Nicole Johnson (YouTuber, Monster Truck driver)

What up, everyone? Welcome to the Smogentire Podcast, Matt Farrah here, and as always, today's episode is brought to you by off the record. We love off the record because they are looking out for you. If you get pulled over on the road for anything, big or small and get ticketed, don't fight the cop, fight it in court with off the record. Go to offtherecord.com slash TST and off the record will connect you to a qualified attorney in the jurisdiction where you got that ticket.

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All right, folks, on this episode of the program, my pal, Nicole Johnson, is here. She is the host of Nicole Johnson's Detour on YouTube. She's also a big social media star and a hell of a baker, if you ask me, we talk about her journey with her Porsche 911, which I can most certainly relate to.

The cool stuff she's driving for her YouTube channel, what she wants to be driving in the future. And honestly, it's just a lot for me to keep up with this woman because she is made of distilled liquid energy.

It's Nicole Johnson on the smoking tire podcast. Let's go.

Hi, welcome in. Thank you for having me back.

You came in like, I was pooping and you came in and I mean, you came in like a fucking tornado. And I was like, OK, all right. And you were and I offered you a coffee and you were like, I've had a monster. And I was like, OK, now I know what to expect for the next hour.

I had a monster. But yeah, it's nice to see you. I looked this morning. You know, that was 23 when you were last year. It wasn't even 25. It was like your last one of that year.

It was our last one of like December. That's your year and a half, right?

Yeah. And the reason I looked is because since you were last year, you've done a bunch of cool stuff, but also Zach and I went to King of the hammers.

I never, I never been saw it. Yeah. And now I saw it. Yeah. It's a very different than it was in the first three years, but you can see the scale of it is.

Sure. Bigger because it's of the commercialness of it. Much. Yeah. Yeah. And a lot of, it's always been a lot of people. It's crazy. Well, I shouldn't say that. The very first year we, we went. Nobody there. Yeah, no, they make, he made such a huge deal out of how, how few people there were the very first.

Not a spectator. Yeah. At all. Sure. And you just parked anywhere you would on the lake bed. Like who would sign up to spectate? Nobody. Like the, I would say the worst thing about it.

Like the worst thing about King of the hammers. Seriously. And this goes for, this is not unique to King of the hammers.

Is that it's a pretty shitty spectator sport. Right. Like in person. Right. I mean, it's just it's too fucking huge. You have to get way up into the can.

Yeah. You have to park on the lake bed and you need like a side by side or something to get you up there. And even then you're there.

You have no clue. When are they coming? Right. Exactly. I sat in a corner for like two and a half hours. Dude, I, I must have smoked two blunts and drag about.

Fucking three coffees sitting there. That's funny. And it's when are they come? And, and it's not like I picked the wrong corner. There's 200 other people there. Yeah. They're all there too.

I've never spectated it though. And I don't like to spectate it for that reason.

What we, what we eventually did was we went in the Ford VIP tent because we were there guests where they have this beautiful, you know, drone coverage and commentary.

And, you know, like all other off road sports, it's, it's better to watch on television. The actual race outside of that though the night time. That's why you want to be there.

That's why you want to be. Did you have any bad weather? Because it can, you don't say the W word. I'm, I'm assuming you know what the W word is.

So it's wind. And if you say that, you don't say that it will be one windy. Everybody is like, don't say it's like superstitious ass racers for sure.

If you say it out there, it's like Voldemort. Yeah. That's what it is. Nobody did it. It didn't rain. But I, we did when driving back from what's it called chocolate thunder.

There was a, there's a mud pit that when it was pitch black, you can't really see. And there's old bomb craters. So if you don't know this and you're just blasting along and like a side by side, you will and launch yourself.

Well, it was only because I had a raptor and I had the advantage of horsepower and speed, you know, being if I was in like some old offroad shit, like a, you know, a Cherokee or something that had been sunk.

But it would win it. I had the option to add 300 horsepower and I did get through it. But like if I slowed down and took my foot off the floor, I was, it was like that clay.

I was knocking out of it. No, and we, you know, it's one of those things where you go to park the truck and it's dark, you know, in the next morning, you get up and you realize it just how.

Yeah, it can be crazy whether though everything we've had we've seen hail, sleet, if it rains, the wind, the wind is probably the one of the hearts.

Yeah, it's everything. I did bring you. I saw them. I didn't want to talk about it. I have to tell you this. You saw this big thing and you assumed they were all for you. No, these are for Zach. Okay, great.

These are for Zach. Hold on. This is for you, man. I need one more for Hannah for my wife. My wife's the chocolate. You can take it right out of here. That's all I want.

He's watching his girlish figure. So Matt has one. Okay. Sorry. No, and I've gotten really good at I'm actually pretty proud of myself. I've been get pretty good at having a bite of the dessert and then throwing it away.

We all know Matt. I mean, Zach is very skinny. So he can down all of these. He works really hard to be that skinny. He eats a lot of brown rice.

Yeah, he does. He works really hard. Anyway, this is for you guys. We'll leave. Thank you so much. They're two days old. It took me a while to get here, but they're still probably awesome. They're great if you put them in the fridge. Sure. They're wonderful in the fridge.

Thank you so much. You're a fabulous baker. It's my, you know, I've told this is my backup plan. Baking. Oh, you know, when all of these car stuff fails, I'm going to open up a store them all. Nobody's ever done that. And I'm going to sell cookies. Well, it's not a plan. Mrs. Johnson's cookies. It's perfect. Nobody's ever done that.

We have a fan shout out to him who owns a place in Seattle called low rider cookies. And these in the airport. I'm sure there's other ones, but the one I've seen is in the airport.

Good fucking cookies. I don't know, but he sent me a box of cookies. They're great. I picked them up. I was going to lay over through Seattle. He's like, oh, stop by. And there was a box.

It was delightful. I have, dude, I can't tell you the number of people that I know that are, you know, glam, either glamorous or wealthy or working, you know, big tech jobs or whatever that are sort of like mentally ready for this, like a sort of simple blue collar retail life.

Or if they are you, do you think you're ready for the reality of that? Well, I have had a retail establishment before. I do not like the hours because if you show up to your own place five minutes late, they're sure they're standing there.

They're pissed at you. So retail stinks. And that public hours stink. You know, I guess if you could like figure out how to like ship them wholesale. Yeah, just ship them. Yeah. So you.

Amazon, they're here by 3 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. I mean, look, folks with audiences are perfectly primed to start mail order businesses, aren't they? So I think you should try.

I should. There's no loss. Like there's actually probably much money as I just met at TLG yesterday. I have to charge $18 a cookie. Shout out to them.

Yeah, I mean, Marcos, you could have a whole campaign of like, you know, like you've seen the meme where it's like the homeless person where it's like need money for Ferrari majors.

Service. I swear to God, you know, the original one of those, the original meme of that. You see the one you've seen that's kind of famous, right?

You don't know I'm talking about. No, I haven't seen it. There's an old meme from back when the internet was fun.

Okay, before the internet turned into now, it was fun from like 2010. There was a meme of this dude like she shuffled laying on the ground with a cardboard sign that says, you know, please help need money for Ferrari major service.

I keep going. I got it. The person in the meme holding the cardboard thing is my old boss, Amel, who went to prison for financial crimes.

I was like, actually, a piece of shit. And he really did need money for probably. Yeah, like he actually stole from people in order to live for.

Okay, so it's funny because I maybe I didn't realize it was a meme, but now that you're saying it, I do exactly know what you're talking about.

One time we were wheeling and we were out stuck broke down somewhere and my son and our friends.

Kid, we're standing there with signs. We got stuck on a trail. Yeah, the Ducey Ursham trail and we were stuck for two extra days because we were broke down.

And he had they had a sign that said, we'll work for Jeep parts and everybody that went by just laughed at us.

So we were sitting there and camping on the side of the road broke down. Somebody had to actually go down and.

You said there were two days broken down. Well, somebody had to like, we camped. We were planning on camping anyway, but it was like.

Somebody had to go down the trail into town to get parts. Come back.

Okay, you got it. We were broke down, but you plan to do there, but you plan to have other options too.

We'll work for two parts. We couldn't keep progressing for two minutes.

Did anybody have any Jeep parts? No, we had to go get them.

All right, but did anybody was anyone like, what do you need? We've got some stuff.

No, there weren't very many people, but they just laughed. Thought we were being funny and not serious.

You were like, no, for real. What do you got? What do you have?

