GT-R Lawsuit; GT3 RS tire "fix"?; Tow rigs; Q&A
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Term
Laguna Seca
Laguna Seca is a well-known racetrack in California where many car races happen. It's famous for being difficult and fun for drivers.
Car
Porsche 911
Concept
four cylinder 911
A four-cylinder 911 would mean making a version of the famous Porsche 911 car with a smaller engine that has four cylinders instead of six. People are curious about this because it could change how the car performs.
Car
Porsche Cayenne
The Porsche Cayenne SE Hybrid is a fancy SUV that uses both gas and electric power to drive. It's designed to be powerful and comfortable, making it a popular choice for those who want a luxury vehicle.
Term
twin-turbo V6
A twin-turbo V6 is an engine that has six cylinders and uses two turbochargers to make it more powerful. This means it can go faster and use fuel more efficiently.
Car
Dodge 2500
The Dodge 2500 is a strong pickup truck that can carry heavy things and is often used for tough jobs. It's built to be durable and powerful.
Car
Mazda Cx5
Term
towing capacity
Towing capacity is how much weight a car can pull behind it, like a trailer. The Porsche Cayenne can pull a lot, making it useful for transporting heavy items.
Car
Ram 1500
The Ram 1500 is a big truck that can carry heavy loads and is comfortable to drive. It's popular for people who need to tow things like trailers.
Car
Dodge Ram
Concept
range extended EV
A range extended EV is a car that can run on electricity but also has a gas engine to help it go further when the battery runs low. This means you don't have to worry as much about finding charging stations on long trips.
Company
Stellantis
Stellantis is a big car company that makes many different brands of cars, like Jeep and Dodge. They were created when two companies combined.
Concept
range extended pickup truck
A range extended pickup truck can run on electricity for short trips but has a gasoline engine that kicks in when the battery runs low, helping you drive further without worrying about charging.
Car
Ford F150
The Ford F-150 Hybrid is a pickup truck that uses both gas and electricity to run. This helps save fuel and is better for the environment while still being powerful enough for heavy jobs.
Car
Ram half ton
The Ram half ton is a type of pickup truck that can carry heavy loads and is often used for both work and personal driving. It's known for being comfortable and powerful.
Car
Ford Maverick
The Ford Maverick is a small pickup truck that can be used for carrying things and is also available as a hybrid, which means it can save on gas.
Car
Ford Ranger
The Ford Ranger is a midsize pickup truck that's good for people who need a strong vehicle for work or outdoor activities.
Car
Toyota Land Cruiser
The Toyota Land Cruiser is a large SUV that can handle rough terrains and is known for being very reliable. It's spacious inside and great for families or adventures.
Car
Chevrolet Tahoe
The Chevrolet Tahoe is a big SUV that's great for families. It has a lot of space inside and can tow heavy things, making it useful for trips or outdoor activities.
Car
Nissan R34
The Nissan Skyline R34 is a popular sports car that many car fans admire. It's known for being fast and powerful, and it became famous from movies like Fast and Furious.
Car
Nissan GT-R
The Nissan GT-R is a fast sports car that many people admire for its speed and technology. It's popular in racing and has a reputation for being very powerful.
Term
OSHA
OSHA is a government agency that makes sure workplaces are safe for employees. They create rules to help prevent accidents and injuries on the job.
Part
Michelin Pilot Sport S5 tire
The Michelin Pilot Sport S5 tire is a type of tire made for sports cars that helps them grip the road better. It's designed to provide good handling and performance.
Car
Audi S5
Term
PS4s
PS4s are a type of tire made by Michelin. They are designed to provide excellent grip and handling for sports cars, making them a favorite among drivers who want a good mix of performance and comfort.
Term
downforce
Downforce is what keeps a car glued to the road when it's going fast. It helps the tires grip better, making the car more stable and easier to control.
Term
secondary bounce
Secondary bounce is when a car continues to bounce after hitting a bump. It happens if the car's suspension isn't working well enough to stop the bouncing quickly.
Part
spring
A spring in a car helps to absorb bumps and keep the ride smooth. It supports the weight of the car and helps it stay balanced on the road.
Term
Nürburgring
The Nürburgring is a well-known race track in Germany where many car manufacturers test their vehicles. It's famous for its difficult turns and long length, making it a popular place for racing and setting speed records.
Part
bucket seat
Bucket seats are special car seats that hug your body more than regular seats. They help keep you in place when you're turning or going fast.
Term
lumbar support
Lumbar support is a feature in some car seats that helps support your lower back. If a seat doesn't have it, you might feel uncomfortable after sitting for a while.
Term
pop-out power door handles
Pop-out power door handles are door handles that pop out automatically when you unlock the car. They look nice but can sometimes have problems compared to regular handles.
Car
Mitsubishi Delicioso
The Mitsubishi Delicioso is a car that was designed by Mitsubishi. It's known for its interesting look and new ideas, but it might not be something you can buy in a store.
Car
BMW 135I
Car
Porsche 356
Car
Lotus Amira
Car
Toyota Supra
Car
Porsche Cayman
Car
Porsche Boxster
Car
Mitsubishi Evo
Car
Mclaren F1
Car
Ferrari F40
Car
Ferrari F50
Car
BMW E30M3
Car
BMW 340
Car
Subaru BRZ
Car
Mercedes-Benz SL
Car
Chevrolet C8
Car
Hyundai Elantra
Car
Hyundai Veloster
Car
Lotus Elise
Car
Lotus Exige
Car
Volkswagen Bus
Car
Ford Mustang
Car
BMW M2
LIVE
What up, everybody? Welcome to the Smoking Tire Podcast. Matt Farah here, and today's episode
is, as always, brought to you by Off the Record. Look, we want you to be safe out there on
the road, but the fact is, you can be being safe and still get tickets. Those are not
the same thing. And if you do, don't plead guilty, get off the record. Off the record
is a service that connects you with a qualified attorney in the jurisdiction where you
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of your record, a valuable service to the community that they are providing. All you have to
do is go to offtherecord.com slash TST, input some information about the ticket, where
and when you got pulled over, et cetera, et cetera, and they go to work for you getting
those points off of your record. You guys send me emails and DMs all the time about
how Off the Record is saving you out there on the road, not to mention I have personally
witnessed it for myself over and over, because I do a lot of miles. It's proportional people.
So go to offtherecord.com slash TST for 10% off all legal services booked through
Off the Record. All right, on today's podcast, we got a good one for you. We have some
amazing suggestions for a tow rig. Man, we've been driving the new 992 GT3 RS, but on Pilot
Sport 5 tires has it made it more streetable, and a dude's car got crashed into on the
Laguna Seca by a track worker, and it is problematic. And lastly, why Porsche will
not do a four cylinder 911. It's the Smoke and Tire podcast. Let's go. When was the last
time you shaved? Four days ago. On your chin? No. Yeah. You shaved that to nothing four
days ago? It's slow. No, no, it's not slow. It's thin. You just don't, it doesn't, like
that's four. I don't have a density. Right, right. But the lengths for four days, that's
about it. They've logged every third tree in my forest. Yeah. So that's kind of
how it comes in. But the trees grow at the same length as normal trees. That's true. There's
just less of them on the field. There's a lot less trees. Yeah. There's a lot of patchier
here, and that's why I don't even try. Yeah. Speaking of, dude, you know what, I just
watched that Fenn's treasure? The guy who buried the treasure chest in the mountains
in the Rockies. Remember this? No. There's a guy called Forrest Fenn. Okay. He was
an artist, an architect, not an artist, excuse me. He was an art gallery, like
a curator, and just sort of like one of those kind of like world's most interesting
man types, world traveler, whatever. And he thought he was going to die. He had a
terminal illness, and he thought it would be fun to leave a legacy of burying this
fucking treasure in the desert, not in the desert, in the mountains. And then he
wrote a book. This was actually a money move. This guy's was so smart. He wrote
a book, buries this treasure, which is real, and then goes, there's a poem in
my book. Directions. Yeah. And so the book is like, it goes crazy, and all these
people try to find treasure. People die looking for the treasure. There's a
documentary that's out right now. I think it's worth 90 minutes about the
treasure. That's the guy on the left who ultimately found it. What was in the
box? Like gold nuggets. Okay, so kind of worth money. Seven figures in literal
gold stuff. Like a treasure chest. A very real treasure. And the box was made of bronze.
Got it. Because what's on the table for people listening is like a necklace that
he made that looks like it's made out of plastic army men. No, I think there's
also, that's not a great picture. It's not. What you want to see is the
treasure. But I think that plastic bag in front of him is full of gold coins.
Okay. Cool. But yeah, no, there's other, if you just google the treasure,
like there's images of the treasure. Anyway, it's a fun documentary. But we're
talking about, you're just saying that the thing, trees, the, you know, we were talking
a couple of months ago about that Geo Gesser game, how people can look at a
fucking Google Earth image and like figure out where it is really cool. Like,
people were like figuring out, you know, finding this treasure map and then like,
like the guy who found the treasure posted a photo of it to prove he found it,
found it, but wouldn't say where it was. And so there was like no closure for anybody
else. They wanted to know the solution to the riddle and how close they were, right?
Especially if you know, you're not going to travel there. You're like,
I wonder if I found it online. Yeah, like how close was I, you know? And so,
so one guy like drove him mad and he had to find from the photo of the
treasure box sitting on dirt, just treasure dirt. That's it. Found it. Found, like,
printed the photo and laid it down onto the dirt and the fucking confirm that that's where the box
was. And so he was right. He knew he knew where he had guessed right. And he took that picture
to the location and said, oh, should I got it? No, no, no. A guy found the treasure. I know.
Okay. Another person wanted to know where they found the treasure and all he had to go on
were the original clues and one photo of the box where it was just the box and some dirt.
Yeah, so he read the clues very well and then got close enough, like literally standing there.
Was close and got close enough, yes, to where he actually was able to match up a picture of dirt.
You think he was pissed because he's like, I had it and I could have had all the treasure.
I don't want to give away the ending of the movie, but this the ending of the movie for this
particular guy is okay. But like it's a documentary, but there is a little fun twist
at the end of it. Recommend it. It's just called like Fenn's Treasure or something like that.
