Wes Siler (Journalist, Adventurer, Public Lands Advocate)
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Car
Tesla Cybertruck
The Tesla Cybertruck is a new electric truck that looks very different from regular trucks. Some people like it, and some think it was a bad idea.
Concept
National Forest
National Forests are big areas of land owned by the government where people can go to enjoy nature, camp, and drive off-road vehicles. They are protected so everyone can use them.
Concept
off-roading
Off-roading means driving cars on rough, bumpy ground instead of smooth roads. People do it for fun or to explore places regular cars can't go.
Term
winch
A winch is a tool on some trucks that helps pull the truck out if it gets stuck in mud or snow by using a strong cable.
Car
Dodge Charger
The Dodge Charger is a big car that looks sporty and can go really fast. People like it because it’s both good for daily driving and fun to drive fast.
Car
Ford Ranger
The Ford Ranger is a type of truck that people use for carrying things and driving on rough roads. It can use more gas than smaller cars.
Car
Toyota Tacoma
The Toyota Tacoma is a type of truck that many people trust because it doesn't break down easily. It's good for carrying lots of stuff and driving on rough roads.
Car
Bentley Flying
The Bentley Flying Spur is a very fancy and comfortable car that can go fast. People buy it because it feels very special inside and looks great.
Car
Porsche Cayenne
The Porsche Cayenne is a fancy, fast SUV that can carry people and stuff but still feels sporty to drive. It’s like a sports car that’s bigger and taller.
Term
3.0 liter diesel
A 3.0 liter diesel engine is a type of engine that uses diesel fuel and has a size of 3 liters. It usually helps the car get better mileage and power for heavy vehicles.
Car
Land Rover Range Rover
The Range Rover is a fancy big car that can drive on rough roads and feels very comfortable inside. People buy it to show off and because it drives nicely.
Car
Ford Super Duty
The Ford Super Duty is a big, strong truck that can pull heavy things like trailers or boats. It's often used for work because it can handle tough jobs.
Car
Lamborghini Countach
The Lamborghini Countach is a very fast and cool-looking sports car from a long time ago. It’s famous for its sharp shape and doors that open up like scissors.
Car
Porsche Cayenne Hybrid
The Porsche Cayenne Hybrid is a big SUV that uses both gas and electricity to drive. It can pull heavy trailers or loads, usually up to about 7,000 pounds or more.
Term
towing
Towing means using your car or truck to pull something heavy behind it, like a trailer or boat. You need a strong vehicle that can handle the weight safely.
Car
Ram 3500
The Dodge 3500 diesel is a big truck with a special engine that uses diesel fuel. People use it to pull heavy trailers or loads because it's strong and safe.
Term
wheelbase
Wheelbase is how far apart the front and back wheels are on a car. It helps the car stay steady and smooth when driving.
Term
battery pack
A battery pack is like a big rechargeable battery that gives power to electric cars so they can move.
Term
weight balance
Weight balance means how the car's weight is spread out from front to back, which helps it drive better and stay safe.
Car
Bentley Bentayga
The Bentayga is a fancy and powerful SUV made by Bentley. It has a really nice inside and can drive fast, but it's also big and useful for carrying stuff or people.
Concept
back country discovery routes
These are special trails or roads in the countryside that people use for fun off-road riding or driving, often in nature.
Car
Ford Mustang
The Ford Mustang is a famous fast car from America that looks cool and goes really fast. The special GT3 race version stops really well and is made for racing.
Car
Chevrolet Corvette
The Corvette ZR1 is a very fast sports car made by Chevrolet. It has a strong engine and is designed to go very fast and handle well on race tracks.
Car
Lexus Lfa
The Lexus LFA is a special, very fast car made by Lexus. It has a unique engine that makes a cool sound and is built to be very fun to drive.
Car
Chevrolet Corvette ZR1
The Chevrolet C6 ZR1 is a fast sports car with a powerful engine and special features that make it stand out from regular Corvettes.
Car
ML-Class Ml320
The ML-Class is a nice, comfortable SUV made by Mercedes. It’s good for families and looks fancy.
Car
Mercedes-Benz ML 320
The Mercedes-Benz ML 320 is a fancy SUV that offers comfort and space, making SUVs popular among luxury car buyers.
Car
Toyota Prius
The Toyota Prius is a car that uses both gas and electricity to save fuel and help the environment.
Car
Tesla Model
The Tesla Model Y is a small SUV that runs only on electricity, so it doesn’t use gas. It’s popular because it can go far on a charge and has lots of cool tech inside.
Car
Tesla Model S
The Tesla Model S is a fancy electric car that can go far on a single charge and has lots of cool features.
Term
electronic traction aids
Electronic traction aids help your car not slip or slide by controlling the wheels when the road is slippery. They make driving safer by keeping the car steady.
Car
Lexus RX 300
The Lexus RX300 is a fancy SUV that is comfortable and lasts a long time. People like it because it feels nice inside and doesn't break down easily.
Car
Minor Morris Minor
The Morris Minor is an old small car from England that lots of people used to drive. It’s not very fast or fancy but has a special place in car history.
Term
section 179
Section 179 is a tax rule that helps businesses save money when they buy big equipment or vehicles. It lets them subtract the full cost from their taxes right away instead of slowly over years.
Car
Ford Super
The Ford Super Duty Lariat Tremor is a big, strong truck that can carry heavy stuff and drive off-road. Many workers buy it because it helps them save money on taxes.
Term
SUV
An SUV is a type of car that is bigger and can go on rough roads or off-road. It usually sits higher off the ground than regular cars.
Term
UTV
A UTV is a small vehicle you can drive off-road that has four wheels and seats more than one person. It's like a safer, bigger version of a dirt bike.
Concept
off-road driving mantra: 'as slow as possible, as fast as necessary'
When driving off-road, it's best to go slow to stay safe, but speed up only when you really need to.
Car
Nissan 300Zx
The Nissan 300ZX is a sporty car from Japan that’s fun to drive and looks cool. Some people change parts like the steering wheel to make it easier to handle.
Car
Ferrari Daytona
The Ferrari Daytona SP3 is a very special and expensive sports car made to look like old race cars. It’s super fast and looks amazing.
Concept
Formula One
Formula One is a type of car racing with very fast and special cars that race on tracks around the world. It's like the top level of car racing.
Car
Audi R8
The Audi R8 is a very fast and fancy car that you can also drive every day. It has a loud engine and looks really cool.
LIVE
Ie, fy modd yw'r llun.
Ie, fy modd yw'r llun.
Ac oedd gwaith o'r Ysbryd.
Rydw i mwybrae'r bwysig wrth agel ar draws.
Rydw i39, gyddi'r bwysig a'r bwysig a'r gael ar draws.
Rydw i gener ddweud y crofio ar Gwель u'r panffredd yn y 2000.
Bydd y gallwn ychydig y gallwn.
Mae'r mwysig i'r llwyddoio ar y barwch..
Golw'n hynny yn deillad yr oed.
Rydw i ddim yn ystod yn ddigon i,
ac ymlaen gyd yw'r rai pa'r ddarparu.
