Why Enthusiasts Don't Trust Car Brands Anymore..

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to the Martini Works podcast.

I am your host, Alex Martini, followed by the lovely and wonderfuls, Dakota and Gels.

And if you guys are new here, this is where we talk about all things aftermarket car world,

car trends, racing, motorsports, and a little bit of what we've got going on in the old

Martini Works shop, which by the way, if you're still looking to build your car here as the

tax season is coming around and springtime is rolling around the corner, there's no better

time to get your car finished over at martiniworks.com. We're also helping the build happen where

you can actually check out with Catapult, get 2% back up to 70 bucks, no gimmicks,

no catches, just a way for us to give a little bit back in your pocket to make it a little bit

easier because everything has gotten properly expensive. So if you guys are looking for any

help, you need help with wheel and tire fitment, anything like that, just shoot us a message

on martiniworks.com. We would be happy to help you and we are so thankful for all the support

that we've had so far already going into this year. It's been an incredible explosive, scary

as hell growth, but it's been awesome, which means we have to start off with some of the

updates we've got going on in the shop over the next couple of days. Obviously, we're getting

ready for Riverside. For the visually impaired, this might be a little tough for you to see this

next bit, but Gels and Dakota got some new merchandise on. Yeah. Yeah, Riverside. The back

looks really cool. Yeah. Turn around. Bend over. It's going to be really awkward. I don't know if

they'll be in focus. I will try our best. Am I in frame? I can put a photo of it up. Yeah. What?

That's cool. I really like it. Technology. How do you like it? How does it fit? If it's perfect,

I honestly do really enjoy it. I do like the blue. We were just having a debate about hoodie

strings or no hoodie strings and I brought up the concept that I have never once ever in my life

have used hoodie strings for whatever intended purpose that they provide. I've never utilized

hoodie strings ever. Yeah. Except when I was like eight and then I do the thing where it like goes

around. Yeah. That's exactly what he said. When I was eight years old, Dakota, just to have fun with.

It just provides you a quick safe. No, he takes one of them, he throws it in his mouth and he

sucks on it. That's what 99% of the people do with those things. You're not wrong. I think yeah,

that's a good call. Nobody can steal my idea. I am trademarking flavored sweatshirts. Throw one in

the mouth. You just suck on it. It's like like. Alex, this is 2026. You need to put nicotine in

them. And nicotine on one side, caffeine on the other side. Son of a bitch. I quit martini. I got

a new job. Alcohol ones or CBD. This is why people start podcasts. Yeah. They're like you should

need a license to have a microphone in your hand. What the hell you got this? You got something to

open. I get, I get really cool. Hold on. Let me just, you can drop the microphone. No, no, no,

I can do this at the same time. Stand. Hold on. All right. So you hope you guys can hear me. So

I have a gift. I get really cool stuff from time to time, but I don't ever open it on camera. And

I want you guys to experience this with me. Okay. I don't know what it is. I don't know what it is

either. Could be scary. Sounds cool. Oh my God. It's like the same bag. Oh my God. Okay,

hold on. Now I got to do it again. Hold on. Hold on. It's like one of them dolls. It's just

opening it. I really want one of those when I was a kid, by the way. Why? I don't know. I don't

know. I was just infatuated by like miniature versions of things. Then it was a never ending

miniature version. I get it. It's a book. S's. Issue number five. A motorsport culture magazine.

That's kind of nice. That's golf. That's 100%. Well, okay. He's a Formula One driver. No, he's

golfing. No, he's a Formula One driver. Tiger Woods. That's definitely not Tiger Woods. That's

not him. It smells good. Hold on. I can smell it from here. Oh yeah, dude. Good smelling. Good

smelling mag. Good smelling mag. I like it. I like it. That's classic book smell. Here in the S's

magazine, we have a guide to the Australian Grand Prix. A story about an 18 year old GB4

driver. Puma and McLaren racing. A teenage dreamer called Elba Larson. Pierre Gasly, who is not Tiger

Woods on the front cover. A story about billions of streams. The Carlos Signs effect. Tire pressure.

A helmet and stitches. Overtake being late is not an option. F1 helmet. So this is like a magazine of

all different things happening in the world of motorsport. This is kind of cool. I haven't seen

one car in there. This is the most non-car car book I've ever seen. Guys, there's a little bit of

lifestyle in racing. Okay, we all know this. Hey, look, there's a car. Okay. Looks like Formula

4. Are you going to give us the backstory on this or? I get, they reached out and they're like,

okay, we want to send you a magazine. So I was like, okay. But then I completely forgot that they

sent me a magazine. So then when I got a random black envelope, I just wanted to open it with you

guys because I didn't know what we were going to find in here. I didn't know. And here's what we got.

Some story like I met this guy. I got in his car. I raced it. And then when I got back, he was like,

hey, I have a magazine. And you're like, okay, I'll check it out because you let me drive your

race car. No. Maybe it was one of those things. No, the one thing I will say is this is actually

pretty cool. One of the neat things. People with lisp hate this book. What does that say with a lisp?

That's not nice. They have a little piece in here about overtake, which is an anime that they're

doing, which is kind of cool. They're doing an anime for like F1? Not F1 specifically, but yeah,

like Formula Racing. It's pretty cool. So it's in there. It's a pretty neat book. I like the way

it smells. A book's got to have a good smell. It's got a smell. It does. Have you ever been in a

library? I'm like, get me out of here. The last time, here, I'm going to be honest. When I was a

kid, when I did go to the Ellie Phillips Public Library in Eau Claire, Wisconsin, walk in double

doors, kind of scary, very daunting places, like a five year old. I walk in. I immediately go to

the right in the kids area. I'm either walk in, take another right, be about a 25 foot walk, but

that was a little, so it's probably like 10 feet really, to the computer area. There it is. I was

just about to say. And on the left side, they had the big plastic covers of the games on the left

side. I'd grab my one that's the pajama sam. Grab pajama sam, rent it out, hop on the old colorful

computer, and I'll do some old pajama sam for like two hours. Have you guys ever seen a magician

in a library? Nope. Kids at our school would go to the library to play RuneScape. RuneScape used

to be blocked when I was in middle school. At the library? Yeah, the middle school library? Middle

school library. Oh, yeah. They would go to the public library. Ours was Territory Wars. If you

know, you know. Also played some cartoon network flash games. You know, it's cooler than anything

that we're talking about, though. We should probably get back to it as carts. Sorry. The magazine

really threw me up. Oh, I just feel like every time like there's like a group setting for like,

oh, the kids are going to go see a magician. It's always at a library. Nope. And I thought back

about it's like, what? Anytime a magician came to town, it was always at a library. I've never

heard that in my life. Gels. Put those two together. You have to be quiet in the library. Yep, not the

magicians. What? Okay, let's talk about cars. Hey, what's, what's, oh my god, more phone calls?

