Coilovers are suspension parts that combine the spring and shock together. People use them to lower the car and sometimes make the ride feel more controlled.
Two-way adjustability means the suspension has two independently adjustable settings, typically for compression and rebound damping. That lets you fine-tune how the car behaves over bumps and during weight transfer.
Three-way adjustability means the suspension provides three separate damping adjustments, often including compression, rebound, and an additional setting (commonly high/low-speed compression or similar). More adjustment points generally allow closer tuning to different driving conditions.
Street tires are made for normal driving on public roads. They’re not as specialized as track tires, so they’re a compromise that can still work for casual racing while remaining usable for commuting.
The Nürburgring is a well-known race track in Germany. Car makers use it to test cars, and fans use it as a bragging point because it’s tough and takes real skill to drive fast.
The Nordschleife is the main, very twisty and hilly part of the Nürburgring track. People talk about it because it’s hard to drive well, so it’s a good way to judge how fast and capable a car really is.
A cease and desist is a formal legal notice that says, “Stop doing this.” It’s often sent when a company believes someone is using their name or stuff in a way they don’t approve of.
Ferrari is a famous Italian company that makes high-end sports cars. Here, it’s mentioned because the host says Ferrari sent them a legal warning letter.
The “driveline” is everything that sends power from the engine to the wheels. If it has no engine or driveline, it basically can’t move under its own power right now.
Term
K number four
In this conversation, “K” sounds like a way of counting how many times they’ve gone through a setup. It’s basically tracking how long each engine or drivetrain lasted before problems.
A gearbox is the transmission that lets the engine use the right gear for the speed you’re going. If someone is on gearbox number four, it usually means the car is being driven very hard or the setup is struggling.
David RS Machine is the shop that built or rebuilt the engine. In racing, the engine builder matters a lot because they’re the ones making sure the engine can survive hard use.
“K series” is a name for a Honda engine family. When someone says they changed the “K series,” they usually mean they worked on that engine—like replacing parts or fixing problems that keep happening.
Term
weakest link
The “weakest link” is the part that gives up first when you stress the system. If you upgrade the right part, the whole project can become more reliable.
Concept
putting it through the paces
It means you’re not just building the car—you’re testing it hard in real driving. The goal is to see how it holds up when things get demanding.
“Teething” means the early problems that happen when something new is first put into use. Race teams expect bugs and breakages at the start, then they test and tweak it repeatedly until it works reliably.
WRC is the highest level of rally racing. Rally cars have to handle rough roads and changing traction, so teams spend a lot of time testing and fixing problems that show up during events.
In racing, “development” is the work of testing a car, finding problems, and improving it step by step. It’s not just building once—it’s repeated trial, failure, and fixing until it’s ready to race.
They’re saying race driving and normal street driving are not the same. Racing keeps the car under extreme stress for longer, so it needs different setup and durability than a typical street car.
“Ring its neck” is slang for revving the engine very high and driving it hard. In this context, they’re saying racing-style use is tougher than normal street driving.
“Full throttle” means the driver is asking for the maximum engine power. Keeping it there for a long time is harder on the car than quick accelerations.
“G forces” tell you how hard the car is accelerating compared to gravity. “Full G forces” means the driver is pushing the car extremely hard, like during racing braking and cornering.
“F 40” is the Ferrari F40, one of the most famous old-school supercars. It’s known for being intense and a bit unforgiving as a project car. The speaker is saying they want to avoid the same early problems they had before.
“E36” is a BMW 3 Series from the 1990s. It’s a common enthusiast car because parts and knowledge are easy to find. The speaker is basically saying they’ve owned one a long time and it’s been a mixed bag.
A Ford F-350 is a heavy-duty pickup truck. It’s the kind of truck people buy when they need to tow or haul a lot, and it’s also a common base for custom builds.
The Ford F-100 is an older model of Ford pickup truck. People often keep them because they’re good candidates for restoration or custom builds. The podcast mentions it because someone is planning a big project with it.
A land speed car is a car built mainly to go as fast as possible in a straight line. Instead of racing around turns, it’s tuned for top speed and stability at very high speeds.
Callaway is a company that upgrades Corvettes to make them faster. Here, the speaker is saying the Camaro was in the same “serious speed” category as a Callaway-tuned Corvette.
The Camaro is a popular American sports car made by Chevrolet. Here, they’re talking about a Camaro that was built as a promotional project to show off sponsor products.
Keith Black is known for building and selling high-performance racing engine parts. In this story, they wanted to make their parts relevant to street cars, not just drag racers.
Drag cars are built for quick acceleration in a straight line, usually for short races. They focus more on making power and getting traction than on everyday driving.
This means building a car with sponsors in mind—so the car helps advertise companies. The build is partly about getting products seen by the public and in media.
The Jeep Wrangler is an SUV built for off-road driving. Many versions are designed so you can remove parts like the roof and doors. The podcast mentions it because it was part of a collection of different cars.
The DeLorean DMC-12 is a sports car made by the DeLorean company. It’s known for its unusual stainless-steel look and gull-wing doors. The podcast brings it up because it was owned in the speaker’s family.
Place
Savill, Long Island
Long Island is in New York. The speaker is saying that in one parking lot there, a lot of DeLoreans were gathered together.
A restomod is when someone takes an old classic car and keeps the look, but upgrades it with newer parts or changes. The speaker is saying they want to build one themselves instead of driving a vintage car unchanged.
Sterling Moss was a famous race car driver. The book the speaker mentions says the Maserati race car belonged to him, which is part of why the story is so exciting.
The Jaguar E-Type is a classic British sports car from the 1960s. It’s known for its iconic shape and driving feel, and here they’re talking about finding one that’s not exactly the same as their dad’s original.
The Camaro is an American muscle car, and “third gen” means the version made roughly from the early 1980s into the early 1990s. They’re basically saying that even if it’s not as famous as a Ferrari F40, it can still be really cool to the owner.
A tube chassis means the car’s main structure is made from metal tubes welded together. It’s often used in custom or race cars because it can be built to fit the builder’s exact design.
BMW E28 is an older 5 Series model. Here, they’re saying the build started with that older sedan and then got transformed into something totally different with major body and layout changes.
A rat rod is a hot rod that looks intentionally rough or worn. Instead of trying to make it look perfect, the builder leans into the gritty, cool vibe.
Group 5 was a type of racing rule set from the 1970s. Saying it’s a “Group 5 race car” usually means the build is inspired by that old-school, wild race-car style.
A “fab car” is a car that’s impressive mainly because of the custom building and metalwork. The cool part is the fabrication work done to make it unique.
A concept car is basically a show car or prototype built to demonstrate an idea. Here, they mean the project feels like that kind of creative, experimental build.
A forum is a website section where people can start discussions and reply to each other. Here, it was meant to be a place for car fans to share ideas without turning into fights.
“Slamming” a car refers to lowering it significantly from stock ride height, typically to reduce wheel gap and emphasize the body’s stance. Enthusiasts often do it with suspension changes, but it can affect ride quality and may increase wear if alignment and tire clearance aren’t managed.
Fitment is how the wheels and tires are set up on the car. “Aggressive” fitment usually means the wheels are pushed farther toward the fenders for a more extreme look.
The Chevrolet Nova is a car made by Chevrolet that comes in different generations. Some Novas are known for being modified and used in performance projects. In the podcast, it’s mentioned because it was used for filming or a media shoot.
They mention a “Model A,” which is a classic Ford from the early 1900s. People like it for projects because it’s old-school and there are lots of parts and support for it.
Concept
pivoted in
They’re using “pivoted in” to mean they changed their plan. Instead of just building cars, they started using YouTube to help make money from the projects.
“Euro tuner” means a car-modification scene centered on European cars. People in that world often focus on how the car looks and how it’s set up, not only how fast it is.
“Zero 60” here sounds like the name of a column or section the speaker edited. It’s not a car spec in this moment—it’s just the label they used for their writing.
Term
off-stop
“Off-stop” is a German-style car term people use when talking about how low or how far the front end is sitting. It’s about the car’s stance/position—especially the nose—and how it’s set up.
A “60 40 kit” is a suspension lowering setup that drops the car by different amounts at the front and back. The idea is to get the car sitting “just right” for the look and fitment.
“Stance” is how a car sits—how low it is and where the wheels sit in relation to the body. It’s mostly about the look, and people debate what’s “right” for a given era.
“Three fingers a gap” is a rough way people measure how much space there is between the tire and the fender. More fingers usually means the car isn’t lowered as much.
FCP Euro is a company that sells car parts, especially for European cars. The host is mentioning them as a sponsor because they’re doing work on their car.
This is an Audi coupe with Quattro, which means it has all-wheel drive. The host is saying they planned to build it for more power, but the project grew into something much bigger.
Scope creep means a plan keeps getting bigger and bigger. In car projects, it’s when you start with one goal, but then add more upgrades and it turns into a much larger job than you expected.
The Audi Quattro is an Audi model/feature known for better traction, meaning the car can grip the road more effectively. In the podcast, it’s mentioned because someone owned one and planned to make it much faster with upgrades. It’s brought up as a platform for building a high-power car.
A strut bearing is part of the suspension that helps the front suspension move smoothly when you turn the steering wheel. If it’s worn out, it can make a clunking sound.
A CV joint is a part of the drivetrain that lets the wheels move and turn while still getting power. When it wears out, it can make clicking or clunking noises.
Concept
crazy machine
They’re talking about why people build cars—either to race them or just to make something wild and memorable. Their point is that the car should still feel cool when you see it in real life, not just on paper.
Concept
tank engine
They’re using “tank engine” as a metaphor for an over-the-top engine swap. The idea is: even if it sounds awesome in theory, the car still has to be satisfying to look at and experience.
They fixed a problem in the car’s fuel system—basically the parts that get gas to the engine. If that system has a problem, the car may run badly or not run at all.
This means the car is being started when everything is cold. Cold starts can be tougher because the engine needs more help to get going, especially if the car hasn’t been run in a while.
A “fuel fuse” is a safety fuse for the car’s fuel system. If you pull it, you’re basically disabling the fuel pump circuit, which can help with troubleshooting before you try to start the car again.
“Three cylinders” means only three parts of the engine are firing at first. When a car has been sitting, it may not start smoothly right away, and it can take a moment for all cylinders to start working normally.
VANOS is a BMW engine system that helps control when the engine’s valves open. If the car “needs a VANOS unit,” it likely means that timing control part isn’t working right, so the engine may run poorly.
The transmission is the gearbox that helps the engine power the car at different speeds. They’re saying they’re waiting on a transmission to finish the project and get it driving again.
A fuel pump is what sends gas from the tank to the engine. They replaced it and the car runs, but they think the new pump might not be delivering the right amount of fuel for how the carburetor wants it.
“Carb” means carburetor, which is how older engines mix fuel and air. They’re saying they have the carburetor parts ready, and that the fuel pump needs to match what the carb setup requires.
A fuel pressure regulator is a device that keeps the fuel pressure steady. If the pressure is wrong, the engine can get too much or too little fuel, and it won’t run right.
GMT 400 is a GM truck generation used in many Chevrolet and GMC pickups. People like it because it’s a classic, relatively simple truck to work on and keep running.
Term
8.9 liter
“8.9 liter” tells you how big the engine is. It’s the total size of all the cylinders combined, and bigger usually means the engine can make strong power—especially with the right racing setup.
“Compression” here means compression ratio—how tightly the engine squeezes the air/fuel mixture before ignition. A higher number can make more power, but it also needs the right fuel and tuning so it doesn’t ping or knock.
“Seven” here means the engine spins up to about 7,000 RPM. Racing engines often run at higher RPM to make more power, but that also puts more strain on the engine parts.
RPM means how many times the engine spins each minute. Racing engines are built to spin fast and keep making power at those higher speeds.
Place
Ohio transportation research facility oval
This is a big oval track in Ohio used for testing. The “seven mile oval” description suggests it’s meant for long, steady high-speed runs—great for seeing how a car performs over time.
This is the Nissan Skyline GT-R R32. It’s a famous turbocharged all-wheel-drive Japanese sports car that people love for its performance and aftermarket support.
The Dodge B-150 is an older Dodge van. It’s the kind of vehicle people keep for utility, restoration, or customizing. The podcast mentions it because it’s one of the cars the speaker is dealing with in their collection.
A wiring harness is basically the car’s electrical “wire bundle” that connects everything. If it has a problem, the car can act weird in different ways because signals aren’t getting through correctly.
The fan blade is the part of the cooling fan that actually pushes air through the radiator. If it breaks, the broken pieces can hit and damage the radiator, which is what the speaker describes here.
Concept
toxic relationship
They’re using “toxic relationship” to joke about how their car keeps causing problems. They still like it, but the repairs and breakdowns make it feel like a bad back-and-forth.
If the gas pedal stops working, the car may not be able to control engine power. On many modern cars, that can trigger a safety behavior where the car won’t move until the system is fixed.
Instead of a cable connecting your gas pedal to the engine, the pedal sends an electronic signal. If that signal system fails, the car can refuse to move even though you’re pressing the pedal.
The Mercedes-Benz Sprinter is a popular modern van platform for camper builds and aftermarket roof/camping conversions. The speaker contrasts it with the E-Series, saying most people build for Sprinter and similar markets rather than the older E-Series.
Term
case swapped NSX
A “case swap” is a modification where someone changes major drivetrain parts so the car ends up feeling and performing differently than stock. On an NSX, it usually means swapping in parts from another setup to change how it drives.
The Honda NSX is a sports car made by Honda. People like it because it can be both practical and fun to drive. The podcast mentions modified versions, showing it’s a popular car to customize.
A “video essay” is like a longer, story-driven video with a point to make. In car content, it usually means explaining the car/build in a more thoughtful, structured way than a quick review.
The exhaust is the system that routes gases from the engine to the tailpipe. If it gets torn off, the car can’t run properly or safely until it’s repaired or rebuilt.
Headers are special exhaust parts that collect exhaust gases from the engine and send them into the rest of the exhaust. People upgrade them to help the car breathe better, especially when they’re building a new exhaust system.
Front-wheel drive (FWD) means the engine sends power to the front wheels. Compared with rear-wheel drive, FWD typically offers better packaging and traction in slippery conditions, but it can feel different in cornering because the driven wheels also steer.
The Audi 100 is a sedan model from Audi. In this story, it’s mentioned as a front-wheel-drive car, which affects how it drives and how the engine and powertrain are arranged.
This is the BMW M3 from the E36 generation. The hosts are using it as an example of the kind of car people might expect in a collection, to show that this one was more varied.
The Nürburgring is a famous race track in Germany. Enthusiasts love it because it’s very challenging and it’s often used to compare how fast and how well cars really handle.
The valve cover is a metal (or sometimes plastic) cover on top of the engine. It helps protect the parts inside, and car people pay attention to it because it can show how much work went into the engine setup.
Concept
Volkswagen nerds
That phrase is basically talking about a group of car fans who really love Volkswagens. They tend to care about the detailed, technical stuff when building and working on their cars.
Concept
WhatsApp group
A WhatsApp group is a group chat on your phone. Here it’s being used like a community hub so people can coordinate and stay motivated to work on their cars.
A Porsche 911 Turbo is a high-performance version of the 911 that uses a turbocharger to make more power. People like it because it feels fast and usable, not just “race-only.”
The Ferrari 360 is a sports car made by Ferrari. It’s known for being a mid-engine design, which helps it drive in a sporty way. The podcast mentions it because the speakers both have Ferrari 360s.
The Subaru 360 is a small older car made by Subaru. It’s known for being compact and from an earlier era. In the podcast, it’s mentioned as part of a group of cars someone has or wants to talk about.
Here, nostalgia means the warm feeling you get from something that reminds you of the past. The speaker is saying that feeling can matter more than the car’s resale price.
Term
offset the happiness
They’re basically saying: even if you could sell the car for money, that money might not be worth losing the fun you get from driving it. It’s a “money vs enjoyment” tradeoff.
They mean a “project car detox” as a way to take a break from going overboard with car projects. Instead of tearing the car apart, they kept it simple and drove it.
A “bare shell” is when you strip the car down so it’s basically just the body. Everything else gets removed, which usually means a much bigger, longer project.
“Hoonigan” is slang for driving in a wild, showy, reckless way—like burnouts or drifting for fun. “Anti-hoonigan” means the car felt more calm and normal to drive, not like it was made for that kind of chaos.
All-wheel drive means power goes to all four wheels. They’re mentioning it to explain that they usually like cars with different traction setups than a front-wheel-drive car.
Rear-wheel drive means the back wheels are the ones that get power. They’re saying they usually liked cars with that kind of feel more than a front-wheel-drive setup.
They mean people act like one car is “the best” in a way that’s almost untouchable. That can make it harder to come up with genuinely new or interesting ideas, because everyone assumes it’s already been done.
A “V8 swap” means putting a V8 engine into a car that originally had a different engine. People do it to change how the car feels and sounds, but it’s not always a clean or “correct” upgrade.
A “water-cooled conversion” means changing the car’s cooling system so it uses coolant flowing through a radiator. It can help keep temperatures under control, but it usually takes a lot of custom work.
“Slammed” means the car sits very low to the ground. People do it for looks, but it can make the ride harsher and reduce clearance for bumps and speed bumps.
“9-11’s” means the Porsche 911. The Porsche 911 is a famous sports car, and here the hosts are saying older, air-cooled versions aren’t as rare as people claim, so the high prices don’t make sense to them.
They’re comparing car prices to how a stock price can move based on hype or expectations. The point is that they think the Porsche 911 market is being priced for reasons other than the cars’ actual rarity or value.
“Air cooled” means the engine is cooled mainly by air flowing over it, not by a liquid cooling system. The Porsche 911 is known for having air-cooled versions, and the discussion here is about how common those older cars are.
The Alfa Romeo GTV is an Italian sports car that’s famous for being fun to drive. The hosts are basically saying it’s light, has a great engine, and feels special behind the wheel.
A grand tourer is a “long-distance sports car.” It’s built to drive nicely for hours, but it’s still meant to feel quick and fun.
Term
popped in price
“Popped in price” just means the car got a lot more expensive in the market. That usually happens when more people want it and there aren’t many good examples available.
Bosch CIS is an older style fuel-injection system made by Bosch. Instead of today’s computer-controlled injection, it uses older mechanical/hydraulic parts to deliver fuel. People who don’t like it often find it harder to work on or less predictable.
The Ferrari Luce is a Ferrari model name mentioned in the podcast. The speaker is talking about how it reached its current status because of the work and people involved. The details in the clip are limited, but it’s treated as a meaningful car with a story.
Occam’s razor is the idea that the simplest explanation is usually the right one. So if you’re trying to figure out why something happened with a car, you start by looking for the most straightforward reason.
Hanlon’s razor is the idea that you shouldn’t jump to “someone did this on purpose” if it could just be a mistake. It’s a way to think more fairly about why problems happen.
The Ferrari Testarossa is a classic, very recognizable Ferrari from the 1980s. It’s known for its loud, iconic look, and the hosts are using it as a reference point for how Ferrari designs can change in public opinion over time.
A shooting break is a car shape that looks like a sporty coupe, but it has more room for passengers and cargo like a wagon. It’s basically a “sporty wagon” style.
Lewis Hamilton is a very famous race car driver from Formula 1. In this clip, they’re talking about what he might have been thinking when he did something in a video involving a car.
The Cybertruck is an electric pickup truck made by Tesla. It looks very unusual, with sharp, boxy shapes, and that’s why people react to it differently. The podcast mentions it because it divided opinions.
Term
antithesis of design
They’re saying the Cybertruck looks like it’s going against normal car design. Instead of trying to be “pretty” in the usual way, it’s meant to be shocking or funny.
“Sliding it around” means the car’s tires break traction a bit, so the car moves sideways while turning. It’s a way to show how the car handles when pushed hard.
