretty statement yeah so and this is sort of
my response to it and it's a really good question and the question is is could top gear exist today
and I think when we say exist today I mean like could that show come out today and do what it did
no but and I ask it because one like they're always trying to relaunch that show like it's
always like you know what's the new one they've obviously got grand tour with the guys from
throttle house and the train kid like that's coming out um and and you the three of us which is
something I don't think we talked about we had a conversation about applying for the grand tour job
yeah and the three of us were at first like we had a group chat going about it you remember
we gotta do it and we were like we should do it this would be great it was right after hoonigan
we were like what it was it was right after uh carcane abroad which felt like filming but it was
hoonigan had ended hoonigan ended at this point and when we did talk carcane abroad
all the comments were like this is this feels like top gear this is like top gear you guys should do
that and when the grand tour opportunity came up like I went as far to reach out to people I knew
who were at the grand tour to be like hey what's going on with this so on so on and then the next
day it was either you or one of us was like I think this is a really bad idea and we started
talking about like the chris harris situation of how like it was it's really difficult to stand in
the shadow of the three amigos especially in an era when like those shows worked
because youtube didn't exist those shows worked because it was the only thing that good and like
now I mean you look at just how much content is out there and like people on youtube are doing crazy
shit I mean you look at like everyone from like cletus to adam to whistling diesel whistling diesel
is in a weird way the closest thing there is to top gear to certain segments segments yeah like
like him doing the whole highlight thing they also like if you think about it it's just gotten so
much more segmented because most of youtube is individual like single people right yeah and
the three people is a little bit tougher we even saw that at hoonigan at sometimes like it was tough
to get like everybody you know around all the guys so and then you have single focus type thing so
top gear was like a little bit of whistling diesel a little bit of cletus a little bit of camisa a
little bit of like you know car reviews and like adventures and it was a mix it all in one episode
and it always came out on the tv on sunday everybody was ready to go watch it you know like in the
uk yeah like i don't know i think a version of it could work today i think it would have
to be formatted a little different but i think something like that could still work the problem
is is like like you said every if somebody sees three people trying to do car stuff they're just
going to compare you to it and it's never going to compare to the nostalgia if you go back and you
watch a lot of those episodes some of them were not especially the early seasons yeah the early
seasons were not but there were some super magical like amazing amazing if you read and then the
bombshell like they talk about yeah what's his face i'm forgetting his name at the moment but like
he talks about how handy willman yeah no not willman i just bought willman's new book by the way
i haven't read it it's literally just showed up two days ago he had a great podcast recently too
yeah but the i just bought that but no the one of the writers not um johnny porter maybe it was
richard porter yeah richard porter wrote a book called like and on
that bombshell yeah it was like the story of that and like they talk about how like in the early
like it wasn't really i mean realize the original crew was not season one yeah season one was all
these other people like tiff and everybody else was in it um it took them a while to find that
and then they got there the bbc was an extremely unique situation because you know it was public
funding they could say whatever they wanted they could shit all over any manufacturer and not fear
you know the you know repercussion where like you can't like whistle and diesel i think is
like the one person who kind of whether you like him or not yeah um whistle diesel is like the one
person who kind of just goes out there and lives completely on the like i don't mind being hated
let's be honest the rest of us all have to get paid so there's only so much that you can shit on
something yeah you know or you have to be so respected like chris harris can
shit all over a new car and still get invited back to drive the next car because like how do
you not have chris harris drive the car um but i think now it's like i think it's would be hard
to make that show without the right partner like the right funding like like a bbc exactly feels
neutral to outside things because that's part of what made the show good yeah but i also think
that like it was a perfect time for those dudes to do what they did because i look i this is something
that i would love to do a top gear type show three of us i love travel with you guys i think we
we became this group at hoonigan that would go do these things together because we just had a shared
similarity yeah and i actually think that maybe that's bad for a top gear show because like we're
actually probably too similar like we can fight over nuances but like at the end of the day like
none of us here were talking like we were like what's a hellcat cost like we don't even know
like where you clearly live in a particular window right that like fits um i think if you
put enough people together that like they're all over the place that like you become that
broader audience like i don't know if it's like as good of like a chemistry like those dudes just
it just work i don't know i i feel like we're different enough and it's like the adventure
stuff to me that i think would work best right like i think that's where you could still do really
unique things like you look at what gears and gasoline did with their alaska road trips and
stuff and that has that like really well filmed like cinematic type experience and people love
that well look at that and that's just two dudes and that's just two dudes but i think that's the
reason why the throttle house guys and i i have i do not watch their content so i can't speak to
