Surviving an atmospheric-river ünStock, touring Bruce Meyer's Dream Garage, and more

Welcome to the Porsche Club Insider, your one stop for all things Porsche and PCA.

Here's your host, Vu Gwin, and the Insider crew.

Welcome everyone.

Manny, I can't believe it.

We are two episodes away from episode 200, which makes this episode 198.

I read somewhere where it said only 5% of podcasts ever make it to 200 episodes.

Really?

Yay us.

Yes.

It feels like it's also been a while since we've recorded here in headquarters because we've

been on the road quite a bit and travel and some vacation time and whatnot.

Yeah, and by the time people hear this particular episode, it'll be right before Christmas.

Three days before.

Merry Christmas to you all and hopefully you and your family have a wonderful time together.

Be safe everyone.

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Man, I tell you what, the winter has really kind of kicked in here in Maryland.

It's not even winter yet.

Oh my gosh, it's not even winter yet.

Yeah, but the temperatures and man, it's really cramped our ability to have

really car stuff going on.

Oh sure, outside stuff.

And even stuff like don't work on your car or anything.

Yeah, now I got to pick days when it's not going to be really cold outside.

Exactly, exactly.

So before the Thanksgiving holiday, I was doing all my annual oil changes.

And I thought it would be a good idea.

Actually, before I get into that one, let me show you this one little tool,

a little show and tell.

Man, have you seen one of these before?

This blue.

I have not.

It's pretty cool because when you ever work on body parts or fender liners and stuff like that,

and you get those little, these little things, what do you do?

Usually you get like a pick or you get a flat blade screwdriver.

And usually you poke yourself in the finger with it.

Well, this one here, they have these jaws that clip on.

I don't know if you guys can see it there.

And just with one pull makes it nice and smooth.

So for like a $10, $15 tool.

Where did you get it?

Amazon.

Yeah.

So hopefully you guys, if you need to pull these plugs out.

Because the McConn has two of those, I think, on the panel.

You have to take out the oil change.

There you go.

You got like 15 screws and then two of those.

There you go.

10, 15 bucks or something like that.

Add it to your toolbox.

But back to working on the car before the holidays and doing the oil changes.

I don't know if Dame is going to be able to pull up the video.

But for, gosh, probably at least 10 years during the winter when my 87 sits,

I get somewhat of a puddle of oil because of the O-rings on my oil return tubes are worn out.

And they're so worn out that you can actually rotate them just by hand.

And just rotate them and obviously you know that they're loose.

But have you ever replaced the oil return tubes in an early car?

I think the only time we did it was when we rebuilt the engine on the race car.

It is, how would I say it?

It's very violent.

It's probably the only part of the car that's not leaking on the 911.

Because I got some oil lines are seeping.

But I looked when you told me what you do with yours.

Yeah.

When I was doing the oil change, I looked at them and they were dry.

You don't want to touch them if they're good.

But mine were they're so loose that they could spin in place.

When I say violent, it's because typically these are solid tubes that you have to split the cases

and heads and stuff to when they assemble them.

So when you do it sort of like aftermarket process, you actually have to crush them with

big channel lock pliers and then you squeeze them, squeeze them, squeeze them down.

And then you contort them so that they shorten up and they pull out of the motor.

Like I said, it's a really violent of a process.

It's a very simple process, but you got to commit to doing it.

And so anyways, they do come out very easily and the ingenious way to replace them is they

have these two piece oil return tubes that extend and then a circlip goes into place to keep them

locked in.

Fairly easy, not that hard to do.

I put them in before the Thanksgiving holiday and put my 10, 11 quarts of oil into it.

It started up no leaks.

I'm like, man, I'm a freaking, you know, mechanic extraordinaire, right?

So I do have this thing where sometimes I have to do things twice.

And I did notice the one O-ring that was kind of at the center of the motor was

not like pushed all the way in for some reason.

And the particular tubes that I got, they had different ends, whereas the one,

not size-wise, but just the way the O-rings were held.

And when you know it, I had a 50-50 chance of putting them in the correct way and I put them in.

Oh, so they didn't look like the ones you took out?

No, they didn't look like the ones I went out.

And unfortunately, friends gave me these tubes a while ago and there was no instructions.

So you're cheapness.

You're not even sure this is for a 3-2?

No, no, it is.

It says it's, it is for, like, you had the right part number and everything.

But there was no instructions.

And, you know, yeah, I just, I just chose the wrong end to put on the one side.

So what I have to do now is to, well, when I came back from holidays, there was a nice puddle

under my car.

I was like, oh, darn it.

But I, I kind of figured this was going to be the case.

Now I need to drain the oil again, but save it because I'm not going to waste this oil

and then use the circlip tool.

Well, you don't have to crush the tube like the others.

I don't have to crush the tube.

The good news is you just use the circlip tool,

collapse the tubes and then rotate them and put them back in.

And if you're going to do this, I had a cheapy pair of circlip pliers,

invest in the $20 or $30 circlip pliers made by Channelock makes a world of difference in

terms of getting the grip.

And also I didn't realize how the tips of the circlip, the little bits that they give you,

there's different quality ones that will break pretty easily versus the one that came with

Channelock that worked really well.

So mildly successful and back to the weather.

I've been waiting for, um, you know, decent temperature so I can go back out into the garage

and flip my oil.

At least the oil won't drip too much right now because it's so cold.

Yeah, it made a mess.

It made a mess.

Well, here's what happened to me.

I was, I was doing my 964 oil change, drain the oil and doing the part that I absolutely

hate and that's taking this oil filter off because I don't know why you hate that so much.

Don't you spill oil?

No, I don't.

Where's your oil at then?

So you drain, you drain the center and then you drain your reservoir on the right.

Like drain drain, like no more comes out.

And then what I do is I take a rag and I, I slide it underneath your oil filter and

I butt it up against the wall.

I've done that.

And then when I spin the oil filter out, I might get like two or three drops.

Oh no.

Really?

