F/M/K; Arizona Speed Law; RUFing Miami
Annotations will appear as you listen
0:00
112:14
Car
Mazda Miata
Car
Mazda MX-5 Miata
The Mazda MX-5 Miata is a small sports car that's fun to drive and easy to handle. It's known for being light and quick, making it a favorite among car enthusiasts.
Concept
Flat Six Fest
Flat Six Fest is a car show specifically for Porsche lovers. It features many Porsche cars and allows fans to meet and share their passion for these vehicles.
Term
dog leg gearbox
A dog leg gearbox is a special type of manual transmission where the first gear is in a different position than usual. This setup allows for faster gear changes, which is useful in sports cars.
Term
six-speed
A six-speed transmission is a type of manual or automatic gearbox that has six different gears. This helps the car accelerate better and can save fuel when driving.
Term
horsepower
Horsepower tells you how powerful a car's engine is. The higher the horsepower, the faster the car can go and the quicker it can accelerate.
Term
track
A track is a special place where cars can be driven really fast safely. It's designed for racing and testing how well cars perform.
Term
twin-turbo
A twin-turbo setup means the engine has two turbochargers that help it produce more power. This makes the car faster and more efficient.
Car
Porsche 959
The Porsche 959 is a fast sports car made by Porsche in the late 1980s. It was famous for its technology and ability to handle well in different conditions.
Term
993 Turbo
The 993 Turbo is a powerful version of the Porsche 911 made in the late 1990s. It has a turbocharged engine that makes it very fast.
Concept
G-body car
A G-body car is a type of Porsche 911 made from the mid-1970s to the late 1980s. These cars have a unique look and are often modified by car fans.
Term
power band
The power band is the range of engine speeds where the car has the most power. If the power band is wide, it means the car can accelerate well at different speeds.
Car
Porsche 930
The Porsche 930 is a model of the Porsche 911 that has a turbocharger, making it faster but sometimes harder to handle due to a delay in power delivery. It's a classic sports car known for its unique features.
Term
hairpin turn
A hairpin turn is a very sharp turn in the road that looks like a U-shape. Cars need to slow down a lot to make it around these turns safely.
Car
Porsche 911 Turbo
The Porsche 911 Turbo is a fast sports car that has a turbocharged engine, making it very powerful. It's part of the 911 family, which is famous for its performance and design.
Car
RUF CTR
The RUF CTR, also known as the Yellowbird, is a super fast car built on the Porsche 911 design. It's famous for being one of the fastest cars of its time.
Car
Mercedes-Benz SLS
The Mercedes-Benz SLS is a high-end sports car that looks unique because its doors open upwards like wings. It's known for being very fast and stylish.
Car
Porsche Cayman
The Porsche Cayman is a sports car made by Porsche. The 2008 model is known for being fun to drive and has its engine in the middle, which helps it handle well.
Term
left foot braking
Left foot braking means using your left foot to press the brake pedal while your right foot controls the gas pedal. This helps drivers slow down faster while still being able to speed up quickly.
Car
Porsche 911
Term
carbureted
Carbureted means the car uses a carburetor to mix air and fuel for the engine. This was how many older cars got their fuel before newer systems were invented.
Concept
spec M2
Spec M2 is a type of racing where everyone drives the same model of car, in this case, the BMW M2. This way, the race is more about how well the drivers can perform rather than how fast their cars are.
Term
NASCAR
NASCAR is a type of car racing that features modified cars racing on oval tracks. It's very popular in the U.S. and has a huge following.
Car
Alfa Romeo Spider
The Alfa Romeo Spider is a sporty car from Italy that many people love for its good looks and fun to drive. It's considered a classic and is often sought after by car collectors.
Company
Bring a Trailer
Bring a Trailer is a website where people can buy and sell classic cars through online auctions. It's popular among car lovers for finding unique and interesting vehicles.
Term
airbag steering wheel
An airbag steering wheel has a safety feature that helps protect you in a crash by inflating quickly. Some people think older versions might not be as safe as newer ones.
Term
mint
When someone says a car is 'mint', it means the car looks and feels like it's brand new, even if it's actually older.
Car
Aston Martin DBX
The Aston Martin DBX is a luxury SUV made by Aston Martin. It's designed to be both powerful and comfortable, perfect for those who want a high-end vehicle that can handle different terrains.
Car
Aston Dbxs
Car
Ford Mustang
Car
Alpine A110
The Alpine A110 is a small sports car that is very fun to drive. It's known for being light and quick, making it great for racing or spirited driving.
Car
Nissan Qashqai
The Nissan Qashqai is a small SUV that is good for families and everyday driving. It's known for being comfortable and having a lot of space inside.
Car
Nissan Rogue
Car
BMW M5
Car
BMW E34
Car
Ferrari 355
The Ferrari 355 is a high-performance sports car made by Ferrari. It's famous for being fast and having a sleek design, making it a favorite among car lovers.
Car
Lotus Exige
Term
K24 engine
The K24 is a type of engine made by Honda. It's known for being strong and reliable, and many people like to use it in their cars.
Car
Toyota Supra
Car
Toyota Corolla
Car
Toyota GR 86
Car
Lucid Gravity
Car
Honda Preludes
Car
GMC Hummer EV
Car
Hummer H1
Car
Cadillac Ctsv
Car
Audi Rs6
Car
BMW M3
Car
BMW E46
Car
TVR Tuscan
Car
Acura NSX
Car
Dodge Viper
Car
Genesis G70
Car
Volkswagen Jetta
Car
Honda S2000
Car
Ferrari 430
Car
Audi Rs3
Car
Acura MDX
Car
Porsche Panamera
Car
Porsche Cayenne
LIVE
What up everybody? Welcome to the Smoking Tire podcast. Today's episode, as always,
is brought to you by Off the Record. We love Off the Record so much and over the holidays,
I got three more emails of people whose backsides were saved by Off the Record. I love when you
get that text message. After you sign up for Off the Record, you send them your information,
you tell them what happened, when you got a ticket, you send them a copy of the ticket.
You don't hear from them for a while, but my favorite thing is when you get that text message,
just out of nowhere, your ticket has been dismissed. Man, does that make me feel warm
and fuzzy inside? Don't plead guilty. Get Off the Record. If you get pulled over and ticketed for
anything at all, Off the Record has attorneys in their network in that jurisdiction. They're
going to fight that ticket on your behalf. Take it all the way if need be. And of course,
all you have to do is go to offtherecord.com slash tst. That's offtherecord.com slash tst.
We'll give you 10% off all legal services booked through Off the Record,
just for getting there through your boys at the Smoking Tire. One more time,
offtherecord.com slash tst. Do it. All right, our first show of 2026. We took last week off,
you see, and we're back in the studio. I was down in Miami, got to drive myself a roof
yellowbird. Yes, I did. Also did a little bit of vintage racing and murdered a lot of quail.
Also murdered some quail. We got shrink-flated on up here. Zach saw some cool stuff up in the
mountain. And boy, these rich people really have a lot to purchase, don't they? All that and more
on today's episode of the Smoking Tire. Let's go. What's fucking happening? What's going on? Hello.
My voice is a little bit shot today. There's a lot of loud talking in Miami this weekend.
Racetrack talking. Racetrack talking, nightclub talking, loud restaurant talking. Miami's
loud. It's a loud place. I'm right at home there. People are loud. But my voice is a little shot.
So hey, everybody, we're back. This is our first show of the new year. I didn't make an
announcement that we were just taking off the week of January 5th. We just did. I told the
Patreon members. I got a couple DMs that were like WTF. I got far fewer than I was expecting,
which I think highlighted how busy everyone is the first week of January, because we made content
basically through Christmas. And we had one question on Patreon today. Yes, we took the
first week of January off. I think a lot of people didn't notice because everyone was back at work
answering 800 emails that were kicked from December. But yeah, we took our holiday in January.
Yeah, basically, because mainly because I have to work at the shop all through the
holidays, so my staff can take off. So then I leave after that. And I went bird hunting with
my dad for a couple days, got some birds, as you do, ate some birds, didn't bring any birds back
this time. I always bring birds back, but I didn't really feel like it this time. Got a lot.
Went to a 28 gauge this year. Smaller gun. First time. Smaller. Yeah. Normally, in the past,
I would shoot birds with a 20. And my dad switched to a 28 in order to make it a little harder.
Right. Because you're shooting two birds. And you're shooting, you know, they charge you per
bird. Okay. You know, so like if you're good and you go shoot a lot of birds, like it's,
you know, it's really expensive. Are you making it harder so that it's less expensive? I mean,
that's, it's like, at a certain point, once you can kill all the birds. Yeah. You know what I mean?
And like playing the game, playing the video game on easy, but you know, once it's,
once you beat it on easy, you know, you ratchet up the skill level and try again. So,
so a 28 gauge is a smaller gun, but it's also lighter, which is nice. It did not seem to negatively
impact my ability to kill birds. I killed, we killed just as many birds with a smaller gun.
Well, the problem is like, if you're center shot, even with the, you know, the, the bigger
bore, if it's, you shrink it down, you're still hitting the middle. Well, there's a trade-off,
right? You could, you could do this to, to, to cars, right? Little less horsepower,
little more agility. Yeah. I can move the gun faster. I can draw the gun faster. Like I,
you can do stuff faster. You're the Miata now, racing the Camaros and SCCA, whatever. Something
like that. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So it was fun. And I found a new favorite hunting dog.
Shout out to Clover, my new favorite hunting little Cocker Spaniel. Love a Cocker Spaniel.
I didn't know they used this for hunting. They asked the flushing dog. So we use three dogs
when we hunt. We use two short hair pointers, either English or German short hair pointers,
and they just fucking run. They run these figure eight patterns all over whatever direction you
point. And then when they smell a bird, they, they freeze. Yeah. And then you walk up with the Cocker
and they go flush in there. And the Cocker like does like jumps around and scares a bunch of
birds. And then all three of them retrieve the birds. Pretty sweet stuff. Very impressive. But
the Cockers are like snuggly. Like the, the shorter pointers are like, they're friendly,
but they're like, they're pretty much all business. Yeah. They're sporting dogs. And
that's a working dog for sure. The Cocker is a working dog, but it's like pretty happy to be
there. And like, we'll sit on your lap for the, the truck ride back to the, you know, the lodge.
We saw one of those yesterday at the beach. And Sarah looked at it and she goes,
when I'm 70, like that's the dog I'm going to get. Or I do the King Charles. Never mind
different breed. Cavalier King Charles also very good dog size. Yeah. Yeah. But the move is to,
you know, you get yourself set up with one of these hunting lodges and you can either adopt
a retired hunting dog because they, you know, they retire them at like four.
The Cockers, because they have shorter legs. They have to work a little harder. The pointers
can go a little further. Each mile for a Cocker spaniel is like, you know, seven miles for the
other ones. Yeah. But then, you know, every litter of puppies, you know, even if it's the
offspring of, of hunting dogs, every once in a while, one of them just like doesn't like hunting.
And they just, they adopt them out once they like fail hunting school. So you can get one that's
never hunted or you can get a retired hunter. And they're, they're like, they're basically free.
I mean, they'd be so funny if you got a former hunting dog. And all it did all day was flush
your cats out of wherever they are, you know, because it has that in its brain. It needs to
find and frighten. Yeah. And that's just its job. Totally. Totally. Yeah. So a little of that.
And then Miami, the Concourse Club. The Concourse Club is really, it's a private club. So it's,
you know, you can argue whether or not private race track that those two center pictures are
both Concourse Club. You can, you can argue whether private racing facilities are good or
bad for, for humanity. But this one happens to be run just, I mean, the attention to detail
is extraordinary. These guys are fucking aces. Their staff over there is great. Aaron, the
guy who runs the joint is awesome. Yep. We were down there doing some stuff last year and they're
just as good. So they had a thing called Flat Six Fest. You can guess what that is.
