A Great Vespa Trip; 26 Hours Later; Polestar Blocked; Q&A

Summary

The Smoking Tire Podcast

Episode: A Great Vespa Trip; 26 Hours Later; Polestar Blocked; Q&A
Hosts: Matt Farah, Zack Klapman
Date: July 2, 2026

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Episode Overview

This episode opens with Matt Farah recovering from a grueling, 27-hour return journey from Tenerife after a Ferrari press drive—sharing both the exhilaration of epic roads and the exhaustion of travel mishaps. Zack and Matt catch up on recent events, car projects, and automotive news, notably the abrupt end of Polestar’s U.S. sales due to new tariffs. The episode rounds out with Q&A featuring automotive advice, Vespa culture, car buying rules, and gear talk—all in the show’s signature candid, irreverent tone.

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Main Segments & Key Insights

1. Tenerife Road Trip & The Travel Ordeal

(02:24–11:53, 15:05–28:00)

• Tenerife: A Driving Paradise

  • Matt describes Tenerife’s "unbelievable" driving roads, noting the island’s volcanic terrain, contrasting landscapes (Moroccan-like south, lush north), and breathtaking cliffside routes.
  • “Top three best single day drives ever,” Matt reflects, comparing it to driving passes in Switzerland and California.
  • Road surfaces (“Pikes Peak with spa tarmac”), passing culture, and a memorable run following a local sportbike rider named Alfonso.
  • “Alfonso...drags a knee for 30 miles down the road. We are flying.” — Matt (09:27)
  • Instagram posts with above-the-clouds shots, Martian landscapes, and Ferrari press cars all spec-matched for seamless media coverage.

• Brutal Return Journey

  • Matt chronicles a 27-hour, multi-leg return: Tenerife–Madrid–Philly–LA, including ground delays, layovers, missed sleep, and near-missed connections.
  • Airport mishaps include being nearly denied expedited customs, running through terminals in a sweatsuit, and multiple gate delays.
  • “My life got like 15 days older.” — Matt on how the journey aged him (15:39)
  • Zack empathizes: “Anytime you have a layover, the concern of, ‘am I going to make my next flight?’ That is instantly stressful.”
  • Matt calculates he spent more time in transit than on the island (27:06).

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2. Recent Events, Projects, and Recommendations

(28:00–36:35)

• Zack’s Weekend: Costume party with ultra-creative, industry friends (“Horseplay” band—80s synth-pop about horses). Zack, nursing back pain, still appreciates the hilarity.
• Upcoming Races: Zack prepping for the Cletus' Crown Vic race—highlighting driver safety, adapting to injuries, and car prep.
• Recent Reading:
  • Andy Wilman’s “Man’s Motoring Adventure” praised for Top Gear anecdotes.
  • Both hosts enjoy the background on British car media personalities.

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3. Manx Upgrade Deep Dive

(34:59–41:14)

• Development Updates:
  • Matt’s custom Manx (radial motor, water-cooled) returns after significant engineering upgrades: new radiators, CSF parts, dual-flow cooling, beefed-up oil and fuel systems, improved decompression valves (“No more gunking!”).
  • Addressing overheating at highway speeds—the key fix being a nose-mounted front radiator.
• Notable Quote:
  • “Having a water-cooled engine in the back of a Manx is a unique challenge...No airflow directly over the radiator. That needed solving.” — Matt (36:19)

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4. Polestar Blocked: Tariffs, Geopolitics & Brand Identity

(41:14–46:19, 90:56–91:20)

• Tariff Fallout:

  • U.S. halts sales of Chinese-owned brands, directly impacting Polestar due to ties with Geely. Zack questions Volvo’s exemption.
  • Matt: “That’s your free market. Huh?…Never really found it, did they?”—on Polestar’s struggle to distinguish itself from Volvo (43:16)
  • Discussion about the broader impact on the auto industry and competition with Chinese EV manufacturing.

• Polestar Brand Debate:

  • Both hosts agree Polestar never escaped Volvo DNA: “They’re so clearly Volvos.” — Zack (44:20)
  • The Polestar One is praised (“that’s a beautiful car”), but its practicality (trunk space) and fate are questioned.

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5. Vespa Culture, Angel’s Crest Memes, and the Next Adventure

(46:28–53:03)

• Vespa 80th Anniversary: Matt and Zack discuss meme videos, with shout-outs to YouTube’s Angeles Death Highway. Matt critiques the humor, but enjoys the attention.
• The Next Vespa Trip:
  • Matt and Ali plan to ride Vespas from LA to San Jose via PCH—no screens, no phone mounts, classic backroads only.
  • “If there is anybody in LA that has a Vespa that wants to tag along, you could DM me...Must be a Vespa brand.” — Matt (50:00)
  • Plans for comms-enhanced helmets, back-friendly luggage, and the “mandate” charm of a road trip.

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6. Q&A Lightning Round

(54:49–115:16)

Automotive Expertise & Opinions

• Button vs. Touchscreen Interiors:
  • Porsche’s haptic touch panels “make interiors feel cheap” — both prefer discrete buttons (63:28).
• Ferrari’s Upcoming EV:
  • Matt doubts Ferrari’s pitch for $600K+ EVs—“It’s a bunch of stuff exciting to engineering, but to a customer, it means fucking dick.” (66:18)
  • Discussion on the emotional value (or lack thereof) of high-end, badge-focused EVs.
• Tiered Driver Licensing:
  • More training is good, but don’t make it cost-prohibitive. U.S. shouldn’t match Europe’s high licensing expenses (72:20).
• Classic Content Recommendations:
  • “Best Motoring” for Japanese racing nostalgia, “archive rally” on IG for vintage rally footage (73:06).

JDM Car Ownership Advice

• Buying and Owning JDM Imports:
  • Use reputable brokers, prioritize cars already on U.S. soil with titles, and ensure reasonable parts/service access. Delicas are robust; rare models can suffer from “parts hell.” (76:05)
• Parts Sourcing:
  • “Most JDM cars, you could have a 1,000-hp engine built before you could get the A/C fixed.” — Matt (79:44)

Car Culture, Blazers, and Watches

• Car Buying Rules:
  • Never buy Florida-titled (possible flood) cars, always get a proper PPI, avoid debt for fun cars, and be wary of salvage titles. (101:29)
• Fashion Collab:
  • Sneak peek at the “Grotto X TST” hoodie-blazer line, designed for car week events: “It's much closer in price to a mall suit, but with all the materials available.” — Matt (61:22).
• Microbrand Watches:
  • Quality, design creativity, and supporting small business are key—Matt specifically supports Weiss watches (81:23).

Miscellaneous Hot Takes & Lore

• “Cars That Look Great but Drive Terrible”:
  • Alpha 4C, early Vipers, 2013 GT500, auto Supra MkIV.
• “Cars That Drive Great but Look Bad”:
  • C4 ZR-1, C8 base Corvette (polarizing looks, great to drive).
• Entry-Level “Crotch Rocket” Motorcycles:
  • Ninja 400/SV650 still highly recommended (97:21).
• Favorite Road & Track Cars:
  • C8 Z06, M2, STO, McLaren 750, Huracán Sterrato: “Sports cars are so good. If you can drive them off-road, then it’s the best.” — Matt (86:28).

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7. Memorable Quotes & Moments

• On Customs Hassles:
  “Do you like having Global Entry? Because I can revoke it.” (20:01, Matt quoting a customs officer)
• On Travel Drudgery:
  “To go that far for such a short amount of time—it's tough.” (26:01)
• On Polestar’s American Demise:
  “That's free market, huh? Crazy.” (42:13)
• On Manx Upgrades:
  “It's an engineering limitation, not a reliability issue.” (37:05)
• On the Vespa Trip:
  “We should fucking do it, no GPS. Just maps.” (51:44)
• On Car Buying Rules:
  “Never, never go into debt for a fun car.” (103:54)
• On Lightweight Car Mods:
  “If it's going to cost $15,000 to cut 25 pounds, do you weigh 25 extra? Imagine paying yourself $15k to lose 25 pounds!” (112:27)

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Notable Timestamps

• Top Drives in Tenerife & Alfonso the Local: 07:28–10:56
• Airport Hustle & Customs Drama: 15:05–21:12
• Polestar/Geely/Volvo Tariff Chat: 41:24–46:19; 90:56–91:20
• Vespa Adventure Plans: 48:32–53:28
• Manx Engineering Walkthrough: 34:59–41:14
• Porsche Interior Critique: 63:28–65:16
• Ferrari EV Skepticism: 65:16–69:54, 66:18 (Notable soundbite)
• Microbrand Watches Discussion: 81:23–83:42
• Favorite R&T Cars: 85:57–87:37
• Car Buying Rules: 101:29–104:41

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Closing Remarks

The episode is a sprawling, funny, and informative ride through Matt’s wild travels, car culture trends, new projects, auto-industry geopolitics, and audience Q&A. The hosts balance gearhead expertise with relatable humor and brutally honest insights—perfect for enthusiasts curious about "the rest of the story" behind press trips, project cars, and the quirks of modern automotive life.

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[END OF SUMMARY]

Transcript

[Matt Farah]

What up, everybody? Welcome to the Smoking Tire Podcast. Today's episode is brought to you by off the Record. As always, we love off the Record and so do you. Not a week goes by, not a week that I hear from one of you kind folks out there saying, off the record absolutely saved my backside. Usually that comes up with full dismissal, but frequently the points are taken off the record because off the Record has qualified attorneys in nearly every jurisdiction in the US Fighting for you. If you get a moving violation, big or small, don't plead guilty, get off the record. They will represent you on your behalf. And you don't have to do much of anything besides submit the ticket. A little explanation about your version of events, and they go to work. And I love sitting back waiting for that text message that says, your case has been dismissed. Man, it's a good feeling. Go to offtherecord.com TST that's offtherecord.com Tst to you. Get 10% off all legal services from off the Record. Download that app, keep it in your pocket, and you are good to go. If you get that ticket, you don't have to sweat it. That's offtherecord.comtst. all right, folks. On this episode, I have had a quick turnaround on the other side of the world. The Manx has been upgraded and is coming back tomorrow. And we've got the full list of parts and improvements. And the government killed a car company. It's the smoke and tire podcast, guys. The Smoking Tire is giving away a 992.1 Turbo S. In partnership with Dream Giveaways, we are giving away a $275,000 car with some Slick choice mods. The proceeds benefit charity and you don't have to buy any merch. It's a straightforward entry process. So hit the link in the show notes and get entered. To win today, I think I have to take all those pins off my backpack. I think they're starting to add noticeable weight.

[Zach]

That's hilarious. There's a lot of them.

[Matt Farah]

I mean, when I unzip the top, it goes. Because of all the pins, I have a lot.

[Zach]

I always have hard drives in that pocket. So it goes. Yeah. It's like a dog's tongue. We exist.

[Matt Farah]

Fucking hell. Hello. Hello there. What's. What's. What's happening? I hope you are all well, and if I'm a little loopy today, I apologize in advance. It was a long day yesterday. I wanted to tell the story of my return journey from Tenerife. Not As a complaint. It's just like it was very stressful and full of foible and I don't want it to sound like a complaint because I was getting to drive the new Ferrari in Tenerife. Tenerife. I've for years pronounced it, I guess an Americanized way of Tenerife. Everyone else in the world seems to use the A Tenerife.

[Zach]

Is there an accident thing over the E at the end?

[Matt Farah]

Maybe. I don't know. But they do pronounce it. They do pronounce it that way. And so I should probably start pronouncing it like they do. But I don't say Roma or Deutschland either. So I can't talk about the 849 testarossa spider until July 15th. So we're gonna hold off on the car. But let me just fucking tell you, Tenerife for driving is fucking unbelievable. I mean, I think I. Seriously, I was thinking about this. I think in my top. I think my three best single day drives ever, it would be this. The day I did the three high passes back in 2017 with Rob Ferretti in Switzerland. And. And I can't even say it was. It's like one of the New Zealand days because I've never done a New Zealand drive in a good car. You know, we only did it in like vans and shit. And filming like that. That doesn't count. That's not like a drive. But like, there could be a New Zealand one, but like maybe one of the days. Performance car of the year in that northeastern corner of California where people don't really talk about where it's like secretly the best driving ever. Like that three. This fucking thing. It's a. It's a volcanic island. It's very steep and very high. And the whole place is just built on cliffs, the roads in the towns and stuff. Like, it's got. The southern half of the island looks like Morocco and the northern half of the island is very, like Mediterranean, like Spanish looking and very.

[Zach]

And in terms of development or like landscape, because it's funny is it's like it's right off the coast of Morocco and Sahara.

[Matt Farah]

Like, zoom in on the island and go to the satellite view and you can see like, there's a brown half and a green half.

[Zach]

Wow.

[Matt Farah]

Like, and there's a big volcano in the middle of it with a national park. The tarmac on the roads that we drove were. So the southern half is kind of is sort of Moroccan looking, so it's brown. But it's very dramatic and has like it has greenery, but it's like been planted there. Right. And then as you move to the north, we were in the northwest corner. Buena Vista del Norte is where we stayed. It's like looks like Hawaii. And then as you go up to the volcano, it's like it gets like Martian. Like there's like, it's like crazy black volcanic rock with like bright green pine trees growing out of it. And then just super Martian style. Pull up on Instagram. I put a couple posts, a couple photos of. But I'm really glad I was not doing video. Zach, there is fucking nowhere to make U turns in this place. This would. This would have been an unbelievable nightmare. Something wrong?

[Zach]

No.

[Matt Farah]

Okay. You just had a look to make, to try to make video. I'm so glad I was not trying. Although Ferrari shout out to him, all six cars, identical spec matching the B roll.

[Zach]

Everything's just.

