This episode segment is structured around attending and experiencing a major European car show. It’s discussed as a key part of the Germany trip and the content they’ll release afterward.
Deutsche Bahn is the big German train company that runs a lot of the rail network. The hosts are joking that their trains are often delayed.
Topic
train ride
The hosts discuss using trains as the primary way to get around in Germany, including how tickets work and how long rides take. While this isn’t a car-specific topic, it’s a key part of their travel logistics that drives the episode’s narrative.
A 24-hour pass is a ticket that lets you use public transportation as much as you want for a full day. Instead of paying each time, you pay once and ride.
A “check system” is how a city makes sure people actually have valid tickets. Sometimes it’s strict at the start, and sometimes they only check occasionally.
Car
Smart car
Smart makes tiny cars designed for city driving. The hosts are saying those were common where they stayed.
The Volkswagen Golf GTI is the Golf’s iconic “hot hatch” trim, known for a sportier tune and handling compared with the standard model. The hosts note both a lack of GTIs at first and then later mention lots of “Mark VIII GTIs,” highlighting how common the performance trims are.
BMW makes a small hatchback version of the 1 Series. The hosts were surprised because they don’t see them where they live, and they ended up liking them.
The Dodge Ram is a large pickup truck with a bed for hauling. It’s a common truck you might spot while traveling, and it can look especially big up close.
The Chevrolet Camaro is a sports car, usually a two-door coupe, designed for driving enjoyment. It’s the kind of car people often notice at car shows or on the road.
Gram Lights is a wheel brand (often associated with aftermarket alloy wheels). In this segment, they’re talking about fitting Gram Lights wheels as part of the GR86 build.
The Toyota GR 86 is a small sports car made to feel fun and responsive when you drive. It’s the kind of car people bring to shows because it’s built for driving, not just looking.
Wet performance means how good the tires are at gripping when it’s raining. Better wet performance helps the car stop and turn more confidently on wet roads.
Term
Extreme Conti Exporto 2
This is a specific Continental tire model they’re praising for rain driving. They’re saying it grips so well in wet conditions that it can feel even better than some race tires.
VIR refers to Virginia International Raceway, a road course used for track days and motorsports. The hosts mention it to give context for their rain-driving tire test.
Term
DW SO6 pluses
This sounds like another specific tire model they offer. They mention it as part of the set of tires you might choose depending on what you need.
Brand
alt-ray
They’re talking about a car-show brand called “alt-ray.” It’s basically the group putting on these events, not a specific car model.
A “barn find” is an old car that’s been sitting unused for a long time and then gets found again. People get excited because it might be rare and still original.
Term
goal wing
They likely mean “gull-wing” doors—doors that open upward like a wing. It’s a flashy design detail you can spot right away.
LMP1 is the name of a top class of race cars used in endurance racing. These cars are built specifically for long races, not for everyday driving.
Concept
speakeasy
They’re comparing the hidden room to a speakeasy—an old-school term for a secret bar. The idea is that it’s not obvious where it is, and you need to find the right door to get in.
Sound deadening means the room has special materials that reduce noise. That way, you can focus on the car and the experience without outside sounds taking over.
The Pagani Zonda R is a very hardcore, track-oriented Pagani supercar. It’s built to be as fast and focused as possible, not just comfortable for normal driving.
Group C was a type of race series where cars had to be fast and also efficient for long races. It’s why many famous endurance prototypes were built for that rule set.
Car
Porsche 962
The Porsche 962 is a famous old race car Porsche built for endurance racing. It was designed to go fast for a long time, not just for short sprints.
The Porsche 917 is a super-famous Porsche race car from the late 1960s. People still talk about it because it was a major winner in endurance racing like Le Mans.
Jägermeister is a well-known German liqueur brand that often shows up at car events and venues as a sponsor or presence. In this clip, it’s mentioned as being there across the street when the hosts go outside.
BBS makes wheels for cars, and they’re known for being high quality. The hosts are pointing out that the display included wheels associated with performance and racing.
Niki Lauda was a legendary Formula 1 driver, and his helmet is a recognizable piece of motorsport history. Mentioning it signals the event’s focus on racing culture and authentic memorabilia.
“OE” means the actual car maker showing up directly. So an “OE presence” is when the brand brings its own cars and people, not just random vendors selling stuff.
The Nürburgring is a well-known race track in Germany. People use it like a “test” track—if a car can do well there, it’s generally considered very fast and capable.
The E30 M3 is an older BMW M3 from the 1980s/early 1990s era. It’s one of the most famous “real M3” generations, and it’s being referenced as part of a wild BMW custom project story.
A “swap” is when someone takes parts from one car and installs them into another. The hosts are saying this wagon isn’t just a normal swap job—it’s a custom build.
A “swap” is when someone changes a car’s major parts—often the engine or drivetrain—for something different. If it’s “popular,” it usually means lots of people have done it and it tends to work out well.
The BMW M3 GTR is a special, race-bred BMW M3. It’s famous because it was built to compete, so it’s much rarer and more hardcore than a normal M3 you’d see on the street.
The BMW M3 is a performance version of a BMW 3 Series. In the podcast, they’re talking about an M3 being parked near another special M3, which is something car enthusiasts notice.
“Carbon fiber CSL seats” refers to lightweight sport seats made with carbon-fiber construction, associated with BMW’s CSL concept/heritage. Carbon fiber is used to reduce weight and improve stiffness, which can make the seat feel more supportive.
The “Space Wagon” is a custom, themed vehicle made to look like a fun concept car. The podcast describes it as having special wheels and a design inspired by old horse-and-chariot ideas, and it was part of a themed collaboration.
They bought taillights that glow green instead of the usual color. Changing taillight color is usually a styling mod, but you also want to make sure it’s legal and works properly.
Drifting is when a driver intentionally makes the car’s rear wheels slide while still steering through a turn. It’s a skill and a whole style of racing/car culture.
A concourse is a fancy car show where cars are judged more like “best presented” than “best driven.” They’re saying the event they discussed is less formal and includes drifting.
The Honda Civic is a popular compact car that many enthusiasts modify for racing and shows. The hosts mention it because there’s a project video involving multiple Civics.
They’re talking about an organization called Old Trace that puts on the event. The hosts say the people running it were great and the event was well organized.
Fortune Auto is mentioned as the sponsor and as a brand/company that makes aftermarket suspension parts. In this segment, they’re specifically associated with coilovers for enthusiasts.
Spring rates are how stiff the suspension springs are. Stiffer springs help the car feel more controlled, while softer springs let it move more over bumps.
The 1998 Mitsubishi Eclipse GSX is a turbocharged performance version of the Eclipse. It’s popular with car builders because there are lots of aftermarket parts available.
“DSM tuners” means the group of car enthusiasts who modify Mitsubishi DSM cars. They’re known for sharing parts lists, build ideas, and setup advice online.
Brand
k1 rods
K1 rods are upgraded engine connecting rods from a performance parts maker. They’re used when the engine is built to handle higher power.
A built block means the engine’s foundation has been upgraded to handle more stress. People do this when they want to make more power, especially on turbo cars.
The head gasket is the seal between the engine block and the cylinder head. If you’re making more boost/power, it’s common to upgrade it to help prevent leaks.
Air suspension is a suspension system that uses air bags instead of regular springs. It can raise or lower the car so it can sit super low for looks or be higher when you need clearance.
Work Meister is a company that makes aftermarket wheels for modified cars. “Three-piece” means the wheel is made in sections, which can help it fit better and look more custom.
Carbon fiber accents are decorative parts made from a strong, lightweight material. They’re popular on modified cars because they look high-end and sporty.
Euro-spec taillights are tail lights made to match European rules and styling. In this case, they mention amber/orange sections that you typically don’t see on U.S.-market versions.
Diamond Star Motors is the name of the partnership that helped build cars like the Mitsubishi Eclipse. Enthusiasts bring it up because it explains where these cars came from.
Horsepower is how much power the engine can make. When you hear a number like 402, it means the car is producing a lot of power—usually because it’s been modified.
They used a fuel pump from a Chevrolet Corvette instead of the original one. That’s often done when a car has been modified and needs more fuel to run correctly.
Brand
gretty parts
Greddy (often said like “gretty”) is a company that sells aftermarket performance parts. If it’s in the parts list, the car likely has upgrades intended to improve power and driving feel.
Term
CTS C brake calipers
Brake calipers are what squeeze the brake pads to stop the car. If someone mentions upgraded calipers, it usually means they’re trying to improve stopping power and fade resistance.
“New old stock” means the part is old, but it’s brand-new and never been used. It’s great for rare cars because it can be hard to find the exact original part.
A carry-on is a bag you take with you on the plane instead of putting it in the cargo hold. The host is saying they planned around what airlines allow.
Concept
bubble wrap
Bubble wrap is the packaging material with air bubbles. It helps protect breakable things from bumps while they’re being moved.
Rental cars often come with a mileage limit. “Unlimited mileage” means you don’t get charged just because you drove more than a certain number of miles.
Eco mode is a car setting that makes the car drive more gently to save fuel. It usually means slower acceleration and less aggressive throttle response.
Term
tail the dragon
This is a nickname for a very twisty, fun stretch of road in Tennessee. The speaker is saying the roads near the Nürburgring feel similarly curvy and exciting.
The BMW X5 is BMW’s midsize luxury SUV. Here it’s mentioned as the vehicle towing an E46 M3, which highlights how common it is in Europe to use SUVs for hauling track cars.