It was basically a big Porsche show. Six, 700 people, heavy hit in metal. I have never seen
more roofs in one place. Whoa. Now granted, roof North America's headquarters is at the
Concourse Club. So there's going to be more than like normal and curated's there. And there's a
lot of local customers there. But there was probably like 30 roofs. Like that's, that's more
than I've ever seen in one place. And what was the, you know, build year for those like
where they mostly knew full spread. There was there was two or there was one true yellow bird,
meaning a narrow body. Then there was the one that I drove, which I will happily call a fucking
yellow bird, but it's an M 491 wide body. So like, there's some like winers like fucking Timmy
Pappas up there, wrong fenders. Now listen, if you want to talk shit in the comments about
whether or not a yellow bird has the right fenders, your best position of attack to make
that argument is to own a narrow fendered yellow bird. And Timmy Pappas does. So that guy is allowed
to talk shit and almost nobody else is allowed to talk shit. Okay. Wow. What year was that made
compared to the one you drove on by the Bruce Myers car and Timmy Pappas's cars are 87s. They're
the first year they did them. I think there's like 11 from that year. That's the narrow body car
super light. So this one, which is photos of my Instagram and I made a little video of it's the
production value is very low. I was limited on time and I was by myself. But this is a 91. So
it's the same mechanicals, but it's in an M 491 wide body, which was the customer's request.
He just wanted to look different, you know, whatever. I think it looks awesome. And this is
also according to John Tamarian, the only yellow bird ever made with a sunroof.
Interesting. This one does have a sunroof. So I've driven three of these now. This one was
the softest, you know what I mean? Of the of them. Okay. Like it was just set up more for like maybe
like road driving a little more. That doesn't mean it wasn't fucking sick. And also the 87s
that I drove have had this weird funky dog leg. It's a six speed. But instead of just being three
vertical lines and one horizontal one, it's a dog leg first, right? Imagine like a five speed
dog leg gearbox like a Ferrari and 80s, Ferrari or 80s Lamborghini. But then within a sixth gear
added upright. Got it. So it's right. Yeah. So it's a dog leg first. And then it feels almost
like a traditional five, five pattern. Well, that because after the war, the pattern, they wanted
to get away from the HH. So they add these two little N pieces. That is very weird. Essentially
because roof had modified a Porsche gearbox. And that was just like what they could do. Right.
By the time we got to this car, which is a 91, it's a it's a it's a six speed, but it's a regular
six speed. So actually, what a fucking delight. Yeah, I mean, it's one thing like I like a quirk.
And if and if if the quirk of having this weird shift pattern meant I get to drive a yellow bird,
yep, that's okay, no problem. But to drive one on track, like quickly, having weird gear patterns
is let's just say less optimal than having regular ones. Well, because you you're used to
traditional age pattern. Yeah. So I think because a lot of people make the argument that the dog
leg first is better for racing because you just get out of the pits and first and then it's just
two, three, three to four. But I think if you're used to the two to three being a diagonal three
to four being used more often, it can just trip you up. If you are driving one race car
for a whole season and looking for the best time possible, then yes, a dog leg first,
so you're not in that and it's just back forth back forth is the best. If you're testing a car
for 15 minutes, the best pattern is what is the fucking devil you know, right? Right. You know what
I mean? Folks got to take a quick break because support is coming in hot from delete me. You know
everything about delete me now because I've been talking about delete me for like at least a year.
It's easier than ever to get people's personal information online. You can buy people's personal
information online and people will sell you people's personal information online. You know what?
I think that stinks. I think my active online presence means that privacy should be very
important to me, right? And I know people who have gotten scammed or been victims of identity
theft. For me, fortunately, the worst thing that's happened is lots of scammy text messages
and emails and all kinds of stuff, phone calls. You guys hate all that stuff, right? The harassment,
all the scammy texts. That stinks. You can take control of your data and keep your private life
private by signing up for delete me at a special discount for our listeners. All you got to do is
sign up for delete me. Tell them the information that you want deleted and they go through and they
get going. It's not a one-time service. It's an ongoing system that finds your information on
data brokers, websites, and essentially files, takedown, and delete notices on your behalf.
That first time, they're going to find a lot. But the second, the third, the fourth round,
and on and on and on, it's less and less and less every time. It's nice. I like it a lot. I'm still
going with that delete me. Take control of your data. Keep your private life private by signing
up for delete me now at a special discount for our listeners. Get 20% off your delete me plan.
When you go to join delete me dot com slash tire and use promo code tire at checkout. That's the
only way to get 25, 20% off is to go to join delete me dot com slash tire and enter code tire
at checkout. One more time. Join delete me dot com slash tire code tire also sponsored to you
today by true work. Loving those true work pants. I took them on my last trip. They are perfect for
freezing mornings, wet conditions, and wind that cuts right through cheap gear. I wore them
for quail hunting. That's exactly what you would use them for. You can also wear them to work
because you need work wear that performs when it's brutal out there. And true work is building
performance work wear like it matters because it does. Founded by a trade professional who was done
with soaking wet, heavy gear, slowing him down, true work set out to make work wear that keeps
pros comfortable, capable and ready for whatever the day throws at them. While certain other brands
focus on cotton based gear that gets heavy when wet, true work uses advanced performance fabrics
developed for extreme outdoor conditions now engineered specifically for trade work. It's
moisture wicking wind resistant and insulated, keeping you comfortable and mobile all day.
Every piece is tested on real job sites with trade pros before it ever goes to market. And when
winter hits hard, you're still ready to work, not fighting your gear. So don't let cheap gear
slow you down this winter. Upgrade your day with work wear built like it matters. Get 15% off your
first order at truework.com, Code Tire. That's T-R-U-E-W-E-R-K.com, Code Tire. And now back to the
show. But I also drove this to the track from Curated. What a fucking... This is a gorgeous car.
What a street car. I mean, what a nice street car. Because for all the exceptional performance
that you get out of one of these things, and like this thing is fast, like this is a fucking,
this is a fast car. It's this, the build sheet says 469 horsepower. I bet that's at the wheels.
It's, if this car flies and it's got good brakes, and it like turns in nice, like it's just,
it's just so good. Like it's just so good. I mean, it's a 40 year old car. I pulled out of the show
room. I ran 10, 12 laps around the track, not pushing it, pushing it, but not slow. The car was
like, whoop the fucking do. No problem. You know, 40 year old car, everything's all right.
Is this basically the old version of the one we drove there last year, which was the new SCR?
We drove the CTR anniversary. Right. And actually, John had brought out a CTR anniversary also,
and I was gonna get to back to back them. But he took a few laps in it, and while nothing went
wrong, there was a smell, a vapor smell of some kind that was, it just made him not feel so good
about, about putting it back out on the track. It was all. Like that was like, he was about to sell
it and it might be, you know, he didn't, he didn't want there to be a problem. So fair. Yeah. He let
me, he let me drive this fucking thing all day. He let me, this was like, this was your car for the
day. That's wild. Like that's amazing. He's the nicest dude. It was, this was awesome. I did their
podcast too. You can, I don't know when it goes up, but wherever you get podcasts, you went to Miami
and you cheated on me. I cheated on him. Yeah. But, but it's, you know, because the, the yellow bird
with narrow bird, narrow body, whatever, the engine, the CTR engine, it's a 3.4-liter twin
turbo. Porsche's turbo was a single. The 959 was a sequential. Yeah. Porsche didn't even offer a
twin set up until the 993. So this is effectively the same kind of vibe as putting a 993 Turbo X51
engine into a G-body car. Like that's basically what you're doing here. And then you're reducing
weight and then you're adding rigidity and then you're shaving the rain gutters and then you're
doing all that other roofy stuff that they do. But it's like, because it's twins, you have, it
pulls much more evenly and from a much lower RPM. It's not that zingy, which like, you know,
as a quirk, as a vibe, a 930 zingy setup is like, can be fun. But when you're like on a track trying
to like actually go fast, a broad power band with like torque. Well, this track especially has a lot
of U-turns almost like a lot of really tight stuff that leads to a long straight and then it's really
tight stuff. So having that laggy, you know, 5000 RPM before the power, the power band kicks is not
optimal. Yeah, like, like at the Concours Club, there's like three hairpins where you're coming
out of the corner from like 3000 RPM in second gear. You want that torque shove right then. You
don't want to be going down to first, going to first stinks. I know there's cars that have
transmissions that are meant for it and they can handle it and Marko's car, the brown one, he was
like, it's built, you can do that, but it just feels so strange. Stinks, I hate it. So, so anyway,
there is a video, the car sounds unbelievable. It's, it's, I think this is perfect looking and I,
you know, I even, Tim Papas has like the narrow one and that was the first one I credit where it's
due. But I think aesthetically, this is better. And this is like, like Singer, you know, when they
redesigned their cars, they widen everything a bit. Everyone seems to like it. I mean, look,
if you already own a narrow yellowbird, then you can talk shit about whether or not this is or is
not a yellowbird. But this is a fucking roof CTR from the period. They made like 40 total.
This one happens to have wide fenders. So the top speed will be probably a little lower.
It's going to be a little heavier because it, because it doesn't have that different thing.
But like, I think they're the same. I think, I think we're really splitting hairs.
I feel like this is the same as someone has an SLS. Someone gets an SLS roadster and the other first
person goes, it's not a real SLS. Because I ticked an option box because it's the, it's the same
car, just different body. It is a little heavier. And the wider body would mean that your top speed
is probably a little lower, which is the same for convertibles, which is the same for other things.
Yeah. And, and whatever that sunroof weighs, which is probably something, you know, and okay,
it's not the absolute, but I'll tell you something. I pulled out the fucking cigarette lighter,
little, somebody, the first owner was ripping grits in this thing. Oh, the first owner.
How do you know? How do you know? You can fill with cigarette out.
You can tell if that one of those cigarette lighters, there's brand new, never used,
used a couple of times. And then like, that's your cigarette lighter. Those are the three
phases of that. And for at least three or four years, that was this guy's cigarette light.
Wow. Yeah. The first owner of this thing was ripping grits in this thing. And so like,
that tells me that this was like probably some rich dudes, like daily for this thing is like
80,000 kilometers on it. Like this was probably some rich guys fucking daily. Oh, probably get
on the auto. Oh, it's from Japan originally. Wow. Okay. Cool. Imagine. They like smoking.
Imagine fucking dude. Night tonight. He runs in Japan. Ripping grits in a fucking yellow bird.
I can feel how much you miss cigarettes right now. And that's half this equation. That's why
I got like a cigarette. You're like, imagine how great it would be to drive. You're like,
to smoke cigarettes. Cigarettes at 100 miles an hour down the freeway at night in Japan.
Yeah. That is an iconic moment. That's what's up. That's what cars are about, dude.
Before they had the weird electronic limiters on the highways there. Yeah. Yeah. That's
you and smoking together. So nice. But they also, you know, I also go back to that other photo,
that silver car, I drove that other thing. I drove this race car, a Cayman,
08 Cayman race car. Believe it or not, that's a vintage race car now. 08's a vintage 17 years,
right? I drove it. I drove in this vintage race with a bunch of like 993 cups and 964 cups. And
they put me in this and I was like, well, okay. Finish P3. Yeah. Not terrible. Finish P3,
P4 behind. Oh, no. So I thought it was P4, but it turns out someone that I thought was way ahead
of me broke and didn't finish. So it really was. It was P3. But the cars in the race were
very spread out. It was like 12 cars and they were pre-spread out in performance.
Like there was like a 69, 9, 11, a fucking, an IROC, AJ Foyts, like IROC won. And then like
a couple of like super hot rotted, like 993 cups that had like big bore motors. So that
what you were chasing is 993 cups with built engines. Yes. Okay. That's what I was chasing.
And members, like people who's like, track this is. Yeah. And I was driving a car I never drove
before, you know, but no, I'm not trying to make excuses, but like, I was able to
battle with those front couple of cars for about a lap and a half. And then they pulled away and
I just couldn't catch them anymore. And so for like, it was a half hour race, but I'd say for
like 25 minutes of it, I was mostly lapping by myself. Whoa. Yeah. I mean, I lapped seven or
eight of the slower cars. And so like there were some passes to make. But if I'm lapping people
in a half hour race, like that's not fast. So like getting making, sorry, getting around them
wasn't, you know, difficult or really a fight. Like I'm not, it was a, it was a fun time.
Having said that, I did two hours of 40 minutes in Texas straight. I did 30 minutes in Miami.
I was so much sweatier and more tired after 30 minutes than after doing
it. Now is that because of the climate there? Yeah, humidity is still humid.
