Brett Berk

Summary

The Smoking Tire Podcast – Brett Berk Episode Date: April 2, 2026

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Episode Overview

In this engaging episode of The Smoking Tire Podcast, hosts Matt Farah and Zack Klapman are joined in-studio by seasoned automotive journalist Brett Berk. Writing for outlets like Vanity Fair, Esquire, and Showboats International, Brett brings a distinct, luxury-tinted perspective to car culture and the wider automotive world. The conversation covers his epic six-week car press tour, the shifting landscape of the high-end car industry, the peculiarities of automotive luxury, the impact of income inequality, and more. Expect sharp insight, sharp wit, and plenty of memorable anecdotes.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Realities of an Automotive Journalist’s Schedule

• Busy Season Frustration: Matt laments how the influx of new car launches prevents him from taking autumn vacations, sharing, “I have to leave the months open... I did this job for like 18 years before I was like, hey, it’s really fucking busy.” (01:30)
• Brett’s Approach: Brett is less rigid, lining up extended multi-car tests in one locale: “I’m out here for like six weeks right now. This is the end of my time here.” (03:13)

2. Brett’s Epic Six-Car Press Fleet Run

• His Lineup: Mercedes E53 AMG Wagon, McLaren Arturo Spider, Lamborghini Temerario, Audi RS3, BMW M2, Bentley Continental GT Convertible, and previously the Rolls Royce Spectre Black Badge.
  • “That’s a pretty good lineup.” – Brett (06:03)
• Individual Car Impressions:
  • E53 Wagon: “Great all-arounder... I miss the V8, you know.” – Brett (06:17)
  • Lamborghini Temerario: “It goes. Looks great. It revs so high... Super fun to drive up on Angeles Crest... It’s a hero-maker car—a medium-grade driver can go real fucking fast in that thing.” – Brett/Matt (07:21)
  • McLaren 12C (Dodeci Cylindri): “The proportions... are crazy. It feels much...does not feel small in the Trader Joe’s parking lot, for sure.” – Brett (09:57)
  • Bentley GT Convertible Azure: “It looks like it’s black, but it’s a real dark, dark metallic green...cream colored interior... It’s got piano cream instead of piano black.” – Brett (27:34)
  • Rolls-Royce Spectre: “Driving the Spectre is like driving a two-door Yukon... the last day I was coming home from something late at night... I was like, yeah, it’s a pretty baller car for this.” – Matt (19:09, 20:17)
• Spectre’s Transformation: Electric Rolls Royce makes sense but is an “incremental change in refinement.” Matt’s affection clicked only at the end of his test.

3. Modern Social Media Cynicism

• Going Off-Grid: Brett shares, “I’ve gotten off entirely from social media... It’s great. I live my life entirely incognito.” (04:43)
• Productivity Boost: “I finish up my work sooner and can do other things.” (04:55)

4. The Luxury Arms Race & Income Inequality

• Luxury Focused Car Industry: Matt critiques how brand strategies now cater to billionaires and the ultra rich, moving away from attainable models:
  • “For 1500 families globally, there are more choices in seven figure vehicles right now than there are five figure enthusiast cars. Like, what the fuck is that about?” (24:02)
  • “It’s not just Rolls Royce... it’s happening at Aston Martin, Ferrari, Lamborghini.” (21:12)
• Profit Margins > Broader Market:
  • “Profit on that segment is like 50 to 80%... why would they do anything else?” – Brett (23:29)

5. Neighborhood Reality of Driving Supercars

• Curious Neighbors: Brett parks test cars at his Airbnb in LA:
  • “The boys have been looking up and down the street... to see if you’re coming because they know you come during cookie season.” (29:32)
  • On driving high-end cars in LA: “A middle-aged Jewish guy driving a fancy car in Los Angeles isn’t that weird.” (31:16)
• Spectre in the Wild: Both Matt and Brett note that the Spectre prompts questions like, “How’d you get that money?” instead of the typical supercar awe. (25:08)
• EV Etiquette: Brett recounts being careful to show he’s plugging in the Spectre at chargers so as not to look like a rich person stealing an EV spot. (26:22)

6. Boat and Yacht Culture Crossover

• Superyacht Car Columns: “I used to write for Showboats International. We did a feature on cars you’d have on your superyacht to drive around the boat.” (32:31)
• Mega-Yacht Madness: The group muses on the absurdities of superyacht life—tender boats, salt rock spa walls, and the surreal scale of maritime luxury. (32:11, 28:38)

7. Fascination with Oddball Experiences & Automotive Nerdery

• Golf Carts and Low Speed Electric Vehicles: Stories about Rolls-Royce golf carts and neighborhood electric vehicle laws in beach cities. (34:05)
• Brett’s Mega-Cruise Ship Adventure: “We came back and people were like, What was it like? And we were like, ‘It was terrible. But we had a great time.’” (37:34)
• Lighthearted, Self-Aware Humor: Matt quips about billionaire-centric luxury: “If you’re rich, you can feel things. The rest of us are the virtual version of feeling things.” (86:16)

8. Listener Q&A Highlights (Timestamps reflect when Q&A section begins)

• Best Used AMG Value Under $40k (41:05):
  • Consensus: C63 with naturally aspirated V8, possibly CLS 63, ML 63, or SL 63 for bargains.
  • “You can get an 07 CLS 63 for 13 grand.” – Zach (42:22)
• Fixing Bad Driving & Old Age Behind the Wheel (43:59):
  • Calls for enhanced driver education, possible retesting at advanced ages, and recognition of social isolation risks when the elderly give up driving.
• Aston Martin’s Place in the Market (46:31):
  • No more ‘entry-level’ Astons coming; focus is shifting further upscale.
• Cameras vs. Lidar in Autonomous Driving (48:45):
  • Tesla’s camera-only approach is cost-driven and risky; Waymo offers more safety layers (multiple sensors, commercial insurance), but both have limitations.
  • Brett: “I don’t dislike Waymos. They do a pretty good job of driving.” (50:30)
• Impact of Automation on Sports Car Demand (53:33):
  • If AI hollows out white-collar jobs, the new and used sports car market would shrink. “Anyone who was like, Oh, I got money...they’re gonna have to let that go.” – Zach (54:34)
• Affordable Car Experiences (60:40):
  • Brett recommends the Lane Motor Museum in Nashville: “Jeff Lane rules. I’ve driven dozens of cars from there.” (60:49)
  • Matt plugs Car Week (Monterey) for accessible car culture: “There’s so much free shit to do and see.” (61:55)
• Touchscreen Vent Controls = Fatal Flaws (69:58):
  • Panelists agree: “Touchscreen vent control. This is not good at all.” – Matt (70:11)
• Fitted Luggage for Luxury Cars (74:06):
  • “I would totally go for the luggage... if there’s any in the car, I usually steal it.” – Brett (74:09)
  • Anecdote about Singer owner commissioning $250k custom luggage.
• Best Chassis Under $100k (76:16):
  • Panel likes the GR86 for its pure feel; C8 Corvette and several others also mentioned.
• Automotive Stunt Spectacles (77:55):
  • Nostalgia for wild “figure eight,” “chain bus,” and “wall of death” racing spectacles.

9. The Upper Crust’s Quest for the Analog

• Analog as New Luxury:
  • “I did a story about this recently...Analog is the new luxury, essentially. That’s what automakers are seeing the demand for.” – Brett (85:38)
  • True tactile engagement is becoming a premium feature—think haptic feedback, real buttons, non-digital controls.

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Memorable Quotes & Moments

• On LA Wealth Signaling:
  • “A middle-aged Jewish guy driving a fancy car in Los Angeles isn’t that weird.” – Brett (31:16)
• On the Spectre’s True Audience:
  • “It’s so incremental in refinement, but the car has to be... you have to yell ‘tacking!’ every time you make a right.” – Matt (19:12)
• Brett on Social Media Exit:
  • “I live my life entirely incognito. No one knows where I am or what I’m doing.” (04:48)
• On Manufacturer Strategy:
  • “For 1500 families globally, there are more choices in seven figure vehicles right now than...for five figure enthusiast cars.” – Matt (24:02)
• On Yacht Culture:
  • “We did some feature...about the kinds of cars you’d have on your super yacht...to drive around the boat.” – Brett (32:31)
• Brett’s Yacht Test Anecdote:
  • “We didn’t talk to anyone else, and I think that was the way to do it.” (38:00)
• On Vehicle Touchscreen Controls:
  • “Touch screen vent control. This is not good at all.” – Matt (70:11)

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Notable Timestamps

• 03:13: Brett reveals his six-week car testing plan.
• 06:08: Deep dive on each car in Brett’s press lineup.
• 19:09: Rolls-Royce Spectre driving impressions.
• 21:05 – 25:00: The luxury market pivot & income inequality rant.
• 29:32: Tales of neighbors and Girl Scout cookies.
• 32:31: Superyacht and car crossover discussion.
• 38:00: The sadness (and fun) of luxury cruises.
• 41:05 - Q&A Segment: Used AMG values, driver training, car market shifts, and fan questions.
• 60:40: Lane Motor Museum and budget car adventures.
• 74:06: Fitted luggage, Singer anecdote.
• 76:16: Best-handling cars under $100k debate.
• 85:38: “Analog is the new luxury” discussion.

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Plugs & Where to Find Brett

• Online Presence

  • Website: brettberk.com
  • Digital portfolio: Brett Burke on Muckrack

• Recent Works: Vanity Fair interview with LeBron James about his custom Maybach, coverage of the new Jaguar EV, and more.

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Tone: Witty, sharp-eyed, and conversational, with frank admissions about automotive excess, market realities, and a love for mechanical and cultural quirkiness.

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This summary captures the major points and takeaways, including listener Q&A, auto industry trends, and the delightful chaos of Brett’s press car marathon. Perfect for anyone who missed the episode but wants the full flavor and key takeaways from an hour-plus of car-centric camaraderie.

Transcript

[Matt Farah]

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[Brett Burke]

I Mean, it just depends, you know. Yeah, I mean, I never really think about things being busy or not busy. Like certain times a year, I guess are busier than others.

[Matt Farah]

But I went a really long time before observing that I shouldn't do. Like, I did this job for like 18 years before I was like, hey,

[Brett Burke]

you know, maybe I never bothered to think about.

[Matt Farah]

It's really fucking busy. I get a little crazy if we start right.

[Brett Burke]

Start taking vacations. Yeah. That makes. I haven't really put it together. Maybe I. Yeah. Maybe I should track these things more carefully.

[Matt Farah]

No, but you do the thing, don't. You do the thing where you go. You plan for like being somewhere for three months and just line up all the press cars there.

[Brett Burke]

Yeah, I'm out here for like six weeks right now. This is the end of my time here.

[Matt Farah]

So give me your six car lineup.

[Brett Burke]

Okay. This year.

[Matt Farah]

It's always good because you write about. You write for rich people.

[Brett Burke]

Week one was Mercedes E53AMG wagon.

[Matt Farah]

Oh, that's probably lovely.

[Brett Burke]

It was really, really nice.

[Matt Farah]

The 53 is a real sweetheart, isn't it? Sound like.

[Brett Burke]

Yeah. And like, you know, 40, 50 miles of electric range or something like that. If you want to plug it in. Okay, then. McLaren Arturo Cabrio or whatever.

[Matt Farah]

Spider.

[Brett Burke]

Yeah, Spider.

[Matt Farah]

Lovely.

[Brett Burke]

Lamborghini Temerario.

[Matt Farah]

That's a good time.

[Brett Burke]

Yeah, that was fun. Which, of course, sprung a coolant leak and was smoking the entire way down the Angeles Crest. Everyone was pointing at me like, your car's on fire. I was like, it's, it's a.

[Zach]

We just heard this story.

[Matt Farah]

Was it not fire? Was it steaming?

[Brett Burke]

It was steaming. It was steaming. Steaming. But it looked like it was on fire.

[Matt Farah]

Someone once thought my countach was on fire, but it was steaming.

[Brett Burke]

I'm glad to see things have improved. Rare occasions when it wasn't on fire. Right. 40 years. Yes. There's my ancient steaming. Still, still, still off Instagram since the election.

[Zach]

Oh, got it. Okay.

[Brett Burke]

So, I mean, you know, it's, it's a, it's a placeholder. I'm still, I still exist as a person if someone wants to find me.

[Matt Farah]

Good for you, though. Goodbye.

[Brett Burke]

Yeah, it's been great, actually. Yeah. That's. How come I don't know what anyone's doing.

[Matt Farah]

Do you use any social media?

[Zach]

Great.

[Brett Burke]

Gotten off entirely social media. Yeah, it's kind of exciting.

[Matt Farah]

Fucking fabulous.

[Brett Burke]

Yeah, it's great. I live my life entirely incognito. Like no one knows where I am or what I'm doing.