but i do know that they did like the gti and the a86 where they like drove that i think that was
our house like like but throttle house is a big production too it's not just like yeah they're
no but it started as two guys but they have like a bigger yeah they they really evolved over the
years yeah but like i think like they have that thing but i don't i don't know it's i mean it'd
be interesting to see how the grand tour show does obviously a new grand-ish tour just released i
haven't watched it yet but like i still and i i i like those dudes like put out a
promotion it was you know on instagram and yeah three of them talking and i just have nostalgia
listening to them because they form male they formulated so much of what i wanted to make
in content but that's zero to sixty but but i i think i don't know if it could be recreated
that's one of the biggest parts that's missing today so i i'm super lucky i got to work with them
twice and the biggest the biggest like thing that surprised me a lot was we were doing these shows
in south africa where it was top gear live and those dudes the day before the show would come in
sit down on the table cartons of cigarettes beer and wine and they would spend the next eight hours
pouring over a script for a three hour show and then they'd be like this part i don't think it
really works the audience might drop off let's change this let's bring this guy in they go they
do a show the next day they rewrite everything based on how yesterday and they put in so much work
so much scripting work they cared so much about every second of the show where youtube is like
dude you got to film it you got to knock it out and you got to do next week's episode next
like it's so much harder to spend that much time writing an episode where i i feel like if if you
were able to spend journalistic time writing a good story and then letting certain parts play out
i think that's the magic that's kind of missing today in some stuff what are your thoughts uh yeah
i sort of just feel like it was created in a time when there was less and it was fucking awesome
so we put it on this pedestal and it forever lives on that pedestal you know like nowadays
there's a ton of good content out there not saying anything's on that level because you know the
youtube rat race is that you got people with small teams yeah making videos not making television
shows that they're going through and writing scripts and going back and revising and then
cinema on top of that yeah does it seem weird though to you like how is it that like we live in
this world where in automotive is almost over indexed on youtube now like the amount of automotive
creators versus a lot of other spaces like you compare it to like the mx creators you compare
makeups like its own whatever that's honestly i think but like automotive is a really really big
segment now it wasn't when we first got it into it it was small it was like
adam elsie dde tj hunt yeah and low nut um us when we started don't know i wasn't even making it
mighty car mods but it was like a handful of creators obviously obviously roadkill cletus was
just getting started was roadkill on youtube yet or was 13 20 yeah r.i.p yeah was uh was roadkill
even on youtube yes yeah you roadkill was already out there we came after roadkill don't i thought
they were like don't it was out too but they weren't doing up to speed yet they were doing
other shows and they had just they started up to speed about the same time we did but they were
still gaming the facebook model yeah we're still that was still performing but yeah it's just
it's super saturated now so i think it's hard for anything to stand out that crazy but i think
the thing that's interesting to me is like you have this clearly there's this thing that's working
in automotive content but like no one's produced a good american show like like with the effort that
has gone into grand tour or gone into that like the closest thing we've seen to
and i'm not saying it's the type of show but like you and i talked about this last night was like
hyperdrive is like the most that's the only thing i could think of that had like a real
budget that wasn't a reality show wasn't top gear like the largest budget tv show ever i want to
say it was in like 250 million homes at one point but i think it was one of the most viewed in the
world too it 250 million homes because it was like not just in england it was like it was it was
ever yeah but i mean like i think that's probably why because like you ran a content business like
it's pretty hard to make margin on yeah big productions right so like how do you make those
so yeah i think that might just be that that just doesn't exist anymore yeah there's not a there's
not a thirst to go spend millions of dollars to go make something i mean you think about
like the london thing with ken yeah the london special that like you know
mistakenly was like a mini jim kana it was a mini jim kana for not even a full episode
it's a whole other podcast but we kind of got hoodwinked into that a little bit yeah
but that was a segment in a show that cost all that money i'm sure they spent any 4000000
bucks making that maybe not that but they probably they're probably but maybe it was not low budget
yeah it was not low budget but for a segment we had a shinook drove through the
royal palace like we were shutting down london bridge like it was a serious really stuff that ken
did with um with oh yeah with may yeah we're like oh that's the where they went and shot out at um at
the airfield yeah at uh mojave yeah at the graveyard airplane graveyard like that was that was a big
production it was probably a decent size production like to come and do this thing with this new person
who was a shoe salesman at the point that was never actually shoe salesman but that's
what that's what they used to like call him the shoe tycoon but yeah i don't know i get asked
this a lot because obviously he's being someone who headed hoonigan but is also someone who constantly
talks about content and creative everyone's like why aren't like you should make the next top gear
you should like why don't you go through that funding funding is one i think the other one is
like it just was done so well that like it's almost hard to recur yeah how do you hold a candle
to how do you hold a candle to really have to have a different i think that that was a different
