Brett Berk

Summary

Podcast Summary: The Smoking Tire – Episode Featuring Brett Burke

Release Date: April 15, 2025

In this engaging episode of The Smoking Tire, hosts Matt Farah and Zack Klapman welcome esteemed automotive journalist Brett Burke. With an impressive resume that includes contributions to Road and Track, Car and Driver, Robb Report, Motor Trend, Esquire, The New York Times, and The Washington Post, Brett brings a wealth of knowledge and anecdotes from the world of automotive journalism.

---

1. Introduction to Brett Burke

The episode begins with Matt introducing Brett Burke, highlighting his extensive experience in the automotive industry. Brett shares his enthusiasm for discussing supercars, Rolls Royces, and the latest trends in the automotive world.

Notable Quote:

Brett Burke [01:33]: "I'm a true career automotive journalist who takes his springtimes in Los Angeles and takes the opportunity to visit us and regale us with tales of supercars and Rolls Royces."

---

2. Car Troubles and Experiences

The conversation quickly dives into personal car experiences, focusing on the challenges of modern vehicle technology. Matt recounts issues with his Verde Revuelto, including unexpected malfunctions and the frustration of dealing with complex car systems.

Notable Quotes:

Matt Farah [02:13]: "It caught itself a little bit. You have to, like, wait for it."

Brett Burke [03:49]: "Well, things work. The shifting is not like, chiropractic."

The hosts discuss the reliability of one-touch windows and the transition from older models like the Aventador to more drivable and comfortable cars.

---

3. Highlights of Recent Automotive Test Drives

Brett shares his recent test drives, including the Aston Martin Vantage and Vanquish, emphasizing the distinct personalities these vehicles offer. Matt compares these to the Ferrari 812, highlighting performance and design nuances.

Notable Quotes:

Brett Burke [07:48]: "They've been working on having distinctive personalities to their vehicles, and I felt like this is the most distinctive I've ever detected."

Matt Farah [08:15]: "The DB12 is substantially faster than it looks. That thing fucking hauls ass."

---

4. Automotive Events and Exhibits

The discussion shifts to automotive events, such as the Lamborghini Heritage Drive and events in Charlotte, Texas. Brett details his experiences with various luxury vehicles, including the Continental GT, Flying Spur, and Ineos Grenadier SUV.

Notable Quotes:

Brett Burke [23:38]: "It's fun driving the Continental GT and the Flying Spur. They're so powerful and luxurious."

Matt Farah [26:27]: "This is your new home if you're in Charlotte and you like racing."

---

5. The Impact of Tariffs and Global Supply Chains

Brett and Matt delve into the complexities of tariffs imposed by recent administrations and their effects on the global automotive supply chain. They discuss the uncertainty these tariffs create for manufacturers and consumers alike.

Notable Quotes:

Matt Farah [75:24]: "My hypothesis is it was actually a strong arm mob tactic not to actually go through with the tariffs."

Brett Burke [76:49]: "Automakers are pausing their deliveries, they're pausing manufacturing, and no one really knows what's going to happen."

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6. The Future of Automotive Enthusiasm Among Youth

A significant portion of the conversation addresses the declining interest in driving and automotive enthusiasm among younger generations. Brett attributes this trend to increased digital engagement and the rising costs of vehicle ownership.

Notable Quotes:

Brett Burke [85:46]: "Kids stay in their rooms all the time and their entire life is digital."

Matt Farah [87:11]: "Teens are spending less facetime with friends. Weekly social outings have plummeted."

---

7. Vintage and Classic Cars

Brett shares his passion for vintage vehicles, including the Saab 95 Wagon and the Myers Manx. They discuss restoration projects, the challenges of maintaining classic cars, and the resurgence of interest in these timeless machines.

Notable Quotes:

Brett Burke [47:14]: "We have a 1972 Saab 95 wagon that we're fixing up right now."

Matt Farah [60:00]: "The new Myers Manx with a radial engine is awesome. It's built better and drives great."

---

8. Listener Questions and Final Thoughts

Towards the end, Matt and Brett address listener questions about automotive trends, reliability of specific models like the AMG43 Mercedes, and strategies for aspiring automotive enthusiasts to enter the field.

Notable Quotes:

Matt Farah [84:40]: "The AMG43 was brought down one level because nobody wanted an AMG400."

Brett Burke [93:19]: "Call around to shops in your area and see who's working there. There are programs that can help you find training."

---

Conclusion

The episode wraps up with Brett sharing his current writing projects, including collaborations with Car and Driver and Robb Report. Matt and Brett express their enthusiasm for future episodes and upcoming automotive events.

Notable Quote:

Brett Burke [95:58]: "We have a bunch of cool stuff going on, and I'm excited to share it with our listeners."

---

Key Takeaways:

• Brett Burke's Expertise: Brett's extensive background provides deep insights into luxury and performance vehicles.
• Modern Car Challenges: The hosts highlight the complexities and frustrations of modern automotive technology.
• Influence of Global Policies: Tariffs and supply chain disruptions have significant impacts on the automotive industry.
• Generational Shifts: There's a noticeable decline in automotive enthusiasm among youth, attributed to digital lifestyles and economic factors.
• Passion for Classics: Brett's dedication to vintage cars underscores the enduring love for classic automotive designs.

This episode offers a rich blend of personal anecdotes, expert opinions, and thoughtful discussions, making it a valuable listen for automotive enthusiasts seeking both entertainment and information.

Transcript

[Matt Farah]

What up, everybody? Welcome to the Smoking Tire podcast. I'm gonna keep this one nice and short because you already know about off the record. If you get a ticket for anything big or small, don't plead guilty. Call off the record. They'll set you up with a qualified attorney in the jurisdiction where you got pulled over. They'll fight that ticket for you. And more often than not, they will keep those points off of your record. And if they don't, you don't pay. It's that easy. Go to offtherecord.com TST or use code TST25 to get 10% off all legal services from off the record. Again, that's offtherecord.com TST or code TST25 on the off the record app. All right, in studio with us today is my old pal Brett Burke. Brett is a career automotive journalist who's written for road and track, Car and driver. Rob report, motor trend. He's written for Esquire. He's written for the New York Times. He's written for the Washington Post. He's written for a lot of. A lot, a lot, a lot of places. He's a true career automotive journalist who takes his springtimes in Los Angeles and takes the opportunity to visit us and regale us with tales of supercars and Rolls Royces. We love him. He's in studio. It's Brett Burke on the Smoking Tire podcast. Let's go. All right. We exist on the Internet. We're here. Brett park is here. Hello.

[Brett Burke]

Hi, Matt.

[Matt Farah]

Nice to you. Isn't it fun to say hi after you've been talking to someone for 15 minutes?

[Brett Burke]

Yes, it is. I mean, break the wall. You have to do it for the formality.

[Matt Farah]

Rolling up in a very u car. The verde ver green scandal.

[Brett Burke]

Yeah.

[Matt Farah]

Verde escandalo Scandalous green revuelto. Which is a pretty good time, those cars.

[Brett Burke]

Oh, yeah. I'm having a good time in it.

[Matt Farah]

Does that one work properly?

[Brett Burke]

Yeah. So far the only thing it's saying that it needs like a major service and an oil change or something like that, but I think that's pretty much it.

[Matt Farah]

It's probably done.

[Brett Burke]

It's in the car.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah, that's right. That's fine. That doesn't. Yeah, mine we had. I did a lot of miles. It worked perfect till the very last day.

[Brett Burke]

Oh, and then it had a stranded.

[Matt Farah]

Fucking spun around and turned into a green slime ball real quick.

[Brett Burke]

Oh, wow.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah. I had to pull the emergency door releases to open.

[Brett Burke]

Oh, that's exciting. Never get to do things like that.

[Matt Farah]

Not responsive.

[Brett Burke]

Oh, that didn't work.

[Matt Farah]

Not the emergency ones.

[Brett Burke]

Oh, okay.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Unknown]

I also noticed while editing it that the driver, window, one, touch, up, down. Stopped working.

[Matt Farah]

Remember, driver, window, one touch, up, down. Incredibly intermittent.

[Unknown]

It's a lot of touch, actually.

[Matt Farah]

Dude, I have a lot of problems with one touch. Windows in a variety of cars. Yeah, they bounce.

[Brett Burke]

Yeah.

[Matt Farah]

They hit the revuelto.

[Brett Burke]

I mean, it has to go, like, down a little bit to open.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah.

[Brett Burke]

And it kind of doesn't go down fast enough for opening the door. So it was like. I'm like, oh, I'm gonna break the window.

[Matt Farah]

It catches itself a little bit. You have to, like, wait for it. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Brett Burke]

My boyfriend was like, first of all, it took him a while to figure out how to open it, Even though I instructed him. It's challenging.

[Matt Farah]

It is a weird one. Yeah. Not quite as weird as a McLaren 750 because you have to do the reach around, you know, inside the car. People.

[Brett Burke]

Yeah, they don't understand the car.

[Matt Farah]

They do not get that one. Yeah. But it is. It does take some getting used to. But fucking talk about, like, electrical hiccups aside, talk about, like, most improved car ever, from Aventador to this.

[Brett Burke]

Yeah. I never liked the Aventador. I know. That was, like, an unpopular opinion.

[Matt Farah]

No, I like how it looks. I like how it sounded. And by the time you got to the end, the SVJ and the ultimate, they had kind of figured it out. But holy shit, what a better car this is.

[Brett Burke]

Yeah, no, it's really drivable.

[Matt Farah]

Comfortable and, like, handles.

[Brett Burke]

Well, things work.

[Matt Farah]

All the things.

[Brett Burke]

The shifting is not like, chiropractic.

[Matt Farah]

Dual clutch is so nice. You can have your single clutch. Automated. Thank you very much.

[Brett Burke]

Yeah, what a treat. I did this, like, Lamborghini Heritage Drive, I think it was, a couple years ago, where we drove all the V12s from the beginning, you know, I mean.

[Matt Farah]

That'S a pretty fun day no matter what.

[Brett Burke]

Yeah, yeah, it was really good. But they had mercielago with put the.

[Matt Farah]

Accent in the right place. Ciel. Yeah.

[Brett Burke]

With an early automated transmission. And it was pretty brutal. It was the Versace edition, so that was exciting. Yeah.

[Matt Farah]

Was it the one that had the one white seat and one black seat?

[Brett Burke]

I don't think so.

[Matt Farah]

I knew a guy that had one.

[Brett Burke]

Of them, the Greek key motif all around it. A Medusa's head on the seat, embossed.

[Matt Farah]

There might have been multiple fashion houses. I remember the Versace distinctly. But there was another one where they were Showcasing that they could do it in two different. A two tone interior. Left side, right side.

[Brett Burke]

I mean, it could have been possible. They'll do whatever you want, right?

[Matt Farah]

Maybe it was Versace, I don't know. Is that it? Versace?

[Brett Burke]

The one I had was white. This one's, I think they only made them in white and black.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah. I'm telling you, you could have done the two tone interior.

[Brett Burke]

I believe you.

[Matt Farah]

It was weird.

[Brett Burke]

Fun.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah. Oh yeah. With that, with that like Egyptian. What is that? How would you describe that Frank Lloyd Wright looking pattern?

[Unknown]

That's a maze. It's a maze stitched maze on the center.

[Brett Burke]

You're the Minotaur.

[Matt Farah]

It's actually like kind of a cool pattern. Yeah, yeah. Better than if it was like the Louis. The Louis thing. Oh, man, have you seen how much they're exposing? Like Louis shit is made in China. It's pretty fun actually. It's really a good time.

[Brett Burke]

But then it's finished in Italy or something. Someone sews one assembled, they're like finished in Italy, manufactured in Italy.

[Matt Farah]

Final assembly.

[Brett Burke]

Assembly.

[Matt Farah]

Before you put the price down, your.

[Brett Burke]

Parents have to put it together.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah. Shinola. What's that? How's life?

[Brett Burke]

Life is good. I've been out here on the west coast since the start of March.

[Matt Farah]

Okay.

[Brett Burke]

So the annual winter sojourn, which is, you know, as we say, see, I.

[Matt Farah]

Have to get the fuck out of here.

[Brett Burke]

Yes, exactly.

[Matt Farah]

Ides of March. Yeah, exactly.

[Brett Burke]

So, yeah, it just gets to be too much, the winter. And it's nice to take a break.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah.

[Brett Burke]

And it's great to be out here.

[Matt Farah]

So you've lined up like eight press cars in a row.

[Brett Burke]

Yep.

[Matt Farah]

Okay, so give me, give me the lineup.

[Brett Burke]

Ye try to remember for those who.

[Matt Farah]

Don'T know, Brett's high class, so he doesn't drive no slouches. I'm not expecting to hear the newest Corolla hybrid in this line.

[Brett Burke]

There was not a Corolla hybrid.

[Matt Farah]

What do you got?

[Brett Burke]

Okay, first was Audi RS6 wagon.

[Matt Farah]

Okay.

[Brett Burke]

Whatever.

[Matt Farah]

Was it the new like special one?

[Brett Burke]

Performance or whatever?

[Matt Farah]

Right. The crazy graphics.

[Brett Burke]

Yeah, yeah.

[Matt Farah]

Fun.

[Unknown]

It's fun.

[Brett Burke]

I love a wagon.

[Unknown]

Yeah.

[Brett Burke]

Roma Spider.

[Matt Farah]

I have been bugging them about that. Okay, it's time I write that down.

[Unknown]

I guess it is here on this coast.