[Matt Farah]

But do you also have an Attention span.

[Brett Burke]

Yeah, I mean, I'm already quite. I'm already quite efficient and productive because I write for a million outlets and have a lot of work to do all the time. But yeah, now I like finish up. Finish up my work sooner and I can do other things that I'm interested in.

[Matt Farah]

Wait, let's go back. Temerario. Because I'll have no attention span because I still have. I don't have social media on my phone. I do not. I don't have any social media. But I. But I do still exist on Instagram and.

[Brett Burke]

Oh, you have to. Yeah, that's your job.

[Matt Farah]

I don't exist on Twitter anymore.

[Brett Burke]

Oh, yeah, I got rid of that

[Matt Farah]

when Elon bought it. Deleted that and deleted all my tweets. Had all my tweets retroactively deleted.

[Brett Burke]

Yeah, I think I got. There was a period of time when I got kicked off of one of those. For some reason I couldn't log back in. It was like an old email account and I had to start over. And then I was like, fuck this. That doesn't make any sense. But okay, so Temerario, Dodeci, Chalindri, Spider. Then what was after. I think I had Rs3, the new Rs3 and M2.

[Matt Farah]

Oh, wow. Okay.

[Brett Burke]

Right. At the same time.

[Matt Farah]

And now you drove up here in

[Brett Burke]

a Bentley and I had a Spectre before. Spectre Black Badge before. Right.

[Matt Farah]

Boy, have you had a luxurious six weeks.

[Brett Burke]

That's pretty good lineup.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah, that's a rock.

[Brett Burke]

Pretty high quality automotive lineup.

[Zach]

Yeah.

[Brett Burke]

For the whole time.

[Matt Farah]

I mean, these are obviously very different cars, but.

[Brett Burke]

Totally.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah. Give me, Give me one love and one hate for each of those cars.

[Brett Burke]

Mercedes wagon, Mercedes hybrid. Let's see. I mean, it's a great all arounder. Like it can do anything. Right. It's quick, it's luxurious, it's not flashy. I miss the V8, you know.

[Matt Farah]

Sure.

[Brett Burke]

So maybe that's a negative.

[Matt Farah]

Like the four.

[Brett Burke]

Yeah, yeah.

[Matt Farah]

I drove the C53 Cabrio, which is a on the sly, awesome car.

[Brett Burke]

Oh, okay.

[Matt Farah]

Something most people probably wouldn't think about when going, hey, actually, like, what's a pretty awesome car that nobody would think about?

[Brett Burke]

Yeah.

[Matt Farah]

The one I drove was 100,000 bucks loaded.

[Brett Burke]

Yeah.

[Matt Farah]

Every option imaginable. C53 and not a hybrid.

[Brett Burke]

Right.

[Matt Farah]

So it's that slick six. It's on all the time. It's 400 and whatever horsepower. Lovely. Yeah, Very nice. Okay.

[Brett Burke]

Okay.

[Matt Farah]

And what's not good about it?

[Brett Burke]

I kind of missed the sound of the V8.

[Matt Farah]

Sure. Right, okay. Yeah, okay. Yes, of course.

[Brett Burke]

Let's see.

[Matt Farah]

A million times. Okay. New shit.

[Brett Burke]

Temerario. I mean, it goes. Yeah, it looks great. It revs so high. Super fun to drive up on Angeles Crest. And you know me, I'm not very strong driver, but every so often I take a car up there.

[Matt Farah]

It's a hero maker. Yeah, Temerario is a hero maker car. A medium grade driver can go real fucking fast in that thing. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It's really easy. Really easy to go fast.

[Brett Burke]

Exactly. And so that's the kind of car that's good for me.

[Matt Farah]

How nice. How nice is the jump from Huracan to Temerario. Ergonomics, the space, it's like, wow.

[Brett Burke]

So much more room in there.

[Matt Farah]

You can see. It's awesome. Yeah, I could go on a road trip in that.

[Brett Burke]

Yeah, I thought it was very comfortable. And yeah, you could put stuff in it. Of course it, you know, had a little issue with some sort of leak. So that was spraying. Spraying clouds of steam or whatever. Yeah, keeps your food warm. Keeps your food warm.

[Zach]

Exactly.

[Brett Burke]

You know, I put it in EV mode at the end and that's it. That seems to help.

[Matt Farah]

The pasta button. It is a rice cooker, right?

[Brett Burke]

It was. You know, it's a challenge when something goes wrong up there. Angeles Crest, because. Yeah. There's no reception.

[Matt Farah]

No. Now they have. Do you have you fucked with the iPhone? Satellite texting.

[Brett Burke]

Oh, I forgot.

[Matt Farah]

That's what.

[Zach]

That's what.

[Matt Farah]

That changed the game. Yeah. Now you get a flat up there or something. You can text AAA from up there with the iPhone. Satellite.

[Brett Burke]

That's true.

[Matt Farah]

You can see everyone at good vibes walking around like this, trying to find.

[Brett Burke]

Trying to find the one satellite.

[Matt Farah]

Turn the sky or something.

[Brett Burke]

Right?

[Matt Farah]

Yeah, you should try it.

[Brett Burke]

Okay, I'll try that out. Okay, I'll try that out.

[Matt Farah]

I was like regular texting too, you know, not for emergencies.

[Brett Burke]

Oh, okay. Yeah, I'm like, I don't want to use this. No, no, no, I'm going to use it up.

[Matt Farah]

No, for like the first little minute it was for emergencies only and now you can use it all the time. It just like rips through your battery.

[Brett Burke]

So you have to seeking out like Starlink or something like that.

[Matt Farah]

Apparently the difference between I can communicate with towers and I can communicate with satellites is like juice, horsepower.

[Brett Burke]

All right. Takes away all your batteries. Okay, that's good to know.

[Matt Farah]

The 12C, we drove that as well.

[Brett Burke]

Oh, yeah.

[Matt Farah]

Did you love the 12C?

[Brett Burke]

I loved that car. Yeah. I think that was probably my favorite of the whole run. This time, I hadn't driven it in. Where were we? Like Luxembourg or Lichtenstein. On the. On the. On the launch. But it was the regular, the Berlinetta or whatever, as opposed to better as a spider. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I thought it was fantastic. It's so. I mean, it's. You know, it's crazy. The proportions of it are crazy, right? Like, the length of the hood and all that kind of stuff, and then

[Matt Farah]

it's, like, not that big inside, right?

[Zach]

Yeah.

[Brett Burke]

There's not that much room inside of it at all.

[Matt Farah]

There's, like, not much truck.

[Brett Burke]

Truck is small because the top goes to back there or something like that. Right. But, yeah, you know, feels much. No, does not feel small. In the Trader Joe's parking lot, for sure. You're like, well, I'm already at the barricade.

[Matt Farah]

Wow.

[Brett Burke]

I'm way back here. I'm, like, still out in traffic.

[Matt Farah]

You get that carbon splitter and you have a curb stopper. Oh, boy. Yikes.

[Brett Burke]

Yeah. But, you know, on, like, a windy road or whatever. Like, fabulous.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah.

[Brett Burke]

Really a great car.

[Matt Farah]

Although, if I'm honest, I think I like the 812 better.

[Brett Burke]

Oh, really?

[Matt Farah]

I think I just like. Because they drive pretty much the same.

[Brett Burke]

Yeah. I feel like the 12C or Dodeci Chelindri or whatever you want to call it is more my speed for some. The A12 felt too aggressive.

[Matt Farah]

It is.

[Brett Burke]

You know, I'm always looking for a car that I can, like, wear an ascot or imagine myself in an ascot. In a captain's hat, for sure. And I feel like that.

[Matt Farah]

Why didn't you get the Morgan? You should have got the Morgan +4. You could have ascotted the fuck.

[Brett Burke]

I tried to get them to bring me one because wherever it is. Did they keep it in Long beach or that you guys keep it at my place?

[Matt Farah]

Yeah, it's in Gardena.

[Brett Burke]

Yeah. So I was like, it's a schlep, you know, Like, I have to, like, have it. Have a separate car or someone get me. Give me a ride out there. I was like, you guys can bring me one maybe. Like, oh, yeah, we'll look into that. And that was, you know.

[Matt Farah]

That's crazy.

[Brett Burke]

I will.

[Matt Farah]

Should have probably just eaten the bill. It's not that expensive to have us deliver the car. We do it all the time.

[Brett Burke]

Yeah, that's what I figured. I never heard back from. That's all right. It's not your fault.

[Matt Farah]

I was just. You said ascot. When you say ascot, I go to work.

[Brett Burke]

Right, Exactly.

[Matt Farah]

I'm Straight in Morgan.

[Brett Burke]

That is a flat cap, ascot looking kind of thing.

[Matt Farah]

I'm staring at that thing all the time. It's great.

[Brett Burke]

I would like to drive it.

[Matt Farah]

So hopefully now it's a BMW. A little bit, right?

[Brett Burke]

That's right.

[Matt Farah]

A little bit. Yeah. And was the Ford one?

[Brett Burke]

No, I don't think I drove that one.

[Matt Farah]

It was a riot. That was great fun. I had such a great time with it. Zach and his wife went like full costume tweed.

[Zach]

I had the little newsy cap on and the vest and stuff. And she got kind of dressed up like, you know, pin up style with lipstick. And we went for a fun drive. And that's. That car is great for 6/10 and lots of smiles.

[Brett Burke]

Yeah.

[Zach]

And people like seeing it. They wave to you.

[Brett Burke]

Exactly. Yeah. It's like. Yeah, it's like a factory resto mod. Essentially.

[Matt Farah]

People. Well, people have absolutely no clue what year it is.

[Brett Burke]

No.

[Matt Farah]

That could be a 67 or an

[Brett Burke]

87 or someone might say the same thing about the people at Morgan. Right. To their. To their credit, I guess.

[Matt Farah]

Right. I love Morgan.

[Brett Burke]

They're just.

[Matt Farah]

They're the fucking best.

[Brett Burke]

Yeah.

[Matt Farah]

12C was awesome. But the one I drove was the red one. Did you have the red one?

[Brett Burke]

No, I had the like the kind of olive green terracotta interior Johnny had.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah.

[Brett Burke]

Yeah.

[Matt Farah]

Mine started with a six on the sticker and look there. I will pay an enormous premium for a naturally aspirated V12. A really, really big one.

[Brett Burke]

Yeah.

[Matt Farah]

But a front engine Ferrari with a price tag starting with a six. Maybe a little adjustable lumbar.

[Brett Burke]

Yeah.

[Matt Farah]

Can we get a lumbar in this motherfucker for 600 GS and maybe something to.

[Brett Burke]

If you're wearing shorts, protect your knee from those speaker grills, which are like a cheese grater, you know, I was like, I've got little, little skin left on my knee.

[Matt Farah]

Oh, what was it? I had a. It was. It had to have been my Corvette. Guys taking a break. For our friends, Hellofresh supporting us today, nothing hits like home cooking. And hellofresh makes it easy to do more of it this year with recipes that feel good and taste delicious night after night. You know, last night I literally gave my trainer, Sean, my gym trainer, a course in meal prepping, helping him meal prep for his week. But I was also like, hey, you know, you could also just join hellofresh and that way you can have 100 new recipes every week. Cuisines from around the world, meals that help you with extra protein in the gym, super protein recipes each week, including Mediterranean options. There's wholesome ingredients, good sustainably sourced seafood, antibiotic and hormone free chicken. And he was like, that's okay, Matt, that sounds really good. But why don't you just cook this dinner for me and that'll be like meal prep. And that's what I did. But I really did recommend the HelloFresh for them because it is so easy if you love cooking but you don't like the annoying parts of cooking, such as going to the store, figuring out what to make, buying more food than you need and having to waste some of it because you gotta buy a whole thing of spices for like one recipe. Hellofresh is your jam. And now they're throwing in all this good stuff. They've got new grass fed steak ribeyes, they've got seasoned seasonal produce like pears, apples and asparagus. And there's now three times the seafood for no upcharge. But like I said, I love cooking it. The recipe cards are good to keep around if you wanted to make multiples of the original recipe for a crowd. And when I am busy and I don't have time for the shopping or the thinking, but I still want to cook a fresh meal at home. Hellofresh is it? Go to hellofresh.com smokingtire10fm to get 10 free meals plus a free Zwilling knife. $145 value on your third box offer valid while supplies last. Free meals applied as discount on first box. New subscribers only. Varies by plan. One more time. Hellofresh.com smokingtire10fm that's Smoking Tire 10 FM to get 10 free meals. And that's Zwilling knife. Also supported today by Deleteme, making it quick, easy and safe to remove your personal data online. At a time when surveillance and data breaches are common enough to make everyone vulnerable, data brokers are out there making a profit off of your data. The way it works is you buy something and then you have to give them your data to send you the thing, but then they sell your data to the next guy. That's just how the Internet works now. And those guys are called data brokers and they'll sell your data to anyone, right? This can lead to identity theft, phishing attempts, harassment, spam calls, all of that stuff. But now you can protect your privacy with Delete Me, right? All you have to do is sign up for delete me and I'll tell you how at the end. But you give them the information, right? You tell them your address, your phone number, Your email, your job, your brothers, your sister, your cousin, your former roommate, your old addresses, whatever you can think of. And then they go looking for that information on data broker websites. They then come back with you a couple weeks later with a probably scary. It's going to be scary how much of your information you'll find, particularly the first time you run a delete me search. But they'll come back with it and they'll delete a lot of it automatically. They'll click a couple of things here and there, have to do a couple small proactive steps to file these takedown notices and then delete me will keep going. It's not a one time service. They're always looking out for you. They're going to keep going and then a couple weeks later they're going to send you another email and there's going to still be more stuff. It's going to be less than before for and then on and on and on. And eventually that number gets to be really low. But it never gets to zero because we're always shopping and they're always doing this. So deleteme is on the game. So don't worry about it. Take control of your data. Keep your private life private by signing up for Deleteme now at a special discount for our listeners. Get 20% off your delete me plan. When you go to JoinDeleteMe.com Tire and use promo code tire at checkout. The only way to get 20% off is to go to JoinDeleteMe.com Tire and enter code Tire at checkout. That's JoinDeleteMe.com Tire code Tire. And now back to the show. I think it was my C5 Corvette that had speaker grills that were so cheese grater y and I had the car for so long that like. And I obviously would wear shorts over the 18 years. Like a stain from my skin on the metal speaker grill was like the size and angle like of my calf.