Can we not? Can we talk about Secret Car because you made it not a secret?

Yeah, I did. I did make it not a secret. Someone called that out real quick.

If people were listening in, congratulations. It'd be fair, none of us caught it either.

I caught it and then I was like, fuck. And I just kept going. I was like, don't mention that ever

again. Ladies and gentlemen, it's official and you're going to see it across the Martini Works

YouTube channel and Instagram. So don't forget to subscribe to those other places. Yeah. But we own

a car. Nissan Sylvia S15. Grand Prix. Hell yeah. It's probably one of the best cars you've picked

up. It, I hope so because it had big shoes to fill after selling the Nissan Gloria. It did. And I

think if you're going to get rid of a Gloria S15 is an acceptable answer. It's also, it's also quite

lovely. I've really, when I first got it, when I got delivered in the snow and the guy didn't

speak any English and didn't know how to turn it on and wanted me to take the car out of the,

and didn't want any responsibility for any of the damage that he caused, once we got the car off the

trailer, I looked at it and I said to myself, I don't really like the way it looks. And I was

kind of, I was kind of sad. And then over time, with it sitting here over the past few months

and like me walking in, I like started looking at it from some like different angles. And then

I realized it was obviously like jacked up to the sky for shipping. It was a mile high. Yeah.

But it really has grown on me. Like I really love the way that it looks. I love the K-Sport

matched with the Origin Lab parts matched with the 326 matched with the paint. I mean, it just,

it's a very, very fun car. I'm excited to get behind the wheel and have some fun with it.

It sounds super good. It does sound pretty freaking good. All the good noises, even more than the

GTT updated the suspension in it. Would you guys replace and then would you put in it? What the

hell was it? It was a, we got rid of KTS. Is it KTS? Is that what it was? KTS. So it's a, it's an older

Japanese brand that I think was like, some of it was sourced from China, some of it was sourced in

Japan, but like it's not bad stuff per se. It is just really old. It's oldish. It's like, it's

old old. And so like the, I could tell just from when we tore it out. It was really crusty. It's

pretty crusty and some of it was blown out and the bushings are going back. The bushings were

starting to go and it was like a mile high. So yeah, we ditched that and then we put in some

custom BCs. Yep. So we got those in just the other day. And then we thrown some white line parts

at it, just up front and rear sway bars. It does have some, a mixture of like Megan and I think

there's some Cusco stuff in there just for like some camber arms and things like that. So definitely

came with some decent stuff on it. We're just kind of finishing it up and updating things that

needed to be replaced. So the thing that I'm probably most excited for with the car is once

we get it done, we had the wheel sent off to get refinished, which you'll get to see like the whole

series. We're really excited for that. We got different tires for drift set of wheels that we

have. So we have a drift setup, we have a show setup, new coilovers. But what I'm most excited for

is once it gets back from Riverside, we're actually going to take it over to Johnny's

and we're going to get the entire underside like coated coated and protected. So it's got some

surface rust and some of like the pretty standard spots, nothing too crazy that we just got a

and even then it's just like spots. I wouldn't even call it rust. It's just where there's not

oxidation, not paint where it was like scuffed or like scratched. Yeah. So we're going to clean

that up and then we're going to spray it down and pretty much just like freeze the underside.

It's relatively like clean. I mean, especially for what we're used to, but like I'd say it's

a really clean car. Yeah, I think for the price, it was definitely a good value and I do have to

give credit where credit is due. Podcast listener actually is the reason we have that car from

about a year and a half ago, two years ago, I want to say by now, is when I started my

tyrant of S15s being overpriced for us folk and Mark reaching out to me, his name's Mark.

He reached out and he's like, Hey, I have a friend. We listen to the podcast. We heard that you

think S15s are overpriced kind of junk boxes. What if there was one for sale that was cheap?

Would you be interested? And I remember being like, Yeah, I mean, sure, semi pictures and

he sent over pictures. And of course, you know, in the world of WhatsApp, it's like,

the pictures are always summer good and summer shit. You can never get like a good read.

But we, I'd never met this guy before in my life. So it was pretty much like a site unseen,

trust my Instagram DMs. And then I sent actually Arios really no different than buying any other

used cars just across the ocean. So Arios actually, I'm wearing a shirt right now.

Him and Sashin went to go check it out for me, which was like a three hour drive from where

they live in Japan. So that was really cool to get some eyes on it. So then Suzuki sent me like

eight shitty photos of the car at night, which was fantastic, you know, and he doesn't speak

much English and I don't speak any Japanese. So like, I'm trying to use Google translate. He's

trying to use his just known English, which is better than my Japanese. And, you know, we negotiated

on a price. What was really crazy is the tariff was 30% of the value of that damn car. Oh my god.

Yeah, you bought that at the worst fucking time. Holy shit. Yeah, it was like two months

past the whole tariff thing. So yeah, I spent I spent an airlift 3p kit that you can now get

on sale at martiniworks.com for like about 350 to 500 bucks, depending on the kit that you're

getting. It was about $3,400 in tears. That sucks. Oh my god. Plus that's not including

shipping or literally anything. That's just a fee. That's just extra money that went somewhere,

I'm assuming into the I have a careful I know where it went to I have funded at least five to

seven screws on something could be in the air, could be in the water, could be somewhere in the

ground. Yeah, that's a that's a joke. No, that's 15. I'm really excited for we're going to take it to

US Air, which you guys also get to hear first. We've actually don't drift it. We're gonna drift it.

We're gonna drift it. How much is the paint per pipe? Did we find out? I'm gonna be honest with

you. I am not scared of drifting the car. It's $1,000. I am not scared of gels driving the car.

Yeah, I am scared of Brent goddamn gas driving the car. I am here right now. I know he can't

defend himself losing it. No, he'd be looking at me. He'd do this exactly what he did. That's

exactly what he'd be doing. Oh, rightfully so. I'd be like Brent. Brent's drifted the R34. No,

no, no, no, no, no. I know it's just Brent is a like a hard wheeler with cars. He is he's he's

he's he ain't light footed. No, he's aggressive with this with this car driving. I saw him drive

the R34 on the the CARE 20As. Yeah, that sucked. And that was terrible. And he was he had to though.

Hand in it. We had to though, because tires were so gripped up from what we were trying to do.

