A moving violation is a traffic ticket for something you did while driving, like speeding or ignoring a signal. It can lead to points on your record and may raise your insurance costs.
In many places, traffic tickets add “points” to your driving record. Too many points can cause problems like higher insurance, so removing them can help.
Topic
more flock
They’re talking about a recurring story segment called “Flock.” The host says there’s an update coming, so it’s more of a follow-up than a car review.
This is a Porsche 911 Turbo S, and “992.1” is a specific version of the 911 generation after the main redesign. Turbo S is the top, high-performance version of the Turbo model.
License plate formats are how license plates are designed in different places. Some places use different layouts or styles, and that can make it harder for cameras or software to read them correctly.
A Range Rover is a large luxury SUV made by Land Rover. It’s designed to be comfortable and capable for everyday driving and longer trips. The podcast brings it up because it was involved in a real situation while being driven.
Machine learning is a way for computers to learn from examples. Instead of being programmed with exact rules, it figures out patterns from data—like recognizing characters in an image.
A dealer tag is a special plate used for cars connected to a dealership. If someone (or a system) doesn’t realize it’s a dealer tag, they might treat it like a normal plate and miss the context.
A Flock camera is a system that reads license plates automatically. If it only gets part of the plate information (or misses characters), it can match the wrong thing or miss the right context.
Photo evidence is a picture that can prove what a system saw. The speaker is saying that if officers only get text and no photo, it’s easier for details to be wrong or incomplete.
Ticket cameras are automated cameras used to issue traffic tickets. They’re supposed to capture clear evidence—especially the license plate—so the system can decide whether a violation happened.
A dealer plate is a special kind of license plate used by car dealerships. The speaker is saying cameras should be able to recognize that plate type and read it accurately.
Los Angeles is where the speaker says they personally got a ticket. They’re using that experience to argue that the cameras should be able to read license plates correctly.
Term
license plate refers to up to 100 plates
The speaker is saying the software could use a simple rule: there are only a limited number of plate formats it should recognize. If it knows those formats, it should be able to tell what kind of plate it’s looking at instead of confusing it with others.
This is a high-performance version of the Chevrolet Corvette. In this part of the episode, they’re talking about the 2027 Corvette Grand Sport and what’s new under the hood.
“6.7 liters” is how big the engine is, based on the total cylinder volume. Bigger numbers usually mean the engine can make strong power, but it’s not the only factor.
“500 cc’s” is another way of saying the engine got bigger by 500 cubic centimeters. It’s basically a displacement comparison number.
Term
409
“409” is a nickname for a big engine size measured in cubic inches. The point here is that people like hearing the old-school “409” number when talking about performance engines.
Displacement is basically how much “engine volume” the cylinders have. Bigger displacement often helps an engine make stronger power, though design and tuning matter too.
The Impala is a large Chevrolet car that’s known for having powerful engines. The podcast is talking about the older versions with a very big V8, especially the famous 409 engine. It comes up because that engine is a well-known part of Impala history.
“Boomer color scheme” is slang for a classic-looking color combo that feels old-school. In this case, they’re talking about the white exterior, blue interior, and other contrasting details.
The C8 Corvette is a Corvette generation with the engine behind the driver. Here they’re saying that if you choose a light-colored dashboard, the windshield reflects a lot of light, which can make it harder to see clearly.
This means a dashboard in a light color. Light colors can reflect more sunlight and glare off the windshield, making the view inside the car look washed out.
A softbox is a studio lighting setup that makes light look smooth and even. They’re comparing the car’s light interior to that effect—basically, the dashboard reflects light in a way that can be distracting or reduce clarity.
A widescreen touchscreen is the big display in the dashboard you tap to control things like media and settings. They’re saying the newer C8 interior uses a bigger, more modern screen.
A “Z06 chassis” means the Corvette is built on the same basic platform as the Z06, which is the more track-focused version. That usually comes with stronger, wider, more performance-oriented setup.
“Steel brakes” are the normal kind of brake rotors made from steel. They work great, but ceramic brakes are often chosen for track use because they can handle heat better.
A power top is a convertible roof that opens and closes automatically with a button. It’s easier to use than a manual roof, so you’re more likely to put it down often.
A hard top convertible uses a solid roof that can fold away, instead of a cloth roof. It can feel more solid and quieter than a soft-top while still letting you drive with the top down.
An aluminum structure means the car’s body/chassis uses aluminum components to reduce weight compared with traditional steel. Lower weight can improve acceleration, braking, and how the car feels over bumps, while also affecting stiffness.
Magnetic ride is a suspension system that can change how stiff the car feels while you drive. It can make the ride softer for comfort and firmer when you want more control.
Radar cruise control is like regular cruise control, but it also watches the traffic in front of you. It can automatically adjust your speed to help keep a safe distance.
A flat-plane crank is a specific crankshaft shape inside the engine. It affects how the engine runs and how it feels—often making it rev more freely and sound more “high-strung.”
Peak horsepower is the engine’s maximum “speed-making” power at a certain RPM. They’re pointing out that each car’s best power shows up at different engine speeds.
A power band is the range of engine speeds where the car feels strongest. They’re saying one car is strong at one set of RPMs, and the other car is strong at a different set.
“Torque spread” means how the engine’s pulling power changes as the RPMs go up. If the engine makes strong torque earlier, the car can feel faster even before the highest power shows up.
A quarter-mile race is a drag-racing format where cars accelerate over 1/4 mile (about 402 meters). It heavily rewards strong launch and mid-range acceleration, so differences in torque delivery and tire grip show up quickly in times like “10s” or “middle 11s.”
Tires affect how well the car can grip the road. If the tires are better, the car can put more power down instead of just spinning, which helps it run faster.
“Price delta” just means how much more (or less) one thing costs compared to another. They’re comparing the price difference between the two Corvette versions.
Turbocharged means the engine uses a turbo to force more air into the cylinders. That usually helps it make stronger power, which can make the car feel faster.
The Camaro is a performance car from Chevrolet, usually with a sporty coupe body. It’s known for having a strong engine and a distinctive exhaust sound. The podcast mentions it in the context of how it sounds compared with other cars.
As the engine runs, it sends exhaust out in bursts. Those bursts create a pulsing sound, and the muffler design can make it sound more aggressive or more refined.
Exhaust valves are like adjustable doors in the exhaust. They open and close to change how loud the car is and how the engine “feels” at different speeds.
The Z51 package is a Corvette option that makes it more performance-focused. It’s meant to improve how the car handles and how it feels when you drive it hard, especially on track.
MagRide is an adaptive suspension that can change how stiff or soft the shocks feel. It helps the car ride comfortably on the highway but still handle well when you drive hard.
Traction control helps prevent the tires from spinning too much when you accelerate. In a “race” mode, it’s often less intrusive so you can get a little slip without losing control.
Camber is how much the wheels tilt inward or outward. When camber and the road change, it changes how well the tires “bite,” which affects cornering feel.
Instead of looking at a mirror, you look at a small screen that shows what’s behind you. It uses a camera mounted on the car to give you a clearer view.
Torque band is the range of engine speeds where the engine feels strongest. If it’s wide, the car pulls well even if you’re not keeping the RPMs in a narrow sweet spot.
“Floor it” means you press the gas pedal all the way down. It’s the most aggressive throttle input, where the car’s performance systems really kick in.
RPM tells you how fast the engine is spinning. Drivers often try to keep it in a range where the car responds best when you’re approaching and exiting corners.
ZR1 is the very high-performance Corvette trim—think of it as the “biggest” version. The host is using it as a comparison because they haven’t been driving the base car much lately.
Term
Imperfection Tarmac
“Tarmac” just means the paved road. The host is saying these cars feel especially good on rougher, imperfect pavement.
Term
dampers in soft
“Soft” dampers make the shocks less stiff. The car will soak up bumps more comfortably, instead of bouncing or feeling jiggly.
Term
springs in soft
Setting the suspension “soft” means the car rides more smoothly over bumps. It lets the wheels move more easily instead of feeling every crack in the road.
“Sweet spot” here means the specific operating range where the car’s balance is best—where handling, power delivery, and driver confidence overlap. The host ties it to Corvette generations and trims that behave especially well in that shared performance window.
The Miata is a small two-seat roadster made by Mazda. It’s built to feel light and easy to steer, so it’s fun even without extreme power. The podcast brings it up as a way to describe handling that feels great.
An “engine power profile” is how the car decides to deliver power. Depending on the mode, it can feel calmer or more aggressive when you press the gas.
Carbon wheels are wheels made from carbon-fiber material. They can be lighter than traditional wheels, which helps the car’s suspension respond more quickly for better handling.
The Lamborghini Temerario is a new Lamborghini supercar meant to replace the Huracán. The hosts are talking about how it looks in a matte blue color and that they drove it on a race track as part of a comparison test.
“Matte” means the paint looks more flat and non-shiny than normal car paint. The hosts are pointing out that this Lamborghini looks especially good in that non-gloss finish.
The Lamborghini Huracán is the Lamborghini supercar that came before the Temerario. The hosts mention it so you know the Temerario is the newer replacement model.
Topic
comparison test with a race track
A comparison test is when multiple cars are evaluated side-by-side, usually on the same route and conditions, to see how they differ in real driving. Here, the hosts specifically mention doing it with a race track and a “whole bunch of cars,” implying a structured, performance-focused evaluation.
Car
Huracan
The Huracán is Lamborghini’s supercar model that comes in different versions. Here they’re using it as a comparison point to show how much stronger the Temerario is.
The McLaren 750S is a very fast, track-oriented supercar from McLaren. The host is saying it feels calm when cruising, but becomes extremely intense the moment you push it.
“Spin the tires up” means the wheels start turning faster than the car can move. It usually happens when there isn’t enough grip, like on a slippery surface or when you accelerate too hard.
Wheel spin is when the tires slip and spin instead of gripping the road. It usually means you’re asking for more power than the tires can safely handle.
Gears are the transmission settings that change how the engine’s power reaches the wheels. Fourth and fifth gear are mid-to-higher gears, where the car can accelerate hard without the engine being at its lowest speeds.
The host talks about how dangerous it is to drive these cars hard, because crashes can happen at very high speeds. The point is that mistakes at that speed are especially serious.
Peak torque is the engine’s strongest “twisting pull” at its best moment. More peak torque usually means the car can accelerate harder, especially when you’re not at the very top of the rev range.
A tri-motor hybrid is a hybrid car that uses three electric motors to help drive the wheels. That can make the car feel quicker and smoother because the electric motors can add extra push when you need it.
A flat-plane V8 is a specific way of arranging the engine’s crankshaft in a V8. It usually helps the engine rev high and can give the car a sharper, more high-performance character.
Peak power is the engine’s maximum “strength” for making the car go fast, usually measured in horsepower. It often shows up at higher engine speeds than peak torque.
“Handoff” is the feel of the engine switching from pulling hard at one RPM range to making more speed at a higher RPM range. You notice it as the acceleration keeps building instead of fading.
A drag race is a straight-line race focused on who gets up to speed fastest. The host is talking about lining up cars to compare their launch and acceleration.
Weight transfer is when the car shifts its weight toward the front/back or left/right as you drive hard. The host is saying you can feel that shift through the way the car moves.
These are electronic controls for the shocks/suspension. The host is saying the car uses high-voltage electronics to manage how the suspension reacts, which helps the ride feel smooth and controlled.
A differential is a gear system that lets the wheels on the same axle turn at different speeds when you turn. If the car doesn’t have a front mechanical differential, it’s not using the usual front-axle mechanical setup to drive the wheels.
A prop shaft is a spinning driveshaft that sends power to another axle or differential. If a car doesn’t have a front prop shaft, it means the power isn’t being delivered to the front that way—usually because of how the drivetrain is laid out.
The Audi R8 is a high-performance supercar. The podcast is comparing interior space, saying a newer model has more room than the older R8. It comes up because cabin space is one of the practical differences people notice in supercars.
“Rear tires” are the tires on the back of the car. If they’re not covered well, they can throw more dirt and small debris backward onto the road and other vehicles.
Mudflaps are little panels behind the tires. They help stop dirt and small rocks from getting kicked up and hitting the cars behind you, including their windshields.