If I find it, I'll send it to you and by the time you edit this, you could slip it in.

It's funny. I guess this, I guess that photo was like, it was before there were memes.

Like it wasn't a meme. It was like a guy doing something funny on the internet.

Yeah.

That was before a meme is like, I got to be like a metaphor for something else.

This was just a guy being something. There were some fun things that we used to do.

So like before social media, there was pirate four by four dot com.

And that was like the forum where all of us chatted about the upcoming events or where we were going to be.

And not the king and the hammers, whatever, right? This is all before my space and Facebook and obviously Instagram.

And anyway, there was this thing that we did that was so funny back then.

And I don't even know if it would be received now because nobody pays in cash.

But there's this thing called the change cup that I had this video I put out.

Okay, so you go to pay Home Depot or whatever, a grocery store and you're going to buy this.

Yeah.

And it's $1.49 and you hand them $2 in cash.

And when they go to give you the change back, you just hold your hand like this.

Okay.

You don't go like this.

You just go like this.

And you have to have a serious face. Don't pray. Don't laugh.

And then the person doesn't, they're like, they don't know what to do.

WTF.

Or if you give them a 20 and you have dollars and coins, they're like, you just hold your hand like this.

Like it's a change cup.

And they go, and they're trying to like balance the money on your hand.

And I have video of them stuffing the quarters in my hand.

It's, I went to like several places doing the change cup.

That's actually pretty funny.

Amazing.

Nobody pays with cash anymore.

So this would be.

I can't believe how often I have to ask the, do you take cash question?

Right.

So you can't break a 20.

Oh, we don't have enough.

We don't have enough change.

Cash is fun.

I like it.

Still good.

You know what's nice about cash is you can't remember what you bought.

But it fits on your debit card.

That's the opposite.

I blew it here.

I've spent six dollars there.

Eight dollars there.

Yeah.

I'm actually, I find myself a little too accountable with plastic.

I liked, yeah.

That's what I like.

I like to, it's gone.

Forget it.

I had the cash.

And now I don't need more.

Well, I've got this thing.

I need to remember where I spent it all.

No, I, you know, I live underneath the, like you do probably the umbrella of a business.

So the cash.

Right.

Anything that I really need that isn't something that is, you know, for the business, or for cars,

or whatever things that are part of my, you know, generally right off of this, you know,

they're wearing the eyes of the cash.

Yeah.

And that's how it is, right?

All cars and car things are, that's work.

So, yeah.

Yeah.

But you're here because you're a Porsche, right?

I am here in town because of my part.

Physically.

Yeah.

You're here because you're Porsche.

Yeah.

Not emotionally, I think.

I am also emotionally here.

You know what?

I haven't, I have a sticker on the car.

This is emotional support vehicle.

It's pretty funny.

I am here for you too.

Yeah.

I'm going to Big SoCal Euro, which is on Saturday down in San Diego.

Rancho Santa Fe cars and coffee on Saturday.

That's a very good car and coffee, actually.

We were just talking about that.

I have never been, but I see so many pictures coming out of there.

You know why?

I'll tell you why you see so many pictures coming out of there because it's every week.

Oh, yeah.

Like most of the cars and coffees are once a month.

Yeah.

And so because this one's every week, there's genuinely a lot more.

And high quality stuff shows up pretty much.

Is it what I hear?

Pretty good stuff.

Rancho Santa Fe is one of the richest zip codes in the country.

Yeah.

People like, it's a very normal thing for people to have more than one horse in their yard there.

Wow.

It's more than one dog.

No, it's not quite the same category.

It's fucking Rico Suave.

That's crazy.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

So I'll do that for the first time.

Yeah, that's fine.

I want to know the guys from Instagram, right, who run this at Rancho Santa Fe.

I say, hey, I'm coming.

Yay.

Anyway, I'm getting there early.

I'm getting there early.

I've been warned.

So, yeah.

And then so I have a relationship with Bill Stein.

And they are going to have a booth or whatever display at the Big So Cal Euro event.

So I'll be there representing them.

Response for the car.

They give you some dampers.

Swag and dampers.

Yeah.

So I'm also, so when I went to air water, I was with Bill Stein.

I saw you and you came up with my car.

And then I went to Monterey and I went with them at Works reunion.

I'm also going to Luft.

And I am driving there.

Wow.

What are you doing?

You have shit to do.

You have to do two weeks.

I am on the fence.

But the time you air this, we will know what I'm doing.

I'm sure I am on the fence.

I am debating on trailering or driving.

I will make a decision after this week.

Oh, you're driving either way.

It's just a matter of whether you're driving a truck or a car.

Oh, yeah.

And I don't think there's anything sexy about a trailer.

Although there are comforts like air conditioning.

I mean, yeah.

I don't really care about air conditioning as much because I live in the desert and I can deal with it.

Sure.

So we're going to see, I'm not going to run my mouth yet.

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They're known for being like relatively comfortable and reliable.

And so when you drive an air-cooled car really long distance, nobody gives a shit.

You know what I mean?

It's not impressive because it's not impressive.

It's not impressive.

People do it all the time.

It's kind of what they're known for.

But when you're physically the one doing the driving, you're like,

it's just four days, my back.

Let's talk about I-40.

It's not glamorous.

No, it sucks.

That's going down through Albuquerque and it's not going to be great.

That's the downside of it is, like,

unless you are going to go, all right, I'm going,

it's going to take eight days, I'm going no freeway,

but make a thing out of it.

Right.

You know, if I'm going to drive a truck and trailer or the Porsche down I-40 for three days,

we're going to see, no matter what.

And what are we talking about?

It's going to be there.

So I have a Dodge 3500, a 2006 Cummins diesel, which is good.

The seats are not comfortable.

Those seats are 20-year-olds.

That is before the death.

20-year-old commercial trucks.

That's 295,000 miles on it.

Look at that.

Before the death though, we like, it was the last year before you had to put the diesel exhaust fluid in it.

Okay.

Cool.

And we've had it since it had 30,000 miles on it.

It's a great truck.

You can have seats in it.

Yeah, the problem is, like, I drove it down here.

Yeah.

So it's, you know, parked around the corner.

And-

I think for not bringing it.

Well, I know your purpose.

I just don't want a room.

Yeah, sure.

You were from the Sheraton.

You rolled into the truck and trailer.

I go, sorry, I can't help you.

No, I knew that in advance.

So I actually stated the Sheraton because it was closed.

Yeah.

It left it there in the parking lot.

Yeah.

Okay.

I'm glad you're not live because then I'm telling people, go steal it.

It's over there.

Uh, no.

But anyhow, the truck is so uncomfortable.

Just driving down from Vegas within the first half an hour.

I was like, oh, my left butt cheek.

Yeah.

It's a little lumbar pillow.

The truck sucks.

Yeah.

So I'm like, no, my 9-11 is actually more comfortable.

But don't you, you said you also have a cayenne diesel.

I do, but-

And what's wrong with that?

Well, you know, as any Porsche does, it has a tiny bit of oil coming out of it.

And I don't think I want to stress it out.

But I haven't aluminum.

I haven't aluminum trailer.

It's just a little oil.

There's a leak.

Just a little leak.

So what?

You check your levels?

Yeah.

You check models.

I even added a dipstick.

You know those didn't come with a dipstick?

Yeah, digital dipstick, right?

So I found out that the Audi had-

It's the same exact-

The Audi one has a dipstick.

And you can pull a plug, and you can get a genuine Audi $30, isn't it?

Well, I got a dipstick.

Wait, so there is a dipstick channel?

There's a-

Yes, with a rubber plug in here.

So I have a cayenne diesel.

There's-

You pop it open, and there's literally a rubber plug.

You just get the Q7 part and put it in.

Yeah.

So I just got it from a genuine Audi dealer.

It's 30 bucks.

Yeah.

Little yellow, you know.

That's really funny.

Pop it in there.

It reads it perfect.

But like, you're capable of maintaining an oil level.

I know.

If you have a choice between doing a cut.

It's so, so comfortable.

I don't understand your rationale for that.

You're going to a Porsche thing.

If you roll up and it was towing your Porsche with a Porsche.

I know.

It's like double bonus points.

I know.

Right.

And I assume your rig is like well within the capacity of the cayenne.

Oh, for sure.

Well, the cayenne will do $7,700 pounds.

Yeah.

And $406 pound feet of torque.

So what's the rig?

Five.

Maybe not even that because I have an aluminum trailer that's maybe $1,400 pounds.

Sure.