[Zach]

Imagine Larry Castilla video, like how to clean skin off a car and the FBI shows up like, all right, okay.

[Brett Burke]

We all knew the speaker grill is

[Matt Farah]

literally like that tool they use when you're getting a pedicure.

[Brett Burke]

It's just that.

[Matt Farah]

But it says bows on it.

[Brett Burke]

Totally true. What was after the. Oh, I had the RS3 and M2.

[Matt Farah]

Those are a good time. Yeah, it probably feels like a real downgrade after the Ferrari.

[Brett Burke]

I mean. Yeah, in some ways, but also like, you know, easy to get around. Exactly. Much easier to trader Joe's for both of them. And then I Had the, The Spectre's

[Matt Farah]

like the opposite of that.

[Brett Burke]

The Spectre is the opposite. I know. It's like driving like a Yukon, like a two door Yukon.

[Matt Farah]

You have to yell tacking every time you make a. Right.

[Brett Burke]

Exactly.

[Matt Farah]

Was it painted an insane color?

[Brett Burke]

It was like a kind of crazy kind of Caribbean blue kind of metallic.

[Matt Farah]

I do like that a lot. Yeah.

[Brett Burke]

Metallic Caribbean blue.

[Matt Farah]

That's a good time. Yeah.

[Brett Burke]

Some black gloss wheels. I was like, these wheels are bat shit. I'm like, no, they actually look like bats flying around trying to take a shit.

[Matt Farah]

I kind of hated the Spectre until the very last day I had it. I didn't hate it. I just. Like a gas. Rolls Royce is so smooth already that as much as an electric Rolls Royce makes obvious sense, it's such an incremental change in refinement. But the car has to be like. Cause we have a. We have two Wraiths that live here.

[Brett Burke]

Yeah.

[Matt Farah]

So you park it next to a Wraith and you go, oh, this Wraith is awfully tidy, isn't it? You know, but then the last day I was going home, coming home from something late at night and I put all the windows down. It was like a warm night coming down the highway from Hollywood.

[Brett Burke]

Yeah.

[Matt Farah]

And I was like blasting something at full fucking volume. And like I had like the shooting star ceiling going and I was like, yeah, like I could, I could. It's a pretty baller card for this.

[Brett Burke]

Yeah, it's a, it's a. I think it's. I mean, I, I love the idea of electric rolls. You know, I just think it makes perfect sense. And I was talking to the, actually to the chair of Rolls this morning because I'm doing a story for the Times about their current product strategy. You know, they're expanding. Expanding Goodwood significantly, but not expanding production. They're just expanding like Bespokery, which is, you know, a device for exp. Extracting maximum profit from their clients.

[Matt Farah]

Maybe by the time this show goes out to the public. I just wrote my column from Road and Track this month about my opinion that income inequality is kind of ruining cars. And it's not ruining cars just because rich people are buying shit. That's a thing. But also it's when automakers realize that like, yo, there's like 1500. There's like 3500 billionaires in the world.

[Brett Burke]

Yeah.

[Matt Farah]

Let's say half of them are quote, car enthusiasts. That's generous. But let's call it half. 1500, 1700 people, 700 families. When you're pivoting an entire business model to service that few people globally with a corporation that size. And it's not like Rolls Royce ever made cars for everybody, but like when your regular customers are like, like not being invested in for these very small. And it's happening at Aston Martin, it's happening at Ferrari and Lamborghini. And Ferrari just bonused out their workers because they made so much profit, but they made it on fewer cars. So when all the companies start to chase this very small number of people that just buy everything, everyone else, even the normally rich, get caught, except for a little bit.

[Brett Burke]

Yeah, no, it's a really interesting point. And it's a money grab, obviously, right? This is where the money is right now. And the horror of it for the foreseeable future.

[Matt Farah]

Imagine Bugatti opens in even more bespoke. It's like this company, they already are. I know. I'm saying imagine, imagine this is what's going on where a fucking, you know, a special version of a Chiron, the tech noire Jack off edition, like isn't enough anymore. You know, you can't have the special version of a car we make 100 a year of. Instead there's this new division and we only make three, right?

[Brett Burke]

Or one.

[Matt Farah]

Or one.

[Brett Burke]

Exactly. And then they're like, yeah. And yeah, I was talking to an analyst for a story about just this. I think it was from Road and Track actually. Maybe it was for Car and Drive. I can't remember.

[Matt Farah]

Was that a numbers issue of Road and Track? We just came out with that sounds number.

[Brett Burke]

I remember it might have been whatever it was.

[Matt Farah]

Go to the new numbers issue of Road and Track on newsstands now.

[Brett Burke]

Go on. But yeah, it was essentially like, you know, profit on that segment is like 50 to 80% or something like that. So it's like, why would they, why would they. They're just, you know, they realized like, oh, we can extract another, you know, 1 to 2 to $300,000 per transaction, per client.

[Matt Farah]

It's like they've started a Patreon.

[Brett Burke]

Right,

[Matt Farah]

I get it. Businesses gonna business, right? Shareholders need maximum value. Like, I get it.

[Brett Burke]

No, I'm not saying it's good.

[Matt Farah]

It's just, it's crazy to me that like for 1500 families globally, there are more choices in seven figure vehicles right now than there are in like five figure enthusiast cars. Like, what the fuck is that about? Like, that's crazy.

[Brett Burke]

It is crazy.

[Matt Farah]

I just want to discourage, you know, it's like, it's like, I get it. But it's also like, sort of morally objectionable to change your business model to that.

[Brett Burke]

Yes, I agree. Yeah. And you know, obviously this is driving up everything, right? Like, there's very few affordable vehicles for people who need cars, and most Americans do. And then don't worry, Bezos will solve it. Oh, yeah, he's got it. I trust that guy.

[Matt Farah]

He's got your best interest.

[Brett Burke]

Yeah, he's always thinking about me. He's always thinking about others. That's what he's so great for.

[Matt Farah]

That's what he does.

[Brett Burke]

Yeah, these guys are all the best.

[Matt Farah]

But like, when I was driving the Spectre, I found unlike any other car, you drive the craziest car you can imagine. People are like, what the fuck is that? How fast does it go? Blah, blah, the Spectre, what do you do for a living? How'd you get that money? That's what everybody was asking me when

[Brett Burke]

I was, wow, that's interesting.

[Matt Farah]

Does that not happen to you guys? Taking a break from the action because support is coming in fast. Like Jim Farley, the CEO of Ford who's now got a podcast and you're always asking me what I'm listening to when not recording this show. And right now it's this, the new season of Drive with Jim Farley. In it, the Ford CEO talks to some of his favorite people about what they're driving and what drives them to succeed. Like Formula one driver Daniel Ricardo. Listen, there's a well worn trope about racing drivers not. Not being interesting to listen to, but if there is one that is interesting to listen to, it is Daniel Ricardo. I think this guy's takes on stuff and life are great. And look, Jim is a racing driver also. I personally raced against him like two months ago. And for me, a CEO that drives race cars on the weekends is about the pinnacle of ceodom when it comes to car companies. So the two of them together obviously have a lot of things to discuss on on Drive with Jim Farley, which you can get on your podcast app. Very easy to find. Drive With Jim Farley. Check it out.

[Brett Burke]

People were asking, is that electric? Like when I'm parked at a charger with it plugged in?

[Zach]

Yes, I understand that question. Because they're like, otherwise, are you just a rich person taking the spot?

[Brett Burke]

Right, Taking a spot, Exactly. I know. That's what I was thinking. I was like, I want to make sure everyone sees me plugging this in.

[Zach]

Yeah, right.

[Matt Farah]

You decide your dash. I'm not a dick bag.

[Brett Burke]

Yeah, exactly. It's not mine.

[Matt Farah]

So funny. Dude. I saw a Guy with a fucking Aventador. A guy parked in Aventador at an Electrify America Charger. The one in Malibu, right behind where the, like the lobster place over there. And I saw a cop yelling at this guy and he was trying to tell a cop, oh, it's a hybrid. And he's like, show me the charging port. Where's the charging port? And the guy like, obviously it didn't have one. So he was like, oh, it's in the trunk. And I just walked by, I yelled, they don't make that in a hybrid. Throw him under the bus, you fucking asshole.

[Brett Burke]

Yeah, exactly. Yeah. And then I just got the. This Bentley Continental GT convertible, Azure.

[Matt Farah]

I went downstairs and like, this is lovely, but it says Azure on it, which is a revival of the name.

[Brett Burke]

It's a package or of some sort, Right.

[Matt Farah]

It's got cool wheels.

[Brett Burke]

Yeah, it's got cool wheels. Cool top. Cool top. Really nice color. It looks like it's black, but it's a real dark, dark metallic green.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah, yeah, it's Hamptonsy. Real Hamptonsy.

[Brett Burke]

Pretty dark green and cream colored interior. It's got piano cream instead of piano black. So you can touch it all you want. It doesn't. You don't see every picture.

[Matt Farah]

Every fingerprint is the piano cream.

[Brett Burke]

Piano cream, right. I don't know if that's what it's called. I have to look on the spec sheet.

[Matt Farah]

My favorite Bentley dash material is the granite. Have you gotten one with granite?

[Brett Burke]

Yeah.

[Matt Farah]

That shit's crazy.

[Brett Burke]

I love the idea of stone in cars.

[Matt Farah]

Oh, my God. Ralph Nader is probably like. Like, what the.

[Brett Burke]

How did they figure this out?

[Matt Farah]

Yeah. What happens if your head impacts the. I don't know. It looks fabulous, though.

[Brett Burke]

Yeah, the stone is. Some of it is. But there was some car where they had it like, backlit. Like it was like really thinly sliced and some sort of stone and it was a backlit. Maybe it was a. Maybe something Rolls.

[Matt Farah]

Oh, that sounds like Rolls Royce. That's crazy. That's like when you. When you go to like a. Like a spa. A spa. And they have like the wall made of like salt rock.

[Brett Burke]

Yeah, exactly. Yeah, there's salt. Yeah, exactly. It goes from within.

[Matt Farah]

Ferretti got a salt rock rock wall in his. In his house. He built us. It's like. That's a thing people do, right?

[Brett Burke]

Yeah, yeah. It's supposed to heal your ions or something.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah. And you can lick it, you know?

[Brett Burke]

Exactly. Yeah.

[Matt Farah]

You need to like, shift a little.

[Brett Burke]

Exactly.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah. So I think that. I think Rob did Get a salt

[Brett Burke]

grind your margarita glass in there. Right?

[Matt Farah]

That would be. Yeah, Amazing, right? I wonder if there's a way to do that.

[Brett Burke]

I don't know. You're probably not supposed to be drinking in the sauna or the steam room, right? It's probably not.

[Matt Farah]

It helps with the Schmitz.

[Brett Burke]

Yeah, it helps with the Schwitz.

[Matt Farah]

So. All right, in this insane, you know, lineup of cars you're driving, are we parking them on the street?

[Brett Burke]

Yeah.

[Matt Farah]

In your Airbnb.

[Brett Burke]

In my Airbnb, yeah. In Silver Lake.

[Matt Farah]

Silver Lake, okay.