That poor little 30,000 mile R34 was was was trying its best. Brent is our videographer,

by the way. Yeah, in case you guys are wondering. So, but we'll we'll throw it down. We're actually

gonna we'll take it out to US Air. I was really excited for get some slides with it and then see

how it drives. I wanted a Corvette. Let's be clear. Well, that's a long shot from a Corvette.

I had taken S15 over a Corvette any day to be. I as a drift car, S15 or Corvette,

a lot of people on the internet gonna say S15. I still think the Corvette's pretty damn good.

It does a good job. It does a really good job. And it's got a lot of power. I'm not tried an S15 yet.

And I feel like it'll do just fine. I just think the car overall is cooler. Yeah, I will agree. I

Corvette where you can just kind of like do this with your foot and then it just does the thing.

And then you just modulate throttle. That's also pretty sick with the SR20. You have to like

keep it in revs. You got to make sure you're playing with the clutch in certain corners.

You got to have it in the right gearing. It does makes piss all for power in any 3k.

It's what I'm used to. It's yeah. That's all I know. Reminds me of home. Reminds me of home.

Look what I got under me, Kil. Anyway, yeah, back to the paint. Yeah, $1,000 a pint we found out.

Because there's some shipping, a little bit of shipping damage. Yeah,

a thousand. I didn't even know that. How much? Yeah, there was a whole reason why we had to go

through about everything. $1,000 a pint. Yeah. How much is a pint? Don't drift it. Not a lot.

A pint of beer. Oh, thank you. Yeah. Yeah. All right. That seems like a pretty good amount.

Yeah. Yeah. Well, not really. Not to like spray it hard. It was like barely enough for maybe like

the side skirts and the bumper that we're getting fixed. $1,000 for that paint. Yeah.

For some paint. That means the whole car is worth at least like $40,000. That is like probably

the most valuable car we have here now. It's a paint away coat from a Toyota Hilux, a newer one,

right? That's the paint coat. Do you remember the name of the paint coat? I have it somewhere,

but no. What was it? It was dried ketchup red. Nope. No, because it's glossy. It's only dried

ketchup because of the dust. I mean, stop naming my cars their colors after bad foods.

I get triggered. He said the Ferrari was spaghetti red one time because Dakota has that stupid ass

little laughter in his face that he does and he makes everybody laugh because he's super funny,

man. Everybody, everybody for years, for years, even to this day, dude, will be like,

so that Ferrari, was it really spaghetti red? Fuck you. It was. Next question. Did you see it?

That was the weirdest red. It wasn't normal. It was an actual paint code red from Ferrari. I'm

telling you. It was like faded like sun. It was look spaghetti. It kind of, if you guys could

imagine what a garden salsa sun chips bag would look like outside of an Arizona sun after

that's a good call. That's the color. That's honestly more roll off the tongue like spaghetti.

Actually, I do. I love the color of the S 15 and I'm not a red car person. I don't let me think

real quick. Nope. Never owned a red vehicle and that I would. I like that a lot. I do like it.

And I cannot wait because we've got two sets of wheels for it, which actually will go quite well

into our break. But we have a set of works. You're getting refinished. They're really good.

We like them, but they had a little bit of damage. They've seen some use. So we got them all cleaned

up. And then actually we got a set of drift spares that we are running, which is moteggies. We got

a set of some moteggies. Actually, they're right there. One of the few wheel brands that actually

went down to a zero offset, which we needed, which we needed. We actually still have to run a spacer

because it's wide bodied. But it was super nice because me and you were measuring for the wheels

using. We have a wheel fitment tool. We partnered up with the guys that actually made that. So you

can actually get one right on martiniworks.com. It's really slick. Super nice. I think everybody

that modifies cars should have one of those just in their toolbox. It's a good tool just to have.

If you're constantly like, if you're one of those people that swaps out wheels pretty regularly

or likes to change things up, it's a great tool to have. Yeah. And it's only a hundred bucks,

which is, I know it sounds like a lot, but the amount of times if you're like changing out

cars or you like even have a truck or an SUV or like you're trying to make funky stuff work,

dude, you mount it up. It's got magnets. It takes literally 10 minutes. Size it all up. It's good

to go. It's like owning a fender roller. It's like, you're not going to use it that often,

but God, do you enjoy having it? And everyone knows that you have. And they will constantly

ask you. You'll be everyone's friend. It's just like a boat. But no, it was really nice to have

the Motegi's because as Gels and I were measuring, we're like, man, we're not going to find a one

piece wheel that's a zero offset. We're going to have to find like a plus 10 or a plus 15.

Yeah. Plus 22 or plus 15 is like typically what we can get down to. And then we went on our own

website and put in zero offset. 18, zero offset. Motegi. I was like, oh, sick. That's awesome.

So really cool, which actually goes into our partner Martini works podcast, which is

Motegi racing wheels. If you guys and gals are looking for a set of wheels, you want something

different. Motegi racing wheels have awesome variety of different designs that I actually

really like. I'm enjoying that the industry is getting something new and fresh and different.

But obviously you still want to keep it affordable. You still want to keep it functional. And

Motegi does that super, super well. They're priced very competitively. They've got awesome

sizes like we just mentioned. They have cool different fitments and colors, which I think

the color stuff is really cool. Ever since Vin color matched his TEs to his Ferrari, everybody's

been talking about color matching wheels to cars. As if Volkswagen guys weren't doing that since

2006 to like 2015. But Motegi's are really great way to actually jump into some of those colors.

Like I don't know if I would color match red on red, but there are a lot of people that have been

seeing in the build threads that are starting to color match stuff. So with that being said,

if you're looking for a set of wheels and tires, you want to save a little money,

package tires with your Motegi wheels. We actually give you a discount on the whole thing.

You can get them mounted, balanced and shipped right to your door. All you got to do is throw

them out. So thank you Motegi Racing Wheels for being a partner of the Martini Works Podcast and

we'll be right back. A few months ago, James Pumphrey put out a video talking about how Volkswagen

had left car enthusiasts behind for the most part. And I think that video did really well and it kind

of sat in this silo of a topic for a while. And now I see other car brands popping up doing things

like stuff and things that feel so outside of the pocket that it doesn't quite make sense. And so

people have started to say, that's a shareholder decision. That's a cost cutting decision. Oh,

they're doing that because of BYD. They're doing that because of international pressures.

And then I started to really kind of dive in to anything that's been released over the last

12 to 24 months. And there is just a general tendency that people don't trust. Car brands

anymore. Like in general? Yeah, why do you think that is? I think it's just, personally, it's like,

I don't feel like, and this is very, very limited to the companies that maybe do this, but like

they're supporting like actual car enthusiasts with their stuff. They know that that's not their

huge market and their demographic. And if they are going to do something like that, like, hey,

we're going to release this car that is more performance oriented. It's going to be six figures.

