Leah Pruett Back in 2026, F1 on Highway, Ferrari 849 - Shift & Steer EP535

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Every team, every topic, everywhere, this is Belize.

Hey everyone, welcome.

This is Shifton Stair.

And you know what?

Everybody's here this week.

That's right.

I know you thought it's been a desert without the third wheel here, but you know what?

We're pretty good as a bicycle or a tricycle.

And that's what we do.

Welcome to the party, pals.

I'm Brad.

It's Ian.

And with me today is Matt and double A-ron.

Yeah, I was going to say that the unicycle is there impossible.

It takes a lot of talent to handle.

Unicycle is hard because you go, well, what do you think?

And nobody answers.

Nobody answers.

Hard, you know?

Yeah.

I respect guys that do a singular radio show or podcast where they just keep it going, keep

the energy up.

It's difficult.

You can never throw it.

You know, like when I sometimes disappear and I'm going to the restroom and you guys cover

for me, they don't know.

But if it was just by myself, I'd be.

I've done it a couple times.

The solo show.

Yeah, I've done it.

It's a little hard.

It's a little tough.

It is.

You know, a while ago, I was on the Magnaflow podcast.

They do a podcast.

They built a great studio at their facility in Oceanside and was.

That's the only problem.

Oceanside.

Yeah.

It was a little bit far.

But I like those guys a lot.

It was fun to go down and do the podcast.

They have some great guests.

I don't know if they do it throughout the year or is it going to be season by season

or whatever?

Anyway, I shared it on social media.

The podcast is posted, but they just sent out the email newsletter.

I just got it as as you hit the record button and I'm looking at it.

I'm like, oh, my head's huge.

Just because you were on their podcast, your head got huge.

It's like every photo that's up there.

I was like, maybe I should cut back on the cookies and doughnuts.

Geez.

Come on, man.

Geez.

You can be.

It's coming up.

Got to look my best.

Yeah, I know.

I.

Charlotte said to me the other day, she said, I said, I, I, I got to start working out.

I got to start.

And she goes, why?

She goes, oh, SEMA's coming up.

I go, I've got SEMA.

I have, I have the BMX Hall of Fame reunion that I'm hosting.

And I've got, and there was, oh, and Barrett Jackson.

And she says, well, you know what?

I think you're maybe make it by SEMA.

And I said, oh, thanks a lot.

Thanks a lot.

But Brad, that's what Moomoo's are for.

Yes. Yeah.

No, you hope that it's cold.

She can wear a big bulky jacket.

Right? There you go.

That's what overcoats are for.

Yeah.

I mean, Steven Seagal pulls it off.

What's going on in your world, Aaron?

Now that you've been gone for a couple of weeks.

What's happening in your world?

Actually, yeah, it's been a whirlwind.

I think I missed the last show because I had I was I didn't have to.

I was asked and happily said yes.

Dad asked me to drive his new.

I'm going to screw up the name.

That's the pure song way or pure same way, pure song way.

Pure pure song way to drive that to Dana Point

and then drive his defender back

because he wanted to swap vehicles.

Are you sure it's not your sorry SUV for you guys?

You don't know what the song way is.

It's the pure segue, isn't it?

Yeah, it's a pure segue.

Yeah, let me tell you, it was the three wheeled version

that the cops use took a while, took a while.

But a lot of charge ups, a lot of charge ups.

I had a huge solar ray on my back.

Yeah, no, it was super fun.

Drove it up the five.

Well, it was as fun as driving up the five on a windy day can be.

But it was when it was when at Riverside

and lots of SoCal was having that big dust storm.

And so I'm driving through this atmospheric storm of this dust.

Dad's like, you didn't scratch up the car.

I'm like, no, no, it was more like up in the air

than it was on the ground.

It wasn't like no mother nature.

What choice would you have if you were driving it?

What do you mean? Did you scratch it?

Yeah, it's like you went out there and keyed the goddamn thing.

It's like, well, wait, you wanted to sat and finish, right?

Yeah, right.

But no, it was how was it to drive?

You know, it I never want to say

that a Ferrari was compliant to the road, but it really was.

It it was really nice.

So when you and when it's bumpy, you just hit the little

the little red red button on the dash, not the start one,

because there isn't one now.

Dad had that all electronic steering wheel.

You know, it's all the haptic ones.

But but on the knob for the suspension settings

and drive mode mode.

Yeah, yeah, if you push on it, it softens the suspension

and gives you like a little a little cushier ride.

And that was great.

But yeah, I really I was conservative.

It's not my car. It's a very expensive car.

I think my house might sell for close to that.

But so it's house, car, you know, you can have the house.

I'll keep the car. But but no.

So I had it really at seventy eight, seventy nine.

I try to keep it under eighty because, you know, it's like a big

beacon of look at me, come give me a ticket.

But it was nice. It was nice cruise.

I had a bottle of water, which I think I sipped on twice.

No food.

I mean, I was really conservative.

I put a towel down because there's no French fries

between the seat and the council. No, no.

I mean, I even flicked the pebbles out of the foot well

when I was if there was anything.

I kicked my feet off before I got in.

I mean, you know, it's not my car.

And I put more miles on it than than he has by like three or four hundred.

So I was going to be me.

Yeah, the the ass seat, the the ass wear

and the Alcantara on the driver's seat was not going to be for me.

So I brushed it all out, cleaned it, detailed it.

When he got it, you said he got the green,

but you sent a picture and now I'm seeing the green.

I like it. I I like that green.

It's not what I like it.

Yeah, it's the same.

It's a very similar spec is the one on the cover of Cavalino.

I think on the last on the last quarter, it's that real bright.

It's a bright green and it's almost.

It's not. Well, I can tell people what color it is,

because your dad showed me.

We were staying at the kitchen and and he was trying to describe

the color green and he opened up the refrigerator and he goes, oh, wait.

And he pulled out a can of the Starbucks

like cold chilled coffee, you know, that's like the color green,

almost identical.

