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.
About this episode
The discussion covers the challenges car enthusiasts face with modern car brands, including rising prices, lack of affordable fun cars, and distrust in manufacturers prioritizing shareholders over enthusiasts. The hosts share personal stories about buying and modifying cars, including their new Nissan Silvia S15 project, and touch on the impact of auction houses inflating prices. They also discuss the infamous Stancy Pants car fire, causes of car fires, and the importance of community connections for finding good deals. The episode wraps with shoutouts to partners and reflections on the evolving car culture landscape.
Support the podcast by modding your car at https://martiniworks.com/Car brands have consistently making questionable decisions with their new releases and it feels like enthusiasts are on the crap end of the stick. Today on the podcast Alex, Gels, and Dakota sit down to talk about that and more! #cars #podcast #automotive Pick up our Coffee here! https://martiniworks.com/products/other/show-merchA HUGE thank you to Continental, Motegi, and Fortune Auto for being the official tire, wheel, and suspension of the MartiniWorks Podcast! Let us know if you need a set of tires or coilovers. Shop Continental tires here https://martiniworks.com/products/wheels-tires/tires?brands=continentalShop Motegi wheels here https://martiniworks.com/aftermarket-car-parts-brands/wheels/motegiShop Fortune Auto suspension here https://martiniworks.com/products/suspension/coilovers?brands=fortune-auto🏎️Check out the main channel!🏎️: @MartiniWorksOfficial 📦We also have an unboxing channel 📦: @MartiniWorksUnboxed Follow Alex @alexmartini__Follow Dakota @dakotastoneeFollow Gels @akagels