Term
flash banged by the sunlight
“Flash banged” is a vivid description of sudden, intense light exposure—here caused by driving through a tunnel and emerging into bright sunlight. It’s not a technical automotive term, but it’s a notable sensory moment tied to driving conditions.
Semi-trucks are big commercial trucks used for hauling goods. The speaker is saying they parked in a spot that was right between two of these large trucks.
Martini Works is the shop/vendor the hosts are promoting for aftermarket wheels and related products. They reference using the site’s filters (like a shipping filter and in-stock filter) to find Motegi wheels quickly.
Motegi is a company that makes aftermarket wheels. They’re the kind of wheels you buy to change the look and sometimes the handling of your car, and the hosts say Motegi has options for different budgets.
Term
track them wheels
“Track” wheels are wheels meant to handle harder driving, like at a racetrack. They’re usually chosen because they can take more stress and heat than typical street-only setups.
Aftermarket wheels are wheels you buy that aren’t the ones that came on the car from the factory. People change them for looks, and sometimes because they want a different feel or better value.
Brand
battles
“Battles” sounds like the name of a particular wheel style/model. The host is saying it’s one of their favorite affordable wheel options.
“Evo 10” is the Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution X. The host is saying they used those wheels on their Evo 10 before, so it’s an example of how the wheels fit an enthusiast car.
LIVE
Welcome back to the Martini Works podcast. I am here joined with a couple of gentlemen
that go by the name of Lars and Jones and I'm Dakota. We have great episode for you
today because we got back from Germany. Oh, I was wondering why you're talking like that.
It was sick. So in the first segment here, we'll go over Germany and then what it was
like to, to experience a new country that, uh, well, new for some of us. And then Lars
going back home and then, uh, the second segment we'll talk about probably one of the best
car shows I've ever been to in my entire life. So good. So prestigious, uh, alt race. If you
haven't heard of it, look it up. It is nuts. Uh, we'll be releasing a bunch of content on it. You
might have already seen some that we've dropped. Um, but yeah, Lars, talk a little bit about the
journey to Germany. Yeah, it was fun. Um, yeah, I don't really know where to start. So M, M, M and
I left, uh, kind of at 24 hours before everybody else. The idea being we have a chance to kind of
explore, um, a little bit. Um, so we just kind of wandered for 24 hours straight to be honest.
We literally spent, I don't know, what we walked like 10 or 15 miles through Düsseldorf.
Um, beautiful city. Holy cow. Um, very pretty. There's like a, an old city in a new city.
Um, there's a lot of like art stuff there. Um, very, very pretty. Uh, and then yeah,
when you guys showed up without your bags, you're going to tell that story. Yeah. Yeah.
So then we came the next day. Lars was waiting for us at the airport with M. Where did you guys
fly into? Uh, so it was Green Bay to Detroit to Paris to Düsseldorf. Okay. And, uh, dude,
the fricking, oh my God, we landed in Paris. I don't, I still don't know what Paris looks like
because we had the full on sprint. We did see the Eiffel tower from the plane, which was pretty
cool. But yeah, but we had to sprint and then we got on a bus and we rode that and then we got on
a train and we rode that and then we do full sprint through there for one of those our deals,
you know, and, uh, the plane was outside, but we made it and we got on, we landed in Germany.
And I see the, the flight, it's, it's not bad. It's not like Japan. Japan's way longer than,
than Germany. Yeah. Um, so we got there and yet they lost all three of our bags. Awesome. We got
there in no bags and they're like, whoops, we'll call you or something figured out in broken English
and speaking to me in German and stuff. I was like, all right, we'll figure it out. So we immediately
went started exploring in one thing that I noticed that was different. We had to deal with luggage.
Yeah. Yeah. That was kind of nice. So yeah, we didn't need to go back to Airbnb right away or
anything. Um, but so in Germany, they use trains a lot just like Japan, um, where it's a major
form of public transportation. Uh, but I immediately realized the trains are much
different in Germany in the sense of people are laughing. They're playing Uno. They're loud.
You can bring a beer anywhere in Germany. So you can have a beer on the train while you're riding it.
Dude, hell yeah. That was sick. Yeah. That sounds fucking dope. Uh, and they're late almost every
single time. It's the funniest thing because they're all drunk. Yeah. In German culture,
like you're on time, like you're on time for everything, especially business related things.
Yeah. So, but the whole gag is that the Deutsche Bahn, like the German train system is late
everywhere. Sick name. And ever since going there, now my Instagram feed is full of like
jokes about German traveling and stuff. And 90% of that's about how the trains are late.
That's so funny how that happens. I remember when we went to, uh, when we went to Japan,
I kept getting hit with like the salary man, like TikToks and stuff. Yeah. While we were there.
Like, like this is crazy. But, but it was awesome. Uh, yeah. I mean props to Dakota,
my own Brent for, they showed up without their bags and, and I literally was like,
you guys want to go to Cologne? And they're like, yeah, why not? So how far away was that?
It was like a 45 minute train ride. Oh, everything was by train. Right. So if we had to go more than
a few blocks or we weren't just wandering to explore, we hopped on a train. Um, you just get
five tickets at once on one of their apps. It was super easy. Check in when you get on the train,
check out when you get off. How, how was price for like train compared to like Japan? The long train,
I don't know what's there in Japan, but the, when the five of us went from the airport to
the cathedral, it was like 60 euros for five people. That's like, so like 12 bucks a piece.
Oh, damn. But then you can get like the 24 hour passes for, I think it's like 23 euros or something
like that. But it's weird. So you know, in Japan, they get like the card or the phone app, whatever,
and you scan it, scan in the terminal and then you leave this. You like buy tickets for where
you're going or terminals and, but there's no check system. No one, there's no way for them to know.
Yeah, we were like, Oh, okay. So it's like, do we need to buy tickets? And then the police
checked us one time. That was super intimidating. Yeah, to the guys, uh, when we, I think it was
when we got your bags from the airport that night, we got back on the train and it was just waiting,
you know, for passengers to get on. And these two police officers came in and they like went in
different doors each. So they were like the entrance and exit on both sides of the train.
Yeah. And they like surrounded us. And I was like, Oh, God. And they yelled at Brent right away.
At this point, we rode a lot of trains. It was like an empty train. There wasn't
many people on it. And for the first time ever, Brent put his feet up on the chairs.
Dude, the second he did it, the cop walks, he was like, Hey,
they were intimidating. Like German is such a scary language when you don't know what they
want. Yeah, it's aggressive. One of the times on one of the trains we were on, um, the, the,
there's something going off the train. It was like the final stop or something. And we didn't
catch it because he only said it in German. So we were just sitting waiting for the train to go
in the conductor walks in the car and he goes, owls. Yeah. We're like, Oh, God. Everybody look
back. We're the only people on the entire train. Then he was like, German or like, no, no, no.
He's like, Oh, England. Oh, he's like, Yeah, you should get off and go to the other train. Oh,
all right. So aggressive. But yeah, for that first day, we, we took the train to the cathedral,
like the famous like gothic cathedral and clone. And dude, no matter what photos or video we got,
it can't capture how insane that is photos and videos. It's insane. I can only imagine in person.
There's so much like the size of it is incredible, especially considering the age of it. It's one
of those things where the longer you look at it, the more you see. Yeah, so many. There's details
inside of the details inside of the details. Like it's like it just keeps zooming. Like you can
just stare at it for days and see new stuff. It just absolutely incredible. And for that to be,
it started building in like the 1200s. And then took over 650 years to build. And in World War
two, I think it was it got hit 14 times direct direct hits to it 14 times. And because of how well
it was built, it was still standing. So there's obviously been repairs and things to it, but
it is just a unit of a building. And then we actually got the opportunity to go inside it. Oh,
really? Yeah. And dude is just absolutely breathtaking. All the stained glass that was in
there. And it was just so peaceful. But like the architecture, it's perfect. It's so everything
so symmetrical and laid out so nice. Like how did people in the 1200s fucking build this? I have
no idea. That's crazy. And there's like, like so many cool facts about that place. Like,
like for example, one of the things they talk about is that no, not a single person on that
cathedral job, right? The build of it live, live to see the whole thing, right? It's impossible.
And they knew that from the outset. So the way they built it and the reason it's all so perfect
is because they like took their time basically, like they knew they were going to finish this.
Yeah. And so they all followed the same plans. Yeah. And like everything,
everybody looked from the ground, literally the ground is full of mosaics and art and every column,
every, everything you see, the staircases, the stained glass, like you're saying, it's, it's,
it's incredible. It's just a really cool place. That's awesome. And then we walk a few feet and
we're like, we're hungry and there's a restaurant right there. So we sat down at the Funk House.
Funk House? Yeah. And I got the best Bloody Mary I've ever had. I remember you sent me a message.
I did because I was like, I didn't think I could even get a Bloody Mary in Germany.
But I did. And we had some beer and food and it was absolutely fantastic. We were like sitting
right outside this cathedral and it was just unbelievable, really cool area down there and
really nice. And yeah, the trains and stuff were clean. Everything was really nice and proper,
except there's a lot of graffiti. I was saying graffiti over everything there. That part's a
Airbnb and that was really cool. So that was like an apartment, just like a German apartment.