The Toyota Prius is a well-known hybrid car. In this discussion, the host is talking about how they didn’t like the Prius’s styling and wished it looked more like a normal Toyota sedan.
The Toyota Camry is a common, everyday Toyota sedan. The host is using it as an example of what they’d prefer the Prius to look like—more normal and less “special design.”
“Donuts” means making the car spin in a circle on purpose, usually by applying enough power to make the tires lose grip. It’s a common way to test how controllable a car feels when it’s sliding.
A “braking zone” is the part of the track where you slow down before turning. The host says that having sound cues helps them realize how fast they’re going and when they need to brake.
They’re saying that car sounds act like a cue for the driver. Without that noise, it can be harder to feel how fast you’re really going, so you might enter a corner too aggressively.
They mention the car is about 5,000 pounds, meaning it’s heavy. A heavier car doesn’t slow down as easily, so if you underestimate your speed before a turn, it can get away from you.
EVs are electric cars. They run on electricity stored in a battery, not gasoline, and people often debate whether they can still feel exciting and stylish.
The Volkswagen Golf is a popular small hatchback. In the early ’90s, people also made versions of it that were meant to feel more sporty—so it’s a good reference point for what “future hot hatch” styling might look like.
The Lancia Delta is a compact car made by Lancia. It’s known for having a strong performance reputation, especially in rally history. The podcast mentions it while talking about how one Delta version compares to another.
A “hot hatch” is a small hatchback that’s been made to feel faster and more fun to drive than a normal one. Think of it as the sporty version of a regular compact hatch.
The Hyundai Ioniq 6 is an electric car. It’s known for a very sleek, streamlined look, and in this segment the speakers are basically saying they don’t like how it looks.
“Design language” just means the consistent visual style a brand uses. Think of it like a brand’s design “signature,” so you can tell what company made the car just by looking.
The Ford F-150 Lightning is an electric pickup truck. It’s meant to be a modern EV version of the F-150, so it still does the job of a truck but uses electricity instead of gasoline. The podcast mentions it when talking about the difference between what people feel a truck is versus just buying the newest version.
The Audi TT is a small sports car from Audi. The speaker is using it as an example of a design that was exciting at first, but later felt like it was overdoing the “new” look.
The Audi TTS Coupe Competition Plus is a sportier trim level of the TTS coupe. It’s meant to look and feel more performance-oriented, including special interior details. The podcast brings it up because of those noticeable design features.
The Nissan 370Z is a sports coupe made by Nissan. It’s designed to be fun to drive, but it’s not as extreme as some other performance setups. The podcast mentions it because it feels more toned down compared to what they’re comparing it to.
The New Beetle is Volkswagen’s modern take on the classic Beetle. They’re using it as an example of a design that became less futuristic and more restrained over time.
An engine has multiple cylinders, and they don’t all spark at the same time. “Firing order” is the exact order they ignite, which affects how smooth the engine runs.
“Slam cars” are cars that are lowered a lot, sometimes to the point where they sit very close to the ground. The downside is they often ride rougher, especially over bumps.
The Land Rover Discovery is a rugged SUV that can handle rough roads. The speaker is saying they even put KW suspension on it.
LIVE
Welcome back to another episode of Very Vehicular, brought to you by Viper Industrial.
As always, I'm your host, Brian Scato, and today we have a repeat offender.
That's right, Mike Burroughs from Stanswork is back because I want to have a one-on-one
with him and get into a lot on his projects, the way he does things, sort of his mentality
around all of it.
It's an excellent conversation.
Give it a listen.
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Welcome back to the show, Mr. Mike Barrows.
I have you all to myself.
I'm excited about it.
This is gonna be a good one.
Yeah, I'm gonna say I originally invited you on because I was like, oh, we should do a
firing order with you.
It's like, you know, you're good at arguing and fighting.
You proved that in the Victoria episode.
I was like, you know what?
We should just do a one-on-one, just catch up, talk about it all.
Hearing that I'm good at arguing is like, that's the finest compliment I've ever been
paid.
No, we'll have to do it at some point.
You are a master debate with my friend.
Thank you very much.
I've practiced a lot.
No, I'm ready to don the boxing gloves when the time comes but this would be fun.
It's been a while since we've really caught up.
Yeah.
Let's see, since we last spoke, you got a cease and desist but I'm sure you probably
are sick talking about that.
So the big thing is I've been advised to not talk about it.
There you go.
Perfect reason for us to move forward.
So really the only things I'll say about it is, so I did get a cease and desist from
Ferrari and it was the most gentle kind letter and everything that I said on the last podcast,
I feel validated in what I've said, what they care about.
It's perfect.
I nailed it.
I don't want to be the cause of your cease and desist.
I want to believe that I was, although you did do an entire episode about maybe getting
a cease and desist.
So you might have asked for it.
I certainly poked the bear and whatever it is.
Actually, no bear, no, I'm sorry, you poked the horse I guess.
Yeah, I whipped the horse.
So I'm not surprised that it happened.
It was very gentle.
I have not been told I can't build the cars or anything like that.
It's all just really minor.
Hey, we just need to be acknowledged here.
Yeah.
All right.
Well, what about things not Ferrari?
Because I feel like everything right now for you is like, is that all you talk about?
Because we talked about this right before the show started, that you have become a one-dimensional
character.
You are the man who built an F40 or started to build an F40.
I have an appreciation for anybody that wants to come up and talk about what I do or the
episodes or what have you.
Because they watch is why I get to do this.
So anybody that wants to talk about the F40, for example, of course.
But from a very personal perspective, it's a little bit of a bummer that almost exclusively,
even people that are friends of mine that I just haven't seen lately, every single person,
the only thing anybody asks me is just, how's the F40 coming?
And I get it.
They want to know.
It's a thing to talk about.
They're curious and it's great.
The downside is it's like, hey, dude, if you saw the last episode, you're caught up.
There's maybe a week of work since then.
Like it's not that far in front.
I don't have any new info to give you.
And I worked really hard to give you this 30-minute, really in-depth episode about how it's going.
So I can't just say, hey, just watch the episode because that's really dismissive.
But I promise you what's in the episode is a lot more in-depth than I'm going to have
the energy to sit here and explain in a 10-minute conversation.
So how many projects do you currently have rotating at the moment right now?
Let's count them off.
So you have the F40.
The F40 and then the Honda Swap Ferrari.
Right.
So you have those two because the other one you still drive, so it breaks and you have
to keep fixing it.
It currently has no engine or driveline in it.
How many Ks have you been through on that?
So I'm currently on, technically speaking, K number four.
But the current K is one.
So I changed engine builders.
This one's going to last.
It has.
So the current engine, it has a complete season of racing on it at this point.
And it is out of the car not because it had any issues, but because I'm on gearbox number
four now.
And so I'm changing gearboxes over to Hollinger.
So I ordered that back in September.
I should be getting it any day now.
With that out, I took the engine and gave it back to my new engine builder, which is
David RS Machine.
And I'm shouting him out because he has like that engine stayed together for an entire
year of racing and didn't skip a beat, was driving perfect.
We abused the hell out of it.
I can't praise him enough.
And that's all I wanted out of my K series experience.
So the first engines that I had trouble with and blew up prematurely.
And I really tried to go an avenue that I thought was the best of the best.
And that's not the experience that I had.
And so this has really changed that K series.
Yeah, experience for me.
Do you enjoy sort of this development side of this project?
Or is it frustrating or on a scale of one to 10, where does it live?
I think that's a fair, fair question.
I don't, I don't know.
I don't like working on cars.
I don't like fixing cars.
That's not fun.
Nobody's like, oh, I got to fix my car today.
Cool.
That sucks.
There is an enjoyment to be had in figuring out maybe either what I did wrong or what
I can improve or what I can change to make the experience more enjoyable or faster or
whatever.
That's part of in ways kind of, you know, like a scientific method or something, right?
Like how can I improve everything that I did or what I learned before?
How can I make it better?
I like that part of it.
The downside is just sometimes, or even a lot of that time, the failures that I've
experienced with that project aren't even within my control.
So having engines break multiple times or having gearboxes break multiple times, I'm
finding the weakest link and so learning where I can improve on other people's parts, but
it's not failures of things that I have done unless we want to call potentially the integration
of those parts together.
I mean, you chose them.
My doing, but at the end of the day, you're the, you're the designer engineer coach.
There's only so much control I can have over like whether or not my transmission is going
to blow up every other event.
So the reason I, the reason I ask you that is cause for me, like the K Ferrari is sort
of an expansion of the burrows like story arc.
And I say this because all the other cars, and correct me if I'm wrong, but all the other
cars, I think like most of your time was spent in building them.
And then when they were built, they either were like sort of debuted and then they, you
know, and I can't talk.
I got the same thing, but like, but you were in this situation where like, you know, there
really wasn't a lot to do with the car afterwards because, you know, you look at like, you know,
like the hot rod, it's like, okay, cool.
You built it.
You can go drive it somewhere, but like it didn't really have like a storyline that
continued after it where this car, it's like you built it, you did all of that.
And now you're actually doing what a lot of YouTubers don't do, which is like you're
taking the car that you built and like you're putting it through the paces and it's not
actually, I think is everyone would imagine, which is be like, oh, you went to all the
grid life, she went to world time attack, you got to do it.
It's like, no, I went, I broke, I had to fix it.
Like you're actually showing a very true side of when you build a really heavily modified
car.
And I, the question for me, looking at you is like, I know you enjoy the building side
of it.
So I was curious as if you hate the development side as much as normal people.
No, I don't like, I'm not mad when the car breaks other than like,
when it's just, when it's something dumb that keeps you from being out there for the
day and you know, but everybody feels that.
So I do enjoy the development process and I've really enjoyed getting to take that
car and make it better.
And it's one of those things where I know that that car has a lot of potential in it,
especially beyond my own skill.
I mean, I'm still learning as a driver.
I mean, like I'm competent, but I'm not a pro.
And so it's been a lot of fun.
I think one really interesting aspect of that is that through, let's say the YouTube
comments, I see so much that's something to the effect of like, maybe they're
suggesting I don't know what I'm doing or that I can't build a car or whatever,
because it just constantly breaks.
But then when I go to some of these races and I spend time in the, in the pit or
the paddock, everyone that has been through this process says, dude, this is
exactly how it goes.
Anybody that's built a complete ground up, you know, fresh build race car where
there's not a single part on that car that hasn't been completely and
extensively modified, you're going to have those teething pains, those growing
pains. When you see guys out there that are campaigning cars to a truly
competitive level, especially when they're that modified, they're out there
with huge bank accounts, incredible teams or serious, serious financial backing.
And so at the end of the day, I am still just a dude in his garage building some
form of a hot rod, right?
And even if you were a full blown race team, like they do a lot of development.
I mean, that's the part that doesn't get talked about.
Like the reason why super high level pro cars cost so much money, because
you're looking at that, you know, like, why is that worth half a million dollars?
Like you could probably build that for whatever.
It's like, yeah, well, they only made 35 of them and they had to develop them
until they broke and they went through six variations before they got to the one
that like you're getting to drive because they already did all the teething for you.
So it's like, I think people see that removed and I, I got to experience that
more once, like we started doing stuff on the WRC level, but like we had a WRC car
and then we had another car built by like a really good builder.
And we basically threw an entire season away because every event we went to the
car broke because we were asking you to do something it hadn't done before.
And I think, and I think that's where like I learned like, oh, development is
like a whole other process.
And that's why race teams have development drivers, because they're the ones who are
out in the secret, just pushing it, it until something goes.
Right.
I because this kind of rolls into another conversation that you and I had, which is
like, are we just building two ridiculous stuff on YouTube?
And I think one of the things I like about your content is like, you're actually
trying to make it work versus like, I put this crazy engine in this car and we got
to do a burnout and we're done.
Like, you know, where it's like actually going and making it work is actually
way, way more difficult sometimes than building it.
Yeah.
I mean, there's, there's a lot of barriers where it's like, sometimes I'll run into
an issue where I can't, I can't ask somebody else, Hey, how did you solve this
issue integrating your case series into your Ferrari?
You know, now there's been a case here.
There's not a, there's not a form of that in F chat.
Unfortunately.
No, weird.
But, you know, you, you, you go through these different hurdles and you're trying
to, you know, trying to make it really work, really genuinely work.
And I think one of the things that a lot of other people tend to forget when you're
talking about a race car versus making a street car work is, is completely
different.
You think about how hard it is on a vehicle to go out and then ring its neck
full tilt.
I mean, full throttle for 20, 30, 40 minutes at a time under full G forces,
full braking.
I mean, you're going to run that car at its limit.
I mean, plenty of most street cars are probably going to blow themselves up.
And I know for a fact, because of the number of Instagram posts I see when it's
like some of our friends will be like, Oh, my, my weekend car did a successful
500 mile trip this weekend.
But it's like, yeah, but you drove it leisurely.
Like it kind of should do that.
That's, that's bare minimum.
Right.
So, you know, it's, it's, it's been a really cool experience to take that car
and try to find out how to make it work.
I'm learning a lot from the 308 that I can take over to the F 40 so that I don't
have some of those same teething pains, but at the same time, there's still going
to be a lot of stuff that really likes to break.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Well, that sounds like fun.
What, what other cars you got on the list?
Um, so I've got, um, I've got my E 36 that I've had.
This is 20 years now.
So that's, that's the leading one.
I, as always say, I love and hate it.
I absolutely hate that car.
Uh, we've got my late friend Corey's E 30.
Yep.
I've got the Audi, which hopefully Jason Koff Koff will put my engine together
relatively soon.
I asked if he need anything from me lately and he was like, just time.
Yeah.
Which I get it.
Um, it's got like a new full time job now.
Yeah.
Two.
So we got the Audi and then I've got three trucks at the moment.
So I've got the big Ford F 350.
I've got Ash's F 100, which is about to become a massive project.
We miss it.
I thought she, I thought you'd bring it here today.
I told her, I was like, Oh, burrows is coming by.
And I was like, he might bring the F 100.
Who knows?
I was going to, she's broken down at the moment.
Ah, sorry.
And it happens.
Not my problem anymore.
Not your problem anymore.
Um, and then I have a 98 regular cab short bed GMT 400.
Okay.
Um, I bought it in August of last year and I've put about six miles on it.
So I had like big plans and then had some sponsors hop on board for it.
And then those sponsors, the last second were like, just kidding.
Can't do that.
And so now it's been parked.
I think I'm going to sell it just to throw that money towards the F 100.
Cool.
Um, what else is there?
Oh, by the way, your F 100 molding is behind you.
I saw that.
I appreciate it.
I'm glad that you found it with the key to the, uh, to the gun rack too.
So I'm excited for it.
Uh, and then lastly, kind of, I haven't debuted it on the channel yet.
Uh, so this will be kind of exclusive content.
I'll talk about it here.
Uh, kind of a teaser is, and maybe we've talked about this before, but I have
spent the last 10 years tracking down and then purchasing my father's Camaro.
He sold it when I was a year old.
Um, and it's a very special car, 217 mile an hour, absolute monster.
Um, and so I partnered up with Penn's oil and Napa and I acquired the car.
How did you find it?
Like how, how do you go about doing something like that?
Um, so, I mean, I have all sorts of magazine clippings of this car cause it
was in hot rod magazine, car and driver magazine, et cetera.
So I knew like, was it a land speed car?
Um, in a sense it competed against the top gun, uh, Callaway Corvette.
Oh yeah.
Yeah.
Okay.
Um, and I was actually on another podcast for the Peterson museum probably nine
years ago.
Yeah.
Okay.
I remember that I was on that.
I took the record for the longest pod.
I'm not surprised.
Yeah.
Um, but through that podcast, you know, we talked about it there and then I got
connected with, I knew that my dad had sold the car to John Lingenfelter.
Oh, okay.
Um, and so I knew that it kind of had to be there somewhere.
And initially through first contact with Lingenfelter group, they were like, yeah,
we don't know what you're talking about.
And then finally, um, long story made short, one of the oldest employees,
there was like, actually, I, I remember that car and I think it was John's
daughter had the car and then she had sold the car and connected me with the guy
who had it now.
Oh wow.
To make the long story short, cause I don't want to give it all away, but I, uh,
I surprised my dad with the car.
Oh, that's cool.
Didn't tell him about it.
I didn't realize that your dad had a history in cars.
Like you and I, you've told me about your dad's history on bikes, but I didn't
realize.
Yeah.
So what can you talk about?
What was, cause clearly that was pretty involved.
Who was up against sort of like Scalloway.
It's kind of in mining.
I can only tell the story through my own lens, but, um, I think it's kind of a
cool, the apple doesn't far fall from the tree.
Thing.
Uh, so like I didn't grow up with my dad.
And so I'm not in the cars because he was into cars.
It just kind of like, I think it's in my blood.
Um, but he is a car guy.
He's a motorcycle guy.
He and my mother, when they were together, ran an automotive ad agency in Nashville.
I knew that part.
Right.
And, and so the Camaro was kind of an ad, uh, project because Keith Black
racing engines wanted to get into the streetcar space instead of just drag
cars and boats.
Sponsorship integration builds is in your blood.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So, um, that was how that car came about.
And he's had a handful of others, uh, you know, a couple of magazine cars here and
there, they were the same type of thing, you know, working with sponsors to get
their products out there.
Um, and making cool stuff.
And it's again, crazy to me because here I am doing the exact same thing without
ever prior to doing it myself, having a conversation with him about doing that.
Right.
It's like, eventually I get there and it's just this kind of holy crap moment of
while I'm doing the same thing my dad did without even without really like having
him kind of lead you.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And that's not to say like, I mean, he has, he's been a wonderful guiding, you
know, force through so many things.
But, um, yeah, it's, it's again, Apple doesn't fall from the tree.
That's a super cool project.
I think anyone who grows up with like a parent who had some involvement in
cars, like there's a point that comes that you're like, I want to either recreate
that or do that.
So for me, my grandfather, um, rags the richest story, uh, long story short, he
ends up, you know, his, actually his wife built a company that made a bunch of
money and then he decided that he was just going to buy a ton of cars.
So understandable.
Yeah.
And he had like the weirdest arrangement of stuff.
Like he had like a, like a Willys and Auburn, he had Mercedes SL, he had a
DeLorean and that's a car that I very much would love to track down because
that was, you know, he had a DeLorean when back to the future was like in the
theaters and I was all of what seven or six or something.
And I just thought that was like the coolest thing ever.
And I know a DeLorean is a piece of crap.
I've been told by multiple people, but like it still makes me want it.
And I, at some point I tried to kind of like, could I figure out where this
thing is?
And, um, my cousin who actually listens to the show, he's a bit older than me.
He, he, uh, I think he ended up telling me that the car, I think made its way to
Japan, which actually I think all of a sudden it makes it easier to find.
There's probably not many.
There's not as many of them there as like here at some point people went out and
started collecting DeLoreans.
Yep.
So like there was like multiple people who were like, I'm going to hoard DeLoreans.
There was actually in Savill, Long Island, where my friend Jay used to live.
Like there was like this one parking lot that had like 27 DeLoreans in it in like
2004, you know, like, why would you want that?
What is wrong with you?
You don't like X chassis design.
Anyway, um, but like that's like, like to me it's like that thing.
And then the other one, which I think I may have told you about, but it's like my
secret project, although it's not that secret anymore.
Cause I think I've mentioned it on the podcast a couple of times, but, um,
when actually to her chagrin, when Ashley was pregnant with Hudson, uh, I stumbled
on a really good deal on an E type and I went and bought it because my dad had an
E type, which he sold when I came around and bought a Pinto.
So I, you know, cause it was a better family vehicle.
I thought, wouldn't it be funny to do the opposite and go buy one and I found this
like complete sort of like wreck of a car.