It's going to be limited production and it's going to drive the cost up even more and you're

never going to be able to even get it. Yeah. And it's been all of the crazy MSRP swings. Like,

all new cars don't go for MSRP anymore. They go above that, which I know isn't necessarily directly

related to the manufacturers. That's more on the dealership thing, but it's still like the brands

persona when you're overpaying $40,000 over MSRP or whatever crazy numbers, you know, was going on.

And I think too, it's like so many modern cars are coming out and it's like, there's just a lot of

gimmicks with it. Yeah. It just seems like everything is just a let down.

And I don't know, it's kind of more than just cars too. It's like with video games, for instance,

it's kind of felt like the same way with like, we talked about like stranger things, you know,

the other day, it's like, why are we always just feeling so fucking let down about this stuff?

And it's like, I don't know. I will say a part of me has sometimes been like,

maybe it's just the internet being the internet. Because there are some brands that I think are

doing good. Like, I'm really happy personally with Cadillac. Okay. They've never aimed to be

cheap. They've never aimed to be anything that what they are, but they had the CT5 black wing,

they have the Escalade V, they have this, these like CT4 V black wing, they have these cars that

are like still performance oriented. And then GM obviously has the Corvette, the 01, the 01X,

which are awesome cars. They're heavily invested in motorsport. Cadillac is now in Formula

01, which is a big deal. So they're like invested that way. I would argue even like Ford Performance

has been doing more of that. They have the Ford must, they have the GT series, the Mustang series,

that's, you know, a homologated, you know, series, they have their investment in Ford racing, which

is now doing a lot of the development stuff with Red Bull and Formula One. So they're doing a lot

of that stuff. But there are brands where it's like Nissan, kind of where are you going, buddy?

Yeah. You know, I think the Prelude was a really wonky thing from Honda to do.

It was super weird. I don't understand. Considering the price point of it and kind of where it was,

that got me then leading into, you know, like Toyota, which Toyota has the GRD6, which is

great, awesome, fantastic. But now they're kind of, they're creeping up in price. BMW is almost

like unapproachable for a normal person to purchase right now. And then Porsches are made up and the

prices don't matter. Yeah. It's, everything just went up like a lot, obviously. And I think too,

it's like, you look back at the last few years and it's like, I hate to bring up like the EV stuff,

but it's like, every brand like just dropped fucking everything they were working on because

they're like, we need to go all in on EVs. It's like you look at like Ford, for instance, like

we're not doing any more cars. We're not doing any more like SUVs, like they're building trucks,

trucks and SUVs or whatever it was. Yeah. And I think everyone kind of remembers that. Like,

they was like, they just dropped everything to focus on this. Like, there's going to be a big

thing. And then they just completely turned around on that. And then last like six to 12 months.

And everyone's like, Hey, remember when you said this one thing and you like completely

forgot about us? Yeah, fuck you. It is interesting to think how sensitive that whole situation was

because so many companies were going EV until, you know, everything changed in America quickly.

Going to be going back pretty quick without gas prices going up. Jesus Christ.

Yeah, that came out of nowhere. It's going to be real popular again.

Dude, not even, not even, we're not, this podcast is not to talk about that. But man,

it's, it's, it's wild out there. It is a crazy, crazy place. And but like that, again, it's,

I'm looking at all of this stuff, all of these things. And you would hope that there would be

people out there that are like, Hey, we're making something for you. Like maybe it's not the cheapest,

right? But it's consciously made for you. Right. And I think we've, we've entered like late stage

capitalism where it's like every corner you try to like poke into, it's like you're getting another

nickel taken away to get something that is objectively worse than it was the previous year.

Or maybe this is just what it's like getting old. I don't know. That's probably why I don't know.

Like I started thinking about why, why do we all like Corvettes now? What happened? Where,

where, where did it come from? I know. Listen, when we were young, there were people that were

buying Corvettes. You remember like, old fuck. Yeah. And now we're like, listen guys, a C5 Corvette

actually. It's one of the best cars ever. I mean, I do 100% think that's, that's a part of it. But

even then, you know, I look back, we need another Scion brand. Yeah. Right. They were focused on

making like affordable entry level, just fun cars for the most part. Like they were meant to be.

Nissan would kill it with like a Scion type brand. I feel Nissan, Nissan could just be called

Nassin and then budget, budget versions. Give me the Z with a three liter naturally aspirated

Nissan backwards. Is that what you just did? Yeah. Okay. Where did you pull that from? We'll

call it the 360Z. Okay. And it'll have an Xbox button that you push to start the car. And I,

like, I think car guys and gals are pretty simple people. I just think we want something that's

fun to drive and has a sense of a hydraulic steering versus fully electronic driver oriented.

And it can be slow as balls. I think what you said about 350 horsepower, 300 horsepower being

the money, I still think that's like so true 100%. Give somebody an analog 300 horsepower car, front

wheel drive or rear manual and get them to learn about a car and they will become a better driver

than 95% of the people on the road. Where are the cheap, like enthusiast cars like right group in

the area of era of Dodge and NSRT fours, Cobalt SS is those four cylinder turbo entry level cars

that were relatively cheap. It's like now we don't have it. Now it's like everything that comes out

is starting at 40 for the base model. And then it just skyrockets from there. And then even then

it's overpriced. I will, I will, I will say, and I've heard this a lot, but we grew up in a pretty

fricking good era for cheap cars. Like we did, we had cash for clunkers, baby, at one point in

our life. That was incredible. Okay, it's kind of set. Like I really, as I've been thinking about

this, because I've been just like shopping, right? I just been, I go on as you do and you just browse

around. It's like, man, if I were to go get something right now, it's like, what would I get?

And it's like, well, I've always really liked this car when I was younger. That car, for one that's

not completely rotted out, probably like 20 grand still. If not more, it's like our, our favorite

cars from like when we were growing up and stuff, if they're not completely like ran through and

like destroyed, you're going to be paying such a premium for it. Like those are becoming like

collectors cars now. It's like, you look at like the 90s JDM stuff. Everything is like,

the iconic shit's like 30, 40, $50,000 for a 30 year old car. It's like, Jesus Christ, man.

I do. And then it's like, okay, well, I'm going to do the boring thing of like, well, what would

that get me now? And it's like, well, it's going to get you a BRZ or it's going to get you a WRX,

or it's going to get you a high mileage Civic Type R. Those are your options.

There's fucking nothing else competing out there.

I would like to blame someone because deflection of ownership is the best way to go.