[Brett Burke]

And the. So there's, you know, and the neighbors, are they being.

[Matt Farah]

Have they been inquisitive?

[Brett Burke]

The neighbors are somewhat inquisitive. This is our fifth year in the same spot, so they've gotten a little bit accustomed. But there's a family that lives across the street, and the woman, they have, like three kids, maybe two boys and a girl or two girls and a boy, whatever it is. The girls sell Girl Scout cookies, so we always arrive around this time of year. So I ran into the mom and I was getting some Girl Scout cookies from her, and she was like, oh, you guys are here. The boys have been looking up and down the street for the past few weeks to see if you're coming because they know you come during cookie season.

[Matt Farah]

Did you take them for rides? Have we done that?

[Brett Burke]

I've offered, but, you know, I think. Yeah, I know exactly.

[Matt Farah]

This guy's got cookies and a Rolls Royce.

[Zach]

They're like, no, we've gotten in that van before. You're like, no, no, I'm an auto journalist.

[Brett Burke]

Right. Yeah, exactly. But yeah, no, the. And yeah, the neighbors are sort of like. I mean, when I had. I had the M2 and the RS3 at the same time, one of the neighbors was walking by. He was like, are these both yours? And I was like, yeah, you know, this week?

[Matt Farah]

Yeah.

[Brett Burke]

And he's like, well, I had a first gen RS3 and I'm thinking getting a new one. But I'm also cross shopping the M2. Which would you like better? We had like a whole conversation about, you know, that's part of the job, right?

[Matt Farah]

Yeah, yeah, of course. Yeah. You have to be that guy.

[Brett Burke]

Yeah.

[Matt Farah]

Every time I have any new electric vehicle, there's an older woman who lives up the street from me that drives like a real old Model S that she got new.

[Brett Burke]

Yeah.

[Matt Farah]

And so anytime I have anything electric, she like, within 10 minutes of me parking because I have to drive by her house to get to mine.

[Brett Burke]

She sees me.

[Matt Farah]

She must have some Kind of alert set up because she looks.

[Brett Burke]

Her ring camera just got your face loaded into it.

[Matt Farah]

Is that, is that the R1s? Oh, and she got snow. Everything. Yeah, everything about it.

[Brett Burke]

Yeah.

[Matt Farah]

So it's fun. It's funny.

[Brett Burke]

It is funny. Yeah. One of the neighbors asked, he was like, do people look at you funny when you drive around in these cars? I was like a middle aged Jewish guy driving a fancy car in Los Angeles. Isn't that weird? And he was like, what about here in Silver Lake? I was like, yeah, they, you know, they look, they sneer, but I can tell that they love it.

[Matt Farah]

It's funny when you drive cars like that around this town or, or New York or Miami versus, like a lot of other places. You know, it's like the, you know, you drive a Carrera in Ohio and

[Brett Burke]

you are rock star, you know, here

[Matt Farah]

versus, you know, whatever. That was like us. That was like us on the boat and like this boat that we rented, you know, it's like a million dollar boat, right? And like, holy shit, there's a million dollar boat. But there's like 10,000 of them down here. No, this is the Ford Taurus of these system.

[Zach]

Boats that were like 200 foot yards. Yacht with tender boats and all this crazy stuff. It was wild. Same parking lot, right?

[Matt Farah]

Yeah. When you watch a mega yacht roll up and like, you know, open its like thing like the space shuttle and like drop out or you know, like a huge boat.

[Brett Burke]

A boat that's like twice as big as the boat you've been living on.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah, 46 foot, you know, like rib boat that like Navy Seals use and they're using to like go to dinner on shore, basically, is what most of them are doing.

[Brett Burke]

I used to write for this magazine called Showboats International.

[Matt Farah]

Get the fuck out of here. That's living.

[Brett Burke]

I did their car column for years.

[Matt Farah]

You wrote cars for Showboat? I thought you were gonna say you wrote about boats.

[Brett Burke]

No, I've done a little bit of boat riding here and there, but not that much. But yeah, they had. We did some feature one time. It was about like the kinds of cars that you would have on your super yacht. Like to drive around the boat, like

[Matt Farah]

to what, drive a lap of the deck? Yeah, I think you need like a go kart. Yeah, I know Showboats for sure. Showboats is a real airport favorite.

[Brett Burke]

Yeah, I was gonna say it's a real airport reward paradigm for like rich people. It's got. Yeah, it's got like, you know, thousands of pages of like, you know, 8, 9, 10, figure book what size car

[Zach]

would fit on a boat and be able to drive around.

[Brett Burke]

A boat.

[Matt Farah]

You'd need a boat that's.

[Brett Burke]

They had like, you know, people would have like a jolly or an electric jolly or something like that.

[Matt Farah]

Peel P50.

[Brett Burke]

Yeah, exactly. Yeah. A little like electric thing. I can't remember. There was another. There was another vehicle, right? A gem y Jim.

[Matt Farah]

I'd like to have like an Ernest goes to camp three wheeled golf cart from like the late 70s.

[Brett Burke]

I think that would be appropriate with a Rolls Royce grill. You need the tillers of gauze here in the front.

[Matt Farah]

Do you remember the guy from Venice? When I was living in Venice, like my neighbor, he was parties with Nino. There's just this guy. He was about our age. He was a real meathead. He looked good. Big fucking guy, you know, Pointy beard of that ilk.

[Brett Burke]

Yeah.

[Matt Farah]

And he rolled around. He got like a 70s rolls rol Royce golf cart.

[Brett Burke]

Okay.

[Matt Farah]

And upgraded the powertrain to be something a little better. But it was a Golf. It was a full on 70s on the roof. It had tassels the whole way. I mean. And this dude just rolled it around Venice like it was his car.

[Brett Burke]

That was his regular vehicle, no registration.

[Matt Farah]

Parked that wherever he felt like nobody cared. The cops let him do whatever it was like, oh, that's. That's Josh. Yeah, of course, of course. That's Rolls Royce Josh. It's just his Rolls Royce golf cart. Like you put it wherever like that's. He does, right? Yeah, it was great. You see him rolling with like three, four girls on that thing. It was a good time for him.

[Brett Burke]

Yeah, I guess they have those laws now, right, where you can have like one of you can license some of those.

[Matt Farah]

Oh yeah, Neighborhood electric vehicle. Yeah. You can drive them on roads 35 miles an hour and less.

[Brett Burke]

Right.

[Matt Farah]

So like all of Manhattan beach or all of like Santa Monica and shit.

[Brett Burke]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Matt Farah]

That's what the electric Manx is eventually going to be, right.

[Brett Burke]

When and if that comes to fruition. Or is it?

[Matt Farah]

I think it will. I just think it's. It's more like building a car than it is like building a golf cart. Because like despite those laws, they intend to sell them in places that don't have those laws. And you can. It's going to be a thing that can go 80 miles an hour, Right. It's going to be restricted where legally required. But like they're building like mostly a whole car. It's just like hard.

[Brett Burke]

Didn't you buy a Manx?

[Matt Farah]

Yeah, I have the Airplane engine, which is just the greatest thing ever. You should drive it.

[Brett Burke]

Yeah, I would like to.

[Matt Farah]

How long. How much longer are you here?

[Brett Burke]

I leave on next Monday. Monday the 6th.

[Matt Farah]

Oh, you have time?

[Brett Burke]

Yeah.

[Matt Farah]

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. No, you should drive it.

[Brett Burke]

Okay.

[Matt Farah]

It's the. It's the best thing ever. Your audience, your rich people will like it.

[Brett Burke]

Yeah, they like it.

[Matt Farah]

People like it. Yeah, I know. It's amazing. It's amazing. It's. It's by far the coolest thing I've driven in a long time.

[Brett Burke]

Well, that's exciting.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah.

[Brett Burke]

Sometimes we got to make it real weird, right?

[Matt Farah]

You and. I mean, once you've tried everything else, like, what's. What's left? Airplane engine, dude. All right, that makes sense, you know.

[Brett Burke]

Have you had it on the sand and stuff?

[Matt Farah]

No, mine's set up for road driving.

[Brett Burke]

Okay.

[Matt Farah]

Mine's like, they call it the tarmac height. So it's got independent reservoir shocks and all this good stuff, but it's lower and it's on, like regular road tires.

[Brett Burke]

And is that licensed to drive wherever you want or is that one of these, like 35 mile per hour things?

[Matt Farah]

No, it's a regular car. The gasoline powered Manxes are all classic Beetle restomods. So it's a 71 beetle. So no emissions, no anything. It's on a Cali black tag. It's proper. Yeah. Paid taxes on that motherfucker. No shady registration here. No, we're going. It was full California. I got the license plate. Radial. Oh, it's awesome. Yeah, it's really good.

[Brett Burke]

Oh, that was available, I guess. Yeah.

[Matt Farah]

For a plane.

[Brett Burke]

Pay me for a plane license. Right? Yes.

[Matt Farah]

Running around in la and I missed out. Yeah, I know. So anyway, yeah, you must drive it.

[Brett Burke]

Okay.

[Matt Farah]

When you have written about boats, have you done it from experience or have you just seen a spec sheet and a release?

[Brett Burke]

Most of the time it's something like that. And then. And I'm not really a big boat person, I did go on a cruise on the biggest boat. Biggest cruise ship in the world, just for a couple days. Iconic disease, we called it. Right.

[Matt Farah]

Was it the Gary Steingart piece about that? Not to sideswipe you, but it's so fucking funny.

[Brett Burke]

He did a story about that a little while ago.

[Matt Farah]

It was called, like, crying or something.

[Brett Burke]

No, it was quite sad.

[Matt Farah]

It was quite sad.

[Brett Burke]

His experience, I like to say. I brought my partner with me down there and he and I, we were like. We came back and people were like, what was it like? And we were like, it was terrible. But we Had a great time.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. If you're just there to observe the garbage.

[Brett Burke]

Yeah.

[Matt Farah]

Then, I mean, there's joy in that and there's.

[Brett Burke]

Yeah, it's kind of narrow.

[Matt Farah]

Someone there to laugh with you.

[Brett Burke]

Exactly.

[Matt Farah]

That's why Gary was so sad.

[Brett Burke]

Right? Exactly. I know. I had Tyler with me, and we were just like, you know, we started drinking as soon as we got up, and we didn't talk to anyone else, and I think that was the way to do it.

[Matt Farah]

Oh, he tried. Yeah, he tried interacting.

[Brett Burke]

Oh, I'm not there to make friends. I'm not in most places to make friends, but certainly not on a cruise ship.

[Matt Farah]

Well, if you're stuck on one by yourself, you really have no choice but to yourself.

[Brett Burke]

I guess that's true. That's just like a setup for sadness.

[Matt Farah]

Well, our good friend Christian Hand, who is fucking amazing at what he does, does his music breakdowns. He just went on the I love the 80s cruise and the I love the 90s cruise to work, to do shows. And he said, like, the shows were amazing, and a cruise ship full of people who love music is the best possible version of a cruise ship. But he said. He's like. When I was on stage doing the gigs, like, 400 seat room, great audio, engaged audience, loved it. He's like, Then I was on a cruise, right? He's like. And they tried to throw me like a bone. Like, I only had to do a gig every other day. And he's like, can I do seven gigs a day?

[Brett Burke]

I need to stay busy so I'm not standing around here this all day long.

[Matt Farah]

And he showed me his, like, apple health thing and he walked 20,000 steps a day on a boat.

[Brett Burke]

Yeah. The boat I was on was like a quarter mile long or something like that. And 20 stories tall. I mean, it was. There's like 10. You could sleep 10,000 people or something like that.

[Matt Farah]

We saw even small cruise ships on our, like, little boat, and we were just like, oh, God, no.

[Brett Burke]

It's like a skyscraper turned on its side or something. They're gigantic.

[Matt Farah]

I understand why people. But I just can't do it.

[Brett Burke]

No, it's not. It's not really for me. Every time I get on a boat, actually, I feel like I'm someone's captive. And I feel like that's what people who have boats want you to feel like.

[Matt Farah]

Because of the implication.

[Brett Burke]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Matt Farah]

Well, that's why I became the captain. It's implied. If you're on the boat, you work for me.

[Brett Burke]

Yeah, exactly. Is that how you felt, Zach, when you were on the boat with Matt?

[Zach]

I mean, a little bit in a good way. I was like, I don't know how to sail and you know how to sail. So I will learn from you.

[Matt Farah]

There are a couple things that need. That need doing on the bo, but,

[Zach]

you know, it's a team effort.

[Matt Farah]

It's usually like anchoring, mooring, things like that.

[Brett Burke]

Yeah.

[Zach]

Like, you know, plus the implication and,

[Matt Farah]

you know, obviously the implication. He could murder.

[Brett Burke]

He could murder me.

[Zach]

Who would know? Except for the other five people on the boat.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah. And, you know, the drugs.