I don't want, but you should be helpful by having the name of it. Can you...
Come on. Just type documentary. It's on Netflix, people listening. It is on Netflix.
Gold and greed, the hunt for Fenn's Treasure. Yeah, it's worth 90 minutes of your time in
a sea of trash on television. Yeah, that's kind of fun. Okay, sorry, cars. There's some cars in there.
The guy who I was just talking about who matched the dirt has a fucking hell of an
overlandy dodge. Pretty cool. This is like Jedi level, like what's the word I'm looking for?
Metal detecting, you know? You start out with an online metal detector that you bought
online, you go to the beach and you just, and now you're looking at, you know,
Google Maps zooming in, overlanding to this place. You have to hike a ways off the road
to get to the treasure. Cool. I mean, yeah, it was not on the road. It required multiple modes of
transport, but one of the things was the guy buried it when he was 79. So he goes, listen,
here's the places where it's not, but it is somewhere that a 79-year-old man can get to
carrying this fucking box. Good point. Yeah. Wow, that's rad. Anyone who's geocaching now is probably
so bored. They're like, I just get to sign something. There's no gold in there. That's fun.
So that's good time. All right, cars, where can we start? Well, we talked last episode about the
fact that we're getting this trailer from Brian James trailers. We'll just, I'll plug
them again. You'll hear their ads because they're advertising for a trailer. We don't
have to go into the trailer, but it's going to be cool. But we asked people to comment and whatever
recommended tow vehicles. And as usual, my requirements for such a thing is the smallest
and thing that does the job without being too much, right? What's the better way to say that?
Deficient. The most efficient thing. Yeah. Because even a tow vehicle is not going to be
towing for like 95% of its life. Yeah. Yeah. So a lot of good suggestions.
A couple of people absolutely insisted that we need a 3500 in order to be happy,
which I would be so unhappy driving around 3500 anything. It's huge. And when they're
unladen, it's like they ride worse than the GT3 RS around town. And like 20 years ago,
I hauled cars all over the Northeast in a heavier trailer than the one we're getting
using a fucking 2500 from then. And so we don't need any of that shit. The leaders right now
seem to be, if we're going SUV, a Cayenne SE hybrid. So like there's the Cayenne hybrid
my dad has, which is a twin turbo V6. The S has the V8. So I haven't really looked into...
Like a higher torque number is good. Yeah. It's just, it's more power and you get
better brakes with the S, which it would be hard to find a Cayenne regular V6 hybrid
that had been optioned up with like huge brakes. Like why would anybody do that?
So many people are like, don't do a Cayenne because you need good brakes.
You should get a Dodge 2500. I refuse to believe that a Porsche SUV with a fucking motor
generator, 100 kilowatt motor generator in it, and Porsche grade brakes has worse brakes than
a Dodge. I refuse to believe that. I agree. I think one of the references, or sorry,
recommendations I've seen that makes sense and we have to look at the measurements is
trucks have longer wheel bases. Therefore, are more stable with wind and stuff like that.
Totally valid argument. I'm sure the Cayenne is much better.
A totally valid argument. And I think that the trucks have better brakes than like
a CX-5 or something like that because they have heavy duty brakes meant for long duration
braking downhills. But if you're talking Cayenne stuff, I would assume we should check that the
brakes can withhold or hold up to it better. Yeah. I mean, I don't want to have bad brakes,
but like the trailer has its own brakes. We're not talking about a trailer that
doesn't have its own fucking brakes. And look, we drive a lot of Porsches. They have good brakes.
They're very good brakes. The brakes this morning are spot on.
I've never ever driven any Porsche in which, from a factory car in which the brakes somehow
came into question for what the thing was supposed to do. A lot of people, I think,
also said, look, I see where you're going with the SUV thing, but the odds are you're
going to be doing a lot of highway towing. And you might actually run up on, you know,
really the upper limit of what the SUV could do, which is 7,700 pounds. If you get the Ram half ton,
you don't have to go with the 2,500. The Ram 1,500 has a 10,000 pound. So even like worst case,
you're still 25% from the end. And they ride pretty good on the street.
They do. And they have the big, the big fold out mirrors, which when you have an enclosed
trailer, if you're telling an open trailer, not having fold out mirrors is not that big of a deal.
In an enclosed trailer, the fold out mirrors are very helpful. So I agree.
We may end up sucking it up. I mean, if the answer is suck it up and get a pickup truck.
Okay. Dude, I like, I mean, I like these. These are nice. Someone else suggested a Ford
power boost, which that's also a nice little hybrid integration. I'd have to look at the
tow ratings and stuff, but having those, the outlets in the back was, was rad.
And it could be very handy for truck stuff. Sure. You wouldn't need to bring a generator
for shit. There's all kinds of stuff you could do when you have power. I love that truck.
Well, the other thing is, you know, soon that the Ram is going to come out with that,
that the self charging car, the range extended EV, which is like, damn,
but it's not going to be for a year. So we could kick press trucks around for like a year.
And then maybe if this, that's because that's really what I want, dude.
Well, yeah, I think truck, I think we'd want to see how that holds up.
Well, no, how it holds up to towing, like what's, you know, what is the range?
Can the, can the engine keep up with the demands of towing a vehicle over 200 miles,
300 miles? And I know that's the attention is the range extension.
Dude, even Stalantis, even Stalantis, makers of
fantastic hybrid vehicle decisions in hybrid vehicle technology.
I can't imagine they wouldn't go core requirement of this truck.
You must be able to tow for infinite distance.
Yeah, that's the market. I agree.
That's all anybody wants.
Well, it's tough because I go, I wouldn't want to be first in the door for that,
but we can make content on it. But how much of our viewership is really into truck towing?
Like if we were TFL, right?
Sure.
The website, you know, the page, we would kill it.
We buy the first range extended pickup truck, we tow a race car.
You know, we don't need to, we don't need to center
a year worth of content around a pickup truck, but a pickup truck that is a new and novel technology
that appears here and there over the course of us doing silly things with a car that doesn't
have to be street legal.
It's true.
I see, I don't, I don't hate that.
I mean, I think it's pretty.
I did, I, the, so the ram half ton and the F-150 hybrid, if we have to,
and our, we're kind of the leaders in that, in that regard.
But I just don't want a fucking big pickup truck.
There's one of these was parked in front of my house here today.
It's huge. If I parked one in my driveway at home, I would not be able to see the street.
It would block the entire view of the street.
True. I mean, how often do you look out?
A lot.
All your, really?
Because all your windows kind of face the other direction.
Do you look out?
True. The house is more backyard focused.
Right.
But like, I just, I, I just, it's so, they're so big.
Like when you're, they're so big.
Yeah.
And I, for something that is like,
optimist, what's optimistically every two, three weeks we connect to trailers.
It's very optimistic.
Very optimistically.
Yeah.
The rest of the time.
That's why ideally if it's, if it's an SUV, you use it to run around town.
We use it to drive to other gigs.
You could just be my car.
You know, launches.
Yeah, I could just be a car.
I, this can't just be my car.
That's insane.
Tough in LA.
A lot of parking lots being tough.
So hoax.
I mean, I like, in the right environment, driving a truck on the highway is so good.
Comfortable, good seats, all that stuff.
But around town, it's tough.
And trucks do not have exclusive rain over being comfortable and having good seats.
Oh, of course not.
You know, so like.
I'm just saying like, they're not compromised in that way.
It's just, it's so not me to have something for the, the 95th, you know, I cover,
you know, cover this.
Right.
And if I need more, we have access to, to, to, if we were, if we were going to tow the trailer
a thousand miles, you know, maybe I'd go, okay, hey, dodge, can I borrow a 2,500?
But if we're going to Willow for the day once a month, right?
Fuck we need that for, you know, it's just like such a waste of everything.
There may be no other option.
I don't know.
I think it'll be a fun experiment.
We can get some press stuff to tow with and then we can make a decision.
Yeah.
And then a lot of people suggested the old, you know, Audi and BMW diesels and I,
I just don't want a German car that old out of warranty and that kind of shit.
The, the, the Cayenne hybrid is very appealing.
So we'll see what's up.
We won't be able to find one of those with a tow package.
Like as a press car, that won't, that won't work.
Wow.
Someone said Schmi had that same trailer and he towed an SF 90X in it with a Maverick.
I mean, England, England.
In England, that's England.
Yeah.
I mean, that is the other thing is this, this trailer company is from England.
And so their trailers are designed to be lightweight, not too wide and,
and towed by smaller and less powerful vehicles.
I mean, we just learned hanging out with Mike Duff from the track that like if you're,
if the gross weight of everything trailer, tow vehicle and car is over X,
it's like 8,000 pounds.
Three tons.
So 9,000 pounds.
Three and a half tons maybe.
Oh sorry, six tons.
Then you need like a commercial, commercial, a device that tracks your mileage,
like a commercial trucker would use.
So no wonder Schmi is using the lightest pickup truck in the world.
Oh, I should, I should ask him.
Schmi?
Yeah, how he likes it.
I would, I would like a bigger vehicle to tow.
I know, but like, but if, if he says that, that we're fine with a Maverick,
then we'd be at least fine with a Ranger.
Folks got to take a quick break because support is coming in hot from factor.
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Thank you to Factor for supporting us this week.
Back to the show.
You know what I mean?
Yes, true.
And we don't have to get an F-150.
Yeah, true.
Although now that the more I think about it,
the appeal of having the hybrid and the battery pack,
like it just solves a lot of problems if you're trying to,
if you're just like outplaces with the trailer, you know.
Yeah, it's very, it'd be really handy.
It's so much power.
Especially because then we could get,
you could, we could get pressed like side-by-sides
that the electric ones they have coming out.
You could get one of those things, charge it up.
And like big alley to convert the trailer to fucking range.
That would be amazing.
He hasn't done an enclosed personal trailer yet.
I know.
I mean, that was, we wouldn't have our trailer for like two years though
because of the R&D.
Yeah, but how sick would it be?
Yeah, it would be amazing.
To have like a 200, then you would have to buy,
build a real truck because it would get heavier.
That's true. Yeah, that is a fun man.
Trailer fun.
So anyway, thank you for your suggestions.