[Matt Farah]

Every car matched the fucking B roll. I've never seen it. And actually the logistics guy, they were like, go talk to logistics. Congratulations. Talk to that guy, tell him you like it. Because a lot of manufacturers in a press launch, they want to show different colors and that makes sense. They want to show different wheel options and here's all the things you can get and that makes sense. But it really doesn't matter for most journalists to actually get all of those things. You could provide those other things in a package with other car color options if you wanted. Having a whole ton of photo and video of the same color car that you're driving really makes a lot of sense. So their B roll looked really beautiful. But I'm so glad I didn't try to make videos.

[Zach]

It's funny that they had that all the cars matching because you could have just made the video with like one in car camera.

[Matt Farah]

I choose to be right. Probably could have made something passable. Yeah.

[Zach]

Yeah.

[Matt Farah]

So I can't talk about the car, but we will, I assure you in time. But fucking hell, man. This is the. And Sam Fane from Seen Through Glass. This is his spot. His is like his secret.

[Zach]

He just commented on your page. He said favorite place to drive in the world.

[Matt Farah]

Yes, it's absolutely unbelievable. So was it worth. Yeah, that fucking. That road, dude.

[Zach]

Yes. This road's on the north side of the volcano, so it makes sense. Like the volcano shades everything. So it's really green over here and the south side.

[Matt Farah]

And then you. When you go over the top, you know, wow, it's. And dude, there was some of these roads were so, so crazy and lots of places to It's a passing culture. So, like, you know, you don't pass on a blind corner, but, like, it's there, it's dotted, so got a thousand horsepower. Like, it's not like. It's not like you have to be held up behind people.

[Zach]

So with your thousand horsepower, you are culturally ready because it's a passing culture.

[Matt Farah]

It's like very polite driving culture in general. And you. If. And this is why I was on the first wave and I went out first, and this is why they're not ready for me. But by the time they see the sixth car, then they start calling the cops, and then it gets. You know what I mean? If you have the privilege of that.

[Zach]

Wow.

[Matt Farah]

Okay, so, dude, this fucking road. And if you go to my Instagram, it's where the car's above the clouds. Go back to picture. I think it's picture one. So that's on top of the volcano coming down the backside. Go one more over. So look at that road. It's like, this is. Imagine Pikes Peak, but with perfect tarmac. That's what this road is. This road is if they. If they. If it was.

[Zach]

Yeah, wow.

[Matt Farah]

Pikes Peak with spa tarmac. So I'm up at the top. I'm taking that photo. A dude in a black Japanese sport bike rocks up. Shout out to Alphonso. Alfonso is a local, recognizes me and. And she goes, you know, do you want me to show you the line down the road? I'm like, fuck, yeah. This dude drags a knee for 30 miles down the road. We are flying.

[Zach]

We are.

[Matt Farah]

We're going really fast. And then he. And then we get like, halfway down and. And he, like, waves me around and I start, you know, going. And now he's trying to chase me. We were having a real good time.

[Zach]

That's a good time. We were having a real good time

[Matt Farah]

going down this road. And. Yeah, shout out to Alfonso. Good run down this. This was. It was like cooking.

[Zach]

Cooking. Knee. Knee. Down is quick.

[Matt Farah]

He was full. He was dragging.

[Zach]

Wow.

[Matt Farah]

And if you. And if I. I think he commented on one of my Instagram posts somewhere. His main photo. He's on, like, major angle.

[Zach]

Oh, okay. He's. He knows. He. Look, he's local.

[Matt Farah]

This guy. This guy's got it going on. This is his. This is his, like, weekend route. It's the fucking. It's. What's up. It was. It's. I. It's so fucking far away. But I would love to go back for a driving vacation or, like, you know, you can motorcycle it, whatever. So much. So many different landscapes. Seven, eight landscapes. Stunning. Absolutely stunning.

[Zach]

I mean, it is very like, what's funny is on Google, it says an island in Spain. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And you zoom out and it is.

[Matt Farah]

No, it's an island in Africa.

[Zach]

It is hundreds of miles off of the Spanish coast in like, it's really close to Morocco.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah.

[Zach]

But Spain owns it. You know, it's like the British, you know, BVI or something like that.

[Matt Farah]

So I, I kind of thought it was by like Ibiza, which is off the coast of like Barcelona. Like, it's off. It's off to the right. Yeah, it's like there. No, no, no.

[Zach]

So, yeah, it's Africa.

[Matt Farah]

So to get there, I had to fly LA to Chicago, to Madrid to Tenerife, and Madrid to Tenerife is a three hour flight. That's how far it is. Right. So, okay, fine. I do my normal strategy of airporting and all that and I am a money hit the ground run. Good to go, have a blast driving and whatever.

[Zach]

The return coming in from Factor. Picture this. You are exhausted, but you're hungry. Maybe you just got back from work or the gym after work or off of a flight or a 16 hour workday and you've got healthy groceries in the pantry, in the fridge and you know how to make healthy food, but you just don't have it in you. Happens to me all the time. Support is coming in from Factor and they're going to solve that problem for me. Eating healthy is not a willpower problem. I've been eating healthy variety of foods since I was a kid. Really started focusing on it in college when I started working out a lot of. But it can be a setup problem. Sometimes I just don't set myself up for success or I don't have the time to cook something. I have an edit I have to finish. I've got a really early meeting I have to get to or I just have to squeeze too many things in the day and I don't have the hour to hour and a half it takes to prep, cook, and clean up the kitchen. Factor solves this problem for me and they do it the right way. They've got chefs, they've got dieticians. They're like the X Men of food. They combine their powers and the result is delivered right to your door. Healthy, delicious. You're gonna like it. So with Factor, I'm hitting my nutrition goals this season. Trying to lean out a little bit for summertime if we're honest. And I can do all that without planning, without grocery runs or without cooking or the resulting dishes to clean up. And Factor has meals built around your goals. I like to do lots of vegetables and double protein. Try to get a lot of lean protein to help build and maintain muscle mass. Of course, getting a little harder as I get into my 40s. So I kind of need all of the amino acids I can get for help and they have choice just for that. But they also have meals built around your goals. Could be weight loss, could be General Nutrition, GLP1 support. Maybe you have allergies. They can attend to all of those needs and wants. And if you're looking for strength and workout recovery like I am, like Matt is, check out Factor's Muscle Pro collection. Every meal is crafted with functional ingredients. You've got lean proteins, colorful veggies, whole foods and healthy fats. Factor has banned over 175 ingredients. There's no artificial colors, there's no artificial sweeteners, no high fructose corn sy or refined seed oils. Just nutrient dense food. This stuff is fresh and never frozen. There are over 100 rotating weekly meals including globally inspired flavors like Mediterranean and Asian. So there's always something new to look forward to. It definitely exposes me to new menu items and I really love that variety. And perfect for a hot summer. They have newly launched ready to eat salads with vibrant ingredients like elote corn and miso edamame. Plus over 70 add ons to round out your nutrition from green juices to peanut butter energy bites. I will take a barrel of those, please. Ready in two minutes. Factor shops, preps, cooks and delivers straight to your door so you have more time for everything you love this summer. Head to factor meals.com tire50off and then use code tire50OFF to get 50% off and free daily greens per box with new subscription only while supplies last until September 27, 2026. See website for details.

[Matt Farah]

Okay, here's how this, this is a tough day now. This, like even though it was the whole journey was worth it to see this place, you know what I mean? And get to get to know what it's like to drive at this place and how special it is. Like it's worth it. But it wasn't a fucking free lunch. And I'm going to tell you what I what I paid to do this. Not money. I didn't pay in money. I paid in fucking years in my life. No. Yeah, like I paid like my life got like 15 days old.

[Zach]

You're going to. You're an inch shorter today.

[Matt Farah]

I'M shorter. I have my, my legs up on a rest here. So wake up. 6am Airport. Transfer from the hotel to, to the Tenerife airport. Tenerife is a, is actually a bigger island than you. It's like kind of like the big island of Hawaii. Like to drive a lap around the perimeter of it would be about four hours, you know. And so it's, it's pretty big. We're on, the hotel is on opposite side of the airport. So they pick me up in a fucking 15 passenger van for a 90 minute goat track ride. Like it's not like there's a, there is a highway. It doesn't go to where our hotel was. You have to drive effectively straight up a 2000 meter cliff face. Just like you just like leave your hotel, go through a town and then Stelvio pass up. But like slow. And not the good tarmac. The city tarmac, not everywhere is the good tarmac. Overall the tarmac is very good. But the, the goat tracks going up the mountains, not the best. So van ride, 90 minutes, 3 hour flight to Madrid. Now I'm going to have a seven and a half hour flight to Philly and this flight takes off 30 minutes late. Okay. It's a lay down seat, which thank God for that. But it wasn't, it wasn't quite right. You know, like I just like, it wasn't like shaped quite right. So I was like, not ideal, didn't sleep much. We land in Philly, I have a two hour layover. We land on time. Despite leaving late, our gate is not ready. They go, we're gonna, it's gonna be 30 minutes. Okay? I'm like, oh boy. And if you, you know, you have to clear customs and then go recheck in through security. And it's a different terminal to my flight from Philly to LA. So I'm like home boy. And our 30 or 40 minutes on the ground becomes an hour and eight minutes. So we get to the gate, that's the longest hour. Get this, we get to the gate, we stop like first there's a plane pulling out. You know the plane that was holding up the gate is pulling out. We have to wait for them to clear the thing, then we first it's a weird angle so they have to tow you in the last like 50ft. So we stop there. Now I can see out my window to the right an airport, a tug that has pulled a plane out and they can't get it to unhook. And I'm, I'm watching and first One guy comes up, then another guy, and the guy's doing this where he's standing deadlifting, trying to deadlift the pin, right? The guy's oh, my God.

[Zach]

And I'm watching this and you're like, we need that tug. And I'm like, you're shouting in the window.

[Matt Farah]

And it's muted on the other side we landed on. We're so fucking late now. And. And this is a. This is a two hour layover that I was going to have in between two seven hour flights. Like on top of like wanting to make it from one to the other. A mild reprieve, a stop in the lounge, maybe a poop would be in order, you know what I mean?

[Zach]

We get to walk around, which is good for your back and stuff.

[Matt Farah]

So, okay, there's three guys now trying to pull the pin. Then a truck comes up. It must have taken him 10, 15 minutes to fucking unpull this pin. Now they fucking come connected. Now they're tossing. All right, I have 44 minutes until the flight leaves. Okay, it started boarding now, but I'm getting off. I'm the first person and my seat happened to be near the door. No problem. I'm running now. Full sweatsuit. Okay? It is 90 degrees Fahrenheit in Philadelphia when I'm there air conditioned airport. But I'm wearing a sweatshirt and sweatpants and compression socks.

[Zach]

You were ready for this run and I'm. You're ready. You're in your soccer warmups.

[Matt Farah]

I'm fucking ready. But I'm stressed, okay?

[Zach]

FIFA, Farah.

[Matt Farah]

So. And I'm. I'm not a runner, but I'm like. I didn't actually sprint, but I sped, walked, I sped, walked proper and I ran up the escalators. Like, I walked up the escalators with my shit. Okay, get to. Eventually we're pretty far out in this weird terminal. So I get to customs, I'm global entry, but I'm the first person there. There's this fucking zigzag maze that's designed to hold. There's nobody there. I walk through the first couple of mazes and there's a coup. The customs guys are right there. And I just look at them and just go. And just under the last one. And they did not like that. And the guy was like, back of the line, sir. And I was like, whoa, whoa, whoa. Come on, man. I was like, you saw, I was in a hurry. Like, just. And. And he was like, do you like having global entry? Because I can revoke it. Whoa. And I was like, all right, bro, look, I'm sorry. Here's what. I'll go back in the zigzag to where I went under. Seriously, to where I. Back to where? Back to where I exited the racetrack. I'll take my time. I'll take my time. I'm now walking backwards in the zigzag to the. And as I reach the spot and I start to go right here, two other guys come out the door and I'm just. And they. And they look at me like, like, like I'm an at. Like I'm a real asshole. I just turn around and go, is this cool? And they don't say shit. And I walk back and the guy goes, have a nice day, sir. Just, Just like the shittiest middle management power trip, like, over, over nothing. Did I. Did I duck under? And yes, I went under a piece of rope with nobody around, Nobody. Like, come on, dude, you're. That's, that's. That's protect and serve. Like, fuck you. Wow. You know, so there's that monitor. And so, yeah, now I'm. I think I'm almost getting my global entry revoked for this. Now I gotta go, you know, check. You have to go through security again. And I get there and she goes, right here, sir. And I go, is there a pre check? She goes, precheck's closed. And there's like a hundred people there. I'm like, it's like 6:00pm on a fucking Tuesday. Why would pre check? And I just go, like. And I see a lady like 50ft further carrying a pre check sign. I go, I'm trying. I just fucking run over there. I go, is pre check open? She goes, yes, right this way, sir. There's zero people there. And this lady just told me to get in this fucking line. So there's zero people. Go right through security, but it's still a ways to this other terminal. So. So now I'm going. I'm fucking weaving through people. And it's like, frogger, shit. It's busy there. And I'm going.

[Zach]

I get like, driving on the highway, you're like passing the right, pass on the left.

[Matt Farah]

And I got. It's not like I was the last person to get on the plane or anything. Like, I got there, like, you know, right as they start, as they started boarding, that's how fast I was fucking moving. And they were, they were late. But, dude, I'm like, I'm like sweating. Oh, I'm sweating. And, and this flight, even though it's basically as Long as the flight I was just on is not a lay down seat. And the seats, like, not great. And the fucking Air American doesn't have screens. You have to use your own device.

[Zach]

Yeah.