And I'm like, oh, so it's Starbucks coffee green, you know,

except it has a lot of metallic in it.

So it's the can much brighter in the sun than.

Yes, it's electric.

It really goes.

But the interior is like the is like those old chamois that that we had

for drying cars.

We grow when we grew up, not the light ones, but the more medium ones.

It's like that on the inside.

It's just beautiful.

Shami. OK. Now. Yeah, yeah.

But but there is something you're absolutely right, Erin,

about driving someone else's car.

I mean, you know, we drive press cars.

That's a whole different thing.

When you're driving someone else's personal car, I always get so nervous

because, you know, anything can go wrong.

You don't want to be the person who, you know,

mess something up or got it dirty or anything.

And I mean, I remember the time I got in somebody's Bentley

and I had a Sharpie in my back pocket without the

Craig Jackson was never so angry and is like, oh, wait,

I'm just kidding about that.

But that would be like the worst.

Wouldn't that be the worst getting somebody's car with something?

Oh, that screwdriver had in my back pocket or whatever.

You know, like you go to the auto shows like L.A.

Auto show and on the public days,

there's so much traffic in and out of those cars, people.

And then anything out there with a light colored interior.

Yeah, the seats get screwed up from blue jeans just sliding

back and forth and back and forth like the rivets, the blue ink.

Like if you have a white or cream interior,

that's going to be like street bluish by time you're done.

And and that seats ruined.

I don't know. You are so right on that.

My my Yukon, when I bought it brand new,

had that really light bone interior.

Yeah, worst thing I ever did.

And you're right, I was always cleaning it from my blue jeans.

They would have that blue tinge on the seats.

It was you got to get it.

So my truck, my lightning has like blue leather

with like a very light, not quite white, like a light gray,

almost kind of oyster inserts and perforated for the

seat heaters and coolers.

And it's not so much

me as much as the dogs jump in there.

And I've got like a like a cover for the center console

because they sit up there.

So it's got like a rubber mat that they sit on.

But just getting just every time they're in the car,

there's paw prints all over it.

It's dirty.

I in the door, I have to keep a microfiber towel

and a cleaner spray every time.

Just to clean it because I know.

And then the other thing is, is they did like

they did like a like an Alcantara of stripe in the middle.

And it's a dark blue and it bleeds.

Oh, sure. Yeah, really.

So it bleeds.

And I brought it up to the Ford guys once

where I was at a press event and the guy's like,

I'm the interior designer.

We picked the materials.

I go, I got a lightning in the leather bleeds in the middle.

It's bleeding.

He was just like, I don't know.

We picked the finest materials.

I was like, and I was just grumpy.

I was like, well, mine's bleeding. It's dumb.

So I don't know how.

Because your interior is on blood thinners.

It's right.

I don't know how long before it starts to like,

I need to cover the seats.

I have to call like a cat's skin and go, listen,

enough's enough already.

Like, I know you make new leather seat covers

for these things.

You have the molds, the patterns or whatever.

It's just like, I just need to come up with something different here

that, you know, that works.

But yeah, the light colored interior, it's tough.

You know what's strange about that?

I bought like the week my truck was brand new.

I bought the really, really good seat covers.

They're like a canvas, but they fit.

They've got the holes for the airbags.

I mean, they're really, really the best you can get.

And I thought this is going to protect them.

This is going to be so good.

But over the years, the first thing I thought was, here,

I buy a leather interior and I'm sitting on canvas.

And then the other thing was over the years,

the seat still cracked at the bolster where you get in and out

repeatedly, you know, that flexing.

And I was like, you know, why did I even do that?

You know, it was just another waste of money.

That nice restoration hardware couch.

And then he put the vinyl covers over it, like grandma.

Yeah, yeah.

Well, I bolsters you get in and out.

I guess, you know, I'm little, my truck's big is every time I do the seats,

I always do like extra conditioner to try to soften that to prevent it.

And I haven't really seen it yet.

And the trucks just almost like 20,000 miles, maybe 19,000 miles or something.

And so I'm going to keep doing it and see how long it's going to go.

But and yeah, when I do the seats at some point,

I'm not thinking like a seat cover.

I get I'm going to take the leather off and put new leather on like from Gatsgen.

Except, you know, when you go to or somebody when you go to them

and they're like, oh, we can we have a pretty decent price

because we have the templates and everything.

But my truck has like the dark blue leather looks almost black,

but it's a dark blue on the seats with with the lighter inserts.

And nobody else does that.

So I'm like, I need to get the blue leather without

the white inserts, because the blue matches everything else.

The other leather accents.

If you do black leather, then it's going to be weird.

They could just cut that out and put it in a new panel.

That's what I was thinking, too, absolutely.

Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

So I did have one incident.

I was I was I think I was around.

I was coming I was coming up by the grapevine.

I think I was I was kind of almost there.

And it took an exit and fueled up and I'm getting on the highway.

And and I'm like, you know, once you get back in the car,

because I got to say it has a ginormous fuel tank,

like 26 gallons or something.

So does it get nine miles of the gallon?

I don't know. You know what?

There is not an option in in the

like in the system kind of have no words today.

There was not an option in the infotainment system

for fuel range or miles per gallon.

And I know a couple of people have joked about this

in their reviews of that car, that it's nowhere to be found.

I could not find it.

You're not supposed to have it. It's a Ferrari.

Yeah, but I went I would have went through

my calculations exactly one one fuel tank.

I would have gone through one tank of fuel

from from Marin all the way to Dana Point.

My calculation was dead on.

So I have to say it's range is good for its size of tank,

which is massive.

But it was the first time I've been in and out of the car.

I've been sitting in the car the whole time.

So I get in the car.

And of course, I made a couple of tweaks to the seat.

And and I'm getting on the on ramp.

And I'm like, God, the steering wheel just feels way too high.

So I reached down to the center.

And I feel the big, the big, you know, the big lever

that that you would normally pull down in most cars.