Cause in my mind, I'm like, I don't really want to drive like a vintage E type.
Like I want to drive like a fully like rest oh, modded, like build my own car.
Like really just use the body of it.
So like that's this car that's like sitting in a shed at my farm that I don't
plan to start until Hudson's old enough to actually work on it.
Like he can turn wrenches.
He's six, but like he it's not there yet.
Like he needs to be like 10 or 11.
You also want him to be able to, I want him to want to do it.
That's like, I don't want it to be like, Oh, dad's making me do it.
It's like, so there's actually, I'll get off this record, but there was this book
that someone bought us early on.
It's a fantastic book for kids.
And it's about a guy who finds a Maserati race car that belonged to Sterling Moss,
like in their like farm shed.
And then like the, they rebuilt it.
And like I've read him this book since he was little.
So it's like, my ultimate goal is to start working on it.
Hopefully while my dad is still here, where there's a moment where like I get
three generations of Scott Omen to like work on this car, you know, like to,
even if it's just like one moment, just so I can say all three of us worked on it.
But right now it's behind so much crap in the shed that I can't get it out.
But, but anyway, to the, to your, to what you were saying, like there's
something extra special that I think is like hard to explain to people.
Like that already sounds like a special car.
Like I'm talking about a basic E type.
I didn't find my dad's original E type.
I just found a E type.
It's not even the same model, but there's, I think there's like some weird
connection there.
It's like hard to explain.
Absolutely.
I mean, it's fun that anybody that I've taken the time to kind of explain
what I'm doing and what this car is.
Everyone's like, oh, dude, that's like the coolest story.
And I, I think that the video series that we're putting together on it will be
maybe the coolest thing I'll probably ever do.
I mean, plenty of people will be like, dude, a third gen Camaro is not as cool
as an F40. What are you talking about?
But to me, it's like, hey, like, yeah, but if it's cool to you, yeah.
And that's also my barometer.
I got to also say the Instagram video that's like, like, sun tracks down
dad's old car, rebuilds and surprises.
And that's like a million views right there.
Like that, like it hits all the feels.
So are you dropping that at first episode on Father's Day?
When is Father's Day?
I should like a few weeks.
No, no, I won't come out yet.
I'm not, I'm not ready.
We're still like churning through all of the footage that we've shot.
And I got to like now assemble it all.
You got to turn on that side of the marketing brain, buddy.
Like the algorithm, the algorithm will turn up dad stuff on Father's Day.
Stop, because you're going to, I'm to get an email from
Penzo being like, Hey, actually, that's a really good idea.
Can you do that?
Twenty first.
Yeah. See, you're a month out.
That could be possible.
Not in my mind.
You could make it happen.
You could like at least sneak it, at least get the Instagram.
The teaser, the teaser comes out Father's Day weekend.
You drop it on the Friday, so it rolls for the weekend.
There you go.
So that's like kind of the big thing that had been working on
has taken a lot of effort and time lately.
So people keep saying like, why is progress on the F40 so slow?
It's well, it's because there's other stuff happening too.
Yeah.
So do you enjoy the way you build?
Because I am very jealous of when I say that, I mean, the way you move
from car to car, like the cadence of it, I'm jealous of it because I always
would love to have been able to build cars that way, but I always feel like
the audience wants you to like build a car, finish it, then move on to the next one.
Because you kind of like you like, I mean, you started that Audi project.
I mean, years ago.
Yeah.
Right.
So like that's like this thing that like you work on it when the time comes.
Like, is it do you enjoy working on cars that way?
Or is it more of a necessity to work on it that way?
Because of this, you know, it's a bit of both.
I mean, like let's use the Audi for an example.
I want the Audi done.
People all the time will say, like, dude, why won't you give us episodes?
We want to see it.
And it's like, I promise I want the car done more than you do.
But there are reasons that I haven't put out episodes on it.
The biggest one being parts are really hard to find.
And then just not to like, I don't want it to sound like I'm complaining about it,
but like things like getting the engine put together or, you know,
just tracking down certain things.
It's just a time consuming process when I'm relying on other people.
And Jason, when we talked about it, because initially I was having somebody else
build the engine and that kind of fell apart.
And so then Jason being a friend of mine, I was like, oh, dude, this would be perfect.
But I'm not going to pressure him to get it done.
And so that just means, hey, that project's going to be on the back burner,
but I'm OK with that because I have other projects I need to do anyway.
So I've got my eight valve sitting at his shop that like,
I think he's done building.
He just hasn't given it to me.
We got to go pay him a visit.
Yeah. Yeah.
So to answer the question, like, yes, I like the way that I build cars
in that I don't want to focus on just one car until it's done.
I get burned out on it.
I'd be I'd be super annoyed if I just had to go in and work on the same car
every day. And so it's nice to have a break to get to pivot to do something else.
Let maybe thoughts about solving a problem or how I want to do something.
Let that sit for a while.
Maybe I'll revisit it.
I'll let let the dust settle a bit.
Go work on something else.
Turn wrenches elsewhere.
Come back to it.
Have a fresh mindset.
I found that when I was working on just one build at a time, so whether it was
like, let's use Rusty, for an example, which is like my first huge build.
By the way, for people who don't know Rusty Slammington, kind of like
Internet famous car, like it's got to be in a top list of Internet famous cars.
And it had two variations.
First, if you're old, old.
Oh, boy. Yeah, you're right.
Yeah. If you're old like us.
Yeah. So how do you know I turned 37 last week?
You're not even old yet.
I'm almost 10 years old than you.
So but yeah, like kind of a famous car would just give people to quick on it.
Is it in its final form, full tube chassis, wide body,
mid engine, BMW, group five race car, rat rod thing that started as it was
originally an E28 five series sedan.
It's now a chop top two door.
Like it's it's ridiculous.
And it started as like a stance car.
Yeah.
And then it became this like amazing fab car.
I want to call it a fab car because I feel like it's a car where it's like
the fabrication on the car is what makes it amazing.
We're like originally it was just rusty and slammed, but then like the concept.
And I don't mean just the fab.
It's like a fab and a concept car.
Yeah, I think the concept of it is like really what makes it cool and interesting.
There are plenty of other vehicles that are similar to it or what have you.
When I built that car, I hadn't seen anything like it yet.
And it was before, you know, kind of like the popularity of Instagram and what
not in the car community was like really a thing.
And before you two builds were getting it over the top.
Exactly.
And so it was a very unique vehicle in that like the concept was crazy.
And it was I mean, I took it full tilt.
I hadn't seen somebody do a full tube jazzy car that wasn't like, oh,
there's a purpose built race car.
It was like, no, there's just to build it.
Didn't have a purpose.
It was like, I'm just making something crazy.
Yeah.
So that car.
I took probably two months off of working on it at one point because I just like,
I just I'm burnt out on it.
I got to let it sit.
Or even when I was building the model A, I had to pump the brakes for a little while.
And so I think that doesn't mean that I don't want to be working on something.
But sometimes I just I'm tired of a project.
I've put enough thought into it.
Maybe I'm stumped.
I get stumped all the time.
Like I spend a lot of time really just looking at a car.
Or a project, rather, and trying to figure out like, what am I going to do?
There's no right or wrong answer necessarily, like in the most objective sense.
And so it's like, sometimes I get really burdened by that.
And the only answer is to just come back to it later.
Yeah, I I have envy for the way that you do your thing.
And I've always been curious as to whether or not like it's a plan thing.
It just kind of works that way.
But I think the reason I'm envious for the your process and how you build cars
is because I think my brain works the same way.
I have this, like I love working on cars.
I just don't have a lot of time in my life right now to do it.
And for me, working on cars isn't really what pays the bills.
Like making content is what pays the bills.
Like I have to be spending every day present as like a director and no podcaster.
But like I was never the build content guy.
Like, yeah, I made build content on Hoonigry.
Like that wasn't really my specialty.
But like I have this dream of this retirement and my retirement looks like
your YouTube page, which is like, go work on this on, you know, this week,
move over to work on this.
Like I love the idea of like you just kind of move through the pieces.
And it's a bit haphazard.
It's a bit, it's definitely the neurodivergent garage.
But I just enjoy that.
But I also as someone who like, you know, studies the algorithm studies YouTube.
I'm like, there's not the best way to do content.
But if it works for you and it makes you happy, then that's probably the way you
should do it.
Right.
There's no question that my channel and business would be way more successful
if I took a different approach to it.
Like I know that and like, I guess in that same line or same train of thought is
like the channel has grown to a point.
I mean, I have two employees now.
It's a real business and like it has to work.
And I never really expected to become a business owner in that capacity where
like at this point, not like a majority of my day, but every day I have like real
business things that I have to do.
And it's like, that kind of sucks.
I don't want to do that.
I just want to go work on stuff.
But that's not the part of my retirement part that looks.
Yeah.
That part, it's not cool.
But, you know, ultimately I do try to remind myself that all of it for me is
it's just a means to an end.
I just want to figure out how to monetize working on my projects so that I can do it.
I don't really care about anything else.
I don't want to be a YouTuber.
It's just an avenue to get to make my stuff.
Yeah.
So at the end of the day, I want my content to be what I want to make, which is very
focused.
That's why I focus on the details.
I talk about the how and the why.
I show my mistakes because I'm a human being and I don't want it to be overly
polished or overly produced.
I don't want it to feel like, Hey, you're going to get just these build
episodes where you're going to get, you know, a finished project in, let's say,
five episodes or something.
That's just not how real projects work in the real world.
And I can still consider myself in the real world.
So I think that's actually the part that I like the most.
And I don't think I've ever thought about that until you just said it.
Like there was when you, when you sit there and you're like, okay, I'm going to
do this build, it's going to take seven episodes to build it.
We're going to fit into seven.
Like that is the way that like a media and programming mind works.
And like that is very consumable.
The way you build cars is probably actually more realistic to like regular people.
Right.
In that, like, yeah, not everything.
You can't find everything at once.
And especially if you have multiple projects, like you bounce back and forth
between them.
Um, I saw this Instagram reel, someone made the other day and he was like, it was
like a normal Saturday in the garage.
And it's like, he just starts 14 things.
He doesn't finish anything.
And including one of them was like, I need to start my dirt bike because I
haven't done it in a week.
And then like, oh, shit, the carb needs cleaning.
And then he's like, you know, it's like, I, so I think that there's something
about the way you do it, even though it might be frustrating for the audience
at times, it feels very authentic and like real.
And I think that that's nice.
Cause I think a lot of the build stuff doesn't feel real anymore.
I try to like make sure that it stays true in that sense.
And if that limits the size of my audience.
Okay.
But if I still, as long as I have an audience that knows what they're getting
and they come back to watch it and they're happy with it and it works for
them and it works well enough for me that we can make it work as a business,
then that's all that matters.
I don't, I don't need to have a million subscribers to do what I'm doing.
The, the, I don't want to look at my channel in the same way that like
stockholders look at a business and say, we need endless growth.
This has to get bigger and bigger endlessly for whatever reason.
Like it doesn't like right now.
I love my job.
I wake up every day excited to do what I do.
If I won the lottery and I had a billion dollars in my bank account tomorrow,
I wouldn't quit.
I wouldn't change what I'm doing.
I would just have more means to do it.
And so I want to keep it that way.
I don't want to pivot my content in some sort of like approach to find more
success or to like, you know, that doesn't serve me any purpose other than
making the business side of this, the real work side of it, more work.
The only work that I want to be doing is working on my car.
Do you consider yourself a YouTuber?
I mean, yes, but I don't want to.
Is that a fair?
No, it's totally fair.
I had a conversation with TJ Hunt and I realized that the huge difference
between TJ and myself and a lot of other people, and maybe the entire
philosophy around Hoonigan is that for TJ, he is a YouTuber.
Like he very much sees himself as that because it's like, that's how he came up
and he was doing it since he was like seven, where I think you and I.
Ended up at YouTube because the forms of media that we were doing went away.
I was a RIP print.
I was a print guy and blog.
So can you really a blog guy, right?
Which, by the way, is a perfect transition and more into Stanceworks
because everyone's like, if you have them on, you got to talk about early
stance works and the importance.
Okay, let's do that.
But but but answer this one first.
I mean, like, do you do you just feel like YouTube is like a means to to like
100% it is a means to an end.
I do not.
I never set out to like be on camera.
I don't want to be on camera.
I want to be a personality.
I don't it doesn't have any value to me to be right a person in that regard.
It is quite literally and solely a way to make the projects that are in my head
come to life and as a way to generate income to do it and to bring partners
to the table and to make it all happen.
Like the one thing I know that we both know and unfortunately the audience
probably more often than not doesn't have a full grasp of is how wildly
expensive it is to build cars, especially at that caliber.
I mean, it is just eye watering, especially now having a business to do it
where I keep a spreadsheet on all of it.
I remember at one point telling someone that the electric bill at
Hoonigan was $9000 a month because how much welding we were doing.
People like, wait, what?
And I was like, yeah, that's I mean, yeah, we had also turned the lights on.
But like, trust me, it wasn't the lights because I knew what the bill was
before we started welding and like the plasma and and all the three face stuff.
And all and like you just that and that is just a cost that you don't even think
about when you're doing stuff on the level.
Yeah, absolutely.
So let me ask you a question.
If you could achieve the same goal, which means like partners have a salary
for yourself to build the cars you have and do it through a blog instead of
YouTube, would you do that or?
Um, I don't know that I have a preference in that regard.
So like ultimately, so I want to make sure that I'm at least honest with myself
and transparent.
And of course, I love sharing my stuff.
That's always what I'm doing.
Like I like putting it out there because I think it's cool.
Other people presumably have found it cool for quite some time.
Yeah.
And I think that it's it's fun to talk about.
It's fun to inspire other people.
You know, I try to like have an some level of educational value in some sense
to the content that I put out there versus it just being like entertainment.
Because I enjoy those things.
And so I don't want to sound like I would be content if I was in like a closed
off box closed off to the world, but still had the means to do it.
I'm not saying close up.
I'm saying like if we were, if we could somehow like the current world doesn't
exist and you could have, you know, hundreds of thousands of people showing up,
but the format is a blog versus the format being a video.
Like I'm curious to because in saying that you're like, I guess I'm a YouTuber,
but like I don't really want to be one.
Is it the YouTube format?
Is it the video format?
Because I think you were very happy being the guy who ran Stanceworks
and did all that stuff.
Right.
Yeah.
I mean, like, so there was still like, I enjoyed that.
And there was never a time during the days of the Stanceworks blog that I wanted
to be in front of the camera.
Like that was not ever something I wanted to do.
At this point, I would say like, I don't, it's still like, it's still weird to
be in front of a camera.
Like nobody ever gets like, I mean, I guess maybe you get comfortable with it,
but it's still, it's still funky.
But I don't know.
I think there are, there are aspects of the video medium and format that have
huge benefits in contrast to just photographs and words.
Like, yeah.
So I like that more.
I really do like storytelling and while the stories are very different.
And at this point, the stories are very focused on what I'm doing to a car versus
telling other people's stories, which is less fulfilling to tell.
But I do, I guess, I don't know, I'm trying to say, I like the video medium
and like what it gives me the ability to do.
And I get to show a lot more.
And I have fun with that.
Like I still like making videos because it's a creative process.
So like it's, it's not that I hate the YouTube side of it.
I only like the car side.
Like there's still a creative output in making a video that I think turns out
polished and whether it's tells the story I wanted to tell, or, you know, maybe it
has the arc that I wanted to have or teaches the lesson I wanted to or whatever.
I mean, you're built content clearly like the content itself clearly has craft.
Other people just like film stuff and just throw it up there.
Like that you clearly are making something that is like craftily put together.
So I definitely like that because I, I, and this is probably a bit about myself
too, where it's like, I have a love hate relationship with YouTube, like an
absolute love hate relationship with it.
Because in some ways it, my entire career and success after zero to 60 is
based on YouTube.
If it wasn't for John Connor and then later on, everything we do with
Hoonigan, like I, I don't know where I would be in things.
Right.
Um, I love that it's not gate kept.
I love all of this, but then there's other parts of it.
And I don't want to get too much into the YouTube side of this combo.
We have it a lot, but it's like, there's other parts of it that I don't enjoy,
which is like the algorithmic side of it, the like the hamster wheel side of it.
And like all of that.
And as someone who came from print, like I miss, I missed the tangibility of print.
I miss sort of the structure print.
I miss that there was something to look forward to in maybe a more
controllable, like monthly delivery versus like a weekly delivery and like
things like that gives you more time to like marinate on stuff.
You never felt very rarely did you feel forced to be like, we have to just get
this out where like there's that different model.
So I was curious because like I didn't spend a lot.
I actually skipped the blog world.
Like, like I did the magazine, zero 60 had a blog element, but that wasn't the focus.
I was a guest writer for Jalopnik at moments, but I never like operated in a blog where
like it was something we had to like make money off of.
But like for you guys, like stance works was like a real business.
It seemed like, right?
I'm sorry.
I mean, it was, it wasn't like a successful business, but it was business.
But I was just curious if like, if the YouTube part, like what is the part of it
that makes us both say, I don't like want to be a YouTuber, but I am.
Cause I like, I built my, my career, my second part of my career on YouTube,
but I still don't really see myself as a YouTuber.
I'm like, we're on YouTube right now.
That this is true.
We're also on Spotify.
I think, I don't know.
That's a tough one to answer.
I think part of it comes down to the fact that so Andrew Ritter, the other
half of stance works and I did that blog for almost 10 years.
Rewind back, how did that all start?
Uh, I started the website, uh, when I was in college.
So in 09, I think it was January of 09.
And it was just a place.
So I think it's initially started as a forum because I was really active on like,
you know, BMW forums and whatnot.
And we were getting into, you know, just slamming our cars and having
aggressive wheel and tire fitment as was the thing at the time.
And anytime we'd post our cars, every thread would devolve into just an
argument, you know, you're ruining your cars.
What are you doing?
Um, and we needed a place where like-minded individuals could share their stuff and
like, you know, not have it turn into just idiots throwing shit at each other.
So that's where the forum initially started.
And then with that, I was like, Oh, I'll make a blog.
So I have a place to share my photography, um, go into different car shows or
photographing different cars.
And then from there, it just, it just gained attraction and became a place for
me to showcase other cars, builders, shops, stories, what have you.
Um,
And what were sort of the prerequisites for you guys at that time?
Cause you did a pretty broad collection of stuff.
It was, it was the only thing that Andrew and I ever said was required was we had
to think it was cool.
If we thought it was cool, we were willing to put it on the site.
If it wasn't, it wasn't then, and there's, was it cool and low?
Cause I think you guys only did kind of no, no, no, I think, and, and that's
like one thing we really tried to avoid, especially, um, you know, let's say like
2013 onwards was we really didn't want to be synonymous with what became like
stance, so to speak, it became like a bad word in a sense.
Um, we really wanted to just celebrate automotive cool.
And so there's so much content in those archives that's everything from like
vintage racing to hot rods, to, you know, off road to, you know, to show
cars to anything really, as long as it was cool and it had a story worth sharing.
We said, let's do it.
You guys shot my Nova for Stan Thurks.
Exactly.
And, and, and so like, there was a genuinely a little bit of everything and we
poured our heart and our souls into it.
And we turned down selling the company.
We turned down, I couldn't count how many sponsors because we never wanted to
appear to be sellouts and like we only took sponsors.
If we like, we really knew the company and like really, you know, felt like it
was a good fit and like we, we lost out on a lot of money, money over
the years because we had, we were young and stupid and like really prideful, but
I think that pride and what we were doing, it showed through in, in the art, so
to speak.
But as a result, the business was never successful.
I mean, like Andrew and I barely made it by the entire time.
And when I say barely made it by, I mean barely.
And like, yeah, we had like some, some project cars at the time.
Like the first one that I did was that 28 model A and that one I funded through.