We, you know, I think we've heard and seen them all pretty much.
So you can, y'all can chill on it now.
It's truly helpful though.
No, for sure.
For sure it was.
It was.
We've got the encyclopedia now from A to Z.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
If we have to get a half ton, here's what we're looking at.
If we are not going to get a half ton, here's what we're looking at.
The old, the oddball suggestion that was a, was land cruiser
with the bigger motor, which I think could work
because Hannah would like it because she likes boxy cars,
but, but I don't know if it's quite powerful enough.
Tahoe, that's boxy.
If you're, yeah, yeah.
Also big, big, uninteresting, yeah.
Well, the tonic capacity of the land cruiser is 6,000 pounds.
Oh, so that's a no.
Probably not going to work.
Yep.
Should we do the morning's activities
or should we talk about Laguna Seca?
Let's talk Laguna first.
Okay.
So a lot of people like three weeks ago, four weeks ago when it happened,
sent us the story about the R34 skyline at Laguna Seca.
The driver was at a track day and for, there was like a red flag
and they stopped on track.
And, and while parked on the track for a red flag situation,
this dude was hit from behind by like a giant, like front-end loader.
And this was on Jesse Awuji's Instagram.
So here's this huge, I don't know if it's a front-end loader,
a forklift or a giant forklift.
Geez.
Boom.
And that, I didn't realize the front loader is moving at 20 miles an hour.
It's going quick.
I mean 15, that's moving.
Yeah.
And it runs right into the back of a bright red, stopped car.
It's daytime, like visibility should not have been an issue.
Well, if you look at the video, it's holding something.
Carrying something in the way.
It's carrying something in the front.
I don't know if it's tires or whatever.
It's some kind of load and it just crushes.
The guy has clearly no front visibility and just crushes this dude.
Now the driver was unhurt and obviously it seems like the driver then had an attorney.
Yeah, it's carrying tires, a bunch of tires for a tire wall.
20 tires.
Yeah.
So yeah, definitely a visibility issue, but man.
And so the driver attempts to get some, you know, restitution to get his car fixed.
The track, the track lawyers tell him to kick rocks.
They accuse him of being, having his car in the wrong place at the wrong time.
They're saying he should have gone into the pits and not passed.
And he should have not.
His car shouldn't have been there and their base.
And oh, by the way, you signed to the waiver.
And all the things that are pretty much an outright denial of responsibility here.
And it seems like just for people who are listening, there are two cars at least parked
on this.
This is the straightaway, the front straight of Laguna Seca.
They're both stopped because there's a blue GTR because the red one gets hit so hard.
It gets pushed past this other car.
So if this person, and I don't know what the rule was there, and we'll get into it,
like it doesn't mean that not only did this red car quote make a mistake,
another car did too.
But that might indicate that they were listening to the track instructions.
So they're the lawyer for the gentleman with the red car.
I saw on his Instagram that this one, the attorney's response.
And if you scroll through this, I'm not, this is like, it's thousands of words.
It took me 15 minutes to read it.
But effectively, it says that this was a red flag situation.
The cars were stopped where they were supposed to stop.
Your front end loader driver was negligent and did not follow this protocol, this protocol,
this protocol.
Your staff knew there were cars there and didn't tell that person.
Like all these different, you know, every point that the track used to say you driver
were in the wrong, they had a pretty solid rebuttal for of actually the driver was where
he was supposed to be.
And even if there was a missed black flag, because apparently coming down after the
corkscrew, this driver in the red car, according to his own statement,
was following another car that had mechanical trouble.
The car in front was smoking and had a pointed black flag at that car.
Now he was behind.
That car pitted.
This, the red car kept going to me.
That's, that's correct track day protocol.
Right.
And absolute worst case, an easy misinterpretation and the next flag stand should then have
a pointed black flag at you so that there's no miscommunication.
Right.
You now know that it's you not, not just that car, but he didn't.
Shortly after that halfway up the straight red flag.
That's everybody pull off the racing line, come to a stop.
That's what that means.
And he was, he was sitting there for allegedly about 90 seconds and then just bam.
So they sent this front end loader out on track while cars were still on track.
Apparently, according to this person's attorney, the laws for driving a front
end loader with a load that obstructs visibility as you drive it backwards.
So you can see.
So this is the load in the front had no spotter vehicle.
Yep.
But before the front end loader came by a silver track worker truck came by.
So the track worker, someone from the track knew that those skylines were sitting there.
Right.
Did not inform anybody else.
The flag stand workers, they were trying to say that the driver didn't know.
But here's a photo of the driver at the driver's meeting.
And I mean, I think that the, if the, there's the silver truck going by
before the front end loader, I think the, the, the R34 lawyers letter is incredibly compelling
to me.
And I would be embarrassed if I was the track to have not just paid to fix this guy's car.
Because now, I mean, yeah, you're Laguna Seca and you'll always be Laguna Seca and you're
not going to treat someone bad enough that people won't want to race there anymore.
But like, you could have just fixed his fucking car.
Yeah.
This is like real crazy.
Well, because now, I mean, the PR damage of this, I don't know, might turn a lot of people away.
It's just, it's just bad optics.
It makes you look like shit.
Yeah.
It's very, yeah, yeah.
Doing stuff on race tracks, having rented them for production, like,
people need to be very on point in their communication.
And this is why, like the loader and they should have been talking to each other and
warning each other over and over again that there are cars on the track.
This is crazy.
So, I really, the guy with the car, his Instagram is GTRTIN.
GTRTIN, like the metal.
And he's posted it.
It's really, it's an interesting read.
And if you ask me, who doesn't know a lot about the law, but I know a little something
about OSHA having been certified for this business, and I know a little something
about track days, his argument seems incredibly compelling compared to the tracks argument,
which seems to be pretty thin.
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I mean, and allegedly, you know, the argument that he signed to the waiver
and therefore, meh, applies to normal track day conditions and risks.
You could have a crash with another car or a wall.
There could be gravel on the surface or oil on the surface or anything like that.
Being hit by heavy machinery while doing the right thing and being stopped is
outside of that.
That's because you basically negligence nullifies the waiver, right?
So that's the argument.
I don't know.
I think there can be a settlement that's a lot more than the fucking cost of fixing a car.
Wow.
Yeah, it's real crazy.
Really crazy.
Really sad.
A really nice red R34 has a sequential box.
I mean, this thing was built.
Really cool.
Yeah, it's a really cool looking track day skyline.
I bet the thing was a blast to drive.
And I'm sure it will be fixed eventually.
It doesn't seem like it's fully totaled.
I mean, you probably buy it from the insurance company.
Well, actually, the value of it's so high that the total price might be very high.
That's right.
I mean, it's tough to total as an R34 skyline.
So that's, I mean, that's pretty, it's pretty, the video itself was wild,
but like the denial of it given the available evidence of what happened.
Is pretty, pretty, pretty crazy.
Really disappointing.
Yeah.
They could have just fixed his car.
I mean, like, you know.
Yeah, because now they're going to go to court.
Hopefully the GTR owner wins.
And then Laguna's got to pay for the car and legal fees.
But it just drags this person through all the mud.
That just sucks.
Yeah.
That's wild stuff, man.
Wow.
That's some loser shit.
It's a rule to drive that thing backwards.
Like drive the loader backwards as you're supposed to do.
I mean, that's game over.
That should be game over right there from a legal standpoint.
Yeah.
I mean, the question is like, if I'm a judge, then I think OSHA rules matter.
OSHA stuff is definitely cause for being sued if you're not like doing OSHA shit
and someone gets hurt or if you're not following OSHA regulations.
But it's not like, I don't think it's criminal to not follow OSHA regulations.
I think it's like, you could scold people for it.
And if you get hurt while someone's outside the regulations, you could sue.
But I don't, it's not like you're going to go to prison.
You know, that's my understanding of it.
I don't know.
I can't imagine the GTR owner wants someone to go to jail.
They just want their car fixed because they got rear-ended by a giant tractor
while sitting still.
I mean, imagine trying to drive something.
Well, we don't have to, Madden.
I've driven cars with camera rigs in front of my face.
Sure, this guy had 18 tires in front.
I mean, it was like, or whatever, 20 of them.
And right up, it was like the grade of the hill and maybe line of sight
because the loader comes from pretty far back.
But even with that, I guess he just did not see this car.
It just obscured that spot for the entire duration of the drive.
And then it wham.
That's just, that's just nuts.
Yeah. I hope that guy gets paid.
I really do.
I'll lend a lot more than getting, because that's just, that's crazy.
That's the kind of, that's the kind of shit where you should get.
Well, what if it costs them 200 grand is going to cost a million dollars?
She costs a little extra just for the, just for the,
you tried to fuck me over on this and, you know.
Yeah.
Right.
So all morning, Zach and I were up on the mountain.
If you refresh my, my Instagram, I'd put a picture of right before we started the show.
Refreshing's a page and there it is.
We were up on the hill with a GT3 RS.
We've covered it pretty extensively before.
The reason they wanted us to drive it is they put a Michelin PSS5,
Pilot's Board S5 tire on it, to make it a little more road friendly.
Now you can order this tire as a zero cost option or whatever.
You just, you can get the sticky tire or this tire.
Zach, what do you think?
Well, it's just too soft now.
I mean, now the thing, there's lumbers around.
I feel like the tires are flat all the time.
I mean, like it's so funny that they can, you,
that we consider this less sticky.
It is technically less sticky, but my God, I mean,
these have a ton of grip just like PS4s.
Fantastic do everything tire, basically.
I was totally pleased with the, the carrying speed through very corn,
various corners, but it's a very stiff car.
And we, and yes, the LA roads are bad, but you know, the canyons here,
there's a lot of undulations and a lot of weird things.
Some of them have gotten worse because of weather.
This thing bounces around a lot.
So my takeaway is the same as it was before with this car.
On track, I'm sure this is magic.
Like I like, we can talk about the seats in a minute,
but the communication of seat to tire, I felt like it was very palpable.
It like that the outside rear, you,
I could really feel it coming through some of the corners
when you lay on the power and stuff.
But man, I think just like literally bounces around on some of these,
these bounce your Canyon roads.