I knew, I read your newsletter. I just became a paid subscriber by the way.
Thank you, I appreciate it.
I don't know if they alerted you, annual prepaid.
Westcyler.substack.com.
I mean honestly the best, not just on literal sub-stack, but like the best writing that I'm reading today is like pretty much full indies.
Like yourself, like Garbage Day, Hamilton Nolan, I read, A.R. Moxin.
Hamilton's great.
Do you read Moxin?
I don't.
I recommend A.R. Moxin.
Okay.
But like they're all just like they moved to the newsletter format effectively.
You can't be a journalist working for most mainstream outlets today.
There's a few that still do it right.
There's The Atlantic.
Like Road Tracker.
I know, like Road Track.
Yeah.
But you know, it's just impossible to be a journalist and so I was fired.
It's a timber for being a journalist.
I read this and this was crazy because so you, but so that's a well-crafted sentence.
So you weren't fired for writing about the wrong thing.
You were fired because you decided to run for office here in Montana.
This is according to your newsletter.
And the outlet said for perhaps the first time ever that you cannot write for us and run for office.
Yeah.
So it's a decent summary.
I mean, but you wrote 5,000 words on this and I just did it 50.
Yeah.
You just did it quick.
I just did it in 50.
So more or less the story is I was at outside as the outdoor lifestyle columnist for a decade.
I was by far the most popular writer.
You know, I was responsible for something like any given day a quarter to a half of all the web traffic.
And you write about cars.
You write it like dogs, dogs, outdoor gear.
More and more.
It's a land conservation type issues, but for most of your career, it's just been general outdoor lifestyle stuff.
Yeah.
I tried to tackle important issues.
So what matters if you're an outside magazine reader, if you care about the outdoors, you know what matters.
And so that changes in a given year.
You know, right now we can talk about climate change because it's almost March and there's no snow in Montana.
It's 50 degrees outside.
You know, I always took that charge really seriously and I think I was good at it.
And the problem with being good at journalism is that often being good at journalism is bad for business if it is a business that is oppositional to journalism.
And so what we've seen recently is a lot of publications have been acquired by, for lack of a better word, tech bros.
Yeah.
And they're in it not to...
You could also say assholes.
Assholes?
You could say like people that are like actively bad for humanity.
So they're not in it for the cause of journalism or the cause of informing the American public.
No, they're usually in it to the exact opposite thing of that.
Yeah, they're using it for their short term buck.
And so they get that short term buck at an app sale or something like that.
And so they only look at the journalism as the opening of their engagement funnel.
And they want the smoothest path from, you know, backwards up that asshole right into the app sale.
Right?
They don't want good stuff that challenges people.
They want unchallenging content.
Well, if you're talking about Bezos and the poster.
Bezos and the poster.
Bezos explicitly has said he wants...
We're going full bore pro capitalism all the way.
Yeah.
So just bullshit, right?
And so what happened with outside was it was acquired in 2021 by tech bros.
You know, some dude who had made like a Strava clone, you know, the height of like app acquisitions.
We only fuck with the real.
Got hundreds of millions of dollars for like a bad Strava clone and thought he was a genius.
And, you know, I was sitting there doing good journalism and he was seeing that as a barrier to him selling apps.
And so he wanted to fire me for a while.
I had an ironclad contract.
He couldn't really fire me.
You know, interviewed Tim Walls during the campaign, interviewed John Kerry.
I was supposed to interview Joe Biden.
You know, I was doing important work.
And, you know, he was just, this is not what we're trying to do.
Just, just, you know, go review a fucking Tim, bro.
Did he stick to cars to you?
Yes, stick to cars.
Yes, exactly.
Exactly.
I get the occasional stick to cars.
And so I got recruited to run for office here in Montana for state senate, which he does 1.1 billion people in Montana.
I hate to phrase it this way, but running for state senate here is kind of like running for town council in Santa Monica.
My assembly person, I think represents like the same number.
Yes, exactly.
But I do have to pause because I have to actually, because I, I want to talk about it because the way you ended up running is interesting.
And I want to talk about that.
And it circles back to the stuff.
But I, you know, Mallory McMarrow.
Of course, you're a good friend.
Michigan State's senator Mallory McMarrow.
Yes, yes.
I support her.
I support everything she does.
Yes.
Her team asked if she could come on the podcast.
Okay.
And I said, although I support everything she does, I don't think having politicians on the podcast, even if I support them, is what I want to do.
And so like when I invited you to come on the podcast, I didn't know you were running for office.
Like literally I did not know.
And then for the record, for the record, I did not ask to come on the podcast.
Matt asked me.
No, I did, but I didn't know you were running for office.
And then I was like, oh, shit.
That's hilarious.
And I told no to Mallory.
Yeah.
And so I was like, all right, the way I'm going to navigate this is like me and Wes have like a lot of other things to talk about other than like, what's your website?
Plug your campaign website.
WestforMontana.com.
WestforMontana.com.
If you're interested in Wes's like literal campaign positions, go check out West for Montana.
I don't even like talking about that stuff.
But I just like, I feel really bad because I really like and support what Mallory's doing.
I said I didn't do politicians and you're kind of a politician right now.
But Mallory is a much more serious politician than I am.
I'm not the most serious politician.
So it's funny because people label you with that.
They label you with like, oh, you're a politician now.
Or have you win?
In your set, I'm just exactly, if I win, I'm just still Wes.
You know, I'm just some guy who's like, is fed up with like the status quo and wants to create some change because I think I can.
It's essentially like the compensation for this position is $5,000 a year.
I will lose more money in like the hours I spend on it that I will receive from this.
Is that really the compensation?
$5,000 a year.
$5,000 a year.
There's some change on top of that.
It's like $5,300 or something.
Is it but like you get like, you know, like a bear skin rug or something?
I think I have to revive my own bear skin rug.
All right.
They don't pay you, but you get to be like first in line for like deer hunting license.
I don't even think that's the case.
It works.
There's really no perks.
It's all downside.
I have to say, don't run for office.
It's all crazy people yelling at you.
It's a miserable experience.
It's all crazy people yelling at you.
Everybody treats me like I'm on a like embarked on some corrupt endeavor where I spit like my entire life and what's more or less public service as a journalist.
Yeah.
And I'm just sort of doing the same thing just like I've written about policy.
I know how to do policy now after writing about it for 20 years.
Surely I can go like apply that directly rather than writing around it.
That was my idea.
And then all of a sudden, yeah, I'm a politician now and I'm different and it's that's strange.
Right.
Yeah.
I mean, because it is particularly in particularly in this country, your job title so defines you.
Yes.
You know, and if you change job titles, you're like a different person now.
In a lot of ways.
Yes.
You know, so and especially in journalist and politician aren't like necessarily opposed, but they kind of are.
I mean, you know what I mean?
They traditionally aren't always good journalists cover politicians.
Yeah, yeah.
But it's also there's also a lot of like there's a lot of like shared common grounds because both both are like truth.
Yeah.
Ideally truth.