California is mentioned because the rules there can require certain car parts. In this case, the host is talking about laws that affect whether mudflaps are needed.
LIVE
What's up everybody? Welcome to the Smoking Tire Podcast. Today's episode is, as always, brought to you by Off the Record.
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Alright, on this episode of the podcast Big Day for Sports Cars, I've got a review of the new C8 Corvette Grand Sport as well as the new Lamborghini Tamarario.
In-depth reviews of both of those cars, plus I have an amazing story with a life lesson, and we're going to start with more flock.
It's the Smoking Tire podcast, let's go.
Guys, the Smoking Tire is giving away a 992.1 Turbo S in partnership with Dream Giveaways.
We're giving away a $275,000 car with some slick choice mods. The proceeds benefit charity, and you don't have to buy any merch.
It's a straightforward entry process, so hit the link in the show notes and get entered to win today.
We have to start the program quick correction. I'd like to issue a quick correction from a previous program.
Got something wrong, I believe in accountability, believe in admitting and correcting when you get something wrong, and I am about to admit and correct that I got something wrong.
When we talked about the flock thing with Joel, and by the way, there's a slit update to that, which we can segue into right quick.
I said that he was pulled at gunpoint and handcuffed, neither of those are accurate.
He was surrounded by cop cars, he was got out of the car, and he was detained, but the guns were not drunk.
My bad, got the facts wrong, apologize, want to make sure that people have the right information.
Can't go back and change the episode retroactively, but for those regular listeners, that's how it goes around here.
My bad, but their flock did have a follow-up, Joel ended up getting folks from flock on the line.
Couple different ones actually, and I read his follow-up piece, and you should too, on the drive.
I think they're doing a thing over there, I think they keep changing the title of the same headline in order to make people think it's a new story, but it isn't.
Which is a thing that websites do, and I don't think Joel is doing that, it's not his problem.
They're using the same picture.
I'm looking at two different articles on the same site.
They basically, the representative from flock pretty much said, the system worked perfectly, it's that the cops inputted the data wrong.
Also, representatives were talking about how complicated it is, all these different license plate formats and all that.
Nobody ever brought up that given the fact that there were so many different license plate formats that there should be maybe extra training,
or maybe a higher level of scrutiny within flock to screen for potential accuracy against the police reports and whatever,
before nationwide alerts are sent out for plates.
No sense of really self-awareness there whatsoever, shocking, I tell you, from a tech company.
Very, very surprising.
Why not test while doing?
I was trying to find the quotes from the PR and the CEO because they were different.
And by the way, another journalist was stopped driving a Range Rover.
So the exact same thing they said was going to happen, happened.
So it was actually really surprising in this article that the person who was talking, I forget if it was a police person or a flock person,
where the person is talking about the irregular license plate formats and what a challenge it is to read them and report them.
And it's one thing for a regular person, you pick 100 people walking down the street and start asking them about irregular license plate formats.
And most of them are going to have absolutely no idea.
Oh yeah, the dealer ones, they look a little different or whatever, but that's not their job to know.
Of course, that would be hard.
If you're a fucking cop, if you're a cop that is responsible for inputting license plates into a system,
that's in your goddamn job description.
Well yeah, but I think, so Flock's PR response, this is from, what was that guy's name?
Josh Thomas.
So he said, quote, the way the machine learning works is it correctly read what it was supposed to read.
It was fed to those characters 3, 4 DTM and it spit out as a result with the characters 3, 4 DTM.
It was asked, can you find this?
And it did find that.
It just didn't say, if there's more here, then don't do it.
End quote.
So they didn't feed in the little letters in the middle or the characters in the middle.
The system didn't think to ask about those.
And then like, look, I'm not trying to blindly defend police officers, but if they were handed a piece of paper in a meeting that says, look for this car, the license plate is 3, 4 DTM.
And if Flock didn't say this might be a dealer tag, and if they don't know it's a dealer tag, then no one has the information until they're literally looking at it.
Now, the last line of defense would have been, if they see this car in the flock camera in their area and then the police pull up behind it and they go, wait, that says 3, 4, but there's some extra letters in the middle.
You know, now maybe they could have approached this investigation a little calmer instead of the four car swarm.
Exactly.
But basically, I'm saying if there's no photo evidence given to the officers, it was just text, which seems like it was also given to the flock camera, which is bad.
Yeah.
Like, there are numerous holes in the system where there need to be more places to input information.
Sure.
Yes.
And also more, it's the brain rot that comes with like the rest of the use of AI.
You just assume it's going to work correctly and then go full hard at whatever it spits out.
True.
Like, it's the same shit that happens with fucking dumb lawyers.
You know, you end up reading a legal brief that says like, Claude said or what, you know what I mean?
Or whatever the fuck in it, they're using AI because they, because it's easy, it makes you not have to think.
It does the hard work of decision making and thinking for you.
And, and it's pitched as this sort of super human intelligence, when in reality, it's a slick talking kind of shitty search engine.
Just like all the other fucking search engines are kind of shitty and full of the garbage inputs that are human garbage inputs.
But it repackages them as this sort of super intelligence that is way too easy to outsource your entire fucking brain to.
That sucks.
I mean, if you're going to like put people in a potential life or death situation, which Joel was not in a life or death situation,
but a cop suggested to him that if he was in a different city, he would have been in a life or death situation potentially.
If you're going to do, and we know that roadside stops are potentially life death situations.
More so depending on what you might look like or how you might be presenting yourself.
Random luck that they picked a dude who looks like Joel driving a fucking Range Rover this time.
But like, dude, there's got to be way more screwed.
And there's, I don't, I mean, I think the system appeared flock just sort of appeared.
Well, I don't want to say that it wasn't like voted into, but it seems like these kind of like crazy surveillance apparatuses just are sort of appearing without being like discussed or voted on first.
Yeah. And then, I mean, this PR person continued, this is from the article, quote, a human entered this into the system and a human didn't put enough information into the system.
The system made a read and the outcome was a problem, but the steps to get there were riddled with errors of human making mistakes and quote.
So that is a very clever way to blame humans, which, okay, fair, but what he's doing is not blaming the AI, system, not blaming flock.
It's like, see humans are the problem.
You're like, well, if, as we, as people have said for years now, if AI is only as good as the information that it is given, either given or or scrubs, then is it, it is not perfect.
And then is it not superior to a human because it doesn't have eyeballs that are good enough to notice the difference in these plates.
So then therefore, if the system is always flawed by the human input, then is it not going to be inherently flawed?
It is.
Right.
It is going to be majorly flawed.
My trainer, who I love, has a little fucking chatbot on his phone and he runs a lot of his life through it.
And the number of times I have heard this thing spit out straight garbage, it's like 50%.
50% of the time this dude tries to use this thing, it just spits out things that are not true and garbage.
I'm like, how often does this thing have to fuck up for you to decide that it's not a good idea?
Yeah, there's ways to use it.
And especially when, you know, this is a, flock is a system that all it's supposed to do is have cameras that look at stuff and send information.
You think, it's not trying to write a screenplay, it's not also trying to compose music.
Yeah.
And if it can't, you know, take visual data from its cameras, look at a license plate, which is a very simple legible thing.
You know, the ticket cameras use it like the fucking, you know, fast track, they use it.
If these can't just look at that and go, oh, this has extra letters, which could say FBI, they could say gov, they could say, you know, any of these other special plates that exist in this country.
Look, as someone who has received a ticket in the city of Los Angeles with a dealer plate that is formatted just like this, trust me, the camera can read it.
Right.
A good camera can read it.
A camera can read it.
It doesn't need a human, like a camera can tell what that plate says.
Like the, the, the, the software should have been able to tell the difference between these plates.
Yeah.
And if not a fucking human should have been able to look at the plate and go, guys, this format of license plate refers to up to 100 plates.
Those numbers go from 01 to 99.
You can get a hundred plates that look just like this.
Do you know how the plates go on different cars?
That's the point of the place.
Like, do you realize the net you're casting of people to fucking pull over when you do that math out?
Yeah.
It's crazy.
You know, if we're going to hand the responsibility to AI.
So, so Flock could say that the person who entered it, maybe their form has an area for these special characters and they didn't do it.
This person was lazy and was like, I'm not sure, you know, what 34 means or whatever.
I'll just enter this.
The flock camera should have seen what kind of plate it was and then spit back like, wait, we need to get this extra information.
Yeah.
That's very essential.
It's so silly.
So, and then in the last paragraph that you can see on the screen here, they all flowed all responsibility for the outcome of this to the cops.
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The quote says, an alert from one of its cameras does not equal probable cause.
It's like an alarm going off doesn't necessarily mean, doesn't mean that there's necessarily anything there.
So it's, they're trusting the cops to decide what to do when there's an alert on this.
Which is, I mean, ultimately that's probably partially right.
But if that's, but they're also taking no responsibility for the idea that their system essentially, if you input a small amount of garbage,
it effectively spreads mass disinformation to the police who are then put on a manhunt for this, for this.
Like that's the worst possible kind of disinformation. It's like mass swatting at random.
But it's sharing a headline without reading the article.
A number of times you go to Reddit and it's like, you know, the responses are, did anyone read the article?
It, you know, it is the opposite of what you think it is based on the headline.
That, I don't need to go to Reddit because that's when I post that I've written something for Road and Track, you know, on Instagram or something.
And just the head, you know, it's the headline of the article.
People respond to the headline of the article without reading it very quickly.
So the police did respond. Police Chief Fadden said there are 8,000 different license plate formats across the country.
A police officer can't be expected to be familiar with every single one.
See, I, so look, I agree. Here, how about this? How about this fucking Chief Fadden?
Let's have them familiar with the top five or six formats that are used.
Okay. Outside of your normal six digit plate. How about that? You don't need to know all 8,000.
But you see dealer, distributor, and manufacturer plates all fucking over the place.
Those are huge plate formats.
I think they might be huge in our world, but I don't know if they're huge.
Dealer, dealer, I bet, is the most common.
The dealer format is just like this. You've seen dealer plates, you've seen manufacturer plates.
They are the same. Just one says DLR on the bottom and one says MFR.
But those aren't, the MFR, those are not part of it.
It's the numbers, dun dun, vertical, vertical, they're the same.
It's like that is like the second most common license plate format other than like regular.
For real, that's commonly, commonly used.
I don't buy that excuse that you can't know every one. You can know the three or four biggest ones.
Again, I would have to Google what are the three or four biggest ones.
Because out here we've got, what are the Department of California or whatever.
There's no registration on it because it's clearly a government vehicle.
So it's like police cars have it and general city workers have it.
Like that's a format change. It's fewer numbers. So I don't know.
But what do they say? They said something else.
But I just don't buy that somebody who uses license plates in their work, the way that cops use license plates.
Think about how important license plate numbers are to a cop.
Yeah, they run here anytime they're behind you.
That's such an important part of your job, license plates to cops.
Imagine, like imagine you and I didn't know how to fucking put a GoPro into 4K.
You know what I mean? Like imagine we didn't know how to do some like real basic ass shit
that someone who does our job would have to do like multiple times a day every day.
Come on. Like that's such a bullshit excuse. That's, that's sad.
Well, I think they're saying, you know, they don't need to know it offhand, which I would agree with.
But they went on and said that if a police officer had entered 34 DTM without that extra number 10,
they would have caused the same problem without flock. That's true. I guess probably true.
But I imagine and I would hope that a police officer would see that extra number because their eyes are better than the flock camera.
And they would go, oh, this is a crucial piece of information.
And then it would come back with a specific car or something like that.
Yeah. But no, it's important we have technology with no guardrails.
Right.
Very important so that like 12 people can be so rich.
Yeah.
I'm so glad they're so rich though.
You know, it's very important.
But think about how it inspires me to maybe one day be that reckless to be that rich.
Think about the future absence of traffic, of traffic that won't happen because protests will be dissolved
because they can track you everywhere you go.
Right.
So you won't be inconvenienced.
Never.
Driving around on your way to buy things.
Which costs 25 times as much.
Right.
For no apparent reason.
Right.
Right.
So anyway, that's that.
Cars, Grand Sport and Bargo is today.