Oh, I mean you got all the oil on the filter.

How are you draining that separate?

I don't know.

That's level.

That's like a completely flat, that oil filter.

So unless you jack up the car on one side.

No.

And you scrub.

I never.

But anyway, so here's what I found the solution after all this was, I found that on Pelican.

Uh-huh.

They have a little, when I buy it, I'll show it up on the screen, but basically it's a piece

of plastic and someone made something like 20 bucks maybe, 30, I don't know,

that slides underneath, it's magnetic, I think.

And it slides underneath filter and because it's magnetic, it sticks to the body.

And when you unscrew it, it goes into this tray.

Oh, that's okay.

Yeah, exactly.

That's a better solution than my rag.

Heck yeah.

So I don't get that much oil, but you say you get it.

It makes a mess.

I mean, it's not like a quart, but it's at least a third of a quart that comes out.

But the problem I had was all the oils changed, I mean, not changed, it's all drained.

And now I'm putting the new filter, I can't remember where I got this from either,

but it's a pure later on it.

So, which is I think the one to make it.

Okay.

And so I go to screw it in, it must be for three two.

Oh.

The hole is smaller than three six.

That's my guess.

It had to be for an earlier 9-11 engine.

Earlier 9-11, yeah.

And now I have no oil filter.

Oh.

Yeah.

You know, go down to the advanced auto parts to get a 9-11.

So I had to drain the old one as much best as I could and then put that back on,

because I had to move the car back in the garage.

Oh, it was outside.

So I went ahead and ordered, went to Pelican, ordered the right.

Was the one that you're putting on like a red one?

Mm-hmm.

Yeah, that's an early car one.

How did you do that?

But they now they make one for the 9-64 too.

In red?

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

All the ones that the red ones that I like, I have a red one.

I don't know how I have a red one, but I have a red one and I thought that was for my car.

But luckily I looked.

I should have saved it for you, but I was so pissed I threw it into the trash.

I don't think it fits my car.

Oh, does it?

The red one doesn't fit my car.

I have a black one, the black one.

I know they make red ones, Porsche sells red ones for the 9-64.

Oh.

But they also make, I think Bosch makes a black one, it's OC-54.

That's the one I use.

I use OC-54.

So then you might want to even pick whatever this was for and it wouldn't fit you either.

Yeah.

Because I use an OC-54.

Yeah, mine's OC-54.

Yeah, that was my excitement.

And I also, I bought a secondary bypass pipe for the 9-64 from a member on the PCMRT.

And I installed it, taken off the old muffler and putting the new one on.

So I get to drive the car out because it hasn't been warm enough.

So it should sound a little bit 30-year?

Deeper.

Deeper, yeah.

Look at you getting all fast and furious, modifying your exhaust.

I don't want to piss off the neighbors, but I think it's enough where it...

Did you also get your wheel done?

That's, you know, I was thinking about that.

Yes, so the wheels are at the shop to get painted.

I got to reach out to Sam and say, all right, wheel is done.

Because I think I told you I got them first on, and it didn't match the club loud that's in the Porsche.

A little book they sell with all the swatches.

Yeah.

Yeah, that did not match at all.

He matched it to the swatch, but the swatch is not club loud.

I see.

And that's gonna be cool.

So your car will be, obviously, it's white and it will have club loud cup ones.

Cup ones, yeah.

Cup ones.

And the reason I wanted a club loud is because of my involvement with the club coupe.

I figured that'd be pretty cool.

I can't afford a club coupe, but at least I can afford to put my wheels club loud.

Not bad.

And then it was on Damon on Monday.

On Monday I broke down on the way to work.

Yes.

And the Z3 280,000 miles or close to 280,000 accelerator pedal just dropped underneath of me.

And as soon as it did, you feel in your foot that suddenly your foot's not on the accelerator anymore.

And I pushed down and I could feel the thing had dropped and now it has no response.

And it just went to idle.

So now the car's idling fine, but it wasn't going anywhere.

So I coasted over to the side of the highway, coasted Monday morning 95, four lanes of traffic.

And yeah, you're on the left because you're on the fast lane.

You pulled over in the left lane when I saw that photo.

I'm like, oh, that's not a safe spot.

Called AAA.

They were going to be an hour and 15 minutes.

So I thought, well, I got no choice.

I can just sit here.

I might as well get my laptop.

I'll do some work while I'm waiting.

And Melanie, our events manager.

Your savior shows up.

I see her.

I see a white SUV pull up like a hundred yards ahead.

And I'm like, huh, I wonder who that is.

And so she noticed and saw you saw the car.

Yeah.

She saw the car.

And so she called me up.

He said, you need a ride.

Is that you?

And I'm like, actually I do.

I said, yeah, that'd be great.

So I left the key in the spot and locked the car.

And at first she started backing up.

Don't go there.

Leave her alone.

She's your savior.

It looked like the sniper walk.

A little left, a little right.

Wait.

So you just left your car?

Yeah.

You ditched your car and AAA picked it up without you being there?

I locked it, but I put the key.

And I hid the key.

And I just told AAA where the key was.

And they'll pick it up without you being there?

They are probably happier that when you're not there.

Oh, really?

Interesting.

Because they can just go at their own pace.

And do their own thing.

It's a 2009 BMW.

Yeah.

What could really happen?

Now, I know Damon's been pretty busy lately.

I can't imagine you've done any car stuff lately.

Not too much car stuff, but I did do, gosh, what did I do on the?

You've been driving cool cars.

I'm going to tell you I'm a little bit, you've been driving cool cars, at least.

Yeah.

Well, I was in California for quite a bit of time after Unstock and I got to drive a 993,

a Carrera 4S, 1996, and it's a lightweight Unstock sort of car.

And that video just went up before we recorded this podcast actually last night.

So go check it out.

It's Maritime Blue with dolphin gray wheels.

And it's more of a, there's really no engine mods, except for some welding that went on

in the mufflers to make it, them sound a little bit better, but basically stock engine.