Ideally.
You know, like both both are vastly under compensated, like service oriented, cause oriented career paths.
Yeah.
I don't even see politician as a career path.
I just see it as like, you know, shit's fucked.
Yeah.
I'm fed up with it.
I want to do something to help.
And that's what we're being told to do something just mean positive.
And I've run charities in the past.
I've helped people out.
You know, I've tried to do the right thing always and it just sounded kind of this time.
Like, you know, maybe we're right thing is going to Helena, the state capital and helping craft some legislation to make the lightest Montanans a little better.
I always sort of found that like when people tell me to like stick to cars or whatever.
Right.
Like whatever your kind of area of expertise, if you're looking at something that is out in the world in public for me, it's more cars than anything else for you.
It's more the outdoors and than anything else.
But like politics comes for you.
Like you don't like, I don't like go seeking that.
No.
Like that shit.
Like, dude, why is like Porsche super fucked?
Like literally right now, like politics.
Like they said, you have to go full electric.
And they like good fucking smart Germans were like, OK.
And they went and then it was like a fucking handbrake turn.
And now they're in like that's politics.
You can't care about something like cars and not at some point intersect politics and be forced to care about politics.
Good effects, everything.
You know, look at Ford and the pivot they're trying to do right now and what their stock prices have been like.
You know, look at Tesla and the headwinds they're facing and that's inherently political, right?
Yeah.
Also, they thought the cyber truck was a good idea, which one could argue is not political, but is incredibly misguided.
It's indicative of a certain political belief, I think.
It does.
It does.
One who sniffs their own fards too much will inevitably design a car that looks like that.
It's to make trucks great again of trucks.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
But so that's for me, you know, cars run headfirst into politics frequently.
And the outdoors even more so.
Right.
So that's where I was going because we have 648 million acres of public land in this country.
Can you real quick just for those who don't like what is a public land?
Like this sounds like a fucking dumb question.
Yeah.
Like what is a public land that's different from a national park or state park?
So yeah, a quick history lesson.
Yeah.
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When we were creating America and trying to ratify the Constitution, we had some problems.
We were trying to bring together 13 very diverse colonies and find a way for them to exist together in the same country under the same governance.
One of the problems was the real charters that created those countries.
They only knew the 1600s. They were like, I don't know, here's a river on a coast.
Virginia, you have everything from this river to that river and then wherever that goes.
What that looked like on maps after the revolution was just fast overlapping lines as they went west of the Appalachians.
The only way to settle that was to define some common ground.
That was established as, at the time, everything west of the Appalachians basically went to the American people for the furtherance of our country.
As we created states, that land was granted to create states.
What we were left over after a few different wars with Spain and Mexico and various other things, the Louisiana Purchase,
and the establishment of these western states was a whole bunch of land that nobody wanted.
We tried to give it away to homesteaders and the Homestead Act in various other ways, but a lot of it just was no good.
It just ended up being owned by the American people and managed in our very half by the federal government.
Which is BLM for most of the time.
It's not just BLM, it's BLM National Forests, National Parks.
So it's all under the same.
It's all public lands.
That right there, if you guys can see, that hill is public land.
That's National Forest.
So it's a set aside for all of us.
It gives us a really unique, really democratic access to the outdoors.
If you're just in the cars and you just want Matt to sit in the cars, that's where you go off-roading.
That's where you go car camping.
But we all benefit from it because that's our reservoir of biodiversity and clean environment that creates the air we breathe and the water we drink and the animals we like to see.
I won't dive into too many details, but the way it's managed was created by big thinkers like Teddy Roosevelt at the turn of the 19th to 20th century.
It's exceptionally good and it's exceptional and that it's unique to America.
So you and I have traveled the world.
Do you see animals anywhere in the world, including in Africa, like you see here?
Outside of a national park.
When I was literally on safari in Africa.
Driving home tonight.
We're a big sky right now.
The animals that I might hit on the way home.
Maybe New Zealand, but it's an amazingly natural country.
Right here in Montana, the animals that I have a pretty good chance of hitting on the way home are wolves, moose, bighorn sheep, elk, two kinds of deer.
You know, black bear, brown bear, you name it.
They will all be on the road tonight as I drive home.
And that biodiversity and that healthy wildlife that then tourism thrives on, that establishes our unique identity as Americans of going camping and being outdoorsy and wearing fleece fest over our flannel shirts.
You know, all that is from public lands.
And it's a really unique sense that we all benefit from.
It pays billions, hundreds of billions into the treasure every year.
It offsets the taxes you and I pay.
In terms of what national park entry fees?
No, it's in terms of like energy extraction.
Oh, energy extraction.
Yes, it's managed under multiple use.
And so basically like the public lands, I need to consider multiple use and sustained yield.
So the idea is that like, you know, oh, we want to go post some coal out of that hill.
Well, we can.
So long as like, you know, we create a plan that balances that with people that want to hike on that hill.
People want to extract timber from that hill.
People that want wildlife on that hill.
Clean air, clean water, right?
And so hundreds of billions a year.
Public lands aren't necessarily all free from extraction.
No, no, no.
There's vast, there's vast commercial activities on the land.
That's what they're there for.
Again, they're there for multiple use.
And when managed properly, they balance that industrial use with the other concerns,
with wildlife conservation, with a natural environment, with recreation.
And so what we're seeing right now is an unprecedented attack that's trying to undo that balance
and tip it entirely in favor of extraction.
And extraction is not bad, but it has to be managed correctly.
Are we surprised?
I mean, we're in the short term money government.
We're in the get it wall against the good government.
It's so short term.
Again, one of the principles in addition to multiple use is sustained yield.
So the whole idea in public lands is that they will serve the national purse into perpetuity into the future.
As long as America is here, we will have reservoir of minerals and timber and energy to draw on if managed correctly.
But what's happening right now is trying to break that system in favor of just really, really short term profit.
So you manage that hill correctly and that'll produce timber for the death of the universe.
But you don't understand.
They could get more now.
Now, but not tomorrow.
But tomorrow may never come.
So they're just going to get it now.
You might as well just get it now.
It's why wait until tomorrow.
It's crazy.
Is this the...
Because a lot of shit, we're the same age.
Give or take a year.
I'm 45, how old are you?
I'm 44.
So we're the same age, basically.
And I was shocked into reality, perhaps from a cocooned existence.
But really when Trump got elected the first time and I went, hang on, what the fuck?
And I have been, and again, perhaps because of my age or I'm sheltered fucking white guy from Greenwich,
I have witnessed across the board backsliding, of course, in human rights and everything.
And should I never thought, you know, you go, these people won rights and now they have them.
Like these lands were protected and now they're protected.
Like I've never seen a backsliding and an unprotecting.
No, it's nuts, right?
So much of it's just so stupid is the problem of it.
And you see that stupidity again on public lands where it's just like you were identifying short-term profit at the expense of long-term sustainability.
And I'm not talking about like Kumbaya and fucking rainbows and unicorns and shit.
I'm talking about logging.
And if you do it right and it's managed correctly, we can log that forever.