And adjust the steering wheel, which you shouldn't do while you're driving.

But yeah, I'm not going to pull over again.

Well, I had to pull over again because I popped the hood.

I'm just going to say that's going to have a power.

Yeah, you know, it's come on, man.

And almost every other vehicle right down the center.

And it's that big chunky thing.

You pull on it and you move the steering wheel.

Well, yeah, this is a little knob on like an eight o'clock

on the steering column, you know, right on the side.

It's a beautiful little knurled aluminum knob.

Anyway, so I popped the hood and, of course, my blood pressure just,

you know, my veins popping out in my forehead.

I pull over immediately.

Thankfully, it pops towards it pops from from the drivers.

You know, it pops forward. Yeah.

From the front.

It went out of safety on a safety.

Hey, who knows?

But yeah, I panicked.

Hey, dad, this car is bulky.

Push it down on both sides.

And, you know, there's so many little tucks and openings for air to come through.

And it's like I'm looking at it and looking at all these weird gaps going.

Is it closed? Is it close?

Yeah, I'm unfamiliar with this car.

And I'm going as close.

I know that gap doesn't look right.

And I'm pushing on it.

Well, if you stand on it, if you stand and jump on it a little bit.

That's a good idea, man.

Yeah, maybe that girl from Instagram to stand on it.

But so, yeah, I finally got it closed and then I just launched it.

I mean, I waited till I was in a straight line and just stood on it.

And I'm like, oh, I bet it's fast.

I bet it's quick.

It is quick.

So dad calls me like 15 minutes later and he's like, so how's it going?

I'm like, it's great because he's in Hawaii.

It's three hours early and I got a real early start.

So he calls me when he gets up and I go, oh, it's great.

It's great. He goes, so did you get on it?

And I go, I go just once only because I was kind of frustrated

and I popped the hood by accident.

And he, you know, I just expect him to lose his mind.

He goes, oh, shit.

Yeah, he goes, yeah, that stuff happens.

And I'm thinking, what do you do it to?

He probably did the same thing.

Well, he probably did it in his driveway, not rolling up the fire.

Yeah, he probably did the same exact thing.

Yeah. Yeah, because he's smart.

He doesn't do it while he's driving.

And then he asked me the magic question.

He goes, so has anybody noticed you?

Like a lot of people looking at you and I go, I don't know, man.

I'm looking at the road.

I'm looking to look at other people.

I'm looking for debris.

I'm looking for coyotes, tumbleweeds,

you know, nails, rocks, whatever is coming my way.

Yeah, windows in the front.

You'll be fine. Yeah.

Yeah, it's it's the it's the stuff

you don't expect to be in the road that gets you.

Yeah, the road that the roof tiles

and who knows what pieces of the shuttle.

Who knows what's coming.

Hey, Aaron.

Does that thing have carbon fiber windshield wipers on it?

Oh, no, I saw that thing about the Porsche.

No, dad ordered a very low spec carbon fiber.

He's not a big fan.

So there wasn't a lot of carbon fiber.

Nothing on the outside, very little on the inside.

Well, you know, you can now get optional windshield wipers

that are carbon fiber.

And I think, Matt, don't you think that's something

that everyone should have?

I don't see why not.

I mean, I was thinking about it, but they don't look real.

Yeah, they didn't look real.

The picture you said.

I thought the exact.

The don't they look like some Chinese thing you'd order off of?

I thought it was like just a cover,

like the little thin cover you stick on it.

Yeah, you know, all over the winter.

So when you're when you sent the article and you're like,

these are lighter weight from Porsche.

And I'm like, but it just looks like a cover.

So it's practically a little bit more weight.

And Porsche usually has like a really fine weave,

like like you can't buy the aftermarket stuff

for your Porsche with that weave,

because it's a really nice weave that Porsche has.

And that's not that weave.

They literally look like that that hydra dip.

You know, it looks like you took them in,

you took them to the guy down the street

and you hydra dipped them to make them look like carbon.

Yeah, well, hydra dips getting pretty good

because those look good.

But you can have that option

for only a little over thirteen hundred bucks.

Oh my God. Yeah.

It's like, come on, come on.

You know what's going to happen?

Guys are going to start getting their their windshield wipers,

Jack, they're going to they're going to go to come out

and their windshield wipers be gone.

Yeah, big streaks across their windshield.

Speaking of which, ours, ours broke.

You're what? Our windshield in our in our little 9-11.

Oh, I thought you were talking about the Ferrari.

I'm I'm I'm I'm do I'm do a windshield.

Do a windshield. Yeah.

And I like that or just get a big chip.

Oh, no, no, it's like it looks like a baseball hit it.

Oh, geez. Yeah.

And and the the front lip is all all scraped up now, too,

from trying to get my wife some coffee.

So see what happens when you want coffee.

That is what I say.

Well, you know what? Bad.

But if you want coffee, you need one of my new coffee mugs.

Oh, yes. Look at that.

Fancy my speed coffee mugs, you know.

OK, where are you?

Matt's like, oh, my God, he's schlepping something else.

I saw it all over Instagram already.

It was like, oh, Brad's on to another thing.

Well, I brought back.

I'm reintroducing Bond Speed,

which started in 96 is Bonneville Speed and Supply.

It was my mail order catalog.

And we had the whole entire line of apparel.

You had tons of stuff back in the day.

I used to love looking through that catalog

because you had like a whole shop scene.

Oh, yeah, we had everything.

And we used to do photo shoots.

We we took the supplies, you know,

streamliner out to the dry lakes

and shot a whole catalog out there.

But so I'm sitting here and I'm I'm going.

It's a different world now with, you know,

so many with online and everything.

We used to have to mail out one hundred and fifty thousand catalogs,

you know, and so we're currently building a website right now.

Everything's available on eBay on our eBay store,

or you can just call an order.

But we just got it going.

But as you just said, Aaron, we had so much stuff.

And so we're reintroducing everything we ever had

plus a whole we have a whole backlog of stuff

that we never that we designed but never printed.