[Brett Burke]

Maybe it just arrives.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah, the hole. The hole will let you know when it comes in. Seems to have fallen through the cracks. Okay, what else? That's a pretty good one, right?

[Brett Burke]

Yeah, that was a good one. There was, let's see, Aston Martin vantage.

[Matt Farah]

Okay.

[Brett Burke]

And The Vanquish.

[Matt Farah]

Oh, the Vanquish is here. I guess.

[Brett Burke]

Habibi, I'm in trouble with all that.

[Unknown]

You went on the launch, so they're.

[Matt Farah]

Like, not the Vanquish. I went on DB12.

[Brett Burke]

Right.

[Matt Farah]

I did not go on the Vanquish.

[Brett Burke]

I had those back to back, and I hadn't driven either one.

[Matt Farah]

Really?

[Brett Burke]

Yeah.

[Matt Farah]

Are you. Will you. Are you embargoing yourself? If you give us a quick.

[Brett Burke]

I don't think so.

[Matt Farah]

Okay.

[Brett Burke]

Yeah.

[Matt Farah]

You have driven a DB12?

[Brett Burke]

I have driven a DB12. Okay.

[Matt Farah]

So the vanquish is a step up from DB12. And is it?

[Brett Burke]

Yes, it really is. I feel like, you know, they've been working on this thing for a while of having, like, distinctive personalities to their vehicles, and I felt like this is the most distinctive I've ever detected. And asked in between Vantage and Vanquish. Vanquish is, like, really, like a crusher. Yeah.

[Matt Farah]

I mean, the DB12 is substantially faster than it looks. That thing fucking hauls ass. That is a fast car.

[Brett Burke]

Yeah.

[Matt Farah]

Vantage is, like, actually too much power for its wheelbase, probably, which is a good time. But it's rowdy. Really rowdy.

[Brett Burke]

Yeah.

[Matt Farah]

So this is even. Even up from that.

[Brett Burke]

Yeah. But more gt, you know what I mean? Like, I mean, it's fast, you know, and I think it has a high, higher top speed. Not that we're ever gonna have a chance to experiment with that.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah.

[Brett Burke]

No one's going 218 miles an hour on, so speak for yourself. Sorry. Right.

[Matt Farah]

Someone will. Somebody will.

[Brett Burke]

Somebody will.

[Matt Farah]

Some intrepid YouTuber.

[Brett Burke]

Look, I hit Vmax in the Vanquish.

[Matt Farah]

A dude who is someone who is worth approximately $800 million and then decides they want to be a YouTuber will die attempting that stunt, probably.

[Brett Burke]

It could happen.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah. Okay. But it's good, is what you're saying. Yeah.

[Brett Burke]

I really enjoyed it. I actually really enjoyed it. Really? Really? That was kind of the spec that I had, I think, with the goldish.

[Matt Farah]

Wheels and this sort of. Is it a reflection that we're looking at in this photo of the red one, or is that double scallop in the side of the door actually real? Can I look at a different photo? Are my eyes playing tricks on me?

[Brett Burke]

It looks like a double scalp.

[Unknown]

It's a double scalp, I think.

[Brett Burke]

Is.

[Matt Farah]

It is, right?

[Unknown]

You mean how it kind of bows.

[Matt Farah]

Upward, like, below the door handle? It looks like it bows twice. Yeah. One below, one above the fake vent, but that. Is that just reflection? Okay. They made it so shiny that you actually can't Tell what you're looking at. Let's see what that red is.

[Brett Burke]

Yeah, it was. Yeah. It's a good looking car.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah. And is it. Is it really? It's basically the same wheelbase as DB12. Right? It's not.

[Brett Burke]

I think it's longer.

[Matt Farah]

Is it?

[Brett Burke]

Yeah, I think it's like several inches longer. It's really a big. It's big. It's like really wide and really long.

[Matt Farah]

It looks big on this 90 degree side profile shot. All of a sudden it looks big.

[Brett Burke]

It's a big. It's a. It's a big. It's a big.

[Matt Farah]

Well, the new Bentley GT or bigger than Bentley gt?

[Brett Burke]

That is a really good question. I'm not sure. I don't know exactly.

[Matt Farah]

Back seat usable or not.

[Brett Burke]

I'm not even sure there is one.

[Matt Farah]

Oh, really?

[Brett Burke]

Maybe you could put.

[Unknown]

There is not.

[Matt Farah]

There's not a back seat.

[Unknown]

No.

[Matt Farah]

Damn. So we're going. This is going for Ferrari 812. That's where we're at here.

[Brett Burke]

Yeah. That's what they're trying to do. They're trying to compete with Ferrari.

[Matt Farah]

There were. I was up on the mountain yesterday. I had a little drive in this thing called a theon, which we can talk about later. It's a resto mod 911.

[Brett Burke]

Oh, okay. I thought that was like something from Scientology.

[Unknown]

You have to get rid of them.

[Matt Farah]

We could have a episode on how hard it is to name a car and people who should maybe turn right when they turn left in their naming plans. But. But there was. Point was we were up in there and I saw five Ferrari 812s. Different ones.

[Brett Burke]

Wow.

[Matt Farah]

There was more 812s than I've ever seen in one day. They were all out yesterday.

[Brett Burke]

812 Club.

[Matt Farah]

I don't think so. They all seem to come show up separately.

[Unknown]

That is a fun automob wheel. That's an exciting.

[Matt Farah]

Oh, man. 812s are all right. Yeah.

[Brett Burke]

Except like that car scares me.

[Matt Farah]

They're so fast.

[Brett Burke]

Yes.

[Matt Farah]

So they're so fast. But they're. I'm a little short on leg room and it's a huge car.

[Brett Burke]

Yeah.

[Matt Farah]

To have so little leg room, even though I understand why it has so little legroom.

[Brett Burke]

And did you drive the Dodeci Chilindry?

[Matt Farah]

No, not yet. Is it here?

[Brett Burke]

I don't know. I drove. I drove it in like Luxembourg.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah. I didn't go on the launch. Some punned.

[Brett Burke]

Oh, yeah, I was. Yeah. Yeah.

[Matt Farah]

That would have been the one. That's one where like one of the Ones where I think, because I do this one tire and rodent track.

[Brett Burke]

Yeah.

[Matt Farah]

They send a lot of invites to me knowing I could get a two for one.

[Brett Burke]

Yeah.

[Matt Farah]

And I think at the magazine they got like a little annoyed that I was being invited instead of going through the channels.

[Brett Burke]

And so, I mean, we both run into this problem. I mean, you know, I freelance for 20 places, so the invites all come to me and then it's sort of like, well, who. Who invited you? The manufacturer. This is like, do you guys want the story or someone else?

[Matt Farah]

This happened quite a few times. Yeah. Yeah. No. Oh, yeah. So no. No back seat. There it is. Carbon. Carbon strut. Although doesn't that. It looks like there could be a world in which that's not there.

[Brett Burke]

Scalloped area.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah.

[Brett Burke]

Like that. You could. That sort of.

[Matt Farah]

The Euro spec. It's got a cage in it. Right.

[Brett Burke]

For your dog or your child.

[Matt Farah]

So rowdy.

[Brett Burke]

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, you know, it's a lot of power. Like what is like 900 horsepower or something like that?

[Matt Farah]

Is it 900?

[Brett Burke]

800 and something. You know, and it's just rear wheel drive and so. Yeah, it's. It's a lot of power.

[Matt Farah]

Handful, I bet.

[Brett Burke]

Yeah.

[Matt Farah]

Oh, God.

[Brett Burke]

But it's really pretty.

[Matt Farah]

It does really, really keep scrolling through the galleries. That kind of new interior.

[Unknown]

It's just. I mean, all their cars is such a huge step up from the other ones. It's. It's now justifies the price.

[Matt Farah]

I'm so. I. I think Aston probably more than any other company, though. I'm sad about the digital cluster. They made such a pretty.

[Brett Burke]

Yeah.

[Matt Farah]

And any car they ever made.

[Brett Burke]

Yeah.

[Matt Farah]

The backwards tack. They did some jewelry ass clusters.

[Brett Burke]

Yeah.

[Matt Farah]

And it makes me so sad that that is a thing that's gone.

[Brett Burke]

Yeah.

[Matt Farah]

Maybe it will come back one day. I don't know.

[Unknown]

Is the whole engine set behind.

[Matt Farah]

Behind front axle. Wow.

[Unknown]

No wonder the car is so big.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah. I bet that thing keeps cool. I bet that's got some airflow.

[Brett Burke]

Look at those airboxes.

[Matt Farah]

God, what a nice.

[Brett Burke]

All right.

[Matt Farah]

And how much was that? 4.

[Brett Burke]

I think it starts at 4 something. I think the one night where I was driving was much higher than that.

[Matt Farah]

The back is good. The back they did from that. From that Valor thing. Yeah. Yeah. That looks really nice.

[Brett Burke]

It's pretty good.

[Unknown]

It starts at 4. 27.

[Matt Farah]

I saw. I saw a video of Gordon Ramsay rolling up to one of his England restaurants in his. In his Valor. And that thing looks insane on the street. Like, I saw it at Goodwood and Like, okay. And that it was beautiful and whatever. On a stand surrounded by fucking Fiats and shit. That thing looks nuts. Yeah. It doesn't make any sense, that car. It's so cool.

[Brett Burke]

Really a lot.

[Matt Farah]

Oh, it's gorgeous. Okay, so of that lineup, what excites, excites and or excited you the most?

[Brett Burke]

Well, let me finish up the rest. Yeah. There's still more? No.

[Matt Farah]

Oh, I thought you were done. I'm sorry.

[Brett Burke]

Yeah.

[Matt Farah]

So then we have Revolto.

[Brett Burke]

Right. So, but before that, there was a I drove the ID buzz, which I hadn't driven.

[Matt Farah]

Guys, we got to take a quick break from the show because we are supported today by Kremo. Listen, I have been going to the gym before work and the exercise is great, but managing the sweat and potential odors, it's a challenge. So I am super stoked to have found Kramo. They have the greatest, the greatest deodorant. You deserve freedom from smelling bad. And Kramos deodorant is so delicious. It is designed for a 48 hour odor protection. Now, I don't really recommend 48 hours of not showering, but if you have to, you want to have that Krameau. Everything they make is barber grade and made with pride, professionalism and passion to guarantee you quality without compromise. But what it's really about is the signature scents. And they sent me the two newest ones. There's the Italian bergamot. It's bright and fresh. And then there's the Palo Santo, which is deep, smoky and refined, which is the one that I have been using for the last few days. Man, the Palo Santo is nice. It's smooth, it doesn't leave any residue or whiteness. And I can kind of enjoy a hint of that scent throughout the day. It is, man, they call it multi layered scent technology. Honestly, it just smells really good. It's a quality, professional grade product and I like it. I like applying it and I like smelling it throughout the day. And it does what it's supposed to do, covers up the bad things and leaves good ones. You don't have to deal with colognes or anything like that. It's just a hint. You can head over to target or target.com to find Kremo's new line of deodorants and antiperspirants in the Italian bergamot and Palo Santo scents. You again can get them atTarget or Target.com and thanks to Cremo for sponsoring today's show. Folks, today's show is also supported by Rula. Rula is a New telehealth mental health service. Right. And I have been seeing a therapist, the same therapist actually, for about 16 years. But I've had friends and my wife who have had to find new therapists. And that process on its own can be incredibly stressful, time consuming, deflating and discouraging. Right. So Rula is here. Right. It's a telehealth service. And for the record, I have seen the same, the same therapist for this long, but I see them over facetime. So it's fundamentally telehealth anyway, even though it's just with the same person. And telehealth has solved a lot of things. It's made mental health care more convenient and accessible for millions of people who may not live in urban hubs where lots of services are available. You could be anywhere. However, critical challenges such as finding the right therapist and scheduling appointments, not to mention the cost, still keep a lot of people from getting the care they need. I know it is expensive and scheduling is hard. This type of service is great. Rula is on a mission to make high quality mental health care from a licensed professional easy, affordable and flexible for everyone. They take most major insurance plans. The average copay is only 15 bucks a session, and you can now get the quality care you need when you need it, from anywhere, at a price you can afford. But Rula is not just affordable. They stick with you throughout the journey, making sure you get the best therapy and that you're making progress. Each provider is carefully vetted and chosen for their experience, so you'll always know you're in the hands of a quality provider. Of course, as normal, Rula starts by asking you a few questions about what's important to you and then provides a list of providers who match your preferences. And you can schedule your preferred time, meet with them as soon as the next day. So try it right now, just see how it goes, what could be the worst thing and if. If you've ever thought about going to therapy but you don't know how to start, like how to even find a therapist. This is a great way to dip your toe in the water and just see if the benefits of talk therapy can work for you this way for less money and more convenience. So you can go to rula.com that's r u l a.com tire r u l a.com tire for convenient therapy that's covered by insurance. And thank you to Rula for sponsoring today's episode.

[Brett Burke]

Let me finish up the rest. Yeah. There's still more.

[Matt Farah]

No, I thought you were Done. I'm so sorry. Yeah. So then we have Revuelto.

[Brett Burke]

Right. But before that there was a. I drove the ID Buzz, which I hadn't driven. Right. Put that on your keep.

[Unknown]

Yeah, there's one around the corner from me that's already been crashed or hit. It looks like it got hit. And I feel bad because they waited so long for the car anyway to get a door.

[Brett Burke]

Right.

[Unknown]

Oh, my God.

[Matt Farah]

But like, when that happens, like you. You see a concept car and then you see the car come out and then you first start seeing them on the street and metal. Oh, man. So cool. The first time you see one crashed, it fucking. It gets real, doesn't it?