[Matt Farah]

Which like, bro, that's a shit system. That's not. That's no good. And the in the wi fi was like being shit. It was just the longest. It was six. It felt like 12 hours. You know what I mean? It was just. We land in L. A at 11, 11, 12 or something. P.m. we. And. And I can tell. I know LAX. I know what's going on at LAX. I know if something. And we land and we do not turn towards the terminal. Instead we go down to where they fucking land.

[Zach]

You went to Gitmo?

[Matt Farah]

We go to. I went to fucking Gitmo. And I'm like, oh, no, Kurt, this is your captain speaking. Unfortunately, our gate is not ready. And I. The guy.

[Zach]

My phone started vibrating, by the way. I went.

[Matt Farah]

And the guy next to me and I was like, you don't even want to know, dude. And that's when your phone started vibrating. Our gate's not ready. Not fucking again. Fuck you, American Airlines. You are fucking trash. And 20 minutes. Good news, folks. They've got us a different gate. The gate they have us is gate fucking 259. It's in the end of the remote Bradley terminal. So it's like a mile and a half back to the fucking. It's like the farthest possible gate away.

[Zach]

That's better. What's the annex? It's like Terminal 9, which you have to take a bus from it. That's right. That's what I called Gitmo. That's what I thought they sent you.

[Matt Farah]

Oh, no, no, no. Gitmo is where. I think they have the fucking prison down at the end of the runways.

[Zach]

Oh, where the guitar planes are always parked.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. But no, they didn't send us to the bus. That would have been actually somehow worse. But fucking. And then it was like I finally got. I got him out, got an Uber, whatever. And there was just crazy construction getting home. There was like two detours between the airport and my house. It was just. I was like the most antsy and angry. This was hour 27. And I. Dude, the rage. The amount of rage that I just had in me after that fucking day. And like, man, to go that far for such a short amount of time, it's tough. And to then have the fucking long flight followed by another one that's equally long. Woof.

[Zach]

Seven and seven.

[Matt Farah]

That's tough, dude. 14 is way easier than a seven and seven.

[Zach]

Yeah. Well, especially if your seat is lay flat the whole 14. Then you do a bunch of different things.

[Matt Farah]

Then it's drugs and seeing a little bit.

[Zach]

Right? Yeah, you take a little nap. Nap.

[Matt Farah]

So, you know, I didn't want to make that sound like complainy, but like it was just the most shitty, stressful transit. It was brutal. It was fucking bad.

[Zach]

Yeah. Well, anytime there's like, I'm sure anyone who's flown anywhere, if you've ever had a layover, the concern of I'm not to make my next flight and the knock on effects of what will happen from that, that is instantly stressful for most people.

[Matt Farah]

Had no cats. I was expecting to be home. Hannah's on a work trip. I had no cat sitter too, so it was like, I need to get home tonight. Or you know, the cats don't eat

[Zach]

well and if you don't make that one, then maybe like, you know, it's the last flight of the evening or one of those things. Yeah, you got.

[Matt Farah]

This was. This was like the 8pm to LA. There wasn't another one. Yeah, I'd have been stranded. So really, I mean. And I spent 12 more hours in the air than I spent on the island of Tenerife on this trip.

[Zach]

Wow.

[Matt Farah]

Yep.

[Zach]

Oh, you're there. One night.

[Matt Farah]

Effectively I got there at 5pm, spent a night, drove, went to dinner and left at 6:00am the next day.

[Zach]

36 hours away.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah, 36 hours there. And it was 27 hours each way. Each way.

[Zach]

52 hours of flight.

[Matt Farah]

That's fucking nuts. In transit for. For longer than there. So it's, it's on the leaderboard for. Even though it was a very solid amount of seat time in the car, I probably had, I don't know, five, six hours in the car, which is. Which is a good amount of time in a day. It was, it was all I felt I needed and like, you know, other than. Other than this, than being in the far away, this was fucking. It was dope.

[Zach]

It was perfect.

[Matt Farah]

But yeah, I'm fucked up right now.

[Zach]

It's bad, but that's a lot of sitting.

[Matt Farah]

But I had three cats sleep with me last night. It was good.

[Zach]

There you go.

[Matt Farah]

That's nice.

[Zach]

Wait, don't you have four cats?

[Matt Farah]

I do, but they don't all four usually. Okay.

[Zach]

For some reason I was like, what happened?

[Matt Farah]

Cricket died.

[Zach]

Yeah. You glossed over that.

[Matt Farah]

P.S. cricket's dead. No, but anyway, so that was my, my last few days. Do anything Fun, Zach?

[Zach]

No, I sat around and attended to my spine, actually. No, I take that back. We went to a very fun themed costume party on Friday night, which was painful to stand around and sit around and talk to people. But some of my friends are extremely creative, costume oriented, wonderful, crazy people.

[Matt Farah]

Burning man people.

[Zach]

Yeah, well, yeah, but some of them are like high level, professional creators.

[Matt Farah]

They're very much in the industry.

[Zach]

They're very much in the industry. And I think, yeah, one of the guys, Mike Diva, he created like this guy like directs award winning commercials and really funny shit. And somehow in a year when he also does this professionally, he made a band, like an 80s pop band about horses. Just for fun, just for goofs.

[Matt Farah]

Is it called Band of Horses?

[Zach]

No, it's called Horseplay. And yeah, that's good. The lyrics are hilarious and the music is pretty solid.

[Matt Farah]

Is the lyrics from the perspective of a horse?

[Zach]

Sometimes.

[Matt Farah]

All right, cool.

[Zach]

And. And I was like, all right, that's funny. And then he started playing. I was like, this is one of the funniest, most entertaining things I've seen in a year. And I was like this. I was sober, in back pain. I was like, this is awesome. So that was a really fun time.

[Matt Farah]

Are you going to be good to race a car?

[Zach]

I'm going to do it. Quick break from the action. Because support is coming from true work. Working outside in the springtime means you're dealing with chilly mornings, hot afternoons, and everything in between. We experience this all the time when we film up in the mountains, not to mention the mud, the rain, and whatever else the weather decides to throw. You need workwear that can keep up with the changing conditions, and TrueWerk has you covered. Most workwear is made from cotton blends, which restrict your movement and get soaked after just a few raindrops. And if cotton gets wet and it's cold out, you could have a pretty serious problem on your hands. Just Google it, trust me. But TrueWerk uses advanced performance fabrics to build products designed specifically for work on the job site. Springtime is the perfect season for the T2 work pant. It keeps you comfortable over a wide range of conditions. These pants are. They have a four way stretch for bending, kneeling and climbing. They're water resistant against the rain, and they have nine intelligent pockets to keep all the tools just where you need them. Nine pockets. You EDC people out there who like to take pictures of your phone and your knife and your thing and your watch and your other thing. This has a place for all of them. This is the Trapper Keeper that You get to wear these. Pants have been tested and validated for over 10 years by Real trade pros working in real job site conditions. With over 15,000 five star reviews, it's worth experiencing the difference for yourself. When I started in this job of production, I would wear jeans because I thought that jeans were durable and that was the work pant. And after six months of kneeling on asphalt to film cars, I would inevitably tear the jeans at the knee because they don't stretch very much and I'd have to go patch them or get a new pair of jeans. And I was burning through pants and it was also uncomfortable. Now problem solved. Smart pants for smart people. Tough pants for tough people. Put them together, you have the Neil Degrasse Tyson of pants. He did not authorize this statement. The work doesn't stop just because the weather changes. Upgrade to the T2 work pant and stay comfortable no matter what the day brings. Get 15% off your first order at truework.com with Code Tire that's T R U E W E R K.com Code Tire T I R E True work. Built like it matters, because it does. I'm gonna do it.

[Matt Farah]

You're just gonna fucking just gonna do it. All right.

[Zach]

Yeah. As long. My only real concern is the amount of frequent contact that happens in all the Cletus races and how that might go. But the seat, you know that you got this text too. Like they ask what's your height, what's your weight? So I assume the racing seat is gonna be fairly well fitted to me and then harnesses and all that stuff. So like, you know, if crashing happens, it just relax and bounce off the seat a little bit.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah.

[Zach]

So I think it'll be okay. I think it's getting in might be uncomfortable. But it's two weeks out. I'm improving and if the car's on fire, I'll get out quickly and that

[Matt Farah]

might hurt and deal with the knock on effects of that later.

[Zach]

Better than being on fire for sure.

[Matt Farah]

Oh yeah.

[Zach]

Yeah. I just, I'm not gonna like I skipped. I skipped chump this weekend in Florida and shout out to my stepfather in law like their team finished a race for the first time. These guys are so proud. They've been working on the E30. I wasn't there to see it. I sent headlights for them for the E30 because it was a night race at Sebring, but I did bail on that. But racing Crown Vic's Cletus race, like I've been wanting to do this for like three Years.

[Matt Farah]

And like, it's not like you have to do a fast pit stop change and you know, in a Cletus race.

[Zach]

Yeah, it's not. It's just one thing.

[Matt Farah]

You could, you could, you could have a crash and something could happen in a Cletus race, but, like, you could end up in the hospital from doing a pit stop in, you know what I mean, in an E30.

[Zach]

And I bet our top speed in the Crown Vicks will be much lower than it would have been in the E30.

[Matt Farah]

Probably.

[Zach]

Plus I bet the track is smoother than Sebring.

[Matt Farah]

That's the other thing. I mean, an oval in Connecticut versus fucking Sebring is a big deal.

[Zach]

They broke a shock again. And they broke one last time.

[Matt Farah]

An endurance race and an abusive one. So.

[Zach]

Yeah.

[Matt Farah]

But I read so this, you know, Mr. Woman's Motoring Adventure. Thank you for giving me. I finished it on the first flight. I finished this on the first in the first day. And then I carried it all across the world for three more days. Wow. Very easy read. A lot of fun, a lot of good behind the scenes stories from Top Gear. It's what you would expect from Andy Wilson. Yeah, it delivers on that.

[Zach]

Yeah. Really funny, really interesting. The story of, like their Argentina problem was wild. I didn't realize how dangerous that was.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah. And actually his stories about him and Jeremy Clarkson in high school. When I then read Jeremy Clarkson's like column the next week about the Temerario, his review, like, so many things in that that he said, like, came into a new focus because of how he described Jeremy Clarkson as a child.

[Zach]

Oh, yeah. Which is pretty funny. He really gives a lot of that good background that helps inform why these guys are who they are. And I thought that was really wonderful. And now I started reading Richard Porter's book. I'm like, halfway through that, which came out a decade or more before this. And it's funny how, you know, both of them talk about the same moments, because those are some of the most poignant moments in the history of their career. Just in different ways.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah. Good book. You should get it and you should read it. Okay. So the Manx, I think is coming back before the weekend, getting its final test drive now. Okay. The list of things that they have done to the Manx. Okay. This is awesome. This is. And for the record, because I, you know, I posted on Instagram the video of it running and, you know, thousand miles we did on it. And they tore down the engine and inspected a bunch of stuff and upgrade a bunch of Stuff and like part of my ownership experience is the development driving stuff which I, you know, have a pretty straightforward agreement with them which is that my car and my driving is development driving and if something goes wrong, they fix it like. And so far actually nothing was wrong. But you know, they had done a lot of engineering improvements on their own development cars. And along with some of the things that I had some notes I had given them because this radial engine's fucking weird. And putting a water cooled engine in the back of a Manx is a unique challenge. People don't. When there's really no airflow directly over the engine over the radiator. That's a problem that needed solving. So anyway, it never prevented me from really using the Manx in the way that I wanted to. It never broke down and I really wasn't driving it on long highway trips anyway. So it was like it was not a problem.

[Zach]

It would just get warm, right? Didn't it overheat a little bit?

[Matt Farah]

If you went over 65 miles an hour it would slowly heat up because the radiator would stall at that speed. And so after like 15, 15 minutes or so it would, you know, get up to like 230 degrees, which isn't like crucial but it's like, you know, concerning when the normal Temp is like 195 and most cars cool down when

[Zach]

you go sustained highways.

[Matt Farah]

This would, you know, I don't know if it would continue indefinitely. I never drove it to the point of failure. But it was clearly something that you do want to be able to indefinitely drive your vehicle at a reasonable highway speed. So you know, and it was, I don't consider that a, it's an engineering limitation, not a reliability issue. Right. So anyway, that was, that's the main, main thing that they did. So here's the parts. There's a new rear radiator entirely. The old one was an OEM unit. The new one is a CSF specially made. And shout out to Josh at csf. He fucking rules that guy. If you want an awesome radiator. Csf. They didn't pay me to say that. I really do like that. Also a new oil cooler that is from CSF as well the new retrofit nose radiator with the matching grille. Really super stealth. And so now we have this dual flow thing. So there's the front, it's a front mount and that gets the air at highway speeds which so superb. So they updated the top cylinder barrel for dual path coolant flow. A new water pump from the BMW N55. Custom form. Fitted silicone hoses. CNC bent coolant tubes front to back that hide under the body. Larger oil sump on the engine. Larger oil tank with more baffling. The upgraded decompression valves so that they don't get gunked during the startup procedure. They're made of some new material that doesn't gunk.

[Zach]

Cool.

[Matt Farah]

A larger fuel pump. Sock note, it's a Holley Hydromat, which is a fantastic rabbit hole to look up. As long as any portion of it touches fuel, it will draw. We use these in the king of the hammers rigs.

[Zach]

I mean, a lot of race attacks from Mike. It's like this blanket that's spread out in your fuel cell, and it can just. It's amazing.

[Matt Farah]

That's pretty cool. So, yeah, they've been sending logs back, and with Max and the motec guy and.

[Zach]

Yeah.

[Matt Farah]

So it's coming back tomorrow.