I blame the auction houses so much for driving up prices of enthusiast focused vehicles,

because it's made it impossible for a car to be normalized lower than its value,

compared to it being normalized higher than its value. You always hear about the bring a trailer

type Rs that go for $79,000 or the NSX that went for $160,000.

Yeah, it's like it's 100 mile fucking, you know.

Or the Mark III Supra that's low mileage that went for $42,000. And then because

they have such a stranglehold on when you type those things in for sale and they have the graphs

that show you what these things have gone for, they've mixed business investments with

personal people purchasing cars. For 90% of it, because people will be like,

why would anyone spend $70,000 on an FCRX7? And it's like, well, because if you're a business

and you collect cars and you have the ability to write it off, or you have the ability,

not write it off per se, but you can do that because maybe you own a car museum and you can do that.

That value is now being used as a generalization of this populace of data that's saying,

RX7s are worth more because one went for $70,000. And the person who's trying to buy an RX7 that's

a 20 year old down the street, right, now they're looking at marketplace ads where the people that

are putting them are like, well, hey, that one had $30,000, that one sold for $70,000. Mine was like

$40,000 then, at least, you know, $35,000 at least, you know, somebody just bought one for $70,000,

they're getting a deal. It's like, no, they're not getting a deal. You know, and that used to not

exist as much. If you were to go out and pass life before marketplace, the number one place to

search was Craigslist ads, like Craigslist and even like newspapers. And that, it almost like

isolated car prices to regions, which helped because cars didn't know what they were else

going for. Yeah, because it was cheaper in certain places because you're up north or because you

were in a less populated area. And now it's like, you want to buy a car, you're competing against

any buyer in the Americas. Guarantee, if you use any of those auction houses, you are competing

against people sometimes even across the world. And it's like, man, buyers have lost so much

purchasing power in everything over the last 10 years, especially after COVID, that like,

you just feel like you're getting taken advantage of. Yeah, it's really hard to even negotiate at

the dealership now because they're like, I can pull up every dealership that has this vehicle

for sale in 10 seconds, and I'll show you the price of every single one. How are you going to

negotiate? Go go get those ones then. Yeah, you know, I got three more people coming in to look

at this today. Like you said, there's no buying, but you used to be able to go into a dealership

kind of, you know, wheel and deal a little bit about what you're getting or you go and you're

driving down the road and now you're paying more to see a car out for sale and you stop and ask

them how much and you're able to deal. Now it's like, they can just look up their vehicle, see

all of them, like it's like the deals just don't happen anymore. Or like we talked about, it's like

there's literally instances where it's advertised for a certain price, you go in and they're like,

oh, well, no, it's marked up because. Yeah, yeah. And it's like, how am I paying more? Like that's

not it. That was like, that's why the S15 is such a great example of that because we're so blessed,

we're so grateful to have such an incredible community, not a chance in Hollywood about that

car. If Mark didn't message me and say, hey, this one is for sale. It's cheap. It's not on

marketplace. It's not in a for sale ad. That was like an exchangement of like friends of,

hey, I have this car. Yeah. I think it's in the Gunma prefecture. It was in the middle of

fucking nowhere. You know, like it lost its shotgun, so it couldn't even drive on the road.

I wouldn't have spent $40,000 on a S15. I wouldn't spend $30,000 on a S15. I wouldn't spend $20,000

on an S15 right now because I just don't want to spend money on an S15. The only reason that

made sense was because we had a connection. We had some buying power. We had knowing somebody. It's

like that has gone so far away from people who are 16, 17, 18 years old right now, trying to buy a

fun car. And I do feel for them. And I can understand why they're so pissed all the time because it's

like, you got no options. They're going to go in debt buying a piece of shit, $25,000 car,

or you can go in debt and pretend money's not real and go get a new BMW.

It's like, yeah. And that's exactly what's happening. Even the good deals that do show up on

Marketplace, 100 people message instantly the second it goes up and they're all trying to buy

that car just to flip it for more. It's like, we're in such a different time than even when we

grew up and cars were listed for sale like on Craigslist. Yeah, like you said, 10 years ago,

like it's completely different. It's nuts. Now, dude, Facebook, Marketplace people,

like that's like their full time job. There have been the 2026, you cannot have a hobby.

Everything is commoditized and capitalized on. And like, if you guys are listening in,

you know what we're talking about. Because chances are you're doing something, you're

working outside, you're probably at work right now. And it's like, if you really think about it,

when was the last time, and maybe you drop it as a comment, was like, when was the last time you

went out and you did something for the sole sake, because you wanted to go do that thing. And when

you did that thing, you didn't feel pressure to post about it, to tell other people about it,

to turn it into a job, to post it in hopes that it goes viral. Like now everything has like a

pressure. You must deliver to this, this thing, you know, and it's like, man, Instagram and Meta

those guys got to figure it out. They literally have done nothing. And everyone flocks to them to

like get affirmation. And then you get left with a hobby that like, is no longer fun. Flipping

stuff used to be like a fun little casual thing you could do. But now you have to be a goddamn sweat.

Oh, 100%. Nothing is casual anymore. It needs to be like your full time thing almost. Like even

do like garage sales. When you can't even find like a couple retro video games. No, can't. And

I'd ask them like, Hey, you got any video games? Oh, someone came before we even opened. And I

actually had a few guys waiting in line. It's like, what? Yeah. They stopped on my house the night

before. What the? It's like everything. Try it by Pokemon cards. That is so that's the part that

kills me. You wanted to like take it to a whole new next level is like the people that do that,

that have like ruined it for other people. Children specific. I ran into my first vending

machine scalper the other day. Oh, should you beat him up? I almost did because he'd really

piss me off. But then I was like, I don't want to end up on a viral YouTube video about Pokemon

vending machine fight. But yeah, the thing where it's like they literally had to limit these vending

machines down. It's like it randomly will release product throughout the day. So you can't just go

and buy out the whole machine because we need more doing that. But they're figured literally

figuring out how to fucking bypass the systems of the machine by like tapping and like essentially

like glitching it out so then they can buy out the whole thing. I just think it's so let's say

how do you fix it? Let's say you're you're listening in and you kind of feel like you're

getting you're getting the old rope a dope, right? You're kind of getting taken advantage of. You

feel like you can't find a good deal. What do you do? Where would you start? What's a tip that you'd

have? Damn, know somebody. Go to car meets car shows and then if you see something you like

talk to the owner and see if they ever have a thought of getting rid of it, I'd say otherwise.