And lower suspension, so it has motion control coil overs, which are very nice.

But then it doesn't go as far as like a GT car, so it doesn't have spherical bearings

or things like that.

So it's a nice balance between.

A fun street car.

A fun street car that you probably wouldn't take on a really long road trip.

So yeah, go check it out.

Coming up next, it'll probably already be out by the time this podcast is out,

is I also drove a 2010 GT3 RS, which was awesome.

I spent gosh back in my early in my career, the publication I worked for, we got it in,

got one of those and a two RS in at the same time for like a week.

So I had had three or four days behind the wheel.

And gosh, 15 years later almost, it's still one of the best Porsches that the company has ever made.

What was the weight on the 993 that you drove?

So the owner says it's in the 2850 range.

So that they've removed about 300, 350 pounds.

If I'm not mistaken, that's not much lighter than an early 996.

Or a Boxster.

No, I mean, it's a little bit.

It takes a lot.

It takes a lot to get weight out of these cars.

Because my 964 that I raced, I did much more than.

Oh, you didn't have anything left in your car.

But still, the point is, I got it down to 2762, I think, or 2752.

It was still that much.

Yeah, it was because you think air conditioning weighs a lot?

It doesn't.

It's all aluminum.

The compressors are things that weigh, but after that, it's all aluminum.

Everything else is fine.

I was so depressing when I took all the stuff out and I weighed it.

It was like nine pounds or something.

The front seats.

It sounds like my normal diet.

You said disappointed.

The front seats are really heavy with their power, but the rear seats aren't that heavy either.

The bottom question is just, it's super light.

It's not even a pound.

A pound, yeah, it's a pound.

The fronts are sort of foldable things.

They're not.

I read somewhere in one of the comments, somebody said,

100 pounds, I'm like, no freaking way.

No way.

I would have been happy to joy if it was 100 pounds.

No way, no way.

No, I mean, it's hard to get weight out of these cars.

And I took all the insulation out.

I don't know.

Did he take the insulation out on that car?

I don't believe he took all the insulation out, but lightweight carpet.

So he went pretty far with that sort of stuff.

It's tough without putting carbon fiber stuff.

It was the knee pad, which I didn't even realize that was a thing,

but you look at those cars and then you look at one with the knee pad.

It's that thing where the glove box would have been.

I guess that's a pretty heavy piece.

It takes out a big chunk.

It's not as heavy as you think.

Once again, the seats were the heaviest thing that I took out initially.

But I had to take my knee pad out.

I also could the roll cage replace it with a bar that went across of it.

This is a Carrera 4S, so it started out at almost 3,200 pounds.

It was already kind of a heavy car.

He definitely felt the weight then.

Yeah, yeah.

Well, what's funny about it is I thought it would feel even,

put the camera back on me as I'm talking,

I thought it would feel even pepier with basically 300 or so pounds taken out.

But without, again, a back-to-back with the Carrera 2 or anything,

I'm sure it was faster and felt more raw, but not as much as I thought it would.

I think to get that really raw feeling, you're doing one or two more things,

and that's either doing work to the engine or what I would do is replace all the rubber

and the suspension with spherical bearings and lightweight flywheel, all the stuff that

I would have left the engine alone and just put in either a different gearing

or a change of ring and ping, probably different gearing since it's not racing.

And that would also, I think, do as well.

I'd made a huge change in my car.

It felt like I added 60 horsepower, and I didn't do anything.

It just changed the gearing.

Where the power goes on.

And suddenly, fifth gear became a drive gear, not an overdrive gear,

and so it really gave you a sense that you were much more powerful.

I wonder if this is maybe the latest thing, because one of my Facebook contacts or whatever,

he has a guards red 996 that he has completely stripped the interior, put lightweight seats,

removed the door cards on his car, removed everything underneath the dash,

nothing in the trunk.

I think he still has a rear bumper, but he's made the car as light as he could.

But to appreciate even more, we went over to Mike Levittis, called us over to TPC Racing

to check out.

Have you ever, I didn't realize how special this car was, but the Tuthill 911K, you know about this

car?

Don't forget about it.

I mean, 11,000 RPM.

Yeah.

Not only, so 3.9.

I'm not answering the phone when you went to see that.

I don't know.

Where were you?

Were you here?

Are you saying you would like to go see it?

Yes, I would appreciate it if you could go look at it.

I think we'll have an opportunity to see it again, but he's like, you got to check this out.

Yeah, they're super rare.

Yeah.

So it's 3.1 liter, not to get off track here, but just look at it.

3.1 liter, okay, 11,000 RPM.

You know what the weight on that car is?

That's like 2,000 pounds.

If not less, I think.

1,900 pounds.

That is insane.

That is.

So you guys have heard of Tuthill, I'm sure.

I have.

I had that GT1 looking car like two years ago, was it?

Now they have the buggy that looks like the Myers Manx.

I haven't seen that.

Oh, you haven't?

But if you look at this 911K, honestly, if you didn't know, it's hard to tell how special that car is,

but we looked at it underneath.

We haven't done a video or story on it yet, but hopefully we will.

Man, it is like space shuttle level details underneath.

It is crazy.

But I guess what I mentioned is to get to 1,900 pounds is.

You're doing some really radical things.

I really appreciate it now after what you just said of how hard it is to lose weight.

Wow, crazy.

All right, well, I know you were talking about the 993 as being an Unstock like car.

I guess we haven't really talked about Unstock.

We haven't been together since.

Last podcast we recorded was out in California.

So Unstock, if you're not familiar with the event, it's a West Coast event that

Porsche Club of America hosts that is dedicated to modified Porsches.

It is an inclusive show in the sense where any modified Porsche can

qualify it as long as three visible modifications to it.

It was born, the idea was born out of us attending SEMA and seeing all the different

aftermarket built cars that really didn't have a place to be showcased after SEMA.

And people, of course, spend tons of hours, tons of money to modify these cars.

And we thought it'd be a great idea.

