My Waymo Test; Toyota Concept; Hertz AI; FL Speed Law

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Alright, guys, today on the Smoking Tire Podcast, me and Zach are in studio. Well, not exactly. My wife seems to have caught the vid, so I am staying home and we're doing it remote. I found the culprit of what was scratching up the steering wheel. Took my first few rides in a Waymo, and boy, do I have reports? I recap the events, classics on the green concours in Seattle this past weekend.

And we bitch about Hertz using AI to screw over their customers. It's a good one. Let's do the Smoking Tire Podcast.

Hey folks, I'm coming to you live today from home. I got back from a trip to the Seattle area with the Obama classics on the green concours, a fabulous event that I'll tell you about in just a minute.

And wife wasn't feeling so good last night. And this morning she tested for COVID. So Zach has to do medical related thing later and rather than getting him sick.

We use a stay in a home today. So we apologize for the remoteness of this audio. But here we are on a sunny California one day.

Hi Zach. Hello, how are you doing? Press on anyway. No COVID for me so far so far. I mean, I don't know. What do you think you want to?

What do you think the odds are spent approximately? I got home at midnight and I and I got up and went to work at six. So we spent six hours together in the bedroom.

And we had the circulation as a fan on so is there some circulation going. But what do you think the odds are that I get COVID?

I will say you have demonstrated a pretty strong immune system. Like I get sick probably three times as often as you do.

I think you have a good shot of beating it. I think you've had it before.

And you've got some antibodies. I think that's how the sun. Yeah, I've had some of some of back updates that that backs boosters.

I guess that's vaccination. So no, I got last I'm doing the seasonal the one in the area the seasonal flu COVID combo for free.

That much CVS. Gotcha. Yeah, no.

I think I could even shot first the first time for hand of the she made it five years, which was impressive.

I've had a lot more to probably not a lot of people left, huh?

About like four times. So props to her. How she how she feeling though?

Well, shoot and when I said, how are you feeling last night? And she said foggy. I went, oh, that's probably not good when the fog rolls in. That's how you know.

So anyway, I get to do the podcast outside today with my cats, which may make a cameo in the background.

If you're watching the video version right now cricket is under the couch behind.

But yeah, so so so I was in Seattle. I went to the advanced magazine classics on the green. I posted some pictures on Instagram.

Really nice event. The advanced magazine people are really, really sweet and they put on a real classy show.

Some some great cars. It was at a winery and you know, budget wine tasting going on and some pretty good food as well.

But some some great stuff I saw and really good variety.

Civic Northwest always delivers in their variety. It's not like there's no typical collector in the city of Northwest.

There's everything from your obvious modern exotics.

Vintage concours type brass air cars and there was weird imported French things like Pujos and on-ball JDM cars.

There was a whole slew of interesting modified classic minis. There was a meeting of seven Harlequin golfs along with a Harlequin beetle.

Exactly. Did you know they did a Harlequin classic beetle in Mexico?

Oh, I'm looking at it right now. Yeah, so that was a show.

That was a, it's on my Instagram. That was a factory Volkswagen car from Mexico. They did not a lot of them.

The woman who was driving it knew like everything about it. I can't, I don't know if it was like 50 or 100, but it wasn't a lot.

And so I'd never seen that before. That was really, really cool. Wow.

And yeah, right. That looks like the friendliest beetle in, I mean, it almost like represents the entire image of that car and the market behind it and why people loved it so much.

Yeah. But it's, you know, it's a night. It's from the same year as the golf. So that's like a 1994 something, which was pretty fun.

Click through some of the other photos while you're in there.

So the rally cars were from the dirt fish collection. Yeah, dirt fish rally school outside of Seattle. Come on up.

From the bin wants to come say hello.

The dirt fish, they brought down that metro and they brought down the

Monshire Delta S4, which is that insane thing that at first glance looks like a delta to growling, but it's actually just a pure rally car.

This is a fin. He doesn't really want to say hi, but he wants to sit with daddy during the show.

Yeah, Metro Metro six R4 nutty and all kinds of really good stuff was hot, though, man.

Yeah, it was Seattle's pumpkin. Yeah, it was like over 90 rule at one point.

At one point they did run out of water and there had to be like an emergency water delivery.

I mean, I could, it was 15 degrees, 20 degrees hotter than, you know, it would be typical for this time.

Yeah, wow. So, but yeah, no, growing pains, right?

Viper, Viper truck showing a viper was very fun. That's good one.

And there was dude, they had a, there was an original Alpine A110, like the 70s one.

I couldn't, there it is. The smallest thing in the world.

What you need to know about that photo is look at the size of it compared to the guy standing behind it.

The roof, the roof is like waste height. It's so look at all.

Not only is it so little, it looks, I texted the photo to Jason Camista and I said,

it looks like a scale model of the one that we drove, but also the engine is super rear engine.

It's not like the new one is the mid engine car. This one, that engine is hanging so far out the back of the car.

I was, I, I really didn't know that about those things. And I actually took another picture of that just to send to Jason.

And I'm going to do the stupid thing where I show you the camera on here, but look at the wheels compared to where the engine is.

Yeah, the engine is completely behind the axle, fully, fully, fully behind the axle and longitudinally mounted.

It's such a weird thing. There's light. It's like 1887 or something like that.

I mean, the fact that it won as many races and rallies as it did with so little horsepower.

And it looks like a long car. I mean, it's next to like an EVO. What is that? Like an EVO 6.

But it looked like the same life, but this thing, you know, barely touches the windows.

It's like barely off the belt line of this new EVO, newer EVO.

And the other, the newer LP next to it, which is the H310 from the 80s is also pretty fun.

That has a twin turbo PRV V6. So it's a twin turbo version of the Delorean engine.

Right. Pretty fun. I wonder how that worked.

I mean, you know, not probably not great.

You don't see a lot of that.

Philip Sarif has one because of course he doesn't. He buys all the weirdest, the weirdest cool stuff, you know.

But a really nice event, really nice people. And if you live in, you know, the Seattle Tacoma, Portland, you know, area Vancouver, definitely put it on the schedule.

But there's like a casual 250 GTO back there that didn't even.

And look at this. Is this a gold Dino? Wow. With a gold dates, a gold Daytona probably owned by the same person.

Yeah, Jewish racing gold Daytona's and Dino's, which was pretty fun.

I took these, I took all these photos before. There was any people there. So obviously there was a lot of people and I met some really nice fans.

The LM002 and that escort Cosworth are owned by friends of the show Ben Abrams, Seattle local who we love.

He's always got neat stuff going through his collection.

But yeah, if you're in that area, definitely make a make a thing and go into the show because it's really, really cool.

There's the SSC Tuatara that Zach and I will be driving in two weeks in Washington state.