Yeah. Oh, it was fucked up. It was, it was tough. Really tough. This track is tight. I feel like
Cody, you get some rest in a couple of places. So you, so you have that too. A, the car I was
racing was automatic. I mean, paddles, but, but, uh, but my left foot didn't have to do much. I
was left foot breaking, but this, this track, 1.5 miles, it's like 13 corners, I think. And it's
second, third, second, third, second, third, second, third, second, third, fourth, third,
second, third, it's a bunch of shifts. I'm going to say it's, it's like a carting track. I don't
mean that disrespectfully, but like in terms of, uh, how dense it is with activity, like you are
turning and breaking and there's the clover thing and you're popping out and then you're on the
straightaway, but the straightaway is only as long as the pits, the front straightaway. The
straightaway, you have just enough time to get to like the top, you go from second to the top of
fourth and then have to go right back to second again and it's a U-turn and it's a U-turn and
it's the fourth again and back to second again. And so in a, in a stick shift car, you're doing
a lot more work, a lot more work than you are at Kota. Even Kota, uh, you are a big track like
that. It's going to be like third and fourth gear most of the time. It's not second, third,
fourth, third, second, third, second, third, fourth, third, second, third, third, third, fourth.
Yeah. It's a, it was a, it was a lot of work. I, my fucking ass is so sore even today from that.
Just from all the left, the left, all the left footwork, the all the left footwork. Yeah. Yeah.
It was fun though. And then, uh, flip over. I drove this Rocks, R-O-C-S Rocks design. Folks,
one more break because support is coming in this week from AG1. You know about AG1. You
heard about them before, but there's no right time for better health. There's just today and now
and AG1 is the easiest and most impactful habit you could implement this year. Why?
Because sustainable health is all about consistency, not perfection. You can simplify your nutrition
with AG1, multivitamin, pre and probiotic, superfoods, antioxidants, all in one scoop
because AG1 is the opposite of complexity. 20 seconds it takes, just one scoop, eight ounces
of water, shake, shake, shake. Done. Drink it first thing before coffee, before checking your phone.
It will become a micro habit that anchors everything else. I have literally, Zach never
heard the term micro habit before, but I'm going to use that in every single sentence I say from
now on. And the new next gen formula for AG1, it's got more vitamins and minerals than ever,
clinically proven to fill common nutrient gaps. Here's the thing about the AG1. I've been drinking
it for the last week, brought it with me. I thought, because I'm having long days in Miami,
I would want it, but I'd never liked the flavor before, but now it comes in that original flavor,
but also citrus, berry and tropical. I am down with the tropical. I really am. AG1 has over 50,000
verified five star reviews and comes with a 90 day money back guarantee. Go to drinkag1.com
slash tire to get their best offer for a limited time only get a free AG1 duffel bag and a free AG1
welcome kit with your first subscription order while supplies last. That's drinkag1.com slash
tire drinkag1.com slash tire. And last, but certainly not least, despite the name support is
coming in from Smalls. Smalls is here for my kitten family. I was just gone for a whole week and
man did I mess my cats, especially my cats. Can you say you miss your cats more than your wife
when you travel? I'm not supposed to, but I do. And I've recently changed their diet because
cricket, my four year old girl, turns out is morbidly obese. We're feeding her too much dry
food. Gotta stop doing that. So we went straight to the full wet food formula, two meals a day
with wet food. Smalls is it. They have these unbelievable protein packed preservative free.
It's in the canned food, right? My cats love this stuff. They love the wet canned cat food.
They just rip through it. It's like they're like a wolf pack or something like a pack of tigers.
They put together the sampler for the cats. I don't have to choose randomly.
The cats chose their favorites. I get more. And now cricket is a losing weight. 88% of
cat owners also report overall health improvements. I haven't weighed cricket yet, but she does look
a little more svelte. And the team at Smalls is so confident your cat will love their product
that you can try it risk free. That means they'll refund you if your cat won't eat their food.
My cats eat their food, so I get no refunds. Make 2026 your cat's healthiest year yet.
Take advantage of their new year's special and get 60% off your first order,
plus free shipping when you head over to Smalls.com slash tire. One last time,
that's 60% off your first order, plus free shipping at Smalls.com slash tire. And now,
back to the show. You could call it like a Magnus style build. It has no paint on it.
It's a raw steel body. It's got Lexan rear windows. It's like, it's an old school race
car-y kind of vibe. It definitely has that vibe. Yeah, this is like your typical period-built
track rat type 9-11. Looks cool. It did look cool. It looked cool and had a great shifter,
very notchy and tight. So is this shadow, this meatball shadow on the door,
like a real sticker they peeled off a long time ago? Maybe. I don't know. The exterior is real
scruffy. There's a couple little bits of like rust here and there. Like it's,
it's meant to be super scruffy. And the interior is super scruffy too.
So here's the thing. If I didn't just get out of a yellow bird and get into that,
I'd have been all about that. You know what I mean? It's a beautiful vintage hot rod 9-11
experience. It's fucking loud. There's no sound insulation. You know, it's got that race car
mirror that goes across the entire top of the windshield. The steering is very sharp and
it's got all these old school bucket seats like they would have driven in the 70s where,
and I'm just going, God, if I have a crash in this, I am dead as a fucking doornail.
That's it from the other side. Yeah. But it's a great vibe. I mean, it would be a great car
to rip around LA in for sure. But after, after the yellow bird, I mean, just, this is a lovely car
and the guy who built it was really nice and it didn't have any like terrible vices. It turned
nice. It stopped pretty good. Like it was fine. It was a cool, sordid old 9-11. I ain't a fucking
yellow bird though. You know what I mean? Like you, the difference between something like this
and what year was this car, by the way? I haven't, I mean, it's got to be no idea. 70, 69, 70,
something like that. It's late 60s, early 70s. So that's, you know, a 20 year difference just in
the body, body construction. And then plus you add like roof being roof, 300 horsepower problem.
Turbo refinement. Yeah. I mean, just all of it. Yeah. This is, I think they have very different
intentions. Yeah. This feels like something Fatties would like just no, for someone who wants
old school, raw, rough. I mean, Magnus would love it, you know, and, and Jethro was there as well.
And he had a go at it and he thought it was great fun too. It is, it was really cool. It was nice
to get to, to get to try it. Like I like the, I like the no paint. I think that's a cool aesthetic.
It certainly ran well and, and sounded cool. And it was carbureted. So it did that little
spittily thing that happens when you come off the throttle that only the carbs do where it's
pops back out the carb a little bit. You know what I mean?
Cool. Fast. Quick, quick, quick. I mean, I mean, look, fast. I just got out of a yellow bird. So
like not fast. No, yellow bird is fast. This is, this is not fast. But it, but it was lovely. I
mean, look, in today's world, fast doesn't matter that much. Fun, fun beats fast. Sure.
So it, it was, it was certainly enough horsepower to have a good time in,
though it was not fast enough for me to be happy with it as my track car, you know.
But if you were racing a bunch of other cars that looked and sounded like it,
that would be a good time. That would be a very fun day. Yeah, cool. For sure. But I, you know,
fucking for six days a year, Miami's the best place on earth, you know, you hit the weather right,
you hit the, it's, and it's just you, you, the restaurants are vibing and I, and people in
Miami have a sort of optimism about despite reality. You know what I mean? They're having a
good time. Everything else is burning. There's like no laws there. They don't pay fucking taxes,
but they're about it. Like whatever else is happening in the rest of the world, like Miami's
fun. Yeah, it does have a fun vibe to it. Sure. Six days a year. I'm a hundred percent about it.
But outside of this club, there ain't a fucking set of corners for 600 miles. I know. I mean,
seriously, like, how do you love cars and live in that town if you can't afford a membership
to this place? And frankly, even if you can, and they do, they do as good a job as can be done.
The community, the track, the amenities, the staff, this is, this is, this is as first rate
as fucking first rate gets. I'd be tired of the same racetrack. If that was all I had,
you know what I mean? If I didn't have the racetrack and canyons and some other racetracks once in a
while, if this was where I could go to drive and in Miami, that's it. I, it wouldn't, it wouldn't
satisfy me. So I couldn't live in Miami. Well, yeah, I mean, I think there's two things there.
Like if you were, if you were forced to live there, you might find ways to make, keep the track
fun. You just get really into the racing, really into shaving times. Well, they do that. They've
got this club series, the spec M twos, they're all racing apparently is a very good, very good
series. And the club does stuff. They do activations at the F one track and, and stuff like that. Oh,
I forgot the F one track, there is a way to join some kind of a club that gets you 30 or 40 days
a year at the F one track also. So, and there may be some type of reciprocal with concourse club.
So I don't want to say that this is the only place to turn corners in Miami. The F one track
is the other way. Well, also you have to be a certain economic bracket to experience either of
these. If you're a car fan in Miami, who's not in that bracket, I think it highlights though that
people can find a lot of ways to like cars. Like when I was reading magazines as a kid,
and reading this car goes this fast, or it handles better, you know, than this thing,
if you had handed me that car there, I wouldn't in Santa Cruz, I wouldn't have gone, oh, I can't go
any of these race tracks. Like even if you just drive around for a while, I think it's so exciting
because you're so excited about the car. That's true. They're just like, there isn't anywhere to,
I mean, imagine LA, but without of the mountains. No, I get it. I think because we live here,
we've become not like spoiled, but also this is the kind of driving we like. That's why we live here.
Yeah. In part. So for us to think of moving somewhere that doesn't have that would be,
you know, crippling. Well, yeah, no, it is, but it's just, it's too bad because I meet really
nice people there and like the food is great. The hospitality is great. You know, the vibe of
it's great. I like, I like, I like South Florida architecture. I think it's an interesting mix
of like Art Deco, Mid-Mod, Southern. Way more colorful, like architecture. Yeah, colorful.
People don't give a fuck. You know, here like, like here, it's like, you know, even in LA,
it's like a little douchey to be like too flash. Like there is no such thing down there as too
flash and it's like kind of hilarious. So anyway, it's a fun time as long as it's the right time
of year. How far is the firm from Miami? That's in Gainesville. That's, those are extreme ends of
Florida. It's far. Homestead. Oh, that's the NASCAR track. It's really far. Yeah. There might be
something to do with at Homestead. Do they have an infield road course there? There's Miami Exotic
Auto Racing. Like I think there's probably some more things. You got to find one of those,
those tracks we stumble upon. They're like out in the woods. You know, I'm sure there's a track
in the middle of the woods somewhere. I think like Jake Paul just bought some huge piece of land
in Georgia. I heard the best description for him, which was a hock to a for dudes. Yeah. That's about
right. Perfect. Yeah. They both scan people with crypto. Oh, wait. So I got a shrink flation.
This one's hilarious because it's my checks. Like I ordered new checks for Westside and it's the big,
the big binder of business checks. It's the sheet that's got three and then the ledger and you tear
them off, right? And it's, I just, I just click to reorder. Just reorder the same product I have.
It is my third time in five, six years reordering. Okay. The checks come. They are notably thinner.
The paper is thinner and I can't use my fountain pens on them anymore because it bleeds through.
They made my fucking checks and they're more expensive. They made them thinner and more expensive.
Thanks. Deluxe.com. That is, that sucks. They shrink flated the thing I use to pay bills with.
Isn't that crazy? Oh, and that dude, I read, I read a story this morning that's made, I mean,
it just, the story on Axios this morning saying that there should be a new class of people.
Like you've heard of the haves and the have nots. Sure. Well, now there's the haves,
the have nots and the have lots. And they've, there's a whole thing about the have nots is
basically like the 50% of this country that are like priced out of everything. The, the don't have,
don't have $1,000 for an emergency home ownership. You know, so that's the have nots.
The haves are like people that probably would have been considered rich like 10 or 15 years ago
that are like stable, fine. They own their own homes. They have some money for some retirement.
Just what, what, what today's version of middle class people is that probably would have been
upper middle class 10 years ago. And then you have the have lots, which is the .001% that's like
riding the fucking AI slash Trump boom, that it's like the list of people that it's like,
they list off 12 people that made like over. There were 19 families last year made like
$500 billion or something. Yeah. And you're like, what? And you just, and so anyway, that's
that's the new class of people that are outside governments. I mean, they live, they, when you
have enough resources, you don't need to be loyal to a city, a state, a country laws, like anything,
like nothing. And so anyway, yes, I think that's good to have a new descriptor definition. Yeah,
that makes sense. Language evolves. And yeah, there's a huge difference. So yeah, I mean, and,
and like it's, it's an incredible like privilege to be able to like own a house and not have to
think about the price of groceries too often. That's an incredible privilege. But like,
there's this just, there is this new class of people where it's like beyond the rule of law,
beyond the where it's like post power, like where you just, you just have the power, the
access and the influence to make markets to, you know, like you can insider trade, you can have
access to what the government's going to do before they do it. Like you've bought your way into a
club that just enshrines your power outside of. Yeah, you stop buying things and you've purchased
access and you purchase systems. Yeah, yeah. It's kind of fucked up. Yeah, it's going really well.