And so we're going to be doing that.

And you had lots of licensing, too.

And you have licensing for moon eyes and stuff back in the day.

Yeah, we did. We did a lot.

We did a lot of rap.

So come to moon eyes.

We did Tony Nancy.

We did. Let's see.

You did so by Troy Posey.

We did all kinds of stuff.

Yeah. Now, some of that stuff, we won't have the rad rides by Troy

or the Posey's or anything like that,

because we didn't renew those license.

But but we'll have a lot of great stuff

and all original artwork.

So it's it's really fun and men's and women's and the coffee cups.

Matt, as you said, we the coffee cups are much easier to do nowadays.

So we're taking a lot of our t-shirt art

and we're now making it, you know, available on coffee cups

because coffee cups are good for hot or cold.

People like them, you know, have a nice shop cup or something.

We have a lot of stuff with mustangs on it, Matt.

Yeah, can put all your can put all your paint brushes in it.

You know, I mean, I prefer Quaker State.

There you go. A Quaker State can.

We've got a cup that says that on it.

This thing's vintage, man.

I was so excited when I found this.

Oh, I'm like, oh, that's for a cup that looks just like that.

Aaron, it's an old one.

It's got paint running down the side and everything.

That's actually a good idea to do some stuff like that

where the paint's running down the side.

Oh, yeah. Well, I'll send you send you some scan.

Yeah, there we go.

So anyways, enough hot can merge.

But hey, did you hear that?

Tony, poor Tony.

Yep. Oh, we got some of those coming out, actually.

Yeah, you got to get any mugs.

Yeah, we got we got mugs. Sorry. Sorry about that one last thing.

You know, not coffee mugs, but, you know,

walking and drinking mugs and stuff.

Yeah.

The that Lea Pruitt's getting back in the seat for 2026.

She's getting back in the top fueler.

The question is, will Tony lose his seat to her

or will they have a second car?

Well, it's his team.

So I guess he could decide, can he?

Exactly. And he's doing so damn good.

I mean, last episode, we talked about how he's the,

you know, the end of regular season champion

going into the points run.

So, you know, maybe he just wanted to prove it.

And then she comes back.

I honestly, I don't know about you guys.

I honestly wasn't sure if Lea was going to come back.

And the reason I mean is she had gotten involved

in other parts of the team, the analytics

and all the looking at that stuff with the crew.

And I thought maybe she decided to be a mom, you know,

and she wasn't going to race.

Like some of the, you know, God,

my mind just went blank, guys.

Some of the force girls.

Force, that's exactly what I was thinking.

Yes, some of the force girls.

So, but good for her.

She's coming back.

And are you guys looking forward to that?

Or what do you think?

Yeah, I'd love to see her back in the car.

My guess is Tony's going to be in the car as well.

They're going to figure it out.

I think so too.

Yeah.

I think they're going to get one of those,

those two-seaters like Larry Dixon has

and that way they can both race, you know?

Well, if you think about it, you know,

they're they're such a great couple together

that and he's a team owner.

He's going to be there anyway.

Yeah, right?

Like it wasn't like he was going to be unable

to attend the races and want to do other stuff.

I think his plan was to be there anyway.

Like this is what he's doing now,

even if he just does this for a few years.

I don't know, but he's kind of all in on this.

So I think I think he will probably

still be in the car for a while.

Now, I agree.

I think the guy's amazing.

He amazes me.

First of all, he's so nice and so genuine,

even after all of his success and everything.

But it's the success.

The guy can drive anything.

It's not like, oh, he's kind of good at it.

No, he's really, really done well with Top Fuel,

which is nothing like a Sprint car,

which is nothing like an Indy car, which it's just amazing.

It really is.

But at the same time, Ron, he has jumped in a Sprint car

and done very well at times.

And he drives this funny car.

And so I don't know.

Maybe it's just that whole mentality

and having the ability to react quick.

Yeah, so much of it has to just be the conditioning, too.

I mean, of course, there's talent in there.

But these athletes are so conditioned for speed and reflexes

and just having that ability to see.

You would think you could put them in anything.

And once they get acclimated, they're off and running.

Impressive stuff.

You know, we were talking about your dad's Ferrari.

But Matt had some information on that new Ferrari Testarosa.

The redhead.

Tell us about that, Matt, because the Testarosa was always

one of those dream cars.

When it first came out, the first year had the big mirror.

It was on Miami Vice.

Everybody, every guy that I knew was like, oh, man,

a Testarosa, you know, the redhead.

That's what we wanted.

Until they found out about the servicing.

Yeah, exactly.

Yeah, right?

So the SF90, which they've had out,

this is the successor to the SF90.

It's called the 849 Testarosa.

It's 1,035 horsepower.

It is a hybrid.

So it has a twin-turbo V8.

And then, I believe, three electric motors,

I think, on the one on each front wheel

and on the transmission.

And blistering fast.

The numbers are there.

It's incredible.

It's 0 to 60 in 2.25 seconds is Ferrari was specific.

0 to 62 in 2.25 seconds.

And it runs 960s in the quarter mile.

Damn, really.

960s in the quarter mile.

960 at 145 miles an hour.

Wow.

Gee.

A nine-second streetcar used to be, like, you know,

not even something you could really drive, you know?

I mean, nine-second streetcars were, like, it had to be tubbed.

It was a drag race car.

Like, it was a big deal.

It was a huge cam.

It was just, you know, it's just, you know,

full tube frame chassis and the whole thing.

And now it's just like, ah, you just buy a Ferrari drive.

You drive down the street.

You put pump gas and it runs 960s.

Anyway, the numbers are there.

Performance is there.

I don't quite get, like, I don't really

love some of Ferrari's direction on the design here.

I think this is kind of an odd-looking car.

I know when you get up on it and you

see all the fine details and how

the air flows through it and the craftsmanship and all

of that, you're like, it's cool.

It's cool.

But like, first of all, it's a little weird-looking.