So we're talking $4,000.

Is that a Federalite 7741?

It's an open 18 foot dual axle.

And it's got like a rock guard on it.

Yeah.

That's the same shit I just took.

Yeah.

It's nice.

And it's got a nice wide eight foot deck.

It's got a nice trailer.

Did you see, did you see my super tub?

Oh.

Or wait, look, this is, this is my car week.

You know what I realized?

We talk a lot more together.

Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

Yeah, chatty people.

I know.

It's okay.

Look at this though.

This is, wait.

Oh no.

Do I know why do I don't have a, what is that?

Yeah.

That's not a guard in the front.

A source.

You know, I apologize.

It's alright.

Can I add sources in real time?

Looks like I can.

This is the, oh, I have to like get rid of the fucking lower thirds.

I'm a terrible producer.

Actually, fuck it.

I'll leave the lower thirds.

But I told you, that's like kind of like your trailer, right?

Yeah, except I have a rock guard on the front, which is nice.

Sure.

Well, I borrowed this one so I didn't get to that one.

But they're light.

You don't even feel it.

When it's empty, I have to put the air pressure down to about 25 or it pogoes down the road.

If I keep it up around 40, it's horrible.

Yeah.

And my max was, you know, 1500 pounds, so not much weight on there.

But I have a story coming out for road and track next week that is about towing with a Bentley

and long story short, people should be buying Bentley's to use the tow with.

Really?

Yes.

Consumer advice from your boy.

You know what?

I love it when a car that you don't think can tow can tow.

Oh, dude, I used to tow.

It's so comfortable.

You got an 06, 2500.

So I used to tow our 3500.

I used to tow back in the day with Gotham Dreamcars and we had an 04, 2500 with a stick and then an 05, 3500 auto.

Okay.

It's probably similar to what you have.

Yeah.

And for the big trailer, the two car trailer with the fucking Gooseneck on it, the 3500 was nice.

For anything smart, that 2500 was better.

The Bentley V8S has more power and more torque than that truck and has two more gears as 8 speed.

And when you plug to the trailer in and you connect it to the Bentley, click the port.

It does a full light test automatically and then it goes and sets the level automatically.

Wow.

That is nice.

You know what I like about the Cayenne and it's the first car I've had with the backup camera.

I like driving an older car.

I can drive it one shot that ball underneath it.

Perfect one shot.

I've never in my life hooked a trailer up to a car faster.

Yep.

And I had to do it in pitch dark because the very last day, Sunday night, I stayed Sunday night after car week.

Yeah.

The man's broke down.

Yeah.

A few went.

Right.

And I had to rescue it myself.

Thank God it broke somewhere with cell phone service.

Right, right.

That was like the luckiest.

It broke somewhere with a safe turn off and cell service.

So I got an Uber back to the Airbnb and I had to connect the trailer in the dark.

Which with this beautiful 2025 Bentley backup camera, when I tell you I did this in under 30 seconds in one move.

Oh.

Perfect.

The best.

Just to come here.

So I brought so my the Dodge has a shell on it.

And there's no seeing out the rear view at all.

Right.

So it's 14 times of getting out of the truck and I was above myself 14 times of looking back at it.

Wrong trajectory.

Got it.

That left side of the seat so beat.

Right.

Seriously, that's why.

I know.

That's why.

I know.

Yeah.

Back up camera technology.

You should be taking the kayak.

I know.

No one will notice your drips of oil.

No.

Just put more in it.

Yeah.

No.

We drove it to Monterey though.

We did.

We trailered it up to Monterey.

It was so freaking comfortable.

Yeah.

And quick.

It wasn't even.

Didn't even really feel it.

My good friend Larry Kassilla bought himself one to drive his kid around Connecticut to baseball

practice and did a whole overlandy kit with it.

And I was down to Zinger a couple of days ago.

You know them.

And Lucas Zinger drives a cayenne diesel on big like OZ Rally wheels with off-road.

Off-road mine.

I mean, it feels like that's natural for me.

You got it.

I want to do that.

I want to.

I have offered them before they're excellent.

I would like to do that.

There's a stock wheels tire suspension.

I have the 20 inch nice like the ones on the Panamera or something.

Sure.

But like Porsche stuff.

Not like big off.

Correct.

You can do small things to make those things very good off-road.

Yeah.

That's cool.

So but we were supposed to do something yesterday and you had to bail because you had to go

to TLG, which you just said.

So what happened to the Porsche?

So.

Okay.

So back it up for anybody who just doesn't, you know, assume everybody's following.

Oh, here.

I'll pull up pictures.

Yeah.

So my husband and I after producing.

Not producing.

I was too busy talking and not producing.

Right.

There's my little car.

So after after air water, which was in April, our plan was, okay, I got a three and a half

month window before the next place I have to be, which is Monterey.

And my husband and I decided to rebuild the motor on our own first rodeo here.

And we had some broken head studs.

So that turned into, let's turn it into a three two short stroke carbureted.

And yeah, it turned out beautiful.

The distributor had some issues.

We've been chasing electrical problems while we've been carb tuning.

So as we, you know, as we would be dialed in one day, this car is like an 80s car.

So this is 78.

Okay.

But it would have been an ejected car.

It was not a car.

Yeah.

And I got to tell you, even you, it didn't even know how to broken head stud.

The day before we ripped the motor out, my husband, like we drove to air water through

the overcrest rally and put a thousand miles on the car, doing a hundred miles an hour

in the desert, just the day before we ripped the motor out.

So there was nothing wrong with the car, except you got to deal with the head studs.

So yeah.

So we ripped it out.

And my husband did the twin plug machining himself, again, first rodeo here.

He built a wax mold of the heads and practiced in wax before he drilled.

Cool.

Yeah.

He built a box, put the heads in a box, he poured some carving wax in there.

And then he had a perfect casting of the head.

And it took about four tries.

No, no, that's not right.

For some more wax in.

Got it correctly right.

And then only did it once.

Wow.

That's pretty cool.

And now he's offering it.

He's actually done another guy's head.

He doesn't want to say how this is the most American shit ever.

You get that you do something once and then you're like business.

Business.

Exactly.

Yeah, no, he's already done it for another guy.

Yes.

Yeah, we already had some heads brought over.

So yeah.

Not talking shit on drugs.

Yeah.

Twin plugging done.

We can do it.

So yeah.

So he did that.

And anyway, fast forward to this is a great little, you know, it's kind of a little heart

ready.

And not without too much going to crazy.

I mean, did it?

Did it.

But we weren't getting, we were, we got to Monterey, but we were chasing electrical problems

not knowing what was going on because one day it would run great.

The next day, we'd be down a cylinder.

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Wow, why are plugs fouled all this stuff anyhow?

Long story short, we had some issues with the distributor, Marco, I was told to go down

to Marco and that he's the guy.

So Friday I took it down there.

Indeed the guy.

And he happened to have another distributor and he popped it in and that solved that problem.

And then he, you know, he just found out a few more things that needed to be buttoned up

because I said, Hey, I got to be driving this car and now here I am drove it yesterday.

It was great.

Nice.

So yeah, so he just, you know, we kind of do everything ourselves, but at some point you

still need to fast forward to the guy who's done it for 40 years.

Help me out here.

What's, what are we missing?

Sure.

Yeah.

So you can turn the bolt.

You just need to know which bolt to turn.

Yeah.

I just, I mean, and look, let me tell you something, consider yourself lucky because I called

him yesterday and this is, this is one of my best friends.

We have dinner together all the time.

He said, sorry Nicole.

Sorry to hear it.

I'm busy.

No, no, but I, but I, my one of my, my physical therapist, my, for my knees who I've been

seeing for literally 14 years, okay?

Has a 9.96.

I help him with it.

You know, here and there.

The guy who's working on it is fucking up and it's, it's not shifting right.

The linkage, the link, the linkage isn't right.

It feels like shit.

Mark, can you help out 15 to 20 weeks, 15 to 20 weeks.

I heard that.

I have.

That was me.

He did a solid.

Yeah.

Big time.

You can get in the.

I was in a pickle.

I'm like, I got to be at this show.

This is a big, effing deal.

I got to have this car.

I get it.

I get an emergency.

He was just, and I'd never met him before, and he, he, he went out of his way.

And I thanked him probably 85,000 times while he's there.

Did he give cookies?

I did.

Yeah.

See, that's usually good.

They were one day fresher.

I was, yeah, I would start with, I'd start with him.

I should probably send these back up.

And then I met Thaddeus.