Really well. Would you say this is about 1930, where we're at? Yeah, 28. 28 to 30 is probably,
you know, we're getting there. We're getting there. Don't worry guys, it'll happen.
The, oh, let's talk about affordability for a second. We've got this Alfa,
we're made of spider on bring a trailer, affordable sports cars. We put, it's two days left in this
by the time you guys listen to this on Tuesday, it's not, there's a photo of it on the, on my
Instagram top photo. You can do this little red alpha spider. We sold it last month. And then
after the guy clicked bid, he got like a terminal health diagnosis and like,
and like I couldn't, yeah. So, so I'm very unfortunate. And so we're, we're running,
we're running it again. No fault of the car. So this, this is going to be like low five figures,
guys. Mint super well loved alpha spider. Get in the Italian car game. Just tag Tom Holland,
just tag him a bunch. Is he about that? Well, he already has an old,
he's got an old one, but he needs more. Yeah. It's a lovely front engine rear two liter,
four cam, five speed, limited slip diff, convertible, nice leather.
The cigarette lighter has not been ripped a thousand grits. It's a 95 alpha spider on
its 91 91. Oh, no, it's been owned since 1995. Okay. The little old lady that owned this has
owned it since 1995. Wow. Yeah. I want to see, I just want to see the interior and
different angles real quick. Oh, yeah. Oh, you spell it with a Y. That's why it's with an I.
You know, if Italy could just get some consistency on how, well, yeah, that's Lamborghini does it
with the, the Lamborghini and Porsche do it with a Y and alpha and Ferrari do it with, there it is
in the middle. Photos by fatties. And it's, this is one of the ones that's got the, you know,
like the shifters up on the dashboard. It's ever see that? See the interior one of these?
What a friendly little vehicle. So see where the shifter comes out of. Isn't that great?
They're fun to shift. It's a totally different thing. Pull down. Yeah. Yeah. Lift up. It's
like this. Yeah. It's funky. It's like you're operating a drawbridge. Dude, it's a, you know,
if you want like a different and unique driving experience, like really, really cool little car.
And if you want to drive around a car that doesn't make it look like you're an insecure idiot,
this is the car for that. And what you really want to do is get rid of that airbag steering wheel.
This is a 91 Gen 1 airbags. You probably don't even want that in your car. Like you're probably
more likely to get hurt by that airbag than have it save your life. Just get rid of that steering
wheel, little wood, nardy. Yeah. And then you're, then you're, now no one knows what year this thing
it is. Now it could be a 73 or a, but it's, I like the seats. Dude, does this look like a 133,000
mile car? This is mint. It looks like it's got like a third of the miles it actually has. Yeah.
It's been really, really well loved this car. I like the gauge pinnacle. Gauge pinnacle is cool.
All the controls are really cool. It's just, if you're really going to drive it needs a new set
of tires. Tires, the tires are old, but it is absolutely lovely. So go check it out and bring
a trailer and get in the game. Cheap, cheap Italian sports cars, people. What else did I have that
I wanted to talk about? It's pretty much, pretty much, I mean, I, we could talk about the Aston
Martin DBXS, but that seems like something that we should maybe save for next show. I feel like,
I think so. We're at 35. Yeah, we can. That's because that'll be 20 minutes. What did you do
while I was gone? Anything car related? I went to Good Vibes with David Tuig and his wonderful friends.
We had a great time. Him and his, uh, him and his buddy, uh, Zoil, they rented a V6, a red V6
Mustang from Vegas and they drove it here. They're at CES. Oh, okay. All right. And I was going to
rent such a shit one way, one way rentals as well. And they, and also it was CES. I think a lot of
people had more money than them rented cars first. Like it's like the biggest trade show,
second to FEMA. So they rented that thing, um, which was very funny to watch engineers go like,
it's just so slowly. Yeah. For those who don't know who David is, he was the, uh, I think,
I forget the title, but he basically ran program manager, program director. He basically ran the
entire Alpine A110 program. And before that, he ran the Nissan Kashkai program. We called it the
Rogue, one of their most successful crossovers. Our audience really cares about that.
No, what I'm saying, like he worked for huge companies. He's ran projects for three huge
companies. And then he wrote an amazing book you should read called Inside the Machine.
Super nice guy and engineer. So we hung out and went up to Good Vibes. It was frigid, sir.
Was there snow? There was ice. Oh, really? Yeah. In the shady part of the road? There was ice in
the shady part right when you approached Newcomps, which, uh, that was a really funny thing. So on
the way up, roads dry. I'm watching the temps though. Like it's chilly. Did you go up big to
hunger? Did you go up? Angels crest the whole way? Our normal way up. Oh, and it was open? Yeah. Oh,
good. Okay. So there was no snow like visible. There was one corner where I couldn't tell if it
was ice or water coming across. And then as I went over it, I felt the whole car like dressed
on it. That's nice. And it was a very short moment. I knew, okay. So after that, we all slowed
down. In the winter, uh, local, uh, little inside baseball, in the winter, there is a section of
road that never sees sun. That part was dry. Oh, shocking. 100% shock. Really? I was expecting
to go 12 miles, two miles per hour, really, with my tires. That was clear. I think they'd plowed it.
Maybe sun had hit it at some point. There was ice right when you get to Newcomps. And it was
probably a 50 foot, maybe a hundred foot section of ice and slush. We all, and everybody who showed
up slows down, except for one guy in a E34 M5, I think, who kind of came in at like 25 and all
the sudden kicks left and slides into the oncoming. No one was there, but we're like, and then he just
pulled into the parking lot and didn't say anything. He said to himself, nobody saw that. Yeah. And
some of the folks that were there were looking up the hill to make sure no cars were coming,
like safety priority there. But that guy probably learned that you need momentum,
but you don't need that much momentum. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Very light showing of good vibes. It was
like 38 degrees. Well, yeah. Also, first week back at work, I think like 20 cars showed up. It was
really strange. Well, yeah, cold and it had been raining all week. The reason I asked is because
about, uh, not what you were doing, but which route you took, because right after the rains,
when I had to go, um, film, um, Big Tehunga was closed and I didn't know why I was hoping because
it was not damaged or in any way. I didn't see, I saw no signs of road work or anything. So maybe
it was just preventative. You know, maybe it was just closed in case something happened. They didn't
want people going up there. There were, I mean, there were sections, I think more in Angelus
Crest where there was like evidence of mud that had gone across that they plowed away or big rocks
and stuff that they'd cleared. Um, but there were just a couple of wild cards up here that I wanted
to show you. Um, Miata Safari. Miata Safari. I think stock engine just lifted huge tires. I mean,
this thing looks like it's on, I don't know, 32 inch tires. And they look, it looks like they've,
it's got longer control arms too. They, they look like they're outside the body of the car. They are
a little bit. Uh, I looked underneath and I mean, I saw suspension. I couldn't find the person that
built it. Um, but the back says like, Oh, what was it called? It was called like rough rides,
fabrication or something. Something that's kind of like we do shitty work, but I'm more of a
joke. Um, but this thing, this looked like a good time. How come? It does look like a good time.
There we go. You know, yeah, that looks fun. Yeah. Uh, and no lower, no front bumper,
no lower rear bumper. It was so tall. I did a profile shot. I don't think I put it up,
but it was next to a Ferrari 355, which had the nose was below the bumper of this thing.
You could drive this over, you know, a Corvette. That's sweet. Uh, just a good time that someone
probably had with the car they got for like $12. Yeah. Um, and by the way, that's great fun.
Yeah. Zero six. Sorry. So pretty tall. And then this, the only other car I wanted to show you
was this Lotus. Oh, I've seen this car before. There's a black exige with like white wheels,
like JDM style like track. It looks fantastic. It has good ground clearance. What a genius,
but it's got a turbo K 24. So I bet it rips and the guy that owns this thing, I think he's like 20.
If you're listening, you look 20, you probably are. He bought it from a guy he knows who's
like a racing engineer. So this dude drives it around right now with 270 wheel horsepower.
He says it's the lowest power setting possible before the thing just stumbles. And I was like,
that's a good place to start. You know, you can, you can live with this car for the rest of your
life and you could probably never outdrive it. You know, you can grow with this. Because the fastest
these cars ever got from the factory were 260 crank horsepower. If you're making 270 at the wheels,
that's some significantly more. He said the engine and the setup. I mean,
look at this external wastegate shit. Like it looks so rad. It sounds amazing. He said the
engine's good for like six to 800 horsepower, but the transmission will explode. That's, yeah, well,
because it's still stock gearbox, right? Yeah. Or is it the Honda gearbox or the, or the
Lotus gearbox and with the grenades, he can put something else in there. But for now,
he's just driving around like this, but it just, it looked like a DIY Hennessy Venom.
It sounded amazing. It's got this crazy lower splitter. I mean, it was just total race car.
And to drive it up on the day where there's like ice and snow on the road, just the brave aggressive.
Yeah. Those, but other than that, someone else in an exige. Yeah. I looked at it and went, man,
this seems like a great idea. And also very uncomfortable. So uncomfortable. So uncomfortable,
unfortunately. But, but fuck it. If you fit, God bless you. Yeah. But we had a good time.
It was a great, great drive. Good hang. But that's pretty much all. Have you,
have you changed the settings in your car since your track day? No. Okay. I have not. Okay.
I want to change the springs. I haven't done that either. I need to drive my car this weekend.
I have my spider. I haven't driven in, I think a month is not great. I need to drive it.
Dan McKinnis was there. And also one of David's friends has the gray spider. Remember Chris,
the gray spider. I know they both have, you got the gears done. Yes. I know that.
Short second through fifth. Yeah, I know that. It seems like the chalk one, right? Yeah. I see
that guy a lot. That's just, I think that's the move for so many people. Short or gearing.
It's expensive, but it's not as expensive as adding horsepower and it has a better return. And it,
it reduces stress off your engine. Yeah. And you keep the tall six gears. You can keep,
you keep your highway miles per gallon, which you wouldn't if you added horsepower. Yeah.
I just, I'm very excited about it. My, my engine is only like two miles per gallon,
less than stock. And even, even with that, I met a guy in Miami with a demand motor in his car.
I also met, ran into a shout out to Diego who bought my safari car, ran into him down in Miami.
He and his wife, I think she's his wife. She's very lovely. They're having a great time. They're
going on all these events. They're putting all these miles on the car. They're doing, they're,
really, they're enjoying that car for what it should be enjoyed for.
Was your car at? No, there was another one. It wasn't there. It was, it was not there. There
was a yellow cane safari there. Yeah. They're so rad. They are so good. They're awesome.
All right. We can go to the, the people's Patreon really kept us going that the wire from Patreon
came through this morning. It was a good month over there on the Patreon. So thank you guys
for, for keeping it going. Welcome to all the new people for, for 26. If you're, if you're new to
us and, and the way it works is if you sign up for us at the Patreon, which is patreon.com
slash the smoke entire podcast, you can watch the live stream. You can ask us questions for the
live stream. You can get the show before anybody else the same day it's recorded rather than waiting
Tuesday or Thursday. You can get extra show because there is a show at the pro driver tier
that's just a ninth show every month just for them. You can get the show without ads and you can
get access to exclusive collabs and stuff that we do with brands before anybody else such as the
next generation of notice watches. Yeah. Our Aaron down at concourse club asked me to reserve him
one of the pinks. He will be taking one of the pinks. So two canyons down there in Miami. Nice.
Big watch spotting. Yeah. Fucking heavies down there in Miami. I saw lots of Richard meal,
lots of protects, lots of gold APs. I was a guy sitting in fucking coach coming back from Miami
wearing a gold fume dial AP Royal Oak chrono. If it was real, it was about a quarter of a million
bucks. Wow. Yeah. Well, he spends his money on what he enjoys flying first class. Yeah. Okay.
Let's go to the people. PTS Angela White says, Oh, the, Oh, the car version of
fuck Mary kill is Turro finance crush. That's cute, but I'm just going to keep it fuck Mary kill.
So we're not plugging Turro on this. We don't need to turn into an advert Turro. All right,
gazu racing fuck Mary kill 86 Corolla Supra. I would, I would marry the GR 86.
I would fuck the Supra and I would kill the Corolla.