And then you call it a Testerosa.

And then you put an 8-cylinder in it instead of a 12-cylinder

and you're calling it a Testerosa.

They just came out with the one that looks like the Daytona,

the 12-cylindry.

I was like, oh, OK.

Which I love that car.

It's a great-looking car.

It's definitely better looking.

It's along those lines, you know?

Yeah, it's not as good looking as the 599 and the 812, in my opinion.

That era is gone.

Yeah, that era is gone.

But if you're going to do a front engine 12-cylinder,

OK, Daytona, right?

You do the 12-cylindry, you make it look like a Daytona.

But I don't know, you bring the Testerosa back

for an 8-cylinder car?

Not sure.

Well, I think what they're doing

is they're saying it has the horsepower, so it doesn't.

But where I even have more of a problem

is you call it the Testerosa.

What is the very first thing you think of when

you think of Testerosa?

Movers.

Miami-ize.

The gills down the side, right?

And that's non-existent.

In fact, from the front, this car looks more like a boxer

than it does in the older boxer.

The BB-12, it really doesn't evoke.

And isn't this the car that they had Lewis Hamilton,

he was involved in in helping develop and design?

Oh, I don't know.

I read an article that he was fanatical about the Testerosa,

the original one, and that they actually,

he wanted to be part of helping develop the successor.

I thought I had heard that.

I heard that, too.

I just don't know if this is the end product.

Right, right.

Because at one point he said he wanted

to go back with Ferrari and develop a manual transmission

car.

I don't know if that was ever going to happen.

Ferrari might have been just like, yeah,

stop saying that in the press because it's not going to happen.

Yeah, shut up, man.

Shut up.

We pay you a lot.

Be quiet.

Yeah.

Yeah, we pay you to be quiet, too.

849 Testerosa Coupe is $540,000 sticker,

but that's pre-tariff.

So just know that your car is going to cost a lot more.

Just like my buddy who just got his Lamborghini,

I don't know if I mentioned it here on the show,

his was the last one to get in pre-tariff.

The guy after him had a $75,000 tariff on his car.

It's just such a mess.

Such a mess.

It's quite crazy that you could buy your car.

You know you're going to have plates that are going to be like

$60,000, and then you get hit with, oh, yeah,

and there's also that tariff that just raised the price.

Yeah, I know I need a clutch on my Defender.

I didn't do it.

So now it's going to be a tariff clutch.

So that $5,000 job just got a lot more expensive.

What I don't like is that it's a tariff clutch,

even if it's sitting on the shelf

and it's been there for a year.

Yeah, right?

People raise the prices anyway.

Well, their methodology is that, well,

I have to replace that one, that city on the shelf,

with one that's going to have a tariff.

Yeah, I'm telling you.

And the tariffs go away, maybe.

The prices aren't.

The prices are here to stay.

Yeah, you're right.

We watch that happen with groceries and Tahoe and fuel

and Tahoe after COVID, when everything got all jacked up,

they never came down.

They never came down.

No, COVID changed everything in our world.

We're still living it.

And it's never, it's just crazy.

I noticed that yesterday with all the potholes

and all the road work and everything,

it's just like it's become this pattern now.

It's like that's just the way things are now.

And it takes forever in a small town.

It's like potholes are a big deal.

Potholes caused me to sell some of the cars that I had

while living up here.

And then we got that little Porsche.

And now I'm like, you know what?

I'm just going to take this down the hill

and leave it at the hangar, because it terrifies me

to drive this thing up here in Tahoe.

Matt, is Aaron starting to sound like that old guy

down the street or?

Hey, that's OK.

That's OK.

I'm starting to understand those old guys down the street.

Yeah, exactly how you start to understand those kids.

What are they thinking?

You know, it's like, although I got, well, let's see.

Actually, before I get into it,

let's we're due for a quick break.

Why don't we why don't we take a take a break?

You know, Matt, I'll second that.

So it's going to happen.

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And we're back.

We're back.

So I went-

Did you remember to wash your hands?

I went to, we went to go pick up some food or something.

We took the dogs for a ride and went to pick up some food.

And bookies prevalent.

The parking lot of this shopping center is full.

And there's a sushi restaurant next to where we were going.

We didn't go there, but.

And this guy pulls up in a brand new black Porsche 911 Turbo S.

Right?

Gorgeous car.

Yeah.

Pulls up, parks in the handicap spot.

And I'm like, I don't see the blacker.

But I was like, yeah, maybe he's got the plate on it.

Maybe he's just like, I don't want to get in the way,

but I'm just going to park here for a second.

I'm just going to go pick up some takeout or whatever.

The guy gets out of the car.

And, and yeah, I'm going to be a little mean.

He's, he's this older fat white guy wearing like a fucking

tracksuit and he's blasting Everlast on his phone,

on speakerphone as he gets into the car.

So he has like a theme song when his fat ass gets out of

the car.

Oh man.

He has a theme song.

Right?

Like, like he's some kind of, I don't know.

What?

Don't you guys play the theme for Mission Impossible

whenever you walk in a room?

No.

So now, coincidentally, dad stuff plays every time we walk

in a room.

We do have a soundtrack.

He does have a soundtrack.

So he's walking toward the sushi restaurant.

And I see he waves to two of his buddies and he's like,

yeah, he's like here.

I'm over here.

I was like, oh, you're not getting takeout.

You're going to go get a table.

And then Tammy walks over and I was like, hey, it's like,

hold the leashes here for a second.

I just want to look at the back of this guy's car real

quick to see if he's got the plate, you know, for the,

for the.

Right, the matching plate, yeah.

You know, for the disabled person's whatever parking

plate and he doesn't.

I was and I was like, it's fine.

It's just I get it.

It's like that stuff all over the Internet with the

crazy lady who's took the baseball from the kid and she's

like a Karen making a whole thing.

And she's all over.

I'm like, you certainly don't want to be that person.

But I'm like, the parking lot is full.

There's one handicap spot and you parked your fucking

Porsche there.