I met Jared Shelby. He was very nice of us at Jared Shelby of SSC. No relation to Carol Shelby.

We had a really nice chat. He showed me a bunch of really cool things on the car. And I'm stoked we're going to be driving it.

Yeah, it should be pretty fun.

It will be crazy, I think. Yeah. What did you do this weekend, Zach?

Really put them on the spot.

I did very little. I still don't have a car. So why not?

My interior is hit in delay. I'll tell you about off camera.

Well, it hit a funny delay. I'll tell you about on camera, which was I had to drive it to a wedding last week.

And I called them and this woman answer the phone. She says, oh, your car, it's done. It's been done.

I went, oh, all right. Great. And it's not rare for shops to not tell you when your vehicle's done.

I wish it was uncommon. So I show up there and Sarah and I are going to a wedding.

We're going to drive separately at a different day. Sarah's already left.

And so I get to the shop and I walk up and the guy who's been working on my car looks at me and he goes, what are you doing here?

And I go, I'm here to pick my car up. He goes, it's not done.

And I say, like, I'm like, whoa, like I called. I asked, I was told it was done.

And he has this face that's like, he knows what happened.

And he's like, oh shit. And I go, look, man, I need to take this to a wedding.

But I'll be back tomorrow. And I'll drop it off tomorrow. But I'm take, I need it like in the front seats are done.

Back seats weren't done. And although all the sills weren't done.

And what's funny about that is the new seats are really comfortable there.

They restuffed them everything like that feels great. But I drove our dog to Derek Powell's house, our front Derek.

He was going to watch Tucker for a day. And Derek lives on the east side of the city.

And the quickest way to get to him unfortunately is surface streets.

And my B pillar near the driver's side has been like leaning for about a month.

And I went, well, they're going to take care of that.

And to put it back in place, you have to take off the door card, like the rear door card.

It's a huge pain in the ass. So I'm driving to Derek's stupid, stupid, and I feel a tap on my shoulder.

And I look and whatever remaining plastic tabs of that pillar cover were on that pillar cover are no longer intact.

Like the surface streets and my suspension just snapped this last clinging finger.

And so I arrived. So when I got back when I dropped the car off the next day, I said, by the way,

I have ordered a new B pillar cover that will be arriving here tomorrow because they wouldn't be able to put it back together.

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They have a lot of work to do, but I'm really excited for it because it will match the green notice watch that I know I'm wearing.

Yeah, very important to match your watch week across. It's not important, but like I when I opened the box went, oh, this is going to look sick when the one that turns shows up. Yeah, tartan looks good.

You're going to be you're going to be doing this in front of the steering wheel. I'm not I can't be that person, but I'm just excited for it.

Oh, speaking of steering wheels, I I've solved the mystery of the scratch steering wheel. Thanks to some fans who this has happened to.

It's not diamond ring. It's the rivets on my new jeans when I get in the car. I slide my right here. Look what? This. Yeah. See this.

Yeah, that when I go to get in the car. Right.

With the force of a two hundred and sixty pound.

Two fifty nine, by the way, nice went to the cardiologist on Friday. Two five nine. That's going going down on the right way.

Haven't seen I haven't seen a two five, you know, very long time. Hey, congrats.

Yeah, the torque of a falling body, passing a steering wheel. That's what does it.

So that's so that's why it's crescent shaped because it's like a conical pressure and it slides down the wheel.

I guess a diamond would have like sliced, but wow.

Wow. Yeah, wow. So someone else has done this. Yeah, other people have done this. So the good news has been like what?

I mean, it's been a long time since we've talked about this. And it's like it's like 50% gone. So I think just using the steering wheel will just kind of make it go.

Someone else suggested like a little bit of water and some very fine steel wool. Okay, maybe that could be the thing or you know, whatever, but we'll see.

We'll see if it goes away after like another week or so. Okay. That's cool.

But I'm glad the mystery is solved. Yeah. And Hannah's probably like I told you it wasn't me. Yeah, are you still like screen sharing by the way for the recording?

Oh, I am. Let me pull it back down. We don't usually use remote shows. So we're not like I forgot that I like I didn't tap the button. And so yeah.

Yeah. But so, so I'm glad that that at least the mystery is solved. And I haven't really apologized to Hannah for blaming her yet.

Well, you know, you could hold back that apology until you don't get COVID, but if you get COVID, that climate is always the clutch player.

Call it even you go look. Right. Yeah. 100%. I did shame on the internet, but I also. Yeah. So.

So I had a very fun experience taking way most. I took two. And, and they are pretty fun.

So, okay. Immediate impressions. The app is just like Uber or Lyft.

Pretty much. I mean, it's closed. It makes no difference. You there aren't levels. There's not like premium or like, you know, X or whatever.

It's just one. So you just you sum in one.

They've just recently expanded coverage to a really big map of LA. You can really take one like most of the way across Los Angeles now, which is pretty cool.

You can't go to the airport yet, which I totally understand why that is.

The airport would probably be super hard for a way more. But, but okay. Can't add everything.

And so, so the first ride was to a restaurant. And it was from my house to a restaurant. My house is a really easy one because my street is a very lightly traffic street.

And, but when it pulled up, it didn't like no, it didn't know that I was me in terms of like where to stop. Like it, like I was standing at the end of my driveway.

And it didn't just like stop in front of me. It stopped like 30 feet further in like the other end of my front yard.

So it's actually a lot like an Uber driver because unless unless they see you, then you know, the number of times I've picked the dot that the app says on lift. It's like go here. And then the person parks down the street one direction of the other all the time.

Yeah. So, okay, fine. And you get in and there's some sort of spa like music going and you can change that in your rear touchscreen and the Jaguar eyepaces.

The one I was in today had only 1100 miles on it. So I guess they, they still have new Jaguar. They must have bought so many Jag, they must be sitting on thousands of Jaguar eyepaces.

I think there's a way no robot army that's building the eyepace because I'm shocked that they are, are this many.

How many did Jaguar be like, and you're sold by now.

Let me see. I don't think I'm not sure if we, I mean, I gave it what, like, you know, eight years ago, whatever, I gave the eyepace, like a pretty decent review actually.

And an eyepace that is professionally cleaned every day is like a nice place. You know, that's like a nice version of a cab.

So I was looking at production numbers of the eyepace, which we can get to in a second. But what I just learned by looking at Wikipedia is went in 2019, the eyepace one car of the year from the World Car Awards, the European car of the year, UK car of the year, German car of the year.

The region, China, all the journalists of Canada, South African, it won 2018's Top Gear EV of the year, and it won Motor Week.

Like it, it swept the world of auto journalist awards in 2018 and 19, that's why I liked it a lot. I thought it was really nice.

So the one I was in today was really nice.

