The Ferrari Challenge Stradale is a special version of the Ferrari 360 that is built for racing and high performance. It's lighter and faster than the standard model, which makes it very desirable for car enthusiasts.
The Chevrolet Monte Carlo is a classic car that was made for many years and is known for being stylish and fun to drive. Many people remember it fondly because it was popular in the past.
Carbon racing seats are special car seats made from a lightweight material called carbon fiber. They help keep you secure while driving fast and make the car lighter, which is better for speed.
The Ferrari 575 is a luxury sports car made by Ferrari. It has a strong engine and is designed for both speed and comfort, making it a popular choice for car enthusiasts.
Shaughnessy Overland Express is a company that helps transport cars, especially fancy or valuable ones. They take special care to make sure the cars are safe and well-handled during the move.
High-end sports cars are expensive and fast cars that are built for performance. They are usually made by luxury brands and are known for their speed and handling.
The Chevrolet Express is a big van that can carry a lot of people or cargo. It's often used by businesses because it's strong and has plenty of space inside.
EBITDA is a way to measure how much money a company makes from its regular business activities, without including costs like taxes and interest. It's often used to see how well a company is doing financially.
EV means Electric Vehicle, which is a car that runs on electricity instead of gasoline. They are often seen as better for the environment because they produce fewer emissions.
Government subsidies are money that the government gives to help businesses or people. For example, they might help car companies that make electric cars to sell them at lower prices.
The early age of automobiles was when cars were first being made and sold. Many new companies were starting up, hoping to make money by selling cars, just like what is happening now with electric vehicles.
The Lucid Gravity is a new electric SUV that will be very fancy and full of technology. It's designed to be a good option for people who want a luxury car that is also good for the environment.
The Fisker Karma is a fancy hybrid car that runs on both electricity and gasoline. It was known for its stylish look but had some problems during production.
Bring a Trailer is a website where people can buy and sell classic cars through auctions. It's known for having a lot of interesting cars and a community of car enthusiasts.
The LS1 is a type of V8 engine made by General Motors that is known for being powerful and lightweight. Many car enthusiasts use it to replace older engines in their cars to make them faster.
The Porsche 917 is a famous race car that won a lot of big races in the 1970s. It's known for being really fast and is considered one of the best cars ever made for racing.
The Subaru WRX is a small car that is built for speed and can handle different types of weather because it has all-wheel drive. It's popular with people who like to drive fast and enjoy racing.
The Mazda Miata is a small, sporty car that people love to drive because it's fun and easy to handle. Some people even change its engine to make it faster, which is a popular thing to do with this car.
The Porsche 944 is a sporty car from the 80s and 90s that people like because it handles well and is more affordable than other Porsches. Many fans enjoy changing its engine to make it faster.
M96 and M97 are types of engines used in some Porsche cars. They are known for being powerful, but some people say they can have problems that make them expensive to fix.
Chavis Performance Engineering is a business that helps car owners replace their car's engine with a different one, specifically for certain Porsche models.
A rotary engine is a special kind of engine that works differently from regular engines. It spins around instead of using pistons, which makes it smaller and lighter but can be harder to fix.
Backstreet Performance is a business that helps people change the engines in their cars to make them faster or more reliable. They are especially good at putting in GM engines.
The Chevrolet Corvette is a well-known sports car from America that is famous for being fast and stylish. Many people like to customize it, including changing its engine to make it even more powerful.
The M96 and M97 are types of engines used in some Porsche cars. They are flat-six engines, which means the cylinders are arranged flat, and they have unique features that affect how well the car performs.
The M96 engine is a type of engine used in some Porsche cars. It's a flat-six engine, which means the cylinders are arranged in a flat layout, giving it a special sound and performance.
The BMW M3 is a special version of a regular BMW car that is made for speed and performance. It's popular among car enthusiasts because it drives really well and can be modified to be even better.
The Jeep Wrangler is a tough-looking car that can drive on rough roads and trails. People love it for its ability to go off-road and for how easy it is to change and customize.
The Honda Odyssey is a family minivan that has a lot of room for kids and their stuff. It's known for being reliable and is a good choice for families who need space.
The BMW X3 is a luxury SUV that is good for families and people who want a comfortable ride. It has a nice interior and is designed to be versatile for different activities.
The Nissan Murano is a mid-sized SUV that looks nice and is comfortable to drive. It's a good option for families because it has plenty of space and features for everyday use.
The Ford Mustang GTD is a special version of the classic Mustang that is built for speed and better handling. It's made for people who love fast cars and want an exciting driving experience.
The Lamborghini Huracan is a super-fast sports car that looks really cool and has a powerful engine. It's a luxury car that many people dream of owning because of its speed and style.
The Scion xB is a small car that looks like a box and is great for city driving. It's popular because it's affordable and has a lot of space inside for passengers and cargo.
LIVE
Welcome to Switchcast season six. We are approaching the end of this season, just a few more delicious
episodes and then on to season seven, likely after a small vacation. Switchcast is the podcast
where we know what we're talking about despite evidence to the contrary. The evidence has
not been made public yet, though. It's and you know, I don't think it's necessary. I think, you
know, we're here for the fun. We people need no need to know details how accurate we are. We're
fun. Absolutely. Absolutely. This is my cohost Tyler Sanders. I am, of course, your other cohost
Doug Tabott, co-co manager and co-manager. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Just like, just like the office
and our producer, Ethan Huffnagle. He's like the, I was going to make an office reference. Who's
the CFO? Never mind. Oh, David Wallace. David Wallace. Thank you. Thank you. He's the David
Wallace here. Pops in every now and then and tries to make sure we don't go off the rails.
And he's generally pretty annoyed when we do go off the rails. There's a sigh. There's been a head
lowering. I gotta say, Patreon has it good. I was reviewing one of our videos, which I don't
often do. I don't like watching myself. I'm amazed you guys like watching me or listening to me.