And that's why everybody's mad at people like you is

yeah, this sense of entitlement that you have

because you're this rich, fat, white guy driving

your $250,000 Porsche.

I was just like, it's just before tariffs.

Yeah, before tariffs.

Yeah, but you know what?

I became super sensitive to handicap parking places when

my mom lived with me and she was because I realized that I

needed that space for her so that she can get into

wherever we're going, you know, into the skate rink or you

know, she needed help getting into her surfing outfit

so she goes surfing or whatever.

And no, I mean, very seriously.

Skydiving.

Whatever.

No, but she did not have the energy to walk clear back

20 spaces.

She needed that.

And you would see that all the time.

And I have some friends that have handicap spaces that

I mean, handicap like things that hand through their mirror.

Just so when they go to special events and I go,

dude, don't do that.

Don't do that.

Yeah, not cool.

Not cool.

You know, and I'm just like, that's not cool.

And I just, you know, it's bad.

But anyway, I didn't do anything.

I didn't say anything.

I'm not that person, but it was just a douchey move.

Yeah.

And I don't know.

If I known he was going to go into the restaurant

and sit down and have a meal, I probably would have been

like, come on, man, don't be that guy.

You should have just waited for that and said,

hey, who's got the black Porsche out here?

You know, the one in the handicap space and the jumps up

and goes, oh, well, it doesn't look like you're very handicap,

dude.

You know, I mean.

Well, you know, also it's like nothing's going to happen.

That guy's fine.

And then I'll get a ticket for something stupid on the way

home, you know, that I can't afford.

And he's fine.

And my luck would be I'd make a big deal out of it

and like go into the restaurant and the guy'd pull up his track

shoot pant leg, track suit pant leg.

And he'd have like from the knee down a fake leg or something.

I'd be like, oh, my mistake.

But he didn't have the placard.

It didn't have the license plate.

So fake leg or not.

He's waiting for it to come.

He just got in that restaurant.

He seemed fine to me.

But I tell you, I'm in good health

and it's hard to get in out of that car.

Getting in, you kind of fall in a little bit.

And getting out, I have to kind of get the momentum

first.

If I don't, then I really look like I shouldn't have a placard.

Maybe one day you'll earn the placard.

Well, I was just going to say, if you have a placard,

then that is not the car for you.

Let me tell you because it's a hard car to get in and out of.

You have anything going on.

It's not easy.

So yeah.

I drive press cars all the time and half of them,

I can't get in and out without throwing my hip out

or something.

But I suck it up.

It's like when you see some dude with a raised truck

on 44-inch tires and he's got a placard and you go,

wait a minute, wait a minute, there's no way.

Yeah, and then this arn comes out of the back.

I saw one of those trucks and I went up to the guy

and I went, you know what?

That is a hell of a badass system.

He's like, thanks, bro.

It's like this whole thing came out

and grabbed his contraption.

I mean, it was pretty state of the art, man.

Yeah.

He had a big lifted truck.

I was really impressed.

Speaking of doing things that you're not supposed to be doing,

you're not really supposed to anywhere in the world

drive an F1 car on the freeway.

I thought you were going to say use dish soap

when you're washing your car.

You're not supposed to do that unless you

want to remove the wax.

Well, just a little side note.

At Dad's warehouse on the shelf,

I left his thing of yellow dish soap

right next to the old wash bucket that he used to use

when he washed the cars on rare occasions.

That used to be the way people did it.

That used to be the way if it.

You get out the joy back when it was.

I think that's what it was.

Anyway, all right.

Yeah, don't drive a F1 car.

Have a lemon fresh scent on your car.

You don't use Dawn?

I mean, if it works on the birds with the oil.

Well, that's Dawn.

Yeah, that gets the bugs off the front.

But no, we ran across an article.

Now, I remember seeing this several times where somewhere

in Europe, some guy was on YouTube

and he was driving an F1 car.

So cool.

It turns out it's actually not an actual F1 car,

even though it's painted like Schumacher's Marlboro car

and everything like that.

But it's the one right below, the entry into.

But damn, it looks and sounds like an F1 car.

Did you guys watch the video?

No, I didn't get the chance to get that.

When he pulls into the shell station,

does that thing sound wicked or what?

I mean, he's blipping the throttle

and there's a F40, a Mercia logo, and a ZR1 Corvette

that are trailing along.

And it looks like a Volvo in front of him

with a camera guy in it.

And this guy would just slip out of his garage,

take his Formula One car, and zip around on the freeway,

get videos of it, and then hide the car again.

And the police saw the videos, but they never caught him.

And they said that they had video from traffic cameras,

but he's in a full face helmet.

So they couldn't even identify him.

They had to catch him in action.

So-

I loved that this is in the Czech Republic.

Honey, it's in the Czech Republic.

Yes, the Czech Republic.

That's exactly right.

The guy driving his F1 car on the street.

So he evaded police for six years.

And then this to me is the funny part.

They used to track the cameras.

They find him, they go to his house,

and he starts losing his shit.

And he's like, you can't be here.

This is private property.

This is my car's private property.

At this point, aren't you just like, oh man.

Wow.

It was like, I ran it for six years.

We had fun.

We did some YouTube videos.

It was wildly illegal.

You caught me.

But instead he was like, how dare you catch me?

That's the part where I'm like, come on, man.

Like at one point you're just like, yes, I did it.

It's me.

I'm sorry.

And why wouldn't you just say

my F1 car hasn't left the garage?

It must have been Matt down the street with his F1.

Yeah.

Everyone here has an F1 car.

It couldn't have been me.

Instead he was throwing a fit about it and making a fuss.

I was like, come on, man.

You got caught.

Just over it.

And the cop was telling them they

were going to crush the car and everything like that.

However, it did say later in the article, if you read it,

that his fines totaled $480.

And he lost his driver's privileges for a year.

So they weren't going to crush the car, which was good.

But I'm impressed by something entirely different.