And what better place to put a spotlight on these cars than in Southern California?

And most of them are built and reside in Southern California.

So we go back every year.

And this year we found ourselves at Porsche of Santa Clarita, which if you didn't know,

you might go, well, why would you go to a Porsche dealership?

Well, Porsche of Santa Clarita, they are also, they have that SoCal vibe, too,

in the sense where, yes, they are a dealership, but they also dabble in the Porsche classic

restoration challenge.

They've been in, I believe, two of those where their submission was individualization,

meaning they submitted a classic Porsche that they customized or their own version of an Unstock car.

And so they have this, I had heard about, they call it the Wonder Ground,

which is basically a mini museum that is, I would say, larger than the original Porsche Museum.

Very well done.

And they extended an invitation for us to host Unstock there.

They host a monthly of cars and coffee type of event there that pulls in thousands.

So we said, man, it would be great to have that community as well as the PCA and Unstock community

together in sunny California.

What a combination that would be.

Having said that, it wasn't sunny.

Atmospheric River.

And I tell you what.

Never heard that phrase until that week.

It might as well been a typhoon for the Southern California residents.

Damon, you grew up in San Diego.

Do you remember hearing the term atmospheric river?

Not way back El Nino, I lived through the El Nino, I guess it was 1997 or 1998.

So we've had stuff like that that's come through before.

But the main thing with California is, that surprised me moving out to the East Coast,

or I shouldn't say California, but SoCal, San Diego, is when it is gloomy or it starts to rain,

it does it like for a long time, sort of all at once.

And you don't get the, it's sunny for a half an hour and then it's rainy and then throughout

the whole day.

So it's just, if it's going to rain, it's probably going to rain for quite a while.

And it did.

As East Coasters, where we're familiar with precipitation, it was very interesting to see

literally every five miles we drove, there was a car in the wall because people in Southern California

run on ball tires.

They just probably are not aware because it doesn't affect them.

As long as the tires hold air, they're okay.

I wish we could have done a screenshot of the ways because it looked like a one accident that

like 15 people had called in the same accident, which would happen here in Maryland.

But in reality, what it was was 15 different accidents.

It was insane.

Having said all that, kudos to the folks that came out to Unstock, especially those that

brought cars.

We had, I think, scheduled 130, 135 cars.

We had at least 80 cars show up.

For me, I think it's kind of a, sort of, was sort of a blessing in a sense because we still had

a fulsome show.

We had, like I said, 80 some cars.

You can see some of the early pictures that looks like there's not a lot of people.

But by midday and afternoon, we had an incredible crowd.

And I just think about had we had a sunny day, keep in mind, all of the spectator lots that we

have were filled.

We sold out of spectator parking in the rain.

Now, if it was sunny, obviously we would have sold out, but I'm not sure where we would have

put all those spectators.

I understand how worried Santa Clarita was with the amount of people because they kept

on saying, we're going to get your Unstock people and then we're going to get our cars

and coffee people just curious to see what this is.

And he was saying, it's going to be insane.

So yeah, to your point, in the rain, it was the fact that we sold out, as you will, the

two parking lots in the dry.

I can't imagine what that place would have been like.

But kudos to the volunteers who sold out in the rain with us.

Parking cars never complained.

Would you mind if I shout out Monica Shea and Doc Pryor, because those two were working

in the rain constantly.

And the guys that Monica gave me to help park their cars, I had to show them one time and

then I could pretty much focus on another parking area because those guys did an incredible job of

parking it just like the way because we had been there two days prior trying to stick tape on a

wet ground where the cars are going to park at because we don't try to, we don't park them in

the parking spots.

We've got to make it a little bit artistic.

And yeah, I would say the weather gods worked in our favor because the setup days, it was

torrential rain, but we actually had some dry moments during our event.

And you can see these photos that are being shown right now.

So it wasn't a complete washout, which was great.

And to see young and old coming out made for some incredibly dramatic photos too.

I think probably as far as photograph event, this event is probably the prettiest on Instagram.

Yeah, I would think so.

I mean, I'm not a photographer, but I was just amazed how many people had come out.

If not all the cars, certainly the enthusiasts came out.

Yeah, and all of our all of our vendors came out, our sponsors came out.

Shout out to Continental.

They were the presenting sponsor of Unsock.

So thank you to them and thank you to David over at Porsche Santa Clarita.

He did a fantastic job.

Not only he knew what to do, like this is he handles the crowd.

He knows exactly how things are placed.

He handled it with elegance.

So thank you, David, for taking great care of us.

And before we even wrapped up, he said, man, maybe you can come back

when it's sunny and do this again.

You know what?

I would say that might be an opportunity.

I agree with you.

And the thing that I didn't think about, but that people came up to me and said,

they were surprised that they had never been to Unsock,

but they were surprised how PCA was embracing modified cars.

And I was like, well, you know, people think that we're just stock cars.

What we do is everyone in PCA, a great majority of people have modified

their car to one degree or another.

Yeah.

And they said, then the fact that you're doing it in a Porsche dealership

and Porsche lets you show modified cars.

Yeah.

And I said, well, I said this one in particular, Santa Clarita is known for having modified cars.

Right.

And but yes, Porsche also embraces these type of cars.

So what what one experience, you know, where we will go next year,

where we've got some plans, we're putting out some feelers,

it'll be another special place.

And if you missed Unsock for this year,

watch out for news as in 2026, we'll let you know.

It's we've got some cool stuff coming.

And I'm sure the comments are going to be,

when are you coming to the East Coast?

And that I do have that wish in front of our execs.

And it's a question of making sure that we have enough resources to do it properly.

I can tell you that members as well as sponsors and exhibitors,

they're ready for one in the East Coast, one in the South,

one in the Pacific Northwest.

Here's the thing, if you all want to do like a version of it,

you know, I'm happy to share with you.

You obviously can't call it Unsock because we're not managing it.

But if you want to do a modified show and you want to know sort of the recipe that we have,

more than happy to share that.