[Zach]

Cool. That's a lot of little. But, yeah, he said.

[Matt Farah]

He's like, wait till you see it. Like the. The. He said the power is just unbelievable.

[Zach]

That's what it needed. Why not? Yeah, why not?

[Matt Farah]

Well, you know, they said the reason that even in my car, even at 1,000 miles, the decompression valves, which is the plunger thing, that you need to purge the oil, you know that when they get gunked up, you literally lose compression. And so the engine, over time, makes a little less. A little less. A little less power, you know, and fortunately, they're like. They're very accessible, and so in your annual service, they would inspect them anyway. But these new ones are supposed to be not gunky, so. Okay. They said they could also put in the auto. The auto purge thing, but I said leave the plunger. I really like the. The plunger, you know?

[Zach]

Yeah. I was curious if they had, like, a tighter shot of.

[Matt Farah]

Of the valves.

[Zach]

Yeah. Or like, where it's located, but radial motion.

[Matt Farah]

No, I don't. I don't. I don't know if they do, but it's. I don't know. They're like, down at the bottom. Like, they're just like things that go into the cylinders. Like, you can just kind of see them. There's like. Looks like almost like an injector of some kind just stuck in there.

[Zach]

It just lets the oil drain out.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah. And all they have to do is, like, unscrew it. Almost like more like an O2 senso thing than a. Than an injector, but, like. Yeah, they just, like, unscrew it and inspect it. And clean. Stick it back in.

[Zach]

Oh, that's cool.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah, it's really, really easy for service.

[Zach]

It's like, especially because the engine is just there, you know, there's nothing around it, so.

[Matt Farah]

And then they've got the new tune, you know, for the throttle mapping based on my data logs and my inputs. So that's cool.

[Zach]

Cool.

[Matt Farah]

Good times. Good times. Man, did I think while I was gone, the government killed Polestar?

[Zach]

Yeah, that is true.

[Matt Farah]

Did that happen?

[Zach]

It did. So, I mean, the quick version is the government basically made a rule that no car company that's owned by a Chinese company can be sold here and aimed, I guess, primarily at BYD or something like that. But Polestar is primarily owned and maybe manufactured now by Geely. Yeah. And that's that. Which I wonder, what about Lotus? There you go. I don't know. That's a good question. And like, maybe they're like, Lotus is not going to be a problem. You know, lotus isn't bringing $12,000 crossovers here that everybody wants to buy.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah, it's true. Crossover is they have 100% fucking, like, tariff on this thing.

[Zach]

That's true.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah.

[Zach]

I'll pull it up. Unfortunately, Polestar no longer available.

[Matt Farah]

That's free market, huh? Crazy.

[Zach]

That's the.

[Matt Farah]

That's your free market. Free market capitalism there.

[Zach]

It's never a free market.

[Matt Farah]

No, of course, but they.

[Zach]

I mean, they presented as such. Of course. Yeah. I just want to tell people, in case they don't understand your sarcasm. Yeah. And this is tough because it's too bad.

[Matt Farah]

That looks like it would be a nice car.

[Zach]

Like, I understand the position. I mean, if you let BYD in here selling $14,000 cars, I mean, let's assume you don't tariff them, which they would. All the OEMs are done.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah.

[Zach]

You know, and that's like. And all the jobs that are supported by the OEMs are done because China can make these cars much cheaper for so many reasons. Some human exploitation, some resource management, some blah, blah, blah.

[Matt Farah]

Their supply chain is like crazy chain

[Zach]

is amazing and we can't do that. And so that would just be the end of, you know, so many industries. Yeah, So I get that. But there's a reason to protect that kind of stuff. But the byproduct here, of course, is that no more Polestar, which, I mean,

[Matt Farah]

they never really found it, did they?

[Zach]

They didn't.

[Matt Farah]

Did you ever drive any Polestar that if they switched the badges, wouldn't just be a Volvo? I mean. Right. And especially once Volvo started selling Electric cars. It's like, well now, now what's the fucking difference?

[Zach]

Yeah, Polestar was like their R and D thing for a while. I mean, in the beginning it was their skunk works and then it was like, is this their ev? Skunk works. And then they just kind of take the stuff and put in the Volvo. Yeah. But I agree with you. Like it. They look cool. They look a little different from Volvo. But if I was in the market for a quote, Swedish ev and I would just get a Volvo, it's more recognizable. People know what it is. Resale is probably better because people know what it is. I see so few Polestars in the wild.

[Matt Farah]

I don't see a lot. Although I do know people who got, you know, got twos, like pretty cheap. Like real cheap. Lease deals.

[Zach]

Yeah.

[Matt Farah]

And it's not like the. The ones we've driven have been like terrible. It's not. They're bad cars, good cars, but like they're Volvo. Like they're so clearly Volvos.

[Zach]

Like, the interior is very Volvo. The exterior looked a little different. And like, I would say that I never drove a Polestar that felt distinct. Mostly because EVs don't really feel distinct. It was like, all right, this ride's fine. Or sport. The one, the one with the two we had was like the sporty one, kind of firm, which was odd. But. Yeah, when you get in, you go, I'm sitting in a Volvo. I could be in any Volvo right now. Yeah. And that's what it is.

[Matt Farah]

If I see a Polestar one, it makes me smile.

[Zach]

That's a good looking car.

[Matt Farah]

That's a beautiful car.

[Zach]

Out. Because they. I don't think Volvo souls look coupe anymore. Maybe not one that pretty.

[Matt Farah]

No. A Volvo sell a coupe.

[Zach]

I'm wondering. The C30, the one was. Yeah, that's been dead. That's a weird hatch. So that's why the Polestar one stood out.

[Matt Farah]

That was gorgeous.

[Zach]

It was.

[Matt Farah]

Do you think Harris still has his. He bought one of the press cars. He hasn't talked about it in a long time. My guess is he dumped it.

[Zach]

He probably did. But he had it for a while and liked it.

[Matt Farah]

I offered to buy the press car too.

[Zach]

Yeah.

[Matt Farah]

If they had got off their ass and at the time I actually needed a car, I 100% would have bought that press car and been happy with it.

[Zach]

It was like a. It's like a pretty volt.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah. It was sick. Yeah. It just didn't have a lot of trunk space.

[Zach]

No, the whole trunk was filled. It was like having a speaker box.

[Matt Farah]

It was full of batteries.

[Zach]

Right. But you'd open it, and it was like you had, you know, two 16s in the back and then backpack area.

[Matt Farah]

It was a front wheel drive gas powertrain and a rear wheel drive electric powertrain. So the batteries and the motors were all in the back where, like, a trunk would be.

[Zach]

So you could.

[Matt Farah]

It kind of looked cool, but you could only fit, like, a duffel bag in that.

[Zach]

Yep.

[Matt Farah]

Like, this photo does not show, I think, the accuracy of, like, how small. Yeah.

[Zach]

There.

[Matt Farah]

That's the charging cable. So you could see it's really not much space at all. Yeah.

[Zach]

Like, you can fit a turkey platter.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah. Oh, here's. There's a piece of. Some kind of piece of luggage. That's like a briefcase is in there that.

[Zach]

You know what? I bet that's the case that holds the charging cable.

[Matt Farah]

Oh, you're probably right.

[Zach]

Yeah.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah, yeah.

[Zach]

But I did.

[Matt Farah]

I did love it. I did love it.

[Zach]

Yeah. Yeah. But. Yeah. That was a weird news story last week, huh? Okay, it was.

[Matt Farah]

It was Vespa's 80th anniversary. Do you see the gathering of all the fucking. Yeah, there was, of course, the Angeles Death highway thing. Guys, look, I. I love you guys, but, like, when there's an Angelus Death highway video about me, you don't literally need to DM it to me. You're just gonna have to trust that I will see it. Yeah, I don't. It's not. If you want to start a conversation with me in the DMs and you have questions, like, I pretty. I interact with people most of the time in the DMs on Instagram. But, like, just sending a thing that I am really clearly gonna see is not.

[Zach]

I didn't send it to you for that reason. And two days. Two days after it came out, Sarah was like, has Matt seen the thing or did you Just the one of

[Matt Farah]

me riding down, like, pch. And that one's terrible. You didn't like that one?

[Zach]

No. And I. It's. It's not by Angeles Death Highway.

[Matt Farah]

Oh.

[Zach]

It was by someone else by, like, a copycat.

[Matt Farah]

Oh.

[Zach]

And I just.

[Matt Farah]

The Cars and coffee one was pretty funny.

[Zach]

Yeah, that was Angeles Death highway, and that was pretty funny.

[Matt Farah]

It was pretty funny. Although the sink. The singing thingy kind of lost me at the end.

[Zach]

I mean, I DM the guy because. And I thought the first half was really strong. I thought the jokes about the Ferrari owners was really funny. Second owners buy wheels. I thought that joke was great. And but none of us make fun of you for driving a Vespa. Like, we all get it. So I thought that there just wasn't truth in that. We were, like, making fun of you.

[Matt Farah]

I didn't think. Yeah, I don't mind being made fun of, like, at all. And if you want to make fun of Vespa, have at it. But, like, I didn't think that was a great bit. I just didn't think it was as funny as some of the other stuff. And not because it was about me at all.

[Zach]

Yeah, of course. But, like, you know, as I said, like, the credit to I give d' Angelo's death is he's basically doing an open mic in public.

[Matt Farah]

Sure.

[Zach]

Every time.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah.

[Zach]

And some of the stuff is, like, the whole thing is a banger. And some of it is just trying stuff out.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah.

[Zach]

The animation has. Has gotten tighter and better and more accurate in a lot.

[Matt Farah]

I don't look fat.

[Zach]

That's fine.

[Matt Farah]

I said, you make fun of me all you want. Just make me thin.

[Zach]

I think.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah.

[Zach]

He's made everybody look pretty good.

[Matt Farah]

Dude, I have a plan. So Ali bought a Vespa. He bought the 310. He got the dark blue with tan seat. Very classy. And, like, chrome. It's real. Like a yachting.

[Zach]

It is, yes.

[Matt Farah]

It's real yachty.

[Zach]

Yeah. It's a little Tommy Bahama.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah.

[Zach]

Or Tommy Hilfiger. I meant. Yeah, he wears a red shirt, dude.

[Matt Farah]

And ali is like Mr. Fucking Peter Millar shirt. Anyway, he's right there. But we have a plan. He is shipping it here, and we are going to ride back to fucking San Jose on the Vespas. We're gonna ride fucking pch.

[Zach]

Cool.

[Matt Farah]

Because supposedly this winter is gonna be all fucked up, and with the weather and PCH is gonna get fucked up again. So I want to do it while I can. And yeah, we're gonna do it on Vespas.

[Zach]

Awesome. That'd be so fun.

[Matt Farah]

But I'm gonna. I'm gonna leave the Vespa up there and ship it. I don't want to do it both ways and whatever.

[Zach]

Write it on the five back down. Just kidding.

[Matt Farah]

Misery. I'm not gonna buy a windscreen. I think because we're doing it mostly back roads over two days. I'm gonna not do a windscreen.

[Zach]

All right.

[Matt Farah]

I think maybe if I do the duffel bag backrest thing, that that may offset some of it, but.

[Zach]

But I wonder, do they make a backrest you can add onto it, like, Harley style?

[Matt Farah]

Look in the accessories catalog.

[Zach]

Or just overstuff your back. Your duffel.

[Matt Farah]

You know what they do make that I've seen are like, pegs that like, go. Go in the sides. And you, like, just rest your, like, feet on.

[Zach]

Oh, out front hog style.

[Matt Farah]

So you can just stretch your feet out straight on.

[Zach]

That's not a bad idea. Yeah. I remember when I used to ride like you just after a couple hours, like, just dangle your legs for a bit, just to stretch your knees out. Yeah, Yeah.

[Matt Farah]

I mean, we're gonna do it over two days, so it's gonna be.

[Zach]

You guys will stop and take a lot of breaks.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah.

[Zach]

That's very cool.

[Matt Farah]

It's gonna be so fun.

[Zach]

That is very charming.

[Matt Farah]

If. If there is anybody in LA that has a Vespa that wants to tag along, you could DM me. I mean, I'm not fucking buying your dinner, Piper.

[Zach]

Right now.

[Matt Farah]

If we want. If. If Vespas only not. Not motorcycles. Must be. I'm being a snob about this. Must be a Vespa brand vehicle. Then I will consider having guests do an interview.

[Zach]

See how they are. Do an interview beforehand.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah, yeah, you can definitely apply.

[Zach]

Yeah.

[Matt Farah]

And I also think. I mean, I'm gonna have to buy a helmet with comms now. My help. My motorcycle helmet's four. I just realized it's four years old.

[Zach]

Yeah, you got the one with the Bluetooth in it. Or talk to Cory, but like. Like, they're. They're pretty awesome now.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah.

[Zach]

And then you and. You and Ali could chat if you want to. Or not.

[Matt Farah]

And I think. Well, I just think I need some, like, noise canceling maybe for just ear protection kind of thing. And, you know, if you're gonna ride that much, a little music wouldn't be the worst thing.

[Zach]

Well, yeah. Plus, like, hours and hours of wind noise.

[Matt Farah]

That's what I mean. Yeah, it's bad.

[Zach]

You'll feel like you're Joe Cobra if

[Matt Farah]

I. I mean, even if I didn't have comms, I would still fucking wear earplugs. You know what we're not doing, though, is no phone mounts. We're not getting phone mounts. No screens. So I said we should fucking. We should do it. No gps.

[Zach]

Oh, just. Just maps.

[Matt Farah]

I. We don't even. I could fucking dictate. You would drive from right here to Carmel Valley Lodge right now, then just do that. Yeah, I don't need a gps.