Yeah, it's it's so tough. Yeah. And that same thing too. It's like I might suggest like

checking out like some of those like owners group pages or something like that. There's like

growing up in like the DSM world and like even just in like the s chassis stuff, it's like

people will buy multiple cars, you know, they'll have one as like a spare parts car if they'll

have one to like take something off of, you know, sometimes like those people end up with multiple

and they're just like, I just need to get rid of one. It might need a little bit of work or

something, but I'll give it to you really cheap. Like those those like owners group sometimes are

like a good place to find some deal. That's sure. That's a good one. I'd say to patients,

just patients, not hopping at the first thing that is hard. Yeah.

That's a terrible thing. I mean, I made that mistake not as a joke, but seriously, I made

that mistake with the C 4500 and it is burning me every possible chance it can get. And it was

because we found one. It was the first time it came up. We like Becca really wanted it. And I

went against, you know, a little bit of my better judgment of like weight, you know, weight. We

bought it and it's it's been an absolute terrible, terrible, terrible, terrible purchase.

It's a real thing. It happens. It 100% happens. And it's like, I know our parents try to beat

that in is don't take the first deal that pops up. It's like, yeah, but it's really fun until it's

not. So I think the last the last piece of advice I would give one of the things that I've always

loved to do, even when I was younger, and I'll still do it to this day because sometimes she

loves it sometimes and hates it other times. But I always keep an eye out for estate sales,

which is kind of a weird, weird thing. But you guys want to you guys want to tip you guys want

a little little way around the biscuit. I do I'll keep an eye out on on estate sales. And a lot

of times you're not going to find a S 15. We're not dead yet. So just give it another like 60 years

and you'll find them. But a lot of times you will find some pretty funky older cars lower miles for

pretty good price. So like I used to buy and I still do like I'll buy like old Mercedes early

gen my FB arc seven came from in a state sale that that only had I can't remember how many

miles I have. I want to say it was like 21,000. And it was an FB white red interior. I bought it

$3,000. Holy fuck, never. You could never do that again. That is insane. So so estate sales

are a really good way because they'll never state everything that's at one because it's just

impossible. But they'll usually have a good couple brand mentions key things. And a lot of times

you can kind of go out and because it's an estate sale, it's more structured. It's the group is a

lot older. And there's the deals aren't like huge, but there are deals to be had, you know. So I've

I think every single time I've needed a daily driver, I have found one at an estate sale and I

bought it for $3,000 or less. And I have owned at least five Mercedes using this tried and true

method in cars makes more sense. Well, there goes all the estate sales. Yeah, yeah, just a new garage

sales. Wait, actually, I did see there wasn't a state sale we drove past and dude, the block was

lit. Yeah, it's cool. Like crazy. State sales are really fun to go to as well. They can kind of be

like a fun little adventure. Some RC stuff at some of the states. Well, the hobby, there's so

much hobby stuff too. Yeah, any sort of hobby, you'll find a ton of stuff. The first round of like

old tools, old tools that I ever bought was from an estate sale I bought. I can't even remember

what the brand was, but I remember they were heavy as shit. And they're like 250 bucks. And I got like

a whole thing of it. And a family friend that always go to like auctions and like estate sales

and he would scoop up anything. Craspin didn't matter what it was, no matter how much like he

would just scoop it up because literally have the lifetime warranty and like he would be able to get

some of the stuff like swapped out sometimes. I'm like, that's crazy. Never pay full price for

anything. That's what my mom always said. Speaking of which, we should probably let you know our

other partner of the Martini Works podcast, Dakota, take it away. Continental. We love

continental tires. Slap those puppies on just about anything. They got a size for everything,

a tire for every situation. And you can find them all over at martiniworks.com. If I could

make a recommendation so kindly, it would be the Extreme Contact Sport 02. One of my favorite tires,

we got to go out to Proving Grounds and put those tires through their paces and even ride with

professional drivers and have them put it to their paces. And it was insane. Really confidence

inspiring to drove BMW M3 M4 competitions with them on and whipped them around and had an absolute

blast. So if you guys are interested, Continental is our pick for tires. Head on over to the Martini

Works website. If you need help picking them out, we got the people here to help you make the right

decision. So thank you to Continental for sponsoring the Martini Works podcast. We'll be right back.

You know, I got to say about that.

That was clean. It's the first time we've ever. We've never used that. That was clean.

Speed fact. Speed fact. Speed fact. S15 downpipe easier to put in than Z downpipe.

Oh, 10,000 million, good Julian percent. I think pretty much any downpipe. I don't think anything

could get more difficult than that. You might take the cake. That's fair. I'm trying to hit you

with another one. Dry ice, more expensive than you think. Yeah, not cheap. That was also harder

to get than you would imagine. We had to use dry ice on the Z for a little project we're working on

and I did not expect us to get put onto what I think is a federal list at this point. Plus,

for the pounds that we got, it was like a hundred bucks. That was expensive. Expensive ice. It tasted

so good though. We made all of our drinks very fizzly. I'm trying to think of like another

little fun car fact. Don't put dry ice in your drinks. Yeah, please don't. That was a joke.

The guy when I picked up the dry ice, he said I had to roll my windows down or I'd pass out while

driving. That's fair. Yeah, because it was venting, right? Yeah. Oh, maybe that's why I was so light

headed. Jesus Christ. Anyway, makes sense. Let's see, S15. Breaking news. Oh, that's where we're at.

Sorry. And this is going off. The biggest news in automotive history. The biggest news.

Stanty Pant's car was on fire. That was a long time ago. And he came out and said that it did in

fact start on fire. Right. And that's about all we got out of them after four years. I think I made

one video. I'm so over it. I think I made two videos, one or two videos. I remember multiple

years ago and three weeks ago, I got tagged in his video and I'm like, what? And it was like,

I'm revealing all at this show. I was like, I was sick. In person. I'm like, yeah, we can talk about

the GoFundMe. We can talk about the accusations. We can talk about if it's AI with the lawsuit. We

can like handle all this big stuff that seems to be kind of circulating around. And from what I

understood is that there's not a whole lot of closure. No. So yeah. He's like, I think someone

did it. After four years, that's where we're at. I think someone did. I think so. I wish him

the best on his journey for building a car. And I do not believe that putting the emphasis on

that car that burned down a while back is a good allocation of resources at this time.

It looked like it had a new engine in it. That was kind of cool.

He put a new engine in it. I give him props for that.

I was kind of sick. It looked kind of badass in a sense, but it was just, I don't know.

Or the whole thing about it is just weird now. I'm over it. I think everyone else is over it.

If this is the closure that was needed, cool. Does that mean we can just be done with it then?

It was like, have you guys ever seen that clip? It was like after the Kendrick and Drake beef,

where Drake walked out to show he had like a sweater with like holes in it, like end shots,

and like smoke was coming out of it. That was the equivalent of that. It was so stupid.