But as far as an official Unsock in a different location, we're working on it.

And we will get there.

It's just, you know, when PCA does something,

we want to make sure that we have all the necessary ingredients to have a good show.

One of my friends who wants to see it come to the East Coast said that he goes,

you guys have numerous uses.

All I heard was that it never rains in California and now it rains.

So if it's going to rain, you might as well do it on the East Coast.

No doubt, no doubt, no doubt.

That's the thing is we want to, it's not that we don't want to,

but we want to make sure we do it right and time it and such.

And like, you know, there's, we have a lot of events going on.

You know, Unsock was special, seeing everyone was special,

but we also had a very unique opportunity.

A gentleman that I met a few years ago.

And I know Manny is quite the fan and he's well known in the automotive world,

probably not necessarily known or is more known tied to sort of the hot rod world

than maybe the Porsche world, but those that know that he has a Porsche background

certainly know he goes very deep.

And I had asked Manny if we, since we were bringing the podcast set up

out to Los Angeles is like, would there be an interest to interviewing this gentleman?

And we dropped the podcast this week.

Was it this week or last week?

This week, it was just this week.

It would have been two weeks ago.

Oh, okay.

By time this airs.

By time this airs, it was two weeks ago.

And I hope you can tell how incredibly fun it was and how incredible,

it was an honor for us to be in this location and hear this gentleman basically tell stories.

I mean, just to out that generosity with his time.

Yes.

Was just mind boggling because obviously he's a busy man and we didn't want to take up

too much of his time, but we all know he's a genuine car guy.

There's no question about that.

But he...

So before we go any further, I've been sitting here waiting to put up the photo,

but we haven't mentioned his name yet.

I know.

Oh, you haven't mentioned his name?

No, I haven't.

The buildup is happening.

The buildup is happening, but since you're already on the mic.

All right, cool.

Yeah, who was it?

It was Bruce Meyer.

Yes, Bruce Meyer.

What an honor it was.

And you can see the smiles on our faces.

There is absolutely genuine stuff like this.

We try to make happen for PCA, but it's never guaranteed.

In fact, we didn't know that we were going to be able to do this until a couple of days

before we were heading out.

He has a busy schedule and he's not exactly sure if he's going to be in town.

And when did we do this?

We did this after setting up in the rain, in the pouring rain,

and he was nice enough to meet us in the evening.

So instead of us resting as we probably should have,

we made our way to Hollywood and into his...

The bonus was it was his garage.

So when we were talking about where we would do it at...

We had no idea.

The Peterson Museum was the obvious choice.

And I remember telling you, I said it would be really cool if he would mention his garage.

And he did.

And so I was beyond myself because I had heard about what his garage was like.

And being able to see it was just incredible.

It was as special as we thought it might be.

And this is not all of them, right?

This is not all of them, half of the collection.

And here's some...

One, make sure you watch that episode if you haven't.

But here's a little PCA insider.

When we wrapped up the podcast, we were walking around.

And again, we were super sensitive to his time.

We were like, by now it was probably eight o'clock in the evening.

I'm like, man, we can't overstay.

And I don't know if he has dinner plans or anything.

And I saw him like kind of grab his phone.

And Manny and I were just chuckling because we thought he was grabbing his phone watching the time

because he's probably got to leave.

But in fact, every time he grabbed his phone, he was like,

have a look at this picture.

And then he would tell us another story off camera about, let's say, the Cobra.

We could have done another podcast, all the non-porters that we walked around and he told us all about.

And I'm thinking myself, you know, he's done this hundreds of times.

But he's still at the same enthusiasm.

Oh, absolutely.

I think because if he meets other enthusiasts, he really likes that and who can appreciate

the history of the cars.

Yeah, it was the time before we started recording and the time after was super special.

And of course, the actual podcast.

Yeah, he's an incredible storyteller.

So I found myself a lot of time just sitting there listening to the stories.

And I'm saying, yeah, this is a time that we don't have to really interrupt him.

You just lob the ball over to him and let him take it.

So here's the insider tip.

We will get more personal time with him on the 2026 PCA Trefinette C.

He brought it up after our episode.

And I was being polite when he said, tell me about this cruise.

Yeah, he's like, tell me about this cruise.

And of course, we saw that as an opportunity to invite him.

And if you don't know already, not only will he be there, but a dear friend of his that was

with us this year on this year's cruise will be making a return to Trefinette C.

So two legends, I'm going to stop there because I don't want to give out all the

information, but I'm going to tell you that two legends will be on Trefinette C,

which is September 19th through the 25th, where we will be going out of Vancouver,

sailing down to San Francisco, to Santa Barbara, and ending up in LA.

So we're going to have Bruce as well as Alan Springer.

So those two alone should be the reason for you to go to Trefinette C.

But if that isn't enough, we've got more speakers that we'll tell you about later,

as well as this is a wine cruise.

So we have wine partners coming on board.

We'll also be going to excursions like wineries and stuff like that.

So it is not a tough sale.

So I told Bruce, I said, not only is it like a presentation you do for a region or a club,

I said, but this one, they have alcohol, free alcohol.

And we're not just going to do one session with him.

I think we're going to do at least two, if not three sessions, the days where we are at sea.

So if you haven't considered coming on a cruise, I highly recommend you go to PCA.org

and check out Trefinette C 2026 and get your room reservation in sooner than later.

And the presentations are just for Trefinette C members.

Correct.

So unfortunately, if you're not a Trefinette C member on the ship,

you get turned away because you have to have the liner to be able to get in.

And like Bruce said, I get there quite early to get a good seat.

And it's a very, very cool way to spend the day.

All right.

Let's make sure we recognize our other corporate sponsor, Auto Atlanta.

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Porsche parts, Porsche people, Porsche passion since 1978.

Manny, let's get into the news.

Which one do we have first listed?

First listed, we have simulated gear shifts.

Yeah, so we have talked about this in the past,

but it looks like Porsche is going definitely moving forward with it.