So we were like in it, you know, like living the German life, the Deutsch life. And that was,
that was really cool. That was an awesome spot. I liked the area we were. It was like
a 10 minute walk or so from the train station. And it was just cool to go through the neighborhoods
that were there. And there's a few bars, few restaurants on the way and stuff like that. And
dude, all it is, there's like three things. Hatchbacks, diesels and smart cars in Germany.
Smart cars. Yeah. I don't know the brand. It started to see Citroen. Yeah, they have like a
smart car version. Really small. Dude, tiny. Those are the vehicles that you see. Weird. Okay.
Yeah, it was really interesting. I've seen a million Mark IVs, Golfs. And no GTIs out in the
streets. All Golfs. It was just Golf 1.6 liters. But obviously dummy clean. I was drooling still.
I've seen Polos, seen a Mark III Golf, seen Characo. I didn't tell you this. I forgot. We did see a
Characo R. No way. Are you serious? It was in a beautiful green color. I don't even know the name
of it. But as we were, we'll get to this later, but when we rented the car and went to the castle,
coming out of that tiny little village, really fun road, and suddenly I see this like green thing
blast towards me. And I'm like, that's a Characo R. Any pictures of it? It was beautiful. That's
so sick. I wanted to see that so bad. We've seen a base model, Characo, newer one. Two of them,
actually, I think we've seen. And so that was cool because I love those cars. We didn't get
them here, but I wanted to see the R. Yeah. They're Hella Golf Rs. Hella Mark VIII Golf Rs,
specifically. Yeah. I didn't see any older generation ones. It was just the Mark VIII Golf
R ever. Tons of Mark VIII GTIs, too, out and about. Tons of little Mercedes, too, like A-classes,
the little hatchbacks and stuff, like all this stuff we never see here. One series hatchbacks,
like the one you posted. I didn't know those existed. We had someone add theirs to the build
threads, and I didn't know those cars existed, and they are so good. I have a newfound love
for the one series hatchbacks. They are fucking sick. They are really sick. They absolutely are.
And then another part, too, that I loved was everything was like a wagon there,
which I love wagons, so it was perfect. But there, it's like everyone drives a wagon.
Like, how SUVs are here are how wagons are over there. Not exaggerating at all. I would argue
at least 80% of the cars were hatchback or wagon. Not exactly. So jealous. Yeah. The rest were like
vans or the little smart cars and stuff. So is that? A few sedans. Is that just because they just
don't do the SUV thing? Like, why is that? I don't understand why that's such a... It occurred to
me when I went for the drive afterwards, I really think it's just the size thing.
Sure. Like, driving an X5 in the city, like especially the part that we were staying in,
would be ridiculous. You literally wouldn't fit down some of the roads. So it's like,
it's big enough to be utility, but not too big. Exactly. Because like the roads were super narrow,
and then like in America, these would be one-way roads, but there are two-way there.
And then at night, especially, people just park on the side of the road. So you go from having
one and a half lanes to literally having a lane. And I think an SUV, like an American-sized car,
just wouldn't fit. But there was some big vehicles every once in a while that would be there. Like,
we've ran into a second-gen Ram near our Airbnb. That was insane. I think we've seen an F-150 at
some point too. Like, every once in a while, you just see something like, what the fuck?
There's a lifted Chevy up in the show. Yeah, decent amount of like Mustangs and Camaros too.
That's cool. Seen it off of them. They're loud. Like, you hear them coming compared to the German
like little diesel cars. Yeah, I bet. Yeah, everything's freaking diesel. That's crazy.
But yeah, we had some really good food. We would always wake up and stop at a bakery
that was nearby our Airbnb before we'd go to the train station. Some really nice people in there.
They didn't speak much English, but we made our work. And dude, we would get like croissants and
like this cheese bread. It was like baked cheese in bread. It was really good. Or they had like
these like, I don't even know. So many bread pastry things filled with like chocolate or cheese.
Start the day off with that and a coffee. Oh my God, that was good. I mean, that already.
It was so fun for me to watch like through that lens. It's like, this was all very normal to me
as a kid. And I kind of forgot about it. Like, it's not a thing in America, but it's super normal
there. And we're talking like a roll, like a piece of bread for, you know, 20 cents. Yeah. Oh,
you talk like the cheese version of that bread is, you know, 35 cents. Like it's so cheap to have
a simple breakfast there. But I like forgot about this. I forgot it was a thing. And like,
going back, I realized how much I liked it. So then like sharing that with the group was really,
was really cool. Yeah, it was awesome. Tell me more about these donors. Dude, yes. Oh my God.
So Lars put us on this. Why don't you explain the story of how you became a donor fan? So
how's the kid? One of my, one of my like, child friends, their family, they were,
they were from Turkey, and their family owned a little donor place up the, like around the corner
up the street from us. So after school, I would go hang out there and, you know, eat donors all the
time. And it's over time, it became like a German street food thing. I think this was like during
the time I was gone, because I feel like they weren't popular when I was younger. But anyway,
it's basically like what you think of as a gyro, but with more like vegetables and salad,
and they put like curry sauce in there. And it's inside this like crusty pita bread.
All right. But with, with gyro meat or chicken or whatever. It's like fully loaded. It sounds
yeah. It's so good. It's so good. It's, I love it. It's, it's my favorite food there. So you
tried one? Oh yeah. And it hit it. I ate every last crumb. It was so, I took a picture of it.
And it was like one of the only, no, I didn't take another picture or two of it, but I got a,
like a Rubin, open-faced Rubin that was, I'm with eggs and pickles on it. It was crazy.
Anyways, but yeah, this, it was the perfect food of like,
either after a long day at home, just eat one of them, or like you're out drinking and you're
trying to rally and you pick up one of those. Oh my God, dude. And he asked if we wanted spicy.
Yep. And that threw me for a loop because I didn't know what that meant for like what we were
getting. Like it's like, if you were ordering a Euro and someone was like, yo, you wanted spicy,
I'd be like, what? I mean, yeah, but what? So yeah, they put like a, it was a curry sauce? That's
yeah. So they have like a sweet curry sauce, a little, like the darker brown one. And then
they have a spicy curry sauce, which is closer to like red burgundy color. And he doesn't just like
slap out, like he like coated the inside. So like it was all evenly spread throughout it.
The assembly is, it's like, you have to watch them make it. It's so cool because they'll like
shave the meat down for, you know, for the big, big stick thing. They'll shave it down, put some
meat in the bottom, put some sauce, then the vegetables, like tomatoes, cucumber, lettuce,
all that stuff. And then more sauce. And they put some more meat and then some more sauce. So like
every bite is good. It's every bite. And dude, yeah, it just, it just, it was one of my favorite
things that we got in Germany. You were also saying, yeah, I want Japanese stuff over there.
Dusseldorf is actually known as little Tokyo, which is a fun little fact. And yeah, we went out
after the show and nearby the show is kind of that area. And dude, yeah, we had sushi, we had ramen
and all that. It was super good. It was phenomenal. The ramen was fantastic.
You were saying there was like street signs and stuff with like Japanese stuff on it too.
Yeah. It's like the top one will be in German and then the bottom one will be the Japanese
translation. That's so crazy. Yeah. I couldn't believe it. Like, I don't know. When I think of
those areas, like, oh, it's just that area with like a few restaurants. I was like, no, this is
like little Tokyo. Like it was crazy. It's funny. It's just like a combination of all the worlds
that we are a part of. That's crazy. I wasn't expecting any Japanese food.
Dusseldorf was a gem with that stuff. There was so much to do and there's like every block you went
down. There's something else and cool. Like their parks there are beautiful. Oh my god.
Like immaculately kept. Like there's hills. There's grass. There's trees. Like there's
little monuments and statues. There's fountains and water and rivers. Like anything you can imagine
for like the most beautiful park you've ever been in. Like, like literally go around the corner.
It's right there. Let me tell you, we went through this park and it was like 65 degrees outside.
Everything was the most vibrant green color you've ever seen and it was I'm not exaggerating, dude.
It was like euphoric. Like it felt like if you were to walk in a movie, like everything was
picture perfect. It was super clean. People are out just like they lay carpets down and
low rugs and stuff and like sit and just just enjoy in the nature and it was so beautiful.
Like I couldn't even believe it. Like as we were walking through, I think we said it multiple times.
Like this just doesn't even feel real. It was the most perfect park I have ever walked
through in my entire life. I have some photos of it. It doesn't do justice, of course, but like
it was just insane. It was so nice. Like the vibes of it. Like it's so hard to describe because
like Dakota is saying it's just so perfect. But like we're talking about like trees that aren't
manicured or like cut. Like the grass is growing wild. Like there's little flowers that grow everywhere
that are white and yellow and purple and stuff and none of it's like landscape. Like you're not
talking about being on a golf course or something like that. Like it's just natural grass. There's
like rabbits and little squirrels everywhere. You know there's kids playing like without their
parents just like all over the place. Not a care in the world. It's just like this like euphoric
place. It was it was crazy and then to and there was like really nice statues and stuff like that
and cool little monuments and but it was just so peaceful and everyone was so friendly and just
minding their own doing their own thing and being happy and people are playing games with each other
and then we walk around a corner and there's a group of like young teens and they all have
like some drinks and stuff and they had like pizza boxes laid out and dude it's felt like a movie
like you walked in on it like even the pizza boxes they didn't have like branding. It wasn't like
Pizza Hut or Domino's or something right. And the boxes just said pizza. It didn't even look
fucking real. It was so great and they're all happy and they're laughing. It's just like the most
beautiful park I've ever been to. The cleanliness of it too. I just want to touch on. Not a single
piece of garbage anywhere in Europe. Well I guess in Germany specifically like they don't really
do plastic bottles. It's everything's glass. So I feel like you know you worry about glass breaking
like shards everywhere again especially with kids and grass and stuff like that. No. Whenever you
have like an empty glass bottle everybody sets it gently next to the garbage cans if they can't
find a recycling bin nearby and the recycling is like separated by brown glass and clear glass
and green glass. It's intense. Like yeah the recycling thing scares me but it's so spotless
like nobody leaves garbage anywhere. Okay. Yeah especially in an area like that. Obviously
you get to bigger town areas and stuff and you run into your typical yeah but yeah it was cool
to see even at the show like how people would gather up all their like glass bottles and stuff
because everything they had like no plastic anything. Everything was glass or paper straw type
deal but yeah it was it was just absolutely beautiful. On the the apartment really quick too.