[Brett Burke]

Like, you're like, okay.

[Matt Farah]

It's like, it's. It's artwork. Until you see one that's been hit and you go, oh, that's actually just a car. You like that shit.

[Brett Burke]

Some cars were driving it and some other schmuck drove into it.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah, some shapes like more so than others, I think. I remember the first time I saw like a Z8 that had been run into and I was like, oh, it's ruined. Like my mental image of it is this perfect thing was ruined. Yeah, okay.

[Brett Burke]

Yeah. I.D. buzz.

[Matt Farah]

Crashed doesn't look so good, right?

[Brett Burke]

Looks bad. Crashed, apparently.

[Unknown]

Looks good, though. It's a good looking van.

[Matt Farah]

But it drives just like a regular ass minivan basically. Right.

[Brett Burke]

I mean, you know, it's quick and it's electric. So it has that going for whatever that is. I mean, out of all this, I haven't even finished the list, but out of everything that I've driven this while I've been here, that is the vehicle that got the most attention for sure. Yeah. People like. And every single kind of person, every single category of person was like, thrilled. Everyone was like, is that the. Is that the new bus?

[Matt Farah]

Yeah.

[Brett Burke]

Is that the electric one? Every single person asked that I saw.

[Matt Farah]

I saw Fred Armisen driving one in. In west la like, like a month ago. And then two days later, he's in the commercial for it. And that's the one he's driving is either like the press car they use for the commercial, or maybe they gave him one for doing the commercial.

[Brett Burke]

Right.

[Matt Farah]

But it like lined up. Like, they look dope on the street, honestly, like, they're cool.

[Brett Burke]

It stands out.

[Matt Farah]

Some of the color combos are really sick.

[Brett Burke]

Yeah, this one was blue and white. It's a little tonka, you know what I mean? But of course, yeah, but. And the interior is kind of cheap, you know, and because it's like this first edition was like 70 something grand.

[Unknown]

It's also bigger than I was expecting in person. I was like, this is quite a big car.

[Matt Farah]

Well, because it's not actually cab over. It's this weird visual illusion that totally works. So we're. From the outside, it looks cab over, but same thing as the. As the Aston and the Ferrari. To set the whole fucking engine behind the thing, you end up with this giant car. Yeah. You can't sell an actual cab over truck to the public. Dude. My wife drives around a delica. There are reasons that you can't sell those anymore. That's mad shady. Your feet are the crumple zone.

[Brett Burke]

Yeah. And I think they have a shorter version in Europe, but we get the longer version here.

[Matt Farah]

You know what I saw? I flew through Charles de Gaulle whatever, a month ago or so. And they had the ID buzz cargos at the airport, which are pretty sick driving around inside. All airport vehicles should be electric. Yeah, yeah, yeah. My friend hydrogen Brian has a whole proposal to make entire airports and shipping ports into hydrogen as well. Because you have enough land to put a hydrogen filling station. So you would never have the problem that like the interstates at. Right. Makes no sense. Well, I've been meaning to add the list. Heidi and Brian on the podcast.

[Brett Burke]

All right, then there was a Continental GT and the Flying Spur that you're driving this week.

[Matt Farah]

These are the best. The speed hybrids. I've only driven this one up the road and back the Spur, but I've driven thousands of miles in the two door and.

[Brett Burke]

Wow.

[Matt Farah]

The best.

[Brett Burke]

It's really, really good. Yeah. No, so nice. So powerful. So luxurious. It kind of has.

[Matt Farah]

What color was that one? The coupe.

[Brett Burke]

The coupe was kind of a purplish indigo color.

[Matt Farah]

I know that one. That's a good color.

[Brett Burke]

Yeah, yeah. And this bright orange thing is a lot.

[Matt Farah]

I haven't posted pictures of this because I just got it today, but I parked it in front of my house earlier because I went home to train and three cars drove by my house while it was parked there and every one of them slowed down to two miles an hour by the car.

[Unknown]

It looks like there's road construction safety sign. Orange.

[Brett Burke]

Dude.

[Matt Farah]

It's straight pumpkin orange. Black wheels with orange black interior. It is a lot.

[Brett Burke]

It's really a lot.

[Unknown]

For the successful deer hunter.

[Matt Farah]

Crazy. That would be really funny actually if it was like a. If it was like a prize for like a hunting tournament.

[Unknown]

That would be interesting.

[Brett Burke]

That would be so sick. Definitely safe.

[Unknown]

That would be so sick.

[Brett Burke]

All right, what was after that? Oh, Z4 manual. Just because I wanted to try.

[Matt Farah]

Fun car.

[Brett Burke]

Yeah, very fun.

[Matt Farah]

Good road car.

[Brett Burke]

Yeah, great road car. I drove that one around a lot. That was a lot of fun. Coincided with some lovely weather here, so that was lovely. And then I think, oh, Ineos Grenadier SUV or pickup? Suv.

[Matt Farah]

Okay. Yeah, that's the better one.

[Brett Burke]

Yeah. I haven't driven the pickup. It's long. Yeah, it's really long. It, you know, has a turning circle that's approximately all of eastern Los Angeles. And it doesn't really drive great on the road.

[Matt Farah]

The circulating ball steering, it's not great.

[Brett Burke]

Yeah, yeah. It's like a wrangler, but, you know, it looks neat. People like it. I've actually seen quite a few of them out here.

[Matt Farah]

They're pretty popular here.

[Brett Burke]

Yeah.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah.

[Brett Burke]

And price point on that thing, it's.

[Matt Farah]

Like 80 to 120.

[Brett Burke]

Okay. Is that just because it's subsidized by the. By the world's seventh richest man or whatever?

[Matt Farah]

Are you saying why is it so cheap? Is that what you're saying?

[Brett Burke]

Doesn't that seem cheap?

[Matt Farah]

I don't know. I think it's possible they may run lower margins than other people. I know that if they didn't get that factory deal, because we interviewed their CEO, who was rad, by the way. She was a good 90 minutes. She did not have much of a filter, and it was awesome. I don't know. I mean, Zach, when we drove that truck, it felt, I think, price appropriate. Right. It didn't feel like it was overpriced. It. Yeah, things are manual, but I think we all, like. I don't know. I recognize now that analog is luxury, and therefore I'm willing to pay a little more for real buttons and less bullshit.

[Brett Burke]

Yeah, it's got a lot of buttons.

[Matt Farah]

It's got a lot of buttons. Less screen.

[Brett Burke]

Cessna or something.

[Unknown]

It is much like a plane.

[Matt Farah]

Dude, how nice was it to drive at night without all that screen in your face? And you could acclimate to the outside world with such great visibility? So. Well. Yeah, I've never enjoyed driving anything at night that much. It's like driving. Like driving an E30.

[Brett Burke]

Right?

[Matt Farah]

You know, when everything's red inside. Oh, it's the best.

[Brett Burke]

Soothing.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah, you got a pretty good lineup going. Is there more?

[Brett Burke]

Yeah, the Ruguelta, which I'm driving now, and I think then they're coming to pick that up, and I think the last week is a E class wagon.

[Matt Farah]

An E class wagon. Oh, you really just. You can't. You just Ride that you glide into the landing.

[Brett Burke]

Exactly, exactly. You need something that I can bring my luggage back to the airport. And, you know, I can't really put it in the window unless everything's on sitting on Taz Lap, you know?

[Matt Farah]

So I just. I just did a thing. Zach and I went to Charlotte for the opening of this 1010 Motorsports Club private racetrack next to Charlotte Motor Speedway. Oh, yeah.

[Brett Burke]

I remember seeing something about that.

[Matt Farah]

Badass. If you're in Charlotte and you like racing, this is laws in Charlotte. This is your new home.

[Brett Burke]

Okay.

[Matt Farah]

Lovely people, lovely track, Great time. But I had to fly from there to a road and track event in Texas, and I had to pick up a McLaren 750 in Dallas to drive to the event in Austin and do the event. Right. In order to have a suitcase that would satisfy both of those trips, it would not fit in a McLaren 750. So I had to FedEx my second suitcase to the hotel and then send the first suitcase home with that crew. And so I had to do this math out and pack for the second trip first. Send it. Yeah, it was like a whole thing. It did work out, but I had to do. Make a chart of, like, luggage flow.

[Brett Burke]

Yeah, that's smart. So silly. Yeah, I know. Sometimes this is what you have to do. You know what I mean? You can't pack one bag for. For three different trips.

[Matt Farah]

You've got racetracks, there's like two formal events. Yeah. There's no bueno.

[Brett Burke]

Yeah. Sometimes we end up with weather. I mean, they're not problems, but challenges.

[Matt Farah]

It is interesting logistical challenges is what they are.

[Brett Burke]

Yeah.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah.

[Brett Burke]

So I think. I think I covered. Yeah, I think I covered everything. I'm trying to remember if there's anything that I missed.

[Matt Farah]

Not a bad one in there.

[Brett Burke]

No. Yeah, it was a pretty good. It was a pretty good mix.

[Matt Farah]

Pretty good spring for you.

[Brett Burke]

There might have been a Volvo wagon in there too, I think.

[Matt Farah]

Throw that in. Why not?

[Brett Burke]

Working on a wagon store, so I gotta have to drive all the wagons.

[Matt Farah]

Like the Ex. No, V90.

[Brett Burke]

The V90.

[Matt Farah]

They still make the V90 wagon?

[Brett Burke]

No, it's a V60. It's the end of that one.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah. That's a good car. Yeah, it's a nice car.

[Brett Burke]

I like that.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah. We were just doing. Polestar was a sponsor of the road and track event we did. So I drove Polestar 3 a little bit. Which. Man, those seats are nice.

[Brett Burke]

Oh, I haven't driven it yet. It's, you know, it's like the EX90. It's the, like the, like polestar version of the big, big SUV or not.

[Matt Farah]

It's a five seater, not a seven, not a three row. And the one we drove was the dynamic one. So it had like the good tires and it has quite the rear differential. It will rotate on throttle, which is a good thing because it will not rotate on braking.

[Brett Burke]

Okay.

[Matt Farah]

So you have to drive it a little differently, but pretty fast. Pretty fun. And a good stereo.

[Brett Burke]

Yeah.

[Matt Farah]

Well, that's good. Yeah.

[Brett Burke]

I hope they're doing okay.

[Matt Farah]

Me too. We'll see what these tariffs do to them.

[Brett Burke]

Disaster. I was just in. I was in Hiroshima last week with Mazda checking out some stuff that they are working on and some. Yeah. And so we. There was a lot of conversation around tariffs and what people can expect and of course everyone just doesn't know it.

[Matt Farah]

Everyone's extremely confused.

[Brett Burke]

Total lunacy.

[Matt Farah]

We have a new government like every six hours. It's totally fine. This is normal.

[Brett Burke]

Yeah.

[Matt Farah]

This always happens right before a huge economic crash. Crazy.

[Brett Burke]

Not a surprise.

[Matt Farah]

And what's funny is, like, this will go up tomorrow morning and be dated because I said that possibly very much possible.

[Brett Burke]

Exactly. Yeah. Right. There'll have been like four different things that will have come and gone. Yeah, yeah, yeah. A lot of manufacturers are just sort of like, all right, we're just gonna pause shipments.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah. Lotus.

[Unknown]

Well, how do you pause shipments of tens of thousands of cars and they have like four months of inventory in the country. In this country left.

[Brett Burke]

Yeah.

[Unknown]

And then that's it.

[Brett Burke]

That's it. Who knows?

[Unknown]

Yep. And who knows? That's the question. We'll see.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah. I've had a couple friends with new ish Porsches who are getting phone calls from their dealers offering to buy their cars back for, you know, because they.

[Unknown]

Could probably sell them for even more.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah.

[Brett Burke]

Wow. Yeah, I believe it.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah.

[Brett Burke]

It's. I mean, supply chain, but like nothing, you know what I mean?

[Unknown]

This is like cheesing.

[Matt Farah]

Nothing's actually wrong.

[Brett Burke]

Right. Yeah, exactly.

[Matt Farah]

Someone's just like, got you in a headlock and going, well, this is fun for me.

[Brett Burke]

Right, Right.

[Matt Farah]

The whole world, though, by the dip.

[Brett Burke]

The whole world, right.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Unknown]

Did you get to see the new upcoming Miata MX5?

[Matt Farah]

Folks, one more break because support for today's show comes from HelloFresh. I love HelloFresh for so many reasons. One, I learn to make new things that I might not have made otherwise without having to commit to buying big jars of spices and materials that are going to end up going to waste. Right. Because I love cooking. Right. HelloFresh is good if you love cooking or even if you like cooking or want to eat fresh meals. But you don't have a lot of time for shopping and you don't want to get into the unknowns with how long is this dinner going to take? Right? Hellofresh is great because you don't have to figure out what's for dinner night after night anymore, especially on those busy weekdays. All you have to do is you set it up online before they deliver you that fresh food. Never frozen. Really good vegetables in exactly the right proportions. Okay. And then you just throw it all together. You cook it. Almost every meal they have can be cooked in 30 to 40 minutes from nothing you're feeding your family. The cleanup is easy and quick. And you don't have as much waste because they send you exactly as much food as you need for those the number of people you select. And Hellofresh now has some new stuff they've got ready made meals go from your fridge to the fork in just three minutes. The same high quality ingredients and restaurant worthy flavor just with 0 of the work. Think lunch people. And they've got the lineup of prep and bake meals come together with minimal mess and only five minutes of prep. So your oven does most of the work, not you. Then there's the 15 minute meals done in just three simple steps so you can eat better this year without all the hassle. With all these options, you have no more excuses. And what happens is when I cook hello Fresh food, they have this beautiful recipe card they send you with easy instructions. I save that. And then if I'm having a party or something, it's a good, good recipe, I can multiply it and make it again from scratch. And then I seem like a genius for coming up with a new dish. Just don't even tell them it's hellofresh. It's great. Now you can get up to 10 free meals and a free high protein item for [e-mail] and I'm sorry for this one. Smoking Tire 10 FM. Again, I'm sorry for that code. That is a hard code. Ready one box per item with active subscription. Okay. Free meals applied as discount on first box. New subscribers only. Varies by plan. That's up to 10 free HelloFresh [e-mail] smokingtire10fm HelloFresh is America's number one meal kit. And thank you to them for sponsoring today's program.