They sold only 6,400 total in the United States, but they sold almost 50,000 in Europe.

So maybe they, and maybe they built way more than that. So there's, you know, several thousand sitting on a lot somewhere in way more bottom.

Yeah.

So anyway, it was clean. It was comfortable, genuinely nice place to be.

The car drove very conservatively. So this video on my Instagram is the end.

I filmed the very end of this of this Waymo ride because it was particularly funny because I, it seemingly the car, you know, it more or less did everything right now.

It was smooth. It's inputs throttle breaking. We're very smooth. But it, it clearly preferred to break rather than steer, meaning if, if they're going, if it's going in a lane and another car in the next lane crowds a little bit, or there's someone in the center turn lane, but their car is kind of hanging into the lane.

A normal driver would just nudge their car like this, right. This, this slows down more than would be normal for that type of maneuver.

And it didn't, it didn't have like, like, full on Phantom breaking, but it definitely hit the brakes for stuff that like a good, a good driver wouldn't have hit the brakes for.

It was only a little bit. And in general, I would say that I felt perfectly safe the entire time. I felt that even if it reacted in kind of a strange way, it knew where, where everything was, you know, I never felt like it was going to drive into something.

It never exceeded the speed limit by even one mile an hour. So you realize how much, you know, casual speeding goes on when you actually try to drive the speed limit everywhere you go.

But, you know, it actually, I have to know if they have any kind of algorithm that is either connected to the traffic light system in our city or somehow predictive of it because multiple times.

So I know for a fact it will not accelerate to make a yellow light because it's already going the speed limit. But, and it will break and stop any yellow light if it doesn't think it can make it.

But multiple times I got through a yellow light only just by the car holding the exact speed it was going.

So I don't know if it has the software ability to predict like the exact length of time it has with yellow lights because they're not always exactly the same length of time.

But to get to my video, which I'll just I'll just share from my screen because it's the full screen.

I took one this morning and as I got back to the shop, it started to make some, can you see this is that?

Okay, so it took a weird route to the shop. It didn't, it didn't.

And I actually, before this video happened, I took a picture of just the GPS math because I was like, this is very odd. Why is it taking this way?

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Is it taking this way? And then as we get to the shop, it it doesn't approach. Did you hear this? I can't hear it. I can see it. Okay, you can't hear it. Okay, so so rather than pulling up to like the front door on the main street.

It takes these very strange series of turns to end up in the back alley by where my like trash bins are and then it's pulled over our back and it's like, your ride is on. So it doesn't just like it will.

We've ordered food before, not often, but it continues to happen where food delivery and sometimes like people dropping cars off will get sent to the alley. It's like.

Like like Google maps thinks your business or some of it does thinks your business is like on the backside of the building. So people end up.

But now, but it's totally random when that happens. Like I use my GPS to go to I use both Google maps and ways to go to my own office all the time.

And it takes me to the front. It doesn't take me to the back. It's never taken me to the back. So like, I don't know what would cause it to take to the back. But like I'd like, but but it also it reveals a problem with this, which is that.

If there was a driver there, I could be like, Hey, buddy, you just, you actually, this is the back, right? You know, there's no way to tell a way mo, like go to the other side of the building. And like, it's just, it's a, it's a weird reminder that.

Yes, a computer can steer a steering wheel. A computer can accelerate and stop. And most of the time not crash into anything. Sort of just like a human, but there's parts of.

Of not just operating a vehicle, but moving around in the world in which communicating with the human that like, Hey, man, you're going the wrong way. It's like the way that it's done.

Yeah, the computer can only adapt to the situation. If it's in motion, and it's as we've talked about before with autonomous things, if it's been programmed to intake certain kinds of data and adapt to that data, but it doesn't right now know how to to adjust its behavior to a voice saying, Hey, we're in an alley.

And if this was like a big, let's say that you're in a big city where those the blocks are like, you know, a quarter mile long.

If it went down the alley, if it's nighttime, and if all the buildings are commercial buildings with no door, you can get into.

It might be a pretty long walk in the evening to get back around the sidewalk.

I mean, that's the case it even at my building. It's not a huge block, but if you were to do that.

And that my rear service gate didn't just have to be open because the repairman was there. You know, I'd have to walk all the way around the block to get to the other side.

It's not for me. It's not a problem. But for you know, these these things are pitched as a sort of solution for handicapped or disabled people, a solution for blind people.

I mean, this sort of a sort of almost utopian solution for for accessibility, which I don't I don't totally disagree with.

But at the same time, like if it dropped a blind person off where it dropped me and that person was trying to get into my business, they'd have a hell of a time figuring out where to go with the last 50 feet to get in.

Well, yeah, and it's also pitched as a safer option because unfortunately, how do I say this without just getting blocked on YouTube?

You know, certain crimes that are perpetrated by the drivers of ride service cars.

This removes that obviously, but if you get dropped in the middle of an alley, like that's not going to be the safest environment possibly.

Yeah, and oh, you know, by the first for sure. I mean, if you're if you're a single woman or someone who's been anyway vulnerable, I I 100% get this.

I just think that it didn't take long for a very funny and very specific thing to happen that wouldn't possibly happen to assume and driver because I wouldn't have been able to tell them to go around to the front.

Yeah, I wonder if they're going to have to either, you know, write AI code that can recognize the front of businesses by like a depression in the sidewalk.

Maybe or you know, you hope I would hope and there be impossible if they had to go address by address like maybe they need.

Is there is there a thing on the app where you can flag an issue that's.

I have this happened like two hours ago and I've been busy. I haven't looked into it. I probably can.

I could probably, you know, it's way most so it's going to be Google maps, right?

So I can probably go in and and yeah, this probably a support thing.

Yeah. And I'll try I'll try it again and see if you know, a different car on a different day takes me to the front or the back.

You know, I was I was coming from one direction, but maybe if I'm coming from another direction, it'll choose a different.

Yeah, interesting, but but otherwise, you know, how did it compare?

I'm sure you've had Uber drivers or lift drivers that are good and some that are bad.

Yeah, it was better.

Yeah, it was it was incredibly cautious.

So it was it drove like somebody who went to show first school and was taught to drive very smoothly.

But that that person was also not fully confident in their own abilities with like the dynamics of a car, right?

So it was like safe and cautious and and timid. It was not at what it did.

It didn't drive like a really good driver would drive, but it drove better than a bad driver was done.

And the car was clean and the car was comfortable.

And I have my own controls for the music, the temperature, the anything, you know, and it's I've got come or I'm under a commercial insurance policy for the big thing.

And although I don't trust the idea of camera only autonomy, I do trust to a certain degree.

The idea of a multi sensor suite of autonomy, I've now been driving around L.A. for a year or so.

The waymo like hub is kind of near where we work and where I live.