Yeah. The the area that that was in was like the like an old city like the old part of Düsseldorf
and excuse me we were right across from like this little like after-hours school for like adults
and it's like the type of school you'd go into like learn another language or cooking classes
or things like that. So like the only noise you'd hear were like random people like laughing
or like when they'd open a window or whatever like just talking and then the birds were so loud
like we were so far away from the main streets that all you heard were birds. It was crazy like
we'd open the window and all the windows like open like all the way yeah like not you don't just
slide them open halfway like the whole thing basically comes off. They're like huge windows
like this big and you can like tilt them all the way forward or you can tilt them all the way out
so you open up like a whole wall of your house essentially. Yeah so you like there's no air
conditioning or anything you just open the window nice fresh cold air comes in and all you hear is
like aggressive tweeting. It sounds like the GRD6 windows. All right. It was a really cool neighborhood
but the funny thing was about that is when you when you look this is a tip for anybody traveling
to Germany when you book rooms there the amount of rooms is not bedrooms it's how many rooms. So
it was it was a bunch of beds laid across two different rooms that I thought was two bedrooms
but it was just like the living room and a bedroom. Gotcha. But it was really nice and
also another thing I learned kind of like Japan. Everyone rides bikes too bicycles big time over
there sir. They're it was so interesting too because they all leave them outside and they're
all like so there was like a walkway in between the apartment buildings long very long street you
know there's a road and then they had like fencing kind of along the middle and they would all line
their bikes up across that all the way down as far as you can frickin see and there'd be bicycles
and they just lock them to that. There are so many but it's so interesting like you don't keep it on
your property like keep it out in public. Yeah and yeah it's just out there and it was just so many
so many but yeah it was really cool. In the second segment thank you guys for listening to our little
experience of Germany but we'll be getting into alt race which has the goodie goodies of the goodie
goodies so hang out for that but before we hop into that. I had to say it because I've been
getting hit with comments of people commenting on it so if you guys didn't see we recently hooked up
gears and gasoline we worked with them to get some gram lights on the car that they're building over
there the GR86 and they had some Continental's on it and I've seen someone comment Conti Conti
Conti on it and that made me really happy. It's spreading. Yes it's spreading. So if you guys are
interested head on over to martin works take a look at Continental because even gears and gasoline
that's what they're running on their cars and we actually talked to them before and they talked
about how they love the wet performance specifically and they would switch over from their race tires
and go to the extreme Conti Exporto 2 in the rain because it had such good wet performance that even
on the track the extreme Conti Exporto 2 was just devouring. Yeah I'll never forget when we went to
VIR that time and Ben was there ripping in the Evo. Yeah he was like the only one getting after it
in the rain. Yep because he was on extreme Conti Exporto 2's. So if you're whether you're
interested in those or DW SO6 pluses or anything you need we have those over at Martini Works
and we're happy to help you pick out a set if you're interested. So a huge shout out and thank you
to Continental for being a sponsor of Martini Works podcast. We'll be right back.
All right now let's dive into probably one of the most prestigious car shows I've ever been to
in my entire life. You know it's a big deal when Mercedes and BMW is a part of the show
and they don't just bring out like ooh the new 2027 blah blah blah. No they are like let's bring
the coolest shit that we have that nobody's ever seen before and it's insane. So yeah arrival day
we get there we take the train we arrive see the alt-ray sign immediately get hyped it was
extremely overcast and foggy which was sick. We couldn't have asked for better weather like it looked
so cool and like ominous rolling in. So quick question yeah this isn't the like this is a
different show correct. It's the same group so it's the same group but it's um I know alt-rays from
like their big show in Poland it was at like the stadium they had like the drifting and stuff
this is another event this was the first of that event correct. This was the first event they hosted
in Germany all the other ones have been in Poland at that stadium yeah but the Poland event this
year will also not be at that stadium anymore basically they've outgrown it so much so that
during that weekend they were shutting their complete city down for that event. So you guys
you guys were able to go to the launch of this brand new show which is insane. And the area it was
insane was so crazy it was like um old like what do you even call it like a factory like foundry
like it's like because it's not like one big building like what we what we usually do here
it was like um like a like an industrial yard sure of a parking lots and buildings and like
storage sheds and like warehouses like huge like one of the buildings for example was I don't know
no bigger than our shop here but I had like a crane in it yeah um and they they use it as like a
place to uh one of the one of the sets we'll talk about in a second you know what you just the car
was framed by this like red or blue crane whatever it was yeah absolutely so yeah that's what was
interesting was it was like an experience that you kind of walk through this and figure out what it
is so like there was multiple buildings and you'd walk into a building for example the first one
which we didn't realize was there actually we actually walked past it and we found it later
you walk in and it was the Mercedes building and they have like a barn find that you walk in on and
then you go a little bit yeah a goal wing yeah Mercedes SL goal wing barn find holy
shit so we're talking about one of the most beautiful cars ever made I'm like I'm not a
Mercedes guy but holy crap and this is a barn find one so it's got like little bits of rust and
tears all messed up and they have like this drape over it so we call it the bride afterwards
because it looked like a little wedding dress or something it was like a plastic cover but like
being pulled off but like they kept it partially on to make it look like a dude that's so sick
what the hell you literally walk in and it's like the first the first thing you see is this
goal wing in the corner of the room like half covered one light on it just in a dark room one
light like it feels like you stumbled upon yeah like a barn wow this like sets the stage really well
for like a lot of stuff we're gonna talk about here because like you walk in this room and it's
immediately like whoa right it's like like an experience the whole thing was like little
sets of art like separated by different spaces and like this this room for example right the
whole thing was black with like a red or orange light in it and then right the goal wing and
this drape and that was it that's the only thing in that room there's no signs there's no merchandise
there's no other cars like it was just a guard in the corner mine is on business and that's it
yep no branding no logos no you know didn't eat it nope and then you walk and you go you turn and
you go past that and there's three huge softbox lights hanging from the ceiling massive and uh
there was a four four uh and underneath it just insane Mercedes history from race cars to street
cars cars you'll probably never see again like the most beautiful with just techno music in the
background just and it's so hard I don't know how we're gonna like share that I know Brent the
little bit of saw of the clip already we'll we'll share with you guys like what it was like but
you walk into this thing and you just like are bombarded with like a sensory experience because
the there's this pure white light shining on these immaculate cars that like you'll never see
again in your life unless you literally go to the Mercedes museum we're talking like prototypes
there's a Le Mans car like LMP1 stuff we're talking the old V12 Sauber cars Jesus and then one of
them was the like the icon like my poster car as a kid that I said last week I wanted to see
the CLK CLKR I messed these up because there's a bunch of them they were all there all of them
were there you got to see it yeah and and they're just parked with these perfect lights on top of
them and there's like blue lights around the edges of the wall and there's just this like house music
just bumping and and there's just like a vibe you're like in a like in a nightclub basically
except this exclusive because you know we just got there yeah if there's maybe 20 people in this
room yeah you said you guys got like a little bit of like early access almost right yeah so that
was really nice too and I love that the show did this was they provided early access tickets um
and we were able to get that and so that way what they do is it's a limited amount of people that
are allowed in and everything is so calm so chill and it's not like people are getting set up or
people are wiping down their cars even it's like everything set up ready 1000% to go but you get
to experience it yeah just yourself and limited amount of people so that way if you want to get
media take photos videos etc you can do that without the the massive crowds that show up
and uh yeah so what Lars was just explaining that's one little building yeah when we first
walked in in every place you go every spot you go there was so much thought put into this show it
was insane I couldn't even fully comprehend it and I kept noticing it between the two days different
things that were set up a certain way the way that they would park cars the way that they would have
lighting hitting them the way that they would do accent lighting what music they were playing
every single thing was specifically thought of and done in a very specific way I'm like trying to
think of like the planning that would have to go into something oh yeah it's gotta be insane like
especially like the first time going to this first time like these cars are coming here brand new
location that's the thing with so many different buildings it's and it's all staged so perfectly
and they have these like giant digital screens up and there's like a dj in every room I would argue
like it wasn't even like one per building there's like separate dj separated by the spaces that's
crazy but it's like they're not even like like necessarily playing music it's like playing
like ambiance like yeah it's just setting the tone of the building you're in it's not like just like
oh they're playing flowrider and no it's not like that nothing like that it was like an art museum
turned into a car show one of the ways that that hit me was kind of was like one of the rooms was
kind of like like a Gran Turismo lobby like it was that but like with a base turned up a little bit
right so you like feel it and then the next one over and it's like a like a race car area right
the next one over it was was you know like bluer lights and darker walls and it felt more like
a nightclub it was a little like higher beats per minute and stuff and we should you want to cover
that room yeah then there was a secret fucking room secret room that's how bad why I say I guess
there's a secret room um so the phrasing the first day we walk and we're going through and stuff
um and we walk there and we see this like dark area I get no branding no arrows no walkway nothing
specifically saying this is anything so I'm like oh let's like go check this out so we walk like
two steps in and I'm like this is this is for staff there's only staff in there there's security guards