[Unknown]

Did you get to see the new upcoming Miata MX5 by chance?

[Brett Burke]

I mean they showed us the iconic SP concept, which is sort of directional for maybe whatever their new sports cars are. So sort of, it looks like it's sort of in between, you know, RX7 size and Miata size, but I think directionally it's sort of pushing in that direction. So yeah, there's a lot of conversation around what that might be and meeting with the head of design and he was sort of like every time you ask a question, he would be like, we'll see.

[Matt Farah]

You know, I always thought when they got rid of the RX8, I always thought they should have kept the platform and turned it into a convertible, a 2 plus 2 convertible that was essentially a bigger Miata with maybe a turbocharged four cylinder or something like that. Something better than a fucking rotary. I said it, said it better.

[Brett Burke]

There was a lot of conversation around rotary power, which they're still working on and you know, they're still promising it's going to be the next big revolution or whatever.

[Matt Farah]

At one point, when I see it.

[Brett Burke]

Yeah, at one point, the cfo, I was interviewing him and we were talking about sort of their future electrification strategy, blah, blah, blah. And he was saying sort of something to the effect of, well, we could combine a rotary powered generator with biofuel. And I was like, so you're taking like a fantasy fuel source and a fantasy powertrain doesn't equal a reality. Right. I just think I want to point this out to you.

[Matt Farah]

If a algae powered perpetual motion Tesla coil, then it would be good.

[Brett Burke]

Yeah. If humans could eat feces, then there wouldn't be any. There would be no problem with World Hunter.

[Matt Farah]

I think I could run a car on popcorn. Like how hard could it be?

[Brett Burke]

But they're like, they're still at it with the rotary thing.

[Matt Farah]

So, I mean, I found a rotary generator makes a lot of sense.

[Brett Burke]

Yeah.

[Matt Farah]

No torque, high revs, very smooth.

[Brett Burke]

Yeah.

[Matt Farah]

Give me that. Yeah, but like so does like a fucking mini turbine, if that's what we want, I mean.

[Brett Burke]

Yeah.

[Matt Farah]

And I don't, I don't really know if what you want is a thing that spins.

[Brett Burke]

Yeah.

[Matt Farah]

Is a rotary any better than a literal turbine?

[Brett Burke]

Right. I don't know. Yeah. Or a windmill.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah. Or like, or like a actual, like a cylinder combustion engine.

[Brett Burke]

Yeah.

[Matt Farah]

What is, what makes the best generator? I don't know.

[Brett Burke]

That's a good question. Someone, someone's got generator Brian on here.

[Matt Farah]

Well, speaking of generator, Good callback. Okay. Yeah, I would. I bet someone knows though. I bet someone is the type of an electrical engineer or something and who listens to this show and Will be able to tell us with like pretty certainty what type of motor would make the best generator.

[Brett Burke]

Yeah. I guess there's questions about, you know, and this is the struggle that they've been going through with the rotary. Right. Sort of like emissions and size and so it's small, compact and lightweight. But it's hard for it to meet our emission standards. And obviously there's all sorts of other issues with rotary engines.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah.

[Brett Burke]

So we'll see. It's dirty, right? Yeah, yeah, it's dirty.

[Unknown]

Burns a lot of oil.

[Brett Burke]

Yeah.

[Unknown]

And fuel.

[Brett Burke]

Right.

[Unknown]

Otherwise great.

[Brett Burke]

Yeah, I know. I invention from a Nazi.

[Unknown]

I got a little convinced.

[Brett Burke]

Like I said, one of many.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah.

[Unknown]

I sat next to Rob Dom at dinner once and he basically through like throwing showing me his dino graphs and things like convinced me I get the. The cool attribute of being able to bolt endless rotors together and build power is rad. Yeah, that is cool. And the dyno graph was amazing. But like all of these negatives with it are really strong.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah. I mean there's nothing wrong with wanting a weird car.

[Unknown]

Yeah.

[Matt Farah]

I am myself am 50% into purchasing an airplane powered car. Oh wow. I'm excited. You're fucking becoming Jay Leno, dude. You know, after a while I guess even pretty weird cars become normal and you start to go, how weird does this get? And the answer is radials. Radials is where it gets.

[Brett Burke]

What is the vehicle?

[Matt Farah]

Meyers Manx.

[Brett Burke]

Oh.

[Matt Farah]

Brand new Myers Manx with a radial engine.

[Brett Burke]

Oh, do they all have radial engines?

[Matt Farah]

No, it's a special top of the thing. But they acquired a company Australia that designed radial engine. Then they made it better and now they're putting them in Myers Manx's.

[Brett Burke]

Wow.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah. And you have to. Why, why don't we have a. Oh there. If you scroll down, there's a photo of it from the back. There's the. That's it. Yeah. Look at that. Tell me if. Yeah, tell me that's not awesome. Right. So yeah, that's pretty crazy. If you. If you want a car where to show off your weird engine.

[Brett Burke]

Right.

[Matt Farah]

Manx makes perfect sense. You can see it all the time.

[Brett Burke]

Exactly. Yeah, I guess that's the idea.

[Matt Farah]

And it sounds like a plane which is another bonus that I'm very much into. So. Yeah, maybe. Maybe a radial makes for a good generator. Yeah, I don't think. Probably not. It's not really any smoother or more powerful or better than like a V shaped or in. It just looks fucking awesome. Besides that, like there's no real advantage smaller and it.

[Unknown]

You can make it small and still be smooth. Right. Because like. Like a three cylinder is out of balance and it's pretty long. So if you go four cylinder, which is more balanced, it's a longer engine than a rotary. But the rotary just has all these other issues.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah.

[Unknown]

I don't know, maybe they'll figure I'm more.

[Matt Farah]

I was more thing rotary compared to like turbine. More so than rotary compared to a cylinder engine. But. Yeah. Someone, if you're out there, please tell us, please let us know what the best. Oh, I read that article of yours about the touchscreens.

[Brett Burke]

Oh, yeah.

[Matt Farah]

Starting with the. The GMs and the Riatas and the Walgondas. Like. Oh, God, CRT touch screens. Holy shit. Is that it? Was it an Esquire? What was it?

[Brett Burke]

There was a car and driver one. So we're doing this series that's on like components that are sort of unobtainium from cars from like the 90s and 2000s. And so that was unrestorable. Yeah. And there's people out there that do this. You just have to find them. And there's a guy in Ohio or something like that who's like. His mission is to save the touchscreen from riatas. He's like, Mr. Riata. He owns all of the new old stock of Riatas from all over the world. And he's got this guy who works with him who will redo. I guess the capacitors dry out because they have real liquid in them or something like that.

[Matt Farah]

Tubes and shit.

[Brett Burke]

Look at it. I mean, it's crazy. That is the screen a little Trinitron, you know. Yeah, that's in this. And they were made by like either Panasonic or one of the Japanese TV companies or something like that. And. Yeah, so when it breaks, you know, there's no choice.

[Matt Farah]

You gotta call Joe.

[Brett Burke]

It's like. And he's got like the. You know the bench testing equipment that the Buick dealers use when these things are new, of course. Yeah, yeah. And like he's obsessed with them. And there's. There was. There were like three different ones. There was like this one and then there was another one as well. That was in the. Right before.

[Matt Farah]

Well, the Aston Martin Lagonda had one, and then the Riviera had one and the Riata had one. Yeah.

[Unknown]

Does this wasn't the first person also have another job? Like the similar. Are they.

[Brett Burke]

Yeah, I think they're like an electrical engineer.

[Unknown]

Okay. I was like, how big is this Riata screen market?

[Matt Farah]

I can't believe I'm talking about Riatas again. I just. On this road and track event, there was, you know, a guy on it. It was very nice, and he had a Riyadh. He didn't bring it on the event. He was driving something else. But he started to tell me about this Riata and I was like, o, that's a weird, fun car. Like, all right, cool. And then he started showing me photos of it to, like, prove that he had it. No, no, not even that. It was, like, nice just to prove that he. And I'm like, listen, I believed you. I believed you this whole time. Now I see the photo of it, I double believe you. And then ten minutes later. Okay, cool. He walks away. He comes back 10 minutes later. Listen, make me an offer on the Rihanna. I go, I don't want that thing. Why do I want that? He goes, thousand bucks, you can take it home. I go, oh, wow.

[Brett Burke]

You.

[Matt Farah]

You really. You really.

[Unknown]

Front wheel drive RX7.

[Brett Burke]

Right.

[Unknown]

But bigger.

[Brett Burke]

I think the Riata is actually kind of a good looking car.

[Unknown]

I think it's a good looking car too, but I do think it's a lot. Fdr.

[Matt Farah]

Buick and Oldsmobile had, like, two years where they were on the verge of like. And Cadillac 2 91. 92. Remember the. Oh, look. I mean. Yeah, that looks kind of dope. Seriously, CLE. I think that's at Point Doom.

[Brett Burke]

That's at Point Doom. It is. I know exactly that spot.

[Matt Farah]

I shot a Pagani there three months ago.

[Brett Burke]

We shot Ferraris there before.

[Matt Farah]

I mean, honestly, that. Can you. Can we see. Did a design house do that or did Buick do it?

[Brett Burke]

They did. I think they did it in house.

[Matt Farah]

They did because, like, Pin and Farina did the Cadillac Elante.

[Brett Burke]

Yeah, yeah. But, like, I mean, they may have had a.

[Matt Farah]

They did that inside. Buick.

[Brett Burke]

Yeah.

[Matt Farah]

That's a pretty successful design. Yeah.

[Brett Burke]

That bubble rear window. It's a handsome car.

[Matt Farah]

Like, it's. It's. It's pretty. If that. If you put a trident on that and told me it was a Maserati. Oh, yeah. Okay, cool.

[Brett Burke]

Right? I think they were. I think their plan was that it was gonna be.

[Matt Farah]

Wow. How about the production car? Looking better than the concept drawing? The concept drawing is. Didn't. Yeah. Didn't do it justice.

[Unknown]

The designer was David McIntosh.

[Matt Farah]

All right.

[Brett Burke]

Okay.

[Matt Farah]

Shout out to him.

[Unknown]

Yeah.

[Matt Farah]

And also the old meal Trofeo. Oh, yeah, that one had a real Euro like body.

[Brett Burke]

What was that one? Aurora. Was that the first generation?

[Matt Farah]

That was when they took the Oldsmobile Badging off of everything. You know what it was? The Oldsmobile Aurora trivia was launched in the movie Demolition Man. Oh wow. The Oldsmobile 442 that they find at the end to save the day. First off, all the Future cars are GM concept cars from that year. They put the 442 in some kind of elevator and it goes up and crashes through the floor of an Oldsmobile showroom. It's in a dealer and the only other car is the brand new 1994 Aurora as a future car. And it kind of fits in.

[Brett Burke]

Wow.

[Matt Farah]

It looks like they're future cars.

[Brett Burke]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. They were really, you know, you gotta give it to gm. They really try some weird ass shit.

[Matt Farah]

You know what I mean? And they put that Aurora motor in The Shelby Series 1. Carroll Shelby was like, ah, I'm Oldsmobile really doing something.

[Unknown]

Well, they had. It was also developed from the indie program before, even before that. But yeah, but yeah, it was a good decent block. It was a decent block.

[Matt Farah]

That old motors, big ass titties. Give me some more chili.

[Brett Burke]

So yeah, the, the next one.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah, the Aurora. Look at that. Yeah. Oh, streamliner.

[Unknown]

Yeah, yeah. There's a touch of what Volkswagen X1 in the front a little bit.

[Brett Burke]

Oh yeah.

[Unknown]

A little dash.

[Matt Farah]

No, like GMEV1.

[Brett Burke]

Oh ye, yeah, yeah.

[Unknown]

EV1 for sure.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah. But that was. Man, that was what every concept car looked like this the year before. And they were all in Demolition Man. But man, in hindsight does that look droopy?

[Unknown]

Yeah, yeah, right?

[Matt Farah]

Doesn't it look a little melty?

[Unknown]

The bed shape is tough.

[Matt Farah]

There's none of these left.

[Brett Burke]

Yeah.

[Matt Farah]

When was the last time you saw one?

[Brett Burke]

Detroit.

[Matt Farah]

Really?

[Brett Burke]

Yeah. If you want to see some, some GM that you have not seen on the road ever looking like ass. You know what I mean? Like rusted to hell. No muffler.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah.

[Brett Burke]

Going like, you know, on the American Autobahn I 94 going like, you know, 95 miles an hour and barely keeping up with your back end.

[Matt Farah]

The back end just bounce. Full bounce.

[Brett Burke]

Yeah, no shocks, holes through the rocker panels. Like you will see that in Detroit. Or like the most perfect one that you've ever seen, right?

[Matt Farah]

Yeah, yeah.