There is a way to actually.
Yes, there is a way to do that.
That's what we've been doing for 100 years.
And right now what I'm trying to do is break that and do logging tomorrow really big.
And then no logging two days from now because it'll just be like a pile of mud that'll be like, you know, go in the dark radioactive.
Is this from a public lands perspective?
I'm not educated enough to say whether from a human rights perspective,
I would suspect that maybe the implementation of Jim Crow might have been more of a backslide at that time than what we're seeing now.
But that being said, in terms of public lands, has this been the biggest backslide ever?
100%
They were established.
Remember that like, you know, it wasn't that long ago that we had like Richard Nixon.
You know, Republican guy, not the most not corrupt politician.
No, he got a couple of things right actually.
Wasn't Nixon EPA?
Yeah, he was EPA, he was Clean Water Act, he was the Dangerous Species Act, Clean Air, you know, and like Ronald Reagan was pro that stuff.
And all he did was be super racist and bug some people.
All he did was crime.
Nixon is like real charming crime by comparison.
Nixon crime?
Nixon crime.
Nixon crime is so charming by comparison.
A little light breaking injury.
Nixon would be like, world liberty financial.
What's a Bitcoin?
You know what I mean?
Imagine Nixon at Bitcoin?
Send a telex or whatever the fuck they were doing.
I know.
Nixon crime was so charming compared to the naked grift of these people.
Other than if you factor in Kissinger, I suppose, there was probably more war crimes.
We are about to do much of war crimes.
Let's circle back on this.
We'll have to, you know, hey Siri, fact check my war crimes in six spots.
We'll see where we're at.
We're doing war crimes in Minneapolis right now.
No, well that actually...
Crime ridden hellhole of Minneapolis.
Dude, the piece that you wrote, you wrote a piece about, I think it was called or about preparing for tyranny.
Right.
And that essentially kind of got me thinking because you started with the premise that some of these protesters,
I mean the ones who weren't being murdered in the street, were being followed home by ICE.
And started from the premise of, well what if home, typically your safe space and maybe even your like prepper space
is no longer available to you as a safe space?
Being in the outdoors and being arrested and things like hunting and guns and, you know, survival shit, you know, manly man shit.
It's like, at some point you kind of intersect prepping and it starts to make sense.
You know, I've written articles that like most traditional prepping where you're just stockpiling like ten years of like cream with tomato soup
is kind of stupid and silly because, you know, any fixed location is subject to siege.
But that's why you put the tomato soup all over the hillside.
I've buried soup over the mountain.
But you're going to be finding it for years.
You do it, you at some point in all this become something of a prepper.
You look at what's going on, you look at the trends, climate change, right?
Weather's getting weird and unpredictable and like we're not really taking care of our roads anymore
and there's a lot of dead trees falling down with the bark beetles.
And so that never really leads to like, well, I need to own like a car on 35 inch tires with a winch and electric chainsaw on the back
and you need solar panels to run your battery pack to charger, you know, your chainsaw.
And then, well, you probably also need some recovery equipment and, you know,
pretty soon you're literally driving like a tow truck.
Pretty soon you're me in your car.
You know, your Ford Ranger gets 10 miles per gallon.
I did read your article on how to buy a truck and actually it's incredibly well thought out
and I could easily write a similar article on how to buy a sports car.
You think people listen to you?
No.
I think they just they're like, oh, that fucking Tacoma.
Tacoma, right?
Tacomas are sick, bro.
The internet says they're reliable.
Up at 7,000 pounds of shit on my Tacoma and go to Alaska.
That's going to work great.
I did actually like that article.
I thought it does what I did.
It's a funnel of sort of yes, nos and limits of what you need.
You're not trying to tell people what decisions they make.
You're trying to help them understand the information they need to make smarter decisions.
Yeah, because they're always like, dude, would you get like, you know,
they're asking me to compare two things that have nothing to do with each other.
Would you get like a Cayenne turbo GT or like a Bentley Flying Spur?
And I'm like, what?
Why do people buy Cayenne's?
It's easily the worst car I've ever owned.
They drive terribly.
They're impossible to maintain.
They're ugly.
You can't see out of them.
They're just literally the worst car I've ever owned as a Cayenne.
What year was it?
It's like an old one.
It was a three liter diesel car.
Or the diesel one.
Everyone loved the diesel for a minute there.
So it was my wife's car and she was really on it.
This was when we lived in California.
She was the first person in California to go get the repair.
There's a three liter car.
It was a repair, not a buy back.
Porsche of downtown LA lost her paperwork.
We spent like three years trying to get that ironed out.
I won't say anything negative about that dealership.
It was so bad.
Such a fundamentally bad experience.
At some point Porsche squirt her on the phone.
She was just calling trying to figure out where her paperwork was.
She could sell the car.
We parked it for three years.
We didn't drive it.
Then the battery died.
Luckily I went on the owner's forum.
I realized that before I moved the driver's seat,
cut a hole in the carpet and removed the proprietary battery
that you can't get anywhere in Montana,
I went on the owner's forum.
It reminded me that I had to connect it to 12 volt power.
Otherwise the whole car would be bricked and totaled.
I did not total the car and change the battery.
The fact that I ran that risk is just obscene.
It's not great.
It's the same.
The car drove bad.
It didn't work for three years.
Porsche were jerks.
For me, vision out of a car is really important
because you can't see.
You can't drive what you can't see.
You can't see out of them.
I don't know if anybody buys a Cayenne.
I don't have the vision.
If you want an SUV, a fast one,
for whatever reason, just to flaunt your credit score,
buy Range Rover Sport.
They drive so much better.
They're cool. They look better.
You see out of them.
The visual thing,
seeing out of them is not a problem.
I may get a hybrid Cayenne
with a warranty.
I need to tow something.
Why don't you just get a super duty?
Fuck out of here.
I live in Los Angeles, dude.
I don't live in fucking green acres.
Don't you own a car storage facility?
Dude, you don't parking for a super duty?
No.
Really?
No.
I have very little surface level outside parking.
How much weight are you going to tow?
What kind of race car are you going to tow?
Can you tow your Countach?
We've talked about this in the show a lot.
We don't need to have this debate on the show.
But I've got a relatively light weight
enclosed trailer for Brian James' trailers.
It's 2,500 pounds.
It's aerodynamic.
It's 2,500 pounds.
How much weight are you putting in it?
Almost never more than 3,500 pounds.
So you're totaling 6,000 pounds?
6,500.
So what's the towing capacity on a Cayenne hybrid, 7,000?
7,800.
That's way too close to the limit.
That's going to be like going for the grapevine,
like doing all that stuff like the Royal Springs.
It's going to be sketchy as hell.
I disagree.
Get a diesel truck.
I do not want.
Get some of the tows 40,000 pounds.
I absolutely do not want that.
You don't want to even notice it's back there.
I don't want that.
I do not want that.
I tow.
I would rather have a slightly less optimized tow vehicle
that's much better for the 95% of the time it's not towing anything.
I do not want to drive a fucking giant ass pickup truck around LA.
