There Is a Rep Wheel and Rep Tire Epidemic..
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Car
Nissan 350Z
The Nissan 350Z is a sporty car made by Nissan that was sold from 2002 to 2009. It's known for being fun to drive and has a strong engine, making it popular among car enthusiasts.
Term
SEMA
SEMA is a big trade show where companies show off parts and accessories for cars. It's important for people who work in the automotive industry to see what's new and connect with others.
Car
Nissan Armada
The Nissan Armada is a large SUV that can carry a lot of passengers and cargo. It's designed for comfort and can handle rough roads well.
Concept
Nismo
Nismo is a part of Nissan that makes cars faster and sportier. They add special features to improve how the cars drive and look.
Car
Nissan Z
The Nissan Z is a new sports car from Nissan, known for its sporty design and performance. It's part of a long line of Z cars that Nissan has produced over the years.
Car
Toyota Camry
The Toyota Camry GTS is a performance version of the regular Camry. It has a stronger engine and better handling, making it more fun to drive than the standard Camry.
Part
eight-pot brakes
Eight-pot brakes are a type of brake system that uses eight small pistons to squeeze the brake pads against the rotor. This helps the car stop more effectively, especially during hard braking.
Term
six-pot brakes
Six-pot brakes are another type of brake system that uses six pistons to help stop the car. They are designed to give better stopping power than regular brakes.
Term
hybrid powertrain
A hybrid powertrain is a system in cars that uses both a gas engine and an electric motor. This helps the car save fuel and be more environmentally friendly.
Part
BBS wheels
BBS wheels are a brand of car wheels that are popular among car lovers for their quality and performance. They are often used on sports cars and modified vehicles.
Car
Toyota Prius
The Toyota Prius is a special car that uses both gas and electricity to drive, which helps save fuel and reduce pollution. It's known for its unique shape and is often seen as a car for people who care about the environment.
Term
horsepower
Horsepower is a way to measure how powerful an engine is. When someone says an engine has 230 horsepower, it means it can do a lot of work quickly, like going fast.
Car
Nissan Skyline GT-R R32
The Nissan Skyline GT-R R32 is a famous sports car from the late 1980s and early 1990s. It's known for being fast and having great handling, which makes it popular among car fans.
Car
Datsun 240Z
The Datsun 240Z is an old sports car from the early 1970s. It's popular for its fun driving experience and unique look.
Car
Mclaren Mp412C
The McLaren MP4-12C is a high-performance sports car made by McLaren. It's known for being very fast and having a powerful engine, which makes it exciting to drive.
Company
Pandem
Pandem makes custom parts and body kits for cars to enhance their appearance and performance, especially for drifting.
Company
Trust
Trust makes parts that help cars perform better, especially for racing and performance driving.
Company
HKS
HKS creates parts that improve a car's performance, especially for speed and power, mainly for Japanese cars.
Company
Greddy
Greddy makes performance parts that help cars go faster and sound better, especially for Japanese models.
Part
angle kit
An angle kit helps cars turn better by allowing the wheels to steer at a sharper angle. This is especially useful for racing or drifting.
Part
LS swapped
An LS swap means putting a new engine from General Motors into a car that originally had a different engine. This is done to make the car faster and more powerful.
Part
Watts link
A Watts link is a special part of the car's suspension that helps keep the back wheels in the right place when turning. This makes the car handle better.
Car
BMW E36S
The BMW E36 is a model of the BMW 3 Series made between 1990 and 1999. It's appreciated for its good handling and sporty feel, which many car lovers enjoy.
Car
Mercedes-Benz S63 AMG
The Mercedes-Benz S63 AMG is a fancy and powerful version of the S-Class, which is a luxury car. The 2024 model is the latest version.
Car
Datsun
Datsun is a car brand that used to be popular, especially for making small and sporty cars. They were made by a company called Nissan.
Term
OBD2
OBD2 is a system in cars that helps you check what's wrong with the vehicle by connecting to a special device. It can show you error codes that tell you about problems in the car.
Car
Scion Frs
The Scion FR-S is a small sports car that is fun to drive. It's known for being light and easy to handle, making it a good choice for people who love driving.
Company
Continental Tires
Continental Tires makes tires for cars and other vehicles. They are known for making high-quality tires that help improve driving safety and performance.
Car
BMW M5
The BMW M5 is a fast and powerful car that is designed for people who love to drive quickly. It's part of a special line of BMWs that are built for performance and excitement on the road.
Car
Pagani Huayra
The Huayra is a super-fast car made by Pagani, famous for its cool looks and powerful engine.
Car
BMW 335
The BMW 335 is a model from the BMW 3 Series, which is a line of compact executive cars. It's known for being fun to drive and has a good mix of performance and luxury.
Car
BMW M3
The BMW M3 is a sporty version of the regular BMW 3 Series, made for people who want a fun and fast driving experience. It's known for its sleek look and powerful engine.
Car
Datsun 510S
The Datsun 510 is an old-school car that many people love because it's simple and fun to drive. It's popular among collectors and those who enjoy fixing up classic cars.
Car
Porsche Macan
The Porsche Macan is a fancy SUV that drives like a sports car. It's designed to be comfortable and stylish while still being fun to drive.
Car
Audi Rs7
The Audi RS7 Sportback is a fancy car that is really fast and powerful. It looks great and has a lot of high-tech features, making it popular among people who want a luxury sports car.
Car
Skoda Octavia
The Skoda Octavia is a practical car that is good for everyday use. It has a lot of space inside and is known for being reliable and affordable.
Car
Ford Mustangs
The Ford Mustang is a classic American car that is famous for being fast and stylish. It's loved by many for its powerful engine and cool design, making it a popular choice for car lovers.
Car
Tesla Cybertruck
The Tesla Cybertruck is a new type of truck that runs on electricity instead of gas. It looks very different from regular trucks and is designed to be strong and efficient.
Car
Toyota 4Runner
The Toyota 4Runner is a tough SUV that can handle rough roads and outdoor adventures. It's popular because it's reliable and can be used for both city driving and exploring nature.
Car
Toyota Supra
Car
Toyota Tacomas
The Toyota Tacoma is a strong pickup truck that can carry heavy loads and go off-road. It's a good choice for people who need a tough vehicle for work or adventures.
Car
Tesla Roadster
The Tesla Roadster is a super-fast sports car that runs on electricity. It's famous for being one of the first electric cars to be really fast and fun to drive.
Car
Honda S2000
The Honda S2000 is a small sports car that is really fun to drive. It's known for being light and fast, making it popular among people who love driving.
LIVE
Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to the MartiniWorks podcast.
No, you welcome back from the MartiniWorks podcast.
I'm back with a special guest, me.
Hi, how are you?
Me as in Alex Martinez.
We got you back, but we lost another one.
What are you doing here?
I kicked out somebody else, because Alex
took somebody else's spot.
Lars ate Dakota, and I returned from the ether to spawn back in.
I'm here.
I just try really hard not to be, you know what I mean?
Thought your Minecraft bag got lost or something.
Bro, it has been an absolute trip.
So I've been gone, I think today would have marked a day 15
of being away from the office.
Give it up for day 15.
That's how it felt.
Yeah, I've been gone for a while.
I honestly forgot what the shop looked like.
And you guys did a really good job at keeping it clean,
but didn't necessarily move anything.
So I came back and was like, huh, all right, well, make sense.
Just not making it worse is like.
Sometimes not making something worse
is actually a modification and a quality of life
improvement in and of itself.
Yeah.
Right?
Yeah.
It's kind of like a car, kind of like a car build.
If you don't touch it, you can't make it worse.
True.
That's how I live my whole life.
I don't really clean my house.
I just try not to make it dirty.
I mean, that is, that is, yeah.
Yeah, literally, Beck and I have this new recipe, which
by the way, we're going to be talking about SEMA today.
All the things we found at SEMA, the Wing Concor,
probably some other stuff that's happening in the news.
Then we'll finish it up with some breaking news
because there's some new stuff happening out there.
Sounds good to me.
And if you need car parts, especially during November,
you want the homie hookup, head on over to martiniworks.com.
We have a bunch of deals actually going live
as this video is live.
And they're good ones, too.
They're not garbage.
No BS.
Yeah, we don't do the garbage.
Get $32 off a set of four when you buy 16 lug nuts
and 12 ceramic coatings.
And then there's like 9,000 other things.
And we also don't have get 10% off random unknown brand
you've never heard of.
That's probably probably a private label brand of something
that we sell.
We don't do that.
You would do great at Kohl's.
That's his Vegas voice, by the way.
I thought we talked all in Vegas.