I sold that E nine that I had, if you remember that car, which was like the
ultimate come up as a 21 year old kid.
I bought that car for 3500 bucks and then sold it for like $20,000.
I thought I was king of the world.
You were.
Um, and, you know, and then like when I finally started to build rusty as that
crazy vehicle, like I was fortunate.
That's when H and R came on board.
They're my first ever sponsor for a project like that.
But as a business, it just like, we wasn't making money.
It really wasn't.
And so to answer the question a long way around is to say that YouTube, when I
pivoted in, you know, I guess it was December of 20 was when I bought that 308.
And I said, I'm going to fire up a YouTube channel.
I'm going to do this.
I'm going to document my projects because that's what I want to do and try to
make this work as the first time that I ever actually made any money at all.
At all.
So at the end, it's not bad being a YouTuber.
It's, it's not, it's not bad.
And, and it's, it's just, it's really, it was the first time in my whole career
where it was like, okay, this kind of actually makes sense as a business.
This actually can go somewhere.
And if I, I can see tangible results.
If I keep pushing and, you know, putting out that content and feeding that
algorithmic beast, it's like, well, it works versus it didn't matter how much
effort we were putting into a blog.
It never made more money because we couldn't, we weren't getting paid by the
view, right?
And at that time, all of the, the, you know, old heads at all these automotive
companies, they were like, what do you mean you want me to pay you, you know, to,
to do a banner ad?
I'd rather do a print ad and we're sitting here saying like, yeah, but you got
to have people follow through from that print ad and set the magazine down and go
over to their computer and order your part versus like, they can click on it.
They can see that part here in our article, but they couldn't, they didn't get it.
And so like just the ad dollars barely made it work.
And no matter how many views we were getting, we weren't getting more, you
know, especially cause Andrew and I weren't, and still I'm not a business person.
Like it's, it's, I mean, I tried to be working other jobs.
No, I mean, like it was, it was our only job.
Um, and like most of that income, I mean, we had advertisers and then we did our
merchandise, which was all Andrew.
Um, and like, again, it worked, but like, I think for most of that stretch from
2011 when I moved to California, um, up until it was 2018 when Andrew left and
finally it was like, Hey dude, I got to like try to make something in my life.
I want to like eventually get married and have a kid and what have you.
And I was like, yeah, it makes sense.
And like, I, I think that entire time we were making 20 to 30,000 bucks a year.
Like, I mean, it was like paying ourselves.
And then like it paid for the, paid for the shop and like, that was it.
That was it.
And so it's like, you know, we were, we were barely getting by.
It was tough.
And there was plenty of months where it was like only one of us was getting paid
or what have you.
And like, I want to make sure I give Andrew the credit.
Like without him, none of it ever would have happened.
Like he, he took the hits when, when it really had to and cause he had his shit
a lot more together than I did.
And, but yeah, like he made all of that happen.
And, and unfortunately, you know, we, we poured our heart and souls into it.
And I'm proud of what we did.
Like, God, I'm proud of it.
I love it, but he didn't, I don't know that it ever worked from a business perspective.
It worked from a social perspective, right?
Like everybody knew it.
It was an influence.
I mean, I think that that's the thing for a lot of people was that for a certain
generation, you know, I'm the magazine generation.
So for me, I have this like, like romantic memory of performance
VW and, you know, in Euro tuner, European car, Max power, you know,
Super Street, but you guys were that for a generation that grew up sort of in the,
you know, 2000 to 10 to, you know, 2015.
Like that was the source to go find cool cars.
All right.
And you created that.
And like there was, you know, there was obviously you guys and maybe speed hunters.
And there was one point there was a ton.
And then I think in the end, but like you guys were very uniquely in this place
of like, this is just really cool.
And it was very curated, which like I, and, and you, like, you brought it up
before I think it was really like in 2009.
So in zero 60, my, my editor's column was called stance.
Cause it's like the double on time.
And like the word meant something so different then it did.
Then like it became later on, like stance was almost like code word for like, I,
like it was basically like, if you were like, Hey, I, you know, like, I say the word stance.
It's like you had, like it was a code word for saying like, I understand
style and how a car should look like.
Like I know.
Yeah.
And it was only about presence really.
Like it just, it's like, it wasn't about being as low as possible.
It was like that right fit.
Like there was this term in German, it's like off-stop, which is like the nose is
lower than the back.
And like there was just a certain look that like looked really good on like
Mark three Volkswagen's and H&R made a kit called the 60 40 kit.
And it was like 60 mil, 40 mil to give you that look.
Yeah.
And it's like, that's just this nuance thing that like, I think became a language
to a whole group of like the next generation people.
Cause if you go back, like whenever I see people build like period 1980s cars,
but the stance is going like, that's not period.
Like cars were gross.
Like, like fitment was gross.
Like even lowered, there was still three fingers a gap in it.
You know, so, but there was this moment where that shifted.
And then like all things that went to an extreme.
And then it was like, how low can you go?
And you're like building cars that don't really drive and like, and all of that.
Yeah.
Everybody wants to push it to the limit and find that limit and then go beyond it
some more.
Um, no, I mean, I really am proud when I look back, I occasionally I'll go and
I'll open up like what we call the stance works archives as a tab and it'll just
feed you random articles from the past, you know, 15 years or longer than that at
this point.
Have you guys thought about doing a book with that archive?
We've talked about it.
And the hardest part is like all of the web res stuff is too low.
Like we were, Andrew, now we're talking about this, maybe like a few months ago.
It was like, we were the first to do way, way back.
We were uploading our images at 800 pixels wide, which at the time was huge.
And then we redid our website and we went to 1200 pixels, which was like
a desktop size photos for every single photo.
And at the time we did that, it was like, holy shit, that's massive.
It was like full screen.
And now most of the archive, all the photos like 1200 pixels, but 1200
pixels is not big enough to print in a book.
Do you guys not have the original for that?
I know that we have everything because I did.
I have not deleted a single photo I've ever taken.
Okay.
But the problem is, is like going back and compile, like, okay, yeah, we could do
this.
How much time is it going to take?
Who's going to buy it?
Is it going to be worth the squeeze?
Because like that's, I would love to do it.
Yeah.
But realistically, like that's something it'd be like, yeah, I'm going to, that's
going to be, that's a job.
It's a job.
So will that happen?
I don't know.
Maybe someday.
Um, not anytime soon.
Maybe a book publisher is listening to this right now.
Yeah.
Hit me up.
I'll go make that book.
Let's figure it out.
Um, because there, there is genuinely an archive of thousands of articles and
there is humorously, there's only one on the website that I can think of that I am
unhappy with.
Oh, really?
I'm not going to name it.
I was going to say name the names.
Eh, no, I'm not going to do that.
I'm not going to do that.
Are you not going to do it because you're not happy because you don't want to
out the person who owns the car?
No, I don't care about him.
Oh, okay.
I don't care about him.
Uh, one, I don't want people to go find the article because it sucks.
The car sucks.
Um, is it choice of car?
Is it that you guys just put the wrong car in?
Yeah, it was like a friend of a friend and like we were, yeah, I don't know.
We were, is it my Nova?
I love that feature.
I love that feature.
Oh, hey everybody.
Here we are for another story time interruption brought to you by my good
friends at FCP Euro.
If you're at all familiar with my builds, you know that I'm not really good at,
um, let's just say this.
I'm the king of scope creep.
I had an Audi coupe, Quattro, and I was going to build into a 500 horsepower
driver.
It was a pretty simple established recipe to do this, but no, instead I decided
to make it into a 1000 plus horsepower race car that still doesn't run.
The bad news is, is I also scope creep maintenance.
The other day went for a nice drive in the RS too.
It was a spirited one, hit some canyon roads.
Everything was great.
So I went around one corner and I heard a very familiar clunk.
This clunk, the Volkswagen Audi guys is nothing other than a blown
strut bearing.
It happens a lot, especially when driving slammed cars.
And while most people would probably be dismayed at the tedious task ahead
of them, not I, I saw this as an opportunity.
Yeah, an opportunity to finally fix that clicking CV joint.
Get after the bushings or the brakes that needed an overhaul, you know, head
on over to FCP Euro and just fill the cart with everything I can find
underneath suspension brakes and even steering.
Hey, why not?
And you know, then take apart other parts of the car and probably never put
it back together.
This is kind of what I'm known for.
If you too are like this, you can go to fcpuro.com and scope creep even the
most basic maintenance.
FCP Euro doesn't judge.
They'll be your plug to this horrible bad habit we have.
Do you remember the conversation we had that day when you shot that car?
Yeah.
Do you want to talk about it?
Sure.
It is one of the most defining conversations of my entire career.
I talk about it to people all the time.
Okay.
So I look at where I'm at in my career and I'm like I said, I love my job.
I love what I'm doing.
Um, would you remember when we photographed that car?
It was 2017 maybe 2016.
2016 because I built the car.
You had just finished it.
Was it the first iteration or was it one of the bigger engine?
No, I think it was first iteration.
Then it was 2015.
That was to say it's this was a long time ago.
Yeah.
And this was because when did you guys start doing YouTube at Hoonigan?
20 late 2016.
Okay.
And then heavy 2017.
It was before that.
Yeah.
And we were standing under this bridge having just photographed the cars.
You, me and Andrew.
The bridge behind Hoonigan.
And you said to us, we're, we're excited to get back and go put this blog
article together, like the photos came out awesome.
And you say to us, you're like, guys, you know what you should do?
You should, you should get on YouTube.
We're going to get on YouTube.
We're going to start publishing videos every day.
You guys should do videos about all these cars that you're featuring.
Start making video content.
I've seen your videos, stuff that you guys know how to run cameras and make
stuff because we'd made some stuff that had gone like well, but you put it on
like Vimeo or whatever.
You said, we're going to do YouTube and see where it takes us.
This is pre Hoonigan YouTube.
Like it hadn't happened yet.
No daily transmission.
And I remember Andrew and I on the drive home, we talked about it and we were
like, I wonder if we like should do that.
And we were like, nah, we're photographers.
Let's stick to what we know.
And I think all the time about where would I be now if in 2015 or 2016 we had
pivoted and had started to do that.
They're handing out free game under a bridge.
That's where you get game.
It is genuinely like one of, I tell people that story all the time.
It was like genuinely just a wild moment for me to look back on and think about
the fact that here's the guy responsible for one of the biggest automotive
channels on YouTube.
And he's sitting here before he's even started it.
And he's just like, Hey dude, I'm going to do this thing.
You should think about doing this thing too.
And I don't, I'm not going to say that I'm sad.
I didn't do it.
I, you know, there's a saying, say stick to what you know, right?
And at the time I knew photos and I knew how to write.
And so I was like, I'm going to, I'm going to stick to what I, what I do.
And ultimately it took me to where I'm at now.
So no, not an ounce of regret, but it is fun to think about like, man, where would
I be right now if I had just said like, you know what, let's give that a go.
So at that time thinking about it, I don't think I really thought about it much.
I was still sitting in this world of like, I knew we wanted to do something on
YouTube, but like I didn't know what it was yet.
Right.
Like, but I knew that it had to be action related because like the brand was so
action focused.
And I was looking at you guys thinking, I wish I could just do that.
But like, that's not our brand.
Like our brand isn't doing car features.
Like our brand is doing burnouts and drifting and jumping.
And like, I mean, if you think about it, daily transmission basically was a car
feature with a burnout, like, like that.
It wasn't, it wasn't a genius moment where I put it all together.
But, but we had taken a couple of meetings with like some big YouTubers.
And at the time the multi-channel networks were big and, and you know,
YouTube's starting to like become something different.
Like it's no longer cat videos.
And we went to go take a meeting with a company that I can't remember now, but
they were eventually bought by Disney and that was an MCN company.
We went and the guy looked at me and he said, you have to be able to make
something for less than a hundred bucks or it's not worth making on YouTube.
And so I spent all this time thinking like, what could we make?
Like what could be these things that would like work, but still had the
vault, like the energy of the brand.
And I, and we were shooting there that day.
And I was just like, man, if we brought a camera out right now and film this.
This would work.
Like people want to see this, but like it wasn't my brand.
Right.
Do you know what I'm saying?
So I was literally looking at something.
I was watching you guys do that and going, I want this, but this doesn't
actually fit my brand.
Later on we did build biology, which actually kind of became that, but it
wouldn't have worked.
I think as our first foray, it would have, it would have put Hoonig in a
different light where like daily transition was exactly the show that we
needed to make, which was just like kind of chaos, like DIY, like it really
fit the aesthetic for the brand.
So when I remember that, because I walked back into the building going, man,
what could we do?
And I think there's, there's probably a piece of that, that if you were to map
my brain energy during that time, that looking at that going, if I just did a
burnout at the end, that would work.
And then we kind of went made daily transmission.
No, I, I, I was happy to see you finally come into YouTube.
And I was also happy to see you carve out like this really unique space for you.
Cause I will say this and you know, hold on to the size of your head, but
like a lot of people build stuff.
Um, I think that you have a different approach to building that feels elevated
from what a lot of other people are doing.
And I don't just mean because of the size of the project, cause I see people
shove, you know, such and such super car engine into such and such whatever
or vice versa.
Um, but it doesn't feel like engineered.
And I like, I know you're not an engineer, but like, I know you care enough
about engineering that like you're looking into a lot of that.
But, but at the same time, you also care about the aesthetic of it.
And it's like, that's like a weird, like those paths sometimes don't cross.
Like you can have someone who really understands how to make something,
but like it doesn't look good.
And then you guys own who really knows how to make something look good,
but it's not actually functional.
And it's like, you're, I think you're finding like this good Venn diagram
where like you're living in both.
And that for me, like checks all the boxes.
Like, I, I appreciate that.
And I think if I were to try to like nail down what that part of it is, is at
the end of the day, the car stuff for me, it's, it is a creative outlet.
I'm really hesitant to call myself an artist.
I think that sounds really pretentious, but like for lack of a better way to put
it, like it's still my artistic output.
Like maybe you can go with that.
And it's like, I really care how it turns out and how it looks, how it feels.
When you look at it, what the impression you get when you're around it is,
or when you see it, like all that stuff really matters to me.
And so yeah, you can have people that are setting out to build, let's say a race
car, because they want to take it racing.
That's not what I'm doing.
Or maybe they're building something because they want to have this crazy machine.
You know, they put a tank engine in a something or other.
And it's like, yeah, you did it, but like, how does it, how does it?
Really feel to look at it?
Like, is it, is it really cool?
Like it's cool in concept, but like, is it, does it make you feel the thing
when you look at it?
And so it's like, that is that kind of stuff's important to me.
Um, would you build rusty slammington today?
Or do you feel like that's something behind you?
100% I would build it today.
I would like, would you build it the same way you built it?
Or I would make it better because I've learned a lot since I built that car.
Like when I look at that car now, I still, like, I think it's really cool.
I like wish that I could go back and redo the whole thing.
Cause it's like, it looks like my first big project, but I'm still proud of it.
It also was your first.
Well, I guess, I guess the model A was your first.
I mean, I built the model A so that I could learn how to fabricate
so that I could build rusty and rusty in scale, can in contrast to that
first model A is, is just a completely different animal.
Yeah.
Um, but yeah, I mean, like I still think that that's, that car is awesome.
And I still, I mean, I think that the F 40 is really just in many ways rusty 2.0.
I mean, like it's kind of the same thing, right?
So yeah, I mean, it's, it's all, it's all a lot of fun.
And you said something a moment ago that made me want to kind of touch upon
another kind of cool point.
You were talking about like kind of becoming a YouTuber and, you know, how
it fits into the projects and whatnot.
And I think one of the other really cool parts of getting to the point
of where I'm at now and the path that it's taken me is.
So we talked about my dad and his history and, you know, to, to use the same phrase,
apple not falling far from the tree.
Well, my stepdad was also important in the world of cars and to me in terms of cars.
So he was the host of, of car and driver television and then motor
trend television or I guess other way around, motor trend television and then
car and driver television back in the nineties on, on TNT.
Wild.
So Jim Scouton, big mustache, deep voice.
I guaranteed like you'd be like, oh, holy crap.
Sounds super familiar.
And so yeah, he was me, my parents, my mother and he married in 98.
I grew up with him.
Absolutely.
Like one of the best people on planet earth.
I adore him.
One of the most important people in my entire life.
Um, and one of my favorite things about doing YouTube and then kind of running
that side of the business and whatnot was how much closer it brought me and him
because he still ran a TV production company all the way up until his, his
death a couple of years ago.
Um, and so he did the car stuff, but primarily he did, uh, television shows
that focused on shooting sports.
So shooting USA and prior to that American shooter.
Um, and there was so much kind of overlap.
Once my business started taking off and talking about pivoting to YouTube and
having that path take me where it went.
And, you know, whether it's finding sponsors and advertisers and, and that it,
it paralleled exactly what he did for a living for the past, you know, 30 years.
Um, and it was, it was really cool.
Cause kind of at the end.
It, one, it, we shared a lot of overlap in just the business side of it.
And so he like really took an interest in what I was doing there, but then it
also for the first time really allowed him to see what I could do and, and the
skill set and whatnot.
I remember like I started building the second model A with the coyote motor
and the F one wheels and whatnot.
And like one day he watched and he was like, holy shit, how do you, how do
you know how to do any of that?
You know, and it was like really cool.
I wish I could remember exactly what the point was, but it was, it was such a
special moment as we're talking about all the YouTube stuff.
I'm throwing that one out there too.
There was, I had a way to connect it, but we've lost it, but it was, it was,
it was really cool, uh, to kind of have that happen too.
Yeah.
It's funny how sometimes like you get to a certain point in your career and like
your parents take notice of something that like you don't think much about.
And they're just like, wow, you did that.
Like, yeah, I, that's what I do.
You know, like I had this.
weird moment when I was, when we made the first Jim Conner, uh, my mom sent it to
me and she's like, have you seen this?
No way.
I was like, mom, I was involved in that.
Like go rewatch it.
It says zero to 60 at the beginning and she's like, Oh, oh wow.
Like when it was like a friend of hers sent it to her and she's like, Oh, my son
would like this.
And I was like, I was like involved in that, you know, and you're like, it was
like such a cool moment because it's like she was generally proud of, she was
generally thought it was good before she knew was like, I'm her kid.
I could shit out crap and she'd be like, Oh, it's nice.
It's great.
Yeah.
No, it is, it is funny when your parents finally get, I'm sure that there's other
realms in which parents find out what their kids do, but we're probably unique
in some ways about like, they really see it through a different lens and not just
their own parental ones.
Some find out on only fans, you know, so it's always different realms.
Thankfully my parents haven't found that.
Yeah.
Is that where all your cars are finished?
That's yep.
Exactly.
Only fans, only fans approach Vinny like when we were still at Hoonigan and they
were trying to like clean up their act and they wanted to like, get
away from being like an adult site.
So they approached me and we're like, Hey, what can we do?
And the idea we pitched them was that we like finished all those scottos cars, but
they only run on only fans.
So like the round YouTube, they don't run.
They only run on only fans.
Honestly, brilliant.
Yeah.
Brilliant idea.
It still could be good.
Literally this whole conversation spun off of me asking you what cars you have.
We haven't, do we, do we name them all yet?
So let's just count them off.
I won't interrupt.
Let's just get through.
Okay.
So there's the two Ferrari projects.
Okay.
The Audi, the E 36, the E 30, the three trucks.
There's a, um, I have an E 28.
This is kind of like a little thing.
I feel like there's something, oh, in the Camaro.
Yeah.
Okay.
So that's that 10.
Yeah.
Do you have, you thought about how long it'll take you to get them all done?
Why would I do that?
Okay.
I know.
Cause I had like, I woke up for the first time the other day thinking, what am I doing?
Like I have just like way too much clutter and I have way too many things.