I'm sorry. I agree. I think the drama is so dominant. It's like a way to remain internet

relevant over the years, which nobody cares about. All right. So then let's ask the question.

Let's ask the group. Yeah. Rx8, what do you think happened? What do I think happened?

Personally, because there's been no evidence brought forth that someone would have done it,

I think that it was just an unfortunate instance where something

shorted or started on fire in the carbon dump. I see a short reason. I am an electrical engineer,

so no, it couldn't have been that. That's fine. Yeah. I don't think that's the case. I'm with

Gels. I think something faulty happened, which sucks. I feel bad that that happened. That sucks,

but everything else about it has just made the whole situation just. I agree. I think it's a

situation where I think when I spoke to him how many years ago at that event, he was very nice.

He was very approachable. He was a good dude to talk to. So absolutely, no, nothing on that side.

I think the online internet persona thing is probably not who he is or maybe hope that he's

not. I think something got left on inside the car that was on a manual switch overheated,

melted, caused a short start. Yeah. I don't know what exactly.

The battery was unplugged. Why would you do that? Why would you unplug the battery when you park

the car? Maybe because there's a weird electrical draw or electrical issues in the vehicle.

I mean, battery, God, please tell us. You probably have some insight on this.

Dude, I have so many instances where somebody else has tried to start my cars on fire that

might also happen to be directly correlated to the fact that my battery is failing in the car.

No, I just I think that's what happened. And I think I don't think anybody's out to get him.

And I don't think anything like that is reality. I don't think it's impossible. I mean, but

I think it's unlikely. There's a lot of people who don't like a lot of people in the car scene.

And there's a lot of people that hate each other a lot more than people that don't like

comments and sending them like weird and stupid. I believe that 100 percent because

and I don't agree with that. I think that's stupid. And I understand why initially,

like when like when the post was made and everything happened, like I was like, Holy

shit, like someone actually did that because like, I believed it because I, you know, saw

I believed him. I saw the comments. I saw I believed him. Why would, you know, but, you know,

just as time has gone and the fact that there hasn't been any real evidence of anything and just

from dissecting it a little bit, like I think the biggest thing is just like the location

of where the fire started. Like it was in the front under the hood of the car.

I didn't like such a spot. If you were to like vandalize a car, how would you also

I seen a short, like someone did a short interviewing him with the car recently just

came out. And I didn't like his answer where he was like, I've checked all the ring cameras.

I try to get my neighbors cameras and I DM the cops. And it's like,

you DMed the cops? What the fuck does that mean? Who's DMing cops?

I wish him best of luck. I don't if whatever he thinks happened happened. That's really shitty.

Either way, it's a shitty situation. Car burnt down. Yeah. If you don't like someone's car,

doesn't mean you should go fucking berate them on the internet about it. I think that's stupid.

But it's been four years and there's been no new information truthfully about anything. I'm just

over it and I'm done. And that's the last time I'm going to talk about it. I think somebody started

the S2000 at the bottom. No, you're not. I think the S2000 somebody started on fire. Yeah.

The thing is, his name is me. Someone did start his car on fire now. Do you think anyone would

believe him? How many times can I, yeah. We're not putting that up there. We're not putting that

up. We're not going to be the one that gets clipped in for whatever, whatever. We're not.

It's already too late. Nope. We can move on from Stancy Pants. I think we had to,

it's been, this just recently happened. It was a big thing. And it was like,

like I said, too, is like, we met him. We talked to him, thought it was a good dude,

like had your conversation with him. I owned a blue wide body. We're at the same show together.

I didn't know how that was going to go. And I was honestly a little nervous,

but he was super cool about it. And like, was a really cool guy. I got a first good impression

of him. So it sucked to see all of that happen. And with what initially happened, I hated to hear

that. But again, over the last like four years or so, like, I feel like that has changed. I have

a follow-up then. Okay. What car mod do you think is the most likely to cause a fire in your car?

Well, Alex, you started a car. Yeah, what'd you do? Oh, was it someone else?

It was someone else. It wasn't me. The trick. My, my fire was caused by a oil feed line

with the turbo. And so how do you fix that? I'm honestly a little bit surprised. And if you guys

are mechanically inclined on the internet, I'm sure you can educate me and I'd really appreciate

it. But it is surprising how hot an item can get with a feed line, an oil feed line,

so close to said heated item that like, it's a very easy thing that is known to like,

that can break and wobble and, and, and like leak. Like it just seems like a very weird

thing. People talk about oil feed lines cracking and causing fires in the car. It's like, man,

you'd think there'd be like a better solution to that by now. Cause that's what happened to mine.

What I was driving, I remember I was on road America. We were doing our, our kind of like our,

I don't know, um, shakedown. Yep. Uh, essentially. And the, as I was coming up through turn 12,

I was coming to the top. I heard it like a clink, like a crack and then like a pop. And I'm like,

this feels problematic. It sounds problematic. I was watching temps and temps were good. Um,

and then I started to see smoke come through the passenger side, um, like footwell. And so I was

coasting it, you know, I came in and I was coasting it up and the smoke was getting worse. So I ended

up turning the car off to coast it through, but then I needed to continue to turn it on because

I wanted to get it closer to the trailer where there was a, uh, uh, uh, an extinguisher. But then

as I was pulling it into the pits, I was like, I don't want to have a car on fire next to other

cars on fire. I should not do that. I should park it where it is. And that's when I had the

fire suppression system installed and that whole nine yards. Um, but I didn't have my fire

extinguisher in the car because I thought the fire suppression system was all I needed.

Stop the car. Uh, the car was off, made sure the pin was out of the fire suppression system,

opened the hood. The moment I opened the hood, the whole thing kind of came up, gave it all the

oxygen it needed. Um, went to go pull the fire suppression system, didn't do anything. Um,

it did not emit anything. So then I started yelling for a fire extinguisher and Lars ran over and,

and you know, that, that caused that mess. Yeah. I mean, but I would say it sucked. It could have

been a lot worse. I'm glad it was. Yeah, I will say that the number one cause for me, the thing that

I learned in that whole process is, um, it's worth it to always check that the fire suppression

system works. You can fill up a new can for, for pretty cheap. Um, but number two, those oil feed

lines, like triple quadruple quintuple check, I guess, uh, especially in a race application. Plus

K24 is Andy from ASM said like they, what's it called, uh, oscillate. They vibrate. They have a

high vibration. K24 is vibrate a ton. And the way that the turbos hung is it's, it almost acts

like a pendulum. So it causes the vibration, which is likely what caused that oil feed line to

crack. And then that's what caused the fire. Gotcha.