Get your Kohl's cash.
Did it work?
Yeah, they told me to get bent.
But seriously, if you guys and gals
are looking for properly good deals,
properly good brands, head on over to martiniworks.com.
We're happy to help.
Plus, we have a lovely team, US-based, up here in Wisconsin,
willing to help you out.
So if you shoot us a message, we're
happy to take care of that for you.
Actually, I have somebody new jumping on in the next couple
of weeks, which we're really excited for.
But yes, what was I getting into before that?
I mean, you said something about a recipe.
You guys want a food recipe?
I'm always down for a food recipe.
Most of my audience loves the food recipes.
But the general majority hates them, especially
in the 20-minute video series.
Sometimes I will say they are hit or miss.
You know, you're right.
At least the way that they sound.
I'm sure they're fine.
Actually, I'm sure they're pretty good.
But what kind of recipes?
I've missed out on this.
I do.
What do you got?
Let's hit us with one.
In the 20-minute videos, I usually
will hit the audience with a recipe
that they can make while they watch the video.
The problem is, is a majority of the folk
looked at me and said, I don't care about your salmon
recipe, tell me 20 minutes of 350Z information.
But if it's not salmon, don't do it.
Every once in a while.
The real ones are around for the recipe.
Yeah, but the real ones, one of them
said hi at SEMA and he was like, hey, I just want you to know,
I tried that salmon recipe for me and my wife.
Great date exercise.
They made it together.
They had fun.
They had a wine, had some salmon, maybe in nine months.
I'll be accredited at least 50%.
Jesus Christ.
With that being said, we are going
to talk a little bit about SEMA.
While you do so, I don't necessarily
have a recipe for you today, but more of a tip.
My tip for you is, if you're going
to go into making any sort of meat, like a barbacoa or steak
or carne asada or anything like that,
any sort of taco meat, I would say specifically,
I would highly, highly advise if you
want to come across as a Michelin one star,
just marinate the meat for six hours.
Whatever it is that you think you're
going to make for your friends, get it out.
Get everything kind of cut up, situated.
Get your marinade ready to rock and roll.
Get that meat in that sauce.
Get it back in the fridge.
Cover it up.
Six hours, min, OK?
Yeah, I always fucked that up.
I always get really excited.
I'm like, damn, we're going to do like steak tacos tonight.
I'm going to get nice, full steak.
And then you pour some garbage ass salty Sriracha dry rub
on it.
Oh, no, no, no.
No, I'd marinate it, but it's usually like an hour
before we have to cook it.
If you do that, get it more acidic.
It'll break up the meat.
Really toned.
Well, not like super acidic.
Really saturated with orange juice is what you're saying?
No, just squirt a little lime in there.
Because it breaks up the, is it a protein fiber?
That's in the top layer of the meat.
It helps make it more tender.
That's actually why you put salt on it,
as well as kind of draws out the moisture of the meat
so that when you go and you put some sort of lime
or you marinate it, when it actually goes back in,
it soaks back in, it softens it up.
And then when you go to sear it, you crisp it, right?
And then when you bite into it, you get that hard exterior
but soft, sensitive interior.
Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to Martini Works Cafe.
Today, we're going to be talking about.
We're not talking about SEMA, actually.
I'm sorry.
Let's talk about SEMA.
It was awesome.
So I had this really good taco.
Oh my god.
There is a taco joint, though.
If you guys have been to SEMA right across from World
Resorts, Resorts World.
Best place to go to.
Hands down.
It is always busy.
You have to yell and scream for what you want.
They don't really know what you're asking for.
But if you point or if you speak Spanish, automatic win.
SEMA 2025 was a great, great year.
Yeah, tell me about it.
Lots of changes.
OK.
Very bad.
I would say most were good.
That was good.
I would say most were good.
The problem is there's a little bit of not so good
in there, you know, too.
The good is Central Hall, without a doubt.
Banger.
Carrying the specialty equipment manufacturing
association.
Banger Hall.
It was fantastic.
That's what SEMA stands for, by the way, if you weren't aware.
It was fantastic.
There were some.
SEMA the long way.
SEMA the long way.
Central Hall was where it was at.
Yeah, dude.
It was crazy.
Nissan was back.
Damn.
They had an Armada, Doom Patrol, Nismo.
Chris Forsberg dropped his new Z
that he's going to be debuting for Gridlife Grand Touring,
GLGT, right?
GLGT?
Yes, GLGT.
Damn.
Which is super cool.
Toyota had a bunch of stuff.
They had a side by side that was a super rad.
I did see that.
They brought a side by side.
Yeah.
It was like their first, like, UTV that they've done.
Ever.
Yeah.
That was pretty cool.
And then some weird time attack thing
that they were debuting, which.
They had a Toyota Camry GTS, which at first I
was going to make fun of.
And then I saw them first.
And I was like, that's actually kind of hot.
So what's the difference between Camry GTS and Camry TRD?
Try not to think about it too hard.
I'm thinking about it.
OK, just think about it a little bit,
because they did a two-way colorway that looks really sick.
For some reason, I think they said
that the fronts were eight-pot brakes.
It was either six or eight-pot brakes,
and then huge rear brakes.
I mean, the brakes were unnecessarily.
So it's above the TRD.
Yeah.
I don't think it's as fast, though.
Well, it's using the same hybrid powertrain.
So they didn't.
It's already had to be six.
Well, it's the new chassis's turbo hybrid power.
Toyota, what is going on?
And it didn't have a wing.
I'm out.
It was neat, though.
It had a BBS.
I'm pretty sure they're BBS wheels, Michelin tires,
lowered a little bit, two-tone paint.
They had the same, like, Prius sexiness,
like, subtle hotness to it.
Yeah, the front had 230 horsepower.
Thank you for saying that in 2004.
No.
No, not at all.
Having the same Prius sexiness is a term.
Things I'd never say for $1,000 10 years ago.
But I get it.
Yeah, no, that was really cool.
Central Hall had a lot of great stuff.
Likwemali had a super silhouette, R32.
I saw that.
Likwemali, like, bulled out this year.
Like, their booth went crazy.
They had, like, a matching, like, cart.
Yeah, they had a koi pond, too.
They're freaking koi pond.
Freaking koi pond?
I didn't see anything about the koi pond.
Yeah, it was a digital koi pond.
It was really cool.
It wasn't a real koi pond.
You think I would not trust any sample subset of that audience
to not put their dirty little dickbeaters into the water
and try to grab a koi fish, OK?
I'm glad they did a digital fish pond.
It'd be pretty cool, though.
No.
That'd be pretty sick.
There'd be some viral video.
Yeah, there'd be a left-seam eye with a koi.
Yeah.
There'd be somebody with, like, a koi pond.
Got the Likwemali koi pond.
I'd see somebody with, like, a bowtie cut-off t-shirt
from the Friday night pool.
Just be like, hey, what is this?
This ain't no bass.
Someone's shoving it in, like, the freaking, like, goody bag
they got from the booth.
Putting it in the Alpharex bag.
You got any water?
Just, like, puts the whole bag in the water.
Sorry.
I was just saying, there's somebody
put a 1,200-horsepower, like, jet boat
into a pool at some after party.
I did see that.
Imagine the koi pond would end up there.
Wait, that was that.
That was at SEMA?
No, no.
It was at some after thing at one of the.
But it was in Vegas, or whatever?
Yeah, yeah.
I saw that hit my TikTok.
And I was like, damn, that was badass.
First of all, having a jet boat in a pool in a venue
is pretty fucking sick.
Apparently, people like.
Of course, you're going to fire it up.
Yeah, yeah, if they lifted it in one night
and then fired up the next or something, I don't.
That's crazy.
That's awesome.
Let's see what else is going on.
Central Hall also had Sun Kang brought his drifting cars
for his movie Drifter, which was really cool.
So Lola 1, Lola 2.
Got to talk to him, huh?
Yeah, I got to talk to him a couple times.
Awesome guy.
Nice.
So nice.
I think the one thing.
Do you have the Fuguzzi there, too?
Yes.
Nice.
That's my baby.
That's like my dream car.
When I was a kid, that was the car I wanted.
I painted my car white because his car was white.
That was a good car.
And then I also got to sit and kind of talk
around his 78Z, which is a 1972 Datsun 240Z.
But it's called 78 because it's
like this mantra of falling down seven.
You get up eight times.
So that's an old car for him.
He's had it for a long time.
That's the old one?
Yeah, that's like his whole concept
is no matter how many times you fail
or you have to reiterate on something,
you just keep going at it.
Like you don't stop.
And it was a really cool car.