But anyway, I noticed he cut some of my jokes. It was that good. Oh, yeah. So what you're paying
for on Patreon, you're getting unfiltered, unedited. Did I do that? I think so. Ethan's like,
who me? I would never. No, I would never. Saving face, Doug. I'm saving face. Oh, no. They don't
know what they're missing. If you enjoy this podcast, please help us out with the algorithms,
like, subscribe, share, review. It all helps us out and helps other people see the podcast. Please
also support our sponsors and or sign up for Patreon where you get exclusive content.
As mentioned before, unedited shows live if you want to. If you're not busy on Tuesday evenings.
And bonus episodes. Our Patreon topic this week is paid or incentivized car reviews. Are they
worth it? Find out more at 11. Is it truly unbiased? I think we answered our own question
with that question. But we are truly unbiased here. Yeah. Nobody paying us for our opinion or,
you know, to buy our opinion. They have tried. But the amounts were too small.
Yeah, if I'm going to sell my soul, it'd be worth it.
Okay, so you laugh. The amount of times that people have asked me to do unscrupulous things,
sometimes little, just like, Hey, can you change this amount on the bill of sale so that
I don't have to pay as much taxes?
No point. And the worst ones were somebody tried to pay me to not publish information that I had
regarding damage on a GT3RS that nobody else knew about. And somebody who owned the car tried
to offer me money to not publish it. But all the people who were interested in buying the car
didn't want to pay me for the information either. Like they're benefiting from it. I'm saving their
butt yet they want it for free. But then the like it's worth more to be unscrupulous than to be
scrupulous, right? Anyway. So he actually offered me money every other time. It's just been like,
Hey, can you do this thing and put your integrity online and potentially do something illegal for
which you could go to jail? Can you just just do it to do me a solid? So I can save a few
grand on sales tax, right? And I kind of want to be like, Okay, I'm not going to do it anyway.
But like if I was, my integrity would have a price. I'm not just going to like give it away
for free. Like you want to at least offer me half of what you're saving. And even then it's probably
not enough. No, it's not. But still, there is no amount that's enough. However, at least, at least
tempt me. Yeah, there's got to be a benefit to it.
What is fueling this podcast, Tyler? Well, today we've got some
and Doug has left the building. We're going to drink some Knob Creek 18. Oh boy. Oh no,
I forgot about this. I might need a wine. Is it so old that you can't get the cork out?
I've, oh, progress is maybe being made. Oh no. I might need a wine key, Doug.
I have had this. So this is a batch one Knob Creek 18, which is a few years old at this point.
He's struggling. He's struggling.
Might we need to pause the show to get a wine? We are not moving on until he gets this.
We are not moving on. I'll like destroy my hands. Yeah, I need a wine key.
We need a background music. You just call me a quitter. We're cue the Jeopardy soundtrack.
I'll have to find a royalty free iteration of Jeopardy. Does that exist? Yeah, somewhere.
Who is hosting Jeopardy now? I believe it's still Ken Jennings, isn't it? I don't know.
Who is Ken Jennings? He was the guy from like 2004, 2000, I might be. Oh, he won it a bajillion
times. He was one of the greats. I think he didn't win the most money, but he had the longest
running streak, or at least he did for a while. Gotcha. Is it better or worse than the who's
line is it anyway? Transition from Drew Carey to... What was her name? Who's hosting it now?
I can't think of her name.
What a great run that show had with Drew. What a funny show. Aisha Tyler.
Okay. It's got to be better than that transition. Drew Carey is irreplaceable. Wasn't there somebody
before her that was a host? No, it went off the air for a while, and when they brought it back,
in its new format, shoot, she was the host. I didn't even know it was still on.
Okay. All right. Well... Oh, here we go. He is back with a corkscrew.
I appreciate you guys vamping for me. We'll see if I can... I should have done this upstairs.
So I wasn't... Are the cameras rolling, Ethan?
That's good.
I don't need somebody giving me a hard time for this. Yes.
Oh, such a weak cork pop. After all that. All that. Wow. Wow.
But anyway, Doug, I think you might enjoy this. This is only 100 proof. 18 year old Knob Creek.
It's delicious. You're not supposed to tell me the proof. Ah, shoot. I messed up. I'm fired.
This is my thing. I don't know the notes or the whatever. What are other fancy whiskey words?
The... I mean, the notes are usually just what I call it. I'm just gonna leave. Should I just
leave this in the know with the wine can? Hints and allegations. Well, we learned about
Aisha Tyler while you were gone. Not really. Nice. Okay, let's talk about cars. Ethan,
does this look down? Going downhill fast. Does this? No, it's good. No, it's good. All right.
All right. Talk of the internet. Meekum is auctioning off, I believe, at no reserve,
the Bachman Ferrari collection, which is a famous Ferrari collector. Yes, offered at no reserve.
42 different cars, mostly Ferraris. And boy, is it a collection of interesting taste. Almost
everything is either red or yellow or red and yellow. There's also some yellows and like a blue
and there's like a green, which you'd think maybe I'd like, but it's...
It's not a metallic green. Yes. The standout cool car, I think, is the extra Campionario
non-standard exterior. It's Italian for extra money. It's a green Chalice Stradale with a
cream leather interior, not leather, Alcantara, sorry, cream and green. I kind of really love
this spec. It's out there, but it's awesome. It only has 375 miles, so that is going to be
a new mark for the Chalice Stradale market. I would guess close to a million dollars because
of the hype, the delivery miles. I think probably if we're betting people that bet on this stuff,
they'd set the high low, the over under at a million. Would you take over under, Tyler?
I think it's going to go over. Green is so hot right now. Okay. I guess I'll take under then.