I'm impressed that this guy was

able to tune that car and drive it on the street.

Because that's not an easy feat right there

with one of those motors, you know?

Yeah.

I mean, that's.

Yes, those are there really easy to stall the clutch, huh?

Oh, yeah.

And I didn't notice.

Did you notice if you had rain tires on it or slicks?

Oh, I didn't notice.

Yeah.

But when he left the gas station in the video,

it was like he was leaving a pit stop.

It was so cool.

He jumped on it.

Those look like tires.

It's very, very cool.

From the thumbnail, they look like slicks.

There's no grooves.

They look pretty smooth.

I don't know.

I'd do it.

It's sketchy and cool.

It just puts a smile on your face,

because it's what everybody dreams of.

I've always heard over the years,

and from the horse's mouth, actually, Tony Nancy,

the famous drag racer, when Bob Peterson, who

owned Hot Rod Magazine, where the Peterson Museum is now.

That used to be Macy's department store,

and across the street was, I believe, the May Company,

where the museum is now.

And Bob Peterson owned the building.

And so they were having some kind of a promotion

for Hot Rod Magazine.

And he had Tony Nancy bring his top fuel dragster down

to Wilshire Boulevard.

And he said, why don't we have you as part of this party?

I'll get the street blocked off, and you

do a burnout up the street.

Nobody ever considered, between those two glass-fronted

buildings, the vibrations, they shattered every window

in both the shoppings.

And Tony said, it was the coolest thing I was doing.

Burnout up the street.

And he goes, people told me it was like following me.

It was almost like in a movie or something.

He goes, they would shatter after I went past it.

He goes, they just went, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom.

And he goes, Bob graciously paid for all the repairs

and everything.

And he goes, oh my gosh.

Back in the day when you could.

Yes.

You could get that permit.

You could pay for all that glass.

Nowadays, good luck.

I think Ron Kapps just posted something like that

he's saying about drag race.

And you survive it.

And it showed the aluminum bleachers.

And everybody's phone was vibrating off.

Oh, yeah.

It's so true.

If you've never experienced it, when those suckers go by,

man, it compresses your chest and takes your breath away.

When you're up in the bleachers,

like way up in the bleachers, just the sound concussion

is brutal, man.

It's so cool.

Every time I take somebody to a drag race that's never been,

they don't understand.

I'm like, hit the earplugs and push them into your ears

when the car drives.

And then the car drives.

And they're like so frazzled.

And they're running and taking cover.

They're like, what's happening?

It's when their guts vibrate.

And they go, whoa, that side's working.

Yeah.

It can be really uncomfortable depending

on where you are and what type of cars are running.

It's gnarly.

And it is.

It's that sound concussion.

I believe that's the right terminology.

It's that same noise that an EV makes.

Oh, god.

Apparently.

No, the same noise my dog makes when he sleeps.

Yeah.

Well, OK.

So they're directly opposite, an EV.

And an EV doesn't make any noise.

I mean, yes, they kind of put some in.

I'm trying to think what car it is.

I just saw it the other day.

It makes kind of a beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, beep.

I moved Dad's e-tron.

He has one of those Audi e-trons.

Yeah.

That's a pretty neat car.

He's telling it.

But I wouldn't mind experiencing that car.

It's pretty neat.

But I just moved it forward so I could, you know,

as a garage is small inside.

And it made some tron noises, man.

That thing was like, it was kind of neat.

But yeah, I definitely went and say it broke and it

didn't have a sound concussion.

Well, did you hear about the guy in Minnesota, Aaron?

So what the hell is up with this cop?

Pulled him over and wrote him a ticket for excessive noise,

mufflers that weren't to code, and basically.

And blocked license plate or something.

He had license plate.

He pulled over the wrong car.

Clearly, he pulled over the wrong car.

No, no, no.

So what happens is he pulled over the Dodge Charger EV.

And that has the crazy, fake exhaust sound on it.

And you can make it quiet and normal and loud.

And presumably, he was driving it in track mode

to make it super loud.

And the cop pulled him over.

And the cop pulled him over and the guy was like, it's an EV.

It doesn't have exhaust.

And the cop's response was, I want to get this right.

He said, I'm not going to argue with you.

And then he handed him the ticket.

So he probably was making a lot of noise.

If the ticket says it was loud muffler,

then maybe he can go to court and fight it.

But the other issue is this guy has been ticketed before

in other cars for loud exhaust.

So he did it intentionally.

I think he was trying to push the limit here.

I mean, I don't read the article and go, oh my god,

this cop's a ball buster.

And he's going after this guy.

I'm like, nah, I think this guy was.

I get it.

The guy tried to claim that he pulled out with a group of cars.

And it must have been one of the carbureted cars.

I get it.

The gas cars.

But yeah, he had it on track mode.

He made it sound.

But he's fighting that because the ticket actually

says mufflers or loud exhaust.

He goes, I don't have either.

How can you write me a ticket?

Well, listen, 100%, I would too.

If you could win out of technicality,

then beat them out of technicality.

And some officers, once they've committed to having

to give you a ticket or something,

they give you little Easter eggs in there.

They give you little errors so that you can go in there

and basically get it thrown out.

I saw someone's ticket recently.

And I had a heart that, instead of an O or something,

in part of a code, it had a heart.

So I messaged one of my other CHP buddies.

And I'm like, what is the heart?

Like, what code is the heart?

I know what the circle with a dot in the middle is.

Never had one, personally.

What's that?

Oh, it means asshole, supposedly.

Back in the day, if they put a circle with a dot in it

somewhere on the ticket, it means you were being an asshole.

You were being an asshole.

But supposedly, I never got that kind of thing.

What's the heart?

And it's not confirmed.

I don't know.

I talked to him twice.

Had a pretty smile.

Yeah, right?

Maybe he means.

And he was totally hot.

Whoa, wait a minute, Alex.

Wrong ticket, buddy.

Okay.

Yeah, so I'm curious.

So yeah, there is little things.