I was like oh this is staff let's go so we all left it's like elaborate on that like security
guards again like like if you go to a club right it's like a speakeasy they got bouncers yeah
literally there was a bouncer on each side of the wall and there was only just there's a couple
people back there and they had event staff t-shirts on and like no signing no brand nothing so we're
like okay so we kept walking around the show um really cool looking at stuff then later on I can't
remember if it's later that day or the next day either way um Maya and I walked past it again
and I noticed one person that definitely wasn't staff walked out and came towards us from that
same room and I'm like I think you can go in yeah so me and Maya head back we go like I kind of look
at like the bouncers that are guarding this door you're it's all black you walk into this hallway
everything's all black around you okay and you're just kind of guessing where you're going there's
two guards like I look at the body guards or bouncers wherever you want to call them they just
kind of like head nod they don't say anything just head nod I'm like okay so like it's like the meme
like the yeah okay yeah I push the the foam door open and there's this insane softbox light
that is like set to it would set to different colors in the day when we walked in it was
like blaringly yellow okay and there is a red Mercedes HWA EVO one of 100 ever made it's about
a million dollar car maybe more than that just chilling sitting there they have music pounding
in their house techno music just and the entire wall all around this is all sound deadening
and you couldn't hear anything from no you couldn't hear it was just this room
and it was I wish I had it pulled up I found something about it because I was trying to
figure out what was going on this was so interesting to stumble across just one car in the soul room
and yeah it was meant to be an experience they said we wanted to take this monster of a car
and isolate it and take it out of its environment and put it all around with sound deadening
and a certain type of music to make you feel and appreciate what this vehicle is in a completely
different environment than what dude where the fuck were you guys everything was in such a high
level of like it was so much to take in and do this I was like you're in a different like realm
it was like we were we were so insane because like the whole thing was so artistically thought
out yeah that's what kept up my head is like this is not a car show like this is literally an art
exhibit yeah there's so many there's like a bunch of comments I saw online about like it was expensive
to get in and stuff like that it's like dude go in yeah go in it is you're going to a museum
you're going to an art exhibit you're going to the best car show you'll ever see you're a traveling
museum kind of yeah it's everything you could ever imagine all the cars you'd ever want to see
are there and they're top notch and everybody was so polite yes about standing away from the cars
like they weren't like sticking their head in a window or anything like that like and if they did
it would be for like a second you know they would like get their shot or they would go look at it
and then step back and let the photographers and everyone do their thing everything we just described
by the way was the second building yeah there's four and there's two big outdoor areas yeah yeah
so it's like you just kept coming across this crazy stuff and then by day two I didn't even realize
that's because everything flows so well and works so well I started realizing how they were parking
vehicles and it would be not only in like the organized sense like they'd park them in different
ways like outside that room was all white vehicles that were in a circle park like not typical parking
for a car show you know a car show you think of a okay you got a stack on this indoor building and
yes get them all next to each other angled so we can fit as maybe no hell no there's nothing like
that every car was set with they had cars parked under staircases they had perpendicular to each
other circle patterns some of the some of the cars that had like barriers around them like they weren't
ropes or tape or anything like that they were like little k-rails like little transportable
um like european k-rails that they lined up in a circle just around these cars and then certainly
they would park the cars in like order of color or make and model so you would have like a group
of outies a group of vocal volkswagens or all green cars all brown cars for everything every
car that was placed somewhere was specifically thought about and why it's there and then put there
it it's so hard to explain but walking through it was just like this is absolutely unreal and
then it had everything from like oe manufacturers like bmw and mercedes bringing really insane
stuff and having their own buildings and stuff two modified cars just really really cool modified
cars and then insane super cars um like the the bugattis that we were seeing and um the pagans
uh zonda r's like towed by a chirp yeah you guys know what that is um you put a picture it's like
it's this giant amphibious off-road vehicle it's so crazy it was towing a pagani zonda r that's on
on a trailer on air dude like it's just it's so hard to you rig yeah i'm picturing that it's insane
yeah it's crazy and there was like a line of cars and like as a motorsport guy you know the first
we saw was like that looks familiar right it's like it's a Porsche 962 and i'm like that's so crazy
to see like you like the only place i've seen a Porsche 962 here was at the tona this year you
know when they had the vintage cars out the day before and then behind it is another one and then
behind it is a freaking 917 you know legendary race cars and then in the back there's like a
nissan version of a prototype car and then there's a toyota one and it's just like everywhere you
look was something incredible that you know like a once in a lifetime find and they were just piled
into these buildings like in this artistic pattern and then you go outside and you realize
across the street there's a building in the garage doors open and jagermeister is there
with their race cars and uh so they have like a bmw and like nicky lauda's helmet and bbs wheels
stacked up and they're playing their own techno in there and that's just its whole vibe like they
orange lights all up on the walls and it just looks absolutely gorgeous and then
they have like small amount of food trucks there's like basically no vendors there was like
i was gonna re if that and those were the main sponsors and yeah i was gonna say they're like
very prestigious this wasn't like oh get your slapstickers here it's not nothing like that
yeah so like it was kind of refreshing to go to and it wasn't like i'm just here so people
gonna make money off me it was like come here to experience automotive culture that's what it felt
like and it was so so refreshing a lot to take in and like this was a show too where it's like
two days for a show i think i've ridiculed it before saying like that's too much this one
fully you can do the two two days sure and i think we're painting a picture here of it being very
like like oppity or like very high end or exclusive even and i i i just gotta say the people are so
nice and and not even like to just all the the guests or you know the people experiencing it like
you know Mercedes and BMW for example both had a big oe presence there and we should talk about
that room in a second i want to talk about all the stuff that BMW brought specifically yeah we
just talked about Mercedes but one of the gtp cars had some issue because they were starting them and
like revving them a bunch for people to listen to and like the BMW team came over and helped them
fix it so like even between the you know these rival oe's um you know they were they're helping
each other out and stuff just like just like everybody would if you know your buddy had a car
problem right and um you know they would talk you through it and there's all these guys walking around
and talking to people there's a story i heard of a guy who's like designing his own car in his garage
right now talking to one of the designers at Mercedes or one of the oe's it's like where do
you get to do that kind of thing you know that's so unheard of almost damn yeah um and two like i
think we keep talking about the oe manufacturers because they brought some really cool stuff but
there was a lot of just people's cars there too like dude there's a Ford rs car cars worth that was
that's sick beautiful it was one of my favorite cars that we've seen there is gorgeous and then
in that same building though BMW brought their x5 Le Mans which was a x5 that they took a v12
out of their Le Mans race car and put it into the x5 okay and made over 700 horsepower and did
the Nurburgring in like seven and a half minutes or so yeah that's fucking insane yeah and they
started that up and revved it for the crowd and we have a little short that we did on that and dude
it was just insane it's one of the loudest cars i've ever heard in my life yeah it was shaking
the whole building it is so un-german everything about that it's it's obnoxious it's awesome it's
so cool people loved it though and it was so cool that they were like starting that up and
revving it and that was an experience in itself too but yeah the BMW building you should you
should talk about that too so BMW kind of showed out with some of their wacky stuff and again right
they're not bringing like the new m5 or an m3 or anything like that like the stuff they brought
is like the things you tell other BMW guys about so for example when we walking around looking at
e30 m3s and stuff i was telling the story about how at one point BMW made this pickup truck out of an
e90 m3 and we turned the corner and it's right there yep like they brought it that's crazy
yeah it's so insane and then behind that was parked this was in the in a BMW building by the way
where Ray Roberts was a hand drawing on a brand new m2 as an art car okay and she spent the two
days there kind of finishing that car up which was also really cool that's neat and then so behind
the pickup truck was a concept e46 m3 wagon okay so not not a not a swapped or anything like that
like literally an e46 m3 like hey we tried this yeah yeah like for example like the e46 never came
into four door right but this wagon had four doors what the it was custom built like this is not a
regular sedan e46 swapped yeah a one-off car that they did like those doors that they built were
one off there those weren't on another vehicle so you'll never find it it was obviously it was
perfect it was like if it was a factory production car right because it was made at the fact because
it was just one of one it was so sick and two behind that they had it sorry they had a an
e36 ti m3 so again it's a very common swap people do now the little goofy hatchback yeah okay
interesting yeah they had they made one apparently an actual m3 version of that body type and you
know it's such a popular swap here in america especially where you know it's a very popular
autocross car track car for example and that's like they just made one those things are so goofy
looking yeah they brought the legend actually we'll get back to that they brought like every
generation of m3 race car and i mean all of them were there everything from e30 e36 e46 all of them
were there was at least one there um like uncovered like like you could look at it you could look
inside of it and stuff um and then the holy grail of them all was present the one i really really
really wanted to see the m3 gtr nice there it was and it was just parked next to an e46 m3 csl
i love that they did that i love that they put the two to have the juxtaposition of having
the monster and like the somewhat regular version and it speaks to just how accessible they made
all these cars i think because it was just parked there and so you know unassuming almost yeah
because oh shit there it is yeah so much so that a lot i found myself explaining what that car was