format i think i think the scato take on that would be don't recreate something you make something new
absolutely because you can't you can't do a trio to compete with the the great so you got to be a
something it can't be a trio yeah yeah maybe it's a mob of people yeah it's definitely
as we learned earlier in the show it's never a threesome it's not how it works yeah it's gotta be
a murder it's a murder what's a murder again is that gross gross thanks thanks yeah yeah so i don't
know i i i still think that there's a place for it maybe even more like as the future gets more
and more choppy more and more like low attention span maybe then eventually something like that
can stand out you know what Hoonigan reunion show is the pilot for it it could be
because by the way we haven't updated anyone on that and uh i think i actually i think i'm
gonna it's gonna happen really yeah based on the stuff i told you yesterday wow i can't talk about
because i'm 88 on it but like i think that we've got people who are willing to make it because if
you think about it like in one of willman's podcast that he had recently andy willman the guy that
was like the behind the scenes you know brain of top gear with clarkson producer producer the
production yeah like the dude who by the way wore the same pair of underwear on every single shoot
that's crazy oh yeah you don't know you didn't know that no oh he wore like his lucky underwear
and they were like i mean literally the definition of threadbare and we were on set with them i guess
for robin reliant whatever and someone was like show him your underwear and he like just pulled
the band out and it was just like eight strings oh god that's horrible he was lucky underwear i don't
know the background to it yeah he'll probably talk about it but he's one of those like brilliant
geniuses whatever and in that podcast he talks about like clarkson's farm and why it works so well
and his biggest takeaway is that like we didn't think it was gonna work we're like this is insane
like who would spend money on an old man on a farm like that's not interesting at all he's like
the characters that naturally came like jerald calib the accountant all of them that was just
real life people they weren't actors they weren't cast they weren't anything and he's like
we have a show and then again and who nigan was like no casting the shittiest boy band of car guys
like unscripted it was just we all just kind of showed up and had our own little lanes like zack
muscle car guy hurt drift guy you track guy you absolutely obscure and psychopedic oddball
and i was like rally type stuff and like it worked and even jp i remember when he came over to
who nigan he was like that i'm so jealous of that like you guys have this like how did you guys make
this the perfect group of guys and like what i don't know zack showed up one day so a really
interesting thing because when we first launched youtube we were hanging out with a bunch of bmxers
so we were hanging out with the guys from the come up yeah that's right like kwan back halo kwan
back yeah like adam 22 like all of those guys were like hang um alfredo like those dudes were
all doing youtube and uh john hicks like so like we were asking them questions like i remember sitting
at the building one night talking to like hicks and adam and a few other guys like just being like
okay so how's like the youtube thing working because we're trying to launch daily transmission
and that's why if you go back to those early ones a bunch of those guys are in those yeah like
i think doing one of i think john hicks john hicks did like uh it was like bars over right now yeah
burnout and stuff like that like and those dudes were all there in our days and kaleb like after
started moving and they were all bigger than us because they all had their own little followings
and whatever and one day kaleb came to me and was like we had to put out like episode six or seven
and he said you guys are going to be giant and i'm like i hope so he's like no you don't understand
you built this thing where like i don't have to like you if i like vinny i'm gonna watch the show
sure he's like if you don't like me you just don't watch do you don't come back to the show yeah
he's like you gave and like what we used to refer to in magazines was like you gave so many entry
points and it's like and it we was like it was not planned it wasn't the the idea but it was like
some people watch the show because they liked cacao yeah you know it was like that kept them there
you know and i think we all some people hated me but loved you or like you know hated you know
hurt but loved vinny like you know we're not hated but it was like they were there for different
people it's just not their vibe yeah and it was just the perfect accident that just sort of worked
yeah yeah and i it's funny because a lot of people ask me that question like oh how did you put
together a good group of people and i'm like it happened yeah and i use vinny a lot as an example
and maybe vinny maybe vinny later i'll ask me to cut this out but vinny was just a really good
dude yeah and i bounced them around the company through like 19 positions because i couldn't
figure out what vinny was good at but vinny was really good at being just vinny yeah so it was
like all right we'll try vinny out here oh vinny i'll move here and like i mean how you had like
you hold like nine different i had like i worked at like every which is problem why you're so good
at doing what you do now because you literally got like the full experience like the like when you're
like a neppo baby and your dad's like you have to work in all the different positions in my hotel
ios that you learned it was like because i was like the a jack of all trades guy like
i wasn't great at anything but i was like you threw me in any situation i was like good you
ended up being really good at the biz dev thing yeah i think that was definitely your calling for
sure like but it was this thing where it was like vinny checks the like i hate to sound like you
know the the vibe check was there and i was like all right let's just fucking find a place for you
yeah and keep moving around and that was that while where i let the two of you guys run marketing
in the shanty which is probably the worst period of you to it again i just no way we had some great
stuff that came out of that dude the thumbnails that came out of that era the march you all lived