One of them, a ticket that I had,

I forget now in high school,

had my card listed as a fiat.

And it was now for a mail.

And I got off.

I mean, the judge was like,

I said, your honor, this,

I have an out for a mail.

This clearly says fiat.

And he goes, okay.

And he wrote it off and I walked out of the court going,

whoa, it worked.

So, you know, I mean.

Hi, dog.

Yeah.

Well, I got one last thing to talk about today, guys.

And it's a Vega.

And you know, me and Vega's.

Yeah.

You know, there's one.

Your mental name should have been Vega.

There's one coming up for auction.

And I would love,

if I had extra money sitting around to spend,

I would, and space,

it might be something for the right price

that I would consider.

Now, Aaron, do you know who Smokey Yonek was?

No, I was looking at the article.

I'm not, but I'm not.

You know Smokey Yonek was?

Yeah, Smokey Yonek.

Okay, so he was a very famous car builder,

tuner, NASCAR guy, racing guy.

But he was one of these guys who used his brain, okay?

For instance, he had a 66 Chevelle

that he campaigned in NASCAR back in 66.

You know how I put that together, don't you?

And the car was famous

because it was faster than every other car on the track.

And people started looking at it closer and closer

and NASCAR thought, this guy's gotta be cheating.

And as he always said, it's not cheating.

It's just interpreting the rules.

Well, the first thing they noticed was the bumpers,

back then, you know, the cars were real cars.

I mean, and they had steel bumpers on them.

Well, he had cut them short

and like how hot rodders do today,

sucked the bumpers right into the body

so that there wasn't an air pocket there.

Give it a little bit, but they thought

that's not enough advantage.

And back then, one of the things they would do is,

and they still do it today, but they had a profile.

They would put this big cut out

and it had to match the profile

so that they couldn't lean the windshield back more

than all the other cars

or they couldn't do things like that.

What they finally found out at towards the end

of the season, I think there was two races to go,

was yes, he had cheated, kind of.

He didn't do any of the things I talked about,

but what they did is they took three inches

of the car down the center, then welded it back together

so it was narrower than every other car

and they never checked that.

They only checked the profile of the car.

They never checked the width of the car

and that's how smart this guy was.

He was the first one to use cowl induction,

something that you know from muscle cars

that the air, when it hits the windshield,

it's forced into the air cowl

where your windshield wipers used to be.

And he thought, wait a minute,

I can get Ram air induction.

If I make my air cleaner, if I seal it

and I seal it, not only the air cleaner itself,

but then seal it to that area of the firewall

and as the air hits, it's just gonna ram it right in

and give me a couple more horsepower.

He had brilliant ideas.

Well, what this all leading up to is he built a Vega

and this Vega is coming up for auction

and it was just something, one of his projects,

back in 72 he built this

and it has a turbocharged four cylinder in it

and it has a turbo 350 motor

and other than that, it looks pretty stock

other than the same spoiler

and duct tail front spoiler

and a duct tail spoiler on the back lid,

pretty much like my motion car has

but it's just super clean.

It only has 15,000 miles.

Hard miles, drag miles, right?

I think it was like just a project car

maybe drove it around a little bit.

It's the funny thing about those Vegas

they never get a lot of miles on them

if they're really cool.

I don't know what they're on.

Well Brad, you know, it's funny

that you mentioned this article too

cause there's a, it's not bright gold

it's more of that dark dusty gold, you know?

Yeah, that was his trademark black and gold, yes.

Oh, okay. Well, there's a darker kind of dusty gold

Vega wagon, right?

For sale.

And I keep, it keeps popping up

on my Facebook marketplace

and it was a drag car.

So it's all, it's tubbed or mini-tubbed

and I gotta say it's pretty cool looking.

Like- There's some neat ones out there.

It is, like the way the wagon part works

it's kind of cool looking in a quirky way

and it's cheap, it's like 4,300 bucks or something

and I keep looking at it going,

I don't know man, that's kind of cool.

Like, it's kind of like you go down the street

and the right people are gonna really appreciate that car

cause I like wagons.

I think wagons are quirky.

Hey, we could have a Vega,

we could have a Vega drag off Aaron.

I know, right?

So, but I keep thinking of everything

I keep forgetting to send it to you.

So when I see it I'll send it to you so you can see.

I'm pretty sure it's a Vega.

I don't think it's a Pinto.

I think it was a Vega.

You know, drag cars, but there were some.

There were some street machines and drag cars.

If I'm mistaken and it was a Pinto,

to me they looked the same.

So.

Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha.

All right everybody,

you guys got anything else today?

No.

Not on hand.

All right, well it's good having you back Aaron.

Thank you, thank you.

It's good to be back.

I miss you guys strangely enough.

Everybody check out our social media,

check out our website and we appreciate you listening.

Tell your friends about us.

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You know, we've kind of stabilized.

We're not getting any new listeners.

All you guys are supporting us a lot.

So please tell your friends about it.

Maybe, you know, repost some of our posts

and stuff like that so that more people find out

about shift in stairs.

So we could, we could use.

It's fun.

We've been doing this, what are we,

how many episodes do we have?

Five, 40 something.

This is episode 535.

Yeah, 535 and how many years, Matt?

Feels like 10 years.

Oh, more than that.

I think we're 12, 12 years or something.

I don't know.

It's been a long time.

Yeah, so we've been doing this a while.

I remember I was just getting my driver's license

when we started.

So it's been a while.

I wasn't even born yet when we started.

Yeah, right.

All right, everybody.

We'll be back next time and that's a promise.

Not a threat, pals.

Leah Pruett Back in 2026, F1 on Highway, Ferrari 849 - Shift & Steer EP535

Land Rover Defender

Ford F-150 Lightning

Porsche 911

Ford Mustang

Ferrari Testarosa

Volvo 960

Chevrolet Corvette

Ferrari F40

Audi Etron

Dodge Charger

Chevrolet Chevelle

Chevrolet Vega

About this episode

Original notes