[Zach]

Yeah.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah. I mean, I would. I use one normally for traffic and to know when I'm gonna get somewhere, but, like, fuck do I care?

[Zach]

I like it Go back to the 60s. Raw dog. No screens, just memory.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah. And we'd go like the 33. Like we would. We would like. We would ride like not the one like.

[Zach]

Yeah, take the fun twisty road. Why not? Yeah. That sounds rad. That's a charming date.

[Matt Farah]

It's like a real mandate though.

[Zach]

Whatever. The shit's fun. That's like was the fucking movie with Steve Coogan and the other guy and they did like the Italian vacation. It was just excuse for these two comedians to basically just do bits the whole time. And they're like, they're having dinner at a fancy restaurant and then they're just doing Michael Caine impressions. But they basically drove around, had like a mandate for weekends. Yeah, that's like.

[Matt Farah]

It was like James May and Oz Clark's show. And when Ali and I'd scouted the northern California route, it was like a long mandate actually when he brought his Porsche. So. But now I'm gonna. We're doing a road trip in the Vespa, so.

[Zach]

Oh, yeah, it's called the Trip.

[Matt Farah]

And that'll. And that will complete my break in. So I'll get it, you know, I'll do the trip and then I'll just have it serviced.

[Zach]

And then you can do full throttle after that, right? No, I'm just kidding. You know, it's like the turbo. Yeah, just fucking blast break stuff in.

[Matt Farah]

Blast it. Oh, speaking of which, I mean, it's not a big deal, but our giveaway car, of course you can register. Get it, you know, go to the. Go to the links, you know, enter to win this car. August 20th. It's 911 Turbo S modded by us. It threw a check engine light the other day and we called Mitch from M Engineering, he was like, I know what that is. And it had a bad injector. So went to the dealer, got a new injector under warranty, has paperwork. So anyway.

[Zach]

Nice.

[Matt Farah]

I don't know why that happened, but the problem is solved. And yeah, dude, this thing is. It's got a fucking M Engineering tune on it and an ACRA exhaust and a BBI suspension and HRE wheels. And oh, by the way, it is an incredibly highly optional car. $275,000 MSRP, fabulous color combination. Comes with the stock wheels also. So if you don't like the Hres, you can take them and sell them. And it comes with a bunch of money to pay the federal taxes. No. Is it this? It's not the sales tax? Yes, it doesn't pay the sales tax. It pays the income tax proportion, bit of it. So obviously all the full rules and regulations are over there on the site. So please read those. And yeah, enter. And one of you guys is taking home a fucking 992.1 Turbo S Special Nasty Edition. 992 Turbo Special Special Nasty Edition. What do we have? Yeah, we can go to the people. Let's go to the people.

[Zach]

They have many questions.

[Matt Farah]

Do they? Well, I don't want to hear it.

[Zach]

That's not true.

[Matt Farah]

That's not true at all. I do. I do want to hear it. Don't. Have you seen. I don't have the answer to the first one.

[Zach]

I haven't either.

[Matt Farah]

Well, okay, we're after. We're gonna have to abandon that one. Sorry. Neither of us have an answer a second. Jay Z has. Oh, I'm sorry. If you want to ask us questions for the live show, people need to know how to do that. Patreon.com the Smoking Tire podcast. It's where you ask us questions that we read on the show. It's also where you watch the show live, get the show early, get extra show, get access to a bunch of. Oh, should I show it? I have it. The jacket. Oh, sure, yeah. All right, let's do it. It's right here.

[Zach]

We'll do it live.

[Matt Farah]

Live and direct. Okay, Zach. So our latest collab will be available very, very soon. My boy Nick I met seven years ago before my wedding. This is a guy who started a company called the Grotto. They make custom men's clothing made to measure, and you can design your own garments with help of them and their experts. And he made my wedding suit, made Zach's wedding suit, made. Made Nino's wedding suit, made betim from BBI's wedding suit. And then he's made me, like, a bunch of custom blazers. And we were like, how fun would it be to do a collab blazer that we designed and that the fans can buy? And so we actually had so much fun that we didn't do just one. We did two. Zach designed one, and then I designed one, and we're gonna be selling both, and whoever sells more wins. So Zach' is not here?

[Zach]

No.

[Matt Farah]

Okay, well, this is mine. It just came. It just came in. And these are going to be sold in a full. The full range of sizes from small to quite big. Now, check this out. This is. And Zach, maybe you want to, like.

[Zach]

You're on the wide now.

[Matt Farah]

Here.

[Zach]

Yeah.

[Matt Farah]

So this is a hoodie blazer. We did not invent a hoodie blazer. Concept. But. But I thought this would be so fun because the hood bit is a detachable thing that unbuttons from the inside so you have a full blazer, but then you can pop the hood. So I'll throw it on. You may need to handhold this shot.

[Zach]

Switching to handheld.

[Matt Farah]

Okay, Switching to guns. Inside, we've got where the camera's up still this one inside, we've got, of course, our logo is sewn in there. I kept the liner of this one pretty simple. I didn't want to go crazy.

[Zach]

My liner is Zack's line and. Awesome.

[Matt Farah]

So you throw it on, you can zip. This bit fits great, right? So you can zip up your hoodie and then you get your button going here now. So the hood is made of wool suit material also. And so my concept was that I kind of wanted to, like, invert the material that would be used for the blazer versus what would be used for the hood. So you could picture a jacket being made of this material with the gray and the checks. And this feels almost. The blazer feels almost more like a not sweatshirt, but it's a very soft wool that it makes me think of like a. Like a luxury hoodie. And so by switching them and inverting them, I think you get a really cool vibe. The buttons are amazing. Punch in on these buttons. They're these really beautiful metallic.

[Zach]

Metallic emerald.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah. And it's a very kind of subtle soft metal. And. And then you can easily. It'll take a. It takes a minute to do to undo the whole hoodie.

[Zach]

So the hoodie is just like a little narrow liner that's. But that's kind of snapped in there. So you can pop it out. And then you have a, you know, pretty well fitted blazer that you can wear.

[Matt Farah]

And then it's dinner.

[Zach]

Lunch, whatever.

[Matt Farah]

It's Grotto X tst. And that. That isn't just a branding. When you can read it, you know which side is inside, it tells you which is. Which is in. But this is. This is my blazer, and I'm extremely excited to wear this one and for you guys to be able to buy it. And we are only. We're not going to be limiting them in terms of the quantity that we are selling. We'll sell as many orders come in, but we can only sell them for a limited amount of time because we want to take all the orders and then make all the jackets. So you have them for car week. And the Woodward, what happened that way?

[Zach]

A little bit. There you go.

[Matt Farah]

For car Week and for the Woodward Dream cruise.

[Zach]

Yeah.

[Matt Farah]

So mine is called the Woodward, and Zach's is called the Monterey, and. Oh, no, the Pebble. What do we call it?

[Zach]

I think it was the Monterey because mine's. Mine's a lighter color liner, lighter color material, lighter color buttons. You know, we kind of wanted to theme them after the cities for the respective car wheel. And what's cool is, like, you know, the hoodie thing I like a lot. Sun exposure out in Monterey happens. You know, it's something I'm really cautious about. Pop it up in the sun. But also, if it's cold, remember, like, even old movies, they would always, like, pop their collar up. Like, it really helped keep them warm, and it didn't really do anything. So if you're in Detroit and it's a little bit cooler out, you throw that thing up. Keeps you a little warmer. Yeah. And it looks cool.

[Matt Farah]

It does. And because it's not a full hoodie inside of a full jacket, it. It fits like a blazer. So it's got a really good cut. And when you take the. When you take. Oh, but I forgot to even show this look when you. I forgot. I've got the. You got the contrast stitching up here on the lapel. The blazer was covering it. So I love a contrast, contrast stitch. And I matched the contrast stitch down.

[Zach]

I mean, that's what's so fun at Grotto. Like, you can pick the threads for different parts of the jacket buttons, all that stuff. And it's honestly only a few hundred bucks more than, like, you know, big mall store known for suits. You know, they supply a lot of suits, as it were.

[Matt Farah]

It splits the difference between mall suit and, like, custom Armani suit. It's much closer in price to mall suit, but with all the materials available. Like, when I first met Nick, I heard about him from Batim and went to the Grotto and I was like, I'm bringing my dad. And my dad fucking grilled him.

[Zach]

Yeah.

[Matt Farah]

Because I was buying my wedding suit, and my dad happened to be in town, and he was like, you're getting a custom suit from, like, your friend's friend? Like, let's see what this is about.

[Zach]

Yeah.

[Matt Farah]

And dude, Nick had all the right answers to all my dad's questions. And chemo's. Who the is this guy? Dude, why did your dad know so many things, Lauren? For 15 years, he's like, what the. Bringing this guy down here.

[Zach]

I was taking the SATs today.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah, no, but once. Once. My dad was like, this is a really Nice suit. I was like, all right, cool, we're good.

[Zach]

So.

[Matt Farah]

So I've been, I've been a huge supporter.

[Zach]

Roger approved.

[Matt Farah]

Roger. Roger approved. If he. If. If your math checks out according to Roger or your suit construction checks out according to Roger, you're in business. So anyway, Patreon patrons are gonna get first crack at these, although because they're not limited in quantity, you know, it. I'm sorry to say it doesn't make a difference, but it's a thing we're doing. It's fucking cool. And we have a bunch more stuff coming. The shit that we have coming for you guys, I'm like, so excited to be making. It's really fun. And the questions circle back to that a second. And Jay Z has hit the Supra. My partner test drove a CPO Macan EV last week and found the entire H Vac panels. The entire H Vac panel moves when you want to turn on cooled seats or toggle the air circulation. And she was surprised at how cheap it made the interior feel. What is, what does that mean?

[Zach]

I don't know if it's like the center console, like the.

[Matt Farah]

Oh, like.

[Zach]

Oh, it moves.

[Matt Farah]

It's the haptic buttons. It's the haptic button. Yes. I think, I do think the haptic buttons make interiors feel and what Porsche does. It's one big haptic panel.

[Zach]

It's a big rectangle in the center.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah, it's not the best.

[Zach]

I liked it better when it was individual buttons, but they have to move a little bit.

[Matt Farah]

Oh. When you toggle the cooled, it's better moving than not moving, I assure you that. You know. And does it reek of cross cutting and lazy engineering? I don't necessarily think so. I think a little bit of that is true, but also five, six years ago, when they developed this car, that seemed like kind of a futuristic way to be like, this is an electric car. So I think they're going to be backtracking from that a little bit. The new Panamera had those and has backed away from them a little bit, I think. I think they may do that. By the way, not a drive impression, but. Well, some of the things, you know, I had. I was having dinner with Ferrari product people. So the Luce does come up and they have some incredibly bold things to say about why they think people will want one, how it will be received once it's actually on sale, the long term resale value. I mean, they are. They're either. They're drinking some incredibly powerful Kool Aid. I'LL be high on that kind of supply for sure. And I don't want to, like put. I don't want to like air people's specific words on the podcast.

[Zach]

Well, the Resale on used EVs is notoriously higher than the MSRP.

[Matt Farah]

And I asked directly to someone of pretty high prominence at the company. The American market particularly really will not spend more than $150,000 on any EV. I mean, even like Taycan GT's brand new go out the door with 70, 80 on the hood. Sapphires. Yes, a few people have bought spectres, but not many. And they, they depreciate. So I was like, what, you know, what is the, what is, what is it going to be with your car? It's more than a specter. And he said, well, you know, we have a special. Ours are special handling and the E motors are special. And basically rattled off a bunch of technological stuff. You know that this will be a look, will it be very fucking fast?

[Zach]

Sure.

[Matt Farah]

It's a bunch of stuff that to an engineering department and a marketing department, it feels exciting and innovative, but to a customer means fucking dick. Like nothing. Like, the customer does not care if you have a radial flux or an axial flux. It's an ev. It's. How does it feel when I put the pedal down? It doesn't care.

[Zach]

Like, I think there's some customers that care, but I don't know if there's. If it's the majority. Yeah, exactly.

[Matt Farah]

$600,000 for the privilege.

[Zach]

No, no, but we know, we know customers who are car enthusiasts who get nerdy about their center locking wheels or whatever the fuck. But in this case, you're trying to sell lots and lots of cars to a much larger market. And a lot of people that buy Ferraris are not nerds.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah.

[Zach]

Like, they want to have the expensive thing that they know goes fast. And they grew up, you know, loving the red cars that were Ferrari. This is a big departure from that. For many people. It's an emotional purchase. And I don't know if this will have that emotion.

[Matt Farah]

Totally. It's very tough to put that emotion into any ev. Having special motors and having very good handling doesn't do much for Taycan resale, does it?

[Zach]

Right.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah, there's a precedent for this. It doesn't do much for rimac, you know what I mean?

[Zach]

And obviously the badge will be a flex now that everyone knows how expensive it is. The people that buy it will know what they're saying to the world. But I still think the car has to look good.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah.

[Zach]

And you know, it doesn't like, like we don't see that many pro sanguis around and like we're in Los Angeles. Yeah. And in some angles it's an, it's like a decent looking car and in others it's very weird. And like that's a flex. It's a Ferrari SUV. See way more Cullinans, Range Rovers, etc.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah, I mean, maybe. Yeah, maybe I'm gonna be extremely wrong about this. It would be kind of funny if I was, you know, and others will be wrong about it too, but I don't think it's gonna go well. And when I asked them straight up, you know, what is the extra special sauce that makes this 3x4x more expensive than a car? Another car that will feel like largely pretty. They start talking about the interior, they start talking about good luck.

[Zach]

It's the yellow badge. That's. Yeah, I think that's what they're hoping.