And to drive this and not take it to the track frequently,
you are stunting, but you are literally like,
you're starting your growth because you're going to like compact your own spine
over the months and years of ownership.
Yeah. It's, you know, it needs to be very stiff because the downforce
at high speed is going to be pushing down on the,
and it needs to be able to also take a bump at that, at that speed.
And so you've got car and air and everything.
But when there's actual bumps in the road, oh my God, is it brutal?
Yeah. It's the short duration bumps that it does not handle well.
If you know, big dips, big changes, like it does soak that stuff up.
Dude, I drove it yesterday from my house
to Beverly Hills and back for a doctor's appointment.
It was about 15 miles round trip.
I got out of this thing like I had driven 1500 miles, like abused.
Just, just my whole body was just crushed.
And this morning I put the Tempur-Pedic Pillow in it.
Because now that's a must.
You got to have the Tempur-Pedic Pillow.
Yeah. For the, for the seats.
This car is the buckets.
Oh my God.
Yeah.
And there's so many, like the powertrain is amazing.
It's so smooth and it winds up.
It sounds great. The shifts are great.
Those, those fucking paddles that are great.
Oh my God. Great action.
C-clack. It's like, it's like an expensive gun, you know,
racking, you know, when you fucking click it.
It's just, that's awesome.
And the steering is so precise, you know,
and it looks mean as hell.
Like, yeah, but dude, it's so abusive.
It's just a stiff car.
And when it's in like soft mode,
when we're on the 405 going north,
suspension's in quote soft.
It feels like most of the damping is taking out of it.
So when we hit some of the larger expansion joints,
the car had like that secondary bounce.
Yeah.
Because it's just relying on the spring.
Wasn't terrible.
Like I'm kind of used to the ride.
This reminded me a lot of my car with club sports,
but this has no rattles because it's like brand new.
But over time, I mean,
this is going to loosen up some plastic, I'm sure.
And you just, it goes back to,
if you don't use this for what it is made for,
which is Nurburgring records and true lap times,
get the regular one or a different 9-11 all together.
And you can still be fast and you can still look cool
and you will just have a better life.
You'll have a better living experience.
Literally have a better life.
Otherwise, what you're doing is you're walking up to this,
you're going, I'm so cool.
And if someone, if the right, based on our whole show,
if the right dude looks at it,
you're like, I'm so cool.
And then you pull away from the light and you go and then you hate it.
Yeah.
That's the shit you do in your 20s.
You don't do that shit in your 40s.
It's very true.
You know what I mean?
It's like, it's so, I haven't left a car parked in my driveway
so much that I was testing in a long time.
Like, I've had this thing for five days
and up till this morning it had gone 48 miles.
Like, it's a super car.
You know what this is?
This is kind of like the 3,500 of sports cars
because it's quite large.
It's a pretty big car.
Visibility actually with the wing is totally fine,
at least from my height,
but it's a pretty big car physically.
And the ride is an unladen 3,500 bed.
And so you don't really want to run around town with it
because it's just, it's meant for this towing task.
It's not meant for driving around town.
That's a, there's probably a fun argument to make there
that the GT3RS is the dodge 3,500 of sports cars.
There's my article.
That's this month's, I'm an asshole argument.
Um, yeah, it's, it's another, you know, it's, it's a beautiful thing
and there's, there's so many, there are nice things about it.
And if the road is nice, then it's nice.
But if it's not, holy hell.
And the tires, I mean, the tires didn't fix it, obviously.
No, obviously not.
That's the story.
Dynamically fantastic.
Yeah.
Like turning, acceleration, feel, brake response,
all that stuff is just awesome.
I would say even if you want to use one of these
as a road car at all, you should definitely get this tire.
Because it doesn't make a fucking lick of difference.
The car is so much faster than any road will let you go
that even within the limits of this tire,
you could be deeply anti-social speeds without that being a problem.
And I think even if you go to the track,
I think these tires are great for the track
and for most people learning, they're good for learning.
For most people, they will be totally fine.
And then eventually, sure.
Like if they don't depend on what skill level you're coming in with,
you might want something stickier,
but then you'll just burn through these
and then get something stickier.
But this is fine.
Yeah.
You should get that tire probably.
You'd be annoyed at how short the life is of the other tires too.
But it's a tough...
When I see people driving these in the street,
I'm like, I hope you're happy with how you look.
And then the buckets, laterally the support's great
and they do talk to you, but...
And I know we hit this a lot.
There's no lumbar.
So if you have a spine that doesn't like to be sat concave,
meaning where you feel like you're curled forward slightly,
you will not like this seat.
And I wish you could take the cushion out of these
or order it from Porsche with three different thicknesses,
something like that, but it's all stitched in there.
So you'd have to have it cut up.
You'd have to have the seat cut apart and reupholstered.
That's not going to be great.
It's not a removable cushion that you could just have stuffed more.
They should do that.
That would be...
I wonder if Special Wishes includes lumbar.
Porsche, here's how you do it.
You offer this pillow, you charge more money,
people could pick contrasting colors and thicknesses.
And all right, just do that.
Charge people more money.
You're already charging a ton.
So charge them another three grand
and offer a lumbar pillow, but it would be essential.
I mean, you know what I love about this car?
The door handles.
Because they're door handles?
Because they're door handles.
They're not pop-out power door handles
like the other 992s.
Oh, right.
They're the old-school grab handles like my car has
like that's just better.
Just go back to that.
That was not a system that needed reinventing at all.
I think you see the story.
I think China's banning the Tesla pop-out things.
Yeah, they're bad.
That shouldn't be a thing.
It's frozen.
It's fucking on fire.
You need to be able to have a fucking door handle.
Like, I kind of get why a company might want them
for aerodynamics or allegedly according to,
I forget if it was Isaacson's book or Niedermeyer's book or,
you know, Elon just thought they looked better
and insisted that they have them.
But a lot of people chased them down that rabbit hole.
Chasing Tesla led to a lot of bad car choices.
So that one is good.
Someone in the chat recommended P1 design seat inserts for these.
P1 design seat inserts.
We do not have an affiliate link,
but this is a possible solution.
Okay.
So you could, wow.
Damn.
Those are expensive.
That's $1,300 bucks.
Carbon fiber.
Does that just pop out?
Carbon fiber seat, I guess.
For the SD, that's pretty cool.
All right.
I mean, that's.
So you can get, you can probably get memory foam,
integrated inflatable lumbar support.
There you go.
So that's a go.
So you can integrate inflatable lumbar and choose from one of,
what is, this is like, holy shit.
50 different tartan plaids.
Cool.
That's a pretty, that's not a bad deal.
Yeah.
That's really not a bad deal.
If this just pops out and you don't have to have it stitched in.
That's pretty good.
You get the whole thing plus lumbar, that's all right.
That's probably more.
Lumbar is more.
But that's cool.
Yeah.
Wow.
And that's for, that's a set for two.
That's not per seat.
Right.
That's, that's not bad.
That's why this is a pretty good deal.
Not bad.
All right.
Yeah.
Okay.
If you're already into a car for $150, $300,000,
so what, yeah.
Costs, they cost less than some pretty stupid shit you put on that car.
Or is that the Vysoc package?
Most people don't need that.
Yeah.
Okay.
So yeah, should we go to the people?
Yeah.
Did we give the people enough time today?
Yes.
Okay.
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So if you've got a good username that fits there, let's fucking go.
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I think there's something else I forgot.
But let's go to those folks.
Mitsubishi Delicioso, pretty good.
I want a weekend car and I'm somewhere between an NC Miata and a BMW 135i.
BMW has higher comfort and wife acceptance, but I've owned two Miatas before and love them on
track.
Should I be scared of the 135i maintenance enough to avoid it or not a big deal if I'm
used to track car maintenance and reliability?
I've never owned a German before.
I recall that one series are outsized expensive.
Well, especially the N54 I believe because then they switched the N55 and the N54 I think was
even more problematic in the 135.
Now you say you're used to track car maintenance, but you are used to Miata
track car maintenance, I think.
Pretty bulletproof.
The 135s are not.
We had to put a lot of money into a 135s.
A lot.
Into very, very basic things.
Yeah.
And a car that didn't have a crazy amount of mileage on it either.
True.
And a journalist, Jake, what's your last name?
I can't remember if you're listening.
I'm sorry.
This guy's had a 135 track car for like six years and dumped a lot of money into it.
You will constantly be messing with stuff beyond brakes, tires, consumables.
Like you will probably be repairing things.
Look through the forums.
Maybe there's answers on like aftermarket parts that bolster things that break, but...
I would say can you find a next generation 228M Sport?
I think it would be less problematic, a little lighter on its feet, better steering,
and I think the wife would maybe like it.
That's a good call.
Yeah.
Listen and sometimes watch says the 01-06 R53 Mini Cooper S feels underappreciated.
Not on this program, sir.
How do you think they hold up as fun project drivers cars in 2026?
Low-mid mileage examples can be picked up for 10K.
I've said it a million times.
My 06 John Cooper Works is one of my favorite cars I've ever had.
Rarely has a better car than that been sold.
It was very light, it was very small.
It had a huge interior for the outside size and it made some fucking awesome sounds
and it was fast and had great inputs.
And Mini has only gone downhill since then.
But they are expensive to maintain.
I sold mine literally 100 miles before the warranty ran out.
It didn't break a lot.
Mine was pretty reliable, but I bought it new.
So who the fuck knows?
60,000 miles, I think they kind of shake apart.
Fads was really starting to fall.
And his didn't have that many miles on it, right?
He had like 36 or something.
Fad had an S, but he didn't treat his as well as I treated mine.
Well, he lives here with it, so the roads are bump.
So like a lot of his plastic was starting to jiggle inside.
I was commuting in and out of New York City.
Oh, that's true.
We road tripped his a lot.
He might not have taken his as good care of it.
I don't know.
But it was just losing parts.
Yeah.
His was a little more of a workhorse, I think, than mine was.
But dynamically, fucking no notes.
They're great.
Yeah, they're a good time.
I blow horns.
What cars have extremely wide front tires that still have
good steering feel and minimal tram lining?
None.
That's not a thing.
One leads to the other.