Hmm. Mary the Corolla.
Fuck the 86 and kill the Supra. Yeah. The Corolla would be the one that I'd want to have as my car
for for a while. The 86 I would like to beat the shit out of as hard as possible for like a day
and then just go like, thank you. See you later. And the Supra is fun, but doesn't interest me all
that much. I like the super straight line speed. I would just enjoy that for like a minute,
but then the Jerry six, I just love interacting with that in every way as much as possible.
Okay. Big Ben says mechanical watch question. I don't wear my watch daily. And when I take
my Breitling Navitimer out of the box to wear it, I just put it on and walk around for a few minutes.
And the motion of my wrist gets the movement going. And then I just set the time and continue
about my day. My question is, am I doing it wrong? Is winding the watch manually before putting it
on necessary or is this considered accepted practice? So I don't want to tell you that you're
doing it wrong because if the way you're doing it works, then it's not wrong. And it's certainly
not causing any damage. But if you don't manually wind that thing up, you just the natural motion
of your wrist, you are never going to get fully wind that barrel. The motion of your wrist is
really designed to maintain not to increase the level of windedness of your watch. And so I would
say that the way you should be doing it to get the most accuracy and the most power reserve out
of that watch is probably going to be to wind it manually, set the time, wind it manually,
and then go about your day. You don't have to spend that long doing it. It's 20, 30. 20, 30
spins will do it. And then you'll do it. It'll work. But I don't think you're getting a good
wind that way. I don't think your watch will be either as accurate or have as long a power reserve
as it could otherwise have. Listen and sometimes watch says, I love my EV as a daily but miss
having something with character even when driving around the city doing errands. If I had room for
only two cars plus Hannah's daily, would one of them still be an EV? Well, our one EV now is Hannah's
daily. So let's delete that part of the line and let's give you two cars. If I had two cars, one
would absolutely be an electric car. Yes. In my life, my life is full of other cars. But like,
yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. Why would I not have an EV? For here, that's, it's just so much
better. It's just so much better. And I'm about to go on a EV road trip next week, the new Lucid
Gravity. And I have to go to places that do not have a ton of, I have to drive across the desert.
I'm doing a big lap of the fucking desert to scout the Desert Run 600 Road and Track event. It's
about 60% sold out right now. You can come drive with me. We've got track time. We've got great
hotels. It's gonna be super fun. Super fucking fun. But I got scouted. So I'm doing the gravity
and I'm, the gravity can use Tesla superchargers now. So it'll be my first time using superchargers.
But I think we are, you know, obviously new cars are expensive and EVs if your goal is to save money
by not buying gas, that it may not work out for you. But I love the times when I have to sit
in traffic or light to light or whatever, I'd so much rather be in a fucking electric car.
So much rather. I'm so, I get, I get so much more relaxed and everything, you know? Would you?
Yeah. If you had, if you were gonna have two cars, would you have an EV and a sports car?
Absolutely. Yeah. I just, I like the way, I like the quiet, the lack of vibration, truly. I mean,
I, I now notice the difference when I get out of my car and get into any press car we have with a V
engine. The difference in vibration is totally noticeable. And then the difference from my car
to EV is so nice. And the instant torque, just not worrying about like the maintenance side of it,
all those things, totally. Yeah. Send preludes. That's a great name. I do World War Two reenacting
Allied side. Very important. Who does the other side? Is that, do you draw straws?
Anyone's excited about that? It's problematic. I always wanted a jeep for events and putting
around town. What military vehicle of any era would you want to drive? I mean, a tank,
like a small tank, right? Yeah. I mean, that's the coolest thing. Yeah. You can just drive, and
there are, there are small tanks. That's what's funny. There's like, there's ones that are like the
size of, I don't know, like a Hummer EV. Yeah. Like little tanks. Yeah. Personally, big ones.
Willie's Jeeps are cool and friendly and everyone likes them. They are just nightmares to drive over
25 miles per hour. Yeah, that's trash. And those true transporter things, the ones like a six
wheel, whatever it's called, that just feels too cumbersome. Yeah. So, I mean, dude, tank,
hovercraft, I think I'd like to do a hovercraft maybe. That would be fun. Do they use those in
World War Two? Well, I guess they have them now. No, not World War Two. He said, military vehicle
of any era. Oh, that's true. I met a guy who, I met a guy who drives a hovercraft. Remember?
Yeah. Yeah. We talked about that. I'm gonna go back from San Diego. Yeah.
You know what? I still think the Hummer H1 is oddly fun. When I drove that one for cars and
bids, shocked at how easy it was to drive. It has its charms. Yeah. It has its charms. Most of them
are shit piles, but it does have it. The one I, that one, the drift Hummer I drove in Detroit,
that thing was awesome. Oh, wait, the amphibious vehicles. That was one of the vehicle that you
can drive in the water, but they're all small. That's what I would do. Those would be fun. Yeah.
Run GMC. That's pretty good. That's pretty good. More fuck, Mary kill, wagons, second gen CTSV
manual, E39 M5 Touring, C6 Audi RS6 Avant twin turbo V10. Oh, this is, this is kind of a tough one.
I mean, the M5 Touring doesn't exist. That's not a real car. Right. BMW never made that. Well,
same with E46 M3 Touring. They listed up there. Yeah. I chose to ignore that. Oh, well, except
you'd love it. You don't think you'd like M3 Touring wagon? I probably would, but like, I don't
know, I had an M3 and I didn't fall in love with it. That's a good point. I would marry the CTSV
manual, fuck the E39 M5 and kill the RS6 Avant. I would marry the CTSV manual. I would fuck the RS6
twin turbo V10 and then I would kill the BMW team because I have driven them enough.
William Ray wants to know if we've ever driven a TVR Tuscan. I have not. No. Downshift family says,
do you think YouTuber cars such as your NSX are generally less valuable in the market
because their exploits have been on full display? I don't understand what that means.
No, I actually think it goes the opposite direction for cars like yours. I think it depends on what
the YouTuber is using the car for and what has been documented. So in your case, you always buy a car,
you document and talk about, I got maintenance done here. This was on time. I improved this.
Here's why. Like you really lay out what you've changed in the justification and what things you
change or update or maintain are always like to the highest quality. Yeah. Very good reason.
I actually kind of resent the question or resented being compared to my NSX. First off,
what exploits have been on full display? Where is this video of me beating up this car or doing
something to it that would make it less valuable? I think that's also why the second part of their
sense, which I don't really want to read, is flawed because if you were taking your NSX and
turning it into a drift car or something, and then you try to put it back to stock to sell it,
like sure, then it's going to reduce the value because you've shown people that you don't give
a shit about it. But all I've done with this car is service it, add paint protection film,
and then I put different wheels on it, which I took off before I sold it. And then oh,
by the way, the guy who bought it bought the wheels. So I think every car I've ever sold
has sold at top of market. I've never put a car at auction that fully tanked. So
is there an example that this person has of a quote YouTuber car that did sell for less because
of that? I don't watch other people's auctions. I mean, we have friends that like, you know,
they'll buy a car, new a dealership, they then modify it, track it a lot, and then they put it
back to stock before they sell it. But they don't put it up for auction because they would probably
people would comment about it. And then they usually sell it to like another dealership or
something. Yeah, I think that's the example of someone kind of documenting their exploits and
then trying to pass that down to somebody, but you don't really do that. I mean, I could see it
like here's where I could see it like, and it's not a one to one. But like Cletus, sure, where he
does a car giveaway, and he like rips the fucking car and he's doing burnouts and donuts like,
if like, let's just say that for some reason, they don't do the giveaway after that. And instead,
he just sends puts the car on cars and bids. Sure. But like a giveaway car and selling a car at
auction are like not the same thing at all. Yeah, I think. Yeah, that that's a better example.
I doubt anybody wouldn't enter the giveaway that Cletus is having because he did a burnout on
Instagram in the car. You know what I mean? Like, you know, Vin Anachtra just gave away that M3.
If he had built that car because he put a lot of, you know, he had a lot of thought behind the parts,
tested it, whatnot, but he did track it. He did slide it. Would that reduce the
auction value compared to if Joe Schmo, who doesn't have a YouTube channel, built the car
the same way? I still think the YouTube thing would actually help it because you under because you
are presented with all the information of why someone made the changes they made instead of it
just being a forum post from a guy that you're supposed to trust. I think so. I think it can help.
Yeah. It I think it reflects the character of the YouTuber. Yeah. If that person is known for
taking care of their cars, then it can only help. If that person's known for being shady
or beating on their cars or whatever, then it can hurt. True. Queers, shifting gears.
I hope I said that in the right accent. I think you can say it in any accent.
Do you say it in a redneck accent or do you say it in like a fem, like drag queen accent?
Oh, like an ally or people in South can be allies. I don't know. This feels like a
better to say it as someone who looks like me with a southern accent. Queers. You got to say
like that. Sure. See anything from CES coverage that was notable. I did not pay that much attention
to CES. I find that CES really has a lot of stupid stuff in it. David Tug actually said we should
go next year. He said we it's probably pretty interesting and there's a lot of stuff that
we would be able to make content about like talk about on the show. Yeah. And he they were trying
to sell it to us now. I went a couple of years ago and like the AIification of everything like
doesn't make me want to go more. But I mean, you know, it's a thing to see, I guess we could,
if we could figure out a way to get something worthwhile out of it. I mean, I guess this year
the big thing were robot fights. So that's just terrifying. I mean, or robots moving car parts
to replace humans. I mean, here's the thing about robot fights. What year did battle bots come out?
Oh, 2002. Yeah. So I don't give a fuck anymore. And also saw that when I was in high school. Well,
now they look the robots look like us. That's what's interesting about it is it's the humanoid
robots that are like boxing or doing, you know, karate to each other, which I find actually very
scary. Robot wars. I was never like someone's going to use that to, you know, corral the populace
and to doing what they want. I was like, look at the things spinning and hitting the thing that
jumps. Well, if they're going to use, no, if they're going to use robots to corral the populace,
they're not going to look like humans. Well, they have like they're going to be drones.
And that's a good point. It'll be both. Yeah. Yeah. Just wait till next year. We won't need,
we won't need CES. Yes, pretty much wants you. All you got to do is put Steven Miller and Elon
Musk in a room together, and you will have some white supremacist promises that will never ever
get met. Great point. It'd be great if they use Tesla robots. Yeah, because they'll never happen
or they'll break. Yeah. That's true. We need to assign Elon Musk to every Steven Miller idea.
That's how we're going to save this fucking country. Make sure Elon Musk is in charge of
everything Steven Miller thinks of. And then it'll just never happen. This is like doubling down
in a casino on Blackjack, but you have two. They could go really wrong. Right. Nobody cares about
my G 70. What's a car that terrified you? I've heard a lot of guys say the Gen 1 Viper wants
to kill its driver, but I've never owned anything fast. The Gen 1 Viper does not want to kill its
driver. The Gen 1 Viper actually has very straightforward and standard driving dynamics.
It's front engine, rear drive. It has a lot of power for the time. But if you were to get
a Gen 1 Viper that has 20, 25 tires on it, it's not anything. It just has no traction control
or stability control. Do you think it just overwhelmed the tires of the time versus other
cars that didn't maybe? Probably. Yeah. And if you got in one of those now and tried to maybe
push it as fast as it would go, it might be a bit of a challenge. And you might not know where
the limit was. But at the time, it was really just a lot of power and no traction control
and the tires could not keep up with that. But if you put today's tires on it, it'd be a pussycat.
The car that terrified me that we drove was the Gildred Racing Red Mini. What, 500-ish horsepower
rear engine, strange dynamics. That was pretty scary and great. But man, you and I have never
been so alert. Yeah, that was a lot. I mean, when you put the engine from one side of the car to
the other and then double the horsepower, you really have some crazy shit going on. But terrified,
I don't know if I've ever been terrified by any production car. I mean, there just isn't a production
car in my lifetime career that's been that unsorted that I was literally scared of it.
Yeah, I think you have to go to the aftermath. You have to go to people's personal builds and
shit where people will put all this power in a car and then just have stock suspension and
brakes just because they're morons. That's the kind of stuff that's really scary, not what a
manufacturer. A manufacturer in general has some kind of responsibility to its customers to not
sell them full-on garbage. Although I had to say, just to circle around because I was in Miami with
the people I was with, I was with car people all the track and shit, but I also spent the night
with my friend Jeff from college and his buddies that are not car people at all. They're in real
estate and they all drive fucking Teslas. I told them not to. Jeff, my friend Jeff, is a horrible
driver, is actually a bad driver. He was telling me that he uses FSD all the time. I was like,
look, you really shouldn't. I don't think that non-car people are really understand.