And so I see hundreds and hundreds of waymos a day.

And honestly, the way I've watched them drive generally gives me confidence to be around them in other cars and in motorcycles.

I think a waymo drives more predictably than other than the little bits of like phantom tap on the brake rather than do that.

And a waymo will always signal always.

Like a waymo, a waymo, you know, won't won't intentionally break loss.

And so actually like, although this funny, you know, yes, it brought me to the back of my building by the trash instead of the front door and that's kind of funny, but, but.

It did, it did technically, you know, get me there safely and smoothly and on time and, and with absolutely zero fuss whatsoever.

And so I do intend to keep using it. I would, I'd put my wife in one. I'd, I'd ride in it again for sure.

I'm curious. I was going to look up how far they can go in L.A.

Because I could take one to pick up my car, but the map is pretty big.

I don't think it goes to the valley. It does not right now. It's the mountains are the wall. So it, which I don't know if they go on freeways.

I don't think they do. And they don't. It's fun. The other options are like aggressive canyon roads like Laurel Canyon and stuff. So.

Yeah. But it's really, it's probably more just the city jurisdictions. They have to apply and they get approved. So.

It may be, but I'm not sure I've seen them on the highway. I have, no, I have not.

I don't think I'm on the highway. But here's, I mean, just, just showing up like here's the map of coverage. And it's, I mean, that's, that's a pretty big area.

I mean, it doesn't go too far east of downtown. It pretty much ends at downtown, but for someone like myself, like that, that area is where I live my life.

So that's pretty cool.

Yeah.

So, okay, wait.

I just had to make sure that the, the addresses showed up on my screen were actually work addresses and not my home address.

I was looking intently. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. All right. Cool. Wait, I were good.

But no, it was, it was fun. And Zach, you should definitely, oh, and you know, it was also convenient because I had to shuttle this customer's car over to the body shop.

But I also felt guilty, you know, not guilty, but like, I didn't want to saddle some poor Uber driver knowing my wife just has to pause at the COVID.

So like, I got to go home and, you know, a car with no driver, put the windows down, put on that spa music and kind of enjoyed myself.

Yeah. I've got the app. So I should, I'll give it a try.

Yeah. I mean, I'll look, honestly, after like three or four minutes in the car, I was like checking my phone and doing shit.

I would be doing it another car. It was not, it was the first 30 seconds. It's, oh, and then, and then you're, you're like, oh, okay, why are this thing?

You know, probably all right.

I mean, we've seen them driving around long enough. When they first were rolling out the maps in LA and it was almost like a traveling circus.

I'm sure we would have been more nervous.

But cool. I see so many of them. So many of them.

Because the, you know, the hub is right over here by Google's headquarters and they parked like, I don't know, a thousand of them or something over there.

Yeah.

During, you know, during the protest, there were a lot of them behind a certain fence.

Yeah.

Near this coffee shop. And I was like, oh, they're all cowering.

They've all been called back home, essentially.

Yeah. See, we're going to find out one day that there's some program that will turn them into an army.

But, you know, tell that it be who's Google to make us think that they're all cowards.

I, yeah, on the, on that show concept I wrote that I told you about a long time ago.

That was one of the plot points, which I'll tell you more detail later because it was a funny idea and then it became a really not funny idea.

Well, it happened. They did it as a scene in that there was a movie from a year or two ago.

It didn't fast.

Seven, I think, or six.

Like I think it was Charlize there on the hacker. We could like send all the cars to crash into shit.

Oh, yeah. Right.

No, but they also did it with Tesla specifically.

Oh, they did some recent disaster movie from like a year or two ago.

Oh, yes, I know. I think it was the one on Netflix, right?

Yes. That was a pretty cool point.

They were standing on the highway and all of a sudden the cars just go and just go flying.

And they were like, Oh, we're in, we're in the end of the bowling alley here.

That was a good movie, but also far too real and chilling.

Right.

I was speaking of that AI and corporate overlords.

Did you see that like Hertz is now using these sort of quote AI powered.

It's not probably not really AI powered. It's just very powerful computers to detect damage on their rental cars and like people are getting fined for like the tiniest little bit of damage.

Yeah.

And then and then one of the big problems is that that AI is quote finding things and then charging to people immediately.

Yeah.

And there's no and and if they want to push back on it, that process is really complicated.

And what I think autopian didn't article about this was that Hertz had this weird incentive.

It was like, Hey, your fine is X.

But if you pay quickly, it's X minus something.

So it's almost like don't protest.

Pay us $200.

Not 400.

And then you can just go.

Yeah.

I don't like this.

No, I don't either.

And it's not because I intend to damage rental cars.

But for one, if it is truly using a large language model to the point where it could somehow I don't know how this I mean imagery can apply to large language models.

But it really just seems like it can analyze before and after scans of a vehicle very quickly.

But like.

But like there's where in tear on vehicles.

And it seems like they have an opportunity to really I mean, I do think if they do, if they take this too far, they will lose business because I can't imagine unless

every single rental car company all at once is has determined that they're going to monopolize essentially together create a monopoly in which this is the standard.

And so there's going to be no way to rent a car without this.

So this is the art hoping article, which I'll read a little bit because it's important.

But one of the problems I agree with you is that if AI like how does AI how good is it to determine the difference between a new ding.

And a piece of like dust or if a water droplet hit a dusty panel and how the panels clean all that stuff.

So this person returned their car two hours later got a notification that there were damages on highlighted areas and this person said.

Granted, this is their argument.

Nothing any human would detect or consider damage.

But the automated message said they owed $190.

But if they paid today, it would only be 125 in their area.

That's the price of a four day rental.

And they said that to protest the fee.

It is an automated automated AI chat experience that does not break or go to a human interaction no matter what choices you make.

You were only given explanations why you still owe 190.

So you can't say representative.

You can't do any of that stuff.

And then you just feel like you're probably stuck there.

Well, if that's the case, I would never rent from that company yet straight up.

That's crazy.

So that's what they mean when they say AI powered.

I assume they were referring to the scanning devices that were looking at the car.

But if it's the the customer service end of it that is purely AI powered about humans.

That's like extra fucked up.

Well, it's both.

So here, check this out.

This is a screen grab of what AI said.

Hertz's AI said was damaged.

So this tiny, I mean, I'm not sure what the scale of this is,

but it just looks like there's some waviness reflected from a fence or something.

And that's what they're calling.

Well, yeah, it's probably one of those light.

It's a tunnel of light that they drive through.

So those are probably the beams and the beams are straight.

And so when it detects a wave, that's like a door ding or an acorn drop or something.

Yeah, maybe.

I would be, this would make me want, when I pick up a car from Hertz,

I go, okay, can you verify it to me or like a consumer protections bureau should say,

can you verify that you fix these things?