We'll see what it goes for. What about this like shoot the 612 Sucento, which...
Ultra beige. Yeah, like ultra, ultra beige. My goodness. It's a baby puke brown over poop brown.
It's like somebody wanted to make this a Maybach. And both of those colors are outside. It's not
like that's the extra intertiler combination. It is two tone exterior awfulness. It is. This is wild.
They did make a Maybach in similar combination and it was some special addition
that doesn't make it any better. This is like awful. Oh no, it's apparently the top is yellow.
It just looks like puke brown next to the other brown. It is yellow over bronzo Monte Carlo.
Well, like, so I guess the Sucento is commemorating Ferrari's 60th anniversary.
It's of course got the luggage. It's got some award. The interior color is Terra Bursciata,
which I think is like earth, earth, uh, earth tomato.
Oh man, this is wild. It's, it's, it's crazy. So go check that out if you want to be entertained.
It, the, the standout things I thought was funny is a couple of them had luggage,
factory luggage with them and the car had 80 miles on it. So I'm like, you're bragging about
luggage, but literally you're saying this has never been used. I bought this thing
to be an attachment to a car to say I have the luggage and literally have never used it because
a car has never gone far enough for an overnight stay. To me, that just screams, what is the point
of no mile cars? On all of these things have such low miles. Yes. Even the first Ferrari
acquired by them ordered new is a 1984 308 GTS Quattro Valvole and it only has 7,500 miles
and they've had it since 84. Now I understand with all of this stuff, what are you driving?
You might be being driven. Who knows, but like, whoa, man. Then a random, this is a pretty cool
spec, a 99355 Spider Siri Fiorano. The only one produced in this unique color combination,
that doesn't really need to be said about any of their collection. Nobody is picking that,
but I kind of like this spec. I like yellows and blues together. This one is yellow over blue with
the carbon racing seats. I could do without the yellow centers in the racing seats, but otherwise
this is a fantastic spec and it seems like when he started out, so he's got the Ferrari
supercars, which is pretty cool, but the older cars are just red and then they go yellow with
red interiors with yellow accents and red tops and this crazy stuff kind of in the mid 2000s,
including a 575 with racing stripes, which just, it doesn't work. And the interior is just like
the most ostentatious blue and yellow alternate, like it hurts to look at.
And then like mid 2000s, teens, they have just as many options, but they seem toned down a little
bit. It's almost as if Ferrari said, we'll take your money, but you got to dial it back.
I'm going to need you to cool it. So anyway, there's some great cars in here. Again, it's
his money, his taste. I'm really curious how many of these very, very interesting spec cars will
exceed prices just because they're crazy specs. Like if you think about the, I think it's the
Michael Fuchs collection, his cars were equally crazy specs, but not in terms of being outlandish.
They just had every possible special option known to man and were all very unique specs,
but typically they were also beautiful. These are beautiful to the Bachmans, but
some of them are yikes. They're out there. We got a, oh, here's an interesting article.
Washington State Patrol to find speeding hotspots using harvested phone data. We've talked about
flock cameras and how they're using our data. And now Washington State Police is doing this.
However, it is actually not as bad as you would think reading the initial article.
Okay. They're using apparently anonymous data. They are not actually saying like, oh,
Tyler was driving here at 80 miles an hour and then sending you a ticket. They're using
you know, just the overall data to say here's where the most people are speeding
and at what time. So we're going to put manual enforcement in those spots. Kind of like the
opposite of what we do with Waze. Waze has the hotspots while Waze doesn't. If you use highway
radar, which aggregates all the Waze data, then it shows the hotspots of like, this is where cops
are most often reported. So it's not quite as bad as we think. But that's still just, that's not
data they should have. I don't like it, but it's not as bad as a sensational headline or what we
all kind of assumed going into it. You might have thought it would never happen, but Switchcast
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and tell them Switchcast sent you.
Now, oh boy, EVs once again. I read an article recently that was a deep dive on Lucid's
finances. We'll call it Lucid isn't liquid. And you know, for all the numbers and data that
was in it, I wasn't expecting this, but it read like a comedy. I laughed so hard reading this,
and I don't know if I should have, but it's pretty funny. Not them failing. That's not funny, but
how intense the size of the numbers. The fact that we called this, and so many people have called it,
and we're just idiots on a podcast, and all these people with finance degrees and
high levels of knowledge of how these things work predicted things so differently from how
they are turning out. And we're just over here pontificating about how this is probably the
whole EV bet isn't going to work out. Look at Ford, by the way. Speaking of $20 billion,
it's going to cost them, which is more than their entire profit the last three years,
to unwind their EV bet and go away from EVs. And Jim Farley, I respect that guy as much as I can
respect an American car company CEO. It's like, oh, well, we're following purchasers' desires
rather than what we thought they would want. I was like, well, that's not a good CEO. A good CEO
should be able to lead ahead of the curve and go, I don't care what the government's doing,
what other manufacturers are doing. I don't think this is going to work out because people
aren't going to want it, so we're not going to invest all this money in it. A great CEO would
have the gumption to do that and then go, ha, ha, ha. I was right. This is why I get paid
tens, hundreds of millions of dollars. But any CEO now can go, oh, gee, we're losing money and not
selling them. Let's pivot and respond to consumers' demands. Okay. Well, and it's kind of crazy that
the $20 billion, and I don't know if we, I feel like I have seen some articles, but I can't remember
any numbers, so I'm not going to try about what it's going to cost Porsche to do the same thing.
These are wild amounts of money, and it just kind of seems, I don't roll in financial circles,
but it's kind of like, well, this really sucks and whatever, but this is what we got to do.
Like everybody's doing it, so it seems less bad, I guess. It's crazy.