So why don't you just buy a 10-year-old Super Duty
and park it somewhere and only use it for towing?
Towing is so sketchy when the car is not behind its head.
I tow all the time and it's a nightmare in a car that can't do it.
I don't have to do this.
All I have to do is get seven different press cars and try towing with them.
Great.
From the SUVs I want.
Chris, you're just going to afford a Super Duty press car
because of how you need to tow a wheel.
Today I just got an email asking with a list of the new Super Duties.
I can borrow one.
Great.
Look, I understand the argument.
It's just I don't necessarily subscribe to the more is more.
For towing more is more.
I know, but it's not that much weight.
I think for a dear reader, the best advice I can possibly give to you
is to try to double the weight of your tow vehicle
with your capacity.
You're going to have such a dear time.
I understand.
Your car is going to be more stable.
You're going to get better fuel economy.
I used to tow.
It's going to be way safer.
20 years ago I towed with a 3,500 diesel.
Yeah.
Dodge, 3,500 diesel.
Smart.
The Cayenne Hybrid makes more horsepower and torque.
Great.
It's wheelbase is this long.
That's not a big deal.
It's not that big of a trailer.
It's wheelbase.
It's not that big of a trailer.
Wheelbase creates stability.
It also has a big fucking battery pack.
Weight helps.
More weight over the rear axle.
The weight is in between.
It's in front of the rear axle.
What's the weight balance in that car?
I mean, I don't know exactly.
Is it 50-50 like they're supposed to be or something close thereof?
I do not know.
What's your tongue weight on the Cayenne Hybrid?
750 pounds?
I don't know offhand.
But I know I can tow this trailer.
But like, I don't know.
It's going to be sketchy.
I'm going to try it before I buy it.
It's going to suck.
I'm not going to throw $75,000, $80,000.
You're doing this going down the green line.
I towed my Manx to Pebble Beach with a Bentayga and it was chill.
Well, Bentaygas are sick cars.
It was extremely chill.
It was extremely chill.
I also, man, I read your, you and a couple of people that I read, particularly Garbage Day,
have talked about the sort of the stupidity and malice of the social media government.
The fact that ICE is like terrorizing people for content is like real crazy.
The purpose of ICE has nothing to do with immigration.
That's just like the cover story.
The purpose of ICE, like today, not originally.
The ICE was created during the George Bush administration.
It was like to give money to Dick Cheney and Donald Roosevelt.
It's a great cause.
No notes there.
Dick Cheney's got to eat man.
Dick Cheney needs a third heart.
I just never had anything to do with immigration, but today it has even less to do with immigration than ever before.
The entire purpose of ICE is to manufacture a violent insurgency against the American government
so that Trump can be justified in invoking the Insurrection Acts.
Which he's tried to do so many times.
Yeah, he's tried to do so many times.
He's tried to invoke the Insurrection Acts to declare martial law and then use that to shut down the elections and stay in power for a third term.
Like there's a lot of people who I read that say that basically that that was what January 6 was like supposed to be.
Like basically they wanted all those lunatics to fight quote Antifa.
Yes, exactly.
Antifa's not real.
Antifa's not real and these people are such fucking morons.
So those guys, our collective memory of January 6 is now about a bunch of fucking morons invading the capitol.
They were never supposed to invade the capitol.
They were there to create a street war with the millions of Antifa blue-haired liberals that were descending upon Washington D.C. and Donald Trump's imagination.
They were real.
And then because of that street violence he could have again invoked the Insurrection Act, the current martial law and prevented the election from being certified.
Right.
And so we saw a test run for it then.
It didn't work.
He didn't go to prison somehow.
And so he's trying that again now.
And so the big takeaway here is that as we resist ICE deployments, as we protest, as we do that stuff, we have to resist the urge to do any sort of violence, which believe me that urge is there because that will give him the excuse to deploy the military.
Because that's the whole point is just poking the bear.
Yes.
And then creating this, you know, turning whatever like tiny little nothing arrest into some piece of content.
Yes.
Remember that Nazism wasn't about persecuting Jews or sending them to gas chambers.
Nazism was about, you know, collecting power.
Yeah.
And it did that and, you know, fascist regimes collect power by villainizing the weakest members of society that are least able to defend themselves.
And so right now who are the weakest members of society least able to defend themselves?
Immigrants and trans people.
Yeah.
Right.
And so by villainizing those people and by inspiring violence against them, what they're trying to do is have normal people like you and I go, wait a second, that person can't defend themselves.
I should stand up for them and then go out and beat up a cop.
Yeah.
And then that video of like you beating up a cop to defend, you know, some immigrant family on their way to church being rounded up.
It goes on Tucker Carlson.
And then the 82nd Airborne is, you know, stealing your Bentley and, you know.
Well, there's multiple shows.
I mean, John Oliver just did it and fucking some more news just did it with that Nick Shirley guy who made this bullshit video about the childcare centers in Minneapolis and like the chain of events that led directly from that to like sending in the fucking truth.
Yeah.
I mean, it's wild how stupid that is.
You take some little like incel pervert who can't get laid.
And for some reason, a childcare doesn't want some little incel pervert in their childcare.
And that's suddenly evidence of like, you know, Somali corruption.
Like where does that make sense?
Where does that make sense at any level?
It's all so stupid.
And just it's just Hamilton Nolan writes about this really well.
But it's just these fucking morons.
How are they in charge?
Yeah, because we're all too busy to run for office by having great careers.
And we sold our, you know, we sold our our convenient, you know, we sold our privacy and we sold everything for convenience.
And now they and now they've now they've got us.
Let's go to the people.
Hang on.
Read your questions.
Patreon.com slash the Smogntire podcast is how you support the show, how you catch the show when it's live.
I'm sorry, it's not live right now.
How you ask questions for the show, how you get the show early, how you get extra show and how you get exclusive access to all kinds of cool fun collabs and things that we do.
And by the way, shout out to this Montana bourbon, whatever it's called Montana 1889.
Everything here is called the same thing.
It's all trying to play until like the fucking family bullshit.
It's just like, come on.
We're a little more dynamic than just like a bad image of a rancher.
Yeah, right.
The swinging tire says, can West recommend a place in the Northeast good for outdoor activities, hunting and camping?
Yeah, I mean, the Northeast is wonderful.
I would head to, I would head to Maine and just get on X off road, the app and it'll it'll it'll lead you.
On X is good on X off road.
It's just it's like $19 a year.
It's great and head up to like Northern Maine.
It's just it's just tons of logging roads with little patches of public in there.
And you can just find your own little slice of heaven really easy in there using again on X offer or show exactly where that is.
I've done a bunch of the back country discovery routes.
Yes, those are rad.
Yeah, those are good.
How do you like your tour eggs in the morning says what's the most breaking force you've ever felt in a car?
Mustang GT3 Le Mans car for me.
Did you ever do some crazy shit?
It's been so long.
I've done the car.
You don't do sports cars.
I used to.
I mean, like, I don't know.
The last sports car you reviewed.
That's been so long.
I mean Corvette ZR1, Lexus LFA.