Right.

You know, this person paid for it.

Do they repair this on the car?

Probably not.

So that way, the next person going out has totally clean sheet metal.

Yeah.

I'm guarantee you they did not repair that.

Of course not.

But I am not about that.

I didn't really like Hertz to begin with.

They're fucking overpriced on us.

Yes, they are.

Although, you know, this past weekend,

I was sort of, I was a gig, but I got a flat fee and I had to do my own expenses.

You know, whatever I spent came out of the flat fee.

So I was debating whether to get a rental car or take ubers.

And I looked, and I was there for not, I didn't even think it was 36 out of one.

I was there from 10 a.m. on Saturday to 8 p.m. on Sunday.

And so a rental car, when it was like $500.

I was like, what the fuck?

But so I had to take like six ubers.

And it was over $400.

I was like, oh my god, I can't believe how I was like,

I was like, this is going to be like a land slide for the ubers.

Like, no, it wasn't actually.

Wow.

Well, according to these stats, the car rental industry continues to make more and more money each year.

I was curious if they were seeing a decline in revenue.

And this is a way to make it up.

But they're actually have made quite a lot more money over the last few years.

Yeah, I'm sure, you know, since COVID,

other than when they sold all their cars because we stopped traveling for four months,

after that, you know, road trips and things like that,

rental cars have gotten crazy expensive.

Yeah.

Okay.

What?

Oh, I have to thank.

Oh, wait, hold on.

Hold on.

Hold one second.

Can you still hear me that?

Yes.

Oh, great.

Okay, I'm just walking into my kitchen.

I have to give a public shout out to a fan named Andrew listening to the show

and owns a company called Lowrider Cookies in the Seattle Airport.

And he had he had a box of cookies made and waiting for me.

I think this is a stuffed peanut butter cookie.

And we got chocolate chip.

And these cookies are insanely good.

The peanut butter one.

Fire.

This would be, these are waiting for you at the airport.

Yeah.

This would be a real problem for me because that's pretty much my favorite and only dessert.

I really like.

I would just eat the whole box on the plane.

It was a heavy box is a real problem.

I only have one.

But he was like, are you going to be going to the Delta lounge and I was like,

well, my store is right across from the Delta lounge.

I will have a box waiting for you.

Wow.

How you get it?

That's a big box.

All right.

What's up?

No fucking good cookies now.

It figures this is the week you won't go to the office because you're, you know, well, because of Hannah.

I'll leave.

I'll leave the cookies.

I'll bring your cookies.

I think it's worth the COVID.

Mm-hmm.

Probably worth it.

Yeah.

After, after tomorrow, you've got to eat regular food again.

Yeah.

Try heating one for 12 seconds in a microwave that in my.

I had a lot of cookie experience in high school.

That was the perfect amount of time in a microwave to heat a chocolate chip cookie.

12 seconds.

If it's two cookies, you might need 20.

Sounds good.

It's here.

I like that.

12.

We are coming to Texas.

Don't forget to get your ticket.

July 24th in Houston.

And July 25th in Dallas.

Is that right?

I can't remember.

Why can I not remember which day is which?

It's in my calendar.

All right.

Patreon question.

Yeah.

Of course, if you want to get the show early, get the show without ads, get extra show.

Ask us questions for the show and get access to exclusive collabs like that green notice canyon.

Watch that Zach is wearing today.

Patreon.com slash the smoking tire podcast is where you do it.

Zach has the listicle.

So he can he can read us some questions today.

Yeah, this is from the smoking Tyler.

I recently bought a 2021 Supra and I want to get into track days.

Is the super too fast to learn in?

If so, should I buy a second slower car to start out in?

I have money set aside or should I pay for racing school, then track the Supra?

These are fun questions because never it's never like in.

It never occurs to people to just like drive their car a little slower.

Like like a car there's no such thing as a car that's too fat.

You can just drive it slower if you want.

It won't be.

I do the temptation.

I think I think it'll be very hard once you're on a track.

You get excited.

I think I think this is a very mature question.

It isn't a mature question, but it's just a funny question.

I think if someone's new to this though, I think it's easier to over drive your skills and car when you're a novice.

Then when you're someone like us who, you know, you can put us in a huge,

poor power, crazy fast track car, and we're going to go, all right, I'm going to warm up a bit because I know where this can go wrong.

But this guy might just, I mean, if you have like terrible turn in technique,

you could sail off in your car, even if you're not going to intense.

Sure.

But that car is, it's a fast car, but if you leave the stability control and stuff on,

and you know, like when you're learning, like, you know, an instructor will do exercises like you'll run 10 laps in fourth gear,

you know, or whatever.

You'll just not, you'll never have other things that will limit you to how fast you can go in order to develop certain specific skillsets.

You're working on turn ins and apexing in your line, and they don't want you thinking about your gears are going fast,

they'll go drive the entire track in fourth gear.

And then you don't have to think about it.

Then you can act shifting back in later.

But like, I don't know, supers are fast, but at the same time, I think they're not too fast for a beginner,

as long as you understand that you don't actually need to be at full throttle all the time to back up.

If, if Tyler's this new, I think it's more valuable to go to a school, then drive your one car,

then to buy a second car, store a second car, raise your maintain.

Yeah.

And then you'll also level up your skills under the toolage of professionals.

And then when you go to these track days, you can practice those skills.

I think that'll pay off a lot better than just buying a shitbox and then just driving it a lot.

I probably would suggest kickstarting any if you want to get into track work.

It be who's you if you can afford it to kickstart that hobby with like a three or four day race in school in their cars with instructors, you know, full time.

And then afterwards, you can go, okay, now now what car is my car appropriate for this task?

Is it too much or too little?

And, and, you know, and then you can kind of go and track this sort of from there.

All right, bad gardener says he watched the T33 go up the hill at Goodwood said it sounds interesting, but a little tinny.

And the hood looked like it was going to fall off based off of that and the understated styling.

He says disregarding the engineering seems like a car that's that we'd like to see at 150 grand, but might still struggle to sell.

Do we feel the same way?

I think if it was, I think if it was cheap, they'd probably sell less.

No, I don't think I don't think I'm really a bug.

Yeah, I don't think you can disregard the engineering.

I think that's an unfair argument.

That's a huge part of why they're expensive is the engine and the suspension and the carbon construction.

And then another huge part of it is that it's Gordon's car.

So, I mean, look, I don't, I don't know if he's ever done a car that was really like classically beautiful in the way that the most beautiful sports cars have been.

I mean, I think the F1 has aged very well, but I'm old enough to remember that in the 90s, they didn't write about it like it was some stunning thing.

It was very fast and very purposeful, but no one ever really spent much time talking about it being pretty.

And I think T50 and T33 are the same way. They're not traditionally beautiful cars, although I do think the T50 was very.