He was great.

Yeah.

And then I met Alex, the, the body guy, because I didn't have the deck lid on.

When I ran down to, on Friday, I just grabbed the car out of the garage.

He didn't have the deck lid and anyway, and I, the other reason why I didn't bring the

Cayenne on this trip is I have tires from Continental to put on.

So I got a new tire sponsor, which is the real, congratulations for the 9-11.

For everything.

Oh, yeah.

So what tire do they have that goes on the sport contact, whatever?

Yeah, for the 9-11?

Yes.

And then there's a, they've got a great, all-terrain that I just put on the Dodge, great tire.

And now, you know, I've got the boxer that needs tire.

I take that on the track and the tires.

I did the, the ones that you have on the 9-11, I did on my Ferrari 328.

Those are the best options for 308s and 328s, so they're good.

Yeah.

So I have them in the back of my truck and I'm going to get those mounted like when I leave

here.

That's what I'm doing.

I'm going to San Diego.

I'm putting tires on the car.

Did you, did you enjoy car week?

Do you go out?

I went to camp overcrest.

Do you know about camp overcrest?

No.

How?

What?

Go.

You got to see camp.

Okay.

Well, first of all, Chris Rungy's car was at camp.

No, yes.

I mean, Rungy's the man.

But if you go down, he's the man.

We're going to get him.

I saw him.

No, he was just at sports car vacation then.

He wasn't camping, so sorry.

Go down.

Look it right there.

Yeah.

Windy, a single lane road.

Don't get in the head on around the corner, right?

That kind of road.

And we camp five days.

Five days.

How rad is that?

This is not my idea of a good time.

It's very, it's the, this is, huh?

Your booze.

You don't camp, Nicole.

It is, it is, look, I will say this.

If you're, if you're into car camping, which I know a lot

of people are, this is a gorgeous aesthetic.

I will be on the most Instagrammable camping shit I've ever

seen.

But I will be honest with you, it is a financial decision.

A travel lodge is $35, I hate this.

A travel lodge is $3,500 for five days.

And you don't have Wi-Fi anyway at travel lodge

because it sucks.

They don't come in for tal service.

By the end of day three, you have no toilet paper

because they haven't brought you anything.

I know this because I stayed in it last year.

And I'm like, this was like $650 for five days.

Dude, I am not, I brought, I brought an air mattress.

I'm trying to hate on that.

There you go.

And I brought a down-counter.

I brought real linen, like sheaths.

I was glamping.

But my husband ended up with killer poison oak.

So?

So that's right, we can look at this killer.

I don't know about you, but I'm not trying

to like roll up to the concourse on Sunday with poison oak.

Zach and Fadius a couple years ago went car camping

in Big Sur.

Okay.

And it was not $650.

It was zero dollars because you just show up

or whatever 40 bucks for the permit.

And they camped out of Zach's replica cobra.

Where did they put the stuff?

Well, they, so, hmm.

So now that you mention it, I don't know

because Zach's parents live in Santa Cruz

and that's where the cobra was.

So they drove down from Santa Cruz,

but they may have had two cars.

Maybe they had the cobra and another car.

Uber career, drop off the stuff.

No, no, no, they may have had another car

because they took the cobra from the campsite

to stuff every day.

But there may have been another car

that they left with all the shit in it.

So I don't know, but they did do car camping

and they did have fun.

Were they spooning?

Like, were they in the same tent?

I don't think they were in the same tent.

Okay, okay.

Just just clarifying.

They did have fun and I, look, the aesthetic is awesome.

This is the most like, of course I want to do car,

look how romantic it is with my classic 911

and the string lights.

There's probably an orgy somewhere.

There was a tree, a tire hanging from a tree.

Of course, there's a lot of live lab love pillows.

We didn't have hot water until the very last day.

So what they did was, some people,

like if you go there, I have another video

where if you go back, okay, hang on.

It was the first night of set up.

Go down one more and keep going, keep going.

Right, the middle one, yep.

That video right there, I'm just walking around

the first night kind of showing it to you

and there was, that got a lot of views.

But people were like, where do they poop?

Well, guess what, about a hundred yards away

were really nice.

Like the presidential, like bathroom set up

with the really nice.

The trailer ones with the generators.

Yes, we had a full women's bathroom,

men's bathroom, there were showers.

I'm driving that by the way.

Is it real or is it a hawk?

That is a hawk, right?

No, no, no, that's a Lister Bell SDR.

But yes, I'm driving that in a few weeks

when I get to North Carolina, by the way,

for an episode.

This is, look, it's, it's, look, it's cute.

It's cute, it's very Instagramable.

But we didn't have hot water.

That's what I'm fucking saying.

That's this whole glamping fucking van life

all this bullshit.

Three days in a row with, okay, I can't wash this hair

because I, it requires, it's so thick,

it requires a lot of water, pressure, and time

to get the soap out of my hair.

And I didn't wash my hair for like four days.

I, this is also like, I didn't go to motorlucks

because how am I gonna get dressed and ready?

Do you know how hard it was just to go to Pebble Beach?

It's talking about it.

To go to the concourse, I had to break down camp first, right?

In the morning, and then I had to go

to, to my buddies travel a lot.

And this is like, and borrow a shower.

And then I go camping, and then I have to,

the first time I, I don't feel really dirty

until I walk into that first store.

And then you realize that I'm like, holy shit,

I'm so dirty.

Imagine instead of a store, it's the concourse.

Yes, I'm like, how am I gonna get dressed for the concourse?

I, every pair of shoes you had,

I brought some brand new vans with white laces

and within hours, like that first day,

my brand new shoes looked 300 years old.

Yeah, dude, you're camping on wood chips.

That's a fucking thing.

It was terrible.

But listen, it was dirt cheap

and now I can afford to fix my car.

No, what you should do in the future

is skip the Instagram version

and just camping big surf for zero.

I, well, for zero.

For zero.

But here's the other problem.

Zero really 35 hundo for a room at the travel lodge.

That we said, there's also better ones.

But for $3,500, it's like,

you know, car week is silly like that.

It's a joke.

This is why.

Do you have a, we're looking at gas station

for $1,200.

The sponsor is supposed to pay for that.

If you, there's ways, there's ways to do it better.

Listen, I'm announcing right now.

I'm not telling on the fucking mic what they are.

In 2026, Murray car week,

you're putting me up in a nice place.

That's what it's, that's what put my foot down.

Yeah, not even nice.

Just like bait, like decent.

Yeah, I will, I will take one step up from the travel lodge.

Or I will can.

The other way, the other way to do it for cheaper

is to literally wait until like the day it starts

and strap what's left.

I see.

Yeah.

Cause then they're gonna drop it and get it back.

Yeah, I have a friend who's like way balesier than me

that books his Monterey shit on like Tuesday.

Like he's got a suitcase packed.

He lives in San Francisco.

He, he books a fucking house.

Airbnb.

Last minute, they dropped the price.

While he's having coffee with a pat suit case that day.

I've noticed on the Expedia too, you can do that.

Like if you roll into a town and you're sitting in front

of the hotel you want, don't walk in.

They'll charge you the walk in price,

which is always like, hey, you're here.

If you sit there on Expedia,

you will always get a better price like last second.

I actually saw when I was standing in the lobby

of the Portola.

I was with McLaren, not this year, past year.

And we were at the Portola,

which is the hotel downtown where RM auctions are.

Yes, yes, yes.

Fucking average hotel, fabulous location.

You can walk to so much.

You can get so drunk every night and walk home.

It's very good.

Very, very good.

But we're checking in and a guy next to us walks in.

Where you know, you got any proofs?

And I was like, just in his face.

I was like, you're asked and they were like, yes, we do.

And I was like, get the fuck out of here.

How much?

Well, they were 1100 a night.

But this is, you know, the A, I saw my bill

from McLaren and they paid more.

McLaren paid more per night.

It was like 1,800 for them, you know.

And then.

One cookie for you.

I'm not, I didn't spend this money.

I didn't spend this money.

Nor would I spend this money.

That's crazy.

For regular people, it is crazy.

Yeah, $1,100.

Half the people there, their business pays for it.

Well, and when a travel, I just $350, $600.

And I like, forget it.

Yeah, but you, you mean stupid.

But still, like, it's crazy expensive.

But you mean it's at least a business expense

at the very least.

That's true.

And it's not, it's not the same as if you're paying like

post tax.

Yeah.

You know, it is a little cheaper because you're,

you are spending business money on that.