[Brett Burke]

Oh, yeah, right.

[Matt Farah]

If you keep them. If you keep them down here.

[Brett Burke]

Yeah.

[Matt Farah]

Sorry, that turned dark. Okay, let's go to the people. We've got a lot of questions from the folks over at Patreon and let's see what they have to say. Patreon.com ThesmoKentyrePodcast is where you get er done. You can get the show live, you can get the show early, you can ask questions of the show, you can get the show without ads, you can get extra show and you can support the show that you were already prepared to do all of those other things for. Am I right? Patreon.com the smokingtirepodcast oh, you just made those small. Can you make them big again? No, the other. There we go. Well, not that big. God Damn it.

[Zach]

Okay.

[Matt Farah]

Badppi8 says. Oh, there's a sort of an informal competition for, like, filthy usernames.

[Brett Burke]

Oh, I see. Be prepared.

[Matt Farah]

What AMG do you buy for under 40,000 that makes the right sounds and power first and foremost, but with good styling and decent handling. 07C63, I would say something with that

[Brett Burke]

naturally aspirated V8 in it, right?

[Matt Farah]

Yeah. What's a 63 that most people wouldn't think of that would have good, like.

[Brett Burke]

Yeah.

[Matt Farah]

C63 is the obvious one, right?

[Brett Burke]

Yeah. I mean, they put that motor in pretty much everything. Yeah, they put it in the wagon, right?

[Matt Farah]

Yeah. I mean, duty, decent handling. Like, if you want, you probably get an ML63 for fucking, you know, for nothing. I know. Like, if you, if you're willing to go SUV on this bitch, you can. You can get with a 63 in it. That'll sound the business.

[Zach]

For the upshift. Speed is pretty quick in these things. Downshift, not so much.

[Matt Farah]

But for 40, could you get a CLS? I bet you get like a 2013 CLS 63. Those will have turbos 2P1. Yeah. CLS 63, twin turbos. Rentech tuned that thing to 900 horsepower, right? Yeah, something like that.

[Zach]

I mean you can get an 07 CLS 63 for 13 grand.

[Matt Farah]

Oh yes. All right.

[Brett Burke]

180,000 miles on it. 40K.

[Matt Farah]

You can probably get an S SL 63. Shocking. Like you could probably get like a like an 18 or 17 SL63. Right?

[Brett Burke]

That's probably true.

[Matt Farah]

Do these CLS's are cheap? Cheap, cheap.

[Zach]

Oh my God. That was a few years ago.

[Matt Farah]

But like dude here a 2017 for 45 grand.

[Zach]

That is a lot.

[Matt Farah]

Hell yeah. 577 horsepower, twin turbo, all wheel drive. Let's go.

[Brett Burke]

Don't. That's a.

[Matt Farah]

That sounds like a value proposition.

[Brett Burke]

Seems like it. Yeah. Yeah. It's sometimes surprising how inexpensive 10 year old, 15 year old cars that were crazy six figure cars can be.

[Matt Farah]

I kind of like it.

[Brett Burke]

Yeah, same it make me nervous to own though.

[Matt Farah]

Do you know how many me and my wife like you know like punch buggy? You know the game punch buggy?

[Brett Burke]

Yeah.

[Matt Farah]

My wife and I have a game that we play pretty much just within the confines of our neighborhood that's blown out bags and it's when we see an old Mercedes where the chassis isn't dragging on one side and it's there for, you know, there's like grass growing around it. It's very clearly we'll get around to fixing that soon. Decade, you know and then it just returns to earth. Front wheel drive. NSX says as someone who drives a lot for work, is there a fix to bad drivers beyond experience expansion and promotion of public transit? Of course there are education.

[Brett Burke]

Yeah.

[Matt Farah]

These things work.

[Brett Burke]

Enhanced driver education is probably not a bad idea. We're pretty. Yeah.

[Matt Farah]

Retesting maybe at a certain age. I mean if we're gonna be driving into our later years like I'm not against that shit. Yeah.

[Brett Burke]

I just worked on a big story for the AARP which is one of my regular outlets about trying to figure out, you know what, what to do if you're thinking about getting rid of your car. Like how to be proactive and forward thinking about that and yeah there's a lot of stuff that they strange it was interesting. Like I talked to the head of the New York State office on the aging and their stated strategy is really like we want to keep old people in their cars as long as possible. Like they don't drive that much. They don't drive at night. They're safe. They're the safest category of drivers. Of course if they do have accidents, they die at much higher rates because they're more fragile, but essentially, like, is that.

[Matt Farah]

Are those other bits true? I mean, yeah. Okay. All right.

[Brett Burke]

Yeah. Statistically, yeah, sure.

[Matt Farah]

I don't disagree that if they're physically capable and can see, like, I'm not against it, but, like, retesting is not the worst idea.

[Brett Burke]

Agreed.

[Matt Farah]

And yeah, it's the ones that can't.

[Brett Burke]

Yeah. Like, I drove with my grandmother toward the end of her life. She was still driving up until she was like 98 or 99. And she was like, I don't understand why these people are always honking at me in this roundabout. She was like, drives through and it's like she just cuts off. Yeah, just.

[Matt Farah]

My grandma did get a new car at like, I think 99. Oh, wow. And like, it was like, maybe lease grandma.

[Brett Burke]

Right.

[Matt Farah]

It was not an expensive car, but she had her other. Her car before that was. She had purchased it new. A Cadillac Catera.

[Brett Burke]

The Caddy that zigs.

[Matt Farah]

It did. It zigged. And I was sort of hoping this was maybe 2015. I was hoping to find that she would give it to me and we could turn it into a race like a. Like a lemons car or a champ car or something like that. And I think she ended up just trading it on, like, whatever shitty Corolla she ended up getting, and who even knows what happened to that car. But I was sort of like, grandma, there's a thing called lemons.

[Brett Burke]

Right? Let me teach you about this.

[Matt Farah]

But yeah, she was driving up until, I guess almost 100, but like, you know, a mile. It was much more about I don't want to be trapped here than actually a real needle.

[Brett Burke]

And the studies are showing that the social isolation that comes with not having that independence, or the loss of independence that comes with not having a vehicle is detrimental.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah, for sure. Tim A. Says, is there room in the Aston Martin lineup for an entry level mid engine supercar? Would it outsell the current vantage at the 250 to 350 price bracket funds?

[Brett Burke]

I mean, having talked a lot about. And with executives at Aston Martin, I mean, they kind of tried that with the. With the Vantage, you know, maybe 10 years ago. Right. Like you could get. There was kind of a stripper Vantage GT. Do you remember this? That was like 99K or something like that.

[Matt Farah]

Sure.

[Brett Burke]

And I mean, I think that company has enough trouble staying in business, you know, with large profit margins on more expensive vehicles, which has been their intent to like drive. Drive up the transaction price. So, I mean, from a. Like, would that be great if there was A, you know, entry level quote unquote. Aston Martin. Sure, that might be fun, but like, is it a viable thing for them as a business? I think especially probably not.

[Zach]

I mean, they have the TUB technology now, so it means like. Well, it's possible, but that price point would compete with like fully optioned Vantage or like the Vanquish. Right. Is around 300.

[Matt Farah]

Well, what I've heard is the Vantage is going away or sometime around 2030 and not being replaced.

[Brett Burke]

They're just going further upscale.

[Matt Farah]

Well, I think the thinking was the DB12 is very similar to the Vantage and they could overlap and they want to move that transaction. So by getting rid of the $200,000 car and introducing a $1.2 million car, the Valhalla, that will do it. They also got rid of the base DBX. Now the 707 is the base and they've got the S above that, which you should drive a few hazards.

[Brett Burke]

I have, yeah. I like the DBX a lot.

[Matt Farah]

I love the D. I think it's

[Brett Burke]

a great, great car.

[Zach]

I don't think it wouldn't surprise me at all because they got the McLaren guy there, so he knows how that business works. You go P1, then 720, all the

[Matt Farah]

other ones, I could maybe see a 5 or $600,000 mid engine car that would be around the performance of the Vanquish, but with the engine in the middle. I could see that more than I would. Aston Martin's not making.

[Brett Burke]

No, they're not interested in affordable cars. Yeah, that's a bad move for them.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah, yeah. The Porsche hatchback that I, you know, the platform shared GTI that I want Porsche to build is like never gonna, never gonna happen. You know, Christian says, oh boy, here we go. Is there a big difference between automakers using cameras versus lidar? Why is it just Tesla using cameras? And they get so much praise for Autopilot? Okay, there's a few different things in here, right? It's not camera versus lidar, it's camera versus casual camera and lidar and radar. And so you got Tesla, which is camera only, and you've got pretty much everyone else, which is what they call sensor complete. Right. And why is it just Tesla using cameras? Because it's cheaper. And they get so much praise for Autopilot. I mean, because that's a media problem, frankly. Frankly. Right.

[Brett Burke]

And a Tesla fan person problem.

[Matt Farah]

And also when you have a financial reinforcement from being in a cult and repeating their messaging publicly, there's that too. And look, cameras can work pretty well on the highway in the right conditions. And cameras can work pretty well in the city with good software in the right conditions. But it's like, when they fail, there isn't a backup, and then you have a crash. And when they get confused in something like a Waymo, there are other sensor suites that go, what is that? Do we see it too? And you have a much safer product. Not perfect, but much safer. Have you ridden Waymos much?

[Brett Burke]

I have a few times.

[Matt Farah]

Do you enjoy them?

[Brett Burke]

I don't dislike it. I thought I would dislike it more. I feel like they do a pretty good job. They do a pretty good job of driving.

[Matt Farah]

They drive pretty well.

[Brett Burke]

Yeah, they drive well. I was in one, and it, like, it went through a couple yellow lights. I was like, okay, whammo.

[Matt Farah]

I think the last six months, they've turned up the aggression a little bit. I think they were a little too passive. And they've dialed. They've dialed it up just a little bit.

[Brett Burke]

And I think some of it comes with just, you know, more and more miles and more and more experience. I mean, I'm not, you know, I'm not like a huge fan of the whole thing necessarily from a systemic point of view, but I understand the use case. And, you know, we. We've got to. I guess they're taking this technology out for a spin, right?

[Matt Farah]

Well, look, at least it's a commercial product that's running a commercial insurance policy. At the very fucking least. The very least, there is a company, evil as they may be on Google, that's backing this. It's not. Here's a technology. It's gonna do this thing 99% perfect,

[Brett Burke]

but when it goes wrong, it's on you.

[Matt Farah]

It's whose fucking fault it is. Like, come on. Like, that's crazy shit.

[Brett Burke]

Yeah.

[Matt Farah]

And so. But also, waymos have very fun limitations. They. They'll drop you in weird places. They can't, you know, and it's.

[Brett Burke]

And they could come. Like, I. They. When I first took them, they were only, like, on the surface streets and like in this. In the valley, you know what I mean? The flat parts of the city. Now they're up in the hills and stuff like that. I see them on the highway. Yeah, yeah.

[Matt Farah]

Freeway. They added freeways like, maybe. Maybe six months ago. Yeah, but they grow the map. They can't do the airport pickup. Airport is.

[Brett Burke]

Yeah, airport is a mess.

[Matt Farah]

They'll launch LAX around the same time they launch Riyadh. It's about that level of aggression.

[Brett Burke]

I just worked on a story for Playboy, which apparently still Exists.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah, yeah, Relaunched.

[Brett Burke]

Right, relaunched.

[Matt Farah]

Guy's not still there?

[Brett Burke]

No, he's not.

[Matt Farah]

Okay.

[Brett Burke]

No, he's not.

[Matt Farah]

He was doing it.

[Brett Burke]

Yeah, he didn't. He didn't. That part ended. But we did a story kind of pegged to Waymo's about the history of sex in cars and sort of this idea that you would think that this would be a new sort of golden age for sex in cars because there's no driver and no one to see blacked out windows and stuff. But of course it's Google, so there's tons of surveillance in the vehicles.

[Matt Farah]

So is that more or less titillating than having a human driver?

[Brett Burke]

Yeah, I think for some people. People more and for some people less. Although, you know, Waymo is like, yeah, we, we monitor the footage and like, if people don't, you know, abide our safety and cleanliness standards, not only will they be banned from the app, but we can turn those. If they do anything that's illegal, we'll turn those records over to law enforcement.

[Matt Farah]

So what legal, like, where do we draw the line here?

[Brett Burke]

Yeah, I mean, you sign the, you sign the, the agreement or whatever.

[Matt Farah]

Right.

[Brett Burke]

When you clicked yes on the.

[Matt Farah]

Also if the footage. Really good we shared around the office.