And I, by the way, I am on a generational run for Brian Scott.
I got four cars back in the road in three days.
That's incredible.
Yeah.
I got it because I had an issue with the rabbit, like fuel system issue, fix that.
None of this is like finishing projects.
It's just like, yeah.
Let's, let's take the victories.
I had a suspension issue with the RS two, fix that.
And in the same day, fixed a cooling, a cooling issue on the van.
And I found the key for my Ferrari.
I mean, that like counts.
Cause like it was running.
And now I put four cars back on the road.
Have you started it up since?
No, cause it's going to be a, it's going to be a cold crank situation.
So it hasn't, it hasn't ran.
I'm going to have to like pull the fuel, fuel fuse and crank it for a little bit.
I think we're going to save that one for the Patreon.
Yeah.
Yeah.
That we'll do that on Patreon.
Maybe we could do it before.
Cause have you ever heard of Ferrari start after hasn't started for like 33 months?
It's not pleasant.
No.
Like it'll run on like three cylinders, then four, then five, then six, then seven, then eight.
And it's like, we're like, like, meanwhile, the F 100 could sit for four months and I
started and it purred.
So, you know, of course.
No, I ask, cause when I started to do the math, cause I have whatever 26 or seven cars,
I guess 27 now, God, the number is going up.
It's also going down.
And like, I just, I like decided to like just paint, put a piece of paper out of like
how long it would realistically take me to finish them.
And I don't think I would actually live that long.
Like for what?
So like I have to, I have to like cut down.
Like it's gotten out of control.
But I also don't spend every day making them for content, but that also slows things down.
Well, so, I mean, like if we break it down, let's be, I want to be optimistic, but realistic.
Right.
Okay.
So we can cross some of them off the list because obviously like my F 350, it, that's a
daily driver.
The E 28, it runs the E 36 30 runs, although it does need a Vanos unit, but it
runs, it just rattles.
It's fine.
Um, so the 308 does not have a drive line in it, but like it's a functioning project.
Right.
So I would call that more maintenance than like, Oh, it's, it's not unfinished.
Right.
Yeah.
It will, it will be back on the road before, as soon as I get that transmission, like it
will be back together and we're going to go back out racing.
So that one's not even one or I'm sitting here thinking like, Oh, when am I going to
get to it?
It's just, Hey, I need my gearbox.
The F 40, it's a ways out.
That's a, that's a huge project.
Uh, the F 100.
When you say ways out, are you thinking two years, three years?
I think, I think I'm hoping by the end of next year.
Okay.
I mean, I'm really trying to focus on it for start up.
That's like not developed.
You still have development.
I would like it to drive by, by that point.
I think that's pretty realistic.
Um, but yeah, we're talking minimum, you know, 18 months.
Right.
So that one's a ways out the F 100.
Uh, I mean, if I wanted to, I could drive it right now.
Yeah.
It's like, it would be, it would be unhappy.
Um, so I mean, so I replaced the fuel pump in it.
It does run, but now I think now the carb is all on hand.
I don't know if like the flow rate of the pump is different, but I replaced that
fuel pump and now it like, it's just, it's not made.
It's crap.
And I, and I had a friend, uh, like go through the carb and do like kind of a
carb rebuild on it and do some tune up and it still isn't happy.
So not that we're going to sit here and diagnose this on the podcast, but do you,
is there's no fuel pressure regulator.
You might just throw one of those in like, maybe it seemed to have like
problems with the jets on the accelerator pump on the, on the carb.
So it could just be that like I had tuned the carb for a barely running fuel pump.
And now you have a fuel pump that's actually giving it fuel and it might
actually be easier to just crank it down to like two or two and a half,
three PSI or something.
Yeah.
So, so like it, it does drive last time I drove it, uh, which was like a week ago.
Uh, I like had to pull over on the side of the 55 and a cop was like, what are you
doing?
And you know, it was all this, you know, whatever, but it does drive.
So I'm going to go fire it up.
Um, the GMT 400, uh, it, it drives.
I'm going to sell it.
If anybody wants a GMT 400, regular cab short bed black, it's pretty cool.
Pretty cool.
Um, so.
Yeah.
Okay.
Really it's just the outies.
The only one that's like who knows when, and you know,
you know that we are doing Tref punks this year in October.
I, so do you think that's realistic?
When I gave, uh, Jason the engine last year, I was like, Hey, maybe we,
maybe we get this done for Tref punks.
Well, we just didn't say what year.
So yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I mean, if you got the engine back in, I don't know, July, do you think you
could have it done for October?
I don't know how much is left for that car.
I mean, all the running gear at this point is done.
It's, it would just be like, I need to swap the engine in and get it running.
And then like do all the like plumbing things, which is a lot of work, but I
know how to do it.
You know how to do it.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Really it's just, it's just that.
And then I feel like, um, oh, and then the Camaro is in the works.
Like I'm actively working on it right now.
And that, that should be like up and running in the next few weeks.
What engines in that?
Uh, it's got an 8.9 liter Keith Black racing engine in it.
Wow.
Yeah.
It's a lot of displacement.
It's 12 and a half to one compression.
Oh yeah.
Um, it's a rev.
Uh, I don't know.
I think it revs to like seven.
So it's a lot for an 8.9 liter.
Yeah, it was huge.
Um, yeah, it's like, it's, you know, derivative of Keith Black's offshore,
uh, racing engines.
So like I've got video of it just being held at 7,000 RPM going around the, uh,
Ohio transportation research facility oval, the seven mile oval, just screaming.
It's the coolest sounding thing.
It's like, what is that?
It sounds like a jet.
Are you still actively looking for other projects or are you sort?
Always.
Yes.
But I'm really trying to like, I need to get some stuff done thin the herd.
Like I said, the F 100 is about to be a big project.
So I need to like make sure I have the bandwidth for that.
Um, there's a handful of cars that like I really, really want that I say like,
Oh, if the opportunity came up, like I would I jump on it?
Probably not.
But if it was right, I really, I really want a Euro E 28 and five, which kind of
everybody knows at this point, I really want to try to make that happen.
You said that last time on the show.
Yeah.
That's like, that's like the dream attainable car.
Um, I would really like a white R 32 GTR.
I support that.
I like really, really want one.
Yeah.
So bad.
Um, there's like a couple other cars that like would be cool.
I mean, there's a list of a thousand cars that I'd love to own, but would I like
make any of them happen right now?
Probably not.
Yeah.
I'm, I'm sort of doing the opposite of what I should do.
So like I should just sell stuff off and make the few things that have worked well.
Like I'm at a point where I've got, I don't know, I'd have to count how many cars
run, but it's like definitely more than 10 that are like, I mean, right now,
when you drove here, you just probably see my car is just littered all over the street.
Right.
So, um, there's not a single car here on this property that doesn't run and drive.
Um, some of them run and drive better than others, but they all run and drive.
Like all of them can go to 7-Eleven and get something and come back.
Like that is pretty much the standard for me.
Um, the, and I think all of them could sit in traffic and not overheat.
That's like another one, but, um, I'm sort of in this like weird, like I don't
even really know what I want anymore because I get so hyper-themed.
Fixated on like what's current, but like right now I'm so focused on building
my swallowtail for Trefpunks.
Like it's really the only thing I'm thinking about.
So all the other cars are like out of view.
But then the other day I drove the RS2 home because it had been out at the farm.
I was like, I love this car, but there's a bunch of things I need to make better on it.
Right.
And then all it, then the next day, someone sent me like a documentary on the D11V8,
uh, in DTM.
Yep.
And I happened to have just picked up a D11 project car and I'm like, oh man,
like I really want to build that now.
And then I get like my brain goes off in that world.
I get it.
I mean, I'm the same way.
Like once my brain starts going on something, that's all I want to do.
And it can be really hard to like focus, especially when it's like you have
something really important that you need to be working on.
Yeah.
It's a bit overwhelming though.
I do think I'm at the point where like I've got to start like actually
parsing the collection, but like, and then at the same time, then there's the
other side of me, which is like, well, like there, it's not like I have things
that are worth a lot of, like I have a couple cars that are worth good money
that if I sold them and be good to sell them, like the Ferrari and maybe even,
you know, like the B 150 and a couple of things are like, we're decent amount.
I also have a lot of things that are like all sub $5,000 cars that if I sold, I
might not be able to find again.
Right.
And I have some space to store stuff.
So like I get into that weird.
I was surprised to see the B 150 still here.
I thought, I thought you sold it.
Um, yeah, I got cold feet.
Okay.
I got cold feet.
I think like I'm going to sell it now.
I was going to say, so that means like if I really wanted it, it's a fail.
If you really wanted it, you probably need to buy it in the next couple of weeks.
So, but, um, I just, it's like, like, I don't drive it.
Like it's here, it runs and drives, but like I just don't really use it much.
I don't know.
It doesn't like fit my, like I love it for what it is.
I think it's cool.
And I'm like, I love the idea of it.
You know what I'm saying?
Like I'm infatuated by the idea of it.
Like where I don't actually think I, and when I drive it, again, I'm like in my head,
I'm like, oh, I should fix this and all that.
But like my need for that, like a versus other things.
Like I'm now in a position where it's not about that one car.
It's about that one car compared to all the other cars because I'm being realistic
about the time I have to be able to like put into things.
Right.
Like my, my, um, I have that E 350 van.
Have you seen that before?
Yeah.
Yeah.
Um, it is one of my favorite vehicles, but I have had a series of dumb issues with it
over the past.
I had like a wiring harness issue.
I had, I had a, all of which is Justin Chenoweth's fault.
Actually, no, but it's headed out to Justin's.
He has, he hasn't touched this car.
None of it is his fault.
None of it is you joints fault.
None of it is J and K's fault.
Like I just, I just wanted to blame this.
I know, I know, but like that's actually the thing is like I started, I've modified
a bunch of things, but like weird things are breaking on the car.
Right.
And it's just like a bunch of issues.
And then actually the most recent one was just something dumb, like a clip broke
and broke the fan, the fan blade open, like cut the radiator open.
Of course.
You know, just like you look, you look, I'm looking at that this, like at first I thought
that the radiator seal blew.
And then when I took it all apart, I realized that something got in the way of
the fan, the fans old cause it's, you know, 2004 and the plastics, whatever.
And it shattered and it just sent shrapnel through the radiator.
But it's like, I was annoying.
I had to take like half the front of the truck apart and like working on vans is
bullshit.
And I just have a sequence of like one problem after another.
And like it makes you want to sell the car.
But then the other day I got it back up and running and I'm like, I love this car.
And like that's my, like I'm like the, I have a toxic relationship.
Like I am like an abusive relationship with my vehicles or my vehicles are an
abusive relationship with me.
I'm not really sure.
That's, that's me and my E 36.
Like that car, I love it.
I refuse to let it go.
Yeah.
Um, but I hate it.
I hate that car.
And every single time, I'm not kidding.
Every single time I touch it, something goes wrong.
Something breaks.
Do you, does that give you like a level of like just PTSD around the car?
Like when do you, do you enjoy driving it?
No, I like literally at this point, like I got it out.
Maybe it was probably two or three weeks ago.
I went up to a like a cars and coffee thing that a buddy put together and I
said I was going to go and I was trying to decide what to drive and it was up on
the lift and I was like, you know what?
I'm going to, I'm going to get the old girl down.
I'm going to take it.
I should do something with it.
And like it's perfectly detailed.
It's all clean.
It's been under the cover.
It's like, I'm going to drive it.
And so I get it down and I pull out and then on my way to Whittier or whatever it
was, it starts misfiring.
It's never done that before.
Why, why, why?
And it just got progressively worse until it was like barely running when I got
it home and it's just, I eat, but I even joked with myself before I got it down.
I was like, something's going to break today though.
I guarantee it.
Last time I drove the car, throttle pedal stopped working.
Drive by wire throttle pedals.
Just like, just decided to shit the bed.
Stop working.
I'm sitting at a light ready to go.
Turn screen.
Car doesn't move.
I think the issue is, is like you and I have like our understanding of car, older
cars is not realistic because you need to, like that car needs one person to own it.
Who will just fix these things.
I only focus on that.
Like, like other people own cars like that and they spend
an entire year making it run right.
And you and I are like, well, we've got a bunch of them.
Like, why is this one?
That's, that's fair.
I mean, I know that like if that car belonged to somebody and it was their
only pride and joy, like, and that was their thing, like, yeah, they'd probably
get all the little things sorted out.
But I don't know.
There's also part of me that's like, I've had it for long enough.
If I like amortize the cost or the amount of money I'm into that car, it's fine.
But then I also like to look at it and it's like, this is a 93 base
model three series and I've put over the past 20 years, a mountain of like more
than anybody's ever invested into a base model three series.
Um, it shouldn't be breaking.
It's not fair.
It should be not, it should not do that.
Like, I don't mind the breaking as much.
Well, no, I guess I do mind the breaking.
I, I hate getting afraid of cars.
Do you know what I'm saying?
Like, like, we're like, I'm just afraid to drive this thing.
Cause I know there's going to be a problem where like you just kind of get in.
It's like, I don't know if it's like a curse thing and you get superstitious about
it, but like, so to go back to the Justin thing.
So he's installing a pop top for me.
It's from super specific and super.
Right.
If you have an E series, it's the thing to get because the E series is such an
older vehicle that like everyone stopped making pop tops or, or anything for that.
In like the, you know, early 2000s for that vehicle.
Cause it realized that that started in the nineties for how long it ran.
And like the tech back then kind of sucked.
And now everyone's making really cool stuff for the camping world.
And for some reason, super civic thought it would be a good idea to build
something for an E series.
Everyone else is building it for like Sprinter and transit markets.
So anyway, he's, he was, I think, helped them develop it.
Um, so I'm, he's, he's going to be installing one.
And I'm sort of now like prepping the vehicle for the drive to Colorado because
that like, you need a drive like that sometimes in a vehicle to like get
yourself past the like the worrying point where you're like, okay, I've
now driven it all the way to Colorado up out like, and there isn't a problem
coming home, but my first, my maiden voyage home in that vehicle from, um,
you joint, uh, you know, Chris North Carolina, North Carolina one, like was
fine until it wasn't, and I was stranded in, in, you know, in Arkansas for two
days with like a, you know, this, and then I replaced the engine to not have
that happen again.
And like every time I fix something, something else breaks or the thing I
fixed caused another problem.
And it's like, I just want, I just want that car to love me or that truck to
love me back.
I get it completely.
I mean, when I think about the E 36, I, I joke regularly about maybe the way
for me to get it to stop misbehaving or for me to fall in love with the car again
is to engine swap it again.
Like, which I know isn't like this, not logical, but in my head, it's like,
well, I show it some love and I also kind of replace everything while I'm at it.
It's got to be good.
I think if, well, if you're going to buy a project card, it's different, but
if you were going to buy a car that's like old and unreliable, the best thing
is to buy it a thousand miles from your house and then go by yourself to get
it home, because by the time you get it home, you, and what you got to bring
tools, you will sort out all of the issues and you will fix them in the way
they should be fixed, which is there's no scope creep.
You're just getting back on the road.
Cause the problem for me is I take a car like that and I'm like, well, while
I'm here, I might as well tear all of this out of my place.
The engine, well, if I'm going to do the water pump, I might as well just do
an engine swap.
Like once you get like, where you just have to get home, you'll fix it.
I had that Audi for that red Audi for a thousand.
That thing just like I fixed all the things in one week.
It was like a forced situation.
It was like a tough mother.
And then it just was reliable from that point forward.
It didn't look good.
I probably had like mismatched zip ties and stuff on it.
I think you just need to do a road trip with it where you have to get home.
Thing is, I hate that car.
I'm not road trip.
So next.
So what is next?
What's, uh, what's you, I mean, obviously.
Well, I mean, like we covered all the projects.
I like will say in like a, in a moment of reality, like sometimes I feel
like I'm drowning in projects and I don't have 25 cars.
So, and it is all I do every day.
So yeah, but I, like I have 25 cars and I'm not as skilled as you, nor
is my weekly time spent working on cars, nor do I have a space to work on cars
anymore, which is weird because like, you know, while I do have this garage here
and I've got, and I've got a space at the farm, like I don't actually have
a shop anymore, which is actually like my brain and my understanding of like
how much work I could get done and how much I can like do with a car was
based off of having a massive shop and space at the end again.
And I don't have that anymore.
But like I can't re and also not just that, but having like access to people,
like soupy to be like, Hey, I can't do this.
Can you do this for me?
Like I can weld, but I can't do it like soupy can like we had a plasma table,
like all these things.
And I now have to like rewire and realize like I'm back to just being a guy
with a toolbox and like, but my appetite is like Hoonigan.
Like that, that just doesn't like match anymore.
Yeah.
Well, it's kind of like, you know, a former bodybuilder that keeps their appetite
up when they're burning a million calories a day and then eventually it kind
of changes.
Yeah, that's also my problem.
But so I don't know as far as like what's next.
I mean, the projects, like I said, the whole reason I do any of it is
because I love the projects and there's a list of a thousand cars that I'd love to
own. I know I need to make sure I get some stuff done on the channel.
Like right now I feel like I'm kind of in this, this void of the channel needs a W.
That's like the worst feeling.
You know, so that they can feel like, all right, we've crossed something off the
list. So I need to get like the 308.
I need to get the new gearbox in it, engine back in, get that done.
I need to get the Audi done.
And then I think I can start introducing more stuff.
We introduced the F 100 one episode so far and like the reception to it was
unreal. So did you expect that?
No, I mean, like that video.
I remember you telling me like, you're like, I bought this, the audience will
probably won't care about it, but I'll build it for myself.
I don't care.
Yeah.
And it was like literally like, oh, we need an episode this week.
Like I posted it on Instagram and Instagram was really into it, which is
different than YouTube.
And yeah, I mean, that video literally is performing as well, if not better than
like F 40 stuff.
I mean, it's like, it's like everybody was like, wow, this is awesome.
So I don't, I'm not going to say like, you know, entire build series will do the
same thing.
No, but you know, it's like, all right, they want to see it.
I want to make something of it.
I'm really into that truck.
So, you know, we're going to be diving into that project.
The Camaro thing.
I'm really trying to condense that into just five episodes.
That I think is an opportunity for me to revisit.
Stanceworks content as though it's a blog, but in video form.
So like is a Stanceworks article, but in video format, right?
So that'll be kind of like a different type of content for the channel because
I'm really going to be doing a lot of storytelling.
Like, yes, I'll be working on the car for some of it, but that's not the point
of it.
It's really telling the history about this car, why it's so special.
And then this incredible journey of being a car guy, tracking my dad's car
down and getting to surprise him with it.
Like, I think that's something that we all kind of dream about or fantasize about.
And, you know, for me, I distinctly remember there was this video and maybe
you've seen it.
It's got to be super old at this point on YouTube, but there's like this guy
and he, his dad had a Norton motorcycle that he bought new and like had taken
it apart and been in his dad's basement for decades.
And so he like, he stole the bike out of the basement, had it restored and
surprised him with it for Christmas one year or something like that.
And like, I saw that probably 10 years ago and that set in motion.
Like, I want to do that.
That's what I want to do.
So to kind of reiterate what I said before, like this feels like it's going
to be the coolest, best or most important thing I've done so far.
I don't know where to go from there.
And then you kind of say the same thing about from a project perspective,
like where do I go from the F40?
I don't know.
Like no matter what I do, it's not going to be as.
Yeah.
Grand, you know what I mean?
Um, do you think there's ever a time where stance works goes back to telling
stories about other people's cars?
It could be.
I mean, like I've done some episodes of that.
I haven't lately, but like when I was figuring out what I was doing, you know,
in that first couple of years, um, I did, you know, a video on like my
buddy Amir's case swapped NSX or like, uh, I did a couple of cars that were, uh,
at Joey Sealy shop or just the different cars that I kind of had access to that.