Yeah.

Yeah, so anyway, but there's, there's a many lists of like

good, affordable and or free things to do at car week.

But yeah, staying is expensive.

It's a very expensive week.

And I, I think that one of the problems with it being so

exclusive is all of these events are expensive.

How are we going to get younger people interested in cars

if the price of entry is so high?

I think the price of entry for everything isn't that high.

Yeah, but we want to be able to see.

I would love it if people who didn't have the means could

still walk around and see some of these extraordinary cars.

Well, look, they can.

There's a lot.

Internet.

No, no, no.

I mean, look, you, you maybe can't get an affordable hotel

room in mind, right?

But, but you could draw, if you, if you wanted to,

you could drive in for the day.

Right.

Are you since line up?

Yeah, I mean, Salinas is getting expensive too, but, but,

but you could drive in from somewhere else for the day.

You can go any, you can be anywhere on high with Thursday,

for instance, you can see every car that's at the concourse in

motion and big sir and then, and then parked in Carmel.

The tour ends in Carmel and those cars are there for hours.

That's the entire concourse for free.

Basically, 90% of the concourse for free.

You just have to get up early, but you can do it.

There's a, like, there's other, like the,

the parking lot of the quail, parking lot of the quail is better

than any cars in coffee on the planet.

And yes, like finding a way to get over there is mildly inconvenient

because it's fucking 10,000 people in an area, not designed for it.

But, if you get there, which many people do,

you can walk right in and walk right up to the gate of the quail

and see the craziest shit ever, you can go to,

um, what's the, the Baja Cantina on any day.

There's great, you can just sit in downtown Monterey.

The peninsula is full of really cool.

Yeah, like just being there, like yes,

it's inconvenient to get there because it's so busy

and because hotels are expensive.

But, like, if you, like, you don't need to be rich

to just be there and see crazy shit.

That's true.

There's a lot, a lot, a lot of cheap and or free stuff to do.

If you can bear the inconvenience of getting there.

That's true.

I'm not saying it's not insane, like hypercar culture is insane.

Like, all this shit is insane.

Like, like, it's, you know, it's, it's,

it's probably bad for the world that people have a collection

of $10 million cars or whatever, right?

But, but, and, and you don't want to price people out of the hobby.

Sure.

But I don't think it's fair to say that, like,

everything at Car Week prices people out.

Because it's not true.

But you're right.

You can come in and there's a lot to look at.

Just being in the environment, you're going to see it.

No matter what, yeah, where you turn.

I mean, I saw like four pentaras on the road in one day.

Yeah.

Tell me the last time you drove around and saw four on the road.

Yeah.

I've never seen more than anywhere.

Traffic, you know, you see the crazy stuff.

Now, I, I, I, I will say that I, I, I used to, I used to feel,

I'm not trying to be an angry old man, but like seven, eight years ago,

I felt like some of the stuff I saw in traffic was a little more interesting

than now where it's a lot of new supercars and hypercars.

Which, look, I, I, I'm not, I know the youth

are extremely into supercars and hypercars the way I was into the

kuntosh and shit.

But I also like, and but they also are so many more of them now.

So many more of them by volume.

And what do you think in general of supercar type of cars?

Like, I mean, look, I don't like them.

Fast, fun cars are good.

And the people who are designing them and building them are extremely

passionate and talented.

And I mean, your job is this because of new cars, right?

Primarily, yes.

But my best performing videos are of cars that people can afford.

And the fact that there are fewer and fewer of those every year makes my job

much, much harder because even though I cover every new sports car that

comes out expensive or cheap, people get mad at me when it's, well,

it seems like they do when it's like, oh, another car I can't afford.

And it's like, like, I understand, yeah, I can't afford it either.

And, but you want to look at it or not?

Well, no, like, I have to make videos of something.

If I, if this was the affordable sports car channel, there'd be no fucking

videos like, I'm sorry, there's like four cars left that people can afford.

You've got your Corvette, your Mustangs, your, your 86 twins, you know,

the civic type bar kind of stuff.

There's not much really left and that's shitty.

But like, what is your take on how expensive used cars are?

Let me tell you, when I got my Cayenne, I had to sell my Sequoia.

When I bought my Toyota Sequoia, it had 130,000 miles on it.

I paid 13,000 dollars nine years ago.

I put, I had 310,000 miles on it.

And I sold it for 13, five, and only paid 14 for the Cayenne.

Yeah. But so, so how come a Toyota with 310,000 miles?

I mean, we know Toyota's are going to go forever.

Why did I, I sold it for 500 more than I paid for it nine years earlier?

Why this takes me off because there's, all right, there's, there's not a lot of

really cheap, you know, what are you going to go get?

There's not a lot of cheap new cars, right? Right?

So like everyone who's looking for a cheap car is now looking for a used car.

Yeah.

And also, like, you know, people can't keep up with inflation.

Like, there's just people, regular people have, have less buying power.

And though trucks that are known for reliability and dependability and simplicity

are really, you know, if they're in good condition, still will command

a baseline.

The floor is higher.

If you have a running driving decent condition truck with whatever miles on it,

the floor is higher than it, than it used to be.

It seems ridiculous.

Yeah.

Well, new cars are like insanely expensive.

You actually try to go price out almost any new car.

You'll be fucking hard.

How much are you going to pay for a diesel long bed four by four crew cab truck today?

I mean, it's probably 70 grand just for a shiny one with bench seats.

Right.

But yet, my dodge when it was two years old with 30,000 miles was literally $30,000.

You can't do that today.

You can't find something that's just slightly depreciated and still affordable.

Well, yeah, I mean, yes, I think there's still like lingering supply chain stuff from

COVID that and new cars are just really, really expensive.

And it molsters the prices of used ones.

That's true.

And people are, you know, the average age of cars on the road is longer, blah, blah, blah,

blah.

Yeah.

What, let's see, we can go to the people.

We have some good questions for you.

Oh, yeah.

Well, the related story that I wrote down was auto loans and defaults are going wild,

which there's multiple stories about like how many, so then is that a sign of heading

to a recession?

I don't know.

I'm not an economist.

Well, I don't, I think there's a difference between a car bubble and a house bubble.

If someone's car gets repossessed, their life isn't changed the same way as if their house

is foreclosed on.

That's true.

But it's not good.

And I mean, I think in the article that I read this morning about it, which was hang

on, hang on.

I think it was from, um, shit, normally I would have had Zach have this ready, hang on,

sorry.

Um, let me see if it's still 2023 now, and I can't, now I can't find one of the stories,

but basically it was a real thing.

The basically said, um, you know, that, that, that people, the, the people surveyed for

the article were shockingly comfortable being in a crazy amount of debt in order to have,

you know, a nice new, a nice new vehicle.

And the dealerships were all too willing to just keep rolling these trade ins and upside

down credit.

And it was insane.

So the price of used cars become down as we have foreclosure, or we have root, oh fuck

in city.

Yeah.

Um, anyway, um, we have, uh, quite a few questions from the people, of course, if you

want to ask us questions for the show, patreon.com slash the Smogentire podcast is where you

do it.

You can watch the live stream when it exists.

I'm sorry.

Zach is out of town, and I am incapable of multitasking, uh, a fourth thing at once.

I think I could probably get away with three, but not four.

patreon.com slash Smogentire podcast, get the live stream, ask us questions, get the

show ahead of time, get the show, uh, without ads and a whole lot more.

Um, let's see, uh, two, two, wait, two, I'm trying to, this is a fun two U R G S E two,

two or see, whatever, uh, what is the fizziest car fizziest, meaning like the most engaging

and fun car you've ever driven under a hundred thousand dollars.

Oh, geez, fizzies, I don't even know if I can comprehend what fizziest means.

It was going to be your car.

I mean, my car would be up there, yeah, but that will still happen eventually.

I am going to drive your, your radio, I will, I will, I will, I will, I don't know because

a lot of the cars I've driven are kind of expensive, but, uh, I, you know, I'm going

to sound stupid, because I don't have an answer for that.

Fizziest.

I don't know.

Okay.

I'll step in the, um, if you're talking about like a late model sports car, a Lotus

Exiege, one of the hopped up Lotus Exiege.

I mean, that's like, you know, that's like bull riding on a fucking fly, you know, something

like that.

You know, you could talk about like an aerial atom, you know, one of those like, you

know, an exoskeleton type car, um, you could talk about a replica cobra with a big

block in it or something.

Well, I can, I still don't care about head around fizziest.