[Brett Burke]

Exactly. Right. Yeah. Pass it. About

[Matt Farah]

Dungeons and Datsun says. I've been listening to several AI experts on the Diary of a CEO podcast. One aspect that most seem to agree on is that middle class and upper middle class white collar jobs are going to be affected first and worst, medical accounting, et cetera. If this is the case, how much of an effect might it have on the sports car market since these would be the ones that typically purchase purchasing the one. All these questions circle back to exactly where we just were. The fucking automakers are targeting billionaires. Cause they see this customer.

[Brett Burke]

Yeah, where it's coming. What's coming. Right.

[Matt Farah]

Not necessarily because they see this specifically coming, but they're just going, we could build 5,000 cars for 200 grand each, or we could build 500 cars for 2 million each and have the same amount of money. And those 500 people would be easier to please than these 5,000 people. And we wouldn't have to do certain regulations and we wouldn't have to do this and we wouldn't have to do this and blah, blah, blah. They're just doing it. Yeah, they don't, they don't need an AI kick.

[Brett Burke]

They're just doing it.

[Zach]

But I think it would. Like I just looked up Porsche last year sold about 20,000 911s and 718s. So sports cars. So you know this. If this happened and got rid of and a lot of white collar people lost their jobs, I think you'd see a huge shrink in the new sports car market. But, but also the used market would fall a lot because anyone who was like, oh, I got money, I can buy a six figure boring ass air cooled car, like they're going to have to let that go.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah, yeah.

[Zach]

I think we'd see a lot of things fall in price.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah. If you thought your Carrera S was an investment, I had bad news for you.

[Brett Burke]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Matt Farah]

That's good, dude. Move your money to Dubai, right? That's like real financial freedom.

[Brett Burke]

Super safe there right now.

[Matt Farah]

Why don't you buy a second home in Dubai? It's like, it's a no brainer. The road is my expense. The cost of my desire. Very good. After 25 years as a preschool director, who throws a more impressive tantrum? I should have read the second half of this before I read the first half. A three year old who missed their nap or a luxury supercar owner who found a scratch on their bespoke leather interior. I'm gonna say a three year old.

[Brett Burke]

Yeah, I'm gonna say a three year old.

[Matt Farah]

I don't think most people are that big of a weenie. Now in my company, we accidentally scratch someone's interior. Yeah, like, you know how it happens,

[Brett Burke]

dude, Rivets on your jeans.

[Matt Farah]

The rivet on your jeans if you don't give that steering wheel or the bolster a little room.

[Brett Burke]

Yeah.

[Matt Farah]

So I had to pay to fix a guy's steering wheel. I mean, I had to pay to fix it. Like he wasn't, you know, super mad. Like that shit happens.

[Zach]

Yeah.

[Matt Farah]

Most people, it's a car.

[Brett Burke]

How do they fix that? Do they, do they smooth it out? Grind it down or something?

[Matt Farah]

I mean, that is the way you would do it if you don't want to literally replace the entire steering wheel. Which fortunately this customer did not ask us to do. So. Yeah, it was all right. Wait, wait. Matt, you influencing son of a bitch. With respects to Mrs. Farah, she's a lovely person. Okay. I had to go out and buy a pen. I didn't need a pen. And my writing looks like Unwiped Asshole. But I got a pilot fountain pen and I don't like the feel version very much. Is there something else I should try before diving first into another useless hobby?

[Brett Burke]

Wait, is this a fountain pen question or is this a failed reference to something else?

[Matt Farah]

I don't know.

[Zach]

Because Matt is really into fountain pens and he has influenced this person, I think, to be into pens. I mean, he bought the pen and doesn't actually like it that much.

[Matt Farah]

If you don't like fountain pens, you don't need to go down the roll of fountain pens.

[Zach]

By the way, you should watch the last two minutes of the Daily show from Monday where John shows footage of Trump discussing fountain pens.

[Matt Farah]

Oh, no. Am I going to throw fountain pens? Is he actually like a savant on fountain pens? That would be a really interesting thing to learn. How to imagine that he's a little. I mean, he's into it.

[Zach]

He's talking about how they write and the cost of them. And of course he's talking about the cost. He talks about the material and how he doesn't want to be holding one that feels like this or that. It's.

[Brett Burke]

Now, I thought he only writes in

[Zach]

cabinet meeting, so he should got back on first.

[Matt Farah]

So it was the rambling of someone who clearly is.

[Brett Burke]

Yeah, it's a madman.

[Matt Farah]

What are your bracelets made of? They're shining such a. Yeah, yeah.

[Brett Burke]

They're springy metal. They're my grandmother's.

[Matt Farah]

No way. These are awesome. These are really great. They're like. They're like slinky bracelets. This is very risky with my Syrian arm hair, though.

[Brett Burke]

Yeah, same.

[Matt Farah]

Oh, it is. Yeah. It's a little pinchy.

[Brett Burke]

He gets a little pinchy.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. But fuck, is that cool.

[Brett Burke]

Thank you.

[Matt Farah]

Those are your grandmas? Yeah, these are my grandma's.

[Brett Burke]

Wow.

[Matt Farah]

Grandma was awesome.

[Brett Burke]

Grandma had some good style.

[Matt Farah]

Grandma was awesome. Oh, man. I gotta give a shout out to my boy Adam. His Grandpa just is 94 years old and just sold Restaurant Depot for $29 billion. He started Restaurant Depot in 1976.

[Zach]

So that friend Adam. Not this Adam.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah, it's that friend. That friend Adam. You know him? I went to high school. A guy I went to high school with, like, just. He's just a dude. Like, he's just a. He's just a dude. But like, you know, his grandpa always was the guy who started Restaurant Depot. But like, he just sold that and like, whoa.

[Brett Burke]

Wow. Whoa. Good for Adam's grandpa fountain pen. I don't know, dude, if you don't

[Matt Farah]

like, a pilot fountain pen is a very cheapy fountain pen. Like you might. If you really care, like, go get yourself a Lamy L a M Y. That's like a $30 fountain pen. And like, that's much nicer than a $5 pilot fountain pen. And if you don't like it.

[Brett Burke]

Then.

[Matt Farah]

Then bail.

[Brett Burke]

Cut the cord and.

[Matt Farah]

Cut the cord and bail. Maybe try a gel writer pen. There's a bunch of dope pens that aren't fountain pens.

[Brett Burke]

Do you have a million pens now?

[Matt Farah]

No.

[Brett Burke]

Okay.

[Matt Farah]

I don't, but I did. I do like fountain pens a little bit because of how little I have to press.

[Brett Burke]

Yeah.

[Matt Farah]

They're so light. And we went to this. I'll show you afterwards. We went. I went. My wife like finds this shit. We went to the California pen show.

[Brett Burke]

Oh, wow.

[Matt Farah]

Which is a thing you should see.

[Brett Burke]

Yeah, I love anything like that. Where people are like obsessive and not like they're not like trying to kill

[Matt Farah]

me or something like that.

[Brett Burke]

That's not what they're obsessed about.

[Matt Farah]

There's a very deep, deep level of nerdery about this kind of stuff, which I love. And I was like, if I see something, maybe I'll get it. So I got one. What most people would call an expensive pen, but it didn't scratch the surface of where you can't go at the California fucking pen or whatever fucking Trump is writing. He's probably writing. He's probably got a Mont Blanc. It's probably not even.

[Brett Burke]

Not even that great of a penny.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah. Matt's. Wait. Holy shit belly. I. Matt's something something. Toe rig. I'm sorry, I can't. Whatever that's supposed to.

[Zach]

It's probably gonna be a military vehicle again.

[Matt Farah]

Okay, fine. Question for all three of you. Best bang. What is a great bang for the buck car related experience you recommend listeners to try to do? Slash. Have. Slash. Slash achieve. That's a good one. Affordable car related experiences.

[Brett Burke]

I often suggest the Lane Motor Museum in Nashville.

[Matt Farah]

Dude, Jeff Lane rules.

[Brett Burke]

He's the best guy, right?

[Matt Farah]

He is the best.

[Brett Burke]

He's the nicest guy. Yes. I've driven like dozens of cars from there.

[Matt Farah]

I drove the. The propeller car.

[Brett Burke]

I drove the propeller car. Yeah. I can't remember what that's called.

[Matt Farah]

It's just an airplane without wings.

[Brett Burke]

Yeah, yeah.

[Matt Farah]

It's just a thing for taxiing.

[Brett Burke]

Yeah.

[Matt Farah]

Sketch.

[Brett Burke]

Yeah. Very sketch. Sketchy, but yeah. So many weird micro cars. So many weird, like French cars. So many weird Italian cars. Like such weird stuff. Nissan has its archive, you know, heritage collection in the basement. Like all the cars run. Like. He has the strangest, you know, strangest taste. Finds the weirdest stuff. Yeah. So I feel like, you know, Nashville is not that far from most places. Easy to get to.

[Matt Farah]

Good drive, good road.

[Brett Burke]

Good roads around there. Exactly.

[Matt Farah]

I mean, driving the Smoky Mountains Tale of the Dragon. There's like, there's a dozen road trips, but, like, I don't think that's what you want. Like, we talk about this every single year, but you can have a full week of excitement at Car Week without spending a dime outside of whatever your hotel accommodations cost. There's so much free shit to do and to see during car. Free or very cheap.

[Brett Burke]

Yeah.

[Matt Farah]

You know, you can get into RM auctions with a $25 spectator ticket. Like, that's what I mean. But.

[Brett Burke]

Yeah. And just standing on the road, you know what I mean?

[Zach]

Like, you'll see downtown, you'll be.

[Brett Burke]

Yeah, you'll be. You'll be sick of seeing.

[Matt Farah]

The world will come to you.

[Zach]

We happened upon Pagani street last year

[Brett Burke]

and was like, what the fuck?

[Matt Farah]

I think this year we're going to do the Woodward Dream Cruise.

[Zach]

Oh, wow.

[Matt Farah]

We haven't done in a while.

[Brett Burke]

I have never gotten. You know, I'm from Detroit originally.

[Matt Farah]

We went like 15 years ago. God, was it fun? Yeah, it was great.

[Brett Burke]

Seems like it would be fun. And I think maybe there's several separate weeks this year or something, right? I think they pushed pebble back or forth one week. I can't remember.

[Matt Farah]

I'll have to double check that schedule.

[Brett Burke]

I should look into that.

[Matt Farah]

But I've been talking to Ford about. I have one idea that is something I've been really wanting to do that they said they might be able to make happen. It's a very personal thing. I don't even wanna say it yet. Okay, I'll tell you. But I also said, like, hey, man, nobody from LA gives a fuck about Car Week. If I came home out there, got a big house, I was like, what do you got, right? I was like, well, you know, go ask Jim what can I drive, right? You know, like, what can I go cruising? And he was like, all right, we'll get back to you. We got something. Yeah.

[Brett Burke]

I mean, they have a heritage collection.

[Matt Farah]

Oh, yeah, they got some dope shit. But, like, there's dudes, like, you never go at Car Week. You never hear the word contraption right. You know, like.

[Brett Burke]

Or hooptie.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah, but like, in one word, it's. It's like, hey, there's a boat driving down the road. Woodward Dream Cruise is like. It's like the purge for non street legal vehicles.

[Brett Burke]

You know what I mean?

[Matt Farah]

It's like, for this weekend, you can

[Brett Burke]

drive whatever you want.

[Matt Farah]

Is street legal. Nobody gives a fuck.

[Brett Burke]

Well, and one of the things about growing up in Michigan in general is the state regulations are so beholden to the auto companies. It's like there's no inspections. You don't need a front license plate. You know, there's no inspection at all. And so you will see like the shittiest cars you have ever seen in the world going down the road.

[Matt Farah]

Things that people build where you're like, I don't know where that started or what this dude was thinking, but like,

[Brett Burke]

it's probably a Pontiac Grand Prix chassis under there.

[Matt Farah]

So I got a secret for you, kid. It's always a Grand Prix under there. That's your tower truck is.

[Brett Burke]

It's like.

[Zach]

It's like the largest, heaviest dump truck in the world. Exactly.

[Brett Burke]

Yeah. Those tires are like three stories.

[Zach]

You need something crazy.

[Matt Farah]

Where do our batteries come from?

[Brett Burke]

These children working in this pit.

[Matt Farah]

Oh, federal investigator. Love it. Did you see this story? The EPA approved 15% ethanol content in gasoline. They want to let people water down the gas.

[Zach]

Well, an important thing to add is that the EPA doesn't usually do. They usually ban this in the summer because of the evaporation due to the higher temperatures and they're making an exception. So that's like the thing in theory

[Matt Farah]

to ease the price of gas. And from what I read, maybe you

[Brett Burke]

don't start senseless wars just saying there

[Matt Farah]

are other things that could do this. But apparently they're going to label it 88 octane. So if you don't want the 50, you shouldn't get the 88 octane if you don't want 50.