[Brett Burke]

Off the line and like only drives it once a year.

[Matt Farah]

You know, we just went to a Radwood. We were. There was a Radwood across the street from the racetrack we visited in Charlotte. Yeah. And there was some, some, I still am surprised with the fucking three digit mile nothing ass cars who saved a Dodge Shadow. Like what are we doing?

[Brett Burke]

I know, I know. Well, yeah. Someone. Someone had an idea that maybe it was going to be valuable or scared of this. They just loved it.

[Unknown]

Look at this.

[Matt Farah]

Driver.

[Unknown]

Focus. Cockpit.

[Matt Farah]

Guys, listen, we got a lot. It's made of plastic, so we gotta light it dim. You hear me?

[Brett Burke]

That's true. Keep it moody.

[Unknown]

But it's very like sob, you know, in that canted kind of thing. Yeah.

[Matt Farah]

Dude, that panel is so sob nine three.

[Unknown]

Yep.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah, it's direct sob 93. Yeah.

[Brett Burke]

They might have been borrowing some sob designers.

[Unknown]

Is that before the acquisition that was 95.

[Matt Farah]

This was post acquisition.

[Brett Burke]

I mean they were probably working on it at the same time.

[Matt Farah]

God. Killer. Like, wow.

[Unknown]

These interior drawings sure are nice.

[Matt Farah]

Running that brand into the ground was very sad.

[Brett Burke]

It was sad.

[Matt Farah]

It sucks that small car companies can't like exist.

[Brett Burke]

Yeah. I was on a Volvo press trip in Gothenburg last year or something like that. It was just me and a couple people and we had sort of a free afternoon and we were like, can we go to the Saab museum? And were they cool? Yeah, yeah, I guess.

[Matt Farah]

Like Swedish. Swedish pride. Swedish pride. Same team, same.

[Brett Burke]

Drove like a vintage 850 wagon.

[Matt Farah]

Hell yeah.

[Brett Burke]

Museum. We got there just in time for opening and we walked through it and it was cool as hell, you know. You know, my brother and I have a, have a 1972 Saab 95 wagon.

[Matt Farah]

Really?

[Brett Burke]

Yeah, that we're fixing up right now.

[Matt Farah]

Cool. Where do you go parts for that? Yeah, right.

[Brett Burke]

There's a very robust, you know, support group on the Internet on solar.

[Matt Farah]

Does it run? Yeah, yeah, it does. Okay, cool.

[Brett Burke]

Yeah, we got it out of Utah and it's been in the shop. We found this great shop. It's in Michigan where he lives in, you know, way exurban Detroit. He works on old Swedish stuff and yeah, they've been working on it. I think it's been there for, for two years. But like we saw it. Ours is like a golden rod color, man.

[Matt Farah]

Is that a Swedish ass car?

[Brett Burke]

It's a cool looking car. It's, you know, it's a. It's a two door, seven passenger wagon.

[Matt Farah]

Is it a three row?

[Brett Burke]

Yeah, it's got a. It's got a jump seat in the.

[Unknown]

Backwards like Volvo style.

[Brett Burke]

Yeah, that's awesome.

[Matt Farah]

It's real cool looking.

[Brett Burke]

Yeah, we've got the roof rack. We've got the, We've got the right wheels. Yeah, yeah. It's a neat Iris. Doesn't have those headphones.

[Matt Farah]

If you're on audio, do yourself a favor and look up what a Saab 95 wagon looks like.

[Unknown]

You'll be surprised. No matter what you're thinking of.

[Brett Burke]

You'll be surprised to the back view.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah, it's got this photos at the Saratoga Auto Museum. Which is a great auto museum if you find yourself in the Hudson Valley. Oh yeah, absolutely. Go to the Saratoga Auto Museum.

[Brett Burke]

Yeah, it's pretty awesome. We've got the mud flaps that pretty.

[Matt Farah]

Much rolls one day. I'd love to have a mint 900 Turbo.

[Brett Burke]

Oh yeah.

[Matt Farah]

Preferably convertible. Yeah, I learned to drive stick on.

[Brett Burke]

One of those and it was such a fun car.

[Matt Farah]

Oh, it was the best. My friend's mom had bought one new and you know, by the time we were in high school it was you know, 8 years old and it had been kind of turned into the sort of kick around car when the parents got new cars. So they were cool and they would let like all of us buy. Borrow it. Like we could just take it. Yeah, like like me, any one of my like 10 friends and I live. They were immediately next door. So I took all the time and man, we love that car. Purple, purple 900 turbo convertible. Oh, it was the best. Yeah.

[Brett Burke]

My brother had a series of nine hundreds. He never had a convertible but he had turbos and yeah, they're so much fun. I think Eddie drove a. You know Eddie Alterman and I went to high school so I think Eddie had a Saab in high school.

[Matt Farah]

He did. I think he did. I think my dad had a 900 turbo automatic in 88 and it was a fucking awesome, awesome car.

[Brett Burke]

Yeah.

[Matt Farah]

All my friends, parents, all my friends inherited 9000 turbo hand me downs from their parents and then we never saw them again. I saw one like Radwood.

[Brett Burke]

I saw one recently here actually the.

[Matt Farah]

White one at a car show.

[Brett Burke]

No, it wasn't. It was just like on the road.

[Matt Farah]

Oh, there's one in LA that is perfect.

[Brett Burke]

Yeah.

[Matt Farah]

And it goes to a lot of car shows and so I figured it was that one. I haven't seen a regular ass 9000 in forever.

[Brett Burke]

Yeah, I saw a sedan. You know they made that notch one. Yeah. But I love the bubble back.

[Matt Farah]

They fan in a hatch and they were. It was just in literally a different trunk apartment.

[Brett Burke]

It had a really weird C pillar, you know what I mean?

[Matt Farah]

Yeah, the sedan one was really strange.

[Brett Burke]

It really looked awkward.

[Matt Farah]

I think everyone I knew had the hatch. The hatch was the. Was the up and the grave. I think all the turbos were hatches.

[Brett Burke]

Oh really?

[Matt Farah]

I don't think you could get a turbo and a sedan. I think they were the, the sedan. Had like the V6, the PRV shit pile V6.

[Brett Burke]

I had a Volvo wagon that had that engine in it.

[Matt Farah]

When you were on of any Volvo trips, did you go to any of that any ever go to that museum they have or that one of their clients has that has all the Volvo race cars?

[Brett Burke]

Oh, no. I mean they have a huge heritage collection that has a bunch of race cars.

[Matt Farah]

We went to this private collection on a Polestar S60 trip back in like 2016, and it was three or four of those Walkinshaw wagons and then a bunch of like two, four, two rallies. Every awesome Volvo ever.

[Brett Burke]

Yeah, they have that stuff in there and a bunch of that stuff in their heritage collection as well. As well as like weird limousine. I drove a limousine, like a limousine 245 or something like that that they made for a while that was like, essentially sold to like, you know, Eastern bloc, you know, heads of state. I think they had to deal with like Eric Honaker or something like that in East Germany. And that was where that, that's where they all were. But it was actually, if you don't.

[Matt Farah]

Talk about that, fun.

[Brett Burke]

Yeah, it was very, very slow. It was like. Imagine a limousine that has no luxury, right. It's not luxurious at all.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah, yeah, that's like those six door airport Suburbans. That's pretty much what that is. One of our friends is up in like Westlake. It has a big car collection and a fucking big building to keep all his shit in. And for shits and giggles, they bought a 96 lake in town car stretch limo.

[Brett Burke]

Oh yeah.

[Matt Farah]

With like a shag interior and a boot for like 6,000 bucks. And now they are like in love with this thing. They won't shut up about it. Yeah, they hire a guy to drive him around Beverly Hills and shit.

[Brett Burke]

It's hysterical. Limousines, you know, I like, probably a lot of people look at, bring a trailer pretty regularly, like most mornings. Most mornings. And limousines always get like a click from me, you know what I mean? I always want to see like the.

[Matt Farah]

Inside of the trailer in a. A while. Yeah, yeah, she's that awful one. Mark Zuckerberg had a Cayenne Turbo GT turned into a quote, minivan by west coast customs, but it's really a limo. And like imagine, obviously they haven't reprogrammed the rear steer for the 8ft extended wheelbase. Imagine the handling of this vehicle. I brought this up with someone at Porsche and they were like, oh, God, no. Like, please, I don't even want to know. I don't Even want to know that exists? Yeah, it's. I mean, I suppose technically that is a van because it has a sliding door.

[Brett Burke]

Right. But yeah, it's very Lima, like all of the money.

[Matt Farah]

Oh, okay. 80 series of one on. Bring a trailer. Wow. That got 22 grand. It's a 500 SCL. Yeah. We have to see what the inside looks like now.

[Brett Burke]

Yeah. Does it inside is the exciting part actually. There's a pullman. There's a 600 pullman on there today.

[Matt Farah]

Oh, dude.

[Brett Burke]

Yeah, interior.

[Matt Farah]

This thing has a table in the middle with cup holders. Is that a TV on an arm?

[Brett Burke]

Yeah, that's a tv. Probably a tv.

[Unknown]

I think this is a cell phone.

[Brett Burke]

Yeah, it has the cable hanging out. The one today, the Pullman had a TV on a pole. Like it took the place of one of the rear facing jump seats.

[Matt Farah]

Oh, it's so funny.

[Brett Burke]

You have to click to it.

[Matt Farah]

Oh, I love this sentence. The odometer shows 88,000 miles, 20 of which have been added by the seller.

[Brett Burke]

Not 20,000.

[Matt Farah]

No, not 20. Just not 20,000. Yeah. Are there more interior pictures? That backseat is pretty epic.

[Unknown]

Let me get that down to just the main stuff I, I really like.

[Matt Farah]

But you know what? 22 grand. Good time.

[Brett Burke]

That seems like you can have a lot of fun. Yeah, hard to.

[Matt Farah]

It looks like it's in very nice shape. I mean 88, 000 miles for a Mercedes of this vintage is not that many.

[Brett Burke]

And a limousine, you know, it's all been driven like to prom and back. You know what I mean? Like stop. And there's no highway miles on this thing.

[Matt Farah]

We're going slow and fucking in the back. Oh, you got trays that fold out.

[Unknown]

From the doors though.

[Matt Farah]

The slidy curtains. Yeah, yeah. You could have an orgy in there for sure.

[Brett Burke]

Pretty elegant.

[Matt Farah]

Ashtrays, checkerboard power seats. Yeah, it's all right. Ooh, the slide out trays.

[Unknown]

Shallowest of cups.

[Matt Farah]

Get the Coke to you.

[Brett Burke]

Yeah, that's like the cup holder on my, on my Range Rover. It's like the other side of a 1990 Range Rover. It's like the inside of like the center console bin. There's like a fat spot there.

[Matt Farah]

That's the. My wife's Mitsubishi Delica. You have to open the armrest and it's on the underside of it.

[Brett Burke]

Like who's this for?

[Matt Farah]

Terrible design. I can't have an armrest.

[Brett Burke]

Oh, yeah.

[Matt Farah]

Oh, that may not have been a tv. That may have been the phone. Yeah, the wall mount car phone.

[Unknown]

And then look, this just random Stowage.

[Matt Farah]

Magazine, Stow and blow in here.

[Unknown]

Folders of things.

[Brett Burke]

Documents are probably locks. Yeah, I like that. Or for. Yeah. Back issues.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah, we should all be buying limos.

[Brett Burke]

Yeah, I think limos are kind of cool. They're so silly, right?

[Matt Farah]

A 600 Pullman. Oh boy, look at that. Well, it's live ends in six days. Yeah, it was just up this 50,000. God.

[Brett Burke]

Yeah.

[Matt Farah]

Talk about. I would be terrified to own one of these.

[Brett Burke]

Oh yeah. No, they're so complicated. Holy shit.

[Matt Farah]

That's great though.

[Brett Burke]

But look at. Yeah. Scroll down and you'll see the. The tv. The TV is mounted where the. One of the rear facing.

[Matt Farah]

That's really funny.

[Brett Burke]

Jump seats is.

[Matt Farah]

But I. That's like. This is like dream garage shit. You know, you kind of have to have something like this. Yeah, I like that. It's all corduroy.

[Brett Burke]

Oh yeah. Awesome cloth interior.

[Unknown]

This is awesome.

[Brett Burke]

These things are so pretty. But yeah, like just empty your. Empty your bank account, you know.

[Matt Farah]

I don't know. I guess you have to take this to Mercedes Beach Classic Center.

[Unknown]

Here's a tv.

[Brett Burke]

You'll see. It's hilarious. Stuck behind a giant box.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah.

[Brett Burke]

Yeah. So there's. There's a. There's like a fridge and. And beverage.

[Matt Farah]

Dude, this is a sick car.

[Brett Burke]

Yeah.

[Unknown]

Gotta say, not a lot of legroom though because if you have passengers there facing each other, your knees are.

[Brett Burke]

I always worry about.

[Matt Farah]

People were smaller then.

[Unknown]

They're not that small.

[Matt Farah]

I would use. I would. That jump seat to me is a foot rest.

[Brett Burke]

That is the TV on the post, right? Yeah.

[Matt Farah]

Like I didn't. You really undersold how post it was.

[Brett Burke]

It's very post.

[Unknown]

This looks like a mailbox that's mounted behind the driver's seat.

[Brett Burke]

You have to get a special kind of television for a car. You know what I mean?

[Unknown]

You gotta trust those bolts.

[Matt Farah]

And that's a VHS player.

[Brett Burke]

No, in the.