Well, let's dive into Lucid. This comes from one of my favorite sources, ssoreport.com,
some really great in-depth dives on the business side of boutique car manufacturers and supercar
manufacturers. Fantastic reads, usually. Again, sometimes get into the weeds, but that's what
we're here to do is pull the wheel weeds and only give you the roses. I don't know. There's a lot
of thorns in these flowers. Okay, so Lucid went public via a reverse merger in July 2021.
How does that work? Is that not just a split? I don't know.
Is that what a divorce could be called? Is it a reverse merger?
It's like a reverse mortgage, the worst deal on the planet. We're going to loan you back your
money at an exorbitant rate. At the time of the merger, Lucid was projecting annual vehicle sales
of 135K units, revenue of $14 billion, gross profit of $3.1 billion, net income of $632
million, and EBITDA of $1.7 billion in 2025. We're also projecting 135,000 views on every
YouTube video in 2030. Projections are garbage. You can make up anything. This is what we're going
to do. We'll base it on reality. Looking back, ambitious would be one way to look at these
targets. Delusional would be another. While Lucid is slowly growing vehicle sales and revenue,
they will be lucky to hit 10% of the original projections in 2025 on both. Lucid has now racked
up roughly $14.8 billion of accumulated losses, or about $475,000 of loss for every car it has
ever delivered. I think that's more than it cost Bugatti for each Veyron, and they plan to lose
money because it was essentially an engineering challenge for them. Man. That is just insane.
And that's on top of the car costing, like, I don't know, was it like 200K, 150K years?
Let's see. September 25, they did a 1 for 10 reverse split, and after the stock had lost around
97% of its value since it peaked in 2021 when it went public. The stock is down another 30%
since then. Lucid's factories are running at under 20% of capacity. Now, I want to pause here.
The same article talked about Aston Martin, Lotus, another article he wrote talked about
Ineos. This is not unique to EVs. Obviously, we're focusing on EVs because we love internal
combustion, and we think it's the way forward. We do not think EV is the way forward. It is
an alternative power source, but everybody is losing money. Their sales were largely
driven by government subsidies. However, the small boutique manufacturers are all going through
the same thing right now. Their sales are struggling. Aston Martin has almost never made
money. A lot of these companies have kind of revived. Lotus brought the Emira back, was
banking on heavy US sales, tariffs came out. They didn't sell that many, and their EV, again,
their Chinese built EV has not done so well. They keep getting new investors,
oh yeah, we're going to make money, and then they don't. These small manufacturers have been
struggling with this for a long time and are continuing to struggle with it. One of our favorite
podcast guests and, I guess, advisors, Myron Vernes, who's a very, very smart guy, said
early on when we were talking about EVs, is this is not unlike the early age of automobiles period.
In the early 20th century, new car companies were coming on the scene one after another. Everybody
thought they could make a company or could manufacture a car, or everybody saw all the money
that investors were pouring into them and thought, well, I want a piece of that action.
And that has to be the fact that companies like Lucid, it doesn't have to be only them,
are losing so much money. I have a feeling at some point there's going to be studies done
about how much money in this period has just evaporated into thin air.
And you can't spell evaporated well though. But it is insane to me the hype that is behind
all of these different manufacturers and the money that just seems to disappear. You would
mention Lucid's manufacturing capacity, they're only using 20% of it, and they keep opening up
new manufacturing facilities. Is it all just about the hand waving, oh, hey, don't look at the lack
of sales behind the curtain, focus over here at this new stuff, please give us more money.
Rivian did the same thing. The only reason that these companies can continue to exist is with
investment funding, and eventually that's going to run out, and all of those people are going to be
pretty pissed, the money's gone poof. Yeah. You can still be putting money to it at this point.
It obviously isn't working. Well, like Rivian got that grant and they got
$5 billion from Volkswagen Auto Group, and they built a plant in Atlanta that would allow them
to produce I think 400,000 vehicles per year, but they were only at 10 or 20% of capacity of their
original plant. And it's like, why are we doing this now? This doesn't make any sense. Oh, well,
future growth. Okay. Yeah, but going from like what you're making, you're adding a
digital to your total capacity. It's wild. It doesn't make any sense. All these people in
$1,000 suits and, you know, multi six figure finance degrees and, you know, we saw this coming.
Anyway, the so back to not any os not Fisker back to Lucid. And we'll get there. Yes.
475 grand cost per vehicle delivered stock has lost 97% of its value and then another 30%.
Now their new car is called the gravity. Ah, it's man, it's like AI where the jokes
write themselves. The stock is dropping like, well, gravity. It's as ironic of a name as the
Fisker ocean, which there's a lot of jokes there too. The first round of Fisker was kind of
ultimately destroyed by the ocean when they lost a whole fleet of karmas in Hurricane Sandy.
That wasn't the root cause, but it was a straw that broke the camel's back. You could say Fisker
waved goodbye to their funds. Okay, they had zero liquidity. Yeah. So yeah, the the stock
drops like it like it met gravity and here we go again. And Lucid is losing money on an
ongoing basis. You could say, oh, well, you've got all this R&D costs, they'll eventually recoup it
with increased sales because of course that's what Lucid is saying they're going to do is
increase sales, but it's not happening. Their 2025 sales were slightly better than 2024 through
third quarter. But again, a lot of that was likely driven by the incentives expiring because
everybody who wanted an EV seemed to buy one then. But they need to essentially double their sales
from the entire first three quarters of 2025. They need to sell that many cars again
in the last quarter to meet their already downward revised guidance for 2025.
Goodness. Sorry, I was very distracted looking at the graph of the Lucid Group stock price.
This is staggering. Is it? First of all, the stack is $12 right now, which is feels insane to me.
Would it make a good sledding hill? Very much so because you know, you have a really high peak
and then a sharp downturn and then it kind of peters out into just flatness at the end.
A slight slope downward. It's a toboggan run. It would be a great time in a sled.