And the price point probably, it's a car, it's a car with where it's all about vibes

and feelings and feedback.

Renault R5 Turbo.

Oh, sure.

There you go.

I've driven that.

But the price point is probably pushing on.

You might get a shitter for, um, exactly, but I would say that's the first car that came

to mind.

Sure.

Uh, Johnny Evie Geerberman, uh, Nicole, what's your favorite old Volkswagen?

My favorite old Volkswagen, uh, was probably the, uh, why the sleeper bug that I drove that

doesn't even have a Volkswagen motor in it on, uh, is that on your YouTube channel?

Uh, first one.

Let's go take a look.

Let's take a look at, um, sir, sir by, or by popular, go to videos and sort by popular.

Um, pop you.

There you go.

11 million views.

Holy mother of God, 517 horsepower sleeper bug.

That's wheel horsepower, too.

By the way, no, I can't play because we'll get fucking copyright striked on this channel

here.

But wheel horsepower.

I control that.

Johnny.

You know, right?

You just did.

Dude, that is a $10 million mazerotti.

Mmm.

That is.

That was the one owned by Carol.

There were two of them at 250 s owned by Carol Shelby.

And that, that is an incredible car.

Is that Phillips?

No.

Uh, I can't disclose.

We can't talk about the owner.

Okay.

So it's not Phillips.

He was.

He wouldn't give a shit.

He just wanted trophy at Pebble Beach.

Okay.

Uh, what's probably the other one that, so what I can say is that it's caretaker is, um,

a guy in Arizona named Robert Webster, and he rally preps these cars.

It goes on all of the, like the copper state.

It goes on all of the long rallies.

Cool.

That car, yeah, was really special.

Right hand drive, uh, dog leg, gated shifter, uh, left hand shift, right hand drive, left

hand shifter, right hand drive, still shit, right shift, left shift.

And there's a lot where you don't have any muscle memory for that, like I specifically

was like, I am not going to miss a shift.

I looked down every freaking time to tell me in our car, I'm not going to, you know,

I think there were like three guys that were like, like you would be fired if you ever

looked down a shift and like, bro, I am not going to miss a shift in a car that I have

no muscle memory.

Can I help you with something?

Yeah.

It's not $10 million because of the gearbox.

Okay.

That's not why it's $10 million.

No.

I was in a 250 GTO on a racetrack, not driving it, riding it with a guy who did not own it.

Okay.

This very wealthy collector's car and this other very wealthy collector who was driving

it and fucking, this is a 250 GTO and he was beating the absolute shit out of this car.

And I was amazed at how hard he was pushing the handling on the track.

The balance was beautiful.

I was equally amazed at how bad he was at downshifting.

He was hideously bad at it, right?

And he took someone else out right after me and blew the gearbox in the car.

And I was like, holy shit, you just blew the gearbox in a $50 million car.

You said it's not $50 million.

But the gearbox isn't $50 million, right?

That's what he said.

He said it's not $50 million because the gearbox.

He said, I bet that's about a $20,000 fix and I was like fucking balls of steel, my friend,

but okay.

Right, right.

To his point.

No, yeah.

I hundred percent agree.

I'm not trying to say that I don't understand the position, but I'm trying to free your mind.

It was a try not to wrap your head around what you're doing, just drive it and enjoy it.

And hopefully nobody hits us.

It was great.

And that Ferrari was awesome.

It's really not a 308.

And there is no such thing.

I don't think it's so I saw this Ferrari 308 GTL.

It's not.

It's a 288 GTL body on a 308, but it has race history.

But it has a transverse V8 308 engine, not a longitudinal twin turbo, right?

Right.

Okay.

I didn't realize you could fit a lot of fun to drive.

There was same.

I didn't realize you could fit a direct swap of it was 288 body.

There's something done in the 80s by Jim Carpenter at Italian Design and Racing at Down

Arizona.

They were doing fucking.

And it was in combination with gosh, I'm blowing it on his name right now.

It was a Lamborghini driver from the 70s and 80s.

So anyway, that's a really cool cool car.

It looks cool.

I drove it on the track.

It's really cool.

The track is that looks for you.

It's free mountain.

Radford.

Oh, Radford.

Are you in there?

I'm sure you are.

Yeah, I love the guys.

It's a fun little place.

It's Mark's run of that joint, right?

Yeah, Valentino.

Shout out to Mark.

Yeah, we love that.

Formerly of a place we don't talk about.

Let's see.

Oh, go down.

You know, it's really fun.

It was really fun.

The NASCAR.

Go down one.

I'm looking.

Yeah.

And I got to do it so that other people see it.

So the NASCAR C10 and the NASCAR Nova are both owned by the same guy.

That NASCAR Nova is, dude, that is the rattiest car.

It's like a $1,500 car with a race history and you drive it on the street and you just,

it's cool.

Have you noticed that your, when you do NASCAR and or American trucks, your videos are

like double when you do any other car?

I know.

People don't like European cars.

They really don't like Porsches either.

I'm sure they don't.

Our worst viewed videos are Porsches.

That's awesome.

Yeah.

You should keep doing them.

Uh-huh.

Fuck those people.

Nobody likes Porsches.

They like the American cars.

It's really funny.

I did a series for haggardy once about modified cars and haggardy's audience didn't

that.

It's a good expression for you.

Haggardy's audience was like, not like, they were like, who the fuck is this guy and

why I see on camera.

It was really funny how distanced it was.

Yeah.

Uh, this may, this may actually have been, okay, we did your old VW, Matt's missing Kuntosh

parts.

Uh, what is your most memorable drive?

Oh, that is very easy.

Okay.

I'll buy a cobra at Willow Springs.

Hmm.

You know, there are five.

You know what an F.I.A cobra is or shall I explain that to her?

I do, but why don't you explain it to them?

Okay.

So the easiest way to understand it, you know what I'll find the video.

You don't worry about that.

The easiest way to understand it is, uh, the, in the movie Ford versus Ferrari, there's

a scene where they're trying to pass the tech and you got to fit a suitcase in the back

seat because it's the GT class and the suitcase has to fit, not the back seat, the trunk.

You got to be able to close the trunk.

Well, the rounded curve of a cobra, you're not fitting a square box in there.

So they take a hammer and they smash the underside of the, uh, there you go.

They smash the underside of the trunk.

Hmm.

So there are little luggage bumps so that you can clearance this suitcase.

There were five actually made.

Carol shall be sent to Europe to race and I drove one of them at the track.

Cool.

And that was really memorable.

Very memorable.

Because example, I, you know, when I left my, my friend Lynn Parkou on C said, you can

pretend that you're, um, uh, Ken Miles and just, you know, go enjoy it and at Willow

Springs.

Yeah.

So funny in that movie how they don't have to fucking dress Willow Springs up at all

to make it look like 1966, um, that's, are you coming on the 11th?

I will be.

Carolina.

I would love to.

Yeah.

Well, we're going to be on the road.

Fifth Carolina.

And I'm going to shoot three, two or three episodes while we're back there.

And one of them being that, that Launcie Strattles replica that we saw.

Cool.

Yeah.

Um, that seems fun.

Yeah.

I like that.

That's a good one.

So every time I've driven and ever, uh, I, I drove, um, part of L.E. Jones's Trans-Am

car.

Thunder Hill.

Wow.

One of the worst performing videos I've ever made.

Really?

Yeah.

After traveling so fucking far because Thunder Hill's in the middle of nowhere.

Is it, are they just expecting only new stuff from you?

Like a new car review?

Yeah.

I'm in the consumer advice business.

Should I buy this car?

So if I do, nobody's going to watch it.

Because you're not in the consumer advice business.

If you don't, nobody's going to, yeah, we have different audiences.

I come to you for this thing.

And if you don't do exact with the thing I come to you for, yeah, you, you, you may not

be creative.

You may not try new things, not on my watch.

They say as fans, um, uh, my most memorable drive, um, um, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, my most memorable

drive, um, I mean, there's, there have been, uh, there have been so many things.

There have been a lot.

I mean, it's like a little tiny baby compared to you.

Like you've driven a lot of things.

Yeah.

Um, I would say, um, uh, there's been a couple really good ones, uh, maybe three years

ago, the four AM drive to car week in my Ferrari 328, where I got to, I got to PC

H in, um, San Simeon right as the sun was coming up.

And I drove the most perfect uninterrupted, you know, fog lifting over Big Sur, uh, which

was on a Thursday.

So I ended in Big Sur and then got to watch the tour.