[Matt Farah]

In the wall. Yeah, it's a pop out. Yeah. It's sick.

[Brett Burke]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Matt Farah]

At least the Burlwood's good.

[Brett Burke]

Yeah, that one's gonna be expensive. But that other one.

[Matt Farah]

Look at the double width. That's one headrest that goes all the way across. That's awesome. Yeah, man. They were doing it back then. God, is that good. Yeah, that's. Wow. A lot of controls in that tiny little tv.

[Brett Burke]

Well, you got a superb.

[Matt Farah]

And it's got that like crown royal bag cable. Cable holder below it.

[Brett Burke]

You don't want to see all that stuff.

[Matt Farah]

Wow.

[Brett Burke]

Hide the innards.

[Matt Farah]

Is that what is. I mean, what do you hope to find on a daily. Bring a trailer. Browse.

[Brett Burke]

I don't know.

[Matt Farah]

Pullman stops you. What else stop you?

[Brett Burke]

Yeah, Limousines. I don't know. It's like a journey into the subconscious. You know what I mean? I never knew that I liked, you know, a 58 Cadillac. You know what I mean? Or like a weird Ford, you know, hot rod build.

[Matt Farah]

Isn't it crazy that how that can happen? There's. There are. Even for someone so experienced that there's a car that you could go. Your whole life, you knew that car existed.

[Brett Burke]

Yeah.

[Matt Farah]

But then you see one somewhere and all of a sudden.

[Brett Burke]

Yeah. You're like, oh, now I gotta go down a path of figuring out everything about this car.

[Matt Farah]

You told me last July that I would be purchasing a Myers Manx. Any Meyers Manx. I'd be like. Like, those are cool. But that's not. Like, it's not. Why would I. What am I gonna do with that? And then I saw it in at Quail, and I went, oh, my. I have to. And it was like, they. They actually were prepared to take my credit card right there, which is a crazy thing. And then I was like, no, no, no. Hang on, hang on.

[Brett Burke]

There's still a lot of cars.

[Matt Farah]

My wife, who is not. She's like, she's in. She was. She was in, but she was like, listen, you are not swiping that amount of money. Three champagnes in at the Quail. That's what they want you to do, right? That's what they. It was like 11:00am I was like, I just got there. She's like, this. This is the. Don't. We'll call them tomorrow. They'll still have the credit card machine.

[Brett Burke]

Yeah, I think so. And they'll probably still have another Myers Manx. They sell you. We did a story. It was years ago. You know, Stuart Shore from Jaguar, he growing up. You know, his dad was a big car automotive journalist, Right. Marty Shore. And growing up, he had a bed that he'd always been told was made by Bruce Myers. That it was. You know, it was from his fiberglass industry.

[Matt Farah]

Okay. Was it like a car bed?

[Brett Burke]

Yeah, it looked like a car bed. Yeah, it looked like a McLaren, kind of like a race car.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah. Like a Can Am car.

[Brett Burke]

Yeah, exactly.

[Matt Farah]

I can picture the car bed.

[Brett Burke]

Yeah. And so, yeah, we did all this research, and I ended up talking to Bruce about the whole thing. Cause it was like. Like everything, you know, like he made it and then, like, everyone knocked him off, did knockoffs. And then he went out of business. And so he made this thing, and then, you know, everyone else made knockoff versions of it that were cheaper, and he went out of business. But he was trying.

[Matt Farah]

So you think Stewart's was a. Was legit one?

[Brett Burke]

He had pictures of it, you know, and we found all this research, and then, yeah, Bruce was like. Yeah, he was like. Once he had the fiberglass manufacturing plant, he was like, like, trying to figure out things to make with fiberglass. So it was like bed liners and, like, hot tub inserts. And then this bed thing happened.

[Matt Farah]

He was such an interesting guy. I love learning about him.

[Brett Burke]

Totally fascinating interview.

[Matt Farah]

And what's cool about Myers Manx is that, like, even though there are a lot of, quote, knockoffs, like, they welcome those people to club events, they're not like, ew. It's like, oh, you got a different brand one, like, whatever. Come on down.

[Brett Burke]

Come on. Drive on the sand.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah, it's. It's. They're. They're a good time. I'm very excited.

[Brett Burke]

I have never driven one.

[Matt Farah]

Well, so they have their demo Radial, the one in that photo, which I drove for road and track, and. And I've done some miles on. So if you go to Costa Mesa, you can drive it.

[Brett Burke]

Okay.

[Matt Farah]

They also have some of their vintage ones. Okay. They also have. They have, like, the new vintage style ones, and they have some actual vintage. They have a bunch of cool shit down there. Yeah. With the company came the collection.

[Brett Burke]

Okay. I was gonna say they bought the whole thing. So they have some really cool stuff, and they're making it with, like, a bunch of different powertrains. Is there an electric one, too, or something?

[Matt Farah]

There's the Manx 2.0, which is the full electric. It's all new. It looks vaguely like an old one, but it's a whole new thing. And then there's the classic Manx. So they've updated the tub. It looks like the old one, but it's reinforced in better places. They've updated a bunch of things and made it better and built better. Better to assemble better to drive, better paint, better everything. Cause Freeman's running the joint now. Freeman Thomas, and he really gives a shit. They have new chassis stuff, new gearbox stuff. So the cars that they're building now are much better cars than what they were doing back then. And so I was stoked. Once I drove it, I was like, oh. Oh, this actually drives, like, great. This is fine.

[Brett Burke]

Yeah.

[Matt Farah]

So it's fast.

[Brett Burke]

And what's the motor in that one in the Radial in the classic?

[Matt Farah]

Oh, in the classic, they have like four or five different flat fours. You can get your anything from like a 1.2 Volkswagen Beetle engine. They've got like a 2.4 like Will Hoyt fucking nasty 356 racing engine. That's like $40,000.

[Brett Burke]

Okay.

[Matt Farah]

And you know someone's getting that. And do you know Rhodes scholars in North Carolina, the Ingrams. So the Ingrams had one built with a 356 Carrera 4 cam engine. One of those like $300,000 engines. So they did one that was like called like Myers Manx Carrera GT or something. That was really cool. So like Philip and Manx are basically like if you want to put a weird engine in something like come on down, like we have your back. So people are apparently showing up with all kinds of weird motors that they want to put in Myers Manx.

[Brett Burke]

You can just bring your own motor.

[Matt Farah]

Well, I mean you can work with them. But like if in the instance of the, the Ingram one, there it is. Second that, that one. Yeah, it looks Meyers Manx Carrera GT. The Furman 4 cam powered dune buggy. Dude, this thing is a nat. I really like those lower fog lights. I may do that on mine. Maybe yellow, maybe a little French market.

[Unknown]

It makes a whole lot. I mean this car is sitting pretty low too, which looks cool.

[Matt Farah]

This is the same stance as mine will be. They have two heights, the sand height and the tarmac height.

[Unknown]

These can be.

[Brett Burke]

And this is road legal.

[Matt Farah]

It is.

[Brett Burke]

You can drive it. It is not just like 25 miles an hour.

[Matt Farah]

No, no, no. Registered. They're pre 76 beetles. So they have all the pans and all the VINs and all the everything.

[Brett Burke]

Oh, wow.

[Matt Farah]

And you're buying a restored Beetle. Can you find, is there a photo of the engine? We got paywalls, purple metallic flick paywall. It's called stratospheric blue metallic. And it is a brilliant bright blue. Like a sky blue with like bass boat flaking.

[Brett Burke]

Yeah, yeah, that's what I was imagining.

[Matt Farah]

Fucking sick. With tan like a camel leather with almost like a Mexican blanket insert. Very beachy.

[Brett Burke]

Yeah.

[Matt Farah]

And that Porsche style, vintage Porsche style carpeting in like a light, a light gray. Oh yeah. Here's the Carrera.

[Unknown]

So Cam, he went very racy.

[Matt Farah]

He went racy holes and every. He got speed holes and everything. He did really bucket y seats. This is, they have a hard top. This one has this fiberglass hard top on it. This one they might have made in carbon. I couldn't get in and out of the fucking Thing with this hardtop on, it was really tough to crawl in and out of. So we're doing a Bimini that comes off like real easy. There's the engine. Go back to the engine. Yeah. So you can actually tell that it looks. It looks different. That looks.

[Brett Burke]

That's a lot of motor. That's sick.

[Unknown]

I need buggies. A friend of mine was a VW tech and him and his boss used to autocross race an old Volkswagen buggy, but with like a hot rod engine. The thing would do wheelies off the line and do 0 to 60 and like 1.9 to 2.0.

[Brett Burke]

For real?

[Unknown]

For real. It was extremely. I mean, they weigh nothing.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah.

[Unknown]

So all, you know, suspension geometry and the weight bias is a little weird, but they can go.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah.

[Brett Burke]

It's just physics.

[Unknown]

So this thing will be exciting.

[Matt Farah]

I can't wait. So you should. You should. I mean, sooner rather than later. Give them a call.

[Brett Burke]

Okay.

[Matt Farah]

And go drive what they've got.

[Brett Burke]

Try it out. Where are you gonna drive yours? Wherever. I don't know.

[Matt Farah]

I have yet to really think about this problem. It's more like I.

[Brett Burke]

It was an impulse purchase.

[Matt Farah]

No, I mean like it's, it's. It'll be fun. Because like, I do a lot of slow driving around here and I don't want to take the fact cars like actually I liked my Ferrari 328 because it was fun. It's slow.

[Brett Burke]

Yeah.

[Matt Farah]

And like Porsche not fun. It's slow. It's fun. It fast.

[Brett Burke]

Yeah.

[Matt Farah]

And so like this will be fun. It's slow, right? All right, cool. Whatever. And hopefully it'll be rad and it'll be weird and we'll play and it.

[Brett Burke]

Seems like it's gonna be enjoyable.

[Matt Farah]

I'm putting together a plan to bring it to Pebble.

[Brett Burke]

Okay.

[Matt Farah]

To have it to cruise. It's a roll around Pebble.

[Brett Burke]

Okay.

[Matt Farah]

I've talked to Calvin at Porsche and we're discussing the tow ratings of the Cayenne hybrids because I don't want to drive it to pebble and it won't hold all my shit anyway.

[Brett Burke]

So you have to ship everything.

[Matt Farah]

So I don't want to ship everything. So I feel like, what's better than having an aircraft powered Meyers Mags at Pebble having a Cayenne also just in case.

[Brett Burke]

I think that's a car that requires another vehicle.

[Matt Farah]

It kind of does. But that's okay.

[Brett Burke]

Yeah, exactly.

[Matt Farah]

But it would be so fun.

[Brett Burke]

So you tow it up there.

[Matt Farah]

Tow it up there.

[Brett Burke]

Drive it around as you're like pebble car.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah, right.

[Brett Burke]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, I'll get a ride. I'll get a ride in it then.

[Matt Farah]

If not, I'm trying to, like, poke Freeman, like, lightly that they use it on the stand at the Quail. They have a stand. They need a car. Yeah. Might as well be mine.

[Brett Burke]

Yeah.

[Matt Farah]

I'm paying my own way to get it up there anyway. Provenance. Let's go. I just want that little plaque that says, from the collection of Mr. Matt Ferrer.

[Brett Burke]

Yeah, you know, you need that.

[Matt Farah]

I need it.

[Brett Burke]

You need that. This car was at the coil.

[Matt Farah]

When we put the Million Mile Lexus in the Peterson Museum, they gave me a plaque that said, from the Matt Ferrer collection. And I was like, thanks, guys.

[Brett Burke]

Do you have plaque in all of your cars?

[Matt Farah]

I keep them in there just in case. Yeah, yeah. I pull it out. It's like one of those wet floor signs, except it says, you know, that it's one out of this many built. Yeah, yeah. God. I went to. We went to across the street from that racetrack in Charlotte. They do a thing called the auto fair inside Charlotte Motor Speedway, which is essentially the same thing as, like, the Pomona swap meet here.

[Brett Burke]

Okay.

[Matt Farah]

Huge swap meet, car show, shit show, crazy Elvis show. There was an Elvis impersonator contest.

[Unknown]

Yeah, it was the regional contest. This is important because that means it was a qualifier.

[Brett Burke]

These were people that had made it.

[Unknown]

Up from the local district that entertained me to no end.

[Brett Burke]

Yeah. There's a whole. Is there a national.

[Unknown]

I think there is. And these. These dudes are all pretty good.

[Brett Burke]

Yeah.

[Unknown]

Like, they can sing and stuff, but.

[Brett Burke]

Does everyone do fat Elvis or do some people do young Elvis?

[Matt Farah]

They all do sequin Elvis.

[Brett Burke]

Vegas.

[Matt Farah]

So, no. Yeah. No one's doing black leather jacket Elvis. No one's doing army Elvis.

[Brett Burke]

Oh, yeah, no one. No one in the age range that is going to be doing Elvis Elvis, I don't think. Although, who knows? You know, kids discover all sorts of on tick tock these days.

[Matt Farah]

Right?

[Brett Burke]

That's true. And all of a sudden heard this hound dog thing. This is crazy. Who was this guy?

[Unknown]

Look at his hips. Oh, my God.

[Matt Farah]

The Patreon have anything for us? We have a lot of backup from the people because we were traveling a lot, and, boy, did the Patreon have a lot to say. Of course, if you want to ask questions on the program, if you want to get the show early, if you want to get the show ad free, if you want to get extra show. Patreon.com TheSmokingTirePodcast is where you do it. And before we do that, we have another one. I've been asked soliciting, and I'll continue to solicit from people, personal stories of shrinkflation. I'm going to make. Make sure people understand that, like, yes, inflation is bad, but also corporations are using it to take advantage of you. Right. Because they know you can't tell the difference. So we have had a couple of very good stories of shrinkflating.