That would be a good name for their next car, toboggan.
Doug, the stock was at $552 a share in November of 2021.
That's so bad. I don't mean to laugh at misfortune, but it's not misfortune. When you
open yourself up to this, you take on so much debt, so many investors off of a pipe dream.
However, back to the R&D thing, you could say, well, if they sell more cars, they'll make money.
But according to SSO, Lucid loses money on every car before it even gets to R&D,
SG&A, and interest expenses. So the first nine months of 2025, the cost of revenue was about
$1.6 billion against $0.83 billion of revenue, so $2 to $1.
This is terrible. Gross margin year to date is negative 100%
before operating expenses. This is like old Carvana numbers.
So they say, oh, well, we'll sell more cars and we'll get there. But the more cars they sell,
the more money they lose. It's like the Michael Scott paper company,
where they go to the accountant and he says, you can't afford to sell more paper,
and they go, well, crunch the numbers again. Lucid wants the investors to crunch the numbers
again and keep pouring money into them. But golly, it's, to me, it is very lucid.
They're a financial picture. Yeah. Man. Those numbers are just so hard to grasp.
They're so large.
Somebody's choosing willingly to pour money into this company.
Yeah, that's nuts. We talked about crazy BAT, bring a trailer, comments last week. We had a
few fresh ones we wanted to share with you this week for a maybe ongoing segment. We'll see how
it goes. But our comments of the week on auctions were great. One of them on a 4GT.
This is what I, everything I don't like about car sales and car sales people when they try to
sell you on the investment potential of the car. Seller says, quote, this will be the car. Everyone
says, I wish I had bought immediate 100K asset value on the buy easily.
That was the seller? That was the seller. Why aren't you keeping it?
Exactly. Cars don't are not all of a sudden worth 100K more than you pay for them on a public
auction. The public auction generally means that's a bow market price. That is a data point that sets
the value. It's yucky. It's so dumb, so dumb. Another one, this is a common theme, but yeah,
this was a good one. Quote, if I didn't already have eight cars, I'd be bidding on this one.
That's the like, it's just a flex. You're like, wow, look at me. I'm so cool. I got eight cars
all over the place. But there was a great one. Oh, this one's so good. Great one. So there was a
an awesome spec 996 GT three and midnight blue. And of course everybody likes to say the 996 GT
three is the real like drivers. Who's my what's it? Well, this guy in the comments really had a
strong opinion. The 996 GT three is like your Marlboro smoking World War two veteran grandpa
who would chop wood with an axe shirtless in 30 degree weather. A 992 GT three is his great grandson.
He uses one of those crystals for deodorant and orders kindling from Amazon.
It reminds me of the hipster meme, you know, the flannel shirts and skinny jeans were a thing for
the oil beers. And it looked like, you know, somebody that that was trying to look like they
were from Maine, but had only read an LL bean catalog. Yeah, the caption is it's a really good
thing. I don't have to actually hunt because I have no frigging idea where gluten free tacos live.
So he's saying that's the 992 GT three owner. Sorry to everybody who owns one. I know a lot of
car people own it, but it's a good it's a good contrast. I like I like the the analogy and the
hyperbole. The Sheffield brand was recently revived by Jake Turkbus, an owner of an original
Sheffield all sport diver he received from his parents in 1970, when he was just 11 beginning
his love of watches. As an adult, Jay used his extensive expertise in product development and
marketing to revive the brand that started it all. He set out to develop watches with a high
level of quality and specification at a value price. His first effort and a successful one on
July of 2023 was the debut of the Sheffield all sport diver one. It had the kind of build and
movement that much more expensive watches use, and his debut price of $108 was equivalent to the
$13 his parents paid in 1970. Since that debut, Sheffield has expanded to a wider range of
automatics and chronos, many designed around vintage Sheffield dials of the 60s. The Sheffield
well of clever and unique design remains his inspiration as well as maintaining the goal
of high quality, very affordable range of automatic and quartz watches. Sheffield watches value on
merit, not just price. I love mine. So get yours at Sheffield watches.com and be sure to mention
you found them on switchcast. Alrighty, you lovely listeners out there are bound to have heard the
phrase or have seen the phrase on the internet. Just LS swap it or LS swap the world because
it's everywhere. Everybody makes it seem like this is such an easy thing to do. You have any
sort of issue. You have an unreliable car, slap in an LS and you're golden. Have you ever done this
Doug? I've used the hashtag. Nice. Yeah. Nice. Yeah. Oh, no, I have. I LS swapped a Monte Carlo,
which should have been super easy because right. GM to GM. Well, I'm gonna ask you to put a pin
in the should because I think that's what I'm about to get into the top gear quote. How hard can
this be? You went through my head when I had a $500 Monte Carlo and a $2,500 LS one. That is exactly
what the internet says should be the match made in heaven. A recipe for success. Okay. Well,
should you do it? We talked last week about stick swapping and whether or not you should do that.
That was a resounding yes. Where are we going to land on LS swap, Tyler?
So I want to put a caveat at the beginning of this that I am not necessarily talking to the
mechanics out there that can do this in their sleep or want the challenge or think it's cool
and interesting to swap an LS into something. If you want to do this for the sake of having an LS
in a car that you like, cool. Where I'm coming from is the this the vibe that has kind of
taken place on the internet or is formulated on the internet is that this is an easy solution
and it is not an easy solution to an unreliable car. So there's two cars that I want to focus on
for this discussion, which are RX sevens. Oh, rotaries and M 96 and M 97 Porsche 911s.
Not Subaru WX STIs those fail too. They do, but I feel like I see it a lot when you have people
complaining about reliability or the concerns around reliability with these two specific cars.