Getting to meet him, though, I think
one of the number one things.
I would say how does this.
The number one thing people get wrong about Sungkang
is that he has that persona from the movie in real life.
Oh, sure.
But because the character and his real life persona
are so similar in nature, which
is in the car scene, love JDM cars, loves to drive.
People put that on him.
And really, when you get to talk to him in person
for the first time, he really is just
an incredibly soft-spoken, sweet, very retrospective
individual who holds on to a lot and just
wants people to get to enjoy what he gets to enjoy
as much as he possibly can.
So it was a really refreshing experience.
I didn't know what to expect, to be completely honest.
It can be a hit or miss.
And obviously, a little starstruck.
I have a video of me.
Becca's filming this video, right?
It's Monday.
And I'm friends with Suzuki, who his car was also in the booth.
He drives a Drift McLaren MP412C.
And so I'm talking to Suzuki.
And I'm like, I'm going to do a couple videos,
because it was getting late.
And as I'm doing it, everybody comes into the booth.
Mira Sun is there from Pandem.
Sungkang is there.
All the guys from the Drifter movie are there.
All the notable people that are in those Japanese businesses
from like Gretty and Trust and HKS, they were all there.
They were all in this booth.
And here's a little of me with a phone and my wife
trying to record this video.
And the video starts off with, everyone loves the Fugu Z.
But I want to show you one that I think is even better.
And I said that out loud.
And I knew for sure as heck that people heard me say that.
So we go over to the Orange Z.
Sung's Orange Z.
And I'm like, walking around it, I have it on video.
And Beck is like, OK, you ready?
And I'm like, yeah, I'm just a little nervous.
Because here I am, I'm about to explain this car
to the camera.
And there's all these people around me.
And I'm like, what happens if I get it wrong?
What happens if I mess this whole thing up?
That is anxiety level 5,000.
Dude, it literally happened.
Watch this.
Hold on, let me.
Did you mess it up?
Just for context, the booth, usually you've been the same.
All the booths are really crammed together.
Right, yeah, they're on top.
They have their own section.
They're not surrounded by anything.
Look at this.
Always between them.
Because they're all around me right now.
You're doing great.
OK.
This is going to be even more nerve-wracking,
because they're all around me right now.
Thank you.
Oh, hi, sir.
How are you?
I'm Alex.
Nice to meet you.
Dude, I got to say.
That is just like that.
It was completely unscripted.
I was just trying to do this video.
And he's like, hey, Alex.
I'm like, ah, ah, ah, ah.
That's so awesome, though.
Yeah, so a huge shout out to.
What a freaking dream.
Yeah, a huge shout out to the team there that introduced me.
Absolutely incredible souls the whole time.
Bao as well.
She helped with the interview the Tuesday morning.
Got to walk around the cars.
But great time.
Obviously, I have no idea what the movie
Drifter is going to be like.
Frankly, I don't really know if I give a shit.
I'm going to go watch that.
And I'm going to invite as many friends as I possibly can.
Absolutely.
And we are going to go support and love it no matter what it is.
Can we go rent out the theater for that?
I totally.
Absolutely.
Open and select theaters.
I'm going to a select theater then.
I don't care what it is.
Because everybody I talked to about the movie
is so passionate.
And they talked about how many people.
Like 12,000 people, I think they said,
showed up to English town for that scene
as far as the end.
The character takes on the four-time world champion
Adam LZ.
And I'm like, oh, that's so cool.
You know, so I'm really excited about that movie
because like even so here's the thing,
even if the story ain't that great,
even if it might be a little bit cheesy,
I think it's still going to be so good
because it is like accurate.
Like you had actual car enthusiasts and people
working on this.
So it's not going to be like some bullshit.
You know what I mean?
Like it those are actual cars.
The stuff that I would hope that they're going to say
in the movie makes sense.
Like, you know, it's not going to be like, oh,
you could tell that someone just wrote this
for a movie they didn't know about cars
or anything like that.
It's like, I think it's going to be good in that sense.
Sung Kang needed a car for the character
in the opening scene.
And he reached out to different people
to see if he could find somebody that had an 86.
And a good friend of mine, and a great friend of Sung,
actually had an 86.
He's a collector, he has a bunch of them
that have been sitting in his garage for over eight years.
And was like, I mean, I got one, but it's kind of a pile of shit.
And like, Sung's like, no, that's exactly what I need.
And he's like, OK, but it's like, it's missing a headlight.
It has a bumper issue.
Like it really doesn't run that well.
And he's like, perfect, I'll take it.
So Lola won in the movie.
Is an actual just kind of thrown together
shipbox of an 86 that has like,
I think it has the stock engine in it.
It's got a little bit of an angle kit.
It's got Watanabe's, you know, all the good stuff,
like the basic stuff.
And then Lola 2, which is as the character progresses
through the story, obviously gets better parts,
gets more money, is an LS swapped 86 with Watts on it,
angle kit, all the bells and whistles.
And it looks identical, just obviously the engine base.
I'm so excited for this damn movie.
Yeah, it's just like, it's cool.
I think it'll be such a fun watch.
Do you remember being maybe like a younger teenager,
middle teenager, and you're like,
we should do a top gear episode together
with like you and your buddies.
It's like everybody has this like cannon moment
of their life, we should make a movie together.
Anyone that's had like any involvement,
like content creation or like, you know,
like grew up like watching YouTube and stuff like that.
I feel like has had that moment at least once
where it's like, let's go make something.
Yeah.
And you know, whether that's, you know,
top gear spinoff, fast period spinoff something
or it's even like, you get like that opportunity
for like that one class in high school
to make a short film or whatever for some fucking reason.
Yeah.
Yeah.
It was super cool.
I mean, that was obviously a big highlight.
The Toyota Tread Pass didn't disappoint.
Yeah.
What were some of the heaters in there this year?
There's a lot of BMWs.
Really?
There's a lot of BMWs.
There's a lot of E36s.
Also older.
A lot of E30s.
That's the older stuff, yeah.
E46, Datsuns, multiple Datsuns.
Mercedes made a little bit of a comeback.
There's a few of them.
Yeah, there's like a bunch of wide-body Mercedes.
There's one that was like a 2024 S63 AMG
with the body of like a 71 Mercedes,
like a huge, old body.
Like a W100 series.
Let's just say Datsun, I feel like.
I haven't seen so many Datsuns this year.
There's a solid.
I don't know how you called that one, but my god.
There's like 20 Datsuns.
That was crazy.
I called it because we're getting older.
It was cool.
I got to see Larry's and Song's.
And his name is Toshi?
Tosher?
Bradhead is there, too.
Bradhead is there.
Obviously, that was super cool.
Viperswap.
Viperswap, yeah.
They built them.
How many days did he build that in?
Like just a stupid amount of days?
I don't believe.
Like 60 days or something like that?
I don't understand how people do that.
I just don't get it.
I don't know how it happens.
Why does it take us so long?
Because we stink at it.
Because we've never done it before.
And we're like, have they built a Viperswap
Datsun before?
Yeah, well, I don't know.
Here's the truth.
I believe this wholeheartedly.
When it comes to helping people mod their car
and knowing what wheels and tires fit, intake, exhaust,
we are really good at it.
Really, really fucking good.
We are really fricking.
We would hang our hat on that bad boy.
That is our skill.
That's what we love to do.
I know wheel and tire fitment.
Yes.
I will hang that.
But you give me a wiring harness.
I got to install that thing.
And half the other engine bay is fried and cooked.
You put a bent piece of metal in front of me?
You give me two pieces and you say glue this together.
I'm going to say I'm going to try my best.
I'm burning a hole in it.
Honestly, I thought TIG and mig welding was the same thing.
Just somebody forgot to enunciate the T until I was like 28.
I'm turning two pieces into three.
My dad always had like the greatest saying ever.
Because he always talked about how he tore stuff apart
when he was a kid.
He put it back together.
And I'd always do the same thing,
except my stuff would always break.
So one time I tore apart my 25 inch flat screen
boob tube TV that I got from Action City on ticket
redemptions.
Damn.
And I was good.
I was good.
My dad came up to me on time and he's like, Niko,
I really love you.
And I think you're learning a lot.
He goes, but if you keep tearing this thing apart
and putting it back together, you're
going to have enough pieces to make a second TV.
And I was like, that was the nicest way
of him telling me, stop.
See, my dumb ass would have been like six.
What else was cool?
North Hall was good.
It had like a huge passing.
Is that the newer one?
No, that's West.
West, OK.
North Halls felt like weird software stuff this year.
Yeah, there's always everybody's AI.
Everybody's got an AI company.
Empowering your entire business through AI.