I was like, it's one of those moments where you're literally telling yourself to remember

this moment.

Yeah.

That's how seamless it was for me.

Yeah.

I mean, um, I mean, you know, just last week, Friday, I got to drive, you know, the GT.

I had a full track to myself eight hours with a Mustang GTD, the new one and the GT three

Lamar car.

And I got, you know, that's, that's some pretty epic shit.

And like, uh, full drift days challenge stradali llama Bravo, um, Nicole, yeah, right.

Yeah, the master of the contractions, uh, Nicole, what's still on your automotive bucket

list?

Um, a GT 40, okay, real has to be a real one.

Are you care?

Um, I understand the unobtainium, uh, real one scenario, uh, there is one that was made

by Jelsko.

Are you familiar with Jelsko?

No.

A British company.

It's pronounced Jelsko.

Okay.

I don't know.

Probably.

I'll do.

I'll believe you.

Anyway, um, see.

Why is it?

What's, why is a gel?

Oh, JLS.

GLS.

I spelled it like.

There's one in Indiana that is an exact replica of a particular, um, real GT 40 that is

probably the closest one that I'm ever going to get to my vision's bad.

So I can't see all of them.

Is there something about this Jelsko, Gelsko, whatever is an exact replica?

It's not a scene performance.

It is exact.

So many of them say that they all say the fucking parts are interchangeable with the

real cars.

Superformance.

Who's saying that shit for years?

No, this guy.

So there's a guy who I, I know in, in Indiana who has had a superformance GT 40 and was

very disappointed.

So it was a piece of crap.

Got rid of it.

Then he went to Jelsko and had them, him build them one and it is, um, now I haven't seen

it in person.

I've seen pictures of it.

He sent me videos of it.

I'm really dying to drive that car.

Um, I also, man, if you're going to spend this much time and energy driving a fucking

car, you should drive one someone's heard of.

No one's ever heard of Jelsko.

You should find a real one for this much effort.

You can find a real one.

Someone will let you drive a real one, the Peterson would probably let you drive theirs.

Uh, well, you know, they have that one that's a, uh, uh, left hand drive.

Yeah.

The blue one.

Three.

Which one is it?

There's like seven of them.

They have one that's sort of ugly.

It's blue that has maybe a mark to you that has like a weird tail that I don't love,

but it is real.

It's there and it's real.

Yeah.

I, of course, I'd love to drive a real one.

Um, but I've sat in the super performance.

The ergonomics are weird.

They're very weird.

I don't know what size you're supposed to be.

I'm usually mostly car-sized like I can fit in most cars, like tall guys have issues.

You've been around real GT 40s.

Do you think the ergonomics of those look better?

Those things are fucked up.

They're all jacked up.

Yeah.

You were trying to get them any race car from the races.

I'm in a super performance at Willow Springs and it was really the other strange.

I could not get closer to the steering wheel.

And I was like, oh my gosh, my arms were like, it was horrible.

I'm going to hit my head on the bar.

It was awful.

I'm not sure the seats or the steering wheel adjust in a GT 40.

No, I think you'd need a dish.

There's a pedal to adjust.

You'd have to have like a dished wheel for me to drive it.

Yeah, they're not comfortable.

No.

I think it would be really neat to try.

You know what I would, you know what would be cool?

This is dumb.

It would be fun to go race a little dots and around at the historics.

I would actually, my bucket list goal, what I really want to do more than anything is,

I have my race license at through NASA.

I got that earlier this year, went through their whole HPDE program.

I'm yet to take a green flag because then we hit summer and I've been busy rebuilding

this.

Yeah, go racing.

It's fun.

I need to do that.

But my real goal is literally, you should take the green flag.

Like if you go endurance racing, you should do the start.

Yeah.

Yeah, it's a good time.

That would be fun.

I want to, I want to do some vintage racing.

Sure.

I don't have the car to do it.

Somebody has put me in the car.

But I want to go do Monterey or something.

I would love to do that at some point.

Sure.

I think they are so badass.

Like I love it.

I love watching the old cars.

Well, they have like Vera and SVRA, like you can do your regional stuff easily.

And the cars aren't like expensive.

Yeah.

You could, if you got rid of your, if you traded your box store out for something old,

you could be doing this like, ice cream time.

Yeah.

Go on fucking racing junk.

You'll find some.

Hi.

Are we joining Project Cars Anonymous now?

Well, I mean, I just got a free car.

Are you aware of Project Cars Anonymous?

No, is that like a...

Michael Gideon's, you know who that is, right?

No.

You don't know who he, just look him up on Instagram.

Just like, well, you look at, okay.

He does these really great, he's up in Venturi.

He does these really great, sort of satirical videos.

But I can't believe you don't know who he is.

I'm Gideon.

Yeah, I see him.

Okay.

But he also has the Instagram Project Cars Anonymous.

And it's very much like an AA meeting for people who have Project Cars.

That's funny.

When I, when I first started the Smog and Tire, and I was coming through trying to figure

out names, it took me like six months.

Yeah.

But one of my like shitty like fail names was drivers Anonymous.

Yeah.

Well, PCA, right?

It's a shoe fund.

There's all these portions that show up to, it's PCA.

It's Project Cars Anonymous.

I told him.

I'm going to start.

I'm going to be your Vegas chapter president.

I'm going to hold meetings in Vegas.

I got a great place.

My buddy has a house that he had so many porches.

He gutted the house and brought all the porches inside and had to move next door.

That's funny.

And he calls it Porsche House.

I'm like, we're going to hold our first and it's Project Porsche is all over the place.

It's rad.

I'm like, we're going to, I told him we're going to hold a Vegas meeting and I'll be your

chapter president.

There's a guy in Malibu who built a secret garage where on the, from the front of the

house, it looks like a normal house.

But if you drive around the back of the house, it looks like a fucking car dealership.

It's all glass.

Wow.

Yeah.

The whole house is full of cars.

It's a, it's a, it's a like a 15,000 square foot, 20,000 square foot house.

It's one bedroom, one bathroom, and it's a, it's a garage from the back.

It's a great, but it's, it's designed to like fool his HOA.

That is like every dude's dream.

Yeah.

His real house is like across the street.

Yeah.

That's funny.

So I, I know a guy in, in fact on Instagram, he's, well, I won't tell you who he is, but

he has a place like that where they will not allow him to build a big garage.

So he built a second home and the whole, it's a one bedroom, one bath, and the whole living

room is cars.

It's his garage.

Okay.

Well, I sincerely apologize for pulling up an article from the Daily Mail because the

Daily Mail is a fucking shit newspaper with, what's he got?

But I just wanted to show you, hang on, oh my God, there's so many fucking pop-ups.

Ugh.

You need a browser, you need a browser like DuckDuckGo or something.

I usually have a Zach to deal with this bullshit.

And then there's no, there's no pop, there's no ad.

Come on photos.

Look, so this is the back.

Wow.

So there's a warehouse.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And then this.

Oh my gosh.

I can drive around from the side.

This is how it looks from the back.

Okay.

Yeah, it doesn't look like anything super crazy.

What is that?

Sorry, it was coming up and I had the wrong, the wrong window popped up there.

So this is it from the back.

This was before it was full of porches.

This is when the guy who lived there, he liked to collect Ferraris.

But and then here's your one bedroom, there's your one, your one bedroom apartment is

up here.

Right?

It looks like a car story.

It's a photo from the front, though.

Look, the apartment's like just like shitty.

Oh really?

Oh man.

Where are we at now?

I don't know.

I don't know where that's taken.

I don't know.

It's fucking daily mail took us to some piece of junk, but, but I wanted to see it from

the front.

But yeah, that's the idea.

Have you been there before?

Yeah.

Is it crazy?

Yeah.

Just like small-ish looking in from the front.

Just normal.

No, it looks like a like a, well, so like it goes kind of downhill.

So the up top, it looks like a ranch house, but then it goes, oh, shit, sorry, I fucked

that all up.

But then it goes, oops, it goes around and down.

So yeah, so it doesn't look very big from the, yeah, it's a real-

Now you know how much you miss sack.

You need sack, don't you?

Yes.

Yes, I do.

I know that.

I've never, I have no illusions about this shit at all.

I absolutely need sack.

Yeah.

I'm do, I'm fucking.

We all need sack.

We're all going to say pins over here.

That keeps you together.

Listen.

Where is that?

He's, I just-

He's on press launch.

Yeah.

You want to, you want to, to, to know about, to drive some, some fast Toyota stuff.