Once they get too wide, I think as they get wider,
it usually improves steering feel or brings the weight up a little bit.
But if they get too big, then you start tram lining more and more.
Plus, alignment matters a lot for that.
So I sort of disagree with that.
I don't think making the tires wider improves the steering feel.
I think it improves the turn in, but I don't think it gives you more feel.
I feel like it gave me more feedback on my cars because there's more resistance
on the wheel in the corner versus the 255s or 235s really that it came with.
I mean, you have a larger patch with which the road is pushing against the wheel,
which is then pushing on the steering.
But I think it's diminished.
Once you get to 265s are okay, but once you get to like 305, 315,
like now it's going to dart all over the place and follow every little line.
I don't know if I've ever driven a car that had 275 or more at the front,
where I really liked the steering.
I'm not sure I've ever seen that.
Yeah, like how was dark horse on track?
Because it tram lines a bit on the road.
There's no feel, it's sharp, it gets the job done.
That's what I'm saying.
Usually when you have really wide front tires, you have really boosted steering
to deal with the front tires because people don't want super heavy steering.
So it ends up turning in great, but you don't feel it.
Vanquish, same thing.
Well, like David Tuig responded to our call for help on the show.
We were talking about steering feel a few weeks ago.
And if you need to move more tire, you need a larger pump to move more fluid.
And that usually leads to less feel.
Yeah, so that's a good point.
So I think those are in a lot of ways like kind of inverse things.
And the cars with like the best steering feel,
I want to say have like 235 to 255 front tires and that in that,
unless they're old cars and it's like 205, like Miata's or whatever the fuck.
But the best steering feel is if you have front tires narrow enough
where you can have manual steering.
If you have a car where that's light enough like a Lotus or a Porsche 356 or an early 911
where you can run 205 fronts, 225 fronts and have a manual steering rack that
isn't too heavy.
I mean, that's like glory.
That's fabulous.
Very rare though, you could have something like that in a new car.
Came in my asks.
Came in my asks.
Yeah.
When selling a car in Florida, what does one do to avoid the stereotype of a Florida car?
Already fucked, bro.
The car's got a Florida title on it.
What can you do?
So I have a rule which is never buy a car from Florida.
I think that's a pretty good rule to live by.
And it doesn't really restrict my life in any way.
Florida is like the title washing capital of the world.
It is that.
They have floods and rust and the Florida cars are so smelly.
Humidity is not good for car interiors.
They have sunscreen and like cream all over.
And they have Florida people they never drive with the windows down.
So all of the people smells are like contained and not so.
It also has an age of the car.
I feel like selling a Florida car and I know I'm going to get some heat for this
is a little bit like owning a pit bull.
Like when you walk up, you have to.
So when you're selling the car, you need to explain very quickly
that you do not have a problematic dog.
Your dog is very sweet and here's why.
So you have to be like.
I know what they say.
Yeah, you're like, but I don't have the mold problem because,
and it's not a salvage title.
Here's the proof.
Like you need to think of all the criticisms.
Criticisms.
Matt just said that needs to be in the listing.
The burden of proof is on you.
It is.
It is not on the state.
Right.
Yeah.
Listen, you don't want to pay fucking taxes.
You want to live and you want to live down there in the fucking place where there's no laws.
This is the other side of that.
You happen to live there and that's the environment.
You need to think of what problems is the buyer going to be looking for.
Yeah.
And you have to explain.
You have to give the answers up front.
Like you need to understand that my 13% state taxes are buying me the benefit
of the doubt when I sell my car that you're not getting.
So taxes by civilization.
That's what I'm saying.
But also, yeah, sucks to be you, man.
That's on you.
You got to prove to me that your car is not a piece of shit.
That's tough.
Imagine you're on Tinder and your last name is Bin Laden.
And you, in that profile, you have to say, I, not from that family, I'm from way over here.
Yeah.
You know, something like that.
Think about how many Epstein's there are in the Northeast.
That's a great question.
How many unrelated, you know, fucking poor little Brian Epstein is having a bad freshman
year of college now at Brown University.
Yeah, you got to be like, not from that family.
There's at least two in the high school that I went to.
Yeah.
Reform temples all over the Metro North corridor.
According to mynamestats.com quickly searched.
There's an estimated 15,000 people named Epstein in the United States.
That is, that's, that means there are 15,673 people that are having to say no, no, no, no,
no, no, no, no, no, no.
You understand.
Yeah.
And one guy who's dead.
Yeah.
And one who doesn't say anything anymore.
Except through his emails.
He really is speaking from the ember of emails.
Prayer of the refugee wagon.
Now, hang on.
That's residents, huh?
It is prayer of the refugees.
But what is it?
What is the wagon?
Refugee wagon.
How does it?
I'm not sure.
Okay, as a refugee, I'll find out.
I don't know.
Is that is there a what's a meal you like cooking that's easy, but people think is complicated.
Oh, Korean tacos, Korean tacos.
If you want to fucking impress somebody who's coming to dinner at your house,
you can whip up assuming you have one decent Korean or Japanese market
in your neighborhood.
You can make Korean tacos in about 15 minutes,
and it will be the best meal that someone's ever had.
Yeah.
You buy the sauce to cook the meat, and then you buy all the sides at the market.
And then you buy tortillas.
And then I make a guacamole, like an Asian guacamole that's avocado, cucumbers,
and then a dressing of soy sauce, sesame oil, rice vinegar, and mirin.
And that becomes like an Asian guac that goes on your tacos.
You do some bulgogi beef.
You do some colby pork.
You do some sesame chicken.
You chop all them shits up, and then you make Korean tacos and impress your friends.
I make that.
I make Korean tacos every two weeks, probably five, six people over for dinner.
And it's great because it's like brain off, and I don't have to start cooking at two o'clock.
I love, I love cooking all day, but you don't always want to do that.
Accidental reverse entry.
How does a Lotus compare to a 718 dynamically and for road trips?
Assume you mean an Amira, right?
I mean, these are your two choices, right?
Let's see.
I feel like the Amira rides softer.
I feel like the Lotus has just a little bit softer springs,
soaks bumps a little bit better.
It's just a more comfortable car.
I think that's probably true compared to like my car,
but I doubt that would be true compared to like a base.
Like a 718S.
Yeah, like a base or a, it's probably, it's probably more,
an Amira is probably about where an S is in terms of ride quality.
The Porsche feels like it's built a little better,
but the Lotus is still built very nicely.
Yeah.
I would say the Lotus build quality is about the same as like maybe the Supras.
They feel about the same.
Sure.
Right?
Yeah, BMW-ish.
We lived out of a Lotus for a week.
It was nice.
It was.
It was comfortable.
Seats are really comfortable.
I think the contrast stitching looked really good.
Door card, I think the door card is much more interesting
and more comfortable than Porsche.
Porsche is just, I don't know, I'm just too familiar with it.
Sure.
So I think they did good design inside.
The Porsche throttle response is a little more precise
compared to the Lotus's.
You still have to do that kind of slow, deliberate blip with the Lotus.
I mean the V6.
And the downshifts were inconsistent.
The throttle response on downshift was weird,
which then made downshifting a little challenging.
And something that we've all, like us and colleagues noticed,
is when you're downshifting, sometimes the shifter moves.
Like the gate location, the address changes a little bit
because of the twist of everything.
Yeah.
That does not happen in the Porsche.
But certainly the Amira is more exotic and interesting
than a lesser 718.
It looks like a little McLaren.
I think it's a fabulous looking car.
It was really nice on a road trip.
It's cool.
Less visibility because you look in the rear view mirror
and you see the supercharger, like you see the throttle body.
Yeah, yeah.
The linkage.
Yeah.
So yeah.
I feel like, I mean, even in the review, it's like
the Lotus is the best thing to buy if you don't want a Cayman.
Like it's hard to, I can't, I'm not going to say
the Cayman isn't a objectively better car
because I think it probably is.
But that, like.
I think it's a squeaker.
I think it's a really close race.
Yeah.
And like own the Lotus for a year
and then maybe you'll find you want to go over the other side
after that year.
But you should definitely own one for a bit.
The Lotus is awesome.
Yeah.
I thought the Lotus was a great car.
Really, really enjoyable to drive and use as a car.
Well, it's not like, it doesn't ask very much of you.
Plus, parcel shelf.
Parcel shelf is good.
Yeah.
But like you could buy that and just use it as your car.
Yeah.
Like it doesn't need to be something
that's just like saved for the weekends.
Like it could totally just be your car.
Give it all while smoking the tires.
Okay.
Little rise against drop.
Fuck Mary kill.
Okay.
We haven't done one in a while.
Yeah.
Larry Chen's 996 Turbo.
Magnus Walker's a 277 car
and a Scottos RWB 964 Turbo.
Which of these have you driven?
Only the 277 car.
Okay.
I've never driven Scottos car or Larry Chen's 996 Turbo.
So, I mean, just on vibes, I would fuck Magnus's car,
marry Scottos car and kill Larry's car.
And there's not, and because Scottos car isn't like any RWB.
It's not, yeah.
That's a particularly special one.
Yes.
It's got an Andyle engine.
It's a real 964 Turbo.
It was the first one ever done in America.
And it has the proper suspension set up by BBI.
So like it actually will drive properly
and not drive fucking stupid.
It looks awesome.
And it keeps going up in value just, you know,
because it has all these correct modifications.
Yeah.
So anyway, hot dog or a boros.
Oh, shout wants to shout out off the record.
Loving it.
Way to use them.
Okay.
Let's see.
Steve Martigani says the drive recently had an interview
with the CEO of Porsche who said,
the Cayman and Boxster may be discontinued completely
due to the re-engineering costs going on.
Should Porsche consider bringing a less expensive 911 variant
to market to fill the void, perhaps with a four cylinder
narrow body and less weight resurrecting the 912?
There's a precedent in the current market with the AMG GT 43,
which we don't like.
Which we just talked about.
The AMG GT 43.
AMG GT 43 sucks.
It sucks.
And if that's your saying is the precedent for 911
doing something, don't.
Well, and to be specific, the 43 engine just feels very
unrefined.
It feels like it'd be in place in a rally car.
It's really buzzy.
It vibrates the chassis a lot.