[Matt Farah]

I mean, and I'm sure there is going to be some theater to it. And I do want to drive it. Like I want, I want to try one. Of course I want to try one.

[Zach]

But I mean, the question is, will it feel you know, handling performance wise with all their stuff, will it be a noticeable difference from something like a loose. Yeah, that's the big question.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah.

[Zach]

And I hope the answer is yes. But I don't know, it'll be challenging to make that answer. Yes.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah. I mean, and I suppose a lucid feels different from a Taycan.

[Zach]

Yeah, right.

[Matt Farah]

A sapphire and a Taycan feel really, really different. A sapphire is like almost like a, like a Hellcat compared to a Taycan. And I don't mean that negatively. Like it's just a different feeling type of vehicle. It's slidy and looser and you know,

[Zach]

it is when you turn the stuff. I, I think I like the steering in the lucid better than the Taycan. I think Taycan's a little bit too heavy.

[Matt Farah]

If you're talking about my Taycan, you're probably right.

[Zach]

Others are, last time I drove the GTS on the launch two years ago, okay, you know, it was better than yours, but still like, I think the lucid just a little bit, a little bit lighter. But both of those are examples of really high performance EVs, you know, near the, the peak of like what we can buy and what we feel. So will this feel distinctly different or is it more like keep looking at the yellow circle. Keep looking at the yellow circle.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah. To the tune of that much like so much money. Ferrari customers don't tend to care what Ferraris cost in general. This may be an exception. You know, this, this one is a, is the first one where I go. It doesn't have a Ferrari engine. You know, like you don't have special batteries at Ferrari. Like you're buying motors from somebody. Like, this could be a great ev, but like multiples of. Anyway, it was a, it was an awkward conversation. I mean it was, it was, it was an awkward conversation for sure.

[Zach]

Dinner got real quiet when the food,

[Matt Farah]

this was after dinner and it was like, you know, glass of wine number five.

[Zach]

Right.

[Matt Farah]

You know, it was, it was, it was getting into the evening and they,

[Zach]

I'm sure they were prepped. They knew it was going to happen. They knew every journalist at some point

[Matt Farah]

stood his ground. Yeah, homie, homie stood his ground. He really did. So either he, either he really, really believes what he was saying or he's very good at his job and like that's their job, you know. But I wasn't buying it and I let him know it was a good sport though. He was, he was a good sport about it. He wasn't mad the next next day. Straight. Wait. Straight of war. Moo. Oh. Straight of warm ooze. Yes. That's going to be Ghostbusters 7. What are your thoughts on a tiered driver's license system similar to the European model? I, I don't, I don't know enough about Europeans tiered driving system. I think they have a slower rate of allowing teenagers and stuff to do.

[Zach]

I think it's just the training process is longer and way more expensive.

[Matt Farah]

Well, I don't know about a lot

[Zach]

more expensive to get your license there. Yeah, okay.

[Matt Farah]

Well, I wouldn't want it to be much, much more expensive because I would not want it to be a burden on low income people to get a driver's license. I don't, I would hope to get

[Zach]

a standard license in Germany typically costs between 2,550 4,500.

[Matt Farah]

Get the out of here. Wow. Wow. Well, I would not want that to be the burden of an American taxpayer, certainly a low income one. But like in general, I am very much for improved driver training across the board. So like it's hard for me to reconcile those two things a little bit.

[Zach]

But yeah, more. True. We've said this many times, like more training would be better and if there was a tiered system where you could do some sort of performance license which then allows you to speed onto certain designated road and of course this would require massive changes in lane discipline and just the general driving rules of the United States. But that would be amazing.

[Matt Farah]

Cars and reserves. Other than Top Gear, is there any other older automotive content that you go back and rewatch because you enjoyed it so much? Best motoring. I don't regularly go back and watch it, but every once in a while it comes up in conversation with someone who doesn't know about it and I get to show them like F40 versus Mines R34. Like Wheel to wheel racing press cars is pretty awesome.

[Zach]

That is very awesome. I follow archive rally on Instagram and old rally footage is always impressive. They had onboard cameras really early and you know that there's like less tech but the driving is still dangerous. And in some cases the horsepower was even higher.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah. Oh, speaking of old school content, I fucking saw Vicki Butler Henderson at the Ferrari launch. She's so awesome and I can't believe she was there like the whole time. But like we, we like must have just ships in the fucking night. We didn't. We somehow missed each other for the whole first. Eventually at the second dinner, I'm like, vicky, what the. And we like, we like snuck off and had like a 10 minute conversation and then I never saw her again. But like, I love Vicky. She's the coolest.

[Zach]

Yeah. One of the OGs. Yeah, absolutely.

[Matt Farah]

And I'm like, I'm so, I'm so bummed. I missed the chance to get fucking schwasted with her and she had to go. But shout out to Vicky Butler. We love her. Chuck Mangione in 60 seconds. Why are there so many people driving like a T. Rex? They sit so close to the wheel that they could almost drive with their elbows. How badly will they get hurt if they're in an accident in the Airborne employees? True story. You do see it a lot with, I mean, small women, typically older ladies. A lot small ladies. I don't see a lot of men driving like that, to be honest with you.

[Zach]

Occasionally, but not as many.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah, the bad male driving position is the gangster extra lean.

[Zach]

True.

[Matt Farah]

That's the man version of the old T Rex.

[Zach]

Most of those lead to poor wheel control if you're too close or too far.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah, no, there's a. There's that little. That the little aside we had in the nine nine or the. The giveaway car video in Zion where you talk about the lady driving a Sienna. And when they drive like a T Rex, doesn't it just seem like it requires so much of their attention just to keep that car going down the road.

[Zach]

Yeah. They're using full computing power. Yeah. Just to do something that maxing Very simple.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah.

[Zach]

And there's a look of like. Well sometimes they look like they're scared. Sometimes they look like they're just concentrating really hard. Which I appreciate your effort in driving but it just seems like this is a pretty easy thing to do.

[Matt Farah]

It's extremely 4K on an iPhone 4

[Zach]

and like the next stretch like a meerkat and they're just like oh, what could happen next? Yeah. I don't know if you, I guess you would get if you sat too, too close. I'm sure there's a distance that's too close to the airbag where it is dangerous. But I haven't read the manual.

[Matt Farah]

I wonder if are there variable? I know like there's smart or 2nd gen. 3rd gen. Airbags are like they're less bad for you when you impact them. I wonder if at any point there's a thing that's connected to the seat position. It's a good question, but I doubt it. Somehow it's probably bad to sit really close to the steering wheel and crash. I mean it's probably just really bad.

[Zach]

It probably is too close.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah. I like water sports racing in the wet says can you give some tips on buying and owning imported JDM cars? Yeah, I mean buying, buying is really the same as any other car as long as you understand. And the paperwork, you know there's like buying some shit from like an auction in Tokyo. I don't know anything about that. I have no idea. Use a broker, use call Top Rank or any of these other guys easiest to buy. There's plenty of JDM cars on the ground in the US now. There's plenty that have US titles like try to do that. It's just, that's just easier owning them. I mean the good thing about a lot of these cars are they're. They're Japanese cars from the 90s and 2000s. These are largely very reliable dependable cars. They were really well made and if you buy one that's stock ish or whatever and has known service history and known anything is in get a PPI good condition, you're gonna have a pretty well made, nice car that should work pretty good. The Delica has been 100% reliable. Like I've had to do two oil changes and we did that. I mean we did a major service but it was part of a promo thing for tire pros. So like a lot of what we did wasn't even really necessary. We just did it to get content. But even that wasn't that much. I mean and so a 1991 Mitsubishi van is like. Like being used just as a putt putt around town run Aaron's car is like that thing's gonna be it. And the cockroaches.

[Zach]

Yeah. That should be driving like on some narrow road in Pakistan, you know, back and forth overloaded.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah. Having said that the pow while not unreliable it did have this electrical gremlin that it took fucking mad mike 30 hours to chase down. Now it ultimately was a bad blinker stock. We replaced the part for $37 new old stock. But like it would. Nobody has ever seen a Nissan PAL before. So like it's a very basic car. It's a Nissan Micra underneath. No one's ever seen a fucking Nissan Micra in America either. It's a shitty little 1 liter carbureted fucking nothing car. But. And the engine runs and it's fine other than that electrical problem which is. And since we solved that is there's been no problem since. But having a person to work on it who is knowledgeable or experienced with the car you have in your area is really important and there's going to be. It's going to. It's a bitch to find parts. Even some of the people who work on these cars won't work on them unless you get the parts yourself because they're so annoying. Because you have to buy them from these Japanese websites. Like Skylines are easier because such a huge percentage of the market is Skyline stuff. And actually a lot of the parts for Delicas are interchangeable with Montero's. The mechanicals are so that kind of helps too. But expect to not be able to find or have a hard time finding random stuff. You know, just little bits that don't exist anymore or whatever. And most Japanese, most JDM cars like you could have someone build you a thousand horsepower engine before you could have someone like fix the air conditioning.

[Zach]

Yeah.

[Matt Farah]

So that's a thing too. The only thing reliability wise that's gone wrong with the Delica since we've owned it is that the air conditioning did work when I bought it and there was a leak or just the system over time, whatever. But it's R12 and I can't get proper R12 in California. And to do a conversion to 134 is like $5,000 for this car. It's apparently like almost engine out. Like it's.

[Zach]

But you love driving with the windows down. It doesn't bother me this Is the time to do it.

[Matt Farah]

No, no, it's. It does. I don't really give a. Hannah likes being hot. It doesn't make a difference for me. I'm not going to spend the money on that. But. But like, if you care, like.

[Zach]

Yeah. Think about those things. Yeah. Yeah.

[Matt Farah]

So, Edward Scissor doors. Oh. When we built our barn, my dad had one request. He asked the construction guys if they could let him run the excavator a little bit. What large piece of machinery would you want a turn in that you've never operated before? Oh, very good one. One of those huge. The fucking huge crane. The crane that's up the road from here.

[Zach]

We look down through the floor to pick stuff up.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah, I want to try one of them.

[Zach]

I would want to. The shipping container crane. I think we find you get to move those around and wrecking ball, of course.

[Matt Farah]

Well, I got to do.

[Zach]

You guys do the.

[Matt Farah]

I got to do wrecking bucket.

[Zach]

Right?

[Matt Farah]

Wrecking bucket was great, which is when I knocked down the old building here and you have an excavator and I just fucking smashed the side of the building in with the bucket. That was the shit. I loved that. The guy said, you're paying for it, boss. You could do anything you want. I was like, get out of the thing, man.

[Zach]

Let's go.

[Matt Farah]

Yamahabibi thoughts on Brew watches. I've seen them before. They did that collab with Alton Brown. The aesthetic of the Brew watch isn't for me personally, but I've heard good things about their quality and so I think it's probably a good company to buy from if you like how the watches look. Oh. What sort of factors do you think about when if deciding to buy from a micro brand? Most people are looking for value in a micro brand. A micro brand often can deliver some really creative designs on dials and some really nice aesthetic choices at a. At a lower price point than you'd get from a mainstream maker. And like that's because the company might be like four people and they make most of their stuff in Asia or whatever. I don't like buy a lot of micro brands. Right. Like notice even is more, I think is a sort of outgrown micro brand. They have a full line of products. They. I think they've probably outgrown the term microbrand at this point. But my main reason for buying a micro brand in the past this may not be with yours would be to support the people that are running it. I like my Weiss watch very, very much. But I like more that I have supported the Weiss watch company to the tune of whatever that thing cost. And I'll keep. Every time Cameron Weiss makes a new watch, I will buy one because I love him and I want him to be able to do that. So the thing with supporting any small business, provided they have a baseline of quality and they make the thing you want in general, is gonna be about supporting the people running it. Wheat City Night Court is smoke silver part of the rainbow of colors which respectfully refer to as jrg. Is that. Oh, yeah, I would say it is. Yes. That is the Mercedes sort of champagne Y color.

[Zach]

Very light champagne.

[Matt Farah]

This appears to be Daniel Craig's car in the Knives out series.

[Zach]

Oh, okay.

[Matt Farah]

This is what Dan. This is exactly this car in this color with these wheels is Dan. I just watched the.

[Zach]

The third one.

[Matt Farah]

The third one.

[Zach]

I'm watching it.

[Matt Farah]

That's his car in that movie. My friend's mom's Murano Cross Cab. Are you garbage if you buy a 50cc moped because they don't require registration and swap in a 150? You are playing 4D chess, my friend.

[Zach]

That's bold, but I like it.

[Matt Farah]

But if you're swapping in the 150 while you're in there, get the stroker

[Zach]

crank while you're in there. Little nitrous.

[Matt Farah]

You can make a 150 into a 174 with a stroker crank.

[Zach]

But the bummer will be you'll have this power where you could ride on the freeway, but you won't have the registration where you could ride on the freeway.

[Matt Farah]

Right. Speaking of cross cabriolets, though, do you know what this is? This is like every rental car in Tenerife. This is a Volkswagen T Roc Cabriolet.

[Zach]

It's funny, they took the rock like the Amarok truck.

[Matt Farah]

Volkswagen has made effectively a Range Rover Evoque convertible. That's what this looks like with a Volkswagen front end on it.

[Zach]

Yeah.

[Matt Farah]

And it's a very popular rental car in Tenerife.

[Zach]

Oh, it's perfect for that.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah.

[Zach]

Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. This is a weird looking car, though. Yeah.

[Matt Farah]

But like, I was like, holy shit. Volkswagen straight up made across Cabriolet and didn't tell anybody in America about it. I also saw one of those new Renault Fours on the. On the road and it looked pretty cool. Was it a 4 or 5? Renault 5? It might be a 5.

[Zach]

Oh, the new Renault 5 EV1. Yeah. Oh, that thing looks really cool.