Do you think that the McLaren F1 styling influenced to a large degree, super cars and hyper cars that came after it?

And therefore, that's why we look back on it with such fond admiration.

I'm asking the quite, I'm not arguing that I'm like genuinely curious what you think.

Not really.

I mean, there wasn't a lot of stuff that from a design standpoint, McLaren did for the first time with that car that then became like the standard.

They did some very cool weight saving stuff. They did some very cool packaging stuff, but none of it like took the industry by storm, and that just became the way it was done.

It was always pretty far out there.

And I think, I mean, I don't know, mid-engine V12, wedge-shaped cars were already sort of going on at that time.

That wasn't unique in that space.

Side-stakes were already a thing.

Yeah, it was already kind of a thing.

No, it sort of stood alone, I think.

Yeah, okay.

Christian glazed ham.

My 15-year-old gets his license next month and wants a cheap, fun manual.

Is there a better choice than a 10-year-old golf?

Not really. That's pretty great.

That's pretty good, you know, I just got dropped off the last stick shift Mazda 3.

And I just drove it from the office to my house.

And it seems, I mean, just in, you know, two miles.

It feels pretty engaging. Shifter feels nice.

The dashboard is simple, but very well laid out and looks feels like it's nice materials.

There's knobs for things, gauges are real.

It does have the dumb puck just like the CX50.

It's not a touchscreen.

Correction about that.

Some people DM me, you have to go into the settings and you can change it to a touchscreen.

Get the fuck out of here.

That's what they said.

They're like, it has a touchscreen.

And when you activate it, but someone's like, I like using the puck.

It's better for non-attracted driving, but yeah.

That's crazy.

Okay.

You can go to go to go mess with it.

Well, that's a journalist.

That's a journalist problem right there.

That is definitely a journalist problem.

No one told us that you could turn this thing that we didn't know was a touch screen.

Yeah.

So I don't know.

I mean, so far, I think if you wanted to get a new, a new manual driver,

a car that wasn't the piece of crap, these current gen Mazda 3s are pretty nice.

I agree.

Yeah.

Barbecue sauce on that dude's titties says, is there room in the market for Porsche to bring back the 912?

No.

Essentially a Porsche 911 T cheaper with a four cylinder.

There's not why this portion need to move down market when they could just keep moving up market.

Yeah.

To go back to that other question.

Oh, sure.

About also minis.

Minis are very easy cars to wear and stick on.

And, you know, small, fun, zippy.

They, they lend themselves well to learning step.

Yeah.

And they're like, I sold those.

Those little coups we had.

We had those two.

I sold that mint condition as coupe for like, I don't know.

$16,000 and it had like, you know, 35,000 miles on it was in mid condition.

That would be a great car to stick on.

Yeah.

And they've got like, you know, style and pizzazz and all that kind of like they look cool.

They're a cool car and a good front-wheel drive car.

Yeah, they're fun.

Matt's Bong the adjuster asks, in honor of everyone forgetting and we're not forgetting about the Epstein list,

what are the craziest automotive conspiracies that industry folks try to keep quiet?

Oh,

the only one I've ever heard of is the water powered car.

And like, you know, on YouTube, it's an old story and the guy dies.

Yeah.

Yeah, so that and that one.

I don't know enough.

I've watched that video and the video will scare you, but that's like the only source of information I had.

So, you know, who knows?

I mean, the most almost all the conspiracy theories came from Henry Ford.

I don't know if there's they'd like you to really forget about Henry Ford.

The lot of what he did the second half of life, I think.

I mean, they're conspiracy theories.

I mean, I just finished reading a couple of weeks ago on a clear day,

you can see General Motors, which was John DeLorean sort of.

It was like a like kitchen confidential, but for the car industry by John DeLorean.

So, so that was very interesting and, you know, talking about mismanagement and.

And scandal and self feeling and, you know, all kinds of incompetence and stupidity.

I don't know.

You know any conspiracies other than that water one, I don't think I've ever heard of it.

I don't know if this would count, but when when cars were new and people thought,

if you went too fast with like with no roof on your head, it would fall off.

Yeah, your face would tear off.

Like if we had had forums back then, that would have been all over them, you know, for change.

There probably actually really is a spinning that would happen.

It's just like a hundred times higher than whatever they originally thought it was.

Yeah, you know, who do that just is like XKCD that engineering comic strippers someone like that.

There's definitely a mathematical formula.

Yeah.

For sure.

Like someone asked them, what if you shot water through a hose at like the speed of sound

and it would blow up the earth because of the the thermal meltdown of like compressing water to that degree.

Oh, really?

Yeah, it's very cool.

A lot of math.

Is there something like a runaway thermal event basically?

It was when you compress water to such an amount and the velocity accelerates,

it gets starts to bubble, and then it starts creating heat.

And like this person wanted to take like all the water in the ocean,

and then shove it through like a drinking straw.

And it's like, all right, well, if you did that, the velocity of the water would be so high

that the thermal result is so high that it would probably just melt the plant.

Like they did.

Wow.

That's, yeah.

That's crazy.

Yeah.

Math is fun sometimes.

Math.

This is how you use math for fun.

I think you have to go to boring school for a while before you can use it for fun.

Domesticated Jaguar XJS.

I like that name.

Ask.

What is the TWR supercats time at Goodwood?

I didn't see the time, but I heard it.

It's bad.

It was a, it ran the same time up a hill as the Ferrari Roma.

Just going.

Wow.

I'm going.

I'm honestly shocked.

Sorry, I'm eating more water cookies.

They're really good.

The Roma has all the technology, you know, in the world that Ferrari will put in it.

That is very impressive.

Damn.

All right.

Their question is, what is the least desirable million dollar plus car?

That's 90.

Or Bayron.

See you.

Well, if it's new MSRP, I was going to say the Kuntosh reboot.

I don't like that very much.

And also like any of the vaporware that gets announced every three years and isn't made.

But yeah, I think the Kuntosh for me.

Yes, that 90 is not a million dollars anymore.

It was when it came out.

Right.

And it is the Bayron.

But one is sold for one pilot.

But those are both kind of dull to me.

There's a lot of old stuff that I couldn't give.

You know, some like super special numbers matching muscle car that just feels like every other muscle car that like, you know, like it.

But because it's got some number on it somewhere.

That's the answer.

It would be any of the cars that are sold at auction for charity.

But they go for a million dollars when they're worth 80,000.

When it's like first Corvette.

And I'm not saying the charitable donations not worth it.

I'm saying that that car is not worth a million dollars.

Because if you go to resell it, it won't be worth a million dollars.

All right.

Lamborghini in a bottle.

How do we think strados and decars will be viewed in 20 years?

Awesome.

Just like they are now.

I don't want.