I think they believe all of the hype and I don't think they hear any of the data about why this
isn't a half-baked product. They don't really know the differences between what Waymo is doing
and what Tesla is doing. They just go, well, it didn't crash today, so it must be safe.
They're reasonable people. They're not like yay Elon fans. They just literally are like,
I'm bad at driving and this is better than me at driving.
I was going to say, if it's better than him, that's a slippery slope. I know.
Well, is it better to have this thing driving than to have Jeff driving?
It would be better to have Jeff get better at driving. What would be better? There's a third
door here, and I tried to explain sensor redundancy and I tried to explain all that
kind of stuff and I don't think I got anywhere. His eyes glazed over.
We went home with, it didn't crash today. I go, Jeff, if it does crash, just so you know,
it's your fault. Legally, it's your fucking fault. He goes, I know, but I don't think it will.
He's gotten interested. He's swimming in the ocean. Someone's going to say, hey,
there's sharks in there. You go, all right, well, I've been swimming in the ocean for 25 years,
never even seen a shark, and I want to keep swimming in the ocean.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So nobody cares about my, oh wait, we already did one from them.
Nothing on that says living in the North rust kills cars faster than anything,
but you guys being in Southern California, what kills cars there? Not being able to pass smog,
mileage, potholes? Sun. Sun. The sun here is like truly whatever is mounted UV that comes
through the intensity, the frequency, all that stuff, like it will eat paint. Yeah.
Doesn't matter what company made it, whatever, like if you get a brand new car and it lives
outside here versus living outside in Oregon or somewhere else, it's going to get cooked real
quick. The other thing could be salt if you live near the ocean. That's very true. If you live,
you know, Zack's old place, Zack lived second row from the ocean and parked his car outside. So
combination of the salt air and the sun, that's problematic. Smog isn't that much of a problem.
Potholes will add up to requiring more maintenance over time, bushings, all that stuff.
I may be a snowflake, but Grand Seiko is too. That's pretty funny.
Let's see. The progression of sports cars has been more power, more tech, more acceleration,
more computers, more and more, more rinse and repeat, leading further and further away from
the simplify and add lightness ethos. Could there be a developing hole in the market for simplified
lightweight sports cars or those of us who wish there was doom to be represented by the
capitalistic enthusiasts who think more is always the answer? You're going to have to look outside
of mainstream OEMs. Mainstream OEMs will not have a business case for a product like that.
You're going to have to look at Katerhams. You're going to have to look at Morgans. You're going
to have to look at older cars that are rest-o-modded. I mean, across the board, rest-o-mod market.
There's that guy in England putting V6s and stuff into Miata's for like 100 grand. There's a company
rest-o-modding almost every type of enthusiast car out there. There's imported Japanese cars,
but there is no mass community that wants a simple lightweight sports car. It's always
going to be a niche product from here on out, so you're going to have to go to niche sources to get
it. I recently bought a studio underdog watch during their recent restock event. Their founder
is all over Instagram about banning people who resell their pieces. What a fucking loser. Problem
is, once it's on my wrist, I really just don't like it as much as I'd hoped. It's a bit on the
small side. Yes, they are. Studio Underdog makes a beautiful watch, all of which are 37 fucking
millimeter, so that's why I haven't bought one yet. But wait, what should they do? Do I take
the risk and sell it anyways, keep it and wear it sparingly, or wait some period of time and sell it
later? I mean, look, if you buy something from somebody, it's yours. Fucking sell it. And by the
way, if this guy's that upset about people reselling their pieces, A, he doesn't understand the market
because you need to have some kind of robust secondhand market for your piece to have any kind of
value. If it has no used value, unless they drop so fast, unless the used values are so low,
that they don't want to see that. Here's an option, offer to sell it back to them. Offer to return it.
I know you don't want to sell this. I know you don't want me to flip it. I'm not trying to flip it.
I like it. I like your company, but this isn't working for me. What can I do? Start there.
I mean, that's it. I mean, you should be able to either return it, have them buy it back,
have them connect you to another buyer. Maybe it was sold out. Somebody else wants it, whatever.
Try the friendly ways first. But like, after that, after you've tried the friendly way,
if they don't open the door, fuck them. Buy my PPI. If I could only have one
Grand Seiko in your collection, what would it be? Oh, this is so easy, the Kodo. The Grand Seiko
Kodo. It's $360,000. But yeah, sure. If I could have a Grand Seiko Kodo, fuck with that. It's only
$360,000. Sell half the Kuntas. Sell everything. Sell everything to buy all. I know you already
asked a question, but we should talk about this Arizona thing, because it's kind of the story
of the week. Nobody cares about my G70 says an Arizona rep has introduced legislation to create
unrestricted speed zones on certain highways during daylight hours. Do you think it's a good idea?
That's really it. Do you think it's a good idea? And will it catch up? Intended to speed up driving
times through less populated areas. Is that really something that is needed?
Hey, man, let's not look a gift horse in the mouth, okay?
Is it a good... I haven't seen the math on what the point is of this.
It seems a bit like the Montana thing. I think...
It's called the Reasonable and Prudent Interstate Driving Act. Rapid, focused on
limiting speed zones in rural sections of Arizona. Be pilot on a stretch of Interstate 8.
I mean, okay. I will add they say that additional roads will be chosen, but only after engineering
studies, safety records, and highly designed standards. So that's good. They're not just
going to say, hey, this road is empty. Go for it, even though the tarmac is fucked and there's a
lot of dangerous stuff in the middle of the road. So that is good. Sure. I mean,
I am not against this. I mean, I'm never going to say that getting rid of a speed limit on a
highway in the middle of nowhere is a bad idea. If I find myself out there, I'm going to do 200
miles an hour. Like, why not? If you say I can, let's fucking go. You know, the proposed highway
requirements for de-restricting speed limits include locations outside urbanized areas with
population of 50,000 or more residents, a crash rate below the statewide average over the last
five years, and existing infrastructure that meets or exceeds state standards. Strong need for
correct signage and annual safety audits of de-restricted segments as well as driver education
around passing. All right. If you are going to get rid of speed limits, you should also,
you should make it illegal to camp out in the left lane. Yeah. I mean, because if that's what's
going to happen, cars are going to be going triple digits. Yep. There needs to be an area where a
car can know that there isn't going to be someone doing 62 moving into the left lane. Yeah. I think
the biggest challenge will be educating the public because in Germany, when you get your license,
you are explained, it's explained to you how the autobahn works and how the lane discipline works.
We don't have that here. I mean, maybe they tell you in driver training, nobody gives a shit,
but they're going to have to give a shit or they're going to die. Yeah. So, getting that message
has the worst lane discipline of any country I've ever driven. Sure. Except for like maybe,
no, no, including places that would be considered like developing nations. And I think
another challenge is that you have people passing across different states on road trips and stuff.
So, does this person from California or Idaho or whatever, did they get the memo on how this
highway works? Where is Interstate 8 in Arizona? I don't even really know where that is. And
can I max out this lucid gravity? I mean, I'm sure it's big, but I don't know that road in particular.
Point it up. Highway 8 in Arizona is, zoom, zoom, zoom. Oh, wow. Okay. So, this is,
fuck me. Okay. So, this is really, it runs across the southern part of the state near the Mexico
border. And it's basically like if you were going from Phoenix to San Diego, that's what you would
take. That's pretty remote. I mean, that area, that section between Hila Bend and wherever,
there ain't shit out there, man. Yeah. Is this all, is this, that's Mexico. No, this is Mexico. Oh,
yeah. What is, I don't know. That's like military or do not, do not fuck around zone. Right. I don't
know. Zoom out. Let me see if it's labeled. Can you zoom out more? I don't know. All right.
Just the fucking desert death zone. I guess so. Yeah. So, that does seem like a good spot for
that. You know, this is very straight. I mean, you, there's very straight and there ain't nothing
there. So, like, if we do the, like, what is the distance? How do I do that? I'm just curious how
long the straightaway is to answer your question. Measure distance from there to here. That's 12
miles. Yeah. Just dead straight. Yeah. Yeah. That's enough. Yeah. But yeah. I don't, I don't
hate it. Education is the challenge. I don't hate it as long as you don't have people camping out in
the left lane. Yeah. And fucking it all up. Yeah. Two guys in the back of Alexis, Texas says,
I'm expecting a strong raise at the end of this year and I'm contemplating my first sports car.
Is it bad that I keep coming back to an older Viper? I like how they look and, yeah, 40K should
be good for a decent one. I'm in Northern California. Yeah. If you, you got to start somewhere.
First sports car. We were just talking about Vipers and what's good about Vipers is they're
straightforward. They're generally dependable. You know, the powertrains are robust. There's
a lot of stuff that I kept. And they do look cool. I'm not, I think I agree. They do look cool. And
they sound interesting. And if you keep coming back to that, this was like me in my first
collector car really was a DeLorean. It turned out that wasn't the fucking one. But the process of
finding it, you know, getting it worked on, driving it a bit and learning that, oh, actually,
it wasn't really what I thought. That's like part of the process. So like, you got to start
somewhere. And so like, why not a Viper? Sounds good to me. Quadrifoli O-face
had the lovely experience of opening the tailgate of my Lucid Gravity mid-car wash last week.
As I scrambled to turn off the wipers with the non-buttons on the left of the screen,
they're about a pixel apart when the tailgate one pops up. That sucks. Any wrong button mishaps,
you guys have had. Wrong button mishaps. Like I hit the wrong button. I mean, the Ferrari SF90,
you brushed the prompt thing for the voice command like so often. It's like so annoying. Oh, when we
had the M8 and the gesture control was turned on and I was like talking on the phone, all of a
sudden it started talking to me because I moved my hand in a certain way. Yeah, that was weird.
Gesture controls stink. I mean, wrong button mishaps. I've never opened a power door in the
middle of a car wash, if you know what I mean. I've definitely acts on a right-hand drive car.
I've accidentally hit the blinker instead or the wiper instead of the blinker. And if I have a camera
mounted on the windshield, remember in New Zealand, I had a camera mounted on the windshield. I
accidentally hit the wiper instead of the blinker. The wiper peeled off the rubber of the camera,
which sent it into the fucking woods. Yeah. And we had to spend half an hour finding this camera
in the woods. You almost did that in the DBX video. I almost did it. It was good. Almost did in the
DBX video as well. Yep. Tripping on ADAS. That's pretty funny. Have either of you ever owned cars
that were reliability anomalies? For example, a Honda or Toyota that always broke down or needed
work or et cetera, et cetera. I think that my 97 Jetta wasn't an anomaly because I drove it
hard for three years with terrible maintenance. I slid into a curb hard and I can't believe I didn't
like whatever, time machine the wheels. And it just worked. Had no issues. Got so lucky.
Never had a Honda or Toyota that constantly broke down. No. The Lexus that had power steering
fluid dripping on the alternator. That was a weird thing. Well, the million mile Lexus,
that was user error because people were filling the power steering fluid with power steering
fluid. Crazy. And in that car, it uses ATF. So if you do that, it then fucks up the gasket,
which then drips onto the alternator and then you have a big fucking problem.
No, no, no, all of the reliability of all my, I have had overwhelmingly
good reliability experiences with all of my cars. Overwhelmingly so. I've never had a car
that was just a fucking nightmare over and over it ever of any kind.
Let's see. The OU8, no, I mean, do we really want to answer that guy's question? It was really
the one you just deleted. I replied in the chat. Yeah.
But I just didn't like the tone of the question, actually. Oh, that's fine. Okay.
Bush did 997. What are your favorite gearboxes or shifters? I feel like we get asked this a lot.
I think we do. 0406 4GT, Honda S2000, Ferrari 430 manual. Gen 1 NSX. Gen 1 NSX.