to other people like like some of the it wasn't like behind some sort of barricade it wasn't
there's no barricade yeah it's just parked out in the open around a bunch of other cars is a
fucking m3 gtr yeah we were talking to the mark from night ride we were walking around with him for
a bunch and i was like i was i was pointing out i was like i'm so glad that car's here i've always
wanted to see one he's like what is that i'm like telling him the story about how special that car is
and everything so um yeah bmw really showed up like as a bmw fanboy like i i there's there's
very very few cars that that were missing also bmw made their building very welcoming um they had
little stuff going on like uh there was a photographer there with film camera like the like instant film
yeah so they take your photo and then they would like hang it up uh on this wall so that you could
get all of your photos me and maya stole ours but i can took ours home um and then um they also had a
little gaming area set up so they had like retro crt tv set ups they act on each other
and then they just had one in the corner with a couch and a playstation 2 and i think it was
Gran Turismo but i can't confirm but i snagged a photo because it was so cool to see these younger
kids in the bmw booth and they were getting so into the race like the kid is hovering his chair
like leaning over getting so into it and i thought that was the coolest thing ever memory
even like the chairs i feel like i'm really obsessed over the funniest stuff
like even the seats you were sitting on it was like a big like couch area and it was like
upholstery from a bmw wrapped around this giant soft foam and then strapped together with the
m seat belts like you remember the m2 had the m stripes yeah on the seat belt it was like that
wrapped around crosswise like to separate the cushions from each other there's so many little
details they had a they had a set of carbon fiber uh csl seats suspended in like a swing
two of them you could just sit in and like hang out and watch you know ray draw in the car and
stuff just incredible and then two another thing to touch on was we got to see the unveiling of
one of the goofiest things i've ever seen was a e30 strapped four gsxr's as the wheels and tires
inspired by horses and chariots yeah night ride partnered with jagermeister and alt race to just
make essentially a viral rdc which was this e30 strapped to these jigsers sure you guys have
seen it by now yeah i was gonna say we post a video on it it went absolutely booku over nine
million views it's currently at and climbing oh which was insane it was so fun to see in person
and the smiles it put on people's faces if you know night ride it makes these these guys build fun
stuff and have a good time and i have to say mark and sam were the kindest human beings on the planet
my goodness gracious like i asked him if we could do an interview on it he was totally down mark was
down and then um sunday when we showed up at the show after that he's like why don't we just like
go walk around and just check out the car show together and i was like are you for real okay like
yeah i don't i've got the opportunity to meet a lot of people in the automotive industry and i feel
like i'm somewhat just used to seeing a lot of these people and meeting mar from there i was legit
like shaking a little bit like i was nervous i was so excited and he was so kind the entire time
even at one point um if you guys didn't know i purchased a set of hella green taillights for
the harlequin over there from a random guy that's a whole yeah that's a whole story in itself we got
to talk about that in the next section yeah it is and um but here i am stuck carrying it because
i didn't really have a plan past getting them and mark's like hey just i have my skyline that we
drift it's in the show it's in the other building let's walk over there and you just put it in there
i'm like oh my god okay all right yeah so i follow him and he opens up his car and throws my taillights
in there and shuts there he's like just come come back here open and up take him whenever you need
him it's it's fine i was like damn okay and dude we literally walked around for over an hour just
talking cars looking at cars asking him a ton about like the polling car scene and what it's like
there and um found a lot of interesting stuff he talked to us just really you know plainly about
the car culture there and we asked him about some other events we could go to and he told us about
you know some of these incredible gorgeous events that are up and coming or one in hungry one hungry
that was that's like at a castle it looks really sick um you know we talked a lot about the polling
event which is a little bit more grassroots and less concourse style with drifting and stuff
so um yeah they were super super mark mark was incredible it was awesome to sit and talk cars
with him for a while yeah he was so kind of he like did a tour with him we stopped got coffee
and waters and had those with him then went back in the other building and it was just so surreal
so insane but yeah those guys uh night ride if you haven't watched our videos for some freaking
insane reason definitely go watch their content because they have some of my favorite automotive
videos i've ever seen they do a fantastic job and they are just down to earth car guys um they're
they're Honda Civic video uh where they built five Honda Civics all matching and drove them to
Monaco go watch it if you haven't saw my favorite videos on the internet um but to see that it's my
favorite thing in the world when you see those guys videos and you're like damn i feel like like
we'd be friends in person and stuff and then you meet them and they are just so kind they are
themselves with cameras off too you know um so that that was really really damn cool and on that
note of just overall gratitude i have to give a huge shout out to the old trace team yes i hit
them up randomly um as we were planning the details of this trip to see if we can get media access
and the response was you know immediate it was it was heartfelt it was you know um it was kind and
genuine of giving us all the access we need to like get in there film content and truly experience
what this event would be like which is exactly what we set out to do nice and a lot of the access
we did a lot of pictures we did and stuff whereas the results of Mateus specifically um you know
giving us access that he met us outside of the show on saturday morning to hand deliver us the
the media passes and stuff that's incredible i really can't say enough Mateus and Adrian we
met Adrian the founder of old trace um after doing that interview just incredible people super
thankful it's so nice to like have those connections there and to know that like this car culture is
thriving there um so if if you guys have if you guys have any doubts about ever attending
old trace events i can't say enough go they're absolutely stunning they're they're ran by
incredible people um they have a real vision for it and they executed it flawlessly yeah i can only
hope that one day we get half of the show of what that was here in the u.s because it was
unreal and like anything else and i'm sure we could like talk about it for another three hours
because there's so much to it um but we will be releasing a video on our main martini works
channel if you're not subscribed to that go subscribe so that way you guys can see a lot
of what we're talking about Brent did a phenomenal job capturing that and uh you'll get to see a lot
more you get to hear more about Lars's story and then get to see just the insanity at the show and
Brent has showed me a clip of what he's been working on already and i think he's done a fantastic
job of creating that feeling so if you're curious about what we're talking about here more in depth
Brent's doing a great job of encapsulating that feeling of being there so i recommend you watch
that when it drops it should be soon here so keep an eye out but yeah we'll keep releasing content
and then yeah in the third segment we got some more funny goofy stories of being out there
and uh that will lead us to the next sponsor the martini works podcast which is fortune auto who
makes fantastic coilovers uh head on over to martini works filtered by fortune auto see if
they make them for your car and if they don't just hit us up we might be able to make something
happen otherwise if you need help uh picking out spring rates or anything like that we can
help you with that obviously they have predetermined ones ready fully loaded good to go out the box but
the beauty of fortune autos you can also customize your setup and if you need help with that we're
more than happy to help you and so is the team at fortune auto i had 500s and that does good for
about 90 or whatever you're going to do on the road whether it's fun driving on the weekends
daily driving your car to work or going to the track um fortune auto does a fantastic job for you
so head on over to martini works pick up a set of fortune autos let us know you heard on the podcast
because that makes us extra happy and we'll see you guys in the next segment
all right boys before we get into some other fun stories from Germany i got a quick car to
share with you guys tell me about some cool cars i feel like this is gonna do its best to hold up
i love it welcome to the build thread of the week if you guys don't know one of the big parts of
our website is our martini works build threads where you can submit your own build all the
information about it the story about your build and uh share it with us share it with the community
and uh this is going to become uh quite a big thing in the next few months here we're really
fleshing out um what this is going to be it's going to be we're trying to bring back like the
old school forums you know places of people man i just picked up this car i wonder where to begin
you can go learn from people who already built their car that's what this is going to be
all about but today we picked one um and it is a 1998 Mitsubishi Eclipse GSX
well a little close to my heart here yes at a 98 GS absolutely loved it that was like my high
school car this mad mic 91s obviously this thing is freaking beautiful this maroon color is
so gorgeous one of my favorite colors of the Mitsubishi and we are looking at a ton of modifications
on here yeah this list goes crazy it is every single if you were to go on like the dsm tuners like
freaking forums back in the day this is every single part that you would have ever seen listed
on here we got you know the built block we got k1 rods we got hks cams head gasket
upgraded manifold turbo manifold bc cam gears every single part under the sun here but uh
kind of just break it down a little bit it is sitting on air suspension it's sitting on some
work meister three piece wheels fully built just absolutely beautiful beautiful looking car the
interior looks spotless too like we've got the carbon fiber accents in there you got the touch
screen radio you know very very late 90s crazy air set up in the back because it is a hatchback
yeah it's a full blown show car yeah and it's extremely well done you don't see eclipses like
this anymore the engine bay is beautiful and such a unique color combination too to see the bronze
with the maroon like that's super cool the work wheel choice absolutely goes hard the
meister s ones iconic wheels and uh the the fitment's just perfect on this yeah this this
eclipse fox okay so funny enough on here too i think use someone sent me a photo of an eclipse
i did over there yes the taillights on there those are euro spec taillights this one has them
it's got it's got the orange or amber tips on the end gotcha i didn't realize that in the u.s it's solid
red yep um so i remember back in the day too a lot of people were uh getting the euro spec taillights
because they they thought it was cool it was different uh that's how it goes yeah the euro
spec yeah so we didn't get it here it was really funny to see like oh my god dude those taillights
are so sought after over here and that's just it's just normal over there what you think is