[Brett Burke]

Shit.

[Matt Farah]

And this one is. This one's good. I'm not gonna use their name, but my wife has worked at Nestle, Oatly and several other brands that create snack foods. As a project engineer and processing engineer, she has worked on many shrinkflation projects. But when I asked her, she said, it's not shrinkflation. It's remaining competitive in the market. Yikes. So the company spins it well to the project team. She's had stories of it from snack packing to beverage carton size and others. The most shocking was cheapening up a Slim Jim. The Slim Jim meat stick is sold based on length, so they couldn't just shorten it. Instead, they reformulated it to use more poultry and soy rather than beef and pork, which is more expensive. And they didn't tell anybody. Please don't use my name.

[Brett Burke]

Wow. It's hard to imagine that they could find cheaper meat than in a gym.

[Matt Farah]

It's the slim world.

[Unknown]

Well, then the bird flu happened and the Slim Jim office was like, shit. Too much chicken.

[Brett Burke]

Put that chicken in there.

[Matt Farah]

Get the beef back in there.

[Brett Burke]

More soy.

[Matt Farah]

Soy. If you've got experience with someone making you shrink flate anything, please tell us because fuck these people. Yeah, Shrinkflation in the automotive sphere, getting less for more. I mean, well. Well, there's some fun examples of that. Like Porsche is like lingerie where they charge you more for less. You know, those door lip fabric straps, stuff like that $3,000 option.

[Unknown]

I feel like subscription model stuff.

[Matt Farah]

That's a subscription.

[Unknown]

Like, Sarah, my wife, bought a new RAV4 last year. And now the subscription for the app where you can start the car remotely collapsed after a year.

[Brett Burke]

So you gotta sign up for 9.99amonth or whatever it is.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah. When they give you that, that first year trial, you kind of forget about it as a cost with the purchase and you just feel like that came with the car.

[Brett Burke]

Right.

[Matt Farah]

Except, yeah, it didn't really. Right.

[Brett Burke]

You're gonna turn it off if you don't pay the.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah. Prashan says, brett, what's your favorite boring car on sale today?

[Brett Burke]

Boring Car.

[Unknown]

I mean, what's your favorite boring 12 cylinder?

[Brett Burke]

Brett? I was gonna say like the Mercedes E Class. Is that, does that count as a boring car?

[Matt Farah]

Yeah, that is a boring car. But it's a nice car.

[Brett Burke]

Yeah. Just know I drove like a base E class sedan recently and you know there's, there's not that many sedans anymore.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah.

[Brett Burke]

And it was just really, really nice. You know what I mean? Like it did every, it felt, you know, I feel like it hadn't felt that nice, the E Class in recent generations or whatever. I feel like they really put some effort into making it like a proper Mercedes luxury car. Like it felt super solid, like looks clean and it looks, you know, it performed adequately. You know what I mean? It wasn't like super fast or anything like that, but it just really relaxed me. So that was a good one. But I'm also a big fan of the current Accord, Honda Accord, which it's just that middle section that's so competitive of the market. Everyone really, really works hard incrementally to make things better. And I think Honda just has nailed that category. So I don't know, maybe that's a more boring example.

[Matt Farah]

Equally boring. You're right about that, about the midsize sedan being like, how do you differentiate. That's a really competitive market doing well. There is a move.

[Brett Burke]

Yeah, you're really trying and maybe it's not the same anymore. Maybe they try harder because no one, not as many people buy sedans. You know, I don't drive a lot of mid sized SUVs, so I'm not really sure. But it just doesn't seem like the same attention goes into those vehicles.

[Matt Farah]

I haven't had people ask me about like a regular sedan in a while. It's either a mid sized crossover or an EV or a sports car. Yeah, that's not a good sample size. I'm sure people ask other people.

[Brett Burke]

No, but I mean I get asked about cars all the time by people that don't care about cars, you know what I mean? That just want something that works and yeah, I don't get a lot of requests around sedans anymore.

[Matt Farah]

Frozen Dingle Mary metallic How do you think President Fascist's tariffs will affect the American car market? So what do we think about tariffs? My hypothesis is it was actually a strong arm mob tactic not to actually go through with the tariffs, but to bully these other countries into coming individually and asking for specific exemptions for them or specific exemptions for their industries. And then he's got something over them. It's literally, I need you to come beg to me. It's like he just did with Zelensky and like he's done with every fucking thing else. Fire everybody and then make them beg you for the thing back. And then if you give it, you own them. It's just mob shit.

[Brett Burke]

Yeah, yeah, no, that's what it seems like for sure. But it, yeah, obviously it creates an immense amount of mayhem. Yeah. Especially when you're dealing with, you know.

[Matt Farah]

Global production, global car supply chains. You can't just like, like be like undo, right?

[Unknown]

Imagine how many phone calls that is of people have to go to him to ask for these kinds of exams. Even if it's country, right?

[Brett Burke]

Yeah. Each country, right. No, it's, it's, it's, it's absolute, that's absolute lunacy. So I mean it's already having an impact, right? Like automakers are pausing their deliveries, they're pausing manufacturing, you know, and no one really knows what's going to happen. And like from one day to the next year, I was like, I was saying, I was in Hiroshima and we were talking about tariffs and yeah, it was like from one day to the next, people don't know, you know, what's going on. And then, you know, like once it does, once anything does get resolved, like how long does it take for that to go down the chain to the people like at the port, you know what I mean, that are dealing. It's like, oh, well, there's a story.

[Matt Farah]

That like at the port, like nobody was like collecting the tariffs, right? Which like, how do they even know like what to do?

[Brett Burke]

Exactly. And if it changes from day to day, you know what I mean? Mean, like all of a sudden it's okay. French cars are fine, not that we're really importing it.

[Matt Farah]

So there's our friend Brian who works at Top Rank Importers down in Garden Grove or wherever they are here in la, somewhere in la. And they import Japanese stuff.

[Brett Burke]

Yeah.

[Matt Farah]

And his Instagram the last few days has been fucking crazy because it's like part 44 of what is the tariff on a skyline? Like literally he's like going to offices, banging on doors and like standing around until someone answers and no one has an answer anything. And he's like, and I'm now on my 17th different department to find out what the tariff is on an imported 25 year old car. Nobody knows.

[Brett Burke]

Maybe there's not a tariff on old cars, but there are on parts, you know what I mean? Like, it's all I'm gonna show you.

[Unknown]

Something and I don't wanna speculate too much on it meaning anything. I'm just presenting a graph. Okay.

[Matt Farah]

We're just asking questions on trump coin.

[Unknown]

On April 9, when the tariff pause was announced, Trump Coin went up from 0.0001 to 0.0003. It just went up by 3x.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah, yeah. So are you suggesting a pump and dump?

[Unknown]

I don't know what that is.

[Brett Burke]

Very interesting. Just a pump.

[Matt Farah]

There's.

[Unknown]

Yeah, maybe not a dump unless it.

[Brett Burke]

Correlates trading financial stake in like the global economy. Yeah, yeah.

[Matt Farah]

The new Coffeezilla video today was all about fucking government Insider.

[Unknown]

This is like free exemption with purchase of sandwich.

[Matt Farah]

I mean, again, free insider trading with purchase of government.

[Unknown]

That is. That is very interesting.

[Matt Farah]

So, yeah, it's all bad. Good question. Says, in modern vehicles, which infotainment center stack have you found to have the best screen off experience where you can still control the climate control and the radio through hard buttons without the screen on?

[Brett Burke]

Let's see.

[Matt Farah]

The Bentleys. If you make the screen flip away like James Bond, you can still do climate control. That's a hard button.

[Brett Burke]

Same with Astin.

[Matt Farah]

And you can do radio through the gauge cluster with a scrolly wheel.

[Brett Burke]

Yeah. Aston's two, Astin's two. I'm trying to think what else has that capacity. The Ineos Grenadier has hard controls for climate and volume. The Lamborghini does not.

[Matt Farah]

The Cadillac Black Wings have hard buttons.

[Unknown]

Does the 4Runner still have that in the Tacoma stuff?

[Brett Burke]

Probably, yeah. Volkswagen doesn't. Obviously. Much to everyone's.

[Matt Farah]

I just drove something else that had the. No rear window buttons too.

[Brett Burke]

Oh, yeah.

[Matt Farah]

It stinks. Why did I just drive that?

[Brett Burke]

I think it's a Volvo.

[Matt Farah]

Oh, it was the Pulsar. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Nothing beats that OG SOB where it just. Only the speedometer and everything else. Night panel born from jets, indeed. I say Pork Roll says, how do you get in the best head space for writing and do these methods change based on where you are?

[Brett Burke]

I am kind of a. You know, I'm a busy freelancer, so I have to kind of be. The way I succeed in making a living is I'm kind of a writing machine. So I can literally write anywhere. And if I need to write, you know, like, I was with Hannah Elliot recently. We had a drink and she was like, I remember you, like sitting in the Bentley lounge at the Geneva auto show. You were having champagne and I asked you what you were doing and you were typing on your phone and you were finishing a story. So I was just like, can you.

[Matt Farah]

Write a story on your phone?

[Brett Burke]

I was finishing up a story on my phone. You know, it was like some of it was pre written and then I'd done an interview and I was like filling in the quotes or something like that. So do you do voice to text? No, I can't. I can't write with voice to text. So. One of my favorite places to work though is on the. On like a long distance flight.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah, Yeah, I like that. I like that.

[Brett Burke]

I really like working on the plane. I got a lot done.

[Matt Farah]

I cannot sit there and type on my phone.

[Brett Burke]

It's not my regular way of doing it. But if I have to do it, I'll do it.

[Unknown]

Add dust at the end. Yeah. Like, I did that with the recent. The jump. The truck jumping thing because it was like I was laying in bed and I thought of something and I was like, oh, right. But I couldn't write paragraphs. It'd be hard.

[Brett Burke]

I definitely have written stories on my phone. So I think.

[Matt Farah]

When you travel, do you do laptop or iPad with keyboard?

[Brett Burke]

Laptop. Laptop, yeah.

[Matt Farah]

Have you tried the iPad with keyboard?

[Brett Burke]

I have.

[Matt Farah]

I'm considering that.

[Brett Burke]

Yeah. I've seen people doing it and then I'm sort of like, is that just another thing that I have to carry then?

[Matt Farah]

No, I would carry it instead of a laptop. Yeah. The only thing that prevents me from doing it now is you can't like dump footage off a bunch of cameras onto it the way you can with a laptop. So that purpose is, I feel like.

[Brett Burke]

You know, considering all the other shit that's in my bag, like the weight of the laptop versus how many ounces I'm gonna save by having an iPad and a keyboard in the.

[Matt Farah]

I suppose.

[Unknown]

Do you want it, Matt, for the read, like being able to read on the iPad later, or do you just think it's lighter?

[Matt Farah]

I think I want it for lighter and I want it for. I think the versatility is a little more so than maybe an iPad. Yeah. And like, I don't know. And like, basically I don't need a new laptop.

[Brett Burke]

Yeah.

[Matt Farah]

Or a new desktop. But like my la. You know, like I. But if I'm gonna get something, like I die. You know what I mean? Do I need that or can I can make do with that with a keyboard?

[Brett Burke]

Right.

[Matt Farah]

But I haven't really tried typing on those iPad keyboards.

[Brett Burke]

I think they're not as nice.

[Matt Farah]

They're not. You know what I mean?

[Brett Burke]

So that if you're hung out with.

[Matt Farah]

Those mechanical keyboard nerds, they got like a $4,000 keyboard that's like handmade. Sounds like a diesel just starting when you're typing. Very rewarding, though.

[Brett Burke]

Yeah.

[Matt Farah]

Someone just came out with, I think it was the world's most expensive mechanical keyboard. Oh, it was thousands and thousands of dollars.

[Brett Burke]

Whole categories of. Of gear that I don't know anything about.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah. This is a deep, deep level of nerdery. But you do. I mean, people do. Coders and engineers and writers. You know, you're interacting with a keyboard a lot at one point. Like, I think right after college, I tried that.

[Brett Burke]

Oh, yeah, the split ergonomic one.

[Matt Farah]

And once you get on that train, that does work.

[Brett Burke]

Yeah. I had some like, bad carpal tunnel for a while and I was trying one of those.

[Matt Farah]

Did you find a lot of the most expensive mechanical?

[Unknown]

I found the top 25 most expensive and they start at 10 grand. Oh, wow. I didn't see a news story, but it's aluminum and it's gold plated.

[Matt Farah]

It was the one. Oh, okay. The one below it. I didn't see the gold plated one. It was the one below it. The SUI president I just saw on some website that's presented like almost like a chef's knife in Japan. It's out of. It's like milled.

[Brett Burke]

Wow.

[Matt Farah]

It doesn't look like much, but it's.

[Brett Burke]

It really doesn't. Keyboard.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah. But it's like, like everything's metal.

[Brett Burke]

Yeah.

[Unknown]

I don't like the clack clack. I like the little bounce feel on my new MacBook.

[Brett Burke]

It might be. Yeah. It might be annoying for your neighbor on the plane.

[Matt Farah]

Oh, you can't. You don't carry that. That's a desktop. Yeah. No, you. That's one of those things. You have a computer built around that.

[Brett Burke]

Okay.

[Unknown]

Ties the room together.

[Matt Farah]

That's for. That's for word processing.

[Brett Burke]

It's not.