on the back of chris miller at that point but whatever listen listen i don't know he carried
running on rosemary savory bars
all right now we're good to inside two and a half hours people don't know what the fuck we're
when we made a certain employee that got banished to work from a like a hospice table
i'm just gonna bring that up he basically just worked from like the tray they feed you apple
sauce out at the hospital yeah that's your computer yeah so um anyway last note on so what
well let's wrap it all up we had an ac exhaust duct into our office so it was hyperheated and
there was he there was also the favela wire the cfo the cf it was so hot in this building
it was un unbelievably hot we had air conditioning and it didn't work because it was 40 grand and it
never worked because it was no i'll tell you exactly why it didn't work because nobody changed
the filter and it was filled with tire gunk from just burn so our cfo me and vinnie are in this like
shitty corner which we call the marketing shanty slash favela and uh it was so hot in that corner
and like we would we would just sweat no shoes no anything and he rolls in this portable air
conditioner and we're like jeff to thank you you're the best yeah and he's like what this isn't for
you we were right by the server room and the server was overheating so he was cooling the
server off and the exhaust was going on to us that was and we were it was our ambient temp went
up like 40 degrees crazy he's like fuck you guys the server is hot that and that bathroom taught
me had a shit on the road do you remember the ladies that worked for the bus company
do you remember that who wasn't in a bus company by day but like early only fans by night that was
that was the dump truck company that moved after it's a definitely we're shooting porn which is a
great lf crew named the dump trucks there was but those dudes had the most stylish dump trucks
they were like slammed chrome like that's candy paint jobs like they were really really fresh
but there was the school the school ladies and if you remember because the building was probably
eventually built for you know it was like a factory for men to work in there was like the
women's bathroom which was like two toilets and then there was the big men's bathroom yeah and
you'd go into the big men's bathroom and it was just filled with the like rowdy as women who drove
school buses who would just like shit all over the toilet seat because they would squat but like
just spray wow do you remember that yeah i don't know how this is still in the podcast but anyway
whoop card was up all right yeah so anyway top gear i guess it can't exist these days nope yeah
but shit on the toilet seat i still think it can and shitting on the roads easier now this is the boat
for anyone who listens two and a half hours yeah this is what you get you get a little this is that
part where you've left it on and then your family member comes in and just yeah all right so we have
these chicks that were shitting on or you like fall asleep you fall asleep while listening to the
pod and this wakes you up and you have like some weird lucid dream and this is what you get a bonus
nonsense at the end yeah brian didn't bring snacks so we didn't have snacks yeah i had to deprive
these guys they're like boxers you know you let them have a snack and then they get sleepy like you
got to keep the you got to keep the hunger in them so they keep going i'm sleeping now let's go yeah
well boys thank you again for coming on and testing out a new model if you guys anytime
enjoyed this this random topic i mean maybe we should just call this the what was the thing we
did for 060 the uh oh man uh the hodge hodge podger hodge podger this is a hodge podgery if i've
ever heard one maybe we have to bring back the hodge podgery so there you go he said it wasn't
going to be a new show but it's a new show no it's still very vehicular just very
vehicular hodge podgery edition it's like a mix tape because it rolls right off the top yeah yeah
super easy um if you enjoyed this uh and you want us to do more because that's a good format to bring
back a little bit on the show before and just kind of have like you know the crew gets down uh hit
us with some more topics that we can run into uh next time because these guys are almost always
available to come by the house always highly debatable yeah this it took like three weeks to
plan yeah because they're never available it was also but we'll always show up for our boy scato
how many topics do we do today 11 what a what a number yeah 11 tents
yeah and on that thanks guys
of all the sunglass companies out there you might ask why heatwave aside from them being friends of
they just make great shades awesome styles cool collabs smart tech they even have extra large
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our culture you will find them everywhere from king of the hammers to formula drift you'll see
everyone wearing heatwaves at your local track day event damn you might even turn laps with the
founder justin because they're one of us so one more reason to choose heatwave visual to fix your
face i'm a tool dork my obsession might even dwarf my addiction to cars i love collecting
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whether it's the zyclop ratchet or the joker wrenches find them at wearitools.com all anyone
wants to talk about nowadays is how great 90s car culture was but what everyone forgets is how
bad our slammed cars rode on crappy lowering springs at the time that's all my wallet could
muster but when i finally did step up and get some proper coilovers i went for kw's and never
looked back i've been running their stuff for over two decades now in everything from my 911
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suspensions dot com
About this episode
“Could Top Gear even exist today?” anchors a topic-roulette conversation that jumps from suspension testing at KW’s seven-post rig to track-day fantasies and tire/grip realities. The hosts then pivot into California car culture—emissions rules, Flock cameras, and police stops—before returning to modern media: why Top Gear’s mixed format, funding, and scripting/chemistry are hard to replicate in a fragmented YouTube world. Along the way, they debate manuals vs DCTs, future classics, and the practical misery of project-car life.