You drove a couple of them.
I drove a couple, but the Grand Sport and Bargo is today and I've been holding that in my pocket for a couple of weeks now
because I went to Idaho to drive it because I had a theory which I explore in my article for Road and Track
that you find good roads near dams.
And so I went to explore a few dams in the 2027 Corvette Grand Sport.
This has the new engine, 6.7 liters.
It's got an extra 500 cc's.
They don't like to say cc's because it's America.
Right.
This is a 409 is what they want.
That's what they want you talking about.
49 cubes.
I shit you not.
It says there's no replacement for displacement in the fucking marketing for this thing.
It's a big beefy fucking V8.
I'm pretty sure it is the largest displacement gasoline V8 on sale right now, I think.
I think 409 was a song and I think it was about a beefy engine that was in Impala's.
Something like that.
Yeah.
That's funny.
Remember this song from 70 years ago?
That's our marketing.
Well, this one was a very boomer color scheme with the white with the blue interior and the black wheels and the red stripes.
The interior was extremely blue.
Whoa.
Oh, wow.
Extremely blue.
But this photo illustrates really well why if you get a C8 Corvette, you under no circumstances should you get a light colored dash.
Because the windshield in this motherfucker is super reflective.
You can see even the blue is reflecting.
I can see the blue and I can also see the source of your hood.
Yeah, the surround and everything.
And if you get, we had one at one point, I forget which one it was, but it had a white interior and a white dashboard.
And I was just truly shocked that nobody stopped them from selling this because the entire dashboard is like driving into a softbox.
That was so crazy.
This looks like Tommy Hilfiger spec.
Yeah.
It's like slightly too light on the blue, but the white exterior, very blue interior everywhere.
Yeah, yeah.
Wow.
With a red stripe.
Everything blue.
Blue floor.
Blue seats.
Yeah.
But, okay.
But the new interior, which is across, you know, all the C8s with a bunch of buttons for things like the climate control and then the better, the better widescreen touchscreen.
And it doesn't have the wall of the wall.
The wall of Chastity anymore.
There's a guy who comes on.
No termos, no handjobs.
There's a guy who comes on our road and track events at Hazis, has had a series of Corvettes and definitely wrote an angry letter to somebody about the impossibility of roadhead in this car and how that interfered in his life.
I feel like there's two people I can guess who would write that.
Oh, man.
And, okay.
But so the story, you know, the Grand Sport is a, it's a Z06 chassis, right?
So it's a wide body chassis.
It's got the better shocks.
It's got, this one has the, it's steel brakes, but it's the upgraded steel brakes that you would get with a Z06.
You could also get ceramics if you want.
And it's, but with this new engine, the 6.7, 535 horsepower.
And that engine is now the base engine.
So you can actually, what's crazy, it's crazy that you can get this engine.
This engine's a fucking hot boy motor and you can get it in, you know, the base car, which is wild.
Also, if you show a rear view of the Karzac, you can get a center exit exhaust now.
It's optional, but it's like under 2000 bucks.
Wow.
And in, I believe, and it's hard because I didn't have a, the same, I don't have the 6.7 with the, with the dual and then with the center.
So I don't have a direct comparison, but I compared to that e-ray recently.
I really think that the center exhaust has a more like sort of even and exotic tone given the same engine.
Whereas the dual exhaust sounds a little more like truckie.
But I don't have exactly the same engine.
It could be the up, you know, there's other things it could be, but I did like the center exit.
I think it looks good.
Cool.
Yeah.
I also am a big fan now of these cars as convertibles with the power top.
I just think you put it up and down a lot more.
You use it a lot more when it's a power top and it also doesn't, your trunk is a little smaller,
but your trunk doesn't get taken out, you know, you don't lose the trunk space when you put the top down
because the top would go in the trunk if it was the target top.
Oh, right, right, right.
Right.
You know what I mean?
So we drove the, we drove the 06 without the, which was convertible, right?
And I was like, I'm not a convertible person, but if I can do hard top convertible with tiny compromise
and then I use, then I can just use it at my whim.
Like I'm a fan, especially with mid-engine supercars all day.
And it's also super nice to drive with the side windows down and the rear window goes down
in the convertible, whereas it doesn't in the coupe.
You just have the window into the engine bay.
So I think the convertible, yeah, holy blue, right?
I think the convertible is a good option across the range.
The engine, you know, the engine is Los Angeles TST Live is coming to you
and we are doing it huge because we're bringing along Richard Porter and Johnny Smith.
Smith and sniff is joining TST for a live collab podcast at the Irvine Improv August 18th, 8pm.
It's a big room.
So a bunch of you guys can come, parking's free and ticket start at just 40 bucks.
You guys come on down.
It's going to be an amazing hang.
TST with Smith and sniff live in Irvine August 18th.
Tickets at the link in bio while they last.
Folks, one more quick break for Evance.
Love these guys.
They've been supporting us for years now.
Evance is a great company made of great people.
We know them individually.
It's not done through an agency.
These are our homies.
Evance helps enthusiasts save money and enjoy their passion more.
It's actually very straightforward.
And the math does work because Evance members get sweet discounts and a nice quarterly print magazine.
I would pay for just the magazine itself.
We've known Adam from Evance a long time and he put me on the cover, I think, of one of their first issues.
And I've really enjoyed getting their magazine for a while.
But also here, get this math.
They help you save money on things that you're going to buy anyway, like tires, right?
And Evance member gets a 10% off discount at discount tire plus an additional 10% if you buy Michelin or BF Goodrich.
So if you were going to spend $1,500 on a set of pilot sports, you're going to save $300 just because you're an Evance member.
And it's only $99 a year to join.
So you're plus 200 if you get just the tires, right?
At $1,500, which easily sports car tires could be more than that.
And Evance will send you a $70 gift card to Griot's Garage when you sign up.
So you get the detailing, that way the membership literally pays for itself.
Plus the magazine, plus all kinds of cool regional events that Evance does around the country for their members.
I've been to a bunch of them, their Monterey Car Week party is a great time.
So you can go to Evance.com, A-V-A-N-T-S.com, slash T-S-T, and then use code T-S-T for 10% off.
So that's another 10% off your membership.
This thing is basically free.
In fact, it could potentially be money, mucho money saving for you.
Evance.com slash T-S-T, use code T-S-T for 10% off.
Thank you to Evance for sponsoring the pod.
The engine is great.
It's what you're expecting.
It's what you're thinking.
It's more power and torque than before.
It sounds angrier.
It's a really, really good sounding package.
And I drove this car right after I drove the new Ferrari 849 Testerosa Spider.
And it really made me realize how much you're getting by buying a fast Corvette.
The speed I was driving in these roads in Idaho, the speed I was driving on those roads in Tenerife,
in two different mid-engine cars, one of which has double the horsepower of the other one,
and all this hybrid shit, and all this extra crazy stuff, same speed.
You're going the same speed down the road.
And also the aluminum structure of the C8 Corvette and the aluminum strut.
I think the C8 was a little more rigid than the Ferrari 849.
Honestly, just by seat of pants, jiggle or lack thereof, the magnetic ride in this car is fabulous.
Huge amount of variable from soft to stiff.
It had radar cruise control that works really nicely.
I can't love the steering wheel.
My kingdom, that dude who's the GM engineer who races that car,
put the Cadillac black wing steering wheel in his, that's the game changer, is to have a round steering wheel.
But outside of that, I think the Grand Sport's a great looking car.
It's really, really fast.
So it's really funny about this car.
Listen to this, I have this written down, hang on.
So it's 535 horsepower, 520 torque.
Now the Z06 with the 5.5 liter flat plane crank, 670 horsepower, 460 torque.
So the Grand Sport makes 60 more torque than the Z06.
And it does it 3,000 RPM lower than the peak torque of the Z06, right?
But the peak horsepower, 535 of the Grand Sport is 6,100 RPM and the red line is 6,200 RPM and the red line is 6,500 RPM.
So as soon as the Grand Sport's big block fucking motor gives up, that's when the Z06 just gets going.
There's no overlap in power band.
That's amazing.
Isn't that crazy?
Yeah.
The peak torque and peak horsepower of these two cars don't overlap.
That's pretty crazy.
That's a nutty thing to think about, isn't it?
The Z06 red line is 8,600 RPM, so you've got 2,300 RPM of revs, which is fun.
That is a trick in itself and an enjoyable thing because the big block engines are amazing, but the red line is kind of low.
But this huge torque spread, I would be very interested to see how they do in a little quarter mile race between the two of them.
Somebody just ran a Grand Sport.
It might have been Savage Geese, I think, did a Grand Sport in the quarter mile.
It was like middle 11s.
I think it was not slow, but a Z06 is 10s.
OK.
Yeah, a Z06 in the quarter mile is quicker.
It's amazing.
Yeah.
I know horsepower is important, but this has way more torque and it starts making everything earlier.
Thought it might get going quicker.
I don't know, Z06 maybe has better tires.
Also, there's a ton, because I was talking to Alex at GM to get pricing and stuff like that.
The one I drove, which is a convertible, super interior, super carbon, super wing.
This is almost as loaded as you could get one of these.
You'd have to do some crazy paint to sample factory, tour, and check the stupid boxes to get one of these more expensive.
And this is 144,000.
It's almost maxed out.
It's a convertible.
I mean, it's got everything.
So you really would have to work to make one of these more expensive.
The price delta is $30,000 between this and an identically specced Z06.
So you can load one of these up and be $10,000 or $15,000 higher than the entry point of a Z06.
But if you load up a Z06, you can end up $20,000 or $30,000 higher than one of these.
So there's plenty of room in the middle for you to make a choice of, like if your budget is around $110,000, $120,000,
you're legitimately making a choice of which engine do I want, because I've got the same chassis, the same effectively everything else.
And even the same rear bumper, the same look.
I present as.
So you've got quite a lot of choices in the middle.
And so it's sort of like 911s where the temptation is GT3 because, because, because, because.
But in the real world, a turbocharged 911 will actually be a quicker car.
And my suspicion is in the real world up on the mountain, for most people that are not comfortable zinging their car to redline constantly,
the Grand Sport is going to feel like a much quicker car than the Z06 most of the time.
I think that's true. Yeah.
And you also can play the game when you're pricing it of, you know, do you want the higher end model stripped out?
Or do you want more features on the cheaper model?
Sure.
That's an important game to play too.
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, if it's, if it's me and my money, I think they've done such a good job with the Z06 engine.
I'd want that.
Like I just that, that to makes the Corvette really feel like an exotic car.
Yeah. And it separates it, you know, acoustically from Camaro, previous Corvettes, all, you know, basically trucks.
Yeah.
It just sounds special because it is.
It's rare.
This does a great job. If you did, if you did want a Corvette that sounded like Merica, which is like cool.
You know, if you wanted the muscle car thing and this with the center exhaust sounds more exotic than most Corvettes.
It's like, gets you, it gets you like this new engine with this exhaust.
It does get you halfway there, maybe.
You know, it sounds a little more refined, maybe like a little more like not an AMG, but like, like when like a 6-2 AMG, a little more like that, which is cool.
They can play so much with the exhaust pulsing with muffler designs and stuff, you know.
The valves do a lot of different stuff. It makes a whole bunch of different sounds at different throttle loads and different RPM and stuff like that.
They've done a great job with the gearbox. It's really beautifully responsive and it does exactly what it's told.
If you're like, especially because I drove this right after the Ferrari, this is such a user-friendly car.
The phone just, boom, car play right there.
Like everything, everything to drive it is in like the most obvious place possible.
Like everything about it is just the most obvious way that it would happen.
Let me think. Was there anything like not great about it?
I wish there was a little more lumbar support.
The Corvette isn't really the greatest car for tall people anymore.
You know, it used to be a really good car. I wish the seat was a little lower than it is.
It's not quite as low as I wanted and it has just a hint less room than I want.
Wrong car. But it is a very nice, you know, for the amount of money they're charging for these,
at any price, any model line, whatever they're charging is you're getting a fucking crazy amount of performance.
You are.
This car is so fast. The front end is really good.
Pretty talkative. I mean, I drove, it was Z51 package.