[Matt Farah]

Jim Khanna says, are the AMG43 Mercedes models now on the used market suspect for reliability or just boring? It seems like the M3 and S4 are regularly talked about as much better cars. I think you need to establish what an AMG 43 is compared to an S4 and an M3.

[Brett Burke]

Yeah.

[Matt Farah]

Different type of product.

[Brett Burke]

True. Yeah. I don't feel like I can answer this question.

[Matt Farah]

Okay.

[Brett Burke]

I think.

[Matt Farah]

I think that is an example.

[Brett Burke]

Yes.

[Matt Farah]

Of it's. It's not shrinkflation, but it is shrinkflation adjacent. Because the 43.

[Brett Burke]

Yeah.

[Matt Farah]

Was the 400. It was the C400 and the E400.

[Brett Burke]

They've just brought AMG down one level.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah. Nobody wanted a 400, so they made it an AMG 43 and gave it like a little more power and better wheels.

[Brett Burke]

Yeah.

[Matt Farah]

And now it's an AMG product.

[Brett Burke]

Yeah.

[Matt Farah]

An M3 is a true M product.

[Brett Burke]

Right.

[Matt Farah]

This, that car compares to an M340 more than an M3.

[Brett Burke]

Agreed. Yeah. Yeah. They're extending those brands because they can make more money. Yeah.

[Matt Farah]

The margins. Yeah. That's Germany's version of the Cadillac Escalade. They don't have a big pickup truck that they can just load it up, but they can put the rims and the body kits and the badging on anything you got.

[Brett Burke]

Yep.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah. Below average nerd. My nephew turned 15 a few months ago, has zero interest in learning to drive or getting his license. Wah wah. Apparently this is not unique in his school and seems to be a growing trend. What is the cause for this and what do you see as the future of enthusiasts? I mean, there's just some pretty obvious ones.

[Brett Burke]

Yeah, yeah. If you don't need to go anywhere to see all of your friends because they're the same social media apps as you are, you know, then it makes it easier to not go places. And you know, a lot of kids have, you know, don't go anywhere at all.

[Matt Farah]

Right.

[Brett Burke]

They stay in the rooms all the time and all their entire life is digital. Yeah, it's digital.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah.

[Brett Burke]

So that's a big part of it. And you know, where, where would they go anyway?

[Unknown]

Well, modern guys can't afford anything outside anyway.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah. For me, like the freedom to leave my house and see my friend. Not only did we not have social media, I wasn't even allowed to have a phone in my bedroom.

[Brett Burke]

Oh. Yeah.

[Matt Farah]

So like, you know, leaving the house was very, very important for me. Yeah. And maybe it's not so much for people now. And also like everyday driving sucks more now.

[Brett Burke]

Yeah.

[Matt Farah]

Like, I understand why if you live in a certain place, driving sucks and people wouldn't be excited about it. That makes sense. I was lucky enough that I grew of driving age in Westchester, New York and southern Connecticut, which has fabulous roads. It's beautiful. And they're well maintained enough where it's nice to drive. And so the driving was nice and that drove that enthusiastic.

[Brett Burke]

And you kind of need a car. Needed a car to go in there for sure. Right?

[Matt Farah]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Brett Burke]

So that's a big part of it. I think it's also, you know, we've been on this, you know, centuries long trend toward an extension of childhood. Right. Like if you think of 100 years ago or whatever. Like, you know, an 11 or 12 year old might be working in a factory. And now, you know, we don't have that. So we have moved the bar on sort of where adolescence ends.

[Unknown]

That's interesting.

[Brett Burke]

Over the course of generations. But we haven't changed when the driving age is, you know what I mean, to match up with that.

[Unknown]

That's so funny because we used to make adulthood start too soon. It was like, go to the factory at age 10. Now it's like, I'm 42 and I'm buying a collection of Nintendo controllers. Wow.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah. And there's that. This chart. Yeah. Teens are spending from the hill. The hill.

[Unknown]

Well, the source was University of Michigan.

[Brett Burke]

Okay.

[Unknown]

San Diego State University.

[Matt Farah]

All right. Teens are spending less facetime with friends. Weekly social outings have plummeted from between two and a half and three hours a week in the 90s to now under two hours for 12th grade students and from two and a half hours a week in the 90s to now one and a half for 8th grade students.

[Unknown]

Yeah, I think it was weekly outings.

[Matt Farah]

Not a weekly number of outings. Sorry. Weekly number of outings.

[Unknown]

The 70s. But it's all out now. We go. We can hang out playing video games or texting.

[Brett Burke]

But it does definitely add to a creation of sort of social anxiety.

[Unknown]

Very true. Yeah, absolutely.

[Brett Burke]

And now that in face. Inter. In person interaction, they're not, you know, they're not like hanging out or fooling around or having sex at the same rates.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah, also true. And cars are more expensive. I mean, generally cars are more expensive.

[Brett Burke]

Yeah. Even you use. You can't get like a cheap used car. It's not like the wages for teen workers have not increased with inflation or with shrinkflation or any other kind of inflation. So, yeah, they're in a tough spot.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah, it sucks. I do think. I mean, when I go to car events, I do see young people. So it sucks. Some of them are getting there. It may just be in your area. It's not happening. It may be that it's a smaller percentage than before. I mean, when I was in high school, everyone got their license and most people got cars because it was a thing. Very few of those people got a car that was fun or modified it. You were talking about three or four people in a graduating class of 100 owned what you might call an enthusiast car. Everyone else had a regular car.

[Brett Burke]

Yeah.

[Matt Farah]

So it's not like it would have been 50 people and now it's zero. It would have been three, and now it's zero.

[Brett Burke]

And I'm typically surprised and delighted by. It's just like driving around here. Obviously I spend most of my time in New York City. There's a lot of enthusiasm for cars and even amongst young people there's some kids that live. We rent the same place place when we come out here in the wintertime every year. And the landlord told. Told us this year that like starting in January, like the kids on the street start acting asking like when are the car guys coming?

[Unknown]

You know what I mean?

[Brett Burke]

And like I'll come out sometimes to open the car and there'll be like kids hanging out. Actually there were kids hanging out in front of the revuelto the other day when I know. But like they come, you know, like they know from all around the neighborhood front of this house. Yeah.

[Matt Farah]

I let all the kids sit in my car.

[Brett Burke]

Oh, of course. It's part of the job. I feel like. Right.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah.

[Brett Burke]

We're ambassadors for the youth.

[Matt Farah]

Okay, two more and then we were gonna. We will get out of here because we have been out at 4 o'clock. Perpetual psy machine. I've owned my 2010 M3 for a year and I'm moving it over one spot in my garage. From daily driver to weekend fun car. I want to try a new experience, but I'm addicted to V8s. So I'm looking at a Mercedes CL, an Audi S8, maybe a Continental from Continental. Like a Lincoln Continental. Lincoln Continental is a twin turbo V6, my friend.

[Brett Burke]

Maybe Bentley.

[Matt Farah]

Oh, a Bentley Continental V8. Yeah, Bentley Continental V8. Yeah. From there. About. Any other suggestions for highly depreciated V8? Money pits. I mean SLS.

[Brett Burke]

Yeah, SLS.

[Matt Farah]

SLS have a floor and they're well made cars.

[Brett Burke]

Yep, yep. There were some. There's some Cadillac V8s from that year.

[Matt Farah]

Oh, like North Stars.

[Brett Burke]

No.

[Unknown]

I'm gonna throw out a curve ball. Based on my last barber adventure, which was clearly quite a while ago. Based on my hair barber had a like a 2010 Chrysler 300, like SRT. He bought it for five, five or six grand.

[Brett Burke]

Yeah.

[Unknown]

Before 2020.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah.

[Unknown]

This was a car. I think he said it was like 48 grand.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah, it was.

[Unknown]

And he bought it for five. And. And I was like, oh man. Dodge Stellantis. How's it, how's it run? He goes, zero issues. Yeah, zero issues. I mean those things are pretty fun. Speed gearbox, definitely lower on the curb appeal maybe than these.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah.

[Brett Burke]

But you could get the Magnum the wagon, you get that.

[Unknown]

That's like 22, 000.

[Matt Farah]

I mean, or like, I mean if you're looking at CLS and S8s, like a hellcat's not a stretch. You could, you could go there or an old. Dude, the, the CTS V, the one where it was an automatic only for like two years before it became the CT5. Yeah, those are like super sleepers. They fly away under the radar.

[Unknown]

True.

[Matt Farah]

That's 2010 Bentley GT, dude. There's a lot of Bentley specific shit. That's gonna be pricey.

[Brett Burke]

Yeah, that's gonna be expensive.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah. Cadillac Control V. That's a funny username. Long term professional goal for me is to work on vintage high end European sports cars. I keep hearing that less and less techs exist to fix cars like Miuras and 959s, et cetera. How do I find those guys that are left and train with them?

[Brett Burke]

Yeah, that's a good question. I mean, I think, you know, call around to shops in your area, you know what I mean, and see who's working there. There are, there is a program that McPherson College does that's in, they do a BA in Restoration, Automotive restoration and they place people. So that could be a place to use as a resource to find out where these techs are.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah, and I don't know where you're at, but it might be worth calling like the Mercedes Benz Classic center and asking them if they have a training program or you know, if you want to work on vintage Porsches and assuming you're already some kind of a mechanic, you know, maybe trying to get a job for a little while at a dealer, at least you could then go to the vintage shop and go, look, I have two years experience working on modern Porsches. And then they know you're not a moron. Enthusiasm goes a long way. But if you're really working on million dollar cars, you're not going to hire somebody who's starting from zero. You need to get to a baseline of experience where you can be trusted around like really expensive shit, you know what I mean?

[Unknown]

Unless you want to start at like the absolute sweeping floors level where they can mold you slowly to be very careful around things.

[Matt Farah]

But even then, like, like, even then if you don't, if you're not like a reasonably comfortable wrench, you're not gonna get from sweep. You need to get from sweeping floors to holding tools to turning wrenches. You need to be able to turn a wrench before you even start sweeping the floor.

[Unknown]

Yeah, or go get a cert or something. I would say also if you're already a tech of some kind. Follow shops that do the work you like. Like TLG recently had a bunch of posts on Instagram. Cause they were hiring. And so if you follow a shop.

[Brett Burke]

You want to work for, it's always trying to find good people.

[Unknown]

And that's how they find a lot of people.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah. Excuse me. Yeah. That is excellent. Thanks for stopping by, Brett.

[Brett Burke]

Oh my gosh. Thanks for having me.

[Matt Farah]

90 minutes goes by fast as hell, doesn't it? That's it. Let's see. You write for everybody. So you write for a road and track. We have like a little dueling pianos thing happening in the next issue where I defend the Countach and Brett says it's overrated based on driving that silver anniversary car. Right.

[Brett Burke]

The one that Lamborghini. The one that Lamborghini has pulled off the line and he's owned since new.

[Matt Farah]

So that's a fun one. What else you got?

[Brett Burke]

Let's see. I write for Car and Driver. I'm working on a story for them right now about hilarious examples of automotive co branding. So strange things that automakers have put their. Put their. Put their brand on when brand has.

[Matt Farah]

Gone on to car or car has gone on to brand.

[Brett Burke]

Car has gone on to brand. Yeah. Because brands going on to cars are, you know, there's a million examples.

[Matt Farah]

I was gonna say, don't you come from my Nautica village?

[Brett Burke]

I would never. I would never. But yeah, so like, you know, Bugatti champagne and you know, didn't fucking Tesla.

[Matt Farah]

Do some tequila or some shit?

[Brett Burke]

I don't write about Tesla. So. Working on that. I'm working on a story for a Hollywood Reporter about who drives what in Hollywood. So it's sort of like looking at a Listers and what they're in. So we're assembling that one right now. What else have I got going?

[Matt Farah]

Is any a Lister driving anything that's actually really interesting.

[Brett Burke]

Yeah, there's some stuff that's in there that's sort of like a surprise, you know what I mean? So wait and see. What else am I working on right now? Did a story with Rob Report that's coming out this week that's about a collaboration between Magnus Walker and Pin Farina.

[Matt Farah]

Oh, I just. Yeah, he saw he was doing that.

[Brett Burke]

Yeah.

[Matt Farah]

Cool.

[Brett Burke]

It's kind of a livery for the. For the Batista. So that happened. This is in the works. Yeah.

[Matt Farah]

Anyway, yeah, that's a well rounded spread you've got going on.

[Brett Burke]

Got a bunch of stuff going on.

[Unknown]

You can find your writing at your website.

[Brett Burke]

The best place to find it is.

[Matt Farah]

Brett Burke.com B E R K. Yeah, Brettenberg2T. Find it all there. And the real Brett Burke on Instagram, not that fake ass Brett Burke.

[Brett Burke]

But I'm not on Instagram anymore.

[Matt Farah]

Oh, you're not?

[Brett Burke]

No, I got off after the election. I'm done with social media.

[Matt Farah]

Good for you. Good for you.

[Brett Burke]

It's been kind of relaxing, I have to say.

[Matt Farah]

Nice.

[Brett Burke]

Yeah, I find it's. Yeah, I just don't worry about it.

[Matt Farah]

It cool. What are you gonna do? I mean, listen, sometimes it's sunny in Russia also, you know. Thanks everybody. We will be back probably tomorrow for the live people. I think we got to do one of them and love you patrons. Thank you for such great questions.

[Brett Burke]

Oh yeah, thanks a lot.

[Matt Farah]

Thanks for stopping by Brad.

[Brett Burke]

Thanks for.

[Matt Farah]

See all of you later.