Yeah, that was like 2011.
Yeah.
C6 ZR1.
Yeah.
It was a pretty good time to bow out.
Yeah.
Eric Cool Testicles says Doug Demuro recently made a video about the most important cars the last 30 years.
His top three were Tesla Model S, Toyota Prius, and Mercedes ML 320.
Agri or disagree?
Interesting choices.
I fully agree on Tesla Model S.
I agree on Prius also.
I love the Prius.
The new Prius is dope.
Dude, it's sick.
But honestly, the Prius forever has been up here, there's a lot of income inequality.
So we talk about stealth wealth a lot and you don't want to flex here.
You want a car that gets you across socioeconomic divides.
And if you want that anywhere in the country, doesn't matter if you're in Carmel, if you're on Long Island, wherever you are.
If you show up in a Prius, you're welcome.
At a dive bar at Ralph Lauren's house, whatever it is, you're fucking dope.
The ML 320, the reason he's listing that is it was the first car to use brake-based traction aids.
Is that why he did use it?
Yes, instead of locking differences.
I didn't see Doug's video.
Love Doug didn't see that video.
I guarantee you that's why he's listing it.
I don't know if that was because it maybe was considered the first luxury crossover.
It's not a really crossover.
It's a luxury SUV.
It was the pioneer of modern electronic traction aids.
Modern electronic traction aids are super effective and I'm a huge advocate for them.
I think most people don't realize they're on their cars and they don't use them.
So if you're in any sort of truck or anything like that that's off-roading, make sure you use your modes.
Put it in snow mode, put it in rock mode, then you'll get the replicate the function of lockers by slowing down the wheel on the axle.
Then it's spinning the fastest to match your wheel speeds and give you traction off-road.
I don't really disagree with the list.
In my personal opinion, I would put the Lexus RX300 as number three because it literally did that started the crossover.
Those were such unique cars because they were on that unique platform.
They were wonderful.
You know that my mother from the years of 19, well, she amassed them.
By 2011, my mother owned five RX300s at the same time.
I bet all five are still running.
I don't have the whereabouts of three of them. Two of them absolutely are.
But she had a 97 the first year, a 99, an 03, an 05, and an 09.
If you're shopping for just like a relatively affordable car that kind of does everything and it's kind of nice inside.
They're super cheap.
They'll never die.
The best year by far of all the RXs we had was the 05.
The 05 had the best quality leather, the best quality wood, it held up the best.
It was a new thing for them then and they wanted to try something really different and hard.
They put everything they had into it.
These days, a luxury crossover is just the most bullshit, cheapest components you can possibly get in a car.
Sold to consumers that don't know anything.
They're all terrible. They're all exactly the same.
They're all terrible.
But those first generation luxury crossovers.
They had a pointer to me.
The first generation R4 was super fucking cool.
The first generation on how to CRV, super fucking cool.
That first generation RX had the weight of everything Toyota could put into a vehicle.
That means something.
Yama Habibi, what is the first car Wes fell in love with and why?
That's a good question.
I grew up in England. My dad was a diplomat.
He and I were really into English sports cars.
My first car was a 1969 Morris Minor 1000.
It was the biggest piece of shit ever.
I think it had 30 horsepower, maybe 48 miles an hour.
That's rough dude.
I loved that car.
I learned how to work on cars because it broke down like twice.
Every time I went back and forth to school, it was just great car.
That's awesome.
This one you probably can weigh in on Mustang Geek says.
I have to show back story.
People have asked regularly like, I talked about a weight tax for cars.
I felt like, is that someone's dog?
Yes it is.
Because they've talked about increasing registration fees for EVs to offset the fact that they don't use gas.
I've been of the opinion and it's not the most educated but it's somewhat educated that heavy cars disproportionately damage roads.
100%.
I was even further clarified by Ali from Range Energy who said,
the transporters that are shipping heavy cars really fuck up roads.
A hauler carrying a bunch of EVs is really fucking up roads.
The question, that's the back story.
You've discussed a weight tax but what about higher fuel taxes instead?
History shows that when gas prices are high, consumers buy more fuel-efficient cars, lighter vehicles, etc.
It works in Europe.
Café becomes unnecessary.
Could higher fuel taxes be a market driving solution to this environmental and societal problem?
I have a simpler solution.
I think most public policy should be simpler or should be written easier to understand.
It can be really broadly effective if we don't make it so complicated.
Limiting tax loopholes of limiting the complicated tax code.
People like you and I benefit from but that hurts the working man.
The simple answer to getting a lot of heavy cars off the road in America and a lot of fuel-efficient cars is to eliminate section 179.
I actually am pro that.
Readers or watchers, if you're not familiar with section 179 is a tax incentive from the IRS that encourages you if you have business income to offset it.
To buy a car weighs more than 6,000 lb.
6,000 lb gross vehicle weight, not car weight.
How much can you ride off?
They've reduced the amount you can ride off over the past few years.
Used to be all of it.
It's less now.
I support getting rid of it.
The reason why every housewife in Dallas drives a G-wag and the reason why every general contractor has a Ford Super Duty on and on and on is section 179.
If we eliminate that and it's just fair market that you need to buy their own car instead of having a tax payer subsidize their car, they'll buy something more fuel-efficient or buy something lighter.
I am against incentivizing the purchase of heavier vehicles.
Specifically where people are seeking out a heavier vehicle for a purpose that they don't need.
If you've ever been in traffic behind a Ford Super Duty Platinum that costs $180,000, why does this truck exist?
It exists because somebody had a whole lot of income to ride off and they had to force to buy a really heavy, stupid vehicle.
So you eliminate section 179 and you eliminate any incentive there is to buy that.
I'm buying an SUV.
Do you fuck with UTVs very often?
I do.
OK, we've got a UTV question.
Listen and sometimes watch says I'm going to rent UTVs for a bachelor party in Gatlinburg in a week.
There will be nine of us.
I know, right?
Someone's losing an arm.
Someone's absolutely losing an arm.
I'm going to ask the second part first, the two-parter.
Tips for a bunch of amateurs.
And then part two is any particular brand or model we should aim for.
Brand or model won't matter.
So the problem is like UTVs are essentially like a motocross bike that appears safer because four wheels and a really shitty roll bar.
The mantra for off-road driving that's just out there universally is as slow as possible as fast as necessary.
But the problem is the UTVs are so capable and so they have so much performance.
It's flipped.
It's flipped.
It's as fast as possible as slow as necessary.
And so they essentially exist to kill bachelor party members.
I would just advise you not to consume alcohol until afterwards.
For sure.
And then just like realize that you're driving off-road in an unfamiliar thing.
Go really slow, enjoy yourself, don't kill anybody, don't lose arms.
Where are helmets?
Where are eye protection?
Why am I such an asshole blanking on Andrew's last name?
Who's a car writer?
Who I call fucking Lefty.
Andrew Collins.
Yes, I literally call him Lefty.
He rolled a UTV on his wedding day.
And God fucking read his vows in like an ambulance.
It's funny now because he didn't die, but his hand is permanently fucked up.