But like, you know, normal engine and I came out of that going, this is such a great track car performance car.
Also really comfortable on the highway with the MagRide and everything.
Like absolutely fantastic performance value.
Yeah. And in the corners, it had a ton of grip.
It really, you know, if you used like race one traction control, you could just get it just a tiny bit a little,
little bit of wheel spin coming out of some corners if you found yourself wanting to have a little fun.
When the camber and the road changed, it responded to that really nicely.
This spec, I think it rides just a hint softer than the Z06, which came kind of in handy for road trips.
The design of the rear wing with this particular, I didn't even have to use the digital rear view mirror.
I used the regular rear view mirror, the glass mirror, and I could see out the back, which I thought was nice.
Just a very user friendly car in general.
And then you click all the stuff over to the right and you're ripping.
I mean, this is a very fast car that it still has a beautiful wide torque band, but a naturally aspirated engine profile.
You know, especially coming down and I just, I don't want to crap on Ferrari more than I have to because the A49 is an amazing thing to drive.
But it just makes you wonder how necessary any of that stuff is for a road car.
I mean, I really, this is a regular, it's a naturally aspirated V8.
And it's got so much power already that it just, you really can't go any faster down the road.
Yeah, I mean, with Ferrari stuff has never been necessary, I guess, you know, there's always been stuff that's almost as quick.
And the only time you'll notice these hypercars is like from corner to corner, if you floored it, that's when all the systems would wake and you'd get to the next corner 0.05 faster than you would in the Corvette.
Yeah.
But if you're just, you know, most of us, like there's a cadence to Canyon driving, there's an RPM you tend to stay in with, there's only a certain amount of room between corners.
And I think torquey stuff is more beneficial for that.
And that's the cadence you get is really up to tire grip.
Mm-hmm.
So.
Yeah.
And like sanity.
Yeah, yeah, of course.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Every six-figure sports car is so capable today that it just becomes about, you know,
how on the edge you're willing to drive and how, you know, how far your morals are into fucking madness when it comes to this kind of stuff.
And hopefully they're not too far because that's where shit gets sketchy.
We don't want people dying out there.
But it's just such a huge amount of performance for what is, yes, it's over $100,000, but although it starts under $100,000, it starts at a coupe.
A Grand Sport Coupe is like high 80s.
So you can get into one of these for what I think is reasonable money given what you're doing.
How was the ride different than Z51s you've driven?
Because I think previous Grand Sports, amazing handling and everything, but they were always like a tiny bit stiffer because that was part of the objective.
It's been a long time since I drove a base Corvette, like a really long time.
Like that rental car you had that I drove for five minutes.
Oh, wow.
It was the last one.
Four years ago.
Yeah, it was a long time.
And since then, it's been Z06s and ZR1s and stuff.
So if I even attempted, I'd be lying or making it up.
I don't know.
What I can tell you is over, I landed in Spokane after a two-hour flight, no big deal, hopped in it, immediately drove four hours to the starting point of my event.
And it was a lovely drive.
Comfortable, stereo was good, just cruising.
And then did 325 miles of pure canyons as much as I could.
And it was a great day.
Put the top down and kept it there pretty much all day.
Just a beautiful thing.
And then I went out the next morning early at sunrise and ripped the roads again before anybody was out.
And when you really start to put, these cars are great when the road's not perfect.
Imperfect Tarmac Corvette is a really good tool to have.
You set the springs in soft, set the dampers in soft, and you can just take a really, really, really good pace over bumpy roads really nicely.
The car's pretty wide.
It is what it is.
So you're not great in these really narrow roads.
Like you might be in a Boxster or a smaller sports car.
But compared to the even wider stuff, like the Lambo or the...
Well, the Ferrari had very wide mirrors.
It wasn't that wide of a car, but the mirrors did stack out quite a way.
And also your antenna reef roads are really small.
But it's just a well-rounded thing.
Really nice thing.
It continues to be.
And I think it's neat that there's a lot of...
It was for C7, it was in C6 really, it became sort of the sweet spot, right?
Particularly C7 because the Z06s were overheating and the ZR1s were psychotic.
And it was almost like the Miata of Corvettes.
It was like beautiful handling and balance of power.
Here, because the chassis is capable of double the horsepower and then some,
the sweet spot quote is actually that area where it overlaps with the Z06.
Like that meat of it and where it's like, here's a great chassis.
Choose your engine power profile.
Both are well within the limits of what the chassis could do, no problem.
So it's a double sweet spot now, which is cool.
Yeah, very cool.
Yeah.
And all the options you can get on a Z06, really, carbon wheels or whatever,
you can get on a Grand Sport too.
So you could sort of...
Burger King, have it your way kind of thing.
You know what I mean?
So there will be a story written in Road and Track print that's coming out next month.
I think the story came out very nice.
Good.
Should we do Temurario as well?
You want to go right into that?
Or do you want to do something else?
Whatever you want.
You sent me two sets of pictures, so that's why I put them.
Yeah, I know.
But you have other stuff.
We can.
No, all right.
I have something very funny, but let's do Temurario first.
Let's also just quickly plug our live show.
August 18th at the Irvine Improv with Richard Porter and Johnny Smith.
Los Angeles.
The podcast.
We made it at 8 p.m. so you can fight through traffic.
There will be less traffic to get to it.
And tickets start at 40 bucks.
That's all.
Yeah, the downside of coming to Irvine is you have to go to Irvine.
The upside is almost everything else.
Free parking.
Yeah, free parking.
Go there, have dinner nearby, restaurants all over the place.
And then come to our show.
And also our Blazers that we collabed with the Grotto I'm wearing right now.
I love my fucking Blazer.
Watch this.
I'm going to take my hood out in real time without taking the jacket off.
Convert it to formal wear, not formal wear.
Kind of.
Semi formal wear.
I really love these things.
We're really proud of them.
The materials, the construction are absolutely first rate.
It's the kind of thing that you would honestly spend twice the price on.
It's like a garment for life.
It's not fast, fashiony, bullshit.
It's not a throwaway thing.
And Zach and I are very proud of it.
And Nick from the Grotto is really, really good at making suits.
This guy's been making suits for me for seven years now.
And he really impressed Roger Farah, who, my dad, who ran Ralph Lauren for 15 years with the quality and construction of his suits.
And we've been working with him ever since.
He's not let us down.
Look at that.
60 seconds.
Hood goes out.
And now I've got an evening wear.
Yep.
Right.
This is good.
You had a wardrobe change before Lamborghini.
Right.
Now I went from Corvette guy to Lamborghini guy.
Right.
You could do both with my blazer.
So we're selling these until August 6th.
The link is in our Instagram bio.
Get one.
And also August 20th is when our Porsche giveaway ends.
The 9-11 Turbo S modded by us Friday.
I guess by the time this podcast goes up, we'll have our new video up with the 9-11.
Where I demonstrate some of its capabilities.
And that is ending August 20th.
It's just a fucking amazing car.
And it comes with a whole bunch of money to offset some of those taxes that you're going to get if you win it.
But it's a $275,000 car that's been modded by us.
And also, we farted in it a couple times.
Yeah, that's true.
Adds value.
We did not sign the dashboard or do anything that like loser-ish.
We should have signed under the hood.
If the winner wants us to do that.
If the winner wants us to do that, we'll fly to Florida to sign under the hood.
Because that's where the car is right now at the Dream Giveaways headquarters.
We didn't get to keep it.
They didn't trust us.
For a full year.
They were like, you put how many miles on it?
We were like, not that many.
And they were like, we'll take it back now.
Thank you.
Shall we talk a Lamborghini?
Yes.
Temarario.
What a good color.
Looks great in this matte.
I think it's Mauritius Matte Blue is the color.
Really awesome.
This is the replacement for the Huracan.
I drove it last year at Performance Car of the Year.
And it's a comparison test with a race track and a whole bunch of cars.
Super important.
Having one at home for five or six days to actually just use the car.
Also super important.
Because I learned a whole lot more.
This car is a fucking ripper.
You know, I was talking about just a minute ago about the Grand Sport Corvette and how
it goes as fast as one can go on the street.
That is basically true.
However, in the middle of the night, should you find somewhere safe enough and remote
enough?
Well, not necessarily in the middle of the night.
But should you find somewhere absolutely safe enough?
Yeah, you're not up in the middle of the night.
I wasn't once or twice.
But should you find yourself somewhere safe enough?
The Temerario is 907 horsepower and it revs to 10,000 RPMs.
This car is a fucking ballistic missile.
It is so fast.
I can't believe even though it's a Lamborghini and no one is expecting a Lamborghini to
not be very fast.
It's like 50% more powerful than the car it's replacing.
40% even more powerful than even the most powerful variant of the Huracan.
This car is so fucking fast.
Imagine a McLaren 750 with full traction from zero.
It's pulling less power.
That's what I'm talking about.
McLaren 750s are great for me because they're psychotic.
You can cruise around and they're very comfortable, but then you can ride a bull.
Can you fucking tame this motherfucker?
It'll do what you tell it, but also you can spin the tires up to 100 miles an hour so
you best know what you're doing because it will.
This is that, but no wheel spin.
Just forward and good.
Wow.
There's a lot of RPMs in between I'm going very fast now and 10.
Like the point at which you are riding an Acme rocket is about six.
And in fourth or fifth gear, six to 10 is like four or five seconds.
And they are a long four or five seconds.
And wherever the fuck you were, you ain't there anymore.
You're way down there now.
The world gets very small very quickly in this car.
It's like the Gunther Turbo.
Like it pulls like over a hundred.
Because even when we did Performance Car of the Year, what do you call it?
Thunder Hill West.
I don't even think you're getting to the top of fourth gear in the Temerario.
I saw the top of fifth and my god.
It's real fast.
Wait until you see the speed at which people crash these things.
When someone has a crash in one of these, it's going to be at like 160 miles an hour.
They're going to have enormous crashes in these cars.
They are so fast.
Okay, so that's that.
You're going to have to trust me on this.
Like I used to tell people that it was guaranteed that any McLaren you put somebody in would be the fastest car they've ever been in.
This might actually beat some of them.
Sorry, I'm looking up like peak torque, peak power, all that stuff.
It's up there.
So you've got a tri-motor hybrid.
You've got a V8, flat-plane V8 that revs to 10,000 RPM.
That's all very cool shit, right?
And I don't think the V10 was a sacred cow.
Like V10 was what Lamborghini was doing for the last like 20 years.
But before that, they did both V12s and V8s.
What did you just make a face with?
The engine's peak torque of 538 pound-feet happens from 4,000 to 7,000 RPM.
That's pretty, that's meaty.
And then peak power, you know, I want to look at that handoff.
Peak power is probably like nine.
Right, so you have this crazy punch at four grand.
And then as you hit, you know, probably six or seven, now you're getting that handoff heading towards peak power.
So I think what's shocking if people haven't driven these, if you've ever driven anything with like 400 horsepower,
the feeling you get in second and third gear of acceleration where you go, whoa, this is a fast car.
Imagine that happening in fourth and fifth gear.
And therefore you understand that the speed you're beginning at in fourth gear is probably quite high.
And it accelerates the way you accelerate in second.
Yeah.
And that's when it's wild.
So he, my nephew Cole was in town and I took him out for this in this thing last night.
He wants to be a car photographer.
Let's plug his Instagram.
His plug, his Instagram is, okay, his car Instagram is money shot with three T's at the end of it.
I don't, he just told me it this morning, so I probably don't follow it yet.
I didn't even know until this morning.
M-O-N-E-Y-S-H-O-T-T-T.
Oh, that ain't right.
I don't think that's right.
I'll start here.
Okay.
M-O-N-E-Y.
S-H-O-T-T-T.
Yeah, that's him.
All right.
That's, that's my cousin.
He's 17.
He's a minor B fucking nice people.
But if you want to see him take pictures of cars, give him a follow for your boy here.
But he, I took him out to do a shoot with the Lambo last night.
He had a good time.
But I, so I rip it on the highway like fourth gear.
And he was like, that was crazy.
But also like, why, how were you in one gear for so long?
And that's how I got to the conversation we just had.
But then I was like, you don't understand that was fourth gear.