550. Yeah, the Ferrari gated, any of the Ferrari 6 speed gated. Okay.
I think basically the temp wheel and the BMW also aims things at the floor, but I thought that
turned the heat up in the whole car. Oh, yeah. Single barrel V8 engine wants to go back to what
we were asked. We were asked before the break about climate control that can do the upper and
the lower separately. I mean, you would have cool air on the top and warm air on the bottom or vice
versa. And they're suggesting that BMW has the scrolling wheel on the dash with the digital for
the feet and dash. Now, I've never learned how to properly use that wheel. I don't think anybody
knows how to use that wheel. I mean, I could read the manual for my car and learn how to use
the wheel. But instead, I don't know, when I went up to good vibes and it was cold, I turned the
wheel up to hot, the car seemed to heat up quicker inside. I forget what it bypasses. And someone's
going to yell at me because I should know this. But I have not noticed it only changing the
temperature aimed at my feet. It seems to heat the entire vehicle. This is a good question.
Shelby GT Tri-Fitty, at what percentage price point relation to the car's value
does a wrap not make sense? For example, I have a $60,000 car. And if I spend 10K on a wrap,
that's 16% of the car's value. That makes me want to cry even if I can afford it. But if I had a
$200,000 car, spending the 10K is a no brainer. Am I crazy? Well, here's another question.
Your $60,000 car, by the time you're done with it, is it going to be a $60,000 car or is it going to
be a $40,000 car? Same question for your $200,000 car. Is that going to be going up in value? And
your money is going to come out in the wash or possibly add a little bit of value on the other
end? Or are you just protecting a car that is going to depreciate no matter what?
Second is like, if you had to repaint the front end from Rockchips, what is the price
point of that relative to a wrap? So if you had to get bodywork done on a paint to sample Ferrari
or a Tritone or a very metallic color that could be expensive or a Mysticrome,
you know, then you, now it's a question of how is the paint now? Are you buying a brand new car
and it's perfect? Are you buying a used car and it's maybe less than perfect? Or are you buying
a used car where it is perfect and you want to drive it? So like, to me, it's not necessarily a
pers, I don't, I don't do the math relative to the car's purchase price, basically. It's what is
the condition of this car today. And how important is it to me to freeze the car in this condition?
And I'm talking about clear paint protection film. If you're talking about color change wrap,
that's a different thing. You also have a question of, do you actually want to change the color?
I'm assuming clear protective film. And 10K is high, by the way. Like, that's high, like.
Usually like seven to wrap a full car in clear, right?
A fairly normal sports car, let's call it a 911 or my NSX, 7,508 grand. You get to GT3RS or
something with a bunch of disjointed panels that evolve a lot of custom work. Now, 10, 11. You'd
be hard pressed to find a $60,000 car that'll crack 10. Unless it's like your car, where they've got a
They had to cut a lot of little pieces. Well, even if your car had bodywork, even though it wasn't.
Oh, totally. But I think, let's say my car was brand new, made the way it was. One of the things
they pointed out is that the shapes of cars have changed. So new cars have a lot more large panels
that they can cover in one sheet. My car, the bumper, they had to cut 10 individual pieces.
So it's kind of like, if you bought a new McLaren for 300 grand, I bet it would be harder to cover
all those little pieces that move versus a Bentley 300 grand. A lot of big, large pieces.
Big sheets, Rolls Royces are like easy as hell to wrap, you know. So like, you're not wrong to
do the math, and you're not crazy that, yeah, putting a full, there's, and also there's a
third door here. If you have your 60k car, you could just do impact zone PPF, which will be the
nose and the mirror caps. And that'll offer you a lot more protection than nothing. And it'll be
a third or a half of the price as, as a full, a full one. So like the Coontosh, I'm not putting
film on its original paint. It's nicked up all over the place. It's thin paint. So I would almost
certainly damage it removing this stuff later. That's a big thing. So there's, there's no point.
The NSX, I got it and it was so mint. And I was like, well, I want to drive it and not have to
worry about it. And it's probably going up in value. And so if I do this PPF, I'll protect it.
And if I go to sell it, it'll be a value add. And in the meantime, I can seal in this mint.
And it fucking worked because I found myself in a, in a windstorm with sticks and shit getting
blown all over the car. Like the first week I had the car, I guarantee you that the 7500 PPF saved
me 50,000 guaranteed. I would have had to repaint the whole car. And so. And also paint matching
can be very difficult. Like on the respray thing, a friend of ours is buying a silver car and called
me about wrap stuff the other day. And the front bumper has nicks in it, but to repaint that and
then make sure it matches because if the car is used, even if the paints in good condition,
they might have faded, they don't really know, fade over 10, 15 years. Now, can you match the
faded color? Because they're going to order the OEM color, but it's not going to be the same.
Correct. So it's, it's, there's the math problem. And obviously your budget is going to, is going
to be affected by the math problem. Okay. But there's also, what's the condition of the car
today? And do you want to freeze that condition for the next 10 years? That's what you're doing. So
so there's other factors. Good question. To go back to the wheel real quick, that is called the
stratification wheel according to BMW. And it does allow you to change the temperature of the
vents directly next to that wheel versus what the climate is set to. So if your climate is set to
cold everywhere, aimed at your feet, but you changed the stratification wheel that's on the
dash, it will blow hot air towards your face. Okay. The three shells game. If you live somewhere
rural with good offerings, but a lack of enthusiast options, I'm not sure what offerings means.
How do you start a local enthusiast group? I don't know, I've never started a local enthusiast group.
I mean, some are good. This mean like, do you mean like good, good roads? You know, are you,
are you not near a city, but there's good roads and there's not a lot of like car groups.
Best place to begin, if I want to meet, if you want to meet an easy thing is food. Say, hey,
like, when I go to, if I want to meet, that's about driving our cars instead of standing around
in a parking lot. I mean, how do you start a group like the internet? Like you, you, you,
that's, that's how you do it. I mean, I've never had to do this before. So you're asking me to come
up with a guess of something I've never tried to do. When Larry and I were, had the driving club,
which is what this is, how did we start it? Well, we had our customers, right? We called our, emailed
existing car wash customers and said, we're doing a thing. So like, you know, you're starting from
zero, put on an event, put on a something. I mean, you got, you know, find it, you got to find at
least a couple of people manually. What I'm going to say, what's funny is if it's rural, you might
actually have to go old school with like, flyers or get some stickers made and like, I don't know,
go to like the auto like O'Reilly's, go to where you've seen cool cars, like seriously drive by
someone's house. And if you see a cool car, go, Hey, I'm starting a driving group, car group,
whatever, you know, we're going to meet at this time. And once you get five people, like they
start sharing on Facebook, blah, blah, blah, like it will spread. Yeah. But you know, rookie
mistakes to avoid, I mean, here's the problem. If you start a driving group, you're then responsible
for what those people are doing. Someone kills somebody who organized this, that guy.
So my advice is to never start a driving group. You are assuming responsibility for what other
people are going to do in their cars, as you are simultaneously, simultaneously encouraging them to
drive their cars in a way that may not be legal. Yeah. So there might be a way to make it less
official where you're like, we're going to meet here for pizza. And then when pizza's over,
you're like, all right, well, I'm going to go drive up this hill thing. Anybody else want to go? I
don't know. In court, who knows what's going to happen, but that is something to be aware of.
Yeah. That's, I mean, you gotta be really careful. Also setting rules up front, like,
and you can usually tell if you have some people show up there are going to be risky,
they're usually going to be under 25 years old, that you can start there. But if you're like
the lead driver, setting the speed low and responsible, because you don't want to get in
trouble, if someone kills somebody is a very good way to start. Yeah. You gotta be really
careful. Yeah. I mean, I balance these risks all the time because I lead drives for road and track.
I mean, I lead drives that are put on by a corporation. And my customers expect to have
a good time and drive at a decent pace. And so I, after doing this for 20 years, have found a pace
that I can lead a group that's safe, attentive, people don't get lost. But also the drivers feel
like they're having a good time and the passengers aren't terrified. And I really,
I mean, I make it seem really uncool to drive like a shithead. I set that up from day one.
And if you're trying to start a driving group with people you don't know, and that may be
from all different backgrounds and whatever, that's risky, very risky. You're responsible
for that. You can get sued for the shit like that, you know. Two cats, one car, thinking of
selling my Audi RS3 because the seats kill my back on long drives. I'm doing 3,000 highway miles a
month. That's a lot. What are some of the best seats you've experienced? Acura, pretty much any
for the price point, Acura. Yeah, MDX or Audi X. Very, very good. For just, I think Volvo is
absolutely fabulous. Their seats are fabulous. I agree. Porsche's 18 ways, you know, or 14 ways,
but really the 18 ways are kick ass in either, you know, the Panamera, the Cayenne. Even at
going back to like the fundamental, the more adjustability, the better. Because you can litter
my seats are 25 years old, but they're very adjustable and I can lift my back the way I need
to. And if I get in a seat from a more expensive car now that's a four way, it's oftentimes worse
because it doesn't support me very well. Yeah. I mean, I was just talking in the video for that,
that'll be out, you know, this week for the Ferrari 12C. Dude, that car is 600 grand. It
doesn't have adjustable lumbar. That's insane. Like, what are we doing? I feel like Ferrari seats
routinely disappoint us. Either it's not optioned to the gills. And even if, even when it is, those
like, I think Sabelt makes them, you got it, like the foam is kind of thin. And so it's a little bit
hard and like, yeah, it's kind of racy bucket, but in a car of that cost and that big, like it's
meant for crossing long distance. You know who I just met at the Concourse Club is the CEO of
Sabelt who was there. And I, and I said to him, you know, I like your products, I like your safety
products. I gotta tell you, I just drove this $600,000 Ferrari and you made their seats. And it
does not have adjustable lumbar support. And he said, well, we make like four seats for that car.
And it just, it depends which one, you know, the base seat does not have an adjustable lumbar
support. And I said, I said, is it, is that weird that, and he said, well, I mean, you know,
Ferrari people or, you know, whatever. And I go, I go, but this car came equipped with like
special contrast stitching and, and I was like, do you, do you normally see like
someone who would order like a highly optioned car with the base seat and goes, yeah, you see that.
You do see that. Really? Yeah. Weird. Yeah, weird. I wonder if that's someone who goes,
if I get these options on the day, if I get the contrast stitching with carbon fiber,
people will see that. Well, they won't see the special seat. Press car. Press car. I mean,
if you're speccing a press car, all the options on that you can see. Yeah. And you know, when the
reviewer complains about lack of lumbar, you just go, well, it's available. You do what we
just did. We're like, you can option. Yeah. Yeah. Weird. You know, you know, it sucks about
that. I'm telling this to like the PR people that order the car is then we can't tell anybody if
the seat's good or not, which maybe you want, but we want to be able to tell people the optioned
eight way is great. Because what do we talk about with Porsche all the time? Get the good ones,
because we've experienced them. They're good. And that probably inspires people to buy the better
seat. Yeah. Live axle rose for 100 to 200 K. What is the best driving experience if I want a gated
manual gearbox car that's mid engine and has 10 or 12 cylinders are eight v 10 or Ferrari
Testarosa. These are enormously different. Different. I love this question. These are huge
different cars. How often you want to use this vehicle? Yeah. I mean, like, so the R eight v 10
is only going to feel not like a brand new car really, because the UI, the screen and
shit will be older. But like, the way you use that car with like fully automatic climate control
and like all the things that like a modern Audi would have, it's not going to feel like an old
car. A Testarosa is an old car. 40 years old. It's going to feel old. Now it's a wonderful thing.
And Testarosa are very well made. In my opinion, they're not that exciting to drive. I don't think
the flat 12 is that exciting of an engine compared to some other engines. The Testarosa is a lovely
touring car. Like I said, they're built really solidly. And if you do the major services and the
maintenance is they are reasonably reliable cars, people who drive them a lot, they do tend to work
properly, actually. But it's going to feel like an old car. It's not going to feel like a new car,
like a modern car. It's not going to have like good air conditioning. You know, it's going to be
clunky. They're it's going to be heavy controls and stuff like that. The ergonomics aren't going to
your feet are going to be like offset to the right and you know, things like that.