It's really, it's almost strangely loud for that car.
Imagine a grand tourer with a Mitsubishi Evo 6 power
train in it.
That's what that car is.
The whole thing.
And compared to like the Boxster Cayman
that had the four cylinder,
that thing opposed four cylinder.
But still, I felt like much smoother, much more refined
than the 43 engine.
My thought about the four cylinder is Porsche barely got
fucking people to accept it in the Boxster and the Cayman.
They really only sold four cylinder Boxers and Caymans to
people that I don't want to say weren't real Porsche
people or anything like that.
But like a lot of the four cylinder Boxers and Caymans
that you see driving around are being driven by sort of
regular folks who want a cute car.
They're not being driven at, they're not, we don't see
them up on the mountain.
True.
When we go up the mountain, we see six cylinder.
Okay, they're GTSs or GT4s or Spiders or older ones.
We do not see a whole bunch of four cylinder cars.
There is, I don't see any evidence coming from
anywhere that Porsche needs to move down market
with the 911.
It's the only car they have right now that's making a
goddamn fortune.
Everything else is not doing great for Porsche,
but everybody wants 911s.
And I think the two five, you also probably see more of
them in Europe where people get taxed based on cylinder
or engine size.
Displacement, you know.
Displacement, so that's a big factor for those things,
but we don't have that here.
No, I mean I think Porsche's best way forward is to
just keep making Boxsters and Caymans.
I mean, that in my opinion.
Yeah, if they can undo the engineering they did for
the electric cars, that's the pickle they're in right now.
They spent all this money and the EU says they have to,
and the USA right now says they don't have to,
and they're like, well, how do we flip this factory around
or have them make two different cars essentially?
Yeah, I mean I don't have the right answer,
but I don't think the answer is a down market 911.
I think it's figuring out to build your sports cars.
You know, whatever that is, you're gonna have to figure out
how to be the company that still makes sports cars over here,
one way or the other.
Bring AI trailer.
You have the opportunity to tell your 18-year-old self
about a future classic to purchase and hold.
What do you purchase with the money you had available
at that time?
18?
So, I had available at that time.
Oh my God.
I've told you about when 12-year-old me,
maybe 13-year-old me,
when my dad got money, right?
When he first got money.
And I mean, he'd always been working,
he'd been an up-and-coming executive,
but he left to get a new job with Macy's,
and the company he left acquired Macy's,
which messed up his whole contract.
So, he sued for his whole contract and won.
So, he got like a 15-year contract in like one payment.
That's when we got money, okay?
And I, and that was when I first kind of figured out
that, oh, like, we got money.
And we got a pool.
You know, it was like, it was Clark Griswold level.
We got the pool, right?
So, I made a list.
I was like, dad, you should buy these cars as investment.
And the list, I would have crushed,
I would have crushed McLaren F1,
Ferrari F40, Ferrari F50, Diablo S, whatever it was,
it was the SE30, I believe at the time.
We would have fucking crushed,
crushed if we had bought,
if my dad had bought my 12-year-old list.
Yeah, yeah.
It would have been amazing.
Probably would.
We probably could have actually beat the stock market.
I was gonna say, you know, he probably just invested in it.
No, he did better than me.
I actually, I did, I gained it out,
like maybe eight years ago or so.
And he beat the stock market.
His, his investments beat the stock market,
but so did the fucking my car investments.
But his investments beat my hypothetical cars.
I think, I think when I went to college,
I think I had like three grand total to my name.
So I think the only thing I could afford that would be
is like a really clean 1991 like 325 IS,
or maybe a high mileage like E30M3,
because no one cared about those.
And then I would have to sit on it for like, you know, till 2021.
And then it would go up by like 10 or 20 X.
So the money, okay.
So here's what I would have done.
With the money I actually had at the time,
because at the time when I was 18,
I had, I had, you know, I had bought my own,
my dad said, you know,
I think this was the right move.
You want your own car.
You want a car.
You need to go to work.
You need to earn money.
And, and, you know, I want you to have a safe car.
So whatever you earn, I'll match,
which allowed me to go from,
I saved $13,000 from selling shoes,
and it allowed me to get a $26,000 car.
So I ended up getting that Subaru Legacy GT.
So let's assume that I had $26,000 to invest.
What I wanted to buy,
and my dad wouldn't let me buy,
was a two year old Black Saline S351 Speedster.
So like, and it was like 24 grand.
So like, how, if I bought that and held onto that,
I could probably do okay on that today.
I could probably, I could probably double that money
in raw dollars, unadjusted.
Right?
$55,000 Black Black 351 Speedster.
I bet you I could have, right?
Yeah.
But damn, my dad, we would have,
we would have killed Nagerro Blueballs.
Like that.
Have you ever had to talk someone out of a car
you knew they'd regret?
Tried talking someone out of buying an 03 RS6.
They didn't, and eight months later the transmission went.
Yes, I have tried to talk people out of cars
that I knew they would regret.
And I try, you know, it's like,
that's like, the problem with that is,
it's like someone, they go,
you know, I just broke up with Kathy,
and you go, she was a fucking cunt anyway.
And then they get back together two weeks later,
and you're like, oh God, you know, that's,
you can't, so you gotta tread very, very lightly.
Yeah.
Because you might crush their dream.
If someone goes, I'm thinking about getting this,
and they just want you to say, good idea,
you gotta read that face,
because otherwise you might just ruin their dream,
and then they'll get it anyway,
and it'll fall apart,
and you don't want to be like, I told you so,
but that's tough.
The only time I really do bring it up,
because I genuinely want people to be happy
with their car.
Like, if you think you like a car
that I don't really like,
and I go, oh, why do you like that?
And they go, I like the buttons on the steering wheel,
and the fucking shape of the wheels.
Okay, cool.
Like, the only, like, there was a couple of times
where I knew cars were like really unsafe,
and I was like, I don't like you driving this.
I don't, it's not safe.
First gen highlanders, like when my sister,
like, every time I would drive that car,
every time, I could press the brake pedal
to the floorboard.
Oh yeah.
And not activate the ABS.
And she was like, I'm going to get another one.
I was like, I really don't want you to.
Well, she did.
And a hub seized up, and she rolled three times
on the future of the turnpike.
So I was right on safe car.
Nobody should ever drive a first generation Toyota Highlander.
They're so dangerous.
Costco tuning.
Oh boy, these are tough.
These are tough.
Looking for a $10,000 to $12,000 third car.
It's hard because it depends on where you live.
Yeah.
You know, prices are very different here than
middle of America or East Coast, especially, I mean, a BMW.
Well, Costco, Costco, I can, I can guess.
That's Connecticut, where I'm from.
Oh, okay.
Costco is the town next to Greenwich.
So let's assume that's where they live.
I have a BMW 340 for commuting
and a BRZ for track work.
I want a cruiser interested in R129 SLs and Alpha Spiders.
I loved your R129.
Can you go into some detail about why you got rid of it
and your experience with it?
My experience with my SL was great.
I bought it for $17,000.
I'd put 10,000 miles on it in two years.
I did one service, and it was a kind of big service.
So it was like $1100.
And then I sold it for the exact same amount of money
I put into it.
And the guy's still driving it around.
I see the guy around here in LA.
Probably more reliable than the Alpha.
Oh, yeah.
And it was a fine automobile.
I thought it looked great.
It rode well.
It was comfortable.
It was absolutely fucking beautiful, beautiful car.
But it just wasn't all that interesting to drive.
It was just an automatic, you know, floaty cruiser.
And so if what you want is a cruiser, there you go.
Like, I'm interested in another cruiser.
That's why we're doing this Mercedes project up the road here.
But I drove it for two years.
And I sold it because Hannah and I looked at each other.
And we said, we have six cars between the two of us
and not a single back seat.
We had six two-seater cars.
We're like, this is fucking dumb.
And so we sold the least interesting of the cars.
And bought the Delica, the van.
So which Hannah then daily drove for a year.
So we didn't sell it because anything was wrong with it
or because it didn't do exactly the thing it promised.
It did all those things great.
And it's still doing them today with a new owner.
We just, you know, sometimes you have too many cars.
But the Alphas are interesting.
And if you maintain them properly and keep after stuff,
they're pretty fun.
Also, you know, E30 BMWs are fun.
That's almost like a combination of the two.
Especially if you've got a convertible.
E30 convertible.
Then you've got the top down experience.
Pretty engaging, but it'll be smooth and comfortable
like the Mercedes.
Sure.
And yeah, either of those would be fun.
I would say also for 10 to 12k though, it's pretty limited.
Pretty limited.
I don't know.
I don't know.
You might just fucking put them parameters in,
you know, whatever, wherever auto tempest
or wherever you're looking for a car
and just like, see what oddballs pop up.
That's going to be a, you put your price range in there
and there might be, you might find like, I don't know,
an awesome like Sirocco or some other thing
that like I wouldn't have thought of.
The Lincoln Mark 7.
Was that the car that was like kind of?
The Fox body.
Yeah, but it was like fast.
The Mark 7 and the Mark 8 is the roundy one
with the 4 cam.
That's the one.
The Mark 7 is the Fox body.
Yeah, like the Mark 8 those are kind of dope.
You could mop them.
Yeah, that's a good freezer.
Nino Pinto Santa Maria going to Chattanooga for a bachelor party
considering renting something fun on Turro.
I could do a Miata for 250 or a base C8 for 750.
I would, that sucks.
Those, that's shit rates dude.
That's expensive.
Really expensive.
I mean, I think the C8 is more fun
because when you turn it on, it'll sound cool
and it'll sound cool every time you leave a stoplight
and the Miata is not those things.
Just pull up on Google Maps.
I don't think it's that far,
but how far is it from Chattanooga to Deal's Gap?
Chattanooga, Tennessee, because if you're,
are we doing Tale of the Dragon
and those roads on this trip?
So just do Chattanooga to Deal's Gap.
It's not that far.
Two and a half hours.
Okay, so you could do, you know,
you could do Tale of the Dragon.
And that could be, bro, you could have, if you did.
Well, these roads, this'll be good right here.
That one's good, but zoom in, if you zoom in more,
you do that road, see Teleco Plains in the top right.