No, and he's not as confident as he used to be before he had that accident.
He drives much slower.
You don't really fucked him up.
And just, yeah man, like if you guys want to own UTVs, I encourage you to get some training.
Like a high performance driving school, high performance off-road school.
But if you're going to rent them for a bachelor party man, that is a worst case scenario.
Just like, I don't know man, go to a fucking water park and enjoy some water slides.
But if you must do it, just be so careful.
And give arm restraints or a must.
You give everybody a safety briefing.
You're there to have a good time, not go to the fucking ER.
Yeah.
Tickle your pickle for a triple nickel says,
I'm considering removing my steering wheel on my 1993 300ZX
and getting a smaller one to get a quick bit of steering ratio.
The idea of removing an airbag from a car that spends 99% of its time on the street feels wrong,
but it's a 93, so it's a Gen 1 airbag.
In my opinion, you should probably disconnect the airbag at this point,
even if you're keeping that car.
Airbags as safety devices, if you've never been hit by it in the face by one,
it's kind of like recreational using a hand grenade.
It'll burn you out or break your nose.
There's probably some shrapnel involved.
What was that company that got sued for the shrapnel?
Oh, the Takata.
Yeah, Takata.
Gen 1 airbag is better than nothing in a high-speed crash,
but potentially very problematic in a low-speed crash.
In my opinion, I would not be worried about taking one out of a nice one.
What I would do for triple nickel reader guy is I would do racing buckets
and a proper racing harness.
In those cases, you don't need an airbag because you're a properly restrained.
Yeah, although you might break your neck.
Oh, excuse me.
Not to delicate.
Oh, wait, hang on.
Real quick, Dodge January six-pack coup attempt.
Thoughts on outdoor car covers?
Better than nothing?
Yeah, absolutely.
I should probably use one.
I wish I would have one sometimes, but I would camp around my truck and say nothing fits.
We have Chinese Elms in front of our house,
and they rain sap on our vehicles,
and it's a nightmare for everything from just clearing your windshield.
Absolutely using outdoor car cover.
Yeah.
Yeah, bye, good one.
Okay.
Hang on.
Well, I didn't preview these.
I'm sorry.
Duffle shuffle retirement club.
How much do you think cars being on a TV show or movie
are owned by a YouTuber inflates their price
compared to the identical car not owned by those people?
I mean, so here, I mean, yes, but like, what's an example?
So if it's a real TV, you know, a real TV car, a movie car,
then it's like, is the movie or TV show good and well known?
And well remembered.
And well remembered.
And if so, maybe like what was the role of the car?
Is iconic, you know, like you have like Mammy Vise,
Ferrari Daytona, absolutely.
Knight Rider and like early transams.
Probably not.
But like Cramer's car from Seinfeld,
probably minimal.
Right.
But like with a YouTuber, I mean, it depends on like...
How cringe is that YouTuber?
Well, what's their reputation?
Like, I suppose I'm a YouTuber and I sold my car at auction.
So like the fact that it was mine shouldn't mean anything.
But for someone who knows about me,
they know that I buy the best examples
and I maintain them incredibly fastidiously
and I service the shit out of them right before I sell it.
And you have really poor taste in interior fabrics.
And so, I mean, for me, like you should just buy with confidence
knowing that I don't want somebody out there going,
Matt Farrah sold me a piece of shit.
Right.
So for someone like me, maybe it's 10 or 15%,
but if it's the car Paul drove in the Fast and Furious 2
or something, then it's maybe double or triple.
The McQueen premium was always 300%.
Yep.
But readers, good advice, never buy a car from me.
Yeah, you use them until they're done.
Like the French.
PTS Normal says,
how much worse, how much more damage could our current administration
do to our national parks and public lands
before their term is over?
A lot.
There is, if you go to my substack,
westside.substack.com,
and search Trump plan to sell national parks.
He has an express plan that's seven steps long
that has been undertaken by the administration.
And we are on step five.
That is straight out of Project 2025?
No, it's their own White House plan.
Oh, okay.
Yeah, Project 2035, the section of public lands
is written by William Perry Pinley.
He was like a comic book villain.
In addition to trying to sell public lands,
he writes anonymous op-eds about how homosexuals are icky.
Cool.
He's just the fucking weirdo.
So assuming it's only three years
and that's a scary assumption,
but how much more can they fuck shit up?
So we could lose some major national parks.
They'll try to slow-roll at the beginning
and try to build some enthusiasm around it.
Still privatize something nobody cares about.
They've identified historic buildings, battlefields,
stuff like that.
They'll go in and they'll just, right now,
some operations of national parks have always been privatized.
If you go stay in the Mammoth Lodge at Santerra
at Yellowstone, Santerra is pretty good.
But if you go back to, like, a Delaware North,
who used to run Yosimidae, some of the lodgers
that used to use Yosimidae, they're terrible.
And the guy that used to run Delaware North
is now the nominee for the Park Service Director.
And so he knows how to work the Park Service,
knows how to milk taxpayers.
And so what they're going to do is go in
and just try to roll out more and more privatization
within national parks.
And all of that's just going to prioritize stuff upwards.
And so there'll be great places for Elon Musk to visit.
If he wants to go pet a bison, please do.
But it'll be less and less accessible to you and I
and normal people.
And we can see some really significant sell-offs as well.
So, like, they could create, like,
a South Africa-style game preserve, effectively.
In fact, that's one of their priorities
with Doug Bergam as DOI.
Right now, all wildlife in America is owned
and trusted by the public.
The managed by the states.
And so they have a stated goal of wanting
to privatize that for profits.
And so instead of, like,
access to hunting is really democratic right now.
It costs nothing and it's accessible to everybody
and it's how millions of families were protein on their plates
to this day.
But if that goes to the South Africa example
where it's fully privatized and access is just for rich people,
then we could lose that.
That's really sad.
You didn't use these words yet,
so I don't know if you've covered this already,
but Lamborghini's on parade says,
what are your thoughts on the BLM policy reversal
on public lands rule?
Yes, so the public lands rule is really a case of misinformation.
I have a lot of frustrations with the liberal side of the coin here,
where they sort of, like, spend a lot of time
virtue signaling and not achieving much.
It's the public lands rule was not a rule.
It was a sort of memo from the last administration that said,
hey, consider conservation on an equal footing to other uses,
which is a very formal term of public land uses,
which are like energy extraction and things like that.
It never actually made,
because this would have to be an act of Congress,
never made conservation a use capital U of public lands,
and it just really upset a bunch of people.
So there's really no, there was no material change on the ground
when that was eliminated,
and it was just sort of, again, a liberal side of the public lands world
not doing itself any favors.
Yeah, yeah.
Lockshock Daryl just wants a journal recommendations.
I use either moleskins.
I've been impressed with this one,
which I got a swag from Monticello Motor Club.
This one is Spectre and Co,
and I have been very impressed with the durability of this fake leather cover.
I've been writing on this since,
what's the first date on here,
April 28th of 2025, so almost a year,
and I mean, look, that looks like almost brand new,
so that's very impressive from Spectre and Co.