really funny especially funny because these cars were all built in the u.s so like yeah yeah so it's
like uh someone i can't remember who i was talking to like oh yeah it's like uh i wonder when like
eclipses will be like ready to be like imported from japan i'm like well if you're importing it from
japan you're kind of like you're just importing it back just bringing it back yeah because they
they were all built here and they're like oh shit i suppose i didn't realize yeah the diamond star
motors all that stuff was with uh yeah we were Chrysler and everything we were outside and i said
to send this to gels because i see well we're in germany a 2g eclipse over there and i couldn't
believe it i didn't expect to see one there you know uh but yeah this one absolutely beautiful
they did a a killer job with this this looks so good and that color is factory uh i believe so
there is a there i know i don't know if this one specifically is a factory color but there is
a factory color that is really close it's like that dark like burgundy like uh like wine color
it's really like deep and rich i'm like that's it yeah this is what you like to see uh on the
build thread just seeing this huge modification list yeah 402 horsepower really good mods really
cruise you're seeing hks parts gretty parts oh my god this thing is a corvette fuel pump what
that's all ctsc brake calipers on there yeah yo wild stuff so uh if you want your car possibly
featured in uh you know upcoming episode of the podcast where we've been sharing build threads
like crazy on our socials as well uh if you want to share your build with us we'd more than
really appreciate it yeah we love getting uh some builds in there and hearing your story
because the cars are dope the stories are really what make uh the builds and we want to hear
what you guys and gals aren't doing out there so we'll put a link in the description here otherwise
just head over to martini works website click the build threads tab create a little profile
quick for yourself and upload your car because we'd love to see it 100 percent well let's begin
a mod in your car yeah um somewhat tricky to find 30 year old plus car parts every once in a while
imagine so i was going to the motherland of germany fatherland the fatherland of germany
so i needed to uh you know try and do some searching for some rare parts so i made a
post in the burnall mark threes uh facebook group and i was like hey guys i have a golf
harlequin and i'm heading out to germany i would love to be able to bring something home that i
could put on it what parts do you guys got blah blah blah and i had quite a few people
reach out actually from all over europe which was really neat the main problem was i didn't
really have a source of traveling other than public transportation and we were going for just a few
days so this really limited who i was able to connect with and what and while i was there
is actually i think it was the first day of all race um i got a message from noey and he says hey
i have a new old stock in the box hella green taillights for mark three golf which i wanted i
wanted a set of those for mine um because it matches the pistachio green really well and um the fact
that it had the box was insane yeah uh it had instructions there's a little reflector kit that
comes with that was in there and uh these were new they're brand new they have never been mounted
there's never been a light bulb put in them they still have the stickers the factory like cushion
everything and he hit me up he said hey that's how your post uh if you're interested he's like
i'm about an hour away um and he's like is there any way you can meet somewhere i'm like not really
no i i can't um like maybe our airbnb or the uh alt-race show and he's like okay so we talked and
we conversated for a while trying to see if we could make it work and for a second was looking
like it wasn't going to be able to and then his buddy was able to give him a ride sure so they drove
over an hour to meet at the front door of alt-race and i i just walked outside the event and waited
for him there and yeah he showed up and he had these and they were absolutely perfect they are
immaculate literally perfect um so i picked him up from it's incredibly kind guy super nice uh added
them we've been talking i i sent them some messages when i got home and stuff like that
and just a really cool way to like bond and be a part of the community over the the pond you know
going across the world but it was funny too was uh i was kind of stuck with the way i had to hold
them so like i'm walking around the rest of the the day between Maya and i hand him off kind of
going like i'm taking photos or doing a video she holds it she carries around then luckily like i
said mark was nice enough to let us put him in there so that was good then i was like okay well
we're gonna head out and uh we had a lot of germany to explore yet that day so i just carried
them and took them everywhere with us i walked the entire day uh holding your tail for 20 000
steps damn so those a la green taillights have seen germany they have experienced the streets
absolutely love that it became like a whole gag for this like the evening right after the show is
you know these these taillights travel through most things that cars never do you yeah we took
to the we took them to the park we took them to have ramen yep yep yeah we were taking photos
and stuff we went to a little castle with them yes yeah we did and um the the scariest part
though was i needed to get them home yeah and uh what my main plan was was i was just because
you could have a personal item and a carry on that's gonna be your personal they're in the box
and i looked it up and you can bring automotive parts on a plane as long as they are in their
original box and they are not covered in any oil or gasoline yeah hell let's go so i was like well
that's perfect okay so we go to to check in or flight and i was like all right i got a weird one for
you bud uh i have this taillights in a box can i bring him he's like well can i see him so i had
to dig him out of my suitcase i pull him out and he's like ah he's like every flight you're on
is book solid and there's limited space like we're already putting two people to put it under right
yeah he's just hold it exactly yeah it's either got to go into overhead or it has to go under the
seat at some point and he's like we're already like for the first plane you're getting on
everyone's carry on has to go under the plane like that's how packed it is right now so he's like
just put it in your bag i'm like oh my god yeah so i literally built a fortress with my clothes
i wrapped my hoodie in it um also i was nervous about this so i asked noe i said this is super
random if you have bubble wrap could you bring some with i'm gonna try and he did he did he
brought some bubble wrap with it so i put that inside the box and um yeah i wrapped all my
clothes around the clothes up and just immediately i watched these fuckers just chucking my bag
kicking it pushing it tipping it over it's slamming into other bags and the whole eight hour
flight i just had the worst anxiety of my entire life god damn because i i did have after after all
that yes not only like the price that i had to pay for these things but then the experience of like
having them all here the worst thing i wanted was because it's not even like just like the pressure
of weight would crack those lenses easily um so and then you have multiple flights obviously too
and again i'm like sitting in the plane you can see the guys loading the bags oh my god that i
shouldn't have did that oh they were just chalk better not to know almost yeah i shouldn't have
long story short got home they are perfect there wasn't even a scratch on them i have no idea how
they survived i literally have no clue but they did and i am the happiest man in the universe
i'm gonna get them ppf'd and then install them on my car and i'm gonna run them which is a little
bit heartbreaking because they're brand new and they've never been mounted for 30 years yeah but
you got them for a reason but here we go here we go now's the time it's i feel like it's going on
like the perfect car yeah i'm excited i'm excited to see the pictures of them mounted because they
i think they're gonna look so perfect and they're goofy and silly and like they belong on your car
exactly it's so translucent like it reminds me of like the n64 gameboy color era of translucent
parts yeah it's i i think it's so cool but i think it was like the right purchase for you to make
there and that they survived obviously me too me too but large you did something really cool too
you actually got to drive in germany yeah yeah so um throughout that last day we were kind of like
you know kind of joking you know what are we gonna do with our last few hours here and
at one point we talked about the the five of us cramming into a car and driving in a nirburgring
like just to see what's going on there it was close it was only an hour and a half away so we
could have made it but there's nothing really like going on there um there's some like meetup or
something so probably would have been a mess but um but it got me thinking like what if like you know
we because we had we had the one extra day yeah you and em say they're a day longer yep yep uh so
like you know what if maybe i don't know right going back and forth and we start getting excited
because looking up rental websites there it turns out you can rent m5 tourings oh and like
they're not that expensive you know it's like you know your regular car there's like 70 euros a day
the m5 touring was like 350 or something like that obviously not not a small amount of money but
it's one day um but then long story we decided against that just because i was being very like
conservative yeah the trip is and all that stuff and uh you know can't you don't get unlimited
mileage so i was like okay it's not going to be bmw but maybe we'll rent a car and we'll go somewhere
right wake up the next morning and i'm like dude why not so we we drop uh we go to the airport
with uh with the codon brand and mya and then i'm like let's just get a car like what's the
worst thing that could happen we drop a hundred bucks and some gas yeah and we get stuck in
traffic for a couple hours in germany like who cares right that's the worst case scenario yep
and um so we go to the go to the rental place and we we have this like the cheapest car
possible reserved it's an opal corsa and for the americans it's like opal is the cheaper
volkswagen there okay we're talking like economy car right when we get there ladies super nice
spoke spoke really good english and she asked me if manual is okay because you know she's
judging we're americans yeah and i'm like yes but do you have any bmw's and she's like let me check
right and she's like we have one available in my brain i'm like if she says m5 i'm gonna lose my
god damn mind and turns out it was a four series convertible okay and you know in in europe they
make four series in a bunch of different trims including a 420d okay as in diesel yep and if
you guys know i had a diesel wagon back in the day that i absolutely adored so when she said that
immediately i was like i'm in that's the one um so we have in this car uh brand new immaculate car
whatever and we leave to sudorf and literally like 10 minutes down the road we're on the autobahn
already damn and i'm like holy shit like what is going on here right i just hopped into bmw
we're on the autobahn heading south towards the nirburgring like what is this right it was such a
surreal moment yeah and uh as we're driving for the record driving the autobahn super fun but
oh my lord there's like information overload like in america you have you know a speed limit sign
every like mile or so right maybe right well everything there first of it's in kilometers so
everything happens much quicker it feels like it's happening much quicker but there's like a sign i
swear every like 300 yards there's something it's construction it's what lane you're supposed to be in
it's what the next city is what the there's a bunch of speed limits actually on the autobahn