Oh, so it was all like business service stuff.
But like even like there was this one company that
had like an OBD2 plug thing.
And then you have an app on your phone
and like AI tells you what's wrong with your car.
The code already tells me what's wrong with my car.
So we have something we're going to try.
We put Google into it.
Yeah, so that's the thing.
We're going to try and see.
But like here's AI integration for any vertical of business
right now in a fucking nutshell.
Number one, state problem.
Number two, requires some sort of subject matter
expert to digest that problem and transform it
into a consumer facing solution.
Step three, solve problem.
Step four, money.
OK, so now it's step one.
Establish problem that may or may not exist.
Step two, inject AI middleware bullshit in between
to try and solve said need.
Step three, package it into a basic app integration
on your phone.
Step four, hopefully it gets installed 100,000 times.
Sell it for 130 bucks.
A lot of this is literally the same stuff you already
probably have or have used in the past.
Just package different.
Now it's just AI doing it.
And so you have to figure it out.
Which is to be fair, I mean, the AI stuff is neat, right?
But the problem with AI integrated tools
as everybody who's listening or watching this knows,
it is only as good as the input and prompt
that you give it, right?
So essentially these rehashed middleware programs
that are taking something and digesting it against AI
and then spitting it back out.
All that that's doing is however good
that initial baseline code is.
It's only as good as that.
So if it doesn't get supported by smart people
or if it doesn't get developed and innovated and updated,
it'll die, right?
Because AI is transforming so fast in the marketplace
right now that all these companies that are based
on AI backgrounds, if they don't keep up to date
on what's happening, they'll die just as fast.
I'm not kidding you, one of every three booths
at SEMA North Hall was AI enabled messaging on something.
Yeah, totally.
And these are all like startups that inject
a bunch of money into it to try to pitch this, right?
They're there just to market it and make you believe it.
And then who knows how many will come back next year?
I believe probably half.
Maybe, I would bet not even that.
So we'll see.
It'll be interesting.
I think it's a cool model, but yeah.
Battle of the Builders was awesome.
Cam almost made it.
Some cool stuff in there.
Lost us in trucks.
Oh no.
Yeah, but his BMW is sick.
That car was super cool.
That kid is insane.
He's 24.
I know.
It's nuts.
Even when he had his, was it the FRS or was it BRZ?
What up?
That chat, that car.
Whenever he had that there a few years ago.
Very well done car, by the way.
Like I was taking a peek skis at it,
like really getting in there.
Super cool.
You don't look right.
Super cool.
Yeah, he definitely has an eye for it.
So that was really neat.
West Hall, we barely saw.
It's like keep yelling stuff,
there's some rap stuff in the corner.
Yeah, we got the last room
when we checked out West Hall.
Super cool place.
Like that's like the newest section of it.
It's fucking huge.
Massive.
It's insane how big that building is.
Yeah.
Yeah, there's some cool stuff in there.
But yeah, I know what's more like.
There's one more new building now.
International Pavilion.
Jesus Christ.
But we only like walked by it.
I don't think there's anything really worth it.
Gotcha.
It's like first time exhibitors now.
Cool.
Yeah, we got our butts kicked with that.
South.
South upper, tools and south lower.
Different segment.
Which we will talk about in a bit,
but not before talking about our partner
for the Martini Works podcast, Continental Tire.
Andi.
If you want to talk about one of that,
say the other two.
Andi.
If you are looking for a reason
to buy Continental Tires right now,
now is the time.
There is an incredible rebate going on.
$110 back on a set of four on Continental
on martiniworks.com.
Absolutely awesome.
It's something that Martini Works
is really passionate about to offer
for Continental through our website.
And it is fantastic.
We have heard nothing but great things
about folks that throw on the Continental,
DWSO6 or Extreme Contact Sport 02
are incredible tires.
But we also have the Viking Contact 8
on the website now.
Winter tires are definitely coming through.
We saw some snow in Wisconsin here yesterday.
Yeah, it all snowed.
And so you definitely do not want to be
on the late game of that decision
when a snow storm comes through, guys and gals.
Please pick up your tires from martiniworks.com.
You don't need to package it with wheels
even though we want you to.
If you just need tires,
it'd be a lot cooler if you did, though.
We'd be happy to ship them over to your door speedy fast.
We're going to do cyclones in the M5 this winter.
You're gosh darn right we are.
Yeah, we'll talk soon.
So we're back and now we're talking
about our Pride and Joy haul for the most part.
We saw a lot of performance parts,
but we saw a lot of wheel and tire packages.
Ladies and gentlemen, we got a lot of them.
Right above us, which is important for us
to make note here.
Mack and Industries, they help us
with certain Japanese wheels.
They're not in South Lower, they're in Central.
There are other brands that are wheels,
but they're in Central, not South Lower,
which we'll get into,
but South Lower is in the lower haul
as indicative by the name.
I was gonna say, yeah, okay.
A little bit darker, a little bit further away.
We've been there eight years or so now
and South Lower is like my home away from home.
And South Lower used to be like the crown jewel.
Yeah, there are new wheel releases,
lots of really cool vendor displays,
usually cool cars because the best way to show
your new wheels is on cars.
Right, big booths, big booths, lots of stuff happening.
And this year felt a little different.
MV Forged came out with a beautiful vendor booth.
They had a Bugatti EB110 on their heritage line.
That's a crazy fucking flex.
Yeah, think about that.
They had a Ferrari 12-cylindry there.
They had a Mansory, I think,
Bentley or something like that.
It's a pronounced cylinder.
A Huayra.
A Huayra.
They had a whole bunch,
they had hypercars across the board.
Yeah, they usually come out swinging
with some crazy shit.
And when we were there, we came over,
we said hi to the owner and we talked to him
and he was doing really awesome
and he obviously has a great setup.
We love the care and love that he puts into it.
We're like, hey man, how's it going?
You enjoying what you're doing?
He's like, dude, I'm doing good,
but these fucking guys,
these gosh darn counterfeit companies
keep fucking up my shit.
Counterfeit companies.
There was a vendor booth in South Lower
that had his wheel with his center cap
on display as a wheel that they could make
for any dealer that was interested
in starting up an account.
Wait, so they literally took it?
It was almost, it was literally the same exact wheel
that they had.
And not just in the same hall,
like across from him.
Like what the fuck?
Like across from the hall.
Yeah.
Like the next booth over.
So they had to, so like this happens at SEMA sometimes
because it is a global event.
It's not just a national event,
which means some people,
most people come over here for good intentions
and some people do not.
Spies.
So SEMA does have like a,
they would call like an IP team,
like a legal team.
Right.
They also have like a counterfeit team, essentially.
So they had to like call over,
they're essentially like the SEMA legal team to be like.
They called the cops on them?
The legal cops.
Take that shit down.
Wheel police.
But that was kind of a constant talking point here this year.
Yeah, they did.
They had to.
Shit, okay.
Either you take it down or you leave.
So there's the missing wheel on top of their stand
because that's all they brought.
Is that the same thing that got TJ in trouble last year?
Or was that Ford specifically?
Ford was mad at TJ for how close the Street Hunter kit was
to the actual kit.
But then there was a company there.
I remember that.
Yeah, we found them, yeah.
They literally had that exact kit sale.
Yeah, I remember I was walking around with Dakota
and we were like,
Gio, what the fuck?
Yeah.
And the reason that that's so weird, right,
is even if you take it back last year,
it's like did TJ source the kit through that factory?
And then did that factory use
those schematics to private label a kit
and then bring it to SEMA to sell to other people.
This is something that happens a lot
in the world of like counter-fitting,
especially be like car parts,
or any industry really is.
A lot of people believe, especially right now,
there's a lot of like positive sentiment
for like fake product, right?
Which I have no problem with people wanting
to save money and say, listen,
I think buying a BBS wheel is bullshit
because it's $8,000 and that makes no sense to me
and I don't get why I would ever spend that money.
And I would say, great, you know what you could do?
Go spend $1,100 and go get yourself a Koenig heliogram
that's flow formed, looks just as good,
I'm not pointing at the wheel,
looks good, is gonna get the job done
and you're gonna love it, right?
That's one thing.
Another thing is saying I'm not gonna buy
that BBS FIR or that BBS LM because I can't afford it.
I'm gonna go buy a counterfeit version
that is identical in every single way,
but not made by them and then I'm gonna put
a BBS center cap in it so it looks like a BBS LM
because I don't wanna tell people
that I didn't buy the real thing,
I want people to think that I have the real thing.
Ah.
And that's happening a lot right now.
I was gonna say, what is exactly,
what do you mean by like counterfeit exactly?