Everybody's like just put an LS in it. So we're not talking about Miata's because LS swap Miata's
are the bomb. That would be sick. Yes. But that isn't to solve a problem. That's like I want,
unless the problem is not enough power in a Miata. Unless the problem is I want the world's greatest
track car for less than 30 grand. Does it actually fit? People do it all the time. Yeah.
Maybe it's not maybe it's not an LS. People do. There is a V8 swap when I'm quite sure it's LS.
People do 944s. That's a popular one. That's a very popular one. So I did not include that on
purpose because that is something that has been like people like do that for racing because they
like the chassis of the 944, but they want the like ease of maintenance and known quantities of an
LS. I think those probably honestly 944s came before the M 96 and M 97 911s in terms of like,
well, this is expensive to maintain. I think they're pretty reliable. They're just expensive to
maintain and it's not worth it. Okay. So rotaries and M 96s. Should we or shouldn't we? So the first
thing I want to talk about is cost. Doug, you had a what was it a $500 car and a $2,500 engine or
is it the other way? And that sounds cheap. But I don't know if people on the internet don't value
their time or don't know how to value their time. It's expensive to do this. There are companies
that if you want this experience, they will do an engine swap for you turnkey.
So there's a company Chavis performance engineering that are there in Baltimore,
Maryland. They offer this for 996 and 997 9 11s for $40,000. Whoa. You get a 24 month,
36,000 mile warranty. And I don't need a warranty on an LS. I think you might
because they can fail just the same as anything else because you're mostly the LS sevens.
Okay. So there's potentially oiling issues and like there's stuff. It's not a magic.
It's not a silver bullet. It's not a magic wand. There's companies that do RX sevens.
These are much cheaper for some reason. Siki manufacturing natural fit in the RX seven.
I agree. I agree. Where are these folks located? Siki engineering is also located in Maryland.
That was not on purpose. They'll do an RX seven for $25,000. There's a local company here too.
I will look them up while you're talking that specializes in LS swaps and they do a lot of
RX sevens. They're in Medina. I feel like the RX seven is kind of the thing because nobody knows
how to maintain a rotary or it's very difficult to find a shop that will do it for you. It's
a little bit more. But my point is, is that it's not $5 to put this reliable American lump in the
back of your sports car. There's a lot that goes into it. There's custom wiring that needs done.
There's custom parts that need fabricated. Even if you can buy a kit and this is like a known
quantity, things just cost money and they take time. Backstreet performance. Nice. They do LS
one, LS two swaps into Miata's and RX sevens and all sorts of stuff. I had them do an LS swap for
me. I had them swap an LS for an LS in a Corvette. Okay. Nice. It doesn't really count. But still,
there are companies that can do this. So if this is something that you really want, you really want
an RX seven to feel like a Corvette, you can make that happen. The other thing that from the cost
perspective is auction results. It was pretty tough to find auction results of swapped cars.
I found some really well done 996s that went in like the mid to low 30s with like kind of a ton
of miles, but painted good colors. And the swap was extremely well done, really well documented.
So the enthusiasts that wanted that experience are out there. It seems like RX sevens kind of,
they're a little bit harder to find LS swaps, I guess, because people just keep driving them.
They do okay. They do about the same as a normal car. So all of this, this has to be a labor of love
if you're doing this, because there seems to be next to no financial benefit
to having one of these in your car. And I think you also need to explain away,
who did the swap? Was it done? Well, what parts did you use? You want the history?
What is the weight difference between an LS and a rotary?
Probably aren't rotaries light?
Probably. I'm asking you why the expert on this topic tonight.
That would be my one of my reasons for doing it is if you're saving a ton of weight,
then you can change the balance of the car and improve it from that perspective. But
for me, at least an FD RX seven, well, they're all rotaries. That's a pointless comment. The FD
RX seven is the one I would want. But the personality of the rotary and the sound is why
I would buy that car. So despite the lack of reliability, I don't think I'd want to swap it.
And I think the same is true for me with a flat six.
That is more of my opinion. This is why I would not want to do this, because I believe a flat six
is most of what makes a 911. It's the type of engine and where it's located
that make a 911. Same thing for a rotary. That is an RX seven. Now, if you think they just look
cool and you don't care what's powering it, that's another option sweet. But to me,
the engine is a critical piece of the soul and the feeling of a car. And I want that car for what it is.
What if your engine fails? What do you do? What's the cost benefit analysis then? Is it better
to swap in an LS or to put a new rotary or new M 96 M 97 engine in? Because at that point, the ROI,
if they sell for about the same amount, then you're looking at, okay, well, what's the,
what does it cost me to put in an LS versus a rebuilt factory engine?
So this is something that there is a company that does really, in my opinion, what seems to be
incredibly high quality rebuilds of M 96 engines. That's flat six innovations in Georgia, I believe.
If you've been on any sort of forums, you know who Jake rabies and who that company is, and they
from what I've been able to find every situation is different, the cost of parts, whatever, you
know, it's tough to find pricing, it costs just about as much or maybe a little more to rebuild
your engine properly in for if you have an M 96, then it would to put an LS in it unless you're
doing it yourself and just not counting labor, like it's kind of the same. So it depends on what
you want from your car. If you say screw this, I don't want to deal with it anymore. I'm cool with
a V eight sounding nine 11, then go for it. But if you want what my opinion, the car should be,
then you go down the route of either a, you know, a crazy rebuild, like something from
flat six innovations or something of just like kind of doing maybe not everything, but rebuilding
the critical things that have failed. Interesting. See that that's where I would have thought,
okay, if you're going to do one or the other, obviously to me, it doesn't make sense to take
a perfectly good engine and swap it for an LS. That's crazy. But if you have a roller,
do you go factory or do you go LS? I would think the reason for going LS is not only the long
term reliability, but oh, it's going to cost half. But that's not you're saying that's not the case.