You take that road, you go north on this to hit Teleco.
I think that's the 676 or the 67th.
Whatever that road is that goes from McKaysville
to Teleco Plains.
That's a great road.
You take that.
So you go east out of Chattanooga to Teleco Plains
and then Teleco Plains to Robbinsville.
That's the Chara Hall of Skyway.
So you do like this.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, you do that.
And then you bring that one, that is the Chara Hall of Skyway.
So there you go.
So now you got a hundred, and then if you do,
drag the Deals Gap one up to the north end of the Dragon.
Deals Gap is the south end of the Dragon.
So drag that pin further up to the north end of the Dragon
to Tulasi there.
So there you go.
You got 177 miles from Chattanooga
to the north end of the Dragon.
That drive is fire.
Yeah, that's Miata in my opinion.
That would be great.
The Dragon is Miata.
The Skyway is Corvette.
True.
But you could have fun in a Miata too.
Yeah.
I wouldn't, I don't think the Corvette's three times
the fun on that road though.
It's a lot.
It's a lot of money.
I'd probably go Miata.
Don't do this the day after you all go drinking.
Yeah.
You will hate it.
Yeah, but that's a good way to spend three hours
before drinking.
Oh, Michael Cosgrove wants to know,
is there a way to link the Angeles Forest roads
to the Malibu Canyon roads?
There is not.
They are in very opposite sides of the city.
You link them with the freeway.
You can link.
That's what you do.
Yeah.
You come, you have to come down to the freeway.
There's not, there's not a way to do it.
Which is fine.
It's like a, I don't know if I, it's like a break.
You come down, you get gas.
You take the 118 all the way.
Yeah.
Yeah.
It's, it's, yeah, freeway.
Sorry.
You could connect.
You could connect the Northern Angeles Forest
to the Central Angeles Forest.
But those are the only two sections that can be connected
with Canyon roads.
Zach's underdrive pulley.
With the increase in tariffs slated for South Korea,
does the Elantra Ann lose its allure
when the price crosses into the $40,000 range?
I think it's still going to be the cheapest car
in its class.
Yeah.
It's really fast.
It's a bummer that it's going up to that
because it was, you know, it was such a bargain,
but it's still like, what's a Civic Type R?
It's chasing Civic Type Rs.
And that MSRP is what 46?
Civic Type R now is like 46 grand to start.
So it's still five, maybe five grand cheaper than that.
And it's just as quick, just as comfortable.
It's 10% cheaper than the Civic Type R.
Yeah.
You know, if they maintain that all the way up.
It is a bummer though that it's,
because it used to be like 34, right?
I think they started in the low 30s, but yeah,
but that was like 2017 when that car came out.
That car came out a long time ago.
No, not 2017.
Was the Veloster Ann before the Elantra Ann?
I think it was.
So the Veloster Ann was 2020.
I would also add that the tariffs change every week.
So just wait and it might go back to zero.
Hyundai might fucking bribe Trump.
They might produce Melania too,
electric Boogaloo or whatever.
Wasn't it the Hyundai factory where a fucking ICE raided it?
And it was in Georgia, right?
Maybe.
And they all fucking, they got detained and they were like,
we're fucking out.
What are you doing?
Zach clapped my cheeks.
When would you feel comfortable letting a younger family member
ride in your quote unsafe car?
My six year old nephew is massively into cars,
thanks to his uncle, me.
He keeps bugging me about him letting,
letting him ride in my Lotus Elise.
For now, I get by saying he needs to be older and taller,
but I'm not comfortable at all letting him ride in it
until he's an adult.
It's one thing to accept the lack of safety for myself,
but to be responsible for another human being who's
a minor is completely different.
Am I overthinking it too much?
Look, I don't have kids, but like quick judgment.
Yeah, you're overthinking this, bro.
I mean, I understand not wanting to put a five year old
in a car without a car seat or something like that,
but a Lotus Elise is not that unsafe of a vehicle.
Well, I think if, you know, the kid's too small
to like sit in the seat properly.
Right, right.
But until he's an adult.
Well, I mean, 18 is too late.
You could wait until 15.
Like if you're, if you're 12,
you can sit in a fucking car, in a sports car.
Yeah, you can sit in the side of the person.
Sure.
And you also can, you can keep the driving very local,
like around the neighborhood.
Because if the kid's really excited about this,
just hearing it start and doing a first gear pull
will probably be exciting.
So you can just do that really in a quiet neighborhood
or whatever area and then just go back to the house.
And just that's fine for now.
You don't have to like take them on a canyon run
or out for hours.
Well, when I read the first sentence of this question,
I thought he was going to say an aerial atom
or some crazy old thing or, you know, whatever.
Like to me, and Elise is a modern car.
Like it's not.
I know he has fewer airbags then.
Yeah, yeah, but like that's not, that's not that unsafe.
If you're talking, I'm not, again, an unbelted child
or someone, a child that's small enough
where they're supposed to be in a backwards-facing seat
or any of that kind of stuff, I get it.
But like to say, you know, someone who's 12 or 13
or, you know, can't handle like a quick ride
in an older sports car, I think is an extreme.
I know a very quick Google and people can comment
if this is wrong on Reddit is people were saying
that one of the reasons that the Elise
and Exige after 2011 are considered street kick cars
is one, the passenger airbag is not child safe
and then the fiberglass clamshell won't pass
the five mile per hour bumper test.
So I think if we had kids, you'd go,
I want the safest car around
because this is a very precious being to me.
So if they're, you know, and this is the uncle,
so God forbid something does happen in this car.
Do the kids' parents have an opinion on this?
I mean, of course they do.
I would assume they do.
But maybe, and maybe the parents are cool with it,
but the uncle's the more responsible one.
Maybe, I don't know.
A lot of factors.
I took my nephew out for a quick run in the Manx
and I didn't think much of it.
I mean, I just, you know, I didn't.
I just say keep the route real small and safe
where there's not cars going 50 miles per hour
and just give them a little taste of that
and then that'll be it.
So.
I mean, it's impossible to control everybody in the world.
Sure.
Like if you.
Elon's trying.
Because soon the Minder robot will ride in the back seat.
That's true.
And it will hold the child.
It'll hold the child.
There are people that are legitimately trying.
I am the seat belt.
Most of them fucking new Epstein.
Isaiah Stanley says,
I recall Matt was not super into VW bugs in the past.
As of late, you seem to like them more.
Is there any specific that changed my opinion?
I'm not that into bugs now.
I think you talked about someone asked about like cool,
old stuff you can buy for kind of cheap.
And like they said, they're all manner of air-cooled bugs.
Sure.
I mean, if you want a cheap project car cruiser thing
to learn stick on thing that's, you know, culturally significant.
Sure.
But like, they don't do shit for me.
But like, if I see a nice one, that's nice.
But like, no, I mean, my love for my Manx is.
My Manx has fucking functionally nothing to do with with Volkswagen.
It's no, there's nothing other than a cut and heavily welded up pan and a VIN number.
Oh, yeah.
My shit don't have nothing to do with Volkswagen.
Brake Paddington Bear.
Why don't Honda, Yamaha, et cetera, don't make track-only toys?
Their side-by-sides do a massive business.
And it seems their parts bin is deep enough to make something pretty neat for a decent price.
I don't know.
I think the side-by-sides can get by being very unsafe in a crash the way that the,
that a car that's going to be raced on track could not get away with.
Like, side-by-sides are funny shit, but like, those things are mad dangerous.
They are.
And you, well, I mean, on track, you've got multiple vehicles, close proximity a lot,
walls depending.
So there's just, there's a lot more exposure to hard things, I think, than there are off-roading.
Yeah, I don't, I don't know if they're, if they're looking for a niche within a niche.
Yeah.
I mean, the side-by-sides, they sell a lot of them.
And I don't think they need to try to crack into the KTM Expo market,
which is pretty small, right?
Isn't that the track thing that KTM makes?
Yeah.
I mean, the market for all track day toys compared to the market for side-by-sides is like nothing.
Yeah.
You know, it's like, that's like saying, why doesn't McDonald's open a five-star steakhouse?
Why?
They could spend all their billions of dollars and go eat steak at the steakhouse,
like up the road.
They don't need, they don't need to use their giant mass market to break into a tiny niche.
Well, you know, and the track car market is even more niche.
It's like, why don't they use their giant McDonald's corporation to make a vegan sushi place?
It's like a thing within a thing within a thing.
The market is tiny.
OG Cushman, three-wheel golf cart.
If you had the opportunity to build the ultimate sleeper car, what would you do?
I have it, my pink car.
My pink car is that for me.
Is that a sleeper, though?
I mean, it's pink as gold wheels and it's loud.
I think it is a sports car,
turned into more of a sports car.
I think it's a sports car that people, at least in first glance and association,
think of as being feminine and not being all that fast.
And then in actuality, it makes more power than even the fastest
naturally aspirated factory Porsche ever has.
So I would say that that makes a lot more power than you think it does.
That's true.
I think the greatest sleeper is that VW bus that had the 996 powertrain chassis,
everything, and it was running down the lotuses on the track.
Like, that was rad.
When I was at the Nurburgring and got waxed by that all-wheel drive civic thing that was like...
The white wheels?
Yeah, that was a real good sleeper.
I don't know.
I don't have an answer to that one.
Okay, blown trans with an STI featuring meth injection.
When you see someone, is that like an ER diagnosis?
Were you watching the pit?
I think it's like giving oral treats to someone who has an STI infection with meth injection.
With shooting meth.
When you see someone you know out in public, you wave.
But if you're too close to the place you know them from, like work, you don't.
How far away from the place you know the person from, do you have to be for you to wave to them?
Well, I mean, if I'm good friends with the person,
even if I see them right outside work, I'll wave to them.
Yeah, I'll acknowledge the person.
Yeah, I'm not going to like snub them like, oh, I just saw you in work,
and now I'm seeing, I don't know, there's so many variables to this.
I laugh because this is like when you say goodbye to people,
and then you realize you're both walking to the same part of the parking line,
you're like, oh, shit.
And then you just have to make fun of the moment.
Yeah.
You don't want to say goodbye twice.
Sure.
That would be insane.