I guess I'm a little.
So there's like a difference between
what I would argue is like a rep wheel,
like a replica designed wheel, right?
Something that looks like something else.
And then there's a counterfeit wheel
which is you're trying to make it look identical
to the real thing, but it's not.
With the branding.
With the branding.
The center caps, the whole nine yards,
like make it look like it's multi-piece.
Okay.
And that's happening?
Make a cast wheel that's,
the original is forged for example,
stuff like that.
Yes. 100% that's happening.
And that's happening right now
which is why some people didn't want
to display their new wheels
because they don't want their wheel designs
to get out into the global market
because those people will drop it
before they can drop.
Ooh, that's fun.
I didn't even think of that.
I'm like, well, they're gonna, like,
I was gonna say what's stopping them
from doing it when they release.
But like, yeah, I guess if that would be so fucked,
if you come out with a new product,
release it at this event where everyone is,
you know, historically release their product,
upcoming stuff,
and then have some counterfeit company,
as you're saying, release it before you,
that's fucked.
But it's so bad that these people,
and I like, you know,
benefit the download stuff,
people are, we heard stories about this.
So it's not something I'm just making up hypothetically.
People are having these wheels on their car
and then something happens
and they try to file a warranty claim
with the brand that they think they have on their car.
Oh, I didn't even think of that.
So I didn't think of that example
and not saying this is what happened,
but like, it would be like if I had a fake BBS,
like a counterfeit BBS on my car,
broke it, hit a curb or something
and then went to BBS to say, hey, I need a new one.
But they're like, you know, get lost.
That's not our wheel, right?
And get mad at them for it.
Like it's not their fault at all.
Or even just like the social pressure
that I could bring of like,
say like, you know, someone bought the car,
you know, thinking that it had real BBSes on it
and like it explodes and they post the picture of like,
yo, BBS, what the fuck?
This is shit.
And now BBS is getting blasted
for something that's not even.
It's a secondhand market or shops, right?
Where you put your car in a shop
and say, give me suspension, wheels, tires,
and the shop gets a counterfeit set
that you think is real.
So that happened too.
So we've been talking around and shops
and getting in trouble and getting cut off of dealer lists
now because they will quote somebody, $12,000
or $10,000 or $8,000 for these really nice set of 2122s,
you know, with the carbon fiber barrels
and all the hardware.
And then the shop is going
and buying the counterfeit version,
bringing them in so it looks like it's the same thing.
It's half the cost and then they're pocketing it
and then the car goes out to get used, driven and abused
and then all of a sudden they crack a lip
and then they'll go to name brand here
and say, hey, I need a new barrel, your wheel broke.
And they'll say, we have absolutely no record
of that wheel getting purchased from our supply,
like from us.
And it's easy to prove because a lot of these,
especially the hiring companies
put serial numbers on their wheels.
You can't fake that, you know, to a point.
So like it's so scummy.
The whole thing is so weird.
I don't think it's so often
makes me think it's a really big deal.
Because how I've come across this
and how I've been seeing it promoted is
you can get the same design wheel, right?
Because a lot of these newer companies
that are on the market
that have come out within the last five or so years,
you know, the whole thing is, well,
they're getting them made at these factories overseas.
The factories are selling essentially
just the unbranded versions of that design
because they have the rights to that design specifically
with whatever paperwork is signed.
And so they're just selling the non-branded stuff
for like stupid cheap and that's what people are buying.
So it even goes above and beyond that is what you're saying.
Yeah, because, and that's kind of
what's finally starting to make ahead.
Because there is a very valid point in that, right?
It's like, if you want it to go out and just get soap,
you could get a whole bunch of different versions of soap.
And if you didn't care about the brand of the soap,
you don't need to get name brand soap.
That's kind of the thing.
But if you want to get name brand soap,
you'd go get the one with the duck and the oil on it
because they've just ran that campaign for 25 years.
The problem would come from if you are buying soap
that you think is done just soap
and it's not even soap at all, right?
It's literally swapping labels.
Like it's a swapped label product.
So these factories, like I always,
we use kind of like Apex as an example there
because they've been in the hot seat
for a lot of that before.
But it's like the wheel that you see
even online being counterfeited is an old mold,
old design, old spec.
And now even if you were to look at the two wheels
side by side, especially with like the tapering
of the barrel, they're different, right?
But you don't know that because there's not photos
out there where you're specifically looking at
like a wheel taper of a barrel.
Sometimes it's hard to tell even what a wheel is
on a photo online, let alone like the differences
between two similar looking ones.
And so it's kind of playing a game as a customer.
Like you're threading the needle between
what's BS on either side
and then what's worth it on either side.
And so I've always just tried to tell people
like if a deal sounds too good to be true,
it probably is.
You can find a lot of confidence
and you can find a damn good product
that is name brand without going counterfeit
right in your backyard.
Koneg I will always tout as a fantastic brand
to support in that exact market.
Enki is an incredible brand to facilitate
that exact need in this exact market.
And to the people who are just buying counterfeit stuff
for the sake of buying counterfeit stuff
and then putting authentic center caps
and stuff like that.
I don't know if they quite understand how much damage
they're not just doing to the risk of themselves
by just blatantly believing something
that is, you know, five, six, 7,000 miles away
but also the fact of what it does to the companies
that spent all the money on the R&D
for the design that you're buying for half off, right?
Like these companies have invested a ton of time
and research into getting those fitments
and to getting those big break clearances.
And if you were to compare it one to one
they're not the same, they're close enough.
But if you were to use those wheels
for their specific intention, would they actually hold up?
That's what I wanna find out.
And so I think I'm gonna make us buy some fancy
Alibaba wheels or counterfeit wheels
and see, you know, how much different they are.
Cause we've seen the difference.
We've seen them cut open.
We know that they're different
but we have never done a video
being able to show you guys and gals
and we wanna be able to do that.
One of the things I'll say is
we just did a video talking about like even Kansei.
I have a Kansei this morning.
I was like, the reason I love Kansei for instance
is because they're invested
in the local grassroots community.
Like they give back.
They want you to thrash on their wheels.
They do a bunch of cool content all about it.
They sponsor grassroots drift events.
They're at grassroots drift events.
They're at formula drip.
They're spending money in the community
that we get to enjoy.
And how are they able to do that?
Because people buy their wheels, right?
That money goes back into the community.
It goes back into the industry.
It goes back into motorsports.
That doesn't happen in other ecosystems.
It leaves, you get a product back
and nothing changes, right?
And so I always think about
the aftermarket community as like a pool of water
and you can't just take, take, take, take, take from it
because eventually you gotta give back to it.
And Kansei does stuff to give back to the community
and I think that's worth something.
I think that's worth supporting.
The very same thing with Koenig or even Anki, Work,
you know, Volk, these guys have global presences
and they give back to the industry globally.
These other guys that fake what they make,
they don't.
They don't care and I think that's kind of garbo.
And I think that concept's getting
more and more important here
as so much is being taken from us in the car community, right?
We just had the Gat fiasco and all that kind of stuff.
Like the more we play into taking from the community,
the worse it's gonna get
and who knows how long any of the part of this hobby
will last and SEMA as a whole,
especially fights a lot politically
for making sure that we have the right
to modify our cars and stuff like that.
If we keep screwing over the companies
that support the brands or the businesses
that support the hobby as a whole,
at some point it's gonna be nothing left.
So I'm not saying, I don't think we're not saying
you have to buy the most expensive stuff everywhere you go,
but like own what you bought.
Like I'm more happy for somebody that buys a budget wheel
and is proud of that because that's what they wanted.
You know, they like the style, whatever it looks like,
then like a fake Rohana wheel
or a fake MV forged or whatever, like just own it.
It's okay.
There's nothing to be ashamed of
for buying a $1,200 set of wheels.
You know, you don't have to pretend
it's a $5,000 set of wheels.
Just not.
The price of a product, I think,
isn't really what we're aiming for here.
It's why like we even see wheel and tire packages
come through and I love to see it.
I'll see people that will spend money
and look at like VORs or Atahans or something like that
in entry level brand.
And but what they package it with
are continental tires, General G Max RSs,
Michelin Pilot AS4s, good tires, Falcon Azenis,
you know, the RT615K pluses.
I've seen good tire choices,
which is so fricking important
because you wanna talk about
what's gonna help you on your car more than anything.
It's not the wheels, right?
It's the tires, but it's like,
I love that because people are buying
what works best for them and they're prioritizing
what is, I think, the best for their vehicle.
The only thing I'll say about it is this.
I understand where everybody's at financially.