I guarantee you the comments on this video are going to say, Tyler, you're an idiot. It only cost
me a 12 case of natty light and three hot dogs to my buddy to swap an LS into my nine 11. And
it's like that doesn't count. Well, that's because they all said you were an idiot for how much it
costs you to maintain your 996. Did you go to the Porsche Stealership? It only cost me $50 every
seven years to drive my 997 because I did everything myself. Okay, great. Yes, if you have a shop or
the tools and a lift and the time I like to work on my own cars when I can, because I feel like it
I form an extra level of a bond with I have done something I've fixed something I have added or
changed something. I would rather spend the time driving my cars than having it
on jack stands for a summer because I'm trying to do it myself. To me, that's not worth that the
time it takes is not worth the change in money. So that's where I would go with kind of a rebuild
thing. And I if you do it yourself again, I'm not talking to you specifically, I'm talking to the
folks that kind of think this is an easy solution. If they're in a tough situation with a broken engine
or they're scared of reliability concerns. And I would push back circling back to me swapping
an LS into a General Motors project product. It became a project. It's not about the engine itself.
An LS 123 essentially is a bulletproof engine. It's all the other stuff. You're changing the
engineered parts, motor mounts, transmission mounts, you've got to cut things. You've got to
stuff is making contact that shouldn't be making contact. It wasn't meant to be this close to the
header. You have all these other things around the engine when you create a project that then
adds unreliability to it. And that was my issue with the Monte Carlo. It's like every corner,
even though you could buy almost everything out of the JEGS catalog, it still didn't fit. We still
had to cut stuff and bend stuff and weld stuff and custom do wiring and button these crazy fabricated
brackets to move the power steering mount and move this and move that and then the bolts on the
bracket failed and you know, it's just this stuff isn't tested the way factory parts are.
So you're constantly going through a teething process of all the stuff around the engine
that is breaking and failing and rattling and even just minor modifications. I have a
stroked LS in my Corvette and my goodness, and it's a Lingenfelter thing. It's been around
forever. Just like his own name. But it's just all this minutia of different headers,
slightly different routing of stuff, less heat shields, whatever constant stupid issues with
this car that I never had on my stock Corvette. And it's actually somewhat of a high maintenance car.
And it's essentially a, it's just a stroked LS. Everything else is factory.
And it's what I think people like to forget on the internet, whether it's because it's fun to
say, you know, crazy things to get attention or as a joke is, regardless of maybe some mistakes
that some companies have done to make cause some of the unreliabilities in these cars we're talking
about, there is a team of people engineering this engine to work in this car, just like there is
a team of people engineering an LS to go into a Corvette or into a truck or into anything else.
And they take care of the stuff that you were talking about, Doug, to make it reliable for
100,000 miles or usable for 100,000 to, you know, however, however long or whatever testing
they do, it is just not feasible to expect that same level of rigor from a lot of this stuff that
is made by people who are just enthusiasts doing something cool and maybe something seems to be
fantastic. And then it fail, you know, it seems to be this bracket made with a high quality materials
and these awesome bolt. Well, something is different. There's strain on something there
and then how are you going to get it fixed? You can't just take it to a shop that specializes
in Porsches unless they know LS is two or RX sevens and that you can't like maybe a Corvette
shop could work or work on your swapped RX seven, but who knows? Maybe they don't want to touch it
because it's too risky. There's just a lot of stuff to consider and it's a lot more trouble
than I think a lot of people believe it to be when they just say, ah, slap an LS into it,
problems are gone.
Well, great, great conclusion, Tyler. I can't wait for the comments to tell me I'm an idiot.
Well, you know, at least they won't be making fun of your beard experiment. Yeah, on to our
ever popular plate to sample game brought to us by Dr. Alan Hoover of Solon Spine. We thank you,
we thank him for his idea. He was the genesis of this game and also the ongoing financial support
for this game. So a couple quick stories leading up to this. So not all vanity plates are approved
and Ohio has released their list of over 840 plates that were rejected this year.
And there are some wild ones. Slow mofo love meth. Yes, lots of drug alcohol and
old fart. I don't know why they I can't kind of let that one or didn't let that one go funny
yourself. Easy. And I don't think the person's from Arizona. We'll just leave it there.
Oh, Lolita. I don't understand that one. I don't either. I don't either. There's some
there's some great ones. There's some also very, very, very inappropriate ones. I'm scrolling
through them can't read that can't read that can't read that can't read that. There's a
I have a feeling I don't are some people just submitting these because they think
they're just trying to get something through somebody's cranking
amazing. Yeah, brother. The problem is some of these I'm like, Oh, I think that's kind of funny,
but I don't want to read them because I'm not all up on like the urban dictionary and stuff. So
I'm not sure if they're innocent or not. So I'm like, Oh, that's kind of funny. But the homeschooler
me is like, Well, I might not know the actual meaning of that. So I just I can't read it.
I think somebody submitted a family of cards rich AF rich AF two and rich AF three all got to
mob life. Nice. For booby. I mean, I don't know if
that's an odd operation. She got an extra pair. Maybe that's not what they were going for.
Oh, boy, some of these are nuts. Yeah, well, if you want to see the unedited list, you can do so
on the Columbus dispatch website. But another honorable mention, speaking of rejected plates,
Canada is extra soft on their tolerance here. A submission from Eric on Instagram says that a
driver in Kamloops, Canada got his 5.0 plate recalled for being quote offensive and quote
referencing law enforcement. I think 5.0 was one of your vanity plate to samples wasn't it that you
had me guess? Yeah, I think so because it was on like a Crown Vic or something. Yeah. Well, that
doesn't okay, referencing law enforcement. That's ridiculous. How is that offensive?
I don't know. I don't know. But with that said, let's get to our approved plates that were on
actual cars. I've got four. Tyler, you probably have five. So why don't you start? I do have five.