Yeah. I would say anything electrical is always like scary, especially if it's like,

like a super powered like source or something. That's why I want to fix like the fans and like

the 240 so bad. That's like it's hot, doesn't it? Yeah. It's, it really freaked me out one time

because I like went to shut the fans off and like, I hit the switch and they wouldn't shut off. I was

like, what the fuck? Well, I need to get these to shut off. And then I didn't do this mod, by the

way. It was the car came and it was just like a freaking auto zone, just like toggle switch with

some wires run to the back of it. And I was like, well, shit, I guess I'll just unplug one of the

wires and touch it. And it was like molten lava. I'm like, oh my fucking God, I'm never using these

again. And I need to fix it. Still need to fix it. But yeah, electrical is scary. Your BMW was on

fire the other day when we were outside. That just does that. Apparently it does that. Your car

No, no, my hood was steaming like fucking crazy though. The other day it was like it looked like

that was like 34 degrees and like pouring rain outside. And apparently that's like the perfect

like mixture for E 90 hoods just to steam like fucking your engine is on fire. It looked like

something was going on under the hood. I was I literally walked out there and I was like, oh

my God, that car is fucking because Carissa came in. She's like, Gels, I don't know what's going on.

But like, there's a lot of smoke coming from your car. And I'm like, oh my fucking God, I run out

there and sure enough, like the hood was just like a fog machine. I'm like, holy shit, like

something just like the water pump blew up or something. Like what the fuck is going on? And

I was like, oh my God, I opened the hood up and there was nothing. I'm like perfectly fine. So

why we're and I like close the hood and then like the hood itself is just was hot. I don't know.

It's a weird phenomena. I googled E 90 hood steam and about 50,000 forms came up. Oh my God,

is my car and 57,000 replies. No, it's just a thing. You're fine. Just a quirky little feature.

The one company who I will forever be thankful for in our sea of complaints about companies right now,

Reddit. Yeah, I'm so thankful for Reddit. I don't know what they've done within like their

algorithm to like always rank at the top of question because I don't believe the AI summaries.

I don't either. I wish I could turn it off. No, you can't. I find myself just reading that

something. No, fuck, fuck. No, it's probably wrong. It's probably right. And you do. And if

it is, yeah, if you check it, it'll always be like, Oh, you are right. It's like, why did you just

affirm that you were wrong? Like, okay. So I use Reddit a lot. And it's a shame that like, like we

have a Reddit, we were not very active on it, but it's always fun to talk to people. But it's like,

I'll see companies on Reddit like trying to fucking engagement farm, which I think is is bullshit.

But there's like a lot of really good people on Reddit that just want to help. And I'm so

appreciative that like, those people somehow Google and Reddit have matched to be my number one

source when I'm like looking to answer a question is like, it's always Reddit. It's going to be

like the new like Wikipedia in like 10 years. Like real is Wikipedia going down because they've

been asking for donations for the last 10 years. I feel like, I feel like it's just a marketing

play. I don't get consistent money. Yeah. You would think a company that gets like that amount

of hits would have a Facebook ad or something. Have you ever seen a Facebook ad for Wikipedia?

No. Have they tried anything except begging?

Try throw, throw an ad on it. I don't care. I'll pay that way. I mean, to be honest,

sure, at that point, just take the ad, take the meta ad, get the millions. Everything else is

fucking monetized. I have to watch an ad before it might as well get Wikipedia pro. You know what?

Don't don't say that. Don't put that out there. Well, like I said, I honestly, I don't, it very rare

have I been going to a Wikipedia? That's true. Wikipedia must rank low now.

Yeah, it does. It literally is like the first search result for like a lot of things that I

look for. And AI has taken like 60% of page one result. That's gross. I hate it.

Would you like to know, would you like to me to condense this into a one page summary? No.

Okay. Let me know if you need anything else. Let me show you three ways I could condense it.

Until Google can accurately give me a fucking functioning search function in their Google Drive

app. The search engine that I can't search within my own files to find the correct thing.

I'm not going to trust their AI summary. Google Drive search function is the biggest joke on

I could remember the title of the file that I named to the T and it'll give me five other

things that are in completely like and the thing you're looking for won't even show up.

But don't worry. Gemini will summarize that folder for you whenever you're ready, buddy.

I hate it. With that being said, we'd like to thank you for listening to the Martiniworks

podcast this week. Let us know if there's anything you'd like us to talk about. If you're going to

be at Riverside 11 next week, please let us know. We'll have a nice big booth there. We've got

SimRigs. We've got some giveaway stuff. It's going to be really awesome. Chris might make it.

Oh God. She ain't going to make it. We do have some limited edition merch too. Some sweatshirts,

some t-shirts, things like that. So we'd be happy if you guys check it out.

Gels has one last partner to mention for the Martiniworks podcast. Sure do, buddy. You know who

that is? Fortune Auto Coiloverse. Yeah. I like Fortune Auto. I think we all like Fortune Auto

because we all are currently running them or have run them at some point in our life. Sometimes

multiple vehicles, which I think is a testament of itself. Obviously, we talked about Fortune

Auto a ton here. They were pretty much the first one to come on board when we said,

hey, we're starting this podcast. Do you want to do something? They're like, hell yeah. And I

thought that was really cool too. But we reached out to them. They didn't reach out to us and say,

hey, can you promote our Coilovers? There's something that we generally wanted to do because we do

believe in the product. They make some absolutely fantastic Coilover options, whether it's the 500

series that'll get you to the track and back and do some really cool things and handle really well

on the street. Or if you want to go full track dedicated 510 and even above that, they're a

fantastic option. They're custom hand built right in Virginia, which is super cool. We actually got

to go down there and see that, which was really neat to see that process and how it's done and

the attention to detail that goes into literally every set of Coilovers that goes out that door

is one of the reasons why I think they'll always be on top of my favorite Coilover brands out there.

So if you want to check out Fortunato for your car, see what options are available,

even some off-road stuff as they move into that a little bit, which I think is really neat.

You can check all that out and more over at martiniworks.com. Thank you so much for

Fortunato for sponsoring the Martini Works podcast. Boys, got anything else? We got to

get ready for Riverside. Yeah, have a good weekend, everybody. My car still don't run.

Yeah, we gotta fix that. Okay, bye.

Why Enthusiasts Don't Trust Car Brands Anymore..

About this episode

Nissan R34

Chevrolet Corvette

Toyota Hilux

Cadillac CT5

Cadillac Escalade

Cadillac CT4

Ford Mustang

Honda Prelude

Subaru BRZ

Honda NSX

Toyota Supra

Mazda Rx7S

BMW M3

BMW M4

Mazda Rx8

Honda S2000

BMW E90

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