It's not like.

It's not like a rally sports cars, warrants, cool.

It's 20 years ago.

I mean, look at stuff like the golf country or.

I mean, the, you know, the group B cars.

Or the home, the road homologated versions of the group E cars.

I mean, I think people like rally cars.

I think people like rallying.

And I think those cars will age fairly gracefully.

Sure.

And most apocalyptic movies, the cars of the future are all lifted.

So that might be the only thing you can get around in.

Yeah.

Here from Matt's cat says what regulatory changes can we as voters push our representatives for

to create a better car buying market and car driving experience.

But I mean, a weight tax.

I think a weight tax could force consumers out of overly not force pressure.

Consumers out of overly heavy vehicles, whether they're electric or gas or diesel.

And I think it could help repair some of the infrastructure that we have to deal with as a result of negligence and the overweight vehicles that are on them.

And also for anyone who thinks like road taxes are paid for and gas and EVs aren't using gas.

Heavy EVs could pay a weight tax as well.

So that's what I really like to say.

Do you have any exact legislative changes?

I mean, so I think cementing the right to repair lobby grades, they don't have to fight for it every year.

I think I'd like to see, oh, sorry, go on.

And eventually like a flat fixed dealership pricing, which I know the dealership lobby will fight against, but just the negotiation of prices for things.

It's like, but the only industry besides houses, I think that we have to do that.

But you don't like the haggle.

I don't like the haggle. I don't like that, you know, two people could go to buy the exact same car, possibly from the same dealership.

And they could pay two different prices for it based on how much fortitude they have or how good they are at negotiating with something.

I just think that sucks.

So it's just not to be.

I understand I think that does suck too.

But like right now it seems like because I don't think the government can force businesses to fix prices, right?

Like if you went with the Tesla model as many people, you know, want to defend.

Tesla changes their prey.

You know, you could buy a Tesla on Thursday and I could buy one on Saturday.

And neither of us haggled.

And just through a random bit of timing, you could pay less or more than I paid for that same exact car.

No, you're right.

This is the wrong subject because I don't want to tell the government to set prices on all the things because that unravels a big.

A whole barrel of snakes.

So I'll just go with the right to repair law in there Bob.

All right.

What do we think about the new super speeders law in Florida?

You know that?

I wanted to affect July one.

It's a huge fine or something for like a triple digit speeding ticket.

If you're going 50 miles per hour over the speed limit, you're fine.

Starts at $500 and could be 30 days in jail.

And then if you're a repeat offender, the fine goes up to 1000 and possibly 90 days in jail.

Yeah, okay.

Yeah, over.

Yeah, target drivers who exceed the speed limit by 50 by 50 over or who drive at 100 miles per hour or molar.

Yeah, I mean, it's in LA or I think I think I'll count for it.

Go get a cock going over hundreds like a real crap.

It can be reckless.

Yeah.

Well, it can be it can be a felony.

Oh, actually, there isn't such a thing.

I remember looking this up for a show a few months ago.

There is such a thing as felony speeding.

It's at a cops discretion whether or not the charge you with felony speeding.

And generally, you'd have to hurt somebody in order to get felony speeding.

But it is it is legal.

Like you could get an actual felony for doing nothing besides driving a car.

Yeah, it is.

But no, I do not think that the state needs to be more lenient on people.

They're out on public roads going over 100 or doing 50 over the limit.

No, I have no problem with that being very illegal.

Yeah.

A distant inlaw of mine just got introduced.

This young man is like not even 18 and has gotten way too many tickets in a car that's not fast.

Yeah.

And got a ticket right after getting leniency from a judge.

And we were like, man, I wish he was in Florida because he should probably get slapped with this just to like teach him a consequence.

Yeah.

All right.

If you're spending big bucks on a watch that's not from one of the big well known brands, what would it be?

I mean, I would say that most people probably don't know what an MB and F is.

And that's that's probably what I would that's that's where watches become like real real insane a lot.

It's sort of a steam punk aesthetic.

I mean, once, you know, to a certain point of watch always looks like a normal watch.

And then once you get beyond the bounds of what normal timekeeping has to be.

And Max Bousser of MB and F draws like just the craziest looking stuff.

Yeah.

So that's the newest release, which is which by the way, you spend the entire head of it to like to wind it.

It's just it's a crazy thing.

Did you forget telling time.

This looks like it stops time.

This is.

Yeah.

This is incredible.

It totally.

Yeah.

You go put this in any Star Wars show and people go, wow, the props department made something really cool.

But that's just one.

If you pull up their menu, there should be, you know, other models.

And this is one of their more actually.

Yeah, it's going to machines.

This is one of their more tame.

Machines.

Yeah.

So just pick.

Go to the hm hm 10 or any of them.

Okay.

So this is the 11.

Yeah, that's that was the 11.

10 is different.

This one looks like they call this one.

The.

Both both frog.

But you can see the hours on the left there in the minutes on the right on those sort of old dog.

Excuse me.

Not both frogs.

That's cool.

Yeah.

Cool, right.

Very, very.

There we go.

Yeah, never.

I say it looks more like a bull frog than a bulldog.

Some with you.

Well, I know.

And that's I made the same mistake when I interviewed Swiss beats.

He was wearing this watch.

But some of these.

Yeah, look at that one.

Horological machine number nine.

Looks like a, like a submarine, almost the where on your wrist.

And you read the time on the on the side circle there to that.

Yeah.

Wow.

All right.

Yeah.

So if I'm, if I'm going six figures, it's going to be an MBA that's been it's going to be a insane space communicator machine.

All right.

JD JT.

I'm sorry.

GT three dreams.

JCW budget says.

What are our tips for attending auto racing in person?

They wanted to attend an event.

But it was either general mission tickets or super expensive tickets.

How do you keep track of the race from the general admission seats?

You don't.

It's a bad way to watch racing.

Yeah.

Um, you're going to be looking at your phone is the truth.

I mean, you can.

Now, if you want to get nerdy, you can download various track.

Yeah.

Lap apps.

And you can watch all the teams and stuff or like you could buy a subscription or probably listen to a radio.

Or watch it on your iPhone as you also sit in the stands.

But like you said, you, you just don't.

Oh, okay.

Sorry.

I didn't mean to cut you off.

No, there are.

You just don't.

Yeah.

Guy Ferrari.

I love his name.

That's funny.

Currently has a modified Fiesta ST track car.

Instead of continuing to modify it to get faster on track.

Am I better off selling it and getting an S2000?

Probably.

You're going to eat that car has got a limit.

You know, you're going to, you're going to get there.

And then you're probably blow it up, obviously.

They are so fun.

But, you know, they, but, but, but, but at a certain point, they've got a ceiling.

And the S2000s ceiling is higher.