And they're going to start off with the Taycan.

So the Taycan has two speeds.

You don't obviously hear it because it's an electric car.

You don't really feel it.

And one of the complaints by some people have been that

you lose that sporty feel without being able to feel gear shifts.

And so they're going to try it.

They're going to do what Hyundai did first.

And a lot of people are very positive the way that Hyundai did.

I've never driven an electric car with Hyundai's.

I would love to.

I can't wrap my head around the fact that it basically,

it lifts off the throttle for you to give you the sense that it's shifting gears.

It's just like a SIM rig.

It's what it's basically doing, right?

I guess I don't have a SIM rig, but yeah.

Well, remember the ones that we used out here

when we had those SIM racing setup guys who had that big system?

And it moves the chair so you can feel things.

It's the same thing.

It's dragging the motor a little bit.

So when you're shifting, I guess dual clutch,

it wouldn't be much of a torque break,

but it's just literally powering down or doing anything to move your body

so it feels like it's shifting.

It's all it's doing.

I guess I don't understand why though.

I don't either, but I would love to try it out to see what it's like.

Man, you two are a why Porsche didn't do it in the first place.

I mean, if it's not a performance enhancing feature.

It seems like it's just to satisfy the old people that make them feel that they're driving

in an older, uh, why?

No, I would say that it's not to satisfy the old people.

It's to satisfy the younger crowd and people who are interested in having a

little bit of fun with their electric car.

So I want to say this because I saw on some websites that

some people said, I think motor one had something saying,

we were talking about this in June or July.

Well, I will say here, go to PCA.org.

Look for ice cosplay has its place.

Can Hyundai teach Porsche from April 2025?

And it goes into all the details about why you might want simulated gear shifts.

And not the least of which is because, uh, on track, what do you use as,

you know, an auditory signal for how high you are in the rev range?

You know, like in an electric car, there isn't.

But you don't need that though.

It's like instant torque.

I never, when I was driving, breaking car really hard.

Breaking points, how fast you're going, you're using your ears.

And so what most people are saying, uh, who've reviewed the Hyundai is that being

able to quote unquote shift, like going into a braking zone,

it feels more like a normal car and what they're used to.

I guess I have to experience I, I'm on the flip side.

Imagine you're in a Cayenne and I'm sure Porsche can make a lot of money off of this.

Well, maybe you're in a Porsche Cayenne.

You want to have a little bit of fun.

It's not going to help you go faster, but you have, you load the 917 program in.

Oh yeah, I would do it.

It plays through the professor's sense system.

I would do it in the heartbeat.

What it would sound like inside a 917 and it has the engine drag.

But that's, that's not, um, sound though.

Like I like sound for fun.

I get it.

But you can get the, uh, the electric motor to simulate what a 917 felt like.

Well, and they say you can turn it off.

So yeah, anyway, I'm willing to, uh, I'm willing to try it.

Yeah.

I mean, it's better than the Porsche motor sound they have from the electric motor, which is.

So I can, I understand like a CVT transmission where they simulate gear shifts.

I think, I think you were driving a Civic or something like that.

And you couldn't even tell cause you thought it was an automatic transmission.

Like I can see why that, like it's kind of annoying in a CVT car that where it goes,

it just kind of sits there and then driving a modern day Civic that has a CVT and it has

those shift changes.

I can see that.

Like I understand that and why that's comfortable and why that kind of feels the way it feels.

But for an electric motor, I don't see, I guess I don't see the fun in it.

It's just for fun.

That's, that's, I guess, here's the thing.

I'm not going to poo poo it until I, I, I, um, I experience it.

And I'm going to, I'm going to do what I always preach is I'm going to hope that

whatever they came up with is successful because I am a brand.

I just know as much of the seat time I've had in EVs, especially very, very spirited driving.

I never felt a need for attack.

I mean, cause the, the torque is just so instant.

Oh yeah.

I mean, and, and, and a PDK you want to, because you don't want to be too low.

Right.

A RPM coming out of a turn, but PDK is pretty darn smart.

So I find myself letting the PDK, but a manual car.

You definitely want to make sure you're not too low.

But yeah.

And you know what?

Damon, I, when we had the McConny V and I was driving it through like two, two and a half

hours back from Decent Shore, I thought I could easily entertain myself going through

different engines.

Of course they wouldn't put a Ferrari, but certainly going through different Porsche engine

sounds to see what would be like.

So I'm all for that.

It's like engine night in your car.

Yeah, exactly.

I would love that because it's better than, like I said, the motor sound from Porsche is

a, I've yet to find one that enhances my drive or not.

But having it sound like a 356, that would be pretty cool.

The main thing, you know, I think with this technology is what are the downsides?

Well, I guess the biggest downside is if it's not successful, Porsche's wasted a bunch of time.

Yeah.

But other than that, it was, if it's something you can turn on and off, then I don't see any

harm in it.

That's all it is.

All right.

The next news item is a dear friend of ours.

Oh, Grant Larson.

Retiring, although...

But he will say to you that he is not retiring.

He's just leaving the company.

And is that because you think, because I know German, I guess labor laws are different than the U.S.

And I think for financial reasons, it makes sense sometimes for employees to retire and come

back as consultants.

I'm not going to pretend to know the labor laws, but I know it's related to your age and the time

that you've been in the organization.

Like they have a schedule where people have to rotate out.

And no matter if you're the best person in the world, at some point, these people have to rotate out.

The way somebody from Germany explained to me was it financially makes sense to retire,

but they come back as a consultant, usually in a different role.

But anyways, he's not going to be a thunder one, at least not in the special projects.

Not as a company person, maybe as Grant Larson Enterprises or something like that.

It'll be interesting to see if they replace that position with another designer who would that be.

And of course, if you were lucky enough like us to have the classic club cube done by

Grant Larson, that's a pretty cool thing to have.

Absolutely. And actually, that's a great segue, Manny.

Thank you very much.