and they're staggered so like if the speed limit is if there's no speed limit it goes from nothing
to like 120 180 60 right leading into a construction area oh gotcha so but it's like it's just like
constant yeah like something else is going on so for the first like hour or so i'm just like
trying to keep up basically like i'm keeping this thing in eco mode because gas is expensive there
you know i'm just like vibe i'm just like getting used to whatever and then we pull off and go to
nirburgring and i'm fine like let's have some fun and like these roads are just like the like the
best roads we drive in tennessee like tail the dragon type stuff the moment you get off the autobahn
it's just you just go and you have fun you drive through all these like beautiful little villages
like the most picturesque towns you could imagine like well everything you think old germany is
it is uh it's out there and at one point we go through this little tunnel and on the other side
you know you get flash banged by the sunlight again and and we see an x5 uh trailering uh e46 m3
race car no way full race car and i was like that's so sick like it's a thing here you know yeah he had
to have come from the nirburgring um and anyway looks for sure we get there to some private event
going on and um they have tourist drives that would have been at like three hours after that
like five o'clock or whatever and i was so i was like i was this close to just hanging out for the
day and doing that there um but ultimately we decided against it because the goal of renting
the car at all was for me to go to my hometown which was of another uh two and a half three hours
you know further south um so yeah we had down there and uh we got distracted by a castle nice
we saw a random sign um that said uh i forget the name of it now i have a picture of it somewhere
but it was like these castle ruins we're like let's go why not right this is how we road trip
anyway like let's just go and it turned out to be this like uh like partially restored castle ruin
you have to climb you have to drive through this like little tiny village all the way up
at like a little mountain and at the top of it was all you see in the distance was like uh the the
old uh tower kind of kind of sort of destroyed and we got there the whole thing was unlocked
you could you could explore this whole all these ruins wow they're like partially restored and by
that i mean like the walls are original but the staircase was all gone right because there's wood
back in the day so they put like modern concrete stairs in there to be a little safer um anyway so
we hung out there for a couple hours got some pictures uh the land the the the landscaper like
the the gentleman keeping care of like the property uh drove up in a in this little like uh
german tractor a little trailer and i was like that's so i was trying to talk to him like that's
so cool it was like a hold is that and he's like in german where it tells me he's like 40 years old
or something and he's like you want you want your wife to take a picture in it and i was like sure
so it was like goofy picture of her in a tractor on top of a mountain by some castle ruin that's so
wild um i love that so anyway so we head towards the hometown and as we're driving uh on the side
of the road we see this like steam you know coming out of like out of this like hill and i was like
what the hell's going on there i was thinking industrial plant right city construction i don't
know and we drive past it and we just hear that's a fucking geyser whoa volcanic geyser on the side
of a road down the at the bottom of the hill from this castle in the middle of nowhere i didn't even
realize germany had those yeah what the hell so oh cool there's all this little goofy those stuff
kept happening um anyway so we made it to my hometown right as it was getting dark and we got to walk
the whole like what i used to do as a kid from where we lived um through the back woods around the
city to like where my old school was uh and then back on the main road um to you know the normal way
normal give a buck um so i got through the full loop uh there's this tunnel i'll send you all
these pictures but um there's this tunnel i used to go through when i was at the link winds
that led like around these rail tracks and there was this like guard tower which i assumed was for
the track or something military back in the day i don't know but used to climb into this tower and
like hang out there it was like a little clubhouse damn and it's all still there i have pictures of
all of it wow so i got to show that to em which was really like special um and then we went back
to one of my other hometowns like five minutes away and ran into two different people um that would
have lived there when i did 20 years ago wow one of them at another castle ruin that's now a theater
and another one in the uh the the kabob the donor shop we were talking at the beginning of this
yeah um the that family i think it's the same people that still own it wow really yeah it had
to be i mean i didn't speak enough german like we talked to them but i like i was like google
translating and showing them my phone and stuff and uh yeah it was a it was a really cool thing um
to to like be back there yeah it's insane so it's incredible how long has it been since you've been
there so i we left uh germany in december of 2002 so 24 years wow and you went back that's crazy i can't
imagine that feeling like i know how it is to just even drive through my hometown and get nostalgic
about certain things i can't imagine you know you you move worlds man and to to go back is
i can't imagine that feeling it's pretty crazy because i actually had this story kind of on and
off you know some closer friends and a little bit here and there on the channel and stuff but
like we grew up very different than like what we're surrounded by today yeah um and like i remember
my hometown being very different because i think i was seeing it through the lens of you know being
incredibly poor yeah um you know frankly and going back i have these i have these beautiful pictures
of my hometown now and it's like it wasn't it probably wasn't that bad you know it's going back
with with with a little bit you know enough to buy a stand which you know is a little different
experience than than what it was like so that that's the new picture in my head now is like
my hometown is actually really fucking cute like it's really beautiful um to see that again um
so so yeah and funny enough the the building i lived in is for sale so i'm gonna look up i've
took a picture but i'm gonna look up how much i caught not because i think i'm gonna buy it i'm
i mean why not martini works hq in germany yeah um but yeah then after getting a donor from that
shop we we did oh you did get one i think they were open oh let's go that makes me so happy so we
did uh this was at like 10 p.m which i was surprised they were open to be frank but yeah they were open
i got one i ended up having to the guy because again he didn't speak any english at all so
we were translating on the phone he ended up calling his wife and who spoke a little bit of
english and she had me paypal her son this is a cash only deal oh god he had any euros on me
yeah um but yeah we managed to pay for it and and get a donor and and head back to uh to disledorf
this was at 10 o'clock and um yeah just just the final part of this was it was at night especially
there's so much going on and autobahn speeds you know i was having a little bit of fun i got i got
this little tiny two-liter diesel up to 140 miles per hour that's literally floored like
the car was losing speed going up hills and stuff um but yeah drove drove home at night we took a nap
at a little rest stop over there parked between two german semi-trucks um and yeah i made it back
at like 3 a.m took it for a nap and hopped on a plane damn definitely a very different experience
going going to america this time than you know 24 years ago yeah for sure i'm excited to go back
yeah absolutely i'm actually excited to go back this time 100 percent well yeah it was a very
special trip for a multitude of reasons um and you know the short time we were there i think we
did as much as we possibly couldn't we we utilized every second yeah i had a blast i'm extremely
grateful for opportunities uh for stuff like that like i don't take that lightly like i don't know
growing up as a kid i never thought i'd be going to germany to like photograph cars and stuff so
of course super grateful for those opportunities and i was so happy to see you there too i know
how much i've meant to you and it was just surreal all of it it was magical yeah to it's hard to find
words for it truly was something else so thank you guys so much for listening to this podcast
and uh stay tuned for that video coming out i think it's gonna be a really special one it's
gonna be really neat and then two we have a ton of like car reviews and stuff that we did um short
form videos so if you're following us on instagram facebook well you know wherever um we'll be posting
those and i would love for you guys to watch them because it was such a special trip for us so thank
you for uh listening and it'll bring us to our last month's martini works podcast which is motegi
check out some motegis over at martini works uh they have a ton of cool finishes they have
really cool designs and the nice part about motegi is i would say they have stuff from entry
level to mid level to if you want to track them uh wheels so if you're looking for something that's
not going to absolutely destroy your bank account but you want to have aftermarket wheels on your car
versus the crappy stock ones check out motegi they have a ton of different options and different
finishes that you can check out uh the motegi battles i'd say that's my my budget wheel of the
year that's probably my favorite budget wheel i used to have a set of battles on my evo 10 back
in the day so you can go check that out but yeah head on over to martini works filter by motegi
so you can take a peek uh we do even have like a quick shipping filter that you can use which is
nice that the guys put that on there so that way you can select that and you can see which
stuff we have in stock like on hand right at the second so it'll get delivered ultra fast
uh so utilize that feature check it out and uh we'll talk to you guys next week i hope you have
great weekend yeah bye
About this episode
The hosts recount a whirlwind Germany trip that starts with lost luggage, trains to Cologne, and a close look at the cathedral’s centuries-long construction. They compare German streets to home, noticing hatchbacks, wagons, bikes, and tight roads, then dig into Düsseldorf’s clean neighborhoods, recycling habits, and Little Tokyo food scene. The back half shifts to Alt-Rays and a wildly staged Mercedes/BMW showcase, before ending with rare parts hunting, a rented BMW road trip, and a nostalgic return to a childhood hometown.
Like having the Pod every Friday? Keep it going by modding your car at https://martiniworks.com/The MartiniWorks team flew out to Düsseldorf Germany for Ultrace. Not only is this one of the most prestigious car events in the world, this was Lars first trip back to Germany (where he was born) in over 20 years. This trip meant a ton to us, and it was one of the best events we ever attended. #cars #podcast #automotive Pick up our Coffee here! https://martiniworks.com/products/other/show-merchA HUGE thank you to Continental, Motegi, and Fortune Auto for being the official tire, wheel, and suspension of the MartiniWorks Podcast! Let us know if you need a set of tires or coilovers.Shop Continental tires here https://martiniworks.com/products/wheels-tires/tires?brands=continentalShop Motegi wheels here https://martiniworks.com/aftermarket-car-parts-brands/wheels/motegiShop Fortune Auto suspension here https://martiniworks.com/products/suspension/coilovers?brands=fortune-autoCheck out the main channel! @MartiniWorksOfficialWe also have an unboxing channel @MartiniWorksUnboxedFollow Lars @lars.martiniworksFollow Dakota @dakotastoneeFollow Gels @akagels