Cool.

Yeah.

And then I'm leaving right now.

You guys have been working together.

How'd you guys meet?

It's been 15 years.

Yeah.

It was 15 years in July.

Well, you should know Michael getting because sack's done videos with him before.

What does that mean?

You don't know who he's friends with.

My a guy I work with has worked with someone else how dare I not know him that you knew everybody. No, I don't know

I don't even like most people. What are you fucking talking about? That's right. No people. I don't know people. You know people I

Most of my like acquaintances not my friends friends, but most of my acquaintances if they're not literally standing next to their car

Fucking, I don't know you I see people that I'm supposed to know in other situations

It's enormously embarrassing, but without context. I got fucking nothing. I'm with you

If you run into somebody you're like, did I know you from church or from my kids school or for what or when you see them in the other environment

Like at a Costco. You have no idea who they are

Listen and now now throw smoke and weed into this mix

Now it's like hey, Matt. Okay. Are you a fan? Do are you a friend? Right? Are you like you know my one of my wife's friends or co-workers?

Yeah, you know because when you're familiar internet personality as you well know

They don't come up to you like you're a person on TV

Where like if you met right if you met

You know like if you met a list or like a Brad Pitt level and met Noah Wiley. Yeah, right or George fucking Clooney whoever

You would talk to you would approach them in a manner where they're they're going to be certain that they don't know you

Right already

Whereas if someone approaches me very frequently it's in a such a familiar manner

That I am literally going in my head am I supposed to know you and

You know if I if we've had met in a recent period of time and I didn't remember you like really feel bad about that

It's tough man. Brain my brain is too full of things

I got a story like that so the head of

uh

Four wheel parts years ago like 20 years ago. We took

trans-american

Who owned four wheel parts are you familiar with that whole conglomerate? Uh-oh

Anyway, this is when I was off-roading

We took a bunch of them in Moab for a bunch of rides spent the whole day and

The the owner the president the the head guy at at four wheel parts trans-american

Spent the whole day wheeling with him later that night everybody went and shot pool at the local bar whatever right every shooting pool

and I

Didn't remember him and I I was like hey

What um what and so what was your role at um at

Four wheel parts and he says I'm the hmf. I see and that was I'm sure you know what that means

I did not know what it meant head motherfucker in charge. Yes. Yeah, and I was like

Oh, yeah

Yeah, so bad

You kind of have to make notes

That guy it's definitely happening before where I have that was Greg Adler if anybody who's listening that was sorry Greg

That was Greg out there. It's happening with like like legit high-level executives and car companies before yeah

Yeah, this is like our our brains are not

Prepared to know the number of people that we probably have and I have a terrible memory. I'm just not good

I just can't like do that. We're so cranked with information all the time. It's true. It's too hard

We have one more question. It's nothing to use you Nicole. It's about watches fast back to the future

Just got uh their first NATO style watch strap. That's those nylon

straps that are very popular

Find throughout the day. It stretches out and I have to readjust midday is that normal or did I buy a cheap strap

Little both it depends on

Some some straps are cheaper than others and do stretch more than others also they weave the straps differently

Like usually it's for aesthetics, but different

Different weaves have different stretches

But it's not totally abnormal especially if you get the thing wet or sweaty that it would stretch by one hole and then shrink back up

Later, but if you bought the cheapest shit fucking off Amazon and it was like nine bucks

Like try spending 30 or 40 and you'll probably get something a little higher quality

Not trying to be a leotist, but you yourself are considering that maybe you bought a cheap crappy strap

Um, and finally tune-hound free Jimmy Kimmel

I can't believe I have to fucking go on the radio and defend Jimmy Kimmel of all people but like that shit

We got it. We got a fucking nip this in the bud

Ace what's the question? Is there a question? There's no question? Oh, there's no

Just it like you know political pressure shouldn't be you know having late night shows taken off the air

We don't political conversations. We don't want them taken off the air

We I think we could say we don't want people taken off the air

Correct pressure. I agree. That's that's bad

Um thanks Nicole good times and thank you for my two cookies. Yeah, yeah, this is your this is your

Me and Zack's the difference my two and Zack's

Yeah, yeah, well, he actually said on some bummer not gonna be there save me some cookies and I told him

I was only gonna put one in a bag for you. Yeah, I am stoked on that

Um, of course go wait. Oh, man. I'm not even on the daily mail. Not yeah, definitely go to the daily mail

go to subscribe go to check out Nicole Johnson's detour is on the

Yetubes. Yeah, like and subscribe and then of course Nicole Johnson off-road

Just written out no punctuation on the Graham. Yep, and your car is gonna be at so Caluero

Your car is gonna be at and of course you and

And SEMA I'm actually it'll be at SEMA at the turn 14

display

I think indoors would turn 14s a distributor for billstein got it

Hopefully indoors my billstein. Yeah, that's why I said I was like I

You know, you gotta have you been do you go every year to see? No, no, I did for a while

I haven't been in

For five years. Well, you're not missing much because I really feel like it's gone down hell

I've been probably 15 plus years in a row. Yeah, and it's just like lately in the last few years everything outside

Is like a big river truck on just big wheels with no it's a four by four truck with no front drive shaft and the whole

Joe is a blue truth blue tooth drive shaft right there ridiculous. It's like the bear the

It used to be that if you your car was at SEMA

It was like whoa and I

I think it's all gone downhill, which is the only reason they're letting me in because my car is not a SEMA car

Yeah, I told bills on that. I'm like it's just a car. I drive. I don't know. My corvette was a SEMA like in 2012

And it wasn't that cool

I'm not sure I made I mean I made videos back in the day about the lame stuff that was at SEMA

So I'm not sure I could say it's gone down here. There's some cool things

But there's also I think mostly everything outside is not been vetted before it. Oh, that's totally positive

So that I'm like yeah, I'd love it if my car was inside. I feel like there's a little bit, you know

I want to be indoors. It's uh, I don't know if it's like it's gone downhill

But I think if you go every year or like repeatedly, then it would seem very stagnant

Yeah, I know

For people who sell parts don't get me wrong. I love going

But I have to look harder now for my favorites. There's always something mind blowing there

I feel like I just have to look harder. It used to be more like every single thing you were looking at was like wow

Something new and cool, but it is if you haven't been you have to wear great shoes

Let's all establish that

Number one advice is great shoes

And you're gonna be walking around. Yeah, I actually, you know, I really

Selfishly because like

Like, you know, I have to like if I want to be famous

I have to like put myself in places where I'll be famous like car shows and it sure sure and it's SEMA

I'm really famous. It's not like you're walking around like targeting people

Yeah, you're not like target. No, I can I can actually choose one to be famous

Which is incredibly convenient like Ben Affleck can't do that shit

But I can but it's SEMA. It was like really hard. It's hard to go anywhere like and you're like

I just I just have to pee like I'm I'm trying to get across this thing

And so I went I went during the covid year

And with masks. Oh my god. It was the best SEMA ever. They didn't recognize you know

SEMA with masks was awesome. I got shit done

And like, you know a bunch of people fucking didn't want to go or whatever and so they so it was great

I was like Vegas was like lovely

Yeah

I absolutely loved you. I don't I don't know you don't know me. This is fucking great. This is great

You just walk around and get things done. Absolutely. Perfect

Absolutely. All right. Well, thank you for letting me sneak back into your place

Of course. Thank well he bribed me with cookies. What can I possibly thanks for coming

Gonna have to just mail order these cookies now. What do you think my price point is? Oh, I don't know. I think

20 a dozen very farmers market Malibu farmers market price 20 a dozen

Even then it's probably not worth my time. More ingredients, but ham. Yeah. All right. Well, maybe it's a patreon tier. That's right. It's a hundred dollars

You get a box of cookies a dozen of these book. I think Taylor Swift could probably put off at the sourdose

But it'd be like a hundred K for a sourdough

Uh, yeah, right? What do you think someone I bet you some frequent pay for Taylor Swift's sourdough? Let's talk about the intensely

time-consuming commitment it is to sourdough bread because my

I've got a couple of different family members that are into making sourdough you got to feed that sourdough

And you got to make it for like two days

And then you eat it in five minutes

Well, you have to you have to have people to give that's like

Like, you know, Taylor Swift can give sourdough away all you know for six hours a day

And she'll never run out of people who will appreciate the sourdough. Yeah

You know, how did we get to Taylor Swift and sourdough?

Because you give away cookies and she gives she's giving away sourdough