I totally agree with Lars.
It's not about having the most expensive thing
all the time or the cheapest thing all the time.
To me though, it's about representing
and buying what works for you and being okay with that.
And when you maliciously, not maliciously,
when you fake that in like you take off your 335 badge
and you put an M3 badge on, that feels weird, right?
It's like there's nothing wrong.
You should feel bad about it.
And you should feel bad about it,
but there's nothing wrong with having a 335.
Nobody's gonna care, no,
I'm not gonna look at anyone differently
if they have a 335 or an M3.
More than I'm gonna care about
how do you enjoy your car?
If you need to put fake center caps in your wheels
to make your friends believe
they're different than what they are,
you have the wrong friends.
Change your friends, not your wheels.
I agree.
So, can we touch on the Reptire situation too?
Oh my God, that was a thing too.
Reptire's now?
Yeah, it's crazy.
You're talking about the Rept wheels?
Reptires.
Oh man.
They used to be the huge booths,
mostly outside of tire companies, right?
All the big ones you've ever named.
And that's really kind of gone.
There's very few now.
It's what we saw, Kenda and Nexon.
We saw Kenda, we saw Nexon, we saw...
What's the big brands?
Oh yeah, big brands.
It's really like Yokohama there.
No.
They weren't there this year?
No, they were just on a bunch of cars.
Well, so anyway, and then there was a ton,
like a ton, ton, ton of like Chinese,
I guess Reptires, basically, what I would say.
And I say Reptire because you look at the tread pattern
and we're literally walking through hall together
and just pointing out like,
oh, that's a Michelin tire, right?
That's a Conti tire.
Like cross climates, especially right there
with a really aggressive, very distinct.
You look around like every third booth
had their version of a cross climate.
Damn.
And it was really funny.
It's so odd, like where's this coming from?
So we did the tire pyramid video,
which did lovely on the internet.
Thank you everybody for the support and comments, right?
Talking about it.
Some people agreed, some people challenged.
I loved it.
But it's at like a quarter million views now.
And when that post went live,
I remember getting like four or five emails
from tire companies.
And I was like, oh shit.
Oh God.
And one of them was from Linglong.
And they're like, hey, we should come by the booth.
We'd like you to chat with one of our engineers
so that we can like talk about the tire
because we rated them on the video.
I was like, sure.
So we went there on Thursday.
I think it was Thursday.
Thursday, yeah, something's right.
And the engineers had left Wednesday.
And so we dropped our card off
and we're like, hey, we're totally down.
You know, send us some new tires.
We'll test them out.
We'll get our opinion on it, you know?
And you could tell that like the folks
we were talking to were a little bit nervous
about this conversation.
And I was like, I'm totally open to it, right?
Brands change, totally get it.
Location of where a product originates
does not inherently make it good or bad.
It just makes it what it is, right?
And then as I'm like in this conversation
talking about like how I'm really excited
because if Linglong has like new product
and new ventures and R&D,
we're totally being down to learn.
I like looked to my left
and there was like a cross climate too.
Like just staring me in the face of the booth.
And I'm like, I'm not trying to be that guy
or anything like that.
That's why.
Yeah, but like that's the point, right?
It's like how much money do continental spend
to make this ECSO2 mold
in this specific compound for this specific style?
And it's like, there is math and R&D that went into that.
So if you're to go build a carcass
and you were going to build a tire
and you just copied the tread type,
type for type and nothing else,
it doesn't make it the same tire.
And that's what worries me about
like the whole conversation is like
on the surface tires are the same.
They're just boring, big black circles.
Like they just that they go on wheels, you know,
into a lot of people, that's all they are.
So what happens when you start to lose,
well, this is a continental tread too.
Oh, well, I just got the,
I just got the fake version instead.
It's the same thing.
And it's such a weird concept
because like we talk about tires a lot
because they are that important for both performance
and safety and looks in some ways.
So it's just, it's just a weird concept to,
you know, copy each other's homework to that extreme.
And that being said, like if Linglong has a good tire,
like let's try them out.
I think that's awesome, right?
Especially when it comes, because like it's funny
because, you know, when it comes to something
like the Nitto NTO five or something like that,
you know, something like a super aggressive,
like recognizable pattern, the cross climate,
it's like, you know, that tire,
like, you know, think back to like
even like the, the R triplets, right?
Everyone wanted fucking R triplets
because they looked badass.
Oh yeah.
So it's like,
They're cool.
They're literally making tires just to look like other tires.
Like I guess that makes sense in the sense of like an R triplet,
like a Michelin pilot sport or something like that.
But it's like for an everyday tire,
even like a, like a winter tire, you just want,
oh well, we want it to look like the Michelin.
It's like, you're literally just doing that
to confuse someone.
But even like the, like the, like one of my things
about Spork Up 2 is that I really enjoy, for example,
is they have the felt on the sidewall.
They have that, but instead it'll say like,
you know, whatever Chinese brand it is.
And it's not me picking on Chinese companies,
I'm just saying, that's what we saw a lot.
Garbage product can come from America too.
Let's be clear.
I'm not going to be like,
red wine blue to best baby.
Like no, no, no, no, no, no.
I'm not saying that at all in America.
There's places a lot of this is coming from.
Yeah, yeah.
And America also has like America's good stuff.
America has bad stuff.
China's got good stuff.
China's got bad stuff.
Japan's got good stuff.
Guess what?
Japan also has bad stuff.
Like it's so indicative of the brand
and the people behind the product
that are determining the value of it.
And so I think, sorry not to cut you off, Lars,
but it's like, you start at a baseline, right?
Of expectation for a tire.
And when I see a company that I haven't heard of yet,
that hasn't really proved itself yet,
copying off of somebody else's homework,
it immediately moves my expectation of said brand
this way, right?
Cause it's like, you didn't do anything yourself.
You're just...
You said that looks like, we know that's a good tire.
All that goes into it is the look of it.
Just copy the look of it.
That ain't right.
That's not true either.
Ultimately, like, and this is where the driver,
quote-unquote side of me comes out
because the look of a tire means,
like the pattern matters for water dissipation
and all that kind of stuff.
But ultimately the looks don't matter with a tire.
Right.
And that's what I was trying to get at too.
It was like, they're copying the design,
but nothing else.
Right.
But on the underneath of it,
it's the performance that really, really matters.
So if any of these companies were to go about this
and say, here's a set of tires,
go beat the shit out of it, right?
We'd be all over that.
I love beating up new tires.
I tested the Vitur at Gridlife this year,
had a blast with it.
I think the stuff like that is awesome.
But like, it feels weird again
because you're taking a lower tier tire
and you make it look like a high tier tire.
Like we're talking about Michelin and Conce here.
And all it does is increase the perceived value
to make a customer feel like they should buy it
because it looks, it appears,
to be like that other tire
that they've heard really good things about.
But they're not at all the same.
The compound matters way more than the tread pattern.
Yeah.
How does a compound of a tire heat cycle, right?
How does a sidewall flex?
I mean, you can cut a tire.
How does it handle in cold?
How does it handle in hot?
Yeah.
You can cut a continental in half, for instance.
And you could get like the basic concepts
of like the composition of the tire.
Obviously it's all melted together.
So you're gonna have to figure out
how to pull that stuff apart.
But let's assume that you're smart
and you figure out how to do that, right?
That still doesn't account for understanding
how does the compound interact at certain temperatures?
How does it handle when it cools down and heats back up?
Does it, is it built for certain markets?
For instance, Michelin has factories everywhere,
including China, but their compounds are derived
and curated for the regions that they serve
within those factory segments, right?
So a tire made here in America
could have a very same label as one in China.
They're not made the same way.
They don't carry the same load rating.
They don't have the same compounds.
All that stuff is different.
Not only that, but those factories
like a continental factory or Michelin factory
or Toyo factory or Nitto factory.
Most, if not all of those higher tier factories
also happen to be in a position
where they have to be good people
to like the environment
and like to the places that they do business in
because tire manufacturing is a really ugly,
can be super dirty
and can be absolutely horrid to the environment
if it's not done correctly.
And if you ever wanna hear of bad stories with that,
you can look at tire factories that have gone to Serbia
and have gone to Ukraine and have gone up into that,
even like that near that Russia area
where they've essentially, they'll build up a factory
in a year, right?
And they will just pump out as many factories
or as many tires as they can, as many tires as they can,
they will dump that waste straight into the,
this is not a villain story from 007.
This is reality, this happens right now.
And then what will happen is,
is eventually the global environmental protection
world comes together and says, wait a minute,
that factor is doing something not supposed to be doing.
They'll go find them into oblivion, right?