This, this edge goes to Ted.
Let me, I know we went over behind the airport by our old house.
And I was like, this car launches like a lucid.
Like it's that.
It's, it's a gas car that launches and goes like an electric car.
And when I tell you things fucking flew out of his pocket and stuck to the back wall of the car.
Like this fuck, this motherfucker launches like, like real.
We haven't tried a ZR1X yet, but it launches like no gasoline car.
I've, I've been cool.
It, it's really something special.
I'd love to line one up in a drag race with a, with a new turbo S hybrid, this and a ZR1X.
But this thing is, this is a fucking missile.
This car.
You should get those cars.
Let's borrow Willow Springs.
So, and then, and then dynamically the steering is very light.
You have very little feeling of the, through the steering, but you can feel the road and
what's happening with weight transfer through your ass.
And the, the ride is beautiful.
It's got fucking high voltage shock controllers.
Like the 911 Turbo S hybrid does.
So the, it's, so it's not hydraulic.
It's, it's a traditional thing, but it has much more computing power and processing power to make those adjustments.
So it just, the ride is, is fabulous.
And then because it doesn't have a front prop shaft, it doesn't have a front mechanical differential.
It's EV.
You have a cabin that is extremely comfortable.
Dude, the amount of space in this car, I can't believe it.
Tall people, your, your mid-engine car is here.
If you're fucking 66 this is your car.
And that was true with like the RAV10.
I mean, they, they had a pretty good packaging, but.
The new Temurario has more room inside than the old R8.
That's, that's the amount of improvement that we've got.
Check out the cup holder from my Boxster.
Lamborghini has resurrected the Boxster cup holder.
With a little arrow in you.
I love that.
I love this cup holder.
It just pops out of a very small orifice.
Yeah.
Uh, it like right in the dash, it's just super compact, but I remember being very, very effective.
Yeah.
And you can adjust it for like red bull cans, regular soda cans, one of the smartest dimensions.
Porsche got rid of it.
Lamborghini brought it back.
Yep.
Yep.
So, and then also, you know, your rear tires are mostly uncovered.
Yeah.
I would have, you know, when we drove for Peacody and we smashed all the windshields from cars
driving behind it, I was like, they got to put mudflaps or something on this.
They're not just going to sell that like that, but they are.
And it looks crazy.
Hmm.
It looks much better in this more dark color because there's a lot of bits on this car
that are either dry carbon or just black.
And in the, when the car is a bright color, it really becomes two tone and the other color
is just black.
And so with this dark blue, I think the black, even though blue and black are typically
clashy colors in fashion, in this car, I actually think because it's a specific blue, it's muted
in a specific way.
The black is a certain type of black that's almost more gray than it is black.
I think it actually really works beautifully in this color combination.
Yeah.
This looks awesome.
All right.
So can I tell you some bad things?
There's a few bad things.
Can I just tell you real quick about the California laws for mudflaps?
Yeah.
Standard passenger cars and pickup trucks are typically exempt, provided the vehicle body
or standard factory fenders adequately cover the tire tread and minimize road spray, which
these, well, I wonder, I wonder if the dealership gives you some little flaps that like, like
this tab right here.
That seems like that's a place you could put something unless it's a parking sensor.
I think it's a parking sensor.
So I don't know if they give you a little.
It would be funny if they just come in the trunk.
Flaps in your glove box.
Yeah.
And they go, if you get pulled over, put these on.
Yeah.
That's funny.
All right.
So some bad things about this car.
Okay.
One, the engine at low RPM doesn't sound very good.
It sounds pretty agricultural to the, maybe even, maybe even like, not quite diesel-y,
but just, just not, just very meh until you're up in the RPMs.
When you're in the cabin or behind the car?
I've never really been behind the car, but certainly in the cabin.
You're probably hanging a lot of the direct injection and shit.
Yeah.
You hear mechanical stuff.
You don't hear a lot of exhaust.
You don't, it just, it doesn't, and it's not a great sound.
Like the V10 was a very sonorous engine and this at low RPM is not.
At higher RPM, it does sound a little more like a McLaren.
At low RPM, a McLaren sounds much more interesting and throaty than this sound.
This is like a McLaren that's just like, had all the exhaust sounds taken out of it.
Okay.
So it doesn't sound that great.
Also there's no like individual drive mode where you can just set your preferred chassis
gearbox, but, but the settings in one place.
And the settings that there are are never quite right.
Like what at performance car of the year, the first time I ever drove this car was on
a track.
So it was like, get in it, Corsa mode, like just go and at that activity in Corsa mode,
it was fine.
No notes.
Better than fine.
It was awesome.
It was awesome.
Trash control off, doing slides.
Also awesome.
Great.
Then I drove it in a sporting manner with where I just put it into sport mode and shifted
manually and I found it to be pretty delightful.
I put it in, in, in sport mode and strata mode, found it to be delightful, but I was doing
canyon driving, right?
Pure canyon driving.
Now I was using it as a car.
Last four days, I've used it as my car.
I did a bunch of highway miles, I hit the canyons, I got stuck in a bunch of traffic,
I ran errands with it.
It was my everything car for this week.
I drove it almost 400 miles in three days, believe it or not.
So driving it just around, like there's the EV mode.
Now in EV mode, you can go about four miles.
I could commute from my house to here and back in full electric.
And in fact, the one time I did that, it was better than starting the engine cold and just
turning it right away off, but so there's that.
But EV mode is front wheel drive and EV mode is not much power.
And so to drive a car that looks like this and feels like this in EV mode with the acceleration
of the power, with dog shit acceleration is just so silly.
And because it's not that loud, there's no, it's like, you know, the Corvette E-Ray, I
understand, because you start that fucking LS6, you know what I mean?
Like that shit wastes the neighborhood.
My neighbor, my neighbor, Seema Dave, shout out to Seema Dave and his C806.
I'm 123, three houses up from him.
I know when he leaves.
I know when he comes home.
Shout out to him.
But like this leave the neighborhood quietly is for them.
This car is too quiet to have a leave the neighborhood quietly.
The EV mode is dumb, but every time you start the car, it's in EV mode.
And in fact, the next mode, which is street strata is full hybrid with a fairly aggressive
start-stop program that cannot be defeated.
Okay, but strata also has the smooth gearbox program, so it will shift beautifully smoothly.
And in fact, most of the time you really do want to be the mode I really wanted that
doesn't exist is strata, but where the engine just stays on.
It doesn't exist.
You are stuck with straw.
If you want the smooth gear changes, you're stuck with an engine that will shut off as
soon as you come to a stop.
And you can't go into the thing like in, you know, BMWs and whatnot.
The way to get out of that is to go into sport mode.
In sport mode, the engine will stay on all the time.
Okay.
And then you can manually put the shocks into soft.
So you can have the sport problem mostly solved, right?
Except sport has Lamborghini's most aggressive clutch kick program.
So every shift automatic or manual is boom.
Wow.
Despite having comfortable shocks.
In fact, if you then go to Corsa, it smooths it out again.
But it turns off your ESC.
It makes the throttle mapping the most aggressive.
And then you have to go back and you can only dial the shocks back to sport instead
of the soft.
So you actually cannot get to the mode I want, which is smooth shifts, you know,
get engine on soft shocks.
And I found myself fiddling with the modes all the time and never really being
satisfied.
So in the canyons most of the time, I actually found myself using Strada because
the engine stays on as long as you're moving.
It only turns off when you're, when you come off.
It's not like a Prius.
If you're moving, it's pretty much on.
But when you go, when you're stopped, it cuts off.
When you go to move again, it's EV until the middle of second gear.
So the engine's been on, you've been driving, you have a certain response, blah,
blah, blah.
Now pulling away from the light, it's, you know, like they do pulling out of the pits
in Le Mans.
Right, right, right.
But if you try to pull out of the light quickly with a bunch of gas, when it fires the engine,
otherwise you use normal gas and it's like, and then you have wait till the middle of
second gear.
And so it, like there isn't, and so now it's like you got to put it into sport just so
the engine doesn't die at the light so you can pull away normally, kick, kick, all right,
back to street.
And so I'm flipping the fucking thing just constantly.
And so I have a theory, and I may write about this from my, I talked to Mitch McKee at M
Engineering.
Of course, hypothetically speaking, I said, given that every one of these new cars has
these regulations that force it into these dumb modes, but they're so fucking insanely
fast that only a true lunatic would want more power than this is the future of your job,
like un-governmenting this fucking thing so that it just stays in the mode that the engineer
is probably intended for it to be in in the first place and just drives like a normal
fucking car.
Yeah.
Because like when it drives like a quote hybrid, it sucks with engine on, engine off, and like
it sucks.
But when it drives, when it drives just with the engine being on and the motors assisting
and filling in the gaps of a, that exists with a 10,000 RPM motor, helping to
fill in that torque, helping to improve the handling.
Then it's like, dude, this is the absolute titties this car.
It's amazing.
But you just like, I just could never get it into the right mode for the right thing
unless the thing was going really, really fast.
It's kind of surprising they don't do that these days because even like you get a charger,
a hel- I mean there's so many cars that offer you the control of what do you want your powertrain
to be at, your transmission, and your suspension.
And obviously this has all that control anyway, but they just decided they're here.
It gives you like a hint of it.
Like, so for instance, there's like City, which is EV, Strada, Sport, Corsa, and then
full off, full off, right?
That's on one side.
And then also you can, it offers you hybrid recharge or performance, right?
Hybrid is the default.
Recharge is if you deplete the battery, you click to recharge.
It fires the engine, it refires.
But performance is only available if you're in Sport or Corsa.
It's not available from Strada.
So they're just, it's missing that mode that's drive normal, but keep the engine on, please.
So it'll do OTA update or something.
Yeah, it would be like, given that like both Porsche and Audi, and I think even Volkswagen,
and certainly Bentley, every other VAG product offers an individual drive mode setting, right?
In their performance cars.
All the other ones do.
This one doesn't.
That's weird.
And I spent a long time looking for it.
That's weird, but like, dude, when you're going, this car is a fucking screamer.
It's crazy.
Yeah, 907 horsepower.
It's crazy.
The grapes, the grapes, the brakes are a little grabby going into hairpins.
The brakes are designed to haul you down from 160.
When you step on them hard at 40, your glasses fly off and hit the windshield.
They're a little grabby and they got a little squeaky when they got dusty.
Also my phone did not want to connect to Bluetooth properly, although it worked fine
over carplay with the USB cable and the press car guy said, oh yeah, we've been having issues
with that.
It's like a software hiccup.
So, okay, but in general, a very nice thing to use, you know, considering considering
the extreme level of performance talking about, which is truly, truly extreme.
It is easy as pie to use as a fucking wild as a daily driver car.
You know.
Yeah, I mean, nothing, the only car that made this power, what, 20 years ago was like Veyron.
And that had, I guess that was also fairly easy to use, but outside of that, you know,
it was going to be a custom built twin turbocharged 4GT or some other kind of, you know, Franken
monster until all the technology caught up with it.
Yeah.
I mean, just think of what it used to take to have a nine second car.
That was not.
It was like Hennessy Venom stuff, you know, and that was not something that was easy to
drive around.
I mean, it was the intuitive to operate because it was simple, but it was intense.
Yeah, yeah.
No, this, you can, all the features.
You can putter.
Yeah.
You can easily putter.
Yeah, but I really do wish that there was a mode that I could use most of the time that
just was like normal car mode because that would make, that would take it from an 8.6
to a 9.6 if I had that.
But I mean, I think they've really figured out how to make a hybrid car go fucking insanely
fast.
Yeah.
This is the entry level car.
In terms of the numbers and the layout, and it's very close to like a 918, actually.
Yeah.
Yeah.
That makes sense.
Yeah.
Which is a wide, you know, 10 years ago, that would have been deep into hypercar.
So it's fucking crazy, really, really crazy car.
And this, you know, there's obviously going to be the Performante and the whatever the
fuck they go with from here.
My God, imagine a Storato of this.
A Storato of this would be just bananas.
You know, I hope the hybrid system doesn't turn out to be a pain in the dick.
I hope it, you know, you know, I, yeah, exactly.
We don't know.
I don't know.