[Zach]

Well, because it could depending on your car. Like it could cause problems with your seat wheels or with detonation. It depends. It, you know, could have a lot of effects on your vehicle.

[Brett Burke]

But. Yeah.

[Matt Farah]

So don't try to avoid it. If I would say if you can.

[Zach]

Yeah, I will.

[Matt Farah]

If I can find ethanol free for the older cars, I prefer it.

[Zach]

But also like always, your empty down a lot with higher ethanol. So the price may be lower, but you might actually burn more. Depends on the car you have.

[Matt Farah]

Of course. Yeah. LL Cartier, can you scroll down please? Zach, Does Alpena do anything to improve the reliability or the base vehicles or do they just compound the complexities? I've thought about getting a depreciated sedan as a sometimes daily. But scared of BMWs?

[Brett Burke]

I mean, that's an interesting question. Really. Sure.

[Matt Farah]

Alpena, have you ever been there?

[Brett Burke]

No, I haven't been there, but I've written about them and I have interviewed executives and stuff like that.

[Matt Farah]

Do you mean anti Andy Bovenseepen? He's the man, he's now moved on. He's got his own little thing. Because they were acquired by BMW. I went there though, and Andy toured me around. God, was he the coolest. It was the coolest place. They did a lot more than I thought they did. You know, I thought the engines were just tuned, but they were doing. They were doing pistons, they were doing. They were casting their own air to water intercourse coolers and stuff. They did a lot.

[Brett Burke]

Yeah, they do a lot. I guess it's more about high speed comfort and driving than it is about all out performance.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah. Andy said the cars are designed for people who do 40,000km a year, which is. I get that totally. But they're starting with brand new cars. So what are they going to do? To improve the reliability of the brace vehicles, they put in supporting modifications to handle the horsepower and those types of increases. But like, what else are they gonna do?

[Zach]

I mean, I'd say unless it's in a press release where they go, hey, we identified that this water impeller fan sucks from the factory and we make a different one. That was a big problem with BMWs in the 90s. Just as an example. But I would say unless it's in their press release, they probably just take the engine and they turn the boost and they fiddle with this a little bit and then they dress it up.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah. I mean, our buddy Vinnie bought a 2011 Alpena B7 with like, I don't know, 100,000 miles on it.

[Brett Burke]

Yeah.

[Matt Farah]

How did that go for like 11,000 bucks? And it burned oil.

[Brett Burke]

Yeah.

[Matt Farah]

But aside from burn. And to fix the oil burning problem, he got an estimate that was like $12,000. I mean, it was an engine out. It was a full engine out. And they were like, keep it, put oil in it. They were like. Or check the oil once a week, you know. And it really only burned oil. Like if it was sitting for a long time, it wasn't all the time. And so for like a year he just fucking drove it.

[Brett Burke]

Yeah.

[Matt Farah]

And other than that it was like fine. And so what are you willing to put up with?

[Brett Burke]

Yeah, exactly.

[Zach]

You could get lucky, you could get unlucky. Vinnie got lucky.

[Matt Farah]

He got pretty lucky. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Brett Burke]

I think they're really nice vehicle. I like what they do to their vehicles. Refined and like.

[Matt Farah]

They drive. Yeah, yeah, dude. Andy picked me up at the airport in Munich. And I think it was Munich, that's the nearest airport to there. I think Munich or Stuttgart, but I think it was Munich. And he personally picked me up at the airport and hit 200 miles an hour on the way back to Alpena. And then he. And then, you know, we go. And then he goes, this will be your car for the week. We had just done two. I was like, that'll be fine.

[Brett Burke]

Yeah, that works for me.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah. Kelly Robinson 57o says, what are some cars in y' all experience that are. One fatal flaw from Excellent. For example, the Audi RS5 cut the rev short before the fun started. Oh, I wouldn't have said that 1. The RC F with intrusive nannies. That was the least of the RC F's problems.

[Zach]

LFA with a single clutch.

[Matt Farah]

The LFA's gearbox. Although I'd still take it.

[Brett Burke]

Yeah.

[Zach]

But I'd still be bombed every time.

[Matt Farah]

One fatal flaw. I mean, almost all of these hypercars, the. That use that single clutch, X track gearbox.

[Zach]

Gearbox that's 296 has all the capacitive, hapticy things. But Ferrari said that they will now retrofit.

[Brett Burke]

Yeah. So I was just going to say the Ferrari steering wheel. But yeah, they've. They've got. They've worked that out. It's not in the new.

[Zach]

It's cool. They can update it with buttons.

[Brett Burke]

Exactly. They're like, we're starting with, like the most recent cars and we're going backwards from there or something like that.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah.

[Brett Burke]

I mean, I'm glad that they. That they admitted that that was. That that sucked and that.

[Matt Farah]

That after six years of people bitching, they're like, actually.

[Brett Burke]

Exactly. Okay, you're right. We amortized this. Now we're gonna say we're moving on to something else.

[Zach]

Sure.

[Matt Farah]

It's hard. One fatal flaw from excellence.

[Brett Burke]

I mean, I think there's a lot of vehicles that have, like, this drives me crazy. And I'm sure you guys have talked about this before on the show. The vent control, the ventilation controls in the screen.

[Matt Farah]

Touchscreen vent control. This is not good.

[Brett Burke]

What is that for?

[Matt Farah]

This is not good at all.

[Brett Burke]

That's not good. And then someone was like, I brought this up to a man manufacturer. They're like, why are you adjusting your vents so much? It's like, have you been outside?

[Zach]

I do a lot.

[Brett Burke]

Yeah, exactly. Like, sometimes the sun's shining through and you want the. You know, it's like, why am I. Exactly.

[Matt Farah]

Why are you having a coffee while driving your car, Brett? That's crazy.

[Brett Burke]

It's none of your business. Right. Like, it shouldn't be this hard.

[Matt Farah]

That's unbelievable. I love that. Mark Farrar, the tired smoker says, okay, I heard a high end UK car dealer claim that the only two collector cars where the coupe was worth more than the identical convertible is the SL300, which would be gullwing the 50s one and the SLS gullwing. I do not agree with that assessment at all. I think Most late model 911s, the coupe is going to be worth more than the couple convertible Corvettes. Corvettes, absolutely. On the secondhand market. Yeah. I think in most cases the, the, I mean there could be, I mean, I mean if, maybe if you're talking about like, I don't know, muscle cars and they only made some small number of convertibles with the huge engine pack or something and so rarity comes into play.

[Zach]

I think that's the thing like you have to go with rarity has to be a component. If it's just, you know, equal production numbers. I'm sure the coupes are worth more money just based on the cars we've listed.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah. Oftentimes certainly there's ones where spiders are worth more money as well. Almost anything with a carbon tub, for instance, the spider will always be worth more money. But like most 911s, coupes hold their value better than that.

[Brett Burke]

Makes sense.

[Matt Farah]

Convertibles.

[Brett Burke]

Yeah. All right.

[Matt Farah]

Interesting claim. I wouldn't listen to that UK dealer. She only wanted me for my toy turn in. I've been listening to you guys Talk cars for 10 years now. Thank you. The Valhalla review got me thinking. How long does a car keep your excitement after the first go? What generally happens? Oh, so like I will say that there's a. It's not necessarily like how long, but it's like, did you drive it in context of a group test or by itself?

[Brett Burke]

Yeah.

[Matt Farah]

Press launches are designed to make the car look really good. They've chosen a good road, a complimentary race track.

[Zach]

Other cars aren't there.

[Brett Burke]

Right. There's no one else around. Exactly. You're driving.

[Matt Farah]

Have you ever really changed your mind from an individual drive to a group test you've participated in?

[Brett Burke]

That's a really good question. I'm trying to think of a good example I definitely have where I drove a car at launch or something like that. And I was like, I'm not sure about this thing. And then I had it on my own for a little, little while and I'm trying to remember like a specific example right now where I was just like, I'm just not feeling this car. I'll have to think about it.

[Matt Farah]

I've had a few cars where I thought they were pretty Good by themselves. And then I did a performance car the year test and I was like, oh God. With all this other stuff.

[Brett Burke]

The other way around.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah, no go. And sometimes that was a pretty quick. I drove a car and then a week later did performance car of the year and shit. Can I rewrite my review of this thing beforehand? Fuck.

[Brett Burke]

I know. That's one of the benefits that they have of getting us to write these things quickly after we drive the vehicle.

[Matt Farah]

No, but the context of a group test is like, man, you can't replace that. That's the shit. Wheat City Night court said, if you owned and Brett, if you owned and road trip to Ferrari, Lamborghini or Aston, would you pack your things in the corresponding fitted luggage or is a car logo on your suitcase to. Gosh. Good question.

[Brett Burke]

Yeah, good question. I. I would totally go for the luggage.

[Matt Farah]

I would go for the luggage.

[Brett Burke]

I think it's like it's custom designed to fit in the vehicle. Usually it's pretty nice.

[Matt Farah]

It is, yeah. That shit sells on bring a trailer, like 15 GS.

[Brett Burke]

Exactly. So I'm not opposed to the. I'm not opposed to the luggage if, if there's any in the car. I usually steal it.

[Matt Farah]

If you wanted to really be a boss though. Yeah. You'd take the luggage to your guy, right? And you'd have something stitched over you. So it didn't.

[Brett Burke]

I have my own monogram on there, right? Yeah, the double B. I Dude.

[Matt Farah]

I had a guy. I had a guy chase me the down at a car show and it was hot as hell outside and this dude was wearing a full suit, which I thought was so weird.

[Brett Burke]

Yeah.

[Matt Farah]

And he said, you have to see my new Singer. And you know, okay. He goes, I got, just got it yesterday.

[Brett Burke]

911reimagine.

[Matt Farah]

Yes, 911reimagine as product of the Singer Classic Restorations Division trademark. We are not affiliated with Porsche, et cetera. So. All right. And he drags me and okay, it's, you know, it's a Singer. We've seen them. It's lovely. But then he goes, I had them make this luggage. And he like folds the seats and he actually did have them make this crazy like nine piece set of stuff.

[Brett Burke]

Is it like woven like they did?

[Matt Farah]

Yeah, it was crazy. And I was like, oh my God. And I it love later asked, I saw Maz and I was like, dude, I met the guy with the fitted luggage. He's like, you know, he kind of like rolls his hat, this guy. And I was like, how much was the luggage. He's like 250 luggage for luggage to have one set made from nothing. It's not to design a set. You're gonna sell people to have one set made. Jesus Christ. Wow.

[Brett Burke]

That's crazy. Yeah. I don't think I would like. If it were up to me and I'm buying the luggage, I don't think I'd pay 250k for that extra luggage, but think it cost that much in the. In the.

[Matt Farah]

Something tells me. No, no, no, no. Certainly not. But something tells me singers customers are like they want some other fucking planet. I mean, certainly the guy wearing the suit at the Cars and Coffee.

[Brett Burke]

Yeah.

[Matt Farah]

Was like whatever planet that guy's on. I don't fucking know.

[Brett Burke]

Planet. Attention seeker.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah. I think USS Hunter thighs. It's pretty fun from a chassis perspective. Are the 86 is the best you can get for under 100k but brand new. Before buying a Cayman, I think close to it.

[Brett Burke]

Yeah. That's a really. I had one of those recently and I had driven one on the launch and I'd driven one since then, you know, and it was fun as hell. You know what I mean? It was so much fun. It was just like. I'd forgotten how much fun that that was. I had a manual. Like it was just a such a fun light car. Easy to move maneuver. Yeah.

[Zach]

It on a yacht. Around.

[Brett Burke]

I was driving it on a yacht. Yeah. I was just drifting on a yacht the whole time.

[Matt Farah]

Set a new record for lapping the SS fucker.

[Brett Burke]

The USS enter.

[Matt Farah]

I mean it's a great car, but 100k is a lot of money. Yeah. So it includes shit like the dark horse, the M2, the Nismo Z. Oh yeah. The Supras.

[Brett Burke]

Yeah.

[Matt Farah]

I mean the GR Corolla. I mean, so there's.

[Zach]

I think it. I think he said chassis. I'd still say this is the best. I'd. Cause because I drove the new one at Sonoma versus the GR Corolla and the Supra. Supra is faster, but when you get into this, it's the balance, it's the touch, it's the conversation you have all that.

[Matt Farah]

That makes sense. Yeah, that makes sense. So sure. Okay. Brand new. Yeah. Well, might I just throw in that you can get a Z51.

[Brett Burke]

I was just gonna say a Corvette

[Matt Farah]

for under a hundred thousand bucks. And I don't know, I think there's an argument to be made there.

[Zach]

There is. That would be a good comparison.