They take all the tires, they leave,
they tear everything down.
You know what they do?
They just build the right back up.
They just go one country over
and they just build another one.
I mean, that is a business model
that a lot of entry level cheaper tires do.
And what you're left with are these pockets of places
where there's a lot of environmental waste.
And I know it sounds silly to talk about,
but for me, I do give a shit about that
because I care about, I want to have fun,
I want to be able to modify my car.
I also don't want to leave the world
in a shittier place, right?
And so when you start investing in companies
that know that and care about that,
I do think that that's important to know.
And in that context, our hobby is generally rough,
relatively speaking on the planet.
Making a small decision, it matters.
And even as simple as a tire
that performs similar to another one,
but lasts longer, get that one.
Because you have to buy half as many of them.
So that being said, I think it'd be fun
to try out some of these tires.
Maybe some of them are hidden gems.
Like I didn't think the general
was as good as it turned out to be.
I'll die on that hill.
The general GMX RS is fantastic.
Maybe there's some other value out there, who knows?
You know what else is a value?
What's that?
Your turn.
My turn?
Which one are you thinking?
I mean, they're all value.
I think I'm feeling,
I feel like since I came back from Las Vegas,
I just have fortune on my side.
You have a spring in your stuff?
Yeah.
I don't want you to damper.
Oh, the God dammit.
Anyway, if you haven't figured it out,
yeah, we're talking about our second sponsor,
the Martini Works Podcast Fortune Auto Baby.
We've been running fortunes before we,
and Martini Works was even a twinkle in our eye.
And they've been fantastic.
We got to take a trip down there,
see how they were built,
how they were assembled,
the quality assurance that they go through,
and what makes a fortune auto a fortune auto.
And I've never been more proud
to run a set of coilovers on my car
because they're good stuff.
They are a bit pricey, but good news is,
they are on sale right now.
If you're listening to this in the 2025,
November, Black Friday season,
you can get a pretty good deal on a set of fortune autos.
So if you've been waiting,
you know, we've got the homie hookup on them
right now at Martini Works.
But they're good stuff.
You can choose from the 500,
good for just all around performance.
You can daily drive on them.
They're actually really comfortable like coilovers.
I get the job done.
If you want to step it up a little bit,
do some more track dedicated stuff.
The 510s are a fantastic option.
Again, both of those,
you can get pretty much custom built
to what you're doing,
whether that be spring rates,
whether that be valving,
whether that be anything else that you can imagine.
They have an incredible team
that can set you up
with a really good set of coilovers.
And like I said,
we got them on Martini Works website.
They're on sale right now.
Go check them out
and thank you so much for Fortunano
for sponsoring the podcast.
So overall, SEMA was an absolute success.
Hell yeah.
I spent a good amount of time
obviously talking about what we did,
but I will say.
I have a couple of questions.
It was good.
What was your favorite car?
Right now?
Yeah.
Was your favorite car, SEMA?
Well.
Or truck, I guess.
My favorite car at SEMA had to be.
Yet again.
Can I have two?
Sure.
Yes, all right.
So I got two.
Second place goes out to the Drift Porsche Macan.
That was outside the Hoonigan booth
that had an Audi RS7 engine in it.
Damn, all right.
It was a 2015 chassis
with a 2019 front end and 22 rear end.
He like lego piece that thing together.
Yeah, what a mashup, Jesus.
It was so frickin' cool.
What was his name?
Tavila?
Tavilo?
Vasilie.
Vasilie?
Vasilie?
Vasilie.
Vasilie.
He is awesome.
He built a super cool vehicle
and I wanna make sure.
Yes, Vasilie.
I'm gonna, I probably messed that up so bad, dude.
That's all right.
So cool.
So this is Vasilie.
It's got an Audi RS7 on the inside.
Then it's full and then it still has
the interior door cards.
Okay.
Race seats on all fours.
Look at Molly branding, I love it.
And then look at that interior.
Absolutely insane.
What the fuck?
That's rowdy.
Immaculate.
Nice.
We love air jacks.
And he had air jacks.
Yeah, it had air jacks.
That's second place.
What was first place?
550 horsepower.
Pretty cool.
Anyway, first place?
Yeah.
I can't get away from it.
The best car at SEMA continues to follow me around
and that has to be Octavia, the 1971 DBS
that was built by the Ring Brothers.
That car is literally almost perfect.
It's perfect.
It's so good.
It's perfect.
It's gorgeous and spending more and more time around it.
You just start to notice all of the details
that went into that car to make it as perfect as it is.
And the story's awesome.
They flew the Stig out to come drive it on the track.
And then they wouldn't give it back.
So then he drove it from their testing facility
that's an hour away from Las Vegas.
That was over at the Ron Fellow School.
Drove it into town and then ripped it up and down the strip
just because he wanted to
because he was having so much fun with it.
Lying up next to Mustangs and stuff
just letting it rip.
So when they went and they dropped it off in the booth,
they had noticed that the tires
had bead curling that was happening on it.
So they tried to clean it off and then happened.
They were like, whatever, we'll just leave it there.
So that car's gorgeous.
The coolest detail about that car, still to me,
is the fact that one,
it's got lights in the headliner
that have different settings,
but one of them is specific to the supercharger wine.
Oh, that's sick.
So it'll light up as you go.
And then the second one has to be
that the actual sun visors are powered.
You can see through them.
And then if the sun comes through,
you just press a button and it dims it.
It's like, but it doesn't block it.
It's insane.
And just like Honorable mentioned,
the supercharger noise is unreal.
Like he was showing me a video,
really cool story, awesome people.
He was showing me a video on his phone
of them at the track.
And he was just going through the paddock
like at the pit road at 20, 30 miles an hour.
And all you can hear is
nngggggggggggggggggggggg.
So fucking cool.
Also a thousand horsepower.
Yeah, just to top it off.
Lars, do you have a favorite car?
So I was struggling with this
because there was like the quality was really high,
but it was like very, it sounds dumb,
but it was like on average, it was very high.
But like for me, what stuck out the most
was the story from PDX Vert.
And it's one of the BMWs in the Toyota Red Pass.
And I had never heard of this somehow,
even though apparently everybody else did.
I posted on my story
and people just kept messaging me
about how cool it was and stuff.
And while we were, when we were done interviewing him
for a video, I was just chatting with him.
And he was just like kept telling me interesting facts.
And this kid, I don't know how old he is.
I don't mean in a bad way, but this guy
built the entire thing by himself.
I mean everything was machined by him
and this machine shop he has access to.
And from the ground up,
the guy made his own wheels out of blanks.
And it's insane.
The front end was damaged.
He bought the car for $1,500.
And instead of fixing the front end,
he just tube chastied the front
and swapped an LS in there,
gave it ITBs and all that stuff.
Absolutely incredible.
And it's one of those cars
the more you look, the better it gets.
Oh yeah.
Super cool car.
What was like the platform or car of SEMA this year?
Typically there's been like this car is everywhere.
Like last year, like the fucking Cybertruck,
it was, it was.
Oh.
Dotson.
Everything.
It was Dotson this year, was it?
Everywhere.
Look, there was a Dotson.
There was a copious amount of Zs,
which made my heart so happy.
Never would have guessed that.
We were trying to guess.
We were saying like maybe like S650.
No, none of them.
None.
And then I think one of us said like,
there really hasn't been anything crazy.
So it might be like some oddball fucking off the wall
or might open up the doors a little bit.
Listen, listen, gentlemen.
I'll take the Dotson.
That's pretty sick.
Listen, I'm not trying to tell you that I picked it.
I'm not trying to tell you that I also picked the other two.
Okay.
But I picked two out of the three.
Okay.
Guaranteed.
Number one, I always said the Z.
Number two, I always have said till my dying breath
that early 70s, Mercedes were fucking cool.
I said it since the dawn of time.
They're the first words that came out of my mouth
when I was a kid were,
ba, ba, ba, Mercedes.
Maybe blue Mercedes Benz.
That was what came out of my mouth.
I'll say the third one,
though I definitely have not talked about,
which is the E36.
It's not tons of it.
I'll take that too.
I love the E36.
Yeah, that's fair.
E36, early 70s Merc.
Are E36 prices about to go fucking crazy right now?
Guaranteed.
Damn it.
I am willing to bet money.
We're fucked.
We're never getting a clean E36 again.
I'm willing to bet right now
that at this time next year,
E36 prices on average will be double
of what they are right now.
Don't say that.
Guaranteed.
Just take it back.
He didn't mean it.
Take it back.
Take it back right now.
Yeah, say psych.
What the fuck?
Psych.
I can't want one again.