I had the opportunity to catch up with Grant recently, and he says,

oh, Vue, I have something for PCA.

It's been in my bag, and it's actually been a parade, and I forgot to give it to you,

and I had to bring it back.

So it's crossed the ocean twice, at least.

And he pulls this out, and hopefully Damon could show you closely.

Before you show the picture, Damon, we're all very familiar with the classic club

cube. We're also very familiar with, say, the Carrera font on the side of a Porsche.

Believe it or not, Manny, you can give the details of this.

You can't just type in any letters or words and have it quote unquote translated.

There's no typeface font for a Porsche.

Right. You can't just like, you know, choose times new Roman or Ariel or whatever it is,

and have it spit out into a Porsche font.

There's something that there's probably fonts out there that look similar, but

actual Porsche font, no, they actually have some a designer.

They have iterations that are made that must be approved.

So when we made the 996 Classic Club Coupe, we had Classic Club Coupe written out in the

special font across the back of the car.

And Grant was in charge of creating that badge for the Classic Club Coupe.

And lo and behold, when you do that, you have to submit it.

You have different drafts.

And what he gave to us is actually the prototype of the badge where he made the club.

They had Classic Coupe.

They had that already made, but they didn't have Club.

So he had to make Club to add it to Classic Club Coupe.

And we will now have it for our archives.

How cool is that?

And they must have been different than the 60th Club Coupe,

because they would have had Club already made up for that.

But I think this is a little bit more angular than that Club Coupe.

That's that's right.

Did we have Club Coupe badge across the back on the 60th?

I can't remember.

I thought we had it somewhere on the.

But what I noticed about this was it seemed to be a little bit,

Ms. Ford, I can say was more angular.

You know, we should know that.

We should know that question or answer.

Yeah.

But it was like you said earlier, there isn't a font system because of my race car,

we should call it the Wonder Bread.

And we used to spell it with WU.

And then bread was B-R-E-D.

And my shop that I go to, you or he hand found letters

and made it basically on the computer, made Wonder Bread

in what would have been Porsche font for the back deck lid.

It's got to be custom.

Yeah, because a lot of people asked me, you know,

where did you get the W at?

And why did you?

And it was all basically handmade.

So funny enough, actually, it said Porsche 911 Courage ETS on the back.

That's why they had it.

But I think it might have said it on the door show.

But it was graphics.

It was vinyl, not a badge.

But it would have had the script.

Oh, yeah.

Yeah, but the script is 2D.

On the side, it's not 3D.

But so when I'm getting at that C would have been,

I think it's a little bit different than the C here.

Yeah.

But that was done just in vinyl or in paint or whatever,

whereas this one actually had to be produced.

That's very cool.

I'm glad he gave it to the club.

It's a nice little bit of history.

Can you imagine when someone like that retires the volumes of just stuff

that he has at his house?

What was it when he did one presentation about the boxer, I think,

and he said he forgot that he had all these fouls in the trunk of his handboxer.

Because he hadn't opened the trunk up in like nine months.

And he opened it up and he found all these pictures.

Yeah.

Anyways, let's not get him into trouble because I'm not sure if that was...

All right, let's see.

This next one is going to be a tough one, but hopefully we all can rally together.

This one has to do with sort of what Porsche is bracing for.

Well, obviously we know Porsche is having some challenges.

They're obviously not in the same spot that they were back in the late 80s,

early 90s, but I think they're trying their best to prevent themselves from putting themselves

in that position.

But VW, the VW group, which Porsche is part of, they're all tightening their belts

big time and they're getting ready for cuts at the home office in Stugart.

And they're offering early retirement packages.

So will you allow me to get on my soapbox just a little bit about this?

So all right, I know there's a lot of folks online that are just like, oh, Porsche went

all in on EV, made the wrong decisions, blah, blah, blah.

That's they've lost their soul.

That's that and the other.

Look, as a car maker, you have to follow regulations and you have to see what's coming

down the road.

And sometimes the information that you've gotten from regulatory agencies around the

world have told you that this will be the way of the future and you have to make cars

that follow those regulations.

So they put a lot of eggs in the basket of going the EV way because at the time and

people are making these decisions years before we even know about it.

Just think about the production facilities and the plans for all that.

That was done like five years ago, at least 10 years ago.

Like they're starting, you know, this the strategy, right?

Now, unfortunately, as we all know, EVs did not stick or the conversion or the the move

to EVs.

Well, this is where I just heard how to make this misinformation.

The Chinese market put a big hurting.

The Chinese are not making ICE cars.

They're making strictly EVs, but they're making their own EVs.

And that's what hurt Porsche and the other manufacturers.

Wasn't the fact that Porsche chose EV over ICE.

Porsche didn't think that China would turn around and basically save.

That's to me.

That's the second blow, right?

The first blow was here's all these regulations that you had to retool and prepare for.

So you put your eggs in the EV basket and it didn't stick.

Or, you know, the transition phase.

It's not going away for those of you that are listening that thinks that EV is not going

to be our future.

It's going to be our future.

It's just the fact that when is it?

When is the infrastructure going to be able to catch up?

And can these companies that are producing ICE survive long enough to be able to go and

transition over?

So first blow is the EV bet, right?

But they could have been heroes.

Had it stuck, they would have been very well positioned.

And then the second blow, as you said, is the fact that, you know, they enjoyed a huge

market share in China, regardless of the technology.

Just imagine you have a huge market share in China.

And then all of a sudden, the Chinese market chooses their own national car over and, you

know, it's not only Porsche that's suffering.

It's any any import into China is suffering because they've all.

Because China is like 20-some, I think, auto manufacturing, EV, auto manufacturing.

Probably more than that.

Yeah, more than that.

And then the price point, like you just can't compete, right?

So that's blow number two.

And then obviously lately, we've been talking about, you know, tariffs for cars that are

coming into United States.

So that's that's a third blow.

So now that you know all of that, be sensitive.