[Matt Farah]

We have mid engine V8s. Yeah, that would be a good argument. To be made. So if you actually have the hundo, you know, wider than the NASCAR racing line at Coda says, I got to. I got to see the American motor drone company, and they put on amazing show. What the fuck is that? Oh, do they do. Are they doing, like, barrel riding, like, back in.

[Brett Burke]

In the day?

[Matt Farah]

Really? Oh, fun. What is your favorite kind of stunt driving slash riding? There was a year before the 2018 fire, where in Malibu, the motorcycle riders that were riding the snake got tired of their sport bikes and all bought baggers and started doing stunts up the Snake on baggers, like dragging pegs. Huge sparks and like, big fucking wheelies on these huge baggers. Wow. And honestly, that was a good time. Yeah.

[Zach]

They started doing bagger racing at Laguna City.

[Matt Farah]

Well, king of the baggers is then what kind of came out of that.

[Zach]

Bikes are fast. Like, they put down some serious times.

[Matt Farah]

Has that circled back now? Do those manufacturers now sell fast baggers, like, something for the road that's based on their bagger race bike? This is now. This is the X6M is an outcoming bag for us. Oh, American Motordrome. AM AMDC. Wall of Death.

[Zach]

Yeah.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah. Dude, this is like some old school. Oh, I'd love to see this, you know. Great. Oh, it's got to be such a good time, dude.

[Zach]

No hands.

[Matt Farah]

Good. This is board track. This is. This is like. It's like racing was in Los Angeles in 1915. Right. Like where the Grove is was like a board track. It was in Beverly Hills Speedway.

[Zach]

Oh, cool. They travel with it, set it up. That's not.

[Brett Burke]

There was something I read about. This might have been a car and driver article 10 years ago. I think my friend Jared Gaul wrote it, and it was about this crazy, you know, mayhem race event that they would do, I think somewhere in Michigan or in the Midwest, where they would, like, chain two school buses together.

[Matt Farah]

Oh, yeah. Chain school buses. Yeah.

[Brett Burke]

Yeah. And then, like, Blake put like a. A blank, like, stainless, like, metal plate behind the back wheels of one of them or something. So it was like throwing it out.

[Zach]

Like a skid plate, right?

[Brett Burke]

Yeah, skid plate.

[Matt Farah]

The front one does not have brakes.

[Brett Burke]

Okay.

[Matt Farah]

The back one has brakes.

[Brett Burke]

Okay. It's like throwing nunchucks into a crowd or something like that.

[Matt Farah]

So it's chain four plus figure eight. Yeah.

[Zach]

It's bananas.

[Brett Burke]

That sounded like it would be fun to watch. Oh.

[Matt Farah]

Oh, incredible. It's beyond. It's one of the best spectator sports ever.

[Zach]

I used to do skid plate racing at Irwindale. Yeah, Irwindale Granny shift.

[Matt Farah]

And not Double clutching like you should wait, did you buy a GT3?

[Brett Burke]

Oh, maybe they're thinking of someone else.

[Matt Farah]

Maybe he's thinking of someone else.

[Brett Burke]

Yeah. No, I don't have a GT3.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah. Oh wait. Mark Farrar, the tired smoker says toss in a watch question here. Rec watches, DNA series. Cool or not cool. Can you pull that up? I've not. I don't know this. I know the company. Don't they make companies out of. Excuse me, don't they make watches out of crashed cars? I'm pretty sure they make watches out of crashed cars.

[Brett Burke]

Huh.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah. So this is their thing. They take the metal from crashed cars and then they make a watch out of it. Which like. Okay, like that's a vibe. Yeah. And they're not. The watches themselves aren't super shouty about like what they're made of, which is cool.

[Brett Burke]

Is it just like melted down metal?

[Matt Farah]

I think it is. Or it might be click on like I don't know, the Bullator, one of the other ones that we can.

[Brett Burke]

Little tiny pieces. What's the part that's from the car?

[Matt Farah]

Let's see, where is it?

[Brett Burke]

Can you.

[Matt Farah]

Can you scroll? Can we see what part it's made is made from it?

[Zach]

It's a pre order item.

[Matt Farah]

It's got to be the document, right? Sub. A sub dial crafted from the repurposed brake disc. Okay, so go back up, go back up. Let's see what the sub dial is. Scroll down. Okay, so the top sub dial on this watch is made from a brake disc from this Porsche.

[Zach]

Huh. You can kind of see it.

[Matt Farah]

I mean, look, dude.

[Zach]

But the rest of the watch is made of watch, right?

[Matt Farah]

Correct.

[Brett Burke]

Correct.

[Matt Farah]

So I mean, I haven't heard any horror stories. If the idea of having a small piece of whatever that car is makes you horny, then like go for it. I like that. It's not super shouty. The rest of the watch, it's just a watch. The rest of it. Which I think if you're doing a car watch collab, you really gotta tone the car. The car part down way as far down.

[Brett Burke]

Shouldn't have wheels. Right.

[Matt Farah]

The back of this watch did have a BBS looking kind of wheel. Yeah. But the fronts are, you know, they're not. Not. It's not immediately obvious. So. Okay, cool. They're not really for me, I don't need my car watch collabs to be that tight. But like if you're into it, like. Okay, cool. Right. Doesn't look too bad. It's got a Swiss movement manual winding Flyback chronograph.

[Zach]

Like, okay, yeah, but like, this one is they made this watch from the coolant resourced coolant pipes of a GT40 chassis. P1001. So someone was throwing away the coolant pipes. Someone told someone, this is definitely the coolant pipe. And then they made a watch, which. Not a bad looking watch, but, you know, like, I can't see the coolant pipe in this.

[Matt Farah]

I can't. I can't either. But, like, dude, maybe that's for the best, you know?

[Brett Burke]

Fair enough.

[Matt Farah]

It's. Honestly, it's a Swiss flyback chronograph with an integrated bracelet for 2,500 bucks. That's not ugly.

[Zach]

Yeah.

[Matt Farah]

So points to them. Yeah. Right.

[Zach]

If you're into the story, could be worse.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah, yeah. It's what we call a lecturer's watch, right?

[Brett Burke]

Exactly.

[Matt Farah]

Can I tell you about my watch?

[Brett Burke]

Yeah, please don't.

[Matt Farah]

You'll have to come over and drive the Manx. Yeah, try. It's. It's. It's. I mean, there is no better Hamptons vehicle, so you'll have to do other six weeks on the other side with one of these. Anything you want. Want to plug?

[Brett Burke]

Let's see. Working on a bunch of stuff recently. It's been a lot of fun. I just drove the new Jag.

[Matt Farah]

Oh, the actual new Jag? Yeah.

[Brett Burke]

I mean, still. Still a. Still a, you know, a prototype or whatever, but. So that was kind of exciting.

[Matt Farah]

Just drive like an ev.

[Brett Burke]

No, it actually had, like, a nice feel to it. You know what I mean? Like, it had a different. I don't know what they've done. I don't really understand it, but, like, it had. Has that. I mean, it almost feels like they said this and they had some of these heritage vehicles for us to test out to check out, like, V12 jags of, like, the 70s and 80s. And it has a little bit of that feel to it where it's like, there's always, like, more power. So it's not like you flat out and you're like, you know, you break your neck, but, like, it feels like you can keep going, you know?

[Matt Farah]

Oh, it looks. It looks zebra.

[Brett Burke]

Yeah, it was still zebra.

[Matt Farah]

Is that you or Paul Newman?

[Brett Burke]

That's me.

[Matt Farah]

Is that you? That from that angle, you've got a very Paul Newman vibe happening there.

[Brett Burke]

Yeah, I guess that's a good.

[Matt Farah]

Oh, there we go. Yes, it is. And did it have anything resembling a production interior?

[Brett Burke]

No, it was all covered up in, like, magician's black. You know, felt some elements of it. You could Sort of. See, no hard switches. Okay, no hard switches.

[Matt Farah]

They'll have to change that.

[Brett Burke]

Yeah, exactly. So I'm like, let's hope that the future that Jaguar imagines somehow comes to fruition.

[Matt Farah]

Wouldn't it be a bummer if only billionaires got to have real switches on stuff?

[Brett Burke]

Yeah.

[Matt Farah]

The only way to get a real switch in something was to have a Pagani. Yeah.

[Brett Burke]

Well, I did a story about this recently. It was like analog is the new luxury, essentially. Right. That's talking about. Exactly that. That's where automakers are seeing the demand

[Matt Farah]

sort of the most. First, nobody wants a EV hypercar for obvious reasons. Why would you, when you can get a Tesla or a Lucid that's like, also fast and. Yeah, it's the. Oh, look at that photo. And the. Yeah. Anal analog and. And tactile and.

[Brett Burke]

Exactly. Engagement.

[Matt Farah]

It's record players and Leicas and, you know, pour over coffee and watches and it's the same as all that. If you're rich, you can feel things.

[Brett Burke]

Yeah, exactly. The rest of us are stuck.

[Matt Farah]

The rest of us are the virtual

[Brett Burke]

version of feeling things. Right. Thanks, Brett. Yeah, yeah, sure.

[Matt Farah]

Good to see you.

[Brett Burke]

Good to see you, too.

[Matt Farah]

Where can people find your writing digitally? Just newsletter.

[Brett Burke]

Yeah, just brettburke.com.

[Matt Farah]

that's it. Brettburke.com.

[Brett Burke]

yeah, go to my site and it has everything there hit on.

[Matt Farah]

It should just be the man. The man who abandoned social media successfully.

[Brett Burke]

Exactly. It looks like there's a few things that are missing from here I gotta update. I've gotta update. That's a few. That's from a couple.

[Zach]

That's how I found the other site. But I don't know. Do you not wanna plug that one? The Muckrack one?

[Brett Burke]

Oh, yeah. Muckrack is just like. Yeah, that's true also. Yeah, that works. Also.

[Matt Farah]

Brett Burke on Muckrack.

[Zach]

Everything recent.

[Brett Burke]

There's everything there, right?

[Matt Farah]

Yeah.

[Brett Burke]

Story about colors. That was a fun one.

[Matt Farah]

People do want good colors and you should get them.

[Brett Burke]

Yeah, agreed. There was a fun story we did for. With vanity fair with LeBron James about his new Maybach. That was a couple weeks ago. Yeah. I don't know. It's all over there. Right.

[Matt Farah]

Did you interview LeBron for his Maybach? Yeah. And is there something particularly special about this Maybach?

[Brett Burke]

I mean, you know, it's a highly customized Maybach. He's. They made a second that he's auctioning off for his charity. Cool. Which is pretty nice.

[Matt Farah]

Is this his garage? These photos are in this.

[Brett Burke]

That is a really Good question. I was not in person with him for this story. But, yeah, one hilarious story that he told is that his first supercar, he bought a Gallardo. And he must have been pretty young, right? Because he started playing when he was just a kid professionally. And he said he bought the. And then he realized he didn't know how to drive a manual.

[Matt Farah]

Oh, he bought a stick Gallardo.

[Brett Burke]

Well, good for him, which is great. But then he bought another car, like a cheaper car with a manual to

[Matt Farah]

learn how to drive manuals, and bought a beater.

[Brett Burke]

Yeah, he bought a beater to learn how to drive manual before he drove his Gallardo.

[Matt Farah]

I don't want to blow up his spot in a way, but a vendor that we use here at the shop also works for him.

[Brett Burke]

Okay.

[Matt Farah]

And a couple of cars have just shown up at this vendor shop, and they're like, cool. It's a cool car, but a fairly shit example. And he'll go, oh, well, that's for LeBron. And I'll go, what the fuck? And I'll go, why is he buying a shit example? He could buy the best example. And he's like, you don't really get it. He's so rich, he doesn't even take the time to look for other examples. He just sees some shit. He's like, clicks, clicks by, and then it just shows up here. And I'm told to do, you know, whatever. And he doesn't care what it costs to fix it.

[Brett Burke]

Get it. Right. He found the one, right? Here's the one I bought, right? Yeah, fix it up.

[Matt Farah]

And so I've been like, wow, like, he clearly has good taste. But, like, somebody should be like, hold up.

[Brett Burke]

Yeah, just wait a sec.

[Matt Farah]

Give me, like, three seconds. One of these that isn't a complete shit pile, and we do something here, you know? Very funny. But clearly he has. He has good. Good taste in at least the right direction. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Very cool.

[Brett Burke]

We appreciate that.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah, Very cool.

[Brett Burke]

Thanks for having me out.

[Matt Farah]

Thanks for coming. Happy west coasting.

[Brett Burke]

Thank you.

[Matt Farah]

We'll tell you, we'll top it off with a Manx drive before you go home.

[Brett Burke]

Okay, I'll try to make. I'll try to make that happen.

[Matt Farah]

If not, you'll plan for the next six weeks. Exactly six weeks block. Thank you. Brett Burke. Get [e-mail] we'll see the rest of you guys next week.

[Brett Burke]

Bye.