300 treadwear
32% APR
accelerometers
air conditioning (AC)
alignment
all wheel drive system
automated manuals
auto start stop
auto stop start
average speedcams
Acura Integra
Alfa Romeo Giulia
Audi A8
Audi Coupe Quattro
Audi Quattro
Audi R8
Audi RS2
Audi RS 3
Audi RS4
Audi S1
Audi S4
Audi S8
BMW 3 Series
BMW M2
BMW M3
Chevrolet Bel Air
Chevrolet Camaro
Chevrolet Chevelle
Chevrolet Corvette
Chevrolet Nova
Dodge Challenger
Dodge Charger
Ferrari 360
Ferrari F40
Ford Edge
Ford F 100
Ford F-150
Ford Model T
Ford Mustang
Ford RS200
Infiniti G37
Kia Forte
Lamborghini Gallardo
Land Rover Discovery
Land Rover Range Rover
Lexus GX
Mazda MX-5 / Miata
Mercedes-Benz C 63 T-Modell (S204)
Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution
Nissan GT-R
Nissan Silvia
Nissan Skyline
Porsche 911
Porsche 944
Porsche Cayenne
Subaru BRZ
Tesla Model Y
Toyota 4Runner
Toyota Celica
Toyota Corolla
Toyota GR 86
Toyota GR Corolla
Toyota GT 86
Toyota MR2
Toyota Prius
Toyota Supra
Toyota Tacoma
Toyota Yaris
Volkswagen Golf
Volkswagen ID. Buzz
Volkswagen Rabbit
Volkswagen Scirocco
Volkswagen Vanagon
Original notes
The Ballast Boys are Back … again! Who doesn’t love a hang with the boys and quickly becoming regulars on Very Vehicular, Ron Zaras and Vin Anatra are here to play a little Topic Roulette with Scotto. Without giving too much away, the gang dive into the issues facing car culture, reveal some lukewarm takes (his own words!) and as ever, give each other a healthy dose of shit-talk. Enjoy!
Mentioned in this episode
Why British Plugs Are the Best
Partners:
Vyper Industrial
FCP Euro
Heatwave Visual
Wera Tools
KW Suspension
Producer: Nick Rutter @nickrutterarts
Music: SlikSound
Patreon: https://patreon.com/u37266647
https://bio.site/321actionaction
00:00 - Welcome & Introduction
00:37 - Sponsors: Heat Wave Visual & KW Suspensions
02:17 - Return of the Ballast Boys
04:48 - One Car, One Track
15:53 - Is California Car Culture Dying?
29:08 - Perfect Day as a Car Nerd
38:37 - What Car Sold Today is a Future Classic?
53:06 - Sponsor: FCP Euro
55:33 - Good Tires / Crap Car?
01:01:46 - Does the Manual Transmission Still Matter?
01:22:05 - What Car Do You Wish Your Favourite Automaker Made Today?
01:37:01 - Sponsors: Vyper Industrial & Wera Tools
01:38:18 - Flock Cameras Vs Car Culture
01:47:15 - Are Muscle Cars Still Cool
01:57:48 - Silver Cars, Yes or No?
02:05:39 - Could Top Gear Exist Today?
Very Vehicular
321 Action Action
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