I think you're also, and I was trying to look up, Brian Scott just had this amazing woman on his
show, Victoria Bruno. She's like a 25 year old Ferrari tech. She works on vintage stuff. Oh yeah,
yeah, I know that is. She has a Testarosa that she drove from the Bay Area down to San Diego for
this show. And she's like trying to highlight that yes, you can use these cars, but she can work on
the car herself. Yeah. So this person has to be ready to incur the cost that will come with driving
it a lot. So it'll work better if you drive it a lot. Yeah, you're going to have to service it
more, but it will be more reliable. Like those 80s Ferraris, if you just start using them as a car,
like they work really good actually, they're very happy to be driven every day and they don't like
sitting. So like that's pretty cool. And like they are nice, but it's a heavy feeling car. It
doesn't have power steering. The shifter linkage is pretty tight. The clutch pedal is going to be
kind of heavy. AC might work, might not work. Yeah, I mean, it's incredibly analog. So it's just,
it's very hard to say there. One isn't better than the other. That's the problem. The problem with
asking a question. And I don't, I'm not trying to, but like a lot of people start a question with
what's the best. And they're, unless one of your two choices is like a horrible piece of junk or
something, like it's very rare that you come upon best. It's like, well, this delivers this and
this delivers this. And they're not the same. So like, which do you want? Well, like if you want
speed and more modern driving in terms of like braking performance, steering feel and performance,
convenience, comfort, RE. And when you roll into a parking lot, it's still going to have a presence.
It's still going to draw. Look, I think they're amazing. They're cool. The Tesla Rosa, it has
mystique about it. It will draw more people in a parking lot and it will deliver a different
type of driving experience. But so you have to decide, do you want the whole like vintage thing
and the classic sound and the whole like roll into the parking lot and win, but sometimes get a flat
bed home or do you want to go at R8? Yeah, I mean, you might still know about a flat, but it's just,
they're very different experiences. A 40 year old driving experience versus a seven year old,
eight year old driving experiences. These are worlds apart. A Tesla Rosa is not a regular car.
An R8 can be a regular car. A Tesla Rosa cannot be a regular car. It will never be a regular car.
It's a good question, but it's hard. There is no best. My cat's name is Bethany says,
Polestar has recently discontinued the two, at least in the US, and undergone a reverse stock
split recently, which doesn't look good for its future as a standalone brand. I've had a Polestar
too for the last two years. How fucked am I if Polestar closes down its US operations?
I've seen service delays on parts even before last year. My guess is Volvo dealers will continue
to service Polstars. I mean, Polestar is not that removed from Volvo at this point that it couldn't
be, right? Yeah. They could pick up the pieces if they wanted to. I think they either feel an
obligation. I don't know if there's a legal obligation, but I'm sure they will keep maintaining
those cars because they know how to service them. They might have some parts inventory.
Let's say Polestar closes or whatever. I wouldn't want to own a Polestar to 10 years from now,
where parts supply dwindles or they have to, oh, we got to change because the power unit
uses this old cable, but no one uses that anymore. You don't want to deal with that kind of stuff.
But for the short term, you'll probably be all right. There's only three left.
Granny shifted not double clutching like you should. How much of a factor do you think your
driving skills played or didn't play in your success? As in if you weren't as good of a driver,
would that have impeded your ability to reach the place that you've reached or not at all? What
are the top factors into overall success you've had in your career? It's definitely played a part.
For sure. If you're known for somebody who can go quick enough without bending the car,
you're in the pocket. That's the sweet spot. Everybody is willing to give you keys to their
cars knowing they're going to get that car back in the same condition. Not everybody gets to do
that. And if you fuck up a couple of times big enough, it's gone forever. Well, and you,
especially with the one take stuff, you're putting your resume on YouTube. Fans can see it. They go,
oh, that looks like it'll be a fun day, but my car will come back and it just kind of feeds itself.
And I think for me, like, I joined because I wanted to drive the cars, but I didn't, you know,
I was like behind camera for the first whatever amount of time. But the fact that you guys trusted
me to drive a camera car was like instrumental to my career. Otherwise, I would have been relegated
to, I don't know, whatever else position and I wouldn't have gotten the other jobs I got. Like,
all of that was kind of like, people who get to drive and people who don't get to drive.
Yeah, exactly. Yeah. No, but it's not, it's driving skills come from a lifetime of giving a
shit and practicing. So it's not, nobody wakes up being a good driver. Some people, and like,
by the way, I'm not the authority on this, there's a million fucking drivers better than me. But like,
I really did care about it. I really still do care about it. Something's very important to me
continuing to get better at driving and practicing and always taking every opportunity to like learn
and get better. It's really, really important. And if that isn't a passion, or if that wasn't a
passion for me, I don't think I would have been as successful. For sure. It is incredibly important.
Other top factors just make just keeping going. Yeah. I mean, keeping going when you don't want
to keep going, keeping going when the money sucks, keeping go like, like Eddie Vedder said,
the main reason we're still here is because we didn't break up.
And also, lots of patience. And look, straight up, luck. And at least in the beginning,
the resources of my parents, I didn't tap into them all that much. But the children of rich
parents can make risks. In the backstop. Yeah, that other people, most people, you fuck up a
business, you don't get another crack at it so easily. If I fucked up a business, I would have
been able to make this sheepish call like, hey, I need some money and I wouldn't have been in a
cardboard box. That is an incredible privilege and benefit that like most people don't get.
And dude, so much right place, right time. Yeah, so much like luck, like just fucking luck.
I think some luck, but I think both you and I and Tom, we moved to LA at the same time.
We didn't know each other. But we all were in, I think having the passion for cars is very important
because it will keep you going when there's no money. It will keep you going when you,
like that motivated us for a long time, still does. And it motivated us to go,
where do they make media with automobiles? Los Angeles, I guess. So like we put ourselves there
and then there's a lot of luck with that timing. But I think we also just started saying yes to
things that made sense for where we wanted to end up. Yeah, I mean, you know, my first, I got in
the door, not because I woke up one day and said, I'm going to start a YouTube channel and make fucking
100 video. I got in the door because a guy said, I made like five videos with Larry.
Right, that's right. Like five videos to promote our business with Larry. And this, and a guy
said, do you want a job, a full time job making videos? Like that doesn't happen. That's never
going to happen again. Nobody's ever going to make five videos and then a corporation's going to hire
them to make videos full time. That doesn't happen. So like if that didn't happen, none of this happens.
I'd be running a car wash with Larry still probably, you know, so luck, you know, and then when the
luck strikes be ready, you know, like when you get the opportunity, take it, don't fuck it up.
You know, keep going through the bad times and continue to develop whatever your skills are
that will make you, I mean, when I couldn't afford Tom anymore to edit, I'd learn to edit.
You can't afford to do this thing. Well, I'd better learn to do it. Can't afford to own,
gotta better learn to get this, do this myself. Like, you know, just fucking keep going, you know.
Panic at my disco. What was the rationale behind setting a reserve on the NSX versus going no
reserve? I was literally just hedging against the possibility that because it was between Christmas
and New Year's, that the traffic just might be horrible, and it just potentially could tank.
The reserve was low. The reserve was 153 or something. I would have broke even,
but like, if it didn't hit reserve, it would have been a big fucking, it would have been a
major tank. So like, I didn't want to take a huge bath on that car.
You could also, if it peaked at 140, you can keep the car stored. You can wait till people kind
of get their money after the tax returns in April. If it tanked, I could have relisted it later
elsewhere and it wouldn't have been a huge deal. I think some people, when they go reserve off,
they just need to get it out because it's costing them more money to sit on it or whatever.
Yeah, this car, yeah, it was just because I wanted to sell it before the end of the year,
but if it wasn't going to get at least above a certain threshold that I strongly believed it
would get to no matter what, and it did, that I did not want to have to take a low number just
because. Whereas in the past, Fox Body or whatever, like, you know, I wasn't into that car for that
much money. A lot of people donated their time or donated products or a lot of sponsored stuff,
and so no reserve, yeah, fuck it, send it, because it's fine. If this thing makes 25 grand,
like no big deal, and it was charity, it was fun, and I do love a no reserve auction under
the right circumstances. This one, though, it was really that end of year timing where I go,
I think it'll be fine, but like just in case, I'm not literally going to bet $150,000,
right, that it'll be fine, you know. Last one, Chris Souya says, happy 10-year anniversary
of the supercharged Huracan video. All right, I almost threw that video away.
Because of the log. Because of the log, this is fucked, guy was dragging a log,
and I almost threw that away. Instead, we did four million views or something in 24 hours.
That's crazy. Yep, best. That's the other, you know, look, virality half the time is just luck,
you know. Yeah. Crazy. Well, if you feel like you were shortchanged this month because you didn't
get a podcast the first week, just think about last year where we took off the entire first month
and people stuck around. So, we gave you three more weeks of podcasts, plus we put up the Perot
show. The Pro Patrons Got podcast last week. It was a long show, too. And they got it early in
January. They got it early in January. It was a long show, and they got it while other people
weren't. There is value in the Patreon, folks. Get in the game while you can. Thanks, everybody,
for listening. We will see you next time. Bye.
About this episode
The Smoking Tire podcast kicks off 2026 with a lively discussion about recent adventures, including a thrilling drive in a RUF Yellowbird and experiences at the Concourse Club in Miami. The hosts share stories about bird hunting, the quirks of various car models, and the unique challenges of driving in Miami. They also delve into the implications of Arizona's proposed unrestricted speed zones, the nuances of car ownership, and the importance of driving skills in their careers. With humor and insight, this episode captures the essence of automotive enthusiasm.
993 Turbo
airbag steering wheel
Bring a Trailer
carbureted
dog leg gearbox
Flat Six Fest
G-body car
hairpin turn
horsepower
K24 engine
Acura MDX
Acura NSX
Alfa Romeo Spider
Alpine A110
Aston Martin DBX
Audi RS 3
Audi RS6 Avant
BMW 3 Series
BMW 5 Series
BMW M3
BMW M5
Cadillac CTS-V
Chevrolet Camaro
Chevrolet Corvette
Dodge Viper
Ferrari 430 Scuderia
Ford Mustang
Genesis G70
GMC Hummer EV
Honda Prelude
Honda S2000
Hummer H1 2 Door Hardtop
Hyundai Santa Cruz
Lamborghini Huracan
Lotus Exige
Lucid Gravity
Mazda MX-5 / Miata
Mercedes-Benz SLS AMG
Nissan Qashqai
Nissan Rogue
Porsche 911
Porsche 959
Porsche Cayenne
Porsche Cayman
Porsche Panamera
RUF CTR
Toyota Corolla
Toyota GR 86
Toyota Supra
TVR Tuscan
Volkswagen Jetta
Original notes
Arizona might get rid of speed limits; Matt Farah raced an old car in Miami and drove one of the greatest cars ever; wide-body vs narrow; Zack Klapman tells you how NOT to drive on ice; the Lotus from heaven (or hell?); where to get an amazing dog, plus
Patreon questions include:
- F/M/K Super wagon edition
- Mid-engine manual decision: Testarossa or R8 V10?
- Does YouTubing a car reduce its value?
- F/M/K Gazoo Racing Edition
- Am I using my watch wrong?
- Would our 2-car dream garage include an EV?
- Military vehicles we would drive
- Are gen 1 vipers actually scary?
- What "kills" cars down here?
- How to handle an angry watch brand
Recorded January 12, 2026
SHOW NOTES
Truewerk
Get 15% off your first order at TRUEWERK code: tire.
Athletic Greens
For a limited time only, get a FREE AG1 duffel bag and FREE AG1 Welcome Kit with your first subscription order! Only while supplies last. That’s DRINKAG1.COM/TIRE.
DeleteMe
Get 20% off your DeleteMe plan when you go to join deleteme.comTIRE and use promo code TIRE at checkout.
Smalls
Make 2026 your cat’s healthiest year yet. Take advantage of their New Year’s Special and get 60% off your first order, plus free shipping, when you head to Smalls.com/TIRE!
New merch! Grab a shirt or hoodie and support us! https://thesmokingtireshop.com/
Use Off The Record! and ALWAYS fight your tickets! For a 10% discount on your first case go to https://www.offtherecord.com/TST
Want your question answered? Want to watch the live stream, get ad-free podcasts, or exclusive podcasts? Join our Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/thesmokingtirepodcast
Instagram:
https://www.Instagram.com/thesmokingtire
https://www.Instagram.com/therealzackklapman
Want your question answered? Want to watch the live stream, get ad-free podcasts, or exclusive podcasts? Join our Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/thesmokingtirepodcast
Use Off The Record! and ALWAYS fight your tickets! Enter code TST10 for a 10% discount on your first case on the Off The Record app, or go to http://www.offtherecord.com/TST.
Watch our car reviews: https://www.youtube.com/thesmokingtire
Tweet at us!
https://www.Twitter.com/thesmokingtire
https://www.Twitter.com/zackklapman
Instagram:
https://www.Instagram.com/thesmokingtire
https://www.Instagram.com/therealzackklapman
The Smoking Tire
Zack Klapman, Matt Farah
0:00
112:14