[Matt Farah]

It looked really cool. Yeah, it was dope. Yeah, that was funny. Okay, Sigs, Inside. What are your favorite road and track performance car of the year cars? And the biggest surprise so far? My favorite road and track performance car of the year cars. The Z06, C8, Z06, the M2 manual CS. Not CS, just all the

[Zach]

new.

[Matt Farah]

The newer. The new generation. Just because. Just because I just did so much drifting in it. It was such unhinged.

[Zach]

Stuff.

[Matt Farah]

Sto might be number one. I think Stado is number one, actually. McLaren 750 shocker. 750 versus Dorado. That would be stirrado, I think has to have it.

[Zach]

Wow. Because you have.

[Matt Farah]

Sports cars are so good.

[Zach]

If you. If you drive them off road, you

[Matt Farah]

get to do it, then it's the best.

[Zach]

Yeah.

[Matt Farah]

Or on a track. Off road. Sports car on a track. Unbelievable. Because, dude, you can huck. You could. I can do an easy fourth gear slide in a stirato, no problem. Eyes practically closed. Unbelievably so fun. You don't need to be Chris Harris to drive like him if you have a stirrado. Christian says if money doesn't matter, what car drives better? 992.2 Targa 4s or GTS? Oh, I mean drives GTS. The GTS is going to be fucking 400 pounds lighter than a Targa. Targas are. You know, Targas are really heavy. Yeah, because it's a convertible with a glass roof and a metal roof and a power mechanism on there. And it's gonna be all wheel drive. Also, having said that, it doesn't make it a bad car if you are doing all highway road tripping, for instance, or daily commuting. A Targa 4S is your shit.

[Zach]

We're like big sweeper kind of car, meandering from one house of yours to the other. Perfect.

[Matt Farah]

But you, But. But you're gonna. You feel that weight compared to. Not. Doesn't even have to be a GTS compared to an S. You really feel the weight of a Targa compared to a coupe. Or wait, what was the question? Targa 4s versus Targa GTS?

[Zach]

Maybe they didn't specify.

[Matt Farah]

Well, a 4s versus a GTS. I mean, let's assume he means Targa for both. And it's just powertrain 4s versus GTS. The real difference is going to be at that very bottom of the power band. Like when you're just kind of cruising around at light throttle and that hybrid system's invisibly filling in all the Torque, whereas the 4s, you want to click it into sport mode so it goes above the bog. You don't need to go above the bog with the hybrid. That's what I'm thinking. Carbs, legal bakery. Would you have an Acura MDX type S over the Genesis GV80? Good question. MDX type S is very nice.

[Zach]

That was very nice. Their seat. Their seats are also great.

[Matt Farah]

Oh, that might be a tough call.

[Zach]

It would also depend on am I buying the car? Leasing the car like I would. You know, if I'm gonna buy one of these things, I'm gonna look into, like consumer Reports, warranty report, all that stuff.

[Matt Farah]

Pretty sure MDXs work good.

[Zach]

It probably will, but they do both, you know, Man, I don't look at that.

[Matt Farah]

That's a tough call. That really is. They're both good cars. I think. You know what could really drive the difference between the two buttons versus touchscreens.

[Zach]

Yes.

[Matt Farah]

The MDX is a much more button focused experience. It does have a touchscreen, but it's got more buttons for more things.

[Zach]

It's a very utilitarian interior. I mean, but great seats. Excellent seats. Really great seats. And they're. They're like, you know, driver assistance tech is super good because it's licensed from GM.

[Matt Farah]

I think that's only in the EVs.

[Zach]

Oh, it's only the EV. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Like, this is a nice amount of screen, nice amount of buttons. Everything's easy to find. But this doesn't have the wow factor when you open the door.

[Matt Farah]

So if you want the Bentley.

[Zach]

Yeah. The Genesis looks way more expensive than it is. And the Acura might actually look cheaper than it is. Than it is the Acura. Yeah, it does. Yeah.

[Matt Farah]

The Genesis does not handle well. The Acura does. I think it probably rides better too.

[Zach]

I'd have to drive it again.

[Matt Farah]

The Acura is more drivers oriented. The Genesis is more commuting oriented, I think.

[Zach]

And pull up to the curb oriented.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah, Yeah.

[Zach]

I think I. If I was gonna buy one, I'd get the Acura. I agree. I might just Genesis, just to see.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah, okay.

[Zach]

Ball. On a budget, I'd rather have the

[Matt Farah]

GV60 than the GV80 if I didn't need the third row. The GV60 EV, I thought, rode and handled fabulously. And the front seats and the dashboard and all of that were effectively exactly the same as the GV80, but a little better because it was a little newer.

[Zach]

Oh, quick offshoot note, someone. I can't believe we didn't think about this. Volvo is also owned by Geely, but they got an exemption that Polestar did not get. Oh.

[Matt Farah]

So why did Volvo get the exemption?

[Zach]

I don't. I didn't research it.

[Matt Farah]

They were already here. They were here first.

[Zach]

Speculation. They probably sell way more cars here. Maybe it's worth it to them to get the exemption. Maybe they, you know, got someone a golden notepad and they got, you know, a golden moose. Yeah, exactly.

[Matt Farah]

Do they. Do they make. Maybe they make what? Volvos are actually built in China versus built here and built in Europe. That could be a factor as well. Right. Because what doesn't. A lot of it. Where the cars are built too.

[Zach]

I don't. I don't know. But there is a Volvo South Carolina factory.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah. Matt hates AI. What are some cars that look great but drive terrible and vice versa? Look great and drive terrible.

[Zach]

Great. But we've said it before. The 2013 is GT500 and the one after that.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah.

[Zach]

You know.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah. Automatic Mark four Supras. Automatic Mark four Supras.

[Zach]

That's what Doug wants. Enjoy.

[Matt Farah]

Look great and drive terrible.

[Zach]

Honestly, even, like, manual mark 4 supra. I drove one with 600 horsepower in a straight line. It did what I expected, but in the corners, I was like, does this thing weigh 8,000 pounds? Not great to drive.

[Matt Farah]

Not great. Early Vipers.

[Zach]

Uhhuh.

[Matt Farah]

Lots of muscle cars. Look great and drive awful.

[Zach]

It looks terrible, but drives good.

[Matt Farah]

No comment. Oh, no, no. July. July 15th. July 15th.

[Zach]

Yeah.

[Matt Farah]

Hold. Hold for July 15th.

[Zach]

All right, so the. The reviews about the couple? The same. Yeah, That's a. That's a good call. Probably the Gumpert, you know.

[Matt Farah]

Oh, I drove a Gumpert. Apollo didn't drive that good. I mean, it drove like a race car. But I wouldn't necessarily call it not

[Zach]

even a good race car.

[Matt Farah]

I wouldn't necessarily call it Good.

[Zach]

Okay.

[Matt Farah]

Salina S7s looked great, drove terrible. They're no good.

[Zach]

Alpha 4C.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah.

[Zach]

Yeah.

[Matt Farah]

Alpha 4C is the king of. Looks great, drives terrible.

[Zach]

Now, not to make fun of Dave, like the Lotus Carlton kind of looks like nothing. But you said droves great.

[Matt Farah]

That's. That's different. That doesn't look terrible. It's just a sleeper, which is fine. Sleepers. All sleepers get a. Get a pass, I think. I mean, unless it's like an ugly sleeper, but like a Lotus Carlton isn't fancy, but it's handsome. It's not ugly. No. You disagree?

[Zach]

I think it's handsome. I was trying to think of something that looks terrible. It drives really drives great. I mean, 2011 STIs, I would say

[Matt Farah]

it does not look terrible. But it's not in fashion. It's like C4ZR1 Corvette.

[Zach]

Yeah, but it was in fashion when it came out though.

[Matt Farah]

It doesn't look terrible. It's just like, you know, not exciting today.

[Zach]

Oh, the C8 Corvette in my opinion.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah.

[Zach]

Look, I really, I really, I do not like the way it looks but man, that's a great car.

[Matt Farah]

The base ones for sure.

[Zach]

Yeah. 51 package.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah, I like how they look with.

[Zach]

When they get widen the fenders helps.

[Matt Farah]

By the way, did you see the new base car? Because then they're now putting the 6.7 liter. The new base car with its narrow body can now hit 200 miles an hour.

[Zach]

That's crazy.

[Matt Farah]

Whereas the wide bodies can't because they have like more aero then.

[Zach]

Now I know which one I'll get. Yeah, yeah.

[Matt Farah]

Well if you were going to do like a big, you know, twin turbo

[Zach]

build, you want to start with standing miles.

[Matt Farah]

Standing mile.

[Zach]

Yeah.

[Matt Farah]

Chappie says. Oh, congrats on the Vespa. I saved 25 bucks a day in parking over that time commuting for five years and sold it for 500 bucks less than I paid for it. That and a stainless steel Rolex are the two best consumer purchases you can make in terms of long term use value. I agree with you 100%. I said repeatedly. And by the way, not everybody knows this. One of the reasons Vespas are better than other scooters, they're metal. My Vespa is fully made of metal. It's not made of plastic. Like really? Yes.

[Zach]

Whoa.

[Matt Farah]

It's fully metal.

[Zach]

It does not look. I mean. Yeah, I just assume these days. Okay.

[Matt Farah]

And so that's part of like the premium for what you're, what you're paying for with Vespa they're very proud of that. But like I, for real, I def. Absolutely stand by that the bet that and steel Rolex watches are the best consumer products I've ever bought in terms of delivering on the thing that they say they're going to deliver on. Not never a disappointment. The best song for the dead pedal. I've been playing the latest Forza Horizon 6, which takes place in Japan. Never been a JDM guy, but finding a new respect for the genre. If you lived in Japan, what would your garage look like applying the same monetary and spatial constraints you have here? Oh, same money in Japan.

[Zach]

I mean probably R32 GTR.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah. Skyline. Yeah, for sure.

[Zach]

I'd have whichever one I could afford. You know, clapped out. R34 if possible. And little car you'd want a small car for the city. Yeah, yeah.

[Matt Farah]

An Autozam. I would want an Autoz.

[Zach]

Those are cool.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah. But also like, I'd want my Mercedes that I'm building to like have over there because like 90s Mercedes in Japan are like hard as fuck.

[Zach]

Yeah, that's true. I mean, I gotta go to that car show.

[Matt Farah]

I would have an RSTI as well.

[Zach]

Oh, real one?

[Matt Farah]

Yeah, like, yeah, like. Sorry, excuse me. I'm so used to being American. Yeah. I would have a proper like 1998 STI. JDM. STI.

[Zach]

That's a sick choice.

[Matt Farah]

That would be the good choice. Lock Shock Darrell. Actually I would also. I would have like, I would have the, the proper tuners, like build me something. Like I would want mines to build me the skyline. I'd want fucking. I would want to spoon, you know, something or other. Some crazy fucking Honda. Yeah. Lock Shock Darrell says best beginner crotch rocket. I mean, honestly, like the slowest one you can. Like a 400.

[Zach]

Like there's a ninja 400, make a bunch of those now.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah. Freaking trainer back in the day was riding a Ninja 400 and it revved like 11 000. Like it was actually pretty cool.

[Zach]

Yeah.

[Matt Farah]

I would remember and remember when Nino's lady, we tried to get her, she wanted a bike. She's chick was like 110 pounds. Maybe she wanted to get a bike. And I was like, you want a Ninja 400? That's you. That's all you want. She got a R6. R6 and crashed it into a chain link fence.

[Zach]

She was fine. Ish. But immediately, immediately. Whiskey throttle.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah.

[Zach]

Yeah. I mean, I think when you and I were younger, the, the standard answers were like the SV650, the Ducati monster, which were all like the lowest power bikes out there, but now they have a lot more options. So. Yeah, get a slow one.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah.

[Zach]

And just learn. Yeah, just learn, learn, learn. Be careful, be careful.

[Matt Farah]

If you don't want a 400, you say crotch rocket. That's why I'm saying ninja 400 if you want like a naked bike. Both Zach and I had Suzuki SV650s and I think it's a fabulous motorcycle.

[Zach]

Sounds cool. Sounds way faster than it is, which is great.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah, they look great. They're really well made. There's a huge aftermarket for them, so you could keep it and upgrade it over time. I really like those bikes. Pearl Love, Bone of the Mad Green Dog says. What are your thoughts on the new new Boven Sipen Zagato? Boven Sipen is Andy Bovenseepen, the former owner of Alpena, son of the founder of Alpena. Former owner, who A guy I privilege. Huh.

[Zach]

Is it this car from like a year ago, this thing?

[Matt Farah]

Yeah, yeah, that's it. It's a, it's a. It's a coach built M4.

[Zach]

Look. Don't love this front.

[Matt Farah]

Don't love the front.

[Zach]

I mean, what is that reminding me of?

[Matt Farah]

Fiskers. Oh, I8 BMW. Yeah.

[Zach]

Yeah.

[Matt Farah]

Look, I, I don't look. I really like this dude. Well, the front, everything from the a pillar forward from the side profile looks like an Aston vantage, doesn't it?

[Zach]

From here to here?

[Matt Farah]

Yeah, kind of a little bit.

[Zach]

And then the headlights look a little Mustangy maybe, but. Yeah, but the M4 when the profile, it has looked like Mustang for a while.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah.

[Zach]

Trips me out when I see them.

[Matt Farah]

But the side scallops there are vantagey. The rear is where they've done the most. They've really scalloped.

[Zach]

This rear end, rear deck lid is big.

[Matt Farah]

Big ducktail.