Like if you were faced with how do I get the Porsche ship, so to speak, back on track or

in the right direction, that's a hugely complicated strategy to try to figure out.

And to make it even worse is whatever strategy you decide to choose, it's going to take a

couple of years to implement.

So let's say let's say you come up with the best possible car that's ice or hybrid or

whatever it is.

Any platform, even if they rushed it, is going to be like a two to three year period.

And then what do you do with all the infrastructure that you just put down at

Leipzig for all the EVs?

Like you can't just take that stuff offline.

You can't just retool it to make these other cars.

So I guess what I'm getting at is like whatever they're coming out as Porsche fans,

like we want them to succeed and then we want to help them bridge this time period.

Why?

You might not agree with what cars they're making in the future because it might not apply

to you, but let's hope that whatever they do make does apply to a lot of people because

that means they can stay afloat and then they can still make all the cars that we love, right?

So all right, I promised that I'll off the soapbox, but I had to get that off my chest

because when I've spoken to PAG folks, obviously they understand like how incredibly

important the next couple of years will be.

And I think most people will understand that it's going to be kind of rocky.

But if we all kind of stick together and I don't mean to sound too kumbaya-ish,

but we need to do this because there's other car companies that haven't made through

something like this.

And guess what?

Their brand is diminished by now and that you can't get classic parts.

You can't get this, that, and the other.

You won't get the two-door cars, all that stuff.

So let's do what we can to support them.

Yeah, not just them.

I worry about our own domestic auto manufacturers that...

They also survive through this too because I was thinking the United States is car manufacturing.

I hate to see us not have the same standing that we've always had in the world.

And I will say that I've heard through the grapevine that there are models that I think

most of you that are listening will approve of that's coming down the line.

But like I said, it's going to be, it's going to take a little bit of time.

So just hang in there.

This next news item here is...

I don't know all the details of it, but it was kind of interesting to see

something about Porsche cars in Russia.

So you read this statement because it's either you're laughing too.

Yeah, I had it in e-brake last night.

Yeah, it was...

So are they just not working?

Like a software?

Yeah, basically, it's not a glitch.

They think it's something to do with the satellite GPS tracking.

Porsche, yeah, yeah.

So Porsche doesn't sell new cars in Russia anymore.

They still have three dealerships that they've been trying to sell, but they can't.

So you've got to think they've sold probably a ton of Porsches in Russia,

but they don't sell new cars.

And I'm guessing support is probably greatly diminished since, you know,

the war and stuff that's going on over there.

So they can't get their updates and et cetera, et cetera.

You've got a car that because of whatever GPS or something, they just won't start.

They're not up to date.

So owners are doing all sorts of things, like unplugging their car.

Unplugging.

Like rebooting?

Yeah, like rebooting, like taking the car off the battery for 10 hours and like

with mixed success and whatever.

So yeah, and many if I'm not reading this right now,

but what was it?

Do you, do you have in front of you what it was GPS wise?

Because it is a GPS thing and it has GPS tracking.

So they're not a hundred percent sure.

And if you Google this, you're going to see everything from conspiracy theories to

this is a government led, basically that the government went in there and

hacked into the system and disabled everyone's Porsche.

From, but we don't know why.

No, I've not heard yet as a definitive answer.

We only know cars aren't working.

Yeah, exactly.

And the thing is, I guess the bigger picture illustrates is, and I think this has ties

into part of this cyber cybersecurity regulations that Europe had where it led to the demise of the 718

and the Isomacan was that they have to now adhere to the regulations required.

So these set of attacks aren't affected because it can.

What was that movie that came out, you know, where they showed the whole grid like.

And one of them was the cars all just shutting off.

And yeah, and it was the remember the ship that ran aground there,

World Tanker installed GPS tracking and whatnot.

So yeah, it's kind of scary how much we rely on that.

From like 30 years ago, where that never existed.

Now suddenly it's an integral part.

Just go think, you know, in 25 years is a 992 GT3 gonna work if,

let's say you live in an area that doesn't have a Porsche dealership or whatever it might be.

That's pretty farfetched, I think.

No, no, it's not.

It's not because it was somebody from Porsche.

A source told me that I forgot what year and within the next 10 years,

you're going to have to be able to log your car into the Porsche service network to be able to

work on it. Wow.

And he said, and that's probably going to really hurt the IY's because the shops,

independent shops can afford to pay for the subscription to join.

I have a feeling that ain't going to go over too well in the U.S.

I wonder if that's going to actually happen.

I hope they do.

What's it called, the right to repair or something like that?

We have a big consumer-based law.

Yeah, yeah.

But it's, anyways, whether that was a heck job or just something glitch in the software,

there's a bunch of upset Russian Porsche owners.

As advanced as all these cars are, and now this cybersecurity

kind of crosses over into our automotive world, but it's certainly possible.

I'm guessing this goes back to the invasion of Ukraine when all the corporate

entities pulled out of Russia, like McDonald's and whatnot.

Right, right.

So maybe it'll go back to normal after this is all done.

Oh, crazy.

Well, if we do see what the causes are later, we'll be sure to report on it.

For now, be sure to head over to PCA.org.

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which is really cool.

I see them all the time.

And just send us an email with your address information to podcast at PCA.org.

And we will send you some free PCA Insider decals.

And with that, anything else before we wrap it up, gentlemen?

Congratulations to Dr. Wolfgang Porsche.

On getting married?

On his recent marriage to Gabriella

of Leningen.

Leningen.

She's actually part of the Tyson Krupp, which is the steel maker.

I believe a German steel maker family.

So power couple.

Definitely power couple.

Power couple.

All right.

Well, everyone, again, happy holidays to you.

Hope that you have a great time this holiday with your family.

Be safe.

Thank you for listening.

Be sure to like, comment, and subscribe.

And consider sharing our show with fellow Porsche enthusiasts.

Until next time, stay safe.

And we'll catch you down the road.

Surviving an atmospheric-river ünStock, touring Bruce Meyer's Dream Garage, and more

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