I don't know.
I don't know.
Yeah.
I hope it all works really well and that these, you know, become great value on the used market
and eventually, you know, entry level car for 200 grand is 900 horsepower.
Yeah.
Yeah.
But thanks to Lambo for letting me have a go.
There is not a video because, because today, well, honestly, there was going to be a video,
but then my whole week got fucked up.
I was going to film it on Tuesday.
My whole week got fucked up because we got stranded in New York and that's why there's
no video.
And I had a whole lot more important things to do business-wise this week, but I figured
I would give you guys a thorough talking to about it and that would be good.
And I might write about this for Road and Track as well because it's all these cars.
All these cars, you know, you're paying all this money for this amazing experience.
And, you know, a well-intentioned government is putting these limitations on how these
cars are have to operate for reasons that, I mean, make such a small difference in the
real world.
I just see it, I see an aftermarket opportunity for someone who can go look for whatever, $2,000.
I want this car to start in this mode, you know, and just be in this mode.
But it's still surprising that Lambo doesn't have the individual mode because so many other
cars have that.
So you can at least set it the way you want.
Maybe you have to put it in that mode every time you start the car, which is something
someone like Mitch could program out.
But it's interesting that, you know, there are cars that have too much adjustability.
Hyundai, their end division, like sometimes it gets a little busy or BMWs, but, you know,
when it's absent, we do miss it, especially as there's more systems interacting that can
change how the car operates, like from a stoplight.
And what's so interesting is, like, go back to the photo of the interior of the car.
When you pull up the gauges there, so when you pull up, if you just zoom in a little
bit on the middle screen, when you go to the different drive modes, you see this vehicle
there.
When you go to the different drive modes, it switches between, from vehicle, it shows
you, you know, sport, Corsa, whatever, right?
The car changes color and blah, blah, blah.
And then there's a little menu thing with three lines, and you can click on that.
And it pulls up a whole list of attributes of that drive program, chassis, gearbox,
this, that, that, blah, blah, blah.
One would think that you then click on it, and it says, you know, Gearbox 2, chassis
4, blah, blah, blah, and you think you could click on that, and it would open up a menu
that you could then change those things within there.
But they don't.
No, it's just showing you.
It's just showing you that in race mode, it's there, and in drive mode, it's here.
But then you can't change them.
They should be able to change them.
So, yeah, so that's that.
Um, but, you know, Lamborghini continues to make cars with very extreme performance
but that are increasingly usable as everyday cars.
I think it looks cool, too.
It does.
This one looks better than the one we had at Peacody.
The one at Peacody we had was like a bright green, and with all the black on it, to me
it didn't look as good, and I was like, all right, I need to see some different colors.
This one totally works.
I'm in.
Fully in.
Um, so let me tell you a funny story.
I, uh, just the thing I saw.
I went over to Marina Bay Watch Company, shout out to him, Mike and the boy, so Mike owns
the store.
His nephew started working there about two years ago.
His name is Mike also, Mike and Mike, okay.
They hire a fucking new guy.
I met him yesterday.
What's your name?
Mike.
I was three mikes over there now.
I go, all right, well, this is going to be easy.
Tell my audience, come in here, you ask for Mike.
Mike's senior is just hiring his own legacy.
Yeah, he's just trying to make it easy.
So Mike, Mike and Mike over there.
And I go in there and I had just picked up a watch that they were servicing for me because
I'm going to sell it.
I'm going to do an Instagram watch dump stuff.
I have a mourn for six months, four or five pieces, along with a big lot of like straps
and stuff that I have just got to clear out because I'm not going to use.
So you'll be able to buy some of my watches on Instagram and one with a fresh service
from Marina Bay Watch Company.
But as I'm there, bullshitting with Mike, Hannah's there too.
A guy comes in and he has a hue blow and he asks Mike to authenticate it for him.
And Mike looks at it kind of side-eyed and sort of glances his eyes at me.
And they take the back off it and there's a fucking seco man in the back.
And he tells the guy like, look, man, I'm sorry, but like this is not, you know, genuine.
And this guy's like, fuck, man, like I just bought this thing.
And he's like, well, you need to go back.
And we hear he bought it off of Facebook Marketplace, a guy on the street.
He paid, he met the guy on the street.
He goes, he pulled up in a Porsche.
I go, well, what did you, you know, what did you pay him for this watch?
He goes, 5500
I go, well, you scam four or five people.
That's how you get a Porsche fucking selling, you know.
So I just watched this guy learn that he lit my, I mean, and I saw this watch.
Bro, this guy, this guy was a fool.
That sucks.
Buying this, even on the outside, it looked at sus, dude.
And so just I need to tell everybody out there.
If you're going to buy a watch in cash from a person,
you got to meet that person at a watch store
that you trust and have them open the watch and tell you that shit is real.
And if the seller won't do that, don't buy it from him.
Let someone else, maybe you miss out on the deal of the century.
Probably not.
There's no such thing as the deal of the century.
Yeah.
The deal of the century is you're buying some fake shit
because you tried to save a dollar.
Yeah.
Like that's this and this guy, this poor fucking bastard is like,
could do I file a police report?
I go, you think you're going to find that person now?
Get the fuck out of here, dude.
That person's gone.
I mean, I don't think the police will do anything, right?
No, I'm not sure there's any legal recourse to selling someone a fake.
Something like that.
That's dude, there's laws on that.
If you're a dealer, if you're a human, buy or be rare.
Yeah, you could sell someone bullshit on cars all the time.
There's no resource for.
But he told me it fucking didn't have a.
The only way you find that person is the next time they put up a watch for sale,
you go, oh, man, I love this Hublot.
Yeah, I want to get this one too.
That's what Mike, that's what Mikey said.
Mikey said, wait for this guy to list something else
and pretend to buy it and fucking roll up on him.
I was like, all right, not advocating crime or violence.
That's what's up.
Sorry, Mikey's strapped.
So he's doing that.
I mean, that's not how laws work.
So I'm just saying, that's how you could find the person.
Yes.
Now, what you do to to return that watch.
Sure.
That's between you and the proprietor.
Yeah, what you do then.
But yeah, so that was funny.
So we go to the people.
Yeah, they got a lot to say this week.
People, of course, represented by patreon.com slash the Smogantire podcast.
It's where you get the live stream.
It's where you ask us questions for the show.
It's where you get extra show each month.
It's where you get the show without ads at a certain tier.
It's where you get access to exclusive, early access, excuse me, and sometimes
totally exclusive access to collabs that we do with high grade
manufactured products.
I, by the way, remember, I told you about the little size snafu on the thing.
Four more weeks to get the correct size.
So we're doing a collab, another collab with tactile turn pens.
I've been carrying this smaller slimmer pen for like a year.
They sent it to me as a sample like a year ago, and I found it in a drawer and
I was like, holy shit, I actually love this.
It's brass.
It's gotten a really nice patina on it, and we're going to do a Smogantire
edition of it that we're going to be selling to you.
Early access for patrons.
I love this pen.
I've been using it so much.
It's great.
Let's talk to the people.
Edward Shifterhand says, I've noticed economy cars looking more sporty and
aggressive, and I don't like it.
What do you think?
Do sharp lines help or hurt economy cars?
See the new Nissan Sentra as an example.
I'm not surprised that making a car look aggressive and sporty is a marketing
tactic.
I think they've always done that.
It's just that our definition of what aggressive and sporty is has sort of
changed, but please see the 1992 Plymouth laser.
That's true, you know, or the Plymouth acclaim sport or whatever.
Yeah, I mean, I don't think the new Sentra looks great.
I don't love the Nissan mouth that they're doing.
They sort of joke the John Wayne, Casey Clown mouth.
Yeah, very true.
They saw what Lexus has been doing and they were like, we can expand on that.
Literally.
Yeah.
Yeah.
They also don't like the I black roof that terminates all the
way at the trunk, but whatever.
It's a Sentra.
Yeah.
Not exactly for me.
I don't love it, but, you know, if they go too friendly, the other way it can be
weird.
Soft Ioniq six.
That's a little too guppy.
Yeah.
Two fishy.
These are weird too.
Yeah.
Although too friendly, like the Honda, the little Honda E, the Jimny, Jimny's
boxy, but friendly.
I think, but I think it's like if it looks mid mod, you know, yeah, then,
then it gets away with it because it looks so friendly.
It's like, or that new, what's it called, like the Tipolino or thing?
Like, no, yeah, that's so friendly that it looks like, you know, it reminds
people of small dogs, but if you go soft and round EQS, like that, that looks
weak, I guess, you know, and I, I do think that's how our brains work.
And a lot of cars have gone edgy.
Like Toyota was doing it for a long time with the trucks and now that design
language is just trickling down to the most entry level econ, econo boxes there
are, there was, you know, Germany had a period of handsomeness, you know, I
think the, the early nineties in Germany kind of handsomeness ruled early to
mid nineties.
Hmm.
But yeah, when, when an economy car is too aggressive, it can be weird unless
it's like a Integra type R or something, you know, unless it's backed up by
performance.
Yes.
Very true.
Right.
Yeah.
Shout out to Cleetus's ultimate SCR.
Right.
Get the cheer car out there.
Right.
Yeah.
He's like, you know, it's funny.
It's like, he's like, he, he really has mastered the redneck, you know, the rich
guy, redneck, 11 upsmanship, you know what I mean?
Like he's doing grimy shit, but he can afford the SCR.
You can't swap in a good diff into a stock ultimate.
So he knows what's going to happen in his car and he's buying the good one anyway.
That's a good point.
That's what I mean.
And he still got crashed out.
I don't know how.
Yeah.
Oh, the car didn't make it.
No.
First world problem, Britt, my current fun cars are a Boxster GTS 40 PDK, a low
mileage, 1989, oh, an 89, 930.
That's the shit.
That's a G 50 car.
A 930 with a G 50 is glorious, especially if you have like a little bit like a hot
fucking turbo, a little bit, a little bit of exhaust, modern tires, modern tires and
an intercooler and that motherfucker will shoot fire like this and it will be so fast.
And a Ferrari F 12 is for considering early retirement.
But if I do, I need to reduce my costs a bit.
I love all these cars, but if I could condense the experience of these three
cars into two cars, I'd save quite a bit in maintenance.
I live in the UK and mostly use the cars for road trips in France, Spain and
Italy.
God damn, are you awesome?
Yeah.
Let's do the rules.
And this is a tough fuck.
Mary kill.
It really is.
Here's the thing.
Okay.
Fuck, this is a really hard one.
Turn three into two.
Like there's no replacement for any of these cars.
Yeah.
I can't believe I'm saying this.
I'd probably get rid of the Boxster and just keep the other two and 89, 930 is
really special and it's not that it's, it's not cheap to run, but low, low
mileage though, it's, I mean, I would just, I would just put miles on those
dude.
I would put miles on the 930 and the F 12 for me, the F 12 obviously sounds
amazing and it's a great long legged GT car.
I mean, that, that is just like a classic.
I think they're gorgeous.
They're fun.
They're fast, better looking than the eight, 12 in my opinion.
And, uh, you know, if you have to keep a Porsche, I guess, keep the one where
it kind of all began, go with the 89 and then just live without the Boxster.
You know, it's like, it's a nice car and it's a modern car, but the F 12 gives
you some of that.
You can use some plastic paddle selling the Boxster would you could pay for
maintenance for the other two cars for like 20 years with, by selling the
Boxster, especially if like, if that 930 doesn't need a top end rebuild or
doesn't need one of those big ticket items really soon, then you're probably
like, good, man, I, I, it's tough cause miles are going to feel expensive on
that 930, but if you're living, if you're, if you're fucking living, put
miles on it a couple of weeks a year road trip around Spain on 930.
God damn is that awesome.
Yeah.
And unless the F 12 is costing you money and causing too many problems, and
then you, then I would get rid of that and keep, uh, that's hard.
I can't get rid of the F 12.
What am I saying?
If owning a 12 cylinder Ferrari is good, is a very good thing.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Man, tough, tough question.
Adas in a Subaru and got an STI.
Uh, I'm looking at a first gen M Roadster versus a 2008 Vantage Roadster, uh,
with an auto LA area.