[Zach]

Big ducktail. But like not a steep ducktail, a long ducktail.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah. I mean, look, I, I like Andy a lot and I wish him success. This is not my favorite design, but it's all, it's based on a car that I don't think is a great looking car stock, so.

[Zach]

I agree. And also Zagato does not do, does not bat a thousand. Like they do so many, so many one off things. And a lot of them are great and some of them, like, well, it's a little bit weird.

[Matt Farah]

They go for it and it doesn't always.

[Zach]

Or their customer tells them to go for it. Who knows?

[Matt Farah]

Yeah, yeah. And he's in a tough spot. I mean, Alpena stands for so many things and when you sell that, it's almost like, you know, Andy Wellman in the book, you know, when they started talking about the behind the scenes of, okay, well, we want you guys to make Top Gear, but you have to like when they had left to go to the Grand Tour and they decide, well, how do we make Top Gear without making Top Gear? And they're in a pretty tough spot, right?

[Zach]

Yeah. With the lawyers. Yeah, yeah.

[Matt Farah]

And those first season of the Grand Tour was like really fucking awkward because,

[Zach]

oh my God, the price of the tent was so funny.

[Matt Farah]

And so, you know, Andy's got to make Alpena without making Alpena. The problem is Alpena's sick. Like, their styling is always just. They do bat a thousand. Pretty much.

[Zach]

Yeah. It's. It's very restrained. Very subtle improvements on BMW.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah.

[Zach]

And with this, you know, he can't do that. So I get it. Swing more for the fences because you've been so constrained for a while. Yeah.

[Matt Farah]

Jeep of Theseus says, what are some personal car buying rules that you give yourself? And have you ever broken any? No. Florida titles.

[Zach]

Yep.

[Matt Farah]

That's personal rule for me.

[Zach]

It's hard to know that they. It's hard to detect if they were flooded it until they arrive.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah. I will never buy a car from far away without a proper ppi, ever. Don't. Don't care what I have to do to get it.

[Zach]

I would probably never buy a car from an area where they salt the roads, you know, look, if you can get an undercarriage shot, you'll know why.

[Matt Farah]

By the way, did I. I told you we got. I got the PPI back on that red car from Indiana. I'm passing on it so I can talk about it now. Graham Rahal has a red 1997 Saleen S351R Speedster that I saw there and it was like stuck in the back behind a bunch of Carrera GTs and nobody was looking at it. And I was like, yo, what's up with this? But it was on original tires and I was just like, I need a PPI for sure. Because who the fuck knows, you might turn the key on this thing and just pisses oil everywhere. So they did one and actually bless shout out to Graham and Davis and their team. I offered to pay for the ppi, but they didn't charge me. And actually, other than the tires and a bit of a weepy valve cover gasket, not bad. It was fine. But the guy wanted a lot of money. They had it on consignment and I with the. If we didn't have the Countach and we weren't doing the Mercedes a thousand percent, I would have bought the car. But with two other. It would just be extremely irresponsible. I think they're gonna run it on bat, but it's a very rare car. They want a lot of money for it. But it's very rare and had 5,600 miles on it. So it's a. If they present it well, it'll probably, they'll probably get the money they want for it. But I had been looking for one

[Zach]

and

[Matt Farah]

I did not want to spend the amount that they wanted on this one. But it's, you know, it's a very rare car. So anyway, that's, that's, that's a rule. I hadn't one more rule. PPIs don't buy a salvage title unless

[Zach]

it's a race car.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah, I mean, that's just a. That doesn't. That's not a personal rule.

[Zach]

Rule.

[Matt Farah]

Oh. Never, never go into debt for a fun car.

[Zach]

Yeah, there's a person for a project

[Matt Farah]

car or project car or a recreational car or a toy. A car. I mean, if you want to lease or take out a loan for your daily, cool. But like, and I'm not, I'm not your accountant. You guys out there, you mind your own finances. I would never, ever go into debt for a fun car. And someone out there is going to be like, you're leaving money on the table. People you could afford to do a loan and your money could make more money somewhere else. Like really rich people would do that. Probably.

[Zach]

Yeah.

[Matt Farah]

But yeah, I don't, I don't want to make payments on the car.

[Zach]

Yeah, some, you know, some people, they're like, I'm making 10 here. I'll pay 4% here. You like? All right. If you're smart enough to know that, then you're fine. Yeah, But a lot of, A lot of people.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah.

[Zach]

In the world. I mean, that's a lot of, you know, advertising. Rolling over, like, rolling over your negative equity into a. A more expensive loan. Dude, there's so many videos online of people are just not taught the financial literacy and they take their $60,000 truck note and they want. Sometimes they want a truck that's two years newer, it's not even that different. And they want. And it's 20 grand more. And now you're underwater already when you get this brand new vehicle. Dude, it's so bad.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah. Run GMC driving cross country in about a week. Recommendations for other interesting quirky non car podcasts. Already got the dollop in behind the bastards. I also have my list of sports podcasts.

[Zach]

I just started listening to a new show called your undivided attention, which is by a guy that used to work at Apple, and it's basically talking about the attention economy. And the first two episodes he interviews this woman who wrote a book about gambling in Vegas and how slot machines were designed using human behavior and how the rugs are designed. And. And it totally applies to swiping, scrolling, all that shit. So that was really. That's an interesting new one.

[Matt Farah]

Oh, I gotta check that one out. That's a good one. What is the one? Fuck, it's like a business one and I'm blanking on it. It's about like how big businesses are built. I can't remember it, but there was like a three parter on how Rolex was built that I thought was very interesting. It's fucking driving me nuts now.

[Zach]

Oh, Scotto's podcast is fun and it's three hours long. So if you're road tripping across the country.

[Matt Farah]

I listen to Scott Galloway once in a while, if it's a topic, I think. And I also listen to the Garbage Day podcast once in a while. Garbage Day is a tech criticism newsletter that is like amazing and everybody should get.

[Zach]

Oh, search engine. I love that one. They do a lot of how does this little corner of the Internet work? And they do such a good job exploring things. The guys that run it were basically trained by Ira Glass. So similar reporting style.

[Matt Farah]

Poop to sample. With the 911 GT4 being announced, do you see this as an indicator that Porsche has no intention of another Cayman chassis, GT4 anytime soon? I think Porsche would rather race 911s. I think 911s make better race cars than Caymans. Do I happen to, you know a Cayman? There's an argument for a Cayman as a canyon car or road car, certainly. And as a quote, entry level product for them, it's a fucking amazing product. But they're not making an ice Cayman right now and they gotta enter something in GT4 next year. So they didn't really have much of a choice but to do a GT4 version of 911. And I think if you're on a racetrack, the 911 is an objectively better chassis anyway. Most people who are actually racing those cars would probably rather be racing a 911 GT4, given the choice. The question is, will it be the GT3 motor or will it be a turbo motor? Will it be like a Carrera based? Which could be kind of interesting, I don't think. As of today we have. I've read some speculation, but I don't think anyone has said this is the engine. So be interesting. Go buy a C4ZR1. In the spirit of the 4th. Have you ever had a car in a parade? Yeah, I did a parade in the Countach once. I'll never fucking do it again. The car was not happy. The car wasn't happy. It stressed me the fuck out. No, I would do a parade. I would have the Vespa in the parade. Yeah, I would, I'd parade the Manx, I suppose. The Manx. I could just. You could just stick it in first gear and let out the clutch and just. It could idle down the road at parade speed.

[Zach]

That's true.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah. Two more and then we're gonna wrap. High, high sobcidy. That's pretty good. Wait. Oh, sorry. I just had a panic attack that the time was way later than it

[Zach]

is, but it's not.

[Matt Farah]

Hi, Sobciety, coming to see us in Detroit. Thank you. I got a bunch of emails. I'm sorry our venue isn't bigger. We didn't know how many fans we have in Detroit. I got at least 5 or 10 DMs after the event sold out. It's a rather small venue, but I'm sorry if people were not able to get tickets. We'll maybe try and do like a. A meet and greet or something afterwards or a different time in Detroit. We could like hang out or something, but. And next time we come back to Detroit, we'll book a. We'll book a bigger venue.

[Zach]

Yeah, we have to start small because if we overshoot and, you know, don't book it all out, like, that would be lame. It could cost us money. Or it could just be lame and sad and, you know, all that stuff.

[Matt Farah]

So, yeah, you don't want to have a half full, you know, thing. And I, I didn't. I didn't know how much we could sell, so we got one we thought we could sell out. Have either of you ever. Oh, wait, okay. Have either of you ever fallen out of love of cars? And what was it that brought you back? I mean, there's definitely like. Like I say with this job, it's like getting caught by your dad smoking cigarettes and having him going, you know, oh, you like cigarettes? Well, you're gonna sit here and smoke this whole carton where it's just cars and cars and cars and cars and cars, and you just go, I need to talk about something else. Anything else. For a period of time, so it's been vacations or spending time with people that don't talk about cars, reading books about other things, trying to find a week or so where I don't book a press card here and there and I can just not have to worry about. I need to go drive somewhere because of this car.

[Zach]

Funny enough, racing cars helped reinvigorate some of my interest in cars. Because then now when we drive in the canyons, I'm thinking in that mindset, not in terms of how fast I'm going, but just like, the way I talk to the car has kind of been reinvigorated. Taking breaks is important. I mean, this guy says they had a 12 month hell project that made them fall out of love with it and you get a ruckus and it reignited it. Yeah. I mean, if, if you're not Rob Dahm or someone who loves the project more than the driving or the completion of the project, that can be really tough. And so you either have to step away or I think having something that just works that reminds you, you know, what you're interested in and that will probably help motivate you, motivate you to go back to the project is really important.

[Matt Farah]

Last one. They can all be Zach. Questions. If I lock the door.

[Zach]

Good name.

[Matt Farah]

When talking mods or new car options, how much per pound should you pay for weight savings? Some old car and driver article says that the 2025 GT3, I assume this was a leaked bow, was $37,000 to save 48 pounds.

[Zach]

Yeah.

[Matt Farah]

Which I assume few will notice.

[Zach]

Yeah.

[Matt Farah]

So how much should you pay? Not that much. Not as much as that says.

[Zach]

That's. I, I think, I, I think if you're modifying your car, then you can focus on like the simple things. The wheels, the brakes, maybe the hood

[Matt Farah]

if you really want to go hard.

[Zach]

The thing with that OEM is the challenge they have with Porsche is like they've already lightened that stuff a lot of times. So the extra, extra light version, they're shaving mirrors or something like that, like they're reducing the paint thickness, but that's because they already have the mag wheels and the light seats and all that. So for you it's easier. It's easier when you're modifying a car than if you're like designing one from the dealership, I think.

[Matt Farah]

Sure. Also, you should consider your own weight. I'm just saying if it's going to cost you 15,000 bucks to cut 25 pounds out of your car, do you weigh 25 extra?

[Zach]

Imagine paying yourself 15 grand to lose 25 pounds. Especially if you get, you get a

[Matt Farah]

trainer and a nutritionist. Dude.

[Zach]

That's the best investment, right? Yeah.

[Matt Farah]

Having. Having said all that money in, money out, that lightweight pack on the Porsche is not going to cost you $37,000. It's going to cost you $37,000 in. If you don't get at least half of that back that, that package back. I bet in the short term you get 100% of that money back and then some.

[Zach]

In the short term, sure. In the short term, flipped it within like a year.

[Matt Farah]

Because you're, because if you, yeah. If you get the GT3 touring lightweight, that Will be a valuable option package and you will get your money back. So you haven't really spent it. That's how fucking rich people think. So different kind of thing, you know, it's, it's. If they're charging you that and then the car depreciates like a normal car.

[Zach]

Right.

[Matt Farah]

Don't get any of it. Get a trainer and a nutritionist.

[Zach]

Yes.

[Matt Farah]

You know, or maybe a lithium battery. Maybe a lightweight set of HRE wheels.

[Zach]

Well, it's like when we had the M2Cs, you know, it was, wasn't it like 40 something pounds lighter? Yeah, but it was from a lot of different places. But you could get close to that in the aftermarket and, and will you get that money back on the resale of that car?

[Matt Farah]

It's hard because at the oem, they're taking weight from places that it's virtually impossible to take the weight out of

[Zach]

yourself sometimes like the roof or something or. Dude.

[Matt Farah]

I mean, again, not a drive impression. But one of the things about the Ferrari 849, it has larger turbos than the SF90. Those weigh more to offset that weight. They, they, they shaved weight off like the crankshaft and the camshafts and like the water pump housing. Like that you're not in the aftermarket is not happening. You're not doing that yourself. That's not how you shave weight in your own car by doing like a different crankshaft. So it's, it's not exactly apples to apples.

[Zach]

Yeah.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah. Well, I made it through that show. How long was that?

[Zach]

We're 145.

[Matt Farah]

Oh, okay, good. If that, that felt like your brain's working. My brain works. All right, good. I'll make it. I'll make it till 2 or 3

[Zach]

o' clock because it's still daytime in Tenerife.

[Matt Farah]

I never. I'm a master of the inbound, outbound time change. If, if the flight home was smooth and not stressful, I would have been a little. A little different. But the questions we will save for the rest. That's where the brain stopped working right there. We will save your questions for the next show, but thank you to our patrons for asking such good ones today. We don't have a release date quite yet for the Blazer, but it's gonna be in the next two or three weeks. Zach and I have to do a fucking fashion shoot first.

[Zach]

Yep.

[Matt Farah]

But they're gonna. These are gonna be affordable, by the way.

[Zach]

Oh, yeah. Our target price was. Yeah.

[Matt Farah]

Our target price for this is not the price of a custom made suit. Our target price of this is the price of a mallblazer. But getting something much more interesting and special than a mall, that's sort of how we like to do things around here. Thanks, everybody. Appreciate you. See you next time. Bye.