All right, really quick.
I got some breaking news for you guys
and we're going to let you go.
Okay.
Toyota is finally bringing back a V8 engine.
Good.
They have one.
Toyota.
Well.
For the cars.
Okay, what's going on?
Somebody goes V8 Camry, V8 Tacoma,
V8 GRD6, V8 Supra, V8 4Runner.
Dude, a V8 Supra would piss so many people off.
A V8 4Runner would make a lot of sense though.
V8 4Runner would be sick.
Yeah.
It is the GR badge Supra car
that's set to premiere in early December.
It's the one we've continued to hear about.
Did it confirm it has a V8?
Yes, twin turbo V8.
Damn, big news.
Jesus.
That I think also has to do with the LMP regulations
changing away from a Nissan powered
to a Toyota powered powertrain actually, if I remember.
LMP3 new engine.
If you guys ever want to know something really fun,
this is like a little industry secret.
If you're ever curious about what engine
is going to go into a future model of a sports car
for public road, a lot of times you'll want to look
to see what sporting regulation changes
are coming down the fence because a lot of times
those requirements are built on the engine block
displacement of the production car.
So if they say you have to run a twin turbo V8,
a lot of times the sports car that it's based off of
for homologation reasons will always feature
a twin turbo V8.
That keeps costs down.
Yeah, it's actually a really fun way to do it.
Yeah, new Gen LMP3 is powered by a Toyota.
Yeah, but I'd be shocked if an LMP3 has a twin turbo V8.
I think it's a twin turbo V6 to be fair.
Yeah, because the LMP3's are not that good.
Toyota V35 engine, which I think is a twin turbo V6.
So yeah, there you go.
Twin turbo V6, yep.
A little nugget in.
3.6 liter.
I bet you that could be a 3.8 liter V8.
It's probably what's in those new Tacomas.
Yeah, I mean, a lot of Toyotas
I heard those rip.
Gels, give us a deal for Black Friday.
You want a deal?
Yeah, give me a deal.
All right, I got up to 50 bucks off K&N for you right now.
How about that?
OK.
Take that.
Take that to the bank.
Take that to the bank.
Where can I get that at?
You can get that at Martini Works right now.
Oh, perfect.
All right, sick.
Let's see what else do we have.
Oh, God.
I gave you a deal, and now give me some more news.
Sorry.
You were just at the biggest car event in the world.
Tired of waiting seven and a half years,
Sam Altman tries and fails to cancel his Tesla Roadster
to get his $50,000 back.
If you don't know, guys, tech gurus and CEOs,
they're all just a bunch of fricking egotistical nerds.
Sam and Elon don't like each other.
And apparently, this has made now
headline news where Sam has decided
to rescind his Tesla buy-in.
I don't feel bad for billionaires
trying to get 50 grand back.
What the?
Yeah, I didn't even try.
Somebody goes, why the fuck was the deposit $50,000?
That's like me losing five bucks in the washing machine.
I don't know.
What do they care?
I care if I lose my five.
Dude, getting money in my pocket after I've washed
is like a reward.
Don't get me wrong.
I would jump in the washing machine to get it.
Give us another deal.
OK, you want another deal?
Gels, what's the deal?
How about $110 rebate on our friends over at Conti?
Conti.
That's a good one.
Yeah, really good one.
Get a set of like D2SO6s, I think, are on there.
ECSO2s, Viking Contacts.
I think the 7s are on there.
$110 rebate right now.
Martini works.
I have the best news that we're ending on, I think.
Which is I think what we want, except it'll
make everyone angry.
God, I don't want to be pissed for the rest of the day.
Honda refuses to share S2000 Revival with another brand.
Good.
Wait, that's good news.
Wait, they're reviving the S2000?
They will not be reviving it because they
don't want to co-develop it.
So they're saying, we can't make S2000.
We can't make S3000.
It's too hard.
To be fair, the S2000 was like a unique situation.
It's a hard one to top.
It's a hard one to top.
It all came together.
I don't know if you can top it.
I don't know if you could top what that car is from Honda.
I really don't know if you can.
I think it's one of those things where it's like,
I'm fine with there not being another Honda S2000.
Give me something else cool, right?
I'd love to see another real-world drive Honda.
Yeah.
But like, sorry, thinking that I'm hard words.
If they were to come forward and be like,
here is the 2026 Honda S2000, it
would be looked at with a fucking microscope.
And it will be judged to living hell how it will not be.
Well, the last 2000, the way that the back quarter panel was,
that was because the way Honda designed cars back in the day.
So they didn't carry that through.
So it's not respectful to the Honda S2000.
How dare they call that a Honda S2000?
Honda's make great cars.
Honda's make typically, like what they make now
is not what that car is known for.
No.
And that's the thing for me.
It's like that car was built off engine right next to your feet,
behind the front wheels, super long nose,
super narrow chassis, right?
Your butt is on the rear axle.
It's snap oversteer happy.
You need a billion revs to make it go anywhere.
That's just not how the cars are made right now.
Honda doesn't make anything rear-wheel drive, no.
Or even like it's all front-wheel drive or all-wheel drive.
But even all-wheel drive is the front-wheel drive
bias and orientation and all that stuff.
So they'd be starting from complete scratch.
I love Hondas.
I think they're great cars.
But I don't think they're in a position as a company
to do that, to do it well.
Just focus on making the Type R better price.
The Type R's are good.
The Acura, the thing is really good.
It's based on the Type R.
I love that car.
That car has grown on me so much, the Integra Type S.
Yeah, that one.
I keep seeing them.
And dude, they are good looking.
The paint on those is stunning.
That remind me, because every time I see one,
I go to the website and I Google how much they are.
Yeah, they're like, shit.
These things are gorgeous.
The gold.
They're like golden.
Grand, grand.
Yeah.
With that being said, guys and gals,
we hope you enjoyed this episode of the podcast.
Thank you for having back on as a special guest.
You're welcome, bud.
And if you're looking for car parts, especially during
this month, obviously, lots of stuff going on.
We're only doing the deals that actually matter to you.
Yeah, like, airlift, like, you know, $300, some dollars
off ALP, or like 3P.
3P, yeah.
We should have started with that one.
That one's a big deal.
That is a big deal.
You can get that at martiniworks.com.
$300.
You know what's better than $200?
$300.
That's better than $300?
$335.
One beer.
Say beers.
Say beers.
One like.
We'll make a $335.
And a margarita.
I want one.
With that being said, guys, I hope you enjoyed the podcast.
Thanks for having us, and we will talk to you next week.
Bye.
About this episode
Alex Martinez returns to the MartiniWorks Podcast with a lively discussion about SEMA 2025, sharing highlights and notable cars from the event. The episode features insights on the resurgence of Datsuns, the introduction of a new V8 engine by Toyota, and the ongoing issues with counterfeit wheels and tires in the automotive industry. Alex shares amusing anecdotes about meeting celebrities like Sung Kang and discusses the importance of supporting genuine brands. The hosts also touch on food recipes and car parts deals available on their website, making for an entertaining and informative episode.
angle kit
BBS wheels
Continental Tires
eight-pot brakes
Greddy
HKS
horsepower
hybrid powertrain
LS swapped
Nismo
Audi RS7 Sportback
BMW 335
BMW 3 Series
BMW M3
BMW M5
Datsun 240Z
Datsun 510
Ford Mustang
Honda S2000
McLaren MP4-12C
Mercedes-Benz S-Class
Nissan 350Z
Nissan Armada
Nissan Skyline
Nissan Z
Pagani Huayra
Porsche Macan
Scion FR-S
Skoda Octavia
Tesla Cybertruck
Tesla Roadster
Toyota 4Runner
Toyota Camry
Toyota Prius
Toyota Supra
Toyota Tacoma
Original notes
Get the Homie Hookup on car parts all month this Black Friday season here! https://martiniworks.com/The boys are back from SEMA 2025 and there is a lot to talk about. SEMA is one of the biggest trade shows in the world, and we always get a chance to get a temperature check on the industry and whats coming down the pipeline for car enthusiast. From insane build to new products, here is what Alex and Lars learned. #cars #carmods #podcast Pick up our Coffee here! https://martiniworks.com/products/other/show-merchA HUGE thank you to Continental & Fortune Auto for being the official tire and suspension of the MartiniWorks Podcast! Let us know if you need a set of tires or coilovers. 🏎️Check out the main channel!🏎️: @MartiniWorksOfficial 📦We also have an unboxing channel 📦: @MartiniWorksUnboxed Follow Brent @alexmartini__Follow Dakota @lars.martiniworksFollow Gels @akagels
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