I work remotely and this is a one car solution, less than 10 K miles a year
consisting of trips between a Woodland Hills and Malibu local errands.
Okay.
So you're not going to be sitting in that much traffic is what you're saying.
What are your thoughts?
And is the sports shift transmission in the Vantage really that terrible?
It's pretty terrible.
Bless you.
It's pretty, it's pretty terrible.
Yeah.
It's not like worse than what other exotic car manufacturers were doing at that time.
Like it's the same as like the single clutch in a Ferrari or the single clutch
in a Lambo, which is like pretty shitty.
But I mean, but are they going to get M Roadster with a manual?
I'd rather they only come with a minute of that.
I've only driven one of them.
Um, I would rather have that because I just think the Vantage Roadster, the
Roadster will sound amazing or sorry, the Aston will.
And then it's going to be like, and just, it just ruins so much of the, of a,
for a car to me that look, it looks agile, fast, exciting.
It has, it looks like all the pieces and it sounds like all the pieces.
And then to drive it and have it just slowly shift this shit with this
complicated system, I'd be over it so quick.
Yeah.
It's like buying an automatic Mustang of the time, honestly.
It's just not, it's so not your dream car at that point.
Yeah.
I just, I would, if you really can't spend the extra money for the manual, I
would look at a Jaguar F type with a manual instead.
Like a 2017 F type coupe manual is like a great one.
Is like a 35 or $40,000 car.
And that's way better than an 08 Vantage auto.
Yeah.
And they look fantastic.
They look dope.
Yeah.
Murray Long, last name, Ahoy from a ship off Catalina.
What up, buddy?
If you were to build a soft rotor, what would you start with?
My great grandma isn't allowed to drive anymore.
So her 2008 RAV4 and 99 RX 300 are up for grabs in the family.
Well, the RAV4, you know, this is not the cool Papadakis RAV4.
No, it's the one after it.
Yeah, that's the blob ish.
That one's not great.
I mean, there's nothing wrong with it, but it's not exciting.
So a first gen RX 300, which is a 99 at least does have some character.
Yeah.
And that was from the period where Lexus really was still on it.
Lexus quality really peaked in about 05 and went downhill from there.
So if it was an 03 RX 300, that would be even better.
But a 99 is pretty good.
Yeah.
And that's pretty indestructible, indestructible.
And I would definitely take that RX 300.
Definitely.
I think they look pretty good.
I would want to start with the 03 RX 300, which my mom had and it was the best
one that she had.
GrindMyGears said, do you think a small used car salespeople in 2026 still deserve
the reputation of being shady and untrustworthy?
I believe used car dealers in the past fairly earned that reputation.
But have they cleaned up their act as of late?
I don't think so at all.
If you follow mechanic advice on Reddit, there are plenty of people who say, I
just bought this thing a month ago and there's metal in the oil.
And they're like, I bought it from a used lot.
So look, it's not a blanket statement.
Like there's going to be good car dealers, there's going to be bad ones.
And a lot of the bad ones now will roll people into loans they shouldn't.
There's a lot of the predatory lending we've talked about.
Yeah, there's bad people everywhere.
Yeah, it became, you know, I think it used to be easier to hide problems in a
car's history before car facts and those type of services, right?
That used to be harder to, so there's, there's still scams.
They're just like evolved scams.
You know, now it's these crazy upside down financing deals or, you know, they've
got trackers in your fucking car and you miss a payment and they just repo the
thing the next day or, you know, all kinds of stuff.
I mean, they just had to, to make this new law, the consumer
protection laws here in California with the, with the cooling off period.
That's, that's to prevent deal, to prevent exactly dealers from scanning people.
What is it?
Customers have a certain number of days where they could return the car.
Yeah.
Uli Conkels Autobahn.
Is there a road trip you did as a kid or a young person with your parents that
really stands out in your memories?
If so, what was it and what kind of car did you do it in?
Do you have one?
Well, I've told this story before.
So the quick version is my friend Jeremy and I, sophomore year of college, we're
going to drive for Christmas break back to California.
We're driving his, uh, what second gen RX seven with like mods on it and stuff.
He's the only other car guy in the whole, well, two car guys in the fraternity.
Why we did this in the winter, I don't know.
We happened to choose a time where the roads were clear, even though it was cold.
We were ripping like setting record time as, you know, 20 year old to do.
Then we ran out of gas in Utah, a quarter mile from an exit.
We got flat towed by a very nice person who was like, man, you guys passed me a
while ago and he was just so stoked on it.
He flat towed us the gas station and then we popped the engine, uh, just outside
St. George, Utah.
We had been in the car, got on a bus.
Bus driver was like, what's up with that car?
We're like, it's ours.
We promise it blew up.
It was not stolen.
And then we had to fly home from Salt Lake and we got home, you know, three days
later than planned, but yeah, that was, that was quite a thing.
Uh, my parents, we weren't road trippy people per se.
I was very fortunate in that when I was growing up, you know, when I was born, my
parents were early in their careers and they got, uh, my dad, you know, got quite
successful, like, you know, as I got older.
And so, um, you know, we did get to do, uh, quite a bit of travel.
Um, I got to, you know, I got to go places, but typically what was the moon like?
Yeah, right.
Yeah.
I, I did get to do some fairly baller shit as a kid in terms of travel.
I flew on the Concorde once.
That was really cool.
Um, you know, we, we did get to go to like other countries, which you don't
appreciate when you're 10, the way I appreciate it now.
Um, I, if it was my kids, I probably wouldn't waste those, those experiences
on a fucking 10 year old.
I would probably wait it, but you know, whatever.
Um, it was as soon as I got my driver's license and it was freedom from, you
know, freedom to choose your own adventure all the time, that the idea of
road trips became much more important to me.
It was never, it never seemed that important to my parents, although my dad
would, would fondly remember going across Europe with his brothers and then
driving across the, they bought, they went to Europe, bought a Volkswagen in
Germany road, tripped it around Germany, flew home, shipped it home, and then drove
it across California.
And I think stuff like that was probably more exciting.
One, when you're a teenager, cause it's freedom and you're out with your friends
and you'll, you'll make mistakes and you'll have adventures and you'll sleep on a
floor, but also the cars weren't as reliable.
So there was probably like more opportunity for funny things and breakdowns.
And nowadays it's like me and my friends drove 3000 miles across the country.
It's like, and the car was fine.
Yeah.
So.
Uh, eight S in a Subaru and got an STI says Polestar was forced out of the US for
using Chinese tech, but Waymo can use Zeekr vehicles.
How and why?
I don't know.
Someone replied to them and said that, um, the Zeekr is using Google tech and the
Polestar stuff was using Chinese tech.
Yeah, it's more about the software than the manufacturer of the metal and whatever.
Uh, and there may also be something to do with the fact that it's something that's
being owned by Google as a fleet versus being sold to the public.
There could be an entire exemption for that.
Who knows?
Uh, you know, Google bought Trump a fucking Big Mac and he signed a piece of
paper, you know, that he had no idea what it said.
It turns out that they're allowed to have an entire fleet of Chinese cars.
He signed their wrapper and it's like, now we don't have to know.
Here's your gold brick, sir.
You know, and, uh, and here's this young woman to change your diaper and then
deflate you.
It's a paperweight.
It's not a gold bar.
It's not a bribe.
P car photos is going to road America for the imps of six hour.
And he must know tips for a first timer at road America.
Best photo spots, track tips or anything else I shouldn't miss the sausage.
You shouldn't miss the sausage is really good.
Um, it's a, I mean, it's, it's not that hard to figure out where to go, uh,
because you can essentially follow the track the whole way around.
There's like trails.
Um, if you have a, uh, mountain bike or a dirt moto, a small pit bike,
boy, are you in business?
Cause it's a big place and you can ride like all the way around, but there's a
great path that runs all down the curvy back straight to Canada corner.
And, uh, you can get there by, by bicycle or by foot or by, um, you can park it one
in with your car.
And, um, now I was there for WRL.
So with IMSA, they may have some areas that are blocked off, but, uh, because
of the elevation, there's like a tons of great photo spots.
Yeah.
And then eat a sausage.
That's a thing.
They have a great, uh, merch store too.
Like really huge variety of stuff.
I was very impressed by that there.
Yeah.
Uh, panic stop at the disc brakes.
That's fucking good.
That goes two ways.
I like it.
Would you rather drive a, uh, well, wait, a manual car.
Uh, where the, where the pedals are completely reversed around the middle is the
gas, the left is the brake and the right is the clutch or where the steering wheel
is mounted to the roof and point downward above your head.
You're trying to escape a submarine.
I would much rather drive a car where the steering wheel was in a weird place
than where the pedals were not conventional.
If I had to drive it all the time, I'd rather drive the car with a pedal
because I can, I can memorize the pedals, but this is going to be unnatural and
uncomfortable and the leverage is weird.
So like over time that would get bothersome, but as a one off article, sure.
I thought about it as once, not forever, but yeah, I'm with you on that.
I've tried to drive, I drove, I've driven old cars like, like the alpha eight
C from like the 30 32 where the gas is the middle and the brake is on the right.
And that shit is fucking, I'll bug you out, dude.
Um, Quadrifoglio face says the rest of mod momentum in the industry is
fascinating and we're all very excited, um, about the phenomenally expensive
singers, gunthers, et cetera, are there decent options nearer to the two or
$300,000 mark doesn't have to be Porsche.
I mean, Rivology.
Yeah.
Rivology cars are around three and they're badass.
I think if you want a brand new ish car for that money is probably going to be
based on a domestic versus something exotic, but with the good, with that
much money, you could get like a used 355, get it serviced perfectly, maybe
do a couple of mods and it'll be like the best version of that ever.
Yeah.
I mean, just the, the cost of labor, parts, the cost of, of, of
everything that goes into reengineering a car and the volume of cars, they're
really realistic in a cell, there's not, you know, you can't get the quality
you really want for quote, only $200,000.
It just takes a lot of labor to get there, you know, 200,000 is like what
it would cost to like immaculately restore to OEM, one of these cars at this
point, you know, that just, it just costs more than that to get that high
level of quality.
Well, you're also getting, you're getting a reengineered car, you're getting
all new body panels, a whole new interior that is also designed like the door
cards on the singer cars don't just look like standard doors that are
releathered.
So you're getting all these different pieces, a new engine.
So it's kind of like that old, you know, reliable fast sheet pick two.
This is like, do you want the interior done, the exterior done, the engine or
the suspension reengineered like pick two.
Mm-hmm.
Levi Sinclair says, uh, when an economy car shares design characteristics
with a luxury exotic car, does it raise up the cheaper car or bring down the
more expensive one?
Example, the 2024 Kia Sportage, is it cooler because it has Lamborghini
headlights or is the Lamborghini less cool because it has Kia headlights?
I don't think anyone is really confusing the two.
I, I, I don't think it brings down the more expensive car, except like, like, I
will say not appliance cars, because I just don't think anyone's really
confusing them, but a guy I know who is right around the corner from here at
the shop has a McLaren 720 or 750.
And when the C8 Z06 came out, a couple of people went up to him and asked him
if his car was like the new Z06 and he was like kind of shitty about it.
Um, but I don't think, I don't think applying those features to economy
cars and or appliance cars takes away from the supercar so much.
I mean, I also like, I'm pulling pictures of each of these cars up the, the
Kia and the Revolto, similar, but not the same.
And also, there's so much else going on when you see a Revolto on the street.
I saw a red one here two weeks ago, you notice the lights for half a second and
the rest of your brain is like, whoa, just Lamborghini.
There's so much information.
So this is not a one-to-one comparison.
Yeah, I mean, I think Levi noticed it because another company cribbed that
little bit from it and he went, oh, I recognize this design aesthetic.
It's from this, but in the context of a whole car next to another whole car,
you, there's a lot more going on there than just that light thing.
You know, and I think what I meant is there are cars where we have seen
the exact headlight is, you know, on this and this car and the other car.
Whereas we've spoken about the whole Maserati, you know,
window switch thing taking from Dodges, they go, well, Maserati customers
have never been in a Dodge, but this is like a likeness, but I don't think
it's close enough where most people would connect the two dots.