I was like, oh, I can tell a cool story about this.
And all of them did pretty well.
Like the video is performed as well as anything else I was posting.
And so clear there's, there's like, re people are receptive to that.
And I like doing that kind of thing.
And Anthony and I, my videographer, um, we have like some post-it notes on the
wall of like what we call different video essays that I would like to kind of
like revisit and talk about different cars or showcase.
Um, you know, cars that we have access to.
I like the name video essay.
It's good.
And photo essay, video essay.
I don't think I've ever heard anyone say that before, but it's a good.
I didn't come up with it.
I've heard it, heard it used elsewhere, but I, when I heard it, I felt
this, that's exactly what this is.
This is a video essay and, and most of them are titled a love letter to, and
then a different car.
Um, and that doesn't mean like that's what we title it, but that's like,
that's the concept behind it is, is like, if I can get access to, let's say an M one,
that's my, that's my number one car.
Um, I would like to do a video that is a love letter to the M one, or I want to
get my hands on a Euro M five and do that.
Or, you know, our friend Pat down the street has access to, uh, we did a video
about this, uh, 190 E Evo two.
And so to like do a bit more with that, or just some other cars like that, where
it's like, Hey, let's do some cool stuff that is storytelling, some history,
beautiful visuals.
And, and see how that goes.
But I don't know.
I don't know when that might happen.
As someone who also enjoys like the art of storytelling as well as building,
do you spend a lot of time thinking about other ideas and the way you could
tell stories, or like, is most of your sort of creative energy now spent on like,
how to do the project?
Um, we're always trying to refine what our content looks like.
So like every few months we're always like, let's try this.
And so with the F 100 episode that we did that, we, I don't know what word
to ascribe to it other than we just said, Hey, let's make this way more vloggy.
I want, we actually miked Anthony up and said, Hey, talk to me while I'm doing
this, like let's have you hanging out with me versus just produced.
And the comments in the video or in the comments were like, dude, this was awesome.
I feel like we were hanging out with you while you worked on the car.
And it was super easy for us to produce, right?
It was way easier.
I enjoyed it too.
I enjoyed how annoyed you got about the armrest.
Oh, did it kick my ass.
Um, but we've since then taken some of that and done it in other places too.
And so for example, right now, I mean, this morning I was welding up an
exhaust for Anthony's car because his, he has an E 28 and the exhaust got
ripped off the car somehow.
And I'd been telling him for a while, he bought a set of headers for it, like
over a year ago.
And I keep saying like, yeah, dude, we'll, we'll put the headers on and we'll
build you an exhaust, but I kept pushing it back because like, I know it's going
to take a week to do and it's going to be a ton of work.
Well, that happened, right?
So it's like, all right, well, we got to do this.
Let's make an episode about it.
And so we're hanging out, we're riffing in the shop, we're joking back and forth.
We're poking fun at each other.
Um, and I, he was editing the episode up while I'm out there just welding hour
after hour.
Um, but he's saying like, dude, this is going to be awesome.
I think it's going to be a ton of fun.
Or like we just did an episode where we went to, um, old race over in Germany and
kind of tried to have it be more like that too.
So we're always trying to refine what the content looks like.
If we can make it easier for us to produce, but I'm also still happy with the
outcome and of course, like the audience is happy with it too.
That's, that's the name of the game.
So there is kind of some evolution to what the content looks like.
And there is effort going into that, but I would still say like a majority of the
effort is of course just actually doing the work.
What did you think about alters?
The event itself.
Absolutely.
You went to the German.
The German ones.
It was the first year of them doing it.
I have not been to the one in Poland yet.
We're leaving here in a few weeks to go to it.
Um, you know, I, I have to say it was unlike anything else I've ever seen.
The event was incredible.
The production value of that show is through the roof.
Those guys put on an event and the only thing that I've ever been to that's
even like remotely comparable would be lift, co-cult here, state side, but it,
it blew that out of the water for me.
It kind of honestly ruined car shows.
Now I'm not a car show guy.
I don't like going to events for the most part, unless like it's specifically
just to see friends like I don't want to come off too jaded, but like, I've seen
enough cars, you know, but this event, the venue, the production value, the,
the, uh, activations from the few brands that they had, like it didn't feel
overly commercialized.
There was only, I think, four total sponsors.
It was like Mercedes, BMW, Jagermeister and G on like that was it,
which is pretty crazy to think about that lineup for a car show, a car show.
And like they all brought the heat.
And I have to assume that old race had a very heavy hand in curating what their
spaces look like, if not Bravo to them, especially Mercedes, the Mercedes, like
room that was off to the side, like that was the coolest, uh, I guess like
it presentation or event space activation, whatever you want to call it that
I've ever seen at an event period.
I mean, and people were saying, well, how does it compare to like car week or
going to, you know, that kind of stuff.
And it's like, do you, it's a completely different ballgame.
Were you there as a judge?
Uh, yeah.
So I judged, I got to pick, uh, you know, so there were five judges total.
Um, and we were each asked to kind of pick our favorite or best of show, uh, for
each day.
So 10, 10 cars.
Yeah.
I judge there in 22, I want to say 21 or something in Poland.
Yeah.
Um, yeah, it blew me away.
Like I was just one, I just, especially like being in Poland, I just, I didn't
realize that the car culture that I grew up loving in Germany had like emigrated
to Poland, like all the cool cars were there because the rules and two for
all these things are so restrictive in Germany that like the culture had really
moved more to Poland and, and other Eastern European sort of areas.
Cause it's like, you're looking at the plates on cars and like that car's from
Latvia and it's was this sort of like weird wake up to be like the thing that I
think is the culture of the early 2000s, which was like looking at all the German
car mags has really kind of moved, you know, a little bit more East from there.
Um, I was, you know, I'm just going to echo what you said.
I was, I was blown away at the quality of stuff and their ability to take like a
rather pedestrian car and make it look incredible.
I have said to people like, there wasn't a single car at that event that shouldn't
have been there.
And I've never been to an event before where I haven't walked around and been
like, why is that in here?
It's also the, such a crazy breath of cars.
Oh yeah.
Because you have everything from like, you know, muscle cars that people brought
into, which is really weird to see in Europe, but then like to, you know, an
Audi, your front wheel drive Audi 100.
And you're like, well, let me, but it's killer.
It's like, they, they crushed it.
And then next to it is like, one is like a fiat that, you know, or like even more,
like there was a, um, I feel weird with the small a barf is like, but anyway,
yeah, just incredible stuff that you're like, this is such a wide collection of
stuff and it's not the normal cars.
It's not like, Oh, it's all E 36 M threes or it's all 190s.
It's like, right.
It was like really unique stuff.
I was going to make the point of, so would you say before I drive the point
home, would you say that it was worth the trip over there for it?
Um, I mean, I went there to go buy my S two and RS two and drive the
Nürburgring and that was a bonus.
And I was not even planning on going, but Whipple and Henderson were there.
They're like, Oh, come hang out.
And we had like, you're just done the deal with wheel pros.
We're like, Oh yeah, sure.
We'll come over and hang out.
And it was, it was so worth it.
Like, like I would go back just for it.
That's the point I wanted to make.
And I would say the same thing.
And the point I think worth driving home is that, and I know that it's for you.
This is the truth for you.
I have seen a lot of car stuff at this point.
I have been entrenched in car culture for 20 years and you've been doing it
even longer than I have.
You have seen everything that there is to see for the most part.
And if you, of all people will say it is worth the trip over just for that show.
And I'm sitting here saying, I've been to a lot of stuff.
And that's probably the first thing I've been to where I've said that's worth
the trip over there.
Just to go see that, that I don't know what more praise or statement I could give
it because I don't even like going to car shows.
I don't go to events and I would say, yeah, hop on a plane and go.
I agree.
I'm curious to see when you go to Poland, if Poland is better or not.
I know it will be different because the German event was very much intended
to be a bit more of a bespoke and curated experience.
And, but, but it was awesome.
And I know that that event had about 15,000 people there and they're
expecting like a 55,000 at Poland.
So hugely different.
And the, the, the event in Poland, it has all sorts of other stuff kind of
surrounding it where there's, you know, like drifting and there's all sorts of
stuff happening.
Um, I'm excited.
We're going to have a car there too.
So it should be pretty sweet.
Um, I'm, I'm, I'm eager to go and see what it's all about because the
old race guys left an impression on me that was like, I didn't know somebody
could still make.
Yeah.
And no, I was great to see.
And, you know, one of the reasons why Whipple and I did.
Chef punks is because we kind of felt like the car show model was broken.
Yeah.
And I think Lufthukult is a good version of a new version, but I think that the
cars and coffee killed the car show, right?
Like why go to a car show and pay 20 bucks to get in to basically see the same
cars that you could see at a cars and coffee, especially if it's in your local area.
Right.
The problem with that is like, there's no longer like that event to build a car
for other than SEMA.
And like, honestly, I don't want to build cars for SEMA because it's like a
certain expectation.
Like I want to build a car for a group of nuanced.
Yeah.
You're going to show it off to your friends.
Shit heads were just like me.
Like I want to build a car that people are like, ooh, he's got that on there.
And that's super rare.
And like, you know, like, Oh, is that a blah, blah, blah valve cover?
Like who understands the little stuff that I like or like, Oh, he rerouted that
or did this or, you know, whatever that kind of stuff is the stuff that's like
worth building a car for.
And for me growing up on the East Coast, it was H2O.
Like that was the show to build a car for.
And I just like, that doesn't exist in my community of like Volkswagen nerds anymore.
So we just wanted to create that.
We were like, I don't care if only 25 people show up.
I want to build something that's like really, really good for those 25 people.
And it gives them a reason to be like, I got to go work on my cars weekend.
And we all have like this WhatsApp group.
Are you in the WhatsApp group?
Yeah.
Yeah.
You're going to get kicked out soon.
If you don't pony up on the next time in, no, no, meaning like get actually
start working on your car.
Okay.
So then my two questions.
So two things.
So first of all, does if you're talking about it publicly, does that mean that
Trefpunks is now like a public thing still invite only how you handle that?
It's still invite only.
Okay.
Yeah.
It's still invite only.
So like we've told people about it.
There's an Instagram page.
We announced like we are, um, we are not a company that promotes what we do.
It's like we do it.
And if it's cool and then people talk about that's true.
Like we did this event and performance VW ran a six page article on it, which was
cool, but like it wasn't really our intention.
It was like, we want this to be something.
And it's not that we want it to be exclusive, like sorry, the wrong word.
So we just want to control it and we want it to be good for what it is.
And we realized that the minute it becomes too big, it's not that.
Totally.
No, I was mostly curious because I remember like when it, when the first
invites went out last year, it was like, Hey, don't talk about it.
Don't post about it.
Like, yeah, that was cause last year, I think that was cause we knew we were
sort of confined to what we were doing.
Now it's like, if people want to try to come, like they can apply and it's like,
it's like a double app.
It's like, first you have to apply for the application, then you do the application
kind of thing.
And it's just like, and then it's cause someone the other day was like, Oh,
it's like, is it that my car is not cool enough?
I'm like, it's not even that.
It's like, we want the right mix of things.
We want the right mix of people.
Um, you know, there's like certain people, like, do you know fish?
Yeah.
Like it's like, we invite fish for the comedy.
I don't really even care what he shows up with.
I'm sure he'll come with something cool.
It'll probably be white, but like it's a key.
I was bet on it.
He's just, he's just a great guy to have there because he's like good for the
energy and all that.
Right.
Right.
And a big, a big part of it was trying to go back to like recreating what car
shows or I hate to use the word show because it was more like events, like those
big, like pillar events of the year that you would stay up the whole week leading
up to to get your car or your friend's car ready for, and then everybody would
get together and drive to the event.
That to me is like peak automotive fun when I was a kid.
Like that is just what you did it all for.
It's what you did it for.
So it's interesting.
So I think that Tref punks is clearly like serving that role in a certain way.
I had the experience that you're talking about.
Tangentially, so to speak.
Um, are you familiar with Riverside, Chattanooga?
Okay.
I, I just found out about it this year.
Okay.
Um, I found out about it because it was kind of buzzing for a couple of days and
then I went and follow the account and, and like that looks really cool.
It is.
Like it is.
So, uh, I don't really know the background on it.
I just know that there was like a ton of cool cars there and it was a couple of
people I knew who were there.
So it was in my feed and I was like, Oh, I'm going to follow this.
Yeah.
It's, it's funny because so this event takes place in what I would call my backyard.
Uh, it Chattanooga, Tennessee.
Oh, yeah.
Yeah.
I grew up an hour and change away from, from there, but I moved to California.
The potential home of an upcoming WRC candidate race.
If that's still going to happen.
Yeah.
Did you not hear that?
No.
Yeah.
That's what they're playing.
If the WRC comes to the U S right now, they've been looking at Chattanooga.
I don't know if it still is, but that's cool.
Yeah.
Who knew?
Um, but it began after I moved out to California.
Um, Mason and Carly, they run the event and they've been telling me for years.
Like, Oh, come out.
Come check it out.
Come check it out.
Come check it out.
It's always like, Oh, I want to, but one, like I'm not like a car show guy to,
it's tough for me to like take a weekend to go back home just for an event.
And like, I can't, it's harder to justify if it's not like I'm going to have a
vehicle there.
And so then like it's a deliverable for somebody or a sponsor or something.
And so it's, I just, it's, it's been, I haven't gotten out there.
I haven't done it.
Um, but this year I didn't make it home to go see my mom for Christmas.
Shame on me.
Um, so I said, Oh, I'm going to go home for her birthday.
And it just so happened that within a week of her birthday was Riverside.
So I told them guys, I'm going to make it this year.
What week was it this year?
Uh, I think their event was like middle of March.
It was like pretty early in the season.
Yeah.
I want to say their event was like March 20th or something like that somewhere
in that neighborhood.
Um, and so it's a guys, I want to make it.
And I had to like explain to my mom, Hey, on, you know, Saturday morning,
I'm going to take off.
I'm going to spend, you know, an hour and a half, two hours driving down to
Chattanooga.
I'm only going to be there at this event for like two hours and I'll drive back.
I'll make sure I'm home for lunch with you.
You know, and she was like, all right, you know, she's supportive.
She gets it.
But I went down there.
I didn't spend all that long there, but I got to say, even just in a few hours,
I was there.
I was like, wow, this is exactly what I have missed and wanted from a car event
for years.
It like felt like.
Yeah.
It felt like the good old days and what made it so much more fun.
I could not believe how many people I saw there that I knew that I haven't seen
and I don't even know how long or like from all over the country too, like just
random people are like, what the heck are you guys doing here?
And they're like, what are you doing here?
And it's like, it was, it was a ton of fun.
The way that they have the event set up, the feel of it.
I don't want to call it like an insane production value after talking about
old race.
It's a very different thing.
Yeah.
But like the vibe of the whole thing was really cool.
It felt very homegrown, but still like really, I don't want to use the word
professional because that sounds like it's too polished and it's, and it's while
it is polished, it's, it's not that.
Man, it just would like, it just felt like the place that I want to be hanging
out.
And I think, I think their, their slogan is something to the effect of like,
come for the car, stay for the friends or something like that.
And it's like, yeah, that makes sense.
I am committed.
Next year, I'm, I will be back for the whole weekend and I want to try to
drag a car out there for it.
Like, and that's again, kind of coming from like, I don't put any effort to
going into any shows.
Uh, I will do anything I can to get out of going to shows.
So, um, I think for, for anybody that's, and thankfully everybody on the
East coast is actually willing to travel for that kind of stuff.
Such a different vibe.
No one here will do it.
Like you say, oh yeah, three hours away for an event.
They're like, absolutely not.
I were, I was, I was pretty big into car shows when I was like 19, 20 had my
golf, I would get up at like five o'clock in the morning, four o'clock in
the morning and like drive to Maple Grove.
Like, or like to hyperfest and like, it's just spent like the entire day in the
car, like leave the house in the dark, leave the house in the dark, get home in
the dark and go by myself.
Like, it was like the early days before I had like a car club, like to show up
by myself, like, didn't know anyone there.
Like, or go with my girlfriend at the time or something like that.
I loved, like, that was like, it was like the adventure of going to the
show was actually more fun than the close shows.
Cause like there was stuff, like, and that's actually, like part of the
Chet Punks thing is that it's a mystery.
Like we do not tell people, like what, like we're, we basically say it's
kind of in this region.
This is like maybe around where we're staying, but like, that's all you get to
know.
And like, we will take care of everything else.
So it's like, we take care of like all the food, all the hotel stay, you know?
So like more like, and I guess like what you would call like a, like a driving
rally, kind of like how some of those operate.
And it's like one day of driving, hanging out and then like a
half day of like kind of driving home or whatever.
But the mystery of it is sort of this like fun kind of element.
And we did the first year, I think partially because we were still trying
to figure it out.
And then everyone was like, I love that I had no idea where we were going to
like end up that night.
Like that we were just totally trusting you guys to like go do this thing.
Um, and it's, we don't, like it's not profitable.
Like we, like it's like we do it.
We spend all the money to do it.
Um, so it's like not like a business, but it's like, man, I, it reminds me of
like running car club events when I was younger and it's like one of the most
gratifying things to do.
So like, I don't know.
I hope you, I hope you can get a car finished or the car finished for this one.
If a non-Volkswagen car.
No, it's gotta be, it's gotta be okay.
Well then the pressure, but not pressure, but the pressure is on for Jason.
If Jason can get my engine done in a reasonable time, I will put in the effort
and make sure the Audi's done.
Do you know Dave Peccararo?
Yeah.
Okay.
What I'm going to do is I will also create a group chat with me, you and Dave.
So when you're like, I don't have this part between me and him, mostly him, we
will track down those parts for you.
Cause I know it is one of the biggest downsides of being an Audi guy is we
do not have access to parts.
Yeah.
I do also, so I want to make sure that I'm really clear.
Like Jason is not dragging his feet for a long time.
We were waiting, I don't want to say any names.
We were waiting on other people to give the parts to Jason that he needed.
Right.
So that we could get it done.
So like he's only had everything that he needs for like a few months now.
So it's, and he's busy.
So I don't want to sound like I'm trash talk.
Yeah, no, I get that.
Cause you don't, you don't want to trash talk Whipple too.
Cause he will motherfuck the shit out of you when he finds out.
I love Jason.
He's the best.
I, I'm not trying to apply an entire car.
Just to make fun of me.
Do you remember when he built a car?
Yeah, yeah, 100%.
He literally, cause I wasn't finishing my coupe fast enough.
He just bought it, opt S2 and then put a Nato plate on it and called it
Spike car, made a whole video clowning me and then just sold the car.
Amazing.
One of a kind.
Yeah.
He really is like the Larry David of the automotive world.
So it's pretty, it's pretty good.
It's a good way to put it.
Our friends at Viper Industrial asked us to do a bit of R and D since I put in
some serious C time on their stools and I have notes.
Sure.
They're extremely robust.
It's in the name, but no one ever talks about the negatives to start.
They roll too good.
Yeah, they've added locks, but I'm an all gas, no brakes kind of guy.
Second, they're way too comfortable.
Aren't they intended for wrenching, not scrolling Instagram for six hours
when you're supposed to be finishing your build?
Lastly, the fabrication quality.
It's better than all of my builds.
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When you went to all choice, did you bring your camera?
Uh, I brought a videographer.
Oh, but like, are you, do you take photos anymore?
Or is it?
Is it something you miss?
Um, yes and no.
I guess like I miss this.
I don't know how this will come across, but I'll be honest about it.
Um, I don't feel that there's a valuable way to share photos anymore.
Like if I post them on, I can post them to my Instagram and like, yes,
people will see them, but like there's no, I don't know.