You know, if you want even higher, maybe say Corvette, but, but.

But yeah, you can go faster in an S2000.

Yes, that's true for sure.

All right.

Lane Meyer K12 asks, if Austin Martin made a small.

NA V6 powered car for like 65 grand, would people like it?

And wouldn't that propel the company to more mainstream sales?

It's very funny that a lot of people think.

Huh.

I don't know how much going down market benefits.

Austin Martin at all.

I know that our audience and car enthusiasts are clamoring for more affordable sports cars.

But are we really looking for the, to the boutique manufacturers to deliver that when they could turn around and do a hyper car for five million bucks and sell a hundred of them?

And that'll be that.

And they can make the same amount of money and their shareholders just as happy.

I don't know if they're going to, they're going to save us here.

I mean, now this is changing all the time.

But if, you know, let's globally, there's emissions regulations and these big companies like.

Porsche can, you know, build EVs that offset their carbon and then they could build these GT cars.

But Austin would have to like, it's the signal thing all over again, right?

Wouldn't they ask him would have to build something super efficient to then be able to sell something kind of in the middle?

Yeah.

I don't, I don't see that really being a thing where they, their alternative is they could add some kind of super exclusive package on a bank wish that would add a hundred thousand dollars to the MSRP.

You know, that and really had it that way.

The Lambo didn't use any, they didn't do a Lamborghini version of the Audi TT, you know, but instead they did an iris per formante that made the thing worse, but added a hundred grand of the MSRP.

And then they posted like an enormous profit margin.

It's good point.

Oh, okay.

Yeah.

Capitalism is bad for regular people who just want to buy cars.

I think we're asking for them to go to where the market isn't.

And I know it's where we are, but like there's obviously more people that want to fast SUV.

If you are ex heaven, if you are in charge of the next generation, Miata, what would you do?

Would you make the best lightweight EV?

Would you go hybrid or just keep it old school with N.A. and manual?

I would, I would keep it old school and I would not, that is, that is not a problem that needs solving.

The Miata is perfect as is.

I would do everything I could to keep it that whatever 2300 and whatever pounds of ways.

You know, it would be nice to have obviously like a tiny bit more power and it doesn't know you.

I might try to re, here's what I would do.

I didn't try to re style that six truth one.

I'm not, I'm not that into how it looks.

I like the idea of the retractable hardtop because people who park their car in cities on the street,

whatever, I want a hardtop, but I like, I don't know.

The thing maybe I'd rather like, either like a true coupe.

I don't know, or a Targa like that wasn't power removed.

You know, that was just a manual Targa that looked a little different.

I just don't, I don't like, I like the idea of the RF, but I don't like how it actually looks.

It's very bubbly at the top and I know that it's packaging and room and all that stuff.

But I know what you mean.

It's the transition like, it's very abrupt.

Yeah.

I'm with you.

Yeah.

And I like that, that car.

Yulee Kunkel's autobahn is sending their 18 year old daughter to out of state college.

She's an interior design student.

They want to bounce, they want to get her car, balancing safety, reliability and ease of service.

But something that's also classic, classic, timeless and has functional design.

Like, what would you get for this person?

Right.

Wranglers like.

Yeah.

They're for people who don't care about driving, but do care about design.

True.

And aesthetics.

They're, they're pretty classic and timeless.

It's a good school car for a college person because it's, you know, it's going to be good and bad weather.

It's not too fast.

You know,

I mean, you know, a modern Wrangler is like, it's reasonably safe.

It's not like horribly unsafe.

Yeah.

It's a lot better than they used to be.

This person wants a car 48 years old.

So that's a pretty good choice.

Yeah.

I wouldn't get a hybrid.

I get, you know, I get what a gas one, the, the, the Penta star.

What about like a TTS?

Like, it looks cool.

Now DTS?

Yeah.

It's not too fast.

I think, I think they're nice cars.

But I think a college student needs to like call shit around.

Oh, I think the answer again is Mini Cooper.

Oh, yeah.

That's sure.

That's, that's the answer.

Yeah.

Many, many is good.

I like there.

I like that.

That's a good one.

Yeah.

I know you have to leave soon.

Yeah.

Fun color.

I know.

Did you find one with a cool color and stuff?

So.

Yeah.

Do you think this is Travis Pastrana's primary care provider?

Do you think the new Toyota GT concept will be a new LFA type halo car?

No.

I think it will be a bump up from the LC 500.

It'll be the 150 to 200,000 dollar.

So it'll occupy the space of the, um, the, the AMG GT and the SL 63 and, uh, the asked if, um,

the bank wish baby somewhere between the DB 12 and the vanquish.

Uh, but with a unique sort of a Japanese motor sport flavor to it.

The, uh, the spy shots almost make it look like an SLS black series, don't they?

A bit.

I mean, the long hood.

Long hood.

Yeah.

Really long hood.

It does.

I think it's a little nose because they want that entire engine behind the front axle.

I have TTT.

So that's why it's got.

It's.

I'm, I'm into that very short deck.

It looks.

It looks wide.

Yeah.

Someone posted a spy shot of the interior.

That looks pretty cool.

It's the interior look great with the red leather.

Yeah, yeah.

Really?

And the switch gear on it looked awesome.

Uh, yeah.

The spy shots, it looked like somewhere between an FDR and seven and LC 500, you know, a little bit of that.

Yeah.

I'm into it.

Yeah.

One more.

And then we, and then we break for next, uh, next time.

Yeah.

Let's, uh, do, do, do, do.

Make it really good.

Part of that's up to the people.

Um, would you like a drive train?

Actually, they're both drive train questions.

Okay.

Um, given that Toyota has 5% stake in Mazda, do we think the super would have been better as a joint project with Mazda using their 3.3 liter turbo or was BMW the right choice?

I think the people that have super is really like that.

Yeah.

I think I think that engine is a pretty stout engine that's known for making powder.

It sounds pretty good.

And, uh, I think it, I think it seems like the right choice, doesn't it?

I totally agree.

I mean, the, the Mark IV's reputation was strong engine response to modifications, blah, blah, blah.

The B 58 does exactly that.

I don't know.

And I haven't driven a modified car with a modified, you know, Mazda 3.3 in it.

So comments let us know if those can make huge power.

But, you know, if you want to really win over the enthusiasts, give them an engine where you tap some keys and all of a sudden they get 100 horsepower.

And you bolt on one pipe and they get another 100 horsepower.

Yeah.

And that, that's what wins them over.

Yeah.

For sure.

I think it was the right move for that reason.

We'll end this show in a very beautiful, enhanced and kitten named Baldi.

He's a little snowshoe ragdoll.

The most expensive cat in the world.

Most expensive cat in the world.

That you can see there's cyanide.

Um, then, you know, our page for this for some great questions.