Yeah.
Pull this link up for link.
Listen and sometimes watch a 36,000 mile, oh, six mini Cooper JCW just sold
for $33,000 on bat.
Is this a sign of renewed interest?
Well, first off, this looks like a fucking fabulously presented example.
I mean, look at this title photo.
This title photo is beautifully lit.
It's pro grade.
Let's go.
Let's let's learn about this car.
It's got the JCW package, cockpit, chrono, cold weather, convenience.
So it's fully fucking loaded.
It's got the 17 inch wheels rather than the 18 inch wheels, which is a better choice.
It's offered by a local partner.
It's it's low miles.
I mean, dude, I sold my car after having it for two years with 49,000 miles.
This is now 20 years later and it's got less miles than that.
Let's see the interior.
How's it look?
Oh, so this has the the real leather.
I didn't like the real leather because of how it wrinkled there at the bottom.
I have the same level, but that is that is the real leather.
And dude, these cars were awesome.
I cannot tell you how fucking fun this car was to drive.
It made the coolest sounds.
It absolutely ripped.
It felt like it was built like a BMW, not like a Subaru or an Evo.
It felt like a luxury car.
It had a ton of space in it.
What a dashboard.
Yeah, especially these days, like just the chrome bezels
and then the toggles down here.
It's so good.
Yeah, it was so nice.
And this one looks really, really clean.
Geez, the underside is spotless.
I I I don't see these come up a lot.
You don't see oh sixes.
You don't see JCWs.
You know, these cars didn't really work very well when you put a lot of miles on
them and people didn't do all the maintenance was really expensive on them too.
And so people didn't do it.
They went to shit and they got crashed and they got, you know, whatever.
So they were not always, you know, available, really.
But I'm not surprised that someone was willing to pay a good amount of money for this car.
They're great.
It considering what it would cost you in time and energy to find a better one than
than that, assuming there's no shady shit going on.
Because these weren't bought to collect.
They were bought to be used as everyday cars.
And so so it's not like there's a bunch of 2000 mile ones sitting around.
That's not really a thing with those.
Yeah, I think the enthusiasm people have for M3s, for example.
Granted, they have some racing pedigree.
But like if you take that same kind of enthusiasm, it should be applied to the
to the Mini Cooper because they are fantastic cars.
They're unique. They look good.
They're fast. They're exciting.
Like they're everything we like as car enthusiasts.
So I think it's totally justified that they're expensive.
Yeah.
Jansport transport perspirament club allegedly as an avid Utah hiker.
I do long highway miles at 80 miles an hour, followed by long 40 mile an hour
plus sections on gravel fire roads.
How would a stock first gen Raptor and a Colorado ZR2 compared to a
overlanding Cayenne or a gravel prepped E like E46 wagon like from my all cars?
So should you get a truck or a ZR2 or a an off road prepped Cayenne
or maybe an actual rally car?
Right. What to do with 80 mile an hour transits, followed by 40 miles an hour on gravel?
Well, I think both of those trucks are amazing, but they're too much truck.
If all you're doing is gravel roads, they're fun.
And if there's a jump in the middle of the road, sure, that's a fun time.
But like you are underusing the capabilities of both of those trucks.
And then on the highway, like you're going to have get worst gas mileage.
You have a higher profile, blah, blah, blah.
I think rally cars exist for a reason.
And this is a perfect example of the reason you're going from tarmac to gravel.
So I would want something that is lower than a truck and has a lower
center of gravity and has a good, you know, suspension.
That's just a little soft to absorb all the little rocks.
So the suspension you put on the E46 fantastic, but also a bone stock
outback wilderness or, you know, plenty of other Subaru's also fine.
That's your answer.
You just said it.
The answer here, it's it's not exciting, but it's outback wilderness.
That car had such a good ride on gravel roads and it's comfortable.
It's fuel efficient.
It's got all the modern tech in it.
You can throw all your you could sleep in the back of it if you want.
And it's they're cheap.
I think it was under $40,000 brand new or like $42,000 or $42,000.
Dude, that's your car.
Seriously, that of a forester wilderness or an outback wilderness.
Or that's exactly what that car is meant for.
And we drove it on a kind of rutted gravel road.
So this wasn't like a perfect road.
And he means in the damping was it was wonderful.
Oh, having said that, there is really something to be said for an outback
wilderness is perfect if you want a car to do everything in your life,
including this hiking thing.
If you want a hiking beater, the E 46 wagon with rally suspension, get the right
tires and a couple of skid plates.
I cannot endorse this highly enough.
Yeah, honestly, a rear wheel drive rally beater for stage roads.
You you might end up with a whole lot of joy in your life that you didn't
know you didn't have before.
Yeah.
Like you might go you could get sendy in a car.
If you're if you're driving your regular car down the road, you're not going
to treat it the same as if you're driving your rally beater down the road.
Very true.
You know, with the suspension you had and some taller tires, you can get about
four inches of ground clearance added to an E 46 before you have to start
like fabricating stuff so you can get a pretty good amount of clearance.
And that's kind of what you're going to need.
Yeah.
Um, okay, two, okay, the boy who cried coyote, I'm getting into watches, got
my first automatic watch, an Orient Bambino, uh, Orient is another brand
that Seiko owns in learning more about watches.
It seems like some people are really fixated on some specs such as having
over 200 meters of water resistance or crazy high gauss ratings.
That's the magnetic resistance.
Um, is this similar to a guy who pays more for the Rubicon Jeep, but will
never actually use the locking diffs sort of.
Yeah, sort of, um, water resistance ratings are a very funny thing because
they're not actually directly related to how much water the watch can take.
So if a watch has like a 10 meter water resistance rating, that's like 30,
33 feet give or take, right?
You, you should not go swimming with that watch.
And I know that that is stupid.
I know how stupid that sounds.
I'm talking about the generally acceptable practices given water
resistance rating, 10 meters water resistance generally means you could wash
your hands with this or maybe get it splashed or like a shower if you're careful.
But like and do the dishes.
Why do they call it don't know?
Okay, don't know.
Don't know.
This is like bulletproof doesn't mean bulletproof, you know, I wouldn't
really go actual swimming of any kind pool, hot tub, anything with, with
less than a hundred meters water resistance.
I wouldn't personally like my cutoff is usually a screw down crown, which
the notice Canyon has, but some watches don't our vice watches.
For instance, um, I, I, you know, I love Cameron.
I wouldn't go swimming in that watch.
Uh, my speed master with the hand wound crown technically has like, I think a 50
meter, maybe not, not going in the water in that watch.
I'll do dishes and I guess it is, it should be said that they say water
resistant to not waterproof too.
Right.
And so a 200 meter watch is a watch where I start to go, I can jump in the water
with this, I can shower with this, I can go to hot tub with this.
I can go into cold water with this.
It could handle, uh, if I, if, uh, like a pressure washer almost, not that I
would take a direct shot from a pressure washer, but like,
would you scuba dive with it?
Yes.
Okay.
I would, 200 meters, I would do basic recreational scuba diving with.
Yes, totally.
That's where it's like a serious water watch, but a hundred meters is I'll go in
the pool.
Um, I know that's stupid.
I know that's that, but, but this is, if you go and watch forums and shit, this
is the generally accepted practice.
I'm a little more liberal, both politically and with my watches.
So like I, I, I might jump in the pool with a, with a 50 meter, but not with a 10.
You know what I mean?
So anyway, um, last one, another watch question, L McPherson strutting around
L McPherson strutting around, how do you feel about the new smart watch
attachments for regular watches, like caseback buttons or smart bracelets?
Uh, have you seen these yet?
No.
It's an, it's an interesting idea.
And one I like in general, there's two approaches to having your analog watch
act as a pseudo smart watch.
One of them is, uh, a little disc that looks almost like a quarter that sticks
to the back of your watch and it becomes the health tracker that then just connects
to your phone.
It, it turns the back of your watch into like a whoop.
Right.
That's, that's this one, I believe this is the disc.
It's called the Gennance.
So on the one hand, like this is actually pretty cool.
It allows you to wear your regular watch and it, it, it does the health tracking
thing.
What I don't, what I see about it that I, and that I don't like is it looks to
add two to three millimeters to the thickness of your watch.
So it's going to make your watch sit up off your wrist, kind of like a top hat.
And you can see in this picture, there's a shadow underneath the watch because
that's how much it's lifted it from, from the person's wrist.
So that doesn't necessarily mean it's a bad thing.
And if it may, it may in fact be better for you than wearing a separate fitness
tracker, if that's what you want to do.
So the other one I saw takes, it replaces your, my deployant clasp on my wrist side
with a, an actual Apple watch.
So I'm wearing my watch here, my mechanical flip side, wrist side is an Apple watch.
So interesting, interesting.
I'd rather have the deployment clasp replaced with some sort of smart thing
like the disc.
So I, my thought would be to have, to have the disc on the underside.
Yeah.
Yeah.
That's how I would want it.
And sell it.
I, someone will get there, but even look at the, look at the one that he's showing
it, holding it in this palm here.
I mean, look at the stack that's happening there.
So if you ask me, is a watch enthusiast, if I wanted fitness tracking, I would wear
a whoop on my other hand, or I'd wear an aura ring.
I would not personally fuck with my watch.
I wouldn't compromise the existing watch, compromise meaning like it changes the fit,
the look changes all, you know, so many things about the watch.
Yeah.
Interesting idea though.
I like the thought.
I like where their head is at.
And if, if they applied this technology to a deployant clasp that was also a whoop,
because a whoop kind of looks like a deployant clasp.
Imagine, imagine a whoop with a bit, with that was a deployant clasp.
Like that would be awesome.
Like I would be really interested in a product like that, even though I'm probably
the wrong buyer because I change my watch every day and I wouldn't be changing this
around every day.
Same reason I don't fuck with a dash cam.
Same reason I don't want to run the Valentine data.
People are always like, what dash cam do you use?
I'm like, I'm in a different car every eight minutes.
I can't be, I can't be using that stuff.
All right.
What do you say?
Is that our show?
Is that our show?
That's our motherfucking show.
August 18th, Irvine Improv, TST Plus, Smith and Sniff.
Come down and see the boys hang out.
It's it's in Irvine, but parking is free.
And of course, get our blazers while you can.
Zach's design, my design are up.
The link is in our Instagram.
And this is a really beautiful garment that I'm really proud of.
And we worked really hard on last year, the rest of your life.
And and that's available until August 6th.
And of course, the car giveaway ends on August 20th.
So hit the link in our bio.
Get the intro of Jesus.
Get your entries in while you can.
It's extremely straightforward.
And one of y'all's is going home with a 200 and 75
thousand dollar 911 Turbo S. Not exactly a lightweight.
That's a nine second car, kids.
That's an instant nine second car craziness.
Nuts.
Yeah. Thanks, everybody.
Thank you especially to our patrons keeping the ship floating down the ocean.
And I'll see you next time. Bye.
About this episode
After a quick sponsor/legal read, the hosts kick off with reviews of the 2027 Corvette Grand Sport and the Lamborghini Temerario, plus a giveaway and a correction to a prior “Flock” story. The conversation then turns into a deep critique of camera/AI plate-alert workflows—where human input, missing context, and text-only evidence can lead to bad outcomes. The show also mixes in practical ownership talk: drive modes, interior glare, and privacy/data-broker cleanup services.
Matt Farah reviews the all new C8 Corvette Grand Sport and compares is to the Z06 as well as the new base model; he also tells of his week in the blistering Lamborghini Temerario (the good, bad, the mud flaps); Zack Klapman discusses Flock's PR nightmare regarding its inability to read license plates; and Q&A answers questions including:
Do economy cars look TOO edgy?
Are used car salespeople STILL sus?
Which of these 3 dreams cars to sell?
M Roadster vs 2008 Vantage Roadster automatic
Does this make fancy cars look cheap or vice versa?
Soft road build: RX300 or Rav4?
Pivotal childhood road trips?
Why did Polestar leave but Waymo's Zeeker stays?
How to Road America
Choose: a car with a steering wheel on the ceiling or pedals all mixed up
The perfect car for long Utah trips is...
Why are restomods so expensive?
And more!
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