It's like, yes, Instagram is a social network and thus you could get, you know,
let's say thousands of likes, tens of thousands of people will see them and
like you can get hundreds of comments, but like it still feels so isolated in
contrast to when you put them out there in the past and whether it was in a
blog article or you, a forum post or like things got shared and then they went
out from there.
And so like people would put them on their tumblr page because they were like,
Oh, this was really sick.
Or they'd, they'd post them on their Facebook and they'd want to talk about
them somewhere else and you'd see all these like link backs.
Not algorithmic.
It was, yeah, it was genuinely like you could, you could measure the success
of something based on like the staying power that it had and like, and who
wound up talking about it and it would go out and it would do things and people
would hold on to that stuff for a while.
And like it had so much more like, I don't know, value, I guess I would call it.
It felt a lot more important to me.
And so like, I don't want to just put a bunch of effort into photos just to
post them onto my Instagram and have it be something that people see for a few
seconds and then they never see it again.
They didn't actually spend any time to look at it or see like what I found
interesting about it.
Like, yeah, I might get some people that are like, dude, these photos are sick
or beautiful or you should photograph more often.
Like, okay, cool.
But, um, and I don't want it to sound like I'm sitting here saying like, oh, I
want people to praise it or whatever.
But it's just like, I want it to be more than just a momentary like instant
gratification for somebody and then just gets tossed away and they never see it
again because it's buried in an Instagram and you'll never see it.
And that was like the, the, the pivotal decision when I was trying to decide
what to do with stance works post blog, I realized I can either do,
move this over to Instagram and like curate Instagram content and try to
make something there because no one reads long format content anymore.
Or if I want to do longer format content, I need to go to YouTube and make
like video content.
And that's why I went to YouTube because I was like, I don't want to make eyeball
fodder that no one sees and cares about anymore because that's all it is.
And so do I miss taking photos?
Like, yeah, I enjoy when I do it and I get good photos.
Like that's still like a rush or a high that like, I love, like, especially
like when I finish up a project and then I take it out and like, I get those
awesome photos and I'm like, man, that's exactly what I wanted.
Like that's an awesome feeling.
That's a bunch of fun.
And when you share them and they do well, like it's cool, but I don't know.
It feels like there's so few ways to do anything with photos these days.
It's like literally the outlet is Instagram.
Yeah, it's a dead end.
No, I totally get that because like I miss shooting photography.
Um, I wouldn't, I never call myself a photographer.
I was a writer who was competent in taking photos, but I, but it is like that
joy of like, you get that one really nice shot and that just tells a story.
It's like, that's, I love that.
Um, so for Tref punks, we, we kind of just said no video because like, I didn't
want to live in this world of like, this just feels like work to me.
Plus other people who were there, like Vinny and Pumphrey and, you know, Charles,
it's like, you spend your whole day vlogging.
Like you don't want this.
I don't want to, I want to be there and I want to hang out.
I don't want to be on camera.
I don't want to be on, right?
I want to like have to play the character.
Right.
We also did the whole analog thing, right?
Like the application is on paper, right?
Like you have to print out photos or shoot on a Polaroid.
Like we did that as on purpose because we wanted it to feel like it was late
nineties, early 2000s again.
So it was like, okay, the experience there needs to feel some way.
And like we, you know, people wanted to bring go pros and shoot iPhone stuff.
It was whatever we just kind of did.
We told people like we don't really want that.
Charles brought a camera because he was making something for that.
But I was like, Hey, can you just not be around with it?
And they were, they were really good about that.
But what we did do is Sam Dobbins came and Andy Sap came.
And I also, I brought like my old X 100 with me and like, we shot a ton of
stuff and we're making a book because like, even if only the guys who were
there get it and it's like a yearbook, that's rad.
We'll put some up for sale.
And if you wanted to come and you couldn't, or you just like the cars or whatever,
because like, cause I had the same feeling that you had, which is like,
we just go and shoot all the photos and they don't end up somewhere.
Like what's it matter?
But like we're making like, it's basically the yearbook because it's like the
ideas is every year we make like another book out of everything that's there.
So I haven't heard the name Andy Sap in a hot minute.
I love that.
That's great.
Andy's house, my secret weapon.
I bring, I just brought Andy Sap out to the fat ice race as well.
I mean, not just, but a few months ago.
Like he's the guy that like, he was a killer in the space, but because he spends
so much time like in the music world now, like he's not as much, although did you
see he's, he's like a, I think he drove at grid life for, uh,
I saw something like he resurfaced and, and then as soon as I saw him, I started
just thinking back to drift mechanics, like way, way, way back.
Um, and, uh, slide, dude, slide America is documentary is blacky 46 on the
block B ones.
Do you that cart?
So hard.
So I mean, he was one of the early guys with cool style and a DMW that was sliding
that car, that car was it.
I, I think he's also a fantastic human and he also doesn't have Instagram.
Yeah.
So like there's no way to follow him in the digital world.
So it's like, I have to just bring him on projects.
So I get to be around him.
He's great.
Yeah.
So, and so he came out that and it's funny because he's not a Volkswagen guy,
not an Audi guy.
And at the end he was like, I get it, man.
Like this kind of like want one of these now, you know, I think we talked about
this recently, I have like been fighting the urge.
I really want to mark one now.
I, I mean, yes, you should have one.
I have two extra ones, but the, they're just great.
Cause they're really simple.
I'd say I'd let you drive mine, but I don't think your feet would reach the pedals.
Probably not.
Is the, uh, diesel one to avoid?
Um, well, the great thing about diesel here in California is it's some
mug exempt.
And then if you just, if just so happens a 16 valve falls into the engine bay,
it's, you know, that would be important to follow California smog laws to
follow that would be important.
That would be important.
But if we were like, just if you didn't live in California, um, I, I'm not a
diesel guy.
I like engines that rev.
I like diesel trucks, gasoline cars.
The call one of the very first cars that I ever fell in love with.
Like one of the, like really early for me was a diesel mark one.
Uh, and the reason is, uh, like my high school best friend's grandfather's
neighbor, I don't know how I remember that.
He had a, he had a baby blue one.
It was like a baby blue color.
Exactly.
The color.
Um, and it was, and it was two door and it was like, it was the coolest thing.
And I was like, that, that's what I want.
I want, I want that.
And I still want that.
I'm pretty sure you could find that pretty easily, but if it was baby blue,
that'd be perfect.
Yeah.
I'll keep out, trust me, I will be sending you marketplace links.
So perfect.
Yeah.
Perfect.
The thing I love about Mark ones, I really enjoy how they drive.
And I went through, um, it's Vinny and I were actually going to make a video
about this.
And then last minute he got cold feet and decided not to do it.
So we were going to do a video with my mark one and his mark two.
And we're going to do this story on how like we both own like, like better cars,
right?
Air quote, better cars.
Like I have a nine 11 turbo.
We both have Ferrari 360s.
He's got like, I don't know.
I think he has like 19 GT threes now.
I'm not even sure I had to keep track, but he'll, he will tell you that that
Mark twos a forever car for him ones, cause there's a nostalgia.
Cause we were into a younger, but two, it's like, he's like, I couldn't get
enough money to offset the happiness it brings me.
He's like, all my other cars are worth something.
He's like, this actually isn't worth a ton.
He's like, so like, I don't know, someone gives me 10 grand for it.
He's like, I don't know if that 10 grand replaces the enjoyment that the car gives
him, right?
Versus the other things.
Um, we were going to do this video, uh, last Friday and, and he just said, he was
like, I don't know if it's going to work.
And I don't know, maybe I'm blowing up his spot on it now, but maybe now he
can't do it, but we wanted to tell the story.
And I started thinking about the story for me with my rabbit, which was like, my
rabbit was like almost like a project car detox for me.
Cause it's the first car that I bought that the first thing I didn't do was
strip it down to a bear shell.
Like every other thing, like the Nova, the coupe, like all these other cars
became this like, oh, everything's going to be this massive project.
The Land Rover, like, I mean, the disco, like everything else was like, I'm
going to pull the whole harness out.
And that thing I just sort of kept on the road.
And it's so simple that like you and I in a weekend could take that car down to
bare metal and, you know, and like put it back together.
Like it's not that difficult.
It's like, it's pretty simple.
I think there's only like six size wrenches you need for like the whole car.
Right.
Um, and there's, but there was also just something about it that's like, it was
front wheel drive and it was like, it was definitely a return to the roots, but
it felt like anti-hoonigan to me as well.
Cause like we were big power, all wheel drive, rear wheel drive cars or whatever.
Um, and I bought it as like a, it was the pandemic and it was like bought it as
like a weird nostalgia thing.
And, uh, it just brings me more joy than a lot of my other like more expensive
cars.
And I think one of the reasons is, is cause like it is hyper, hyper simple.
And like it's the recipe to make it cool.
Pretty easy.
So like if you wanted a car that like you were like, I don't want it to get over
the top, but like it's also really fun to daily and still gets like 30 miles to
the gallon because it's like, yeah, like, like, like, it's like, it's kind of works.
And, um, and I, I, and this is just, it's an opinion thing, but I think it's the
best, I think it's the most handsome car I own.
Like I own a nine 11.
I own an RS two, which I also think are two very handsome cars.
Ferrari, I think it's pretty handsome too.
I look at that car and it's, it's beautiful to me.
Like it's just so simple.
It's also like what a kid would draw if they were like drawing a car.
You know, it's a good car design.
It has this like just really, really simple look.
And yeah, I don't know.
As I get older, it, I realize like that's my car.
Like there's a reason it's my avatar or whatever on Instagram because like that's
just that car fits me the best.
Like is it the most fun out car I have?
Absolutely not.
That's the car that I think is most synonymous with you.
Like if I think of you and then I think of like more so than my nine
11, 100%.
Yeah.
Oh, interesting.
Hmm.
But again, I'm, I'm weird when it comes to nine 11s.
So you don't like nine 11s.
I do like nine 11s, but, but keep going.
Um, I, I, it's, I have such complex emotions surrounding them.
And I'm going to, I don't, I don't care if I upset people.
Um, well, by the way, I'm just going to let you know, cause we can roll right
into it right now.
My plan was that we were going to end the show with basically Mike Burrows, five
gripes of the show or five gripes of the day.
Cause like, I think we didn't really get into good gripes and you like gripes.
And I think you're good at gripes.
I do like, you like a good gripe.
So I think like we'd end with this.
So if you want to start with number 59 11s, nine 11s, my great.
Like I want to be clear in saying that I do think that the nine 11 is the
quintessential sports car.
I think that it is definitively what a sports car is supposed to be.
I think that it is lovely unlike anything else.
There's nothing like it.
Um, and that's both from an engineering perspective and an aesthetic perspective.
Nothing looks like nine 11.
Um, and no one's even really tried.
No one's tried to like knock it off.
There's nothing.
This is just, it's wholly unique.
You know, when you see it, I think Porsche is probably the brand I respect most
out of any like car brand because they truly understand their
hair itches and they really respect it.
And you can tell they're nerds.
Yeah.
They make a lot of stuff I don't care about, but they really care about the
nine 11 and thus I care about the nine 11.
So with that out of the way, there is nothing in my opinion, more annoying in
the world of cars than the extreme pedestal.
The entire community has put the nine 11 on.
I am so utterly tired of it.
I have seen every single thing that could possibly be done to a nine 11.
People ask what I ever build one.
No, because there is nothing that I could do to one that is interesting, new,
worth doing that would be, um, worth writing home about.
It's already been done.
Literally, you can just start making shit up and it's been done, including off road,
lifted cars, trophy truck cars, V8 swapped cars, backwards cars, people put the
engine in the front, water cooled conversions, like slammed ones.
It doesn't matter.
Like it's literally all been done.
It got everything got so done that people were like, let's start getting
interesting and just mismatching our like mismatch panels.
Like there's no other car.
Like it looks cool.
Don't get me wrong.
Like I see it.
I can fuck with it.
But do you understand how ridiculous other cars would look if we started doing
that?
They're like, yeah, I'm just gonna run orange bumper on my white car.
It's like, shut up.
Stop.
It doesn't make you interesting.
It's not interesting.
Oh God.
And it's just like, it's all been done.
I could go the rest of my life and never seeing another air cooled 9-11 and be fine
with it because everybody's already done enough waxing poetic about that fucking
car, pardon my French.
It is, it is just like, it is time for something else to have its 15 minutes of
fame.
Um, and like, I just, I honestly, I think it's heartbreaking that the entire, like
honestly it's beyond the car community.
It's like pop culture.
It is pop.
It is the quintessential car at a fashion store, at a coffee shop.
And I knew that it was over and I made posts on my Tumblr page back in the day
when Rag and Bone did an advertisement where they crushed one with a, with a giant
concrete block and that was probably in like 2011.
Like that's how long ago it was.
And that was actually just when it was starting.
Yeah.
It was like, that was the beginning.
That was the return of the air cool.
Right.
You could still get them cheap at that point.
Um, and so like, I don't know.
I'm just, I want other cars that are just as special to have their moment in the
spotlight and it's like 9-11 dudes are unwilling to turn the spotlight anywhere
else and they're all just almost like the 9-11's casting too big of a shadow on
more, more, maybe not more worthy cars, but cars that also deserve exactly like
cars that deserve the spotlight that are just as interesting, that are just as
fun to drive, that are just as important in what they have brought to the world of
cars.
Um, and like, I guess I'm just, I'm so utterly tired of the 9-11 ownership
demographic endlessly congratulating themselves on their cars.
Cause it's like, just give it a rest.
Like it's okay to be in love with your car.
I am in love with what most people would consider to be a very boring BMW sedan
from the 80s.
Like, and I will be a cheerleader endlessly for it.
But I don't know.
I just, just give it a rest.
So you're saying you didn't listen to the episode where Vinny and I did a
little love letter to 9-11.
I did not.
Actually, but the funny thing is, is the story we said was, as played out as the
9-11 is, it's still a great car.
It's still, and that was the whole concept of it was like, we know it's played out.
We know that it's like, it's just beyond the pale.
I know that like culturally this is eventually going to become uncool because
it's become so cool.
But unfortunately it won't, that doesn't stop it from being a fantastic car.
It is a great car.
And I want to make sure I iterate again.
I respect the car for what it is.
I think that they, it's one of the most beautiful cars ever made.
I mean, like, there's still a part of me that like wants one, but would I ever
like want to like make a build out of one?
No, definitely not.
Um, I think that they're very special and very important cars.
And I want to also iterate again, like how much respect they have for Porsche,
for the respect that they have for the car.
Yeah.
Um, but yeah, I just, I just really, like, I could just, I could go the rest of my
life never hearing about or seeing another one and I wouldn't miss anything.
I think that's the important part.
There's, I would not miss anything.
I've already seen it all.
And I believe that.
You got any more grips?
I have probably got a truckload of them and I don't even know where we, we got to
find a hat to pull them out of because I don't even know it again.
I like the 9-11 grip.
I think I, I agree with it.
I don't think I've heard that version before though.
And I, I, if I'm going to pluck one thing out of it that I really like, it is the,
it casts too much of a shadow on other things that it has become the like, this
is the go to for that.
And I think this happens in a lot of spaces like in music, you're like, this
one band explodes and then everything's about that band.
And you're like, there's seven other bands that's, that are just as good as this
band, but like they're not getting the attention because this is sucking all the
oxygen out of the room.
The Beatles.
Yeah.
I mean, whatever, or Green Day and Blink 182 during the pop punk movement.
And like there was a, there was 30 bands that were just as good as them, but like
those dudes got that moment and everyone else didn't.
Right.
So like, I kind of, I never thought about it that way.
Like there's a part of it that annoys me sometimes when things become careful not
to be like, Oh, it becomes too cool.
But like there is something, but it's like, it just gets too oversaturated.
And you're like, it's actually annoying, not because you don't like the thing,
but because you're mad that you're making me not like the thing.
Right.
It's like, like there's so much of it.
I mean, I feel that way about Raw Welt.
I obviously, I'm sure you have very serious feelings about it.
I was obviously very early to it.
I had a love for it in the pre, like in the blog era of Raw Welt.
There was, I want to be clear.
There was a time that a Raw Welt 9-11 was one of, if not the coolest thing on four wheels.
No, I owned it when it was, when I was only one of three in America, it was insane.
And now it's like, it's almost the opposite.
Like it hit this peak moment that once you get high enough up, you have a target on
your back and then everyone wants to hate it.
And like that's part of the thing that bothers me about the 9-11 thing is like,
I've been through this before, whether it's culturally about something like
something gets so cool and then it's just not cool anymore.
The New York Yankees.
Like I was, I was a New York Yankees fan when they sucked.
And then they became the best team ever.
And then everyone hated them.
And it's like, well, that sucks.
You know, it's like an exchange and all of a sudden, and I'm sure the people, I
hate the Pats, but I'm sure people who like the Pats feel the same way that it's
annoying that, you know, I don't like them just because it's the Boston team.
But, you know, I think that that's a weird thing that's happening with the market.
But I've never taken the angle of, yeah, it's just sucking all the oxygen out of the room.
Well, I think it sucks the oxygen out of the room.
And then like there's this whole other side of it, which is an economic
complaint where I don't think that the economics of 9-11's is based in reality.
No, it's like Tesla stock price.
I was literally about to say it is Tesla stock pricing.
Like 9-11's, air cooled 9-11's of any generation, they are not rare.
A half a million dollar experience.
Well, they're not worth the cost that they're commanding, but even if we
separate them from that, like they are not rare.
They made a lot of those cars, a lot, a lot of those cars.
Like by any measure, I'm not saying there are not rare models, but like they are
not rare at all, not even close.
Tens of thousands of them and as a whole hundreds of thousands of them.
And so the pricing that surrounds them and the parts and the, the, just everything
is like you guys are all stuck drinking the Kool-Aid because it like is not
based in reality at all.
What's a sports car that's not a BMW that deserves more attention that it's
not getting because the 9-11's in the way, like just name one.
The Alpha GTV.
It's funny because it's the exact same car.
It is.
It is one of the most beautiful cars ever made.
It's Italian.
It's lightweight.
It's got a phenomenal engine.
It is incredible to drive.
It is a true driver's car.
Front end is beautiful.
It is.
I mean, the whole car is beautiful.
I think it's one of the most beautiful vehicles ever made.
And it is.
Those have kind of popped in price though.
They used to be kind of affordable.
But they're not.
Yeah, but you're still talking about like if you got, I mean, it's cheaper than a 9-11.
You could buy one for 50 grand.
100%.
Yeah.
Where you could buy, you'll buy a basket case 9-11.
You can buy a nice, nice one for 50 grand.
And, you know, it's like, and it is a true driver's car.
There is nothing about Alfa Romeo, especially at that time that was not
centered around genuinely like this is meant to be a driver's car.
It is not meant to be anything else.
And I think that everything that it offers is parallel to what you look for in a 9-11.
I'm not saying that the same experience because they're not, but like they are
they are in parallel with each other.
And the fact that one of them has become what it is in contrast to the other is
just like it genuinely upsets me.
I think that it's insane.
And that's just one of who knows how many cars are out there that we could do that
with.
And it's like, it just doesn't make sense.
It does not make sense to me at all.
I don't get it.
Good take.
I don't think it's a hot of take.
I totally agree.
Well, I think people are coming around to it, but I've been making this
complaint for like 10 years.
And when I started 10 years ago, people were like, why are you being a
grabby patty about it?
It's like, yeah, I mean, look, I'm the guy bought his 9-11 Turbo for 35 grand
and then watched it 10 X.
So it's like, I'm happy for the stock price on it, but I wouldn't
rebuy it for that money.
Of course.
Like it's just, it was, it was a really good buy for 35 grand.
It was a super, super bad.
And not just because it went up like at that time, it was, it was like that was
like pound for pound.
That was like a great experience at that, at that moment.