And I ever tell you that I accidentally stalked actor BD Wong around Manhattan for a day?
You know who that guy is?
You know who he saw his face.
Yeah, he was in SVU.
SVU, and he's a psychiatrist.
And he's in Jurassic Park.
He's the young Asian scientist at the beginning who hatches the dinosaur from the egg.
He has a very recognizable face.
He drives a really cool 79, 9-11 Targa with gold BBS wheels on it.
Really beautiful green paint.
And he happened to live next to the building I used to work at.
Everyone's been watching, I was a big SVU fan at the time.
Well, so I see him when I'm having a fucking grit outside
before I'm leaving.
I see him.
We're then like 10 minutes later, I go to the garage where my car's parked.
He's there again getting the car.
I then I go get lunch.
I then go to the gas station on the west side.
He's there again.
Okay.
I then go uptown to a fucking store.
He's there again.
And by the last one, it was first like, okay, we're leaving out.
We're leaving a place where we are.
We're getting our cars that are near the place where we are.
We're getting the gas station where it's at.
And then at the last one, he's like, okay, dude, what the fuck?
I swear.
I swear, man.
This is so random.
I swear.
That's so funny.
It was so weird.
It was so bad.
90s dance organ.
Oh, I don't even know what that is.
Cup two girls four in Colorado.
Oh, cup two, like a tire.
Yeah, okay.
How are you liking the White Dial Speedmaster?
It is exceptional.
I have just sent it to England to be ruined and it might have come back.
Actually, let's see.
All right.
It's not here yet.
Sorry.
My watch is returning from England.
The White Dial Speedmaster is excellent.
Recommend.
Lotus Griopa.
What's a car that you would own specifically to mod?
Well, we were talking about like a drift car.
A Terminator Mustang.
Yeah.
If I bought that, I'd instantly put a pulley and pipes on it and stuff.
I mean, specifically to mod.
It's fine.
It's like what needs mods?
Well, I mean, we're doing this Mercedes.
We got the car for free.
We didn't buy the car for that.
But even at a price of zero, I only took it.
Sure.
Because we were going to do this thing.
There's nothing I wanted about this car in stock form.
These days with TurboTech, it's so tempting to just put even a tune on anything.
Even a turbo giveaway car.
Why would you not tune it if you can gain all this power with no effects on reliability?
Or if you live some, I don't know, you get like a new Subaru or M2.
It's just so accessible these days.
Just go, you know, tick, tick, tick, tick.
I think almost all of my sports car purchases.
No, that's not true.
Because we've had the Kuntosh, which has not bought to mod the NSX.
We put some wheels on it, but that's really it.
I would say, I mean, we had pink car, the Safari car, and the Mustang, and the Mercedes,
all bought specifically to mod.
And I think anything I buy, the older the car is, the more likely I am to mod it
because technology has advanced and I can make it better.
Jedi Master Chronometer, dumbest and coolest factory applied badge emblem.
So the dumbest digital dirt on the Raptors is pretty bad?
I think the dark horse emblem.
The horse?
The horse resembles other things, especially that light.
I know it's not an amount of the emblem, but when that light shines from the door on the ground,
if you look at it the other way, it doesn't look like a horse.
Really? What does it look like?
Well, this isn't just me saying this, it's also my wife.
Looks like a very specific part of the female anatomy.
Someone say the most popular, celebrated part.
She's like, that's what that looks like.
Yeah, that's not great.
Yeah, that's not great.
The digital dirt is pretty rough, though.
What else is the dumbest factory applied badge?
Did the Gucci Fiat say Gucci?
I'm not sure it did.
It did, yeah.
I guess that's your signaling.
That's a little collab.
I mean, in American cars, when they would introduce features and the cars would have
a badge that says anti-lock brakes or tuned port injection or whatever,
any badge that ended up bragging about a feature that was a total failure
also.
Turbine engine.
And oh, the Pzev, the Pzev on Subaru's that are not hybrid.
I never understood that.
How does Subaru get a partial zero emissions vehicle
badge on a gas-powered car?
Oh, so they're conventional gas-powered vehicles engineered to meet super low,
super ultra low emission vehicle exhaust standards.
All right, okay.
Federal investigator.
What is one life experience you found extremely valuable, car-related or not?
Sitting in jail for three days.
Oh.
You don't forget that.
I bet you didn't.
Yeah, you don't forget that.
I'll never forget that smell.
I'm fucking forever.
Piss in concrete.
Yeah, and mildew and the inside of a porta potty.
Yeah, it's great.
Really cool.
Blended with 24-7 fluorescent lighting.
Also working retail.
You know, or restaurants.
Is so essential.
You just learn how to treat everybody.
Right.
Nicely.
Yeah, yeah.
Granny shifting, not double clutching like you should.
Ever had any embarrassing moments with cars backing out of garage and bringing off a mirror,
driving away with the gas pump.
I just saw someone do it yesterday.
Really?
Oh, it's great when someone does it.
I love it.
Down the road.
Love it.
When I had my Pontiac in high school, I was dropping my mom off at the Jeep dealership.
She was picking a car up.
It was like 6 p.m.
And my car did not have a right side side mirror.
And I pulled into the thing and as I backed up and I was trying to do basically a three
point turn in the Jeep driveway and I turned the wheel to the right and I scraped the
whole right side of my car along a brick awning support that I didn't see, forgot was there.
Like I pulled in and saw it and forgot it was there and I just turned the wheel and backed
up and I scraped the entire quarter panel of the car.
And I didn't, I was so mad at the building as if it's the building's fault.
And I was like, dad, can't wait.
And he's like, this is your problem.
I'm not calling them.
You're not going to do anything.
And you have to pay to fix this.
I had, I had almost exactly the same thing happen,
but it was with a short yellow bollard that was like at the end of a parking space.
And I just didn't, by the time I came back to my car, I forgot that it was there because
I came from the other way.
Then when I was like 16 and I crunched the little right behind the front wheel,
just crunched that little bit.
Yep.
The big one that I was a lesson was I was following.
I had a friend who lived in a like a gated community.
And I was following his mom out of the gated community.
We were leaving their house, right?
And as the gated community met the road, I was behind the mom and the mom started to go.
And I made the mistake of looking back over my shoulder while starting to go.
Instead of checking and then looking forward again and then going.
And she had started to go and then stopped.
And I, while I was over here my shoulder at, you know, three miles an hour.
But it was, you know, it was embarrassing.
It was literally my friend's mom.
And I learned a very valuable lesson to, if the car is going forward,
you better be looking in that direction.
Yeah, yeah.
Christian, I think you've asked this question a couple of times about the U.S.
class.
We haven't driven it.
We haven't driven it.
Have absolutely no thoughts on it.
The interior looks a lot like the old one, just like lots of screens.
So many screens.
Huge screen.
It's like the waterfall, but they actually just added black borders to it, right?
Instead of having it all kind of connect.
Talk about what I don't want out of a car.
I would say that, yeah, let you know when we drive the thing.
Yeah, likely never.
All right, that's it.
All right, kids, thank you for joining us today.
It's been a good week, and we got more show for you next week,
as a matter of fact.
I'm in town.
This is weird.
I'm here for, I'm here for three weeks with no travel.
That's like too much time for me to be at home.
I need to find some new and interesting things to do.
But we have, we have two cars coming next week,
and I'm going to take them to the track.
So that'll be fun.
Thank you to our patrons for asking such good questions today.
Thank you to everybody for joining us throughout our entire lives.
And we'll see you next time.
Bye.
About this episode
Matt Farah dives into a range of topics from the latest GT3 RS tire adjustments to suggestions for tow rigs. The discussion includes a recent incident at Laguna Seca involving a crashed car and the reasoning behind Porsche's decision not to produce a four-cylinder 911. Listeners will appreciate the insights on efficient towing options, including the Cayenne SE hybrid and Ram 1500, as well as a fun tangent about a treasure hunt documentary. The episode balances automotive advice with engaging stories.
bucket seats
downforce
four cylinder 911
Laguna Seca
lumbar support
Michelin Pilot Sport S5 tire
Nürburgring
OSHA
pop-out power door handles
PS4S
Aston Martin Vanquish
Audi S5
BMW 1 Series
BMW 3 Series
BMW M2
BMW M3
Chevrolet Corvette
Chevrolet Tahoe
Dodge Ram
Ferrari F40
Ferrari F50
Ford F-150
Ford Maverick
Ford Mustang
Ford Ranger
Hyundai Elantra
Hyundai Veloster
Lamborghini Countach
Lotus Elise
Lotus Emira
Lotus Exige
Mazda CX-5
Mazda MX-5 / Miata
McLaren F1
Mercedes-Benz SL
Mitsubishi Delica
Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution
Nissan GT-R
Nissan Skyline
Porsche 356
Porsche 911
Porsche Boxster
Porsche Cayenne
Porsche Cayman
Ram 1500
Ram 2500
Ram Ramcharger
Subaru BRZ
Toyota Highlander
Toyota Land Cruiser
Toyota Supra
Volkswagen Bus
Original notes
Matt Farah and Zack Klapman discuss whether tires "fixed" what they didn't like about the new Porsche GT3 RS; there's an update to a legal scuffle between Weathertech Raceway Laguna Seca and the owner of an amazing R34 GT-R; we get some ideas for tow vehicles; why Porsche won't build a "cheap" 911; and Patreon questions include:
- Weekend track car idea: NC Miata or BMW 135i?
- Why are early 2000s Mini Cooper S underappreciated?
- Can you have wide front tires AND good steering feel?
- How to avoid being labeled a "Florida car"?
- Easy, impressive meals to cook
- How does a Lotus compare to a 718 Cayman for road trips?
- F/M/K: Larry Chen's 996 Turbo / Magnus' 277 / Scotto's RWB
- What car would our 18-year old selves invest in?
- How to talk someone out of a car they'll regret
- Fun cruiser: Alfa Spider or R129 SL500?
- Rent a Miata or a C8 for a weekend in the the South?
- Is the Elantra N still a deal at $40k?
- Should you let a younger family member ride in your "unsafe" car?
And more!
Recorded February 6, 2026
SHOW NOTES
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The Smoking Tire
Zack Klapman, Matt Farah
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