Okay, my son, Doug's Dinero.
My son just turned one and loves the sound of engines.
A 50cc dirtbiker gas weedwacker will probably make him ecstatic.
What car truck tractor, et cetera,
has an amazing exhaust sound
and can fit a 99th percentile baby?
So I'm going to go back up a second there.
As somebody who suffers from significant tinnitus today,
use earmuffs, and when it's appropriate,
earplugs for your child throughout their life.
I can't go to bed without really loud ringing in my ears.
What do you think did it?
Motorcycles.
Motorcycles?
Absolutely motorcycles.
Engines or wind noise, or both.
The wind noise is way more significant than the noise,
but I grew up attending Formula One races with my dad.
It's everything, it's all the above.
I do not wear earplugs enough.
I wear them like when I shoot guns.
I wear them all the time now,
but I've done the damage and I don't think it's worse.
There's nothing you can do about it.
The acid sucks.
Panic at my disco.
I'm not going to give you my Korean taco recipe
on the show.
I'll just write it in the comments.
On the fucking Patreon page.
Can car people and conservation people
and progressives like myself
find the middle happy ground?
I think we're all in the middle happy ground already.
We are divided by people around us, not by ourselves.
Do you remember that the idea of a personal carbon footprint
that impacts climate change
was created by an ad agency called Ogilvy
for the client BP to shift the blame away from the oil companies?
On to us personally.
That's bullshit.
All of us care about this stuff.
I own two 10 mile per gallon trucks
because I like going outdoors.
I feel like I can't fully experience the outdoors
the way I want to without them.
I can't access the trail, I don't want access.
I can't get further into the mountains.
All of us like the same stuff.
All of us are hopefully good people
that want to see other people succeed.
What more is there?
Just because I don't want a super duty.
If you need a super duty, get a fucking super duty.
I don't shame people.
I've expressed the feeling of shame from myself
when I drive something that's enormous
in an inappropriate situation.
If you and I look at vehicles that are utility and function,
I think a lot of people who don't come into vehicles from that place
look at them through like virtue signalling
and lifestyle signalling and socio-economic status signalling.
It could be that, but also I think Americans versus Europeans
buy cars for like a 95th percent use case.
Americans do it for like 120% use case.
Just that one time of the year that you need to tow.
I might need to move a couch someday.
I better get a pickup truck.
I also to some degree understand that
because you're buying one car.
You want it to fulfill all your needs.
Even if it's once a month that you might go to Home Depot
for a home project or take your entire kids soccer team
or go on a camping trip, whatever it is,
the hassle of having to take time out of your day
to drive to a rental car company
and all that bullshit
just to get that truck that you maybe don't need for your commute.
You just want to own that vehicle all the time
and have it ready to go.
I understand.
I try and maybe I'm not perfect at it.
I try to not shame others for their choices,
but when I have said how I feel about it,
I don't have kids, you know whatever.
I like a 95th percent use case vehicle,
not 120 percent.
I've said when I drive ginormous vehicles in the city,
I feel like an asshole
and then people have taken that and said
that I think you're an asshole.
I said no, this is how I feel.
You don't feel that way like okay.
I get that.
When I was the first road test editor at Jalopnick in the 2000s,
I was living in Brooklyn.
A total hipster, long hair,
but I remember the hair.
I remember the hair.
I brought an Audi R8 home.
I felt like a fucking asshole.
I like Audi R8s.
I like sports cars, but there's a time and a place for one.
Brooklyn isn't usually it.
It's not like Bushwick in 2004.
Someone had asked in the Patreon
and I didn't necessarily,
well we can answer it.
If you'd ever been profiled in a car.
Oh 100 percent.
I mean I get profiled today.
I think both my wife and I do
because we both drive modified lifted trucks.
Our lifestyle sort of justifies that.
It's just the reality of living in a place like Montana
being able to fully enjoy it
as I'm preparing for extreme weather.
I'm preparing for the unknown.
One interesting fact about up here,
the only NOAA weather radar
is in Great Falls, the Air Force Base.
It's in a valley surrounded by mountains.
It's great if you live in the valley.
It only does in the valley.
There's no other accurate weather forecast
in all of Montana.
They just defunded that one?
No they haven't, but they never were accurate weather forecast.
We could go visit friends in this,
which is over that mountain range there
in June
and why we're at dinner at Snow 3 inches.
You want to be able to drive home
and there's going to be mule deer on the road
and elk on the road and we're not going to be able to see.
I want an air rebumper
and I want light force lights
and I want something with a torson center def
and good tires.
Living up here is a different thing.
It's a very different thing.
I'm probably not going to hit a deer
or a moose probably.
But I will have to park at Trader Joe's
like all the fucking time.
You know what I mean?
I get it.
We'll borrow a fucking super duty
for it when we need one.
That's what we'll do.
Thanks Wes.
One more time, westfromontana.com
Westfromontana.com
Westcyler.substack.com
Please subscribe.
Again I got fired in September
for pointless fucking reasons
so I could use your help right now.
For us the Patreon is the move.
Thank you to our patrons
for supporting us.
Asking such good questions.
I think, I don't know if our next show
is back in the studio. We may have another show
from Montana when Zach gets here tomorrow
because it's fucking ice race baby.
It's going to be good. Ice race will be good.
Thank you and thank you
and we'll see you later. Bye.
About this episode
Wes Siler shares his journey from being a popular outdoor lifestyle journalist to running for Montana state senate, discussing the challenges of modern journalism under tech ownership and the clash between good journalism and business interests. He reflects on the blurred lines between politics, journalism, and advocacy, emphasizing how politics inevitably intersects with passions like cars and public lands. Wes also touches on the realities of public service, the importance of public lands, and the frustrations of navigating political and media landscapes today.
3.0 liter diesel
back country discovery routes
battery pack
electronic traction aids
Formula One
internal combustion engine
National Forest
off-road driving mantra: 'as slow as possible, as fast as necessary'
off-roading
section 179
Audi R8
Bentley Bentayga
Bentley Flying Spur
Chevrolet Corvette
Dodge Charger
Ferrari Daytona SP3
Ford Mustang
Ford Ranger
Ford Super Duty Lariat Tremor
Lamborghini Countach
Land Rover Range Rover
Lexus LFA
Lexus RX
Mercedes-Benz ML-Class
Morris Minor
Nissan 300 ZX
Porsche Cayenne
Ram 3500
Tesla Cybertruck
Tesla Model S
Tesla Model Y
Toyota Prius
Toyota Tacoma
Original notes
Wes Siler is a journalist who spent 20 years writing about adventure, vehicles, gear, and the great outdoors, most notably being one of the most popular writers for Outside Magazine. On this episode Matt Farah talks to Wes about why tech isn't rewarding journalism, how both parties are effecting our public lands, towing, hunting, climate change, and so much more.
Wes is a well of knowledge and worth paying attention to.
https://wessiler.substack.com/
IG: @wessiler
Recorded February 25, 2026
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Zack Klapman, Matt Farah
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