First name of the game plate to sample sorry to interrupt you is we read off a vanity plate
and the other person asked a guess what car it's on. See how the stereotypes, see how obvious
the stereotype is. Go ahead. I might only have four because I might have done this one before.
But we're going to do it again. Crime with a three.
BMW M3. Yeah, it is. You have done that before. Shoot. Sorry, Ethan kind of fixed it in post.
Okay, here's a I almost literally said here's a white plate to continue dog. What is it?
This one comes to us from I got zoom out dot to lava on Instagram. This is a great one.
Gone postal or going postal. Is this a Grumman? No, I wish it would be sweet. That would be great.
Postal. Is it a Jeep? Is it like a right hand drive Jeep? Nope. Oh, well, they're referencing
probably the fact that it was Jeeps have been used by the Postal Service. No, it's a lifted
Jeep Wrangler Rubicon. So I think they're just referencing like their pent up angst or something
like that. Edgy disposition coming to you from Nathan K. Not a mom.
Toyota Sienna. No, Honda Odyssey. No, any other minivan soccer mama Chevy Suburban.
It is a I think this could be considered a soccer mom car.
It is a BMW X3. I think I almost said X9 home.
Real moms don't drive compact SUVs.
Going to offend somebody with that one. That's like the yeah, I don't know. Okay. Here's a great
one. Texas plate, blessed or blessed.
Blessed is on a Murano. I think I've seen it on a Murano. No, too bad. It's not Ethan's.
Blessed. What is blessed going to be on? Is it on a Mercedes SUV? Yes. Yes. All right. I don't know
what can probably like ML that I don't know. No, it is on a matte black Brabis G. Yeah. Whoa.
Okay. That's not the Mercedes I was thinking. I know. Typically those plates are on like
base spec. Yes. C class, but nope. This person apparently is pretty blessed. My financial anyway.
That doesn't mean anything in real life. But yeah. Next up for you, Doug from John Z.
I've got late to yoga and there is a Namaste sticker on the window and there is a Namaste
plate frame. That's a Subaru. It is not. You're so jazzed. I'm so sorry, Doug. Is it a jazz?
No. No, that'd be awesome. This is more of like a California like LA kind of Tesla. No,
closer. It is a Q seven Audi Q seven. All right. All right. VV SUV. Okay.
Is this a smart car or like a Toyota matrix? Nope.
Nope. Cute AF. Is this an Ultima? No. Okay. Mustang GT convertible.
No, that tracks. That's kind of in the vibe that I was thinking. I would not have gotten there though.
I don't think. The top was up though. I feel like you got to have the top down to be accountable
to that plate. Yeah. Because are you saying the car is cute or you're cute? I think it's them.
Ah, well. So you got to roll top down and let everybody else be the judge of that.
Yeah. They just move. The Bible says, let another's words praise you, not your own.
Ha. And they're really using their own words to praise themselves. Yes.
Eesh. I'm going to put ugly AF on my plate. L S tree for you, Doug, from Matthew S.
Is it an RX seven that got less? It is not. That would have been very topical.
Three rotor three. No, I think it's I think this car has an LS three.
Okay. Or it's a like a Chevy C 10 pickup truck that got LS swapped because it had three on the
tree LS tree. I'm really stretching for the double on Tondra here. I really wish it was that creative.
It's just a Corvette. Let me guess it's one with an LS two. I don't know. It's a blue C six.
Okay. That's all I got. It's 08 or later. I think that's an LS three. I don't know.
Okay. Here's one from Dave Maher. Four Q Mula. Four Q. So either they made a lot of money selling
forks or they're talking about fourth quarter financials. Ah, could be the bonus they got
than the car. I literally keep looking at my empty glass. Would you like more? There's a line key.
It's a beautiful cork removal device for Mula. This is got it. Is this a G another G wagon?
No. Is this a Lamborghini? Yes. Oh, is it? It's a Huracan or an Aventador.
It's a Huracan. Yes. Yeah. Good job, Tyler. Excellent. All right, Doug. Last one from
Andrew D. This is a Maryland historic plate which depresses me greatly.
That tells me it's a 90s car. No, it's not quite. It's a little newer than that.
Boxy boy. 2000 Porsche Boxster. No, but that would be good. This is a Scion XB.
You're more correct to train of thought, but cooler car.
What car is cooler than a Scion XB? Volvo V70R. Oh, yes. That's very cool. I just can't believe
it's historic. Get me out of this. We're getting old.
Thank you for joining us for Switchcast with Doug Tabott and Tyler Sanders produced by Ethan
Huffnagle. Switchcast is an automotive entertainment and opinion show and nothing we say should be
taken very seriously. We do not give tax, investment, legal, emotional, or professional advice
and the only licenses we hold are driver's licenses. The opinions expressed on this show
are exclusively held by the people pontificating at that moment and do not reflect the values of
our producers or sponsors. Our theme music is provided by Emily and Ivory. You can stream
their full album on Spotify or SoundCloud. If you like this show, you can stream it in its entirety
on your favorite audio podcast platform. Check out switchcast.live for more info.
About this episode
A lively discussion kicks off with the hosts reflecting on the podcast's journey and their humorous take on automotive topics. The episode dives into the current state of Lucid Motors, highlighting its financial struggles and the challenges facing EV manufacturers. The conversation shifts to the popular trend of LS swaps, debunking the myth that it's an easy fix for unreliable cars. The hosts share personal experiences and insights on the complexities and costs involved in such swaps, particularly focusing on RX-7s and Porsches. The episode wraps up with a fun segment on vanity plates, showcasing some humorous and creative examples.
We read an article recently (linked below) doing a deep dive into Lucid's finances and, man, it reads like a comedy. Also, Tyler walks us through the reality of "just LS swap it."