But like, yeah, now it's just now it's absolutely.
Well, I think so many of these cars do not offer the driving experience that
the price commands, which is a bummer because like they are now assets, right?
Because of their rarity and what have you.
And so it's like, it's the new art for rich people.
Yeah.
Which is also skewing the market.
And it sucks because like the reason I got into the, the old BMWs,
is like when I was 16, you could buy all these cars for 250 bucks.
Like my first E30 was literally 250 bucks.
And I think my first probably like five E30 or E28s, or let's go with probably
the first 10 of them that I owned were all under a thousand dollars.
My only, I have only owned two BMWs.
I bought an E21 for $200.
My condolences.
It was still fun.
Was it?
Yeah.
I lived, it was like up in Vermont.
Like I was pretty sick.
They're like, I think that they're not like E21s.
I do not like Bosch CIS.
Folks, I think it's all Bosch.
That's fair.
Us BMW guys, we hate it.
So for good reason.
Like just the concept of like, oh, it's a BMW, a CIS.
No, it's not for me.
I belong to a Facebook group called Wizards of Bosch CIS.
And it just goes to speak that like, if you are good at it, you clearly are a wizard.
Like, like it's not like just like normal people who know CIS.
It's like, no, there's some level of magic.
That has to be understood.
There's something cool about it, but it's completely ridiculous.
Like there is no realm in which I have room in my life for CIS.
So it rules out the E21, which is unfortunate because like, I do think
E21s are really cool, especially with the Euro bumpers, like the way that they're
supposed to look.
My condolences were strictly surrounded around having to drive a CIS vehicle.
Yeah.
It actually, that part didn't give me problems, but my point was it was $200.
Yeah.
Which like, you know, it was 1997 or 98.
I was like $200 for a whole car.
Sick.
Yeah.
Any other, any other hot take gripes you got right now?
I want to, to go off, but what do you got?
It's just not on the top of your head right now.
Yeah.
It's one of those like, oh, I'm trying to pluck it out of thin air.
I'll be in the drive home and I'll be like, Ryan, oh, I was fired.
Oh, wait, I think, I think Nick may have a gripe he wants to throw out there.
It's come to my attention in recent few days that Ferrari has launched a new product.
The, was it the loose, the Lucie?
The Lucie.
Lucie.
Now I, I couldn't let you leave here without asking for your thoughts on this particular launch.
I mean, I don't think I'm going to say anything interesting about it.
Like everybody thinks it's ugly and doesn't get it.
The only take that I could give is like, I'm not going to try to justify the vehicle whatsoever.
Like I, in my opinion, I think it's insane that they wouldn't, like why did they not
make something that seems like a Ferrari?
Like I just don't get it.
Now there would probably be the argument and I've seen people say like, hey, they just
made something that's incredibly controversial and incredibly expensive.
And like by anybody that owns it, it is absolutely at this point a statement of like, I am rich
and do not care.
It's a cyber truck.
It's a cyber truck for Ferrari times six.
Yeah.
Um, although.
I think the cyber truck achieved what it achieved because it was so absurd.
Correct.
This is so bland.
Agreed.
So if that had a Buick logo on it, I'd be like, yeah, it seems right.
So well in China.
Yeah.
And like, I hate the cyber truck for a plethora of reasons, but I at least respect it in that
way.
This thing doesn't get that.
So it's like, I don't know what Ferrari's doing.
But the only like point that I could make here is if I'm like trying to be really logical
about it, we know.
So like we can criticize them the moment that pin and farina parted ways with them and their
designs have been very questionable since some of them have been wins.
Some of them have not.
But it's still really clear that this is a brilliant company.
Like, I mean, they know what they're doing.
They're not stupid.
We can't say that they're stupid.
So.
There's no way that the car made it to the finish line.
This luce didn't get to where it is without.
I mean, they know what they're doing.
So why did they do it?
Like there's like they did it for some reason.
They knew that this wasn't going to go well.
There's no way that they thought this was going to be a win.
There's just no way you're not going to convince me of it.
There's no way that they thought this was going to be a new era for Ferrari in a good way.
So like, why did they do it?
There has to be a reason, right?
I I totally understand what you're saying, but I have watched people circle around a bad
product or a bad concept or bad, mostly in a bad piece of content where I was the whole
time waving my hand going, guys, this sucks.
And everyone else was like, this is great.
And everyone thought it was great.
And it's not until it goes out into the world and you're like, Oh, maybe think about it.
Like bad movies get made.
Yeah.
All the time.
And like me, I guess when you're in the group, you you excuse things.
You're like, Oh, well, we had to do it this way because of that.
And the roofline had like that.
There's probably a bunch of reasons.
And I think that there is room, of course, of course, there's room that like this thing,
just everybody was, you know, huffing the paint and like and and being yes, men and nobody stopped
it and like, or they just actually thought it was a good idea.
But like, I can't remember if it's, you know, what is it?
It's Occam's razor or Hanlon's razor.
It's whatever is the simplest solutions the most likely like.
Occam's razor.
Yeah.
It's it's they probably knew and there's some weird justification.
Yeah.
But I don't know.
I it's one of the two.
I don't think there's many other options, but I think it's a really unfortunate car.
I think that like it really solidifies.
There's been this like, you know, speaking, speaking about circling, you know, a bad
product, I think that there's been this question of is Ferrari designed circling the
toilet lately, where it's like, you have the SP three.
And when it first came out, people were like, but now people really like the SP three.
But then you also have this new Testerosa thing that they came out with.
And it's like, what is that?
I don't think that's it.
I haven't liked the Ferrari design where it spoke to me since the 430.
Sure.
That's like the last body style.
And for me, the 360 was like the peak of like that era.
I love 355s.
I just don't fit them.
But the newer Ferraris, like they just they kind of become interchangeable to
me with a bunch of other.
It's very hard to tell them apart.
But like the design language, they do like the Woody color.
I do like the.
Is it the Luso?
The like the no, what's the bread found one?
Yeah.
Yeah.
Like the shooting break, the GTC for GT4C, whatever it is.
Yeah.
Like I actually think that's good looking.
It's a cool car.
Surprisingly big inside.
Yeah.
It's actually like if you needed a family car and you were rich, it's pretty cool.
Yeah.
And most of the most of their cars these days, I think look most everybody seems
to agree, like it's kind of what is Ferrari doing?
The designs are ridiculous.
And then to have this come out, really, I kind of think solidifies like
Ferrari's a I in I would guess going to even if it's just in the enthusiast
I going to go into a dark age.
Did you see the video of Lewis Hamilton like pulling the thing off?
Like what do you think he was thinking?
Because Lewis clearly has style understands.
I mean, he just did that at 40 video and like, you know, in Japan,
the dude is a style icon slash like, like there's no way he saw that and was like,
that's it.
The man knows better than to bite the hand that feeds.
I'm sure I'm not saying that he I'm just saying like, I just was wondering,
like I was watching the video of him pulling it back and you can just see
like a part of his soul dying as he's like just moving this back like, all right.
Yeah, I guess this is this is the moment that would be a tough one to
pretend is cool.
Like that sucks.
I don't think I could think of a car that has been universally heated when
it's come out like this.
I don't remember.
Like the Cybertruck was polarizing.
There was like people who were like, that thing's super cool.
And then people are like, you are lame for thinking it's cool.
But yeah, but I get how the people got there.
I get like, I can see I judge them for it.
Yeah.
But I do understand how some people saw the Cybertruck and were like, ha, ha,
like I think that's so sick because it's this like it's a troll.
It's an antithesis of design.
You built it's like you have to respect like Tesla built a troll car.
Like whether you like Tesla or not, you're like or Elon, you're like,
ah, they built a troll car and people.
Since we're going off, I hate Tesla and I hate Elon.
Just I'm okay with that.
Yeah.
Yeah.
For the record, I am not a fan of Elon Tesla.
I'm not a fan of most of the EV startups.
If I'm going to go out there, I like Rivian.
I like sleep, but yeah, most of it to me just feels like a cash grab at a new thing.
I don't know.
But that's like a whole other pod, but I don't know.
It is.
And I don't have like, that formulated.
And I've, the guys over at the inevitable podcast like Johnny Lieberman and Ed,
like they've asked me to come on and I'm like, I'm like, I don't really want to
get into the fight of like how I don't like EVs because I was an early EV adapter.
And then I kind of walked away from it.
I had a smart that was EV.
I thought it was great.
And then I just started to realize like it didn't live outside of a small city environment.
Like I couldn't barely get to the like Los Angeles like from, but it was fine
in Long Beach or whatever.
But I don't know.
I just like, like style wise.
Like it all just fell flat for me so fast.
Like all the cars kind of look alike.
They all feel interchangeable.
They all feel like every single EV that's in the market.
That's like an EV specific, right?
Like one of those brands, right?
They all feel like unlicensed cars in Grand Theft Auto.
No, I agree.
And they all like, they're trying to make them look a certain way and stand out.
The only EV that I've seen lately that I was like, hmm, okay, I'll entertain this.
Have you seen that new?
It's, I don't know what they call it.
But it's, it's a Renault like R5 turbo, but it's an updated one.
Yeah, I've seen that.
But like that doesn't fit in this group for me.
It doesn't.
This group for me is like, I don't know, just like all the EV brands.
Like the, like the Renault car is sort of a reinterpretation, right?
I did drive the Ioniq 5N.
All right, I'm actually going to give that one a separate.
That car is cool.
That car is super cool.
I had one for a long time.
I actually did, me, Vinny and Ron did all of the early promotional content for it.
So they invited us out to Laguna like way before the press launch and like had us
like sliding it around and like ripping Laguna.
And I was really impressed by it.
I also like the styling of the 5N.
I think that car is cool.
Like I actually, not even saying as an EV, I want like, I kind of want one.
I think the 5N, first off.
I've gone flip flop on this one.
But to me, the 5, the 5N is a Hyundai.
That's not like, I'm talking like the tech startup EVs.
I get what you're saying.
All sort of, and a lot of the Chinese ones, like they all just sort of have this same.
They're all like, there's this thing about the EVs where everyone feels like
they have to look a certain way.
And like the Prius always bothered me like this.
Like I would have preferred the Prius to just look like a Camry.
New Prius kind of hot though, right?
New Prius is kind of hot.
New Prius is pretty sick.
Especially slammed.
Dude, dinner, soup, or something.
Especially new Prius slammed is pretty dope.
I'll go that.
And oddly, retro Prius has come around to be kind of cool when it when slammed.
But but back to the 5N, I think it's the right size vehicle for a family.
Like I had my, you know, we had it when we actually had a non-N,
just a regular five for like a year when Hudson was young.
So that was pretty cool.
The 5N is one of the first electric cars that feels fun.
Because like they checked all the right boxes of like making it be able to slide
a bit and be able to throw it around like that part.
It's all cool.
I did a video with Leah Block with one earlier this year.
And like it'll actually do donuts and like like there's that piece of it.
It's fun to drive.
It's fast.
And I hate to say it, but like the the like engine noise stuff, like while I
wouldn't use it for driving around in traffic, it's actually really nice for
breaking zones.
I was using it on track.
If you're on track, hearing that helps you be like, okay, I'm going pretty fast.
I need to be breaking.
Cause there's something about when you remove the audible experience,
you lose some of the speed factor and you don't realize that you're taking
this 5,000 pound vehicle into a corner way too fast.
So like I found that that actually made me quicker on track was like listening to it.
I mean, when I drove it, I adored it.
I was like, holy crap, this is the vehicle.
If you could get people that are anti EV as a whole into this, it could change
their opinion.
I think that I think the design of the car is really cool.
I haven't seen one done up in a way that I would do one.
And I, and I think that like there's a lot of potential.
It's one of those vehicles that like if I could justify it and thought my
audience would get behind it, I'd probably go buy one.
But I think that they'd just be like, no, but like, I would love the opportunity
to, to mess with one and show people like, Hey, this, this and EVs can be cool.
So when I look at the design of it, the way I look at it is it's like, if you
gave somebody a 1990 Volkswagen Golf and there was 1990, you know, 1992 or
whatever and you're like, draw the future.
Yeah.
I would say the same, but a larger Delta.
It definitely looks like it's somewhere between those two, but it has that look
of like that 90s hatchback, the hot hatch thing.
Like what does like the cyberpunk future version of that look like?
And I think they, I think they did a pretty good job with that.
So, but yeah, it's all the other like slick rounded.
I'm with you.
I mean, most of them just look like appliances.
I can't even name half of them because like, I don't know what they are.
I mean, interestingly, like by contrast, the very same brand, the Ioniq six is
like one of the ugliest car I've ever seen.
It's hideous.
It's bad.
Sorry.
That fits more into that group.
What is that?
Yeah.
But yeah, I mean, EVs as a whole, they have a design language to them that
tends to just be like, what are you guys like?
Why stop doing this thing that you're doing?
I think a lot of it has to do with though, for a lot of people, some people,
a lot of people buy EVs for the identity and like the look speaks to the identity
versus just buying like the new Ford Lightning, which is like, you don't know
it's an electric truck unless you, unless you look at the batch.
Like that's a different type of owner than the person who's like, I want everyone
to see that I'm driving.
Yes, it's like, I feel like there's room to have it be futuristic or cutting edge
or like future forward forward looking, whatever, without looking like they do.
Yeah.
But I'm not a designer.
So I think I think cars that try to be too futuristic don't like they're
they're stunning when they first drop.
Like when the Tesla first came out, I remember being like, man, that's pretty slick
looking, you know, like just the shape of it.
But then it becomes like the Audi TT.
Or like the Audi TT was super cool when it came out to me.
I remember thinking like with the baseball stitch and all that, like it was super cool.
I like every day try to convince myself that I like Audi TT's because I want to
like Audi's, but like I want to go, like that car as much as I liked it
when it first came out, but it was like almost it was trying too hard to be new,
you know, and like, and they actually dialed it back.
I feel the same way about the 350Z.
Like, right.
Because the 370Z actually dials it back a little bit.
The TT second gen dials it back a bit.
The new Beetle dials it back a bit.
Like there was something about that early 2000s where everyone's like, we're going
to make the future.
And then the next iteration of it was like, well, maybe not as round as this
or maybe let's let's scale it back a little bit.
So.
And I think that there's always this moment in design where everyone like wants
to create a Jetsons car and then like kind of pull it back.
You got any other gripes?
Sure.
We can wrap this out.
I think, I think, you know, we could do an entire gripe episode.
I was going to say, I'm going to save them for the next one.
And whether that's firing order or I'm just going to start coming up with a
list and I'm like, all right, Brian, next time you need an episode, I'm going to
come over and we're just going to hash out these because these need to be said.
Do you have any firing order ideas?
Cause I know I hit you yesterday though.
It was just in case like, did any, any pop up to mine?
No, cause I've been, I've been trying to hammer out this, this E 28 exhaust.
I was trying to, trying to get.
I'd just been there.
Yeah.
Yeah.
But I'll come up with some lists.
We did a topic episode with Vinny and Ron and I was re listening to it today.
And one of the things in it that was like one of my favorite questions was like,
it was like kind of like a wholesome one was like, what's the perfect day for a
car nerd?
And like, I went back and listened to it and like, I don't know if it'll
matter much to the audience, but like, I was like, man, I think like the, the
culture needs to get back to asking more of that.
Like, and like, I think the, the conversations we had today, the things
that were exciting about you going to Riverside, Chattanooga, Migo, you know,
the Tref punks, like old trace, like, like these are the moments that like
need to come back in culture because or whatever that moment might be for someone
that could be a track day or event or whatever.
Yeah.
I mean, I think there's probably that there's probably like something to the
effect of like the, the moments that every car guy deserves to experience.
Like, for example, like firing up an engine swap for the first time.
Fantastic.
Like it is an all time feeling.
You know, that, that type of thing that's like, if you've never done that and
you're trying to have the car experience, like go out and make sure you do that.
At some point, like you, you owe it to yourself to feel what that
sense of accomplishment feels like.
That is an amazing feeling for not just you, but everybody who's in the garage
at that point.
So yeah.
And it, and the best part is it never gets old.
Every single time it is.
It's real excitement.
Yeah.
The number one thing that people would get in trouble for at Hoonigan was
not filming the initial startup.
I'm like, I don't care what happens at 3 30 in the morning and you're filming
it on an iPhone three.
Like you had that is such a real emotion when it's like, and then it catches
and you're like, oh, yes, it works.
So good.
So good.
One of the things I had on my list of the perfect thing was, um, build it, working
on something all day, getting it done just in time to go cruise with your
friends at night when you were younger.
Like you just got your new suspension on your new, whatever.
And like it was just in time to like go roll with your friends.
Like that peak peak automotive, but 100%.
All right, bud.
Well, thanks for coming back.
Thanks for having me.
Yeah.
Like I said, I'm going to move you into the, the, you know, the standard
rotation here.
Perfect.
I have you come on for some firing order.
I love talking shop.
I love, I love arguing.
So I know you do.
I feel like we didn't argue that much today.
We went down memory lane.
It was nice.
Kind of going for a cruise.
So next time we'll have some stuff.
We'll, we'll.
Yeah.
I had that episode that we did, um, with Victoria, I still like people, it is a
standard episode for people.
People really enjoyed, I think like how balanced the whole thing was in the end.
And I still feel bad because there was, I saw a few comments like the day that
it got posted and, um, some people, I know that, that I think there was some
stuff that Victoria wound up having to cut out for a couple of reasons.
And it wound up being in a place where it winds up feeling like I'm just
carrying on and on and on.
And I felt really bad.
And like from a viewer's perspective, they're like, dude, this guy just won't
shut up and let her talk.
And it's like, you're totally right.
But, but it wasn't that, I mean, but don't worry.
They listen to my show where I just talk to everybody.
So they're pretty used to that.
So, but I, I had a blast with it.
She was such a great sport and she held her own.
She knows her stuff.
I've been trying to sing her praises to anybody to listen.
So, you know, she's out here now.
She got a job at a Palm Springs Ferrari.
Yeah.
Oh, that's it.
Um, next time bring some, bring some more gripes.
We'll come, we'll figure out some more firing orders.
Um, and when we're done with this, I need to show you the things that
need to get fixed on the Land Rover.
Cause I'm not sure if you remember, but that was, that was in the fine print.
It was that you needed to help me fab that.
I gotta get out of here.
I've set a timer yet.
Uh, thanks again.
And thanks everybody for listening to another, another great one.
So, um, yeah, on the next time.
Yeah.
Of all the sunglass companies out there, you might ask, why heat wave?
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But what really attracts me to heat wave is that they are physically a part of our culture.
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So if you're ready to step up your tool game, whether it's the Zyclop Ratchet or the Joker
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All anyone wants to talk about nowadays is how great 90s car culture was.
But what everyone forgets is how bad our slam cars rode on crappy lowering springs.
At the time, that's all my wallet could muster.
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About this episode
Ferrari brand drama opens the conversation, then the hosts pivot to what people actually want to hear: F40 progress. The guest explains why the build keeps moving through rebuilds—switching gearboxes to Hollinger, chasing the “weakest link,” and learning that track-style stress is a different world than street driving. Along the way, they compare development drivers, talk about teething pains on ground-up race builds, and connect it all back to how real testing (and fixing) defines success.
Mike Burroughs is back… and he’s got some gripes! If you didn’t already know him from StanceWorks; or indeed for his legendary F40 and K-swapped 308 projects, you may remember Mike as one of our earliest guests alongside Ferrari expert VictoriaBruno. It seems only right to bring him back on and throw him the mic - he’s got some things to say! (Oh, and stop asking him when the F40 project will be done!). Apart from *cough* that project… Mike has plenty of other fascinating projects, and he even gives us a sneak peek of what’s in the pipeline. Beyond the metal, Scotto and Mike get borderline philosophical on this one, it’s a ripper. Enjoy!
