F/M/K; Arizona Speed Law; RUFing Miami

Summary

The Smoking Tire Podcast Summary

Episode Title: F/M/K; Arizona Speed Law; RUFing Miami
Air Date: January 13, 2026
Hosts: Matt Farah & Zack Klapman

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Overview

The first episode of 2026 reunites Matt and Zack after a brief holiday hiatus. The show features Matt’s tales from Miami—including driving the legendary RUF Yellowbird, vintage racing, and reflections on the exclusive Concourse Club—plus Arizona’s proposed unlimited speed law, affordability, automotive shrinkflation, fun listener questions (including an “F/M/K” segment on modern Toyotas), and updates from the canyons and winter car culture in LA. The tone is warm, irreverent, and loaded with detailed car talk, personal anecdotes, and reflections on car culture's intersection with economics and daily life.

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Highlights & Discussion Points

1. Return From Holiday (00:50–04:50)

• Show opens recounting missed episode (“we just did,” Matt jokes about not announcing it).
• Matt spent holidays at the shop and then hunting with his dad—trying out a 28-gauge for quail (“It did not seem to negatively impact my ability to kill birds. We killed just as many birds with the smaller gun.” – Matt, 04:15).
• Conversation about hunting dogs, notably cocker spaniels and pointers, and adopting retired hunting dogs.

2. Miami – The Concourse Club and RUF Yellowbird (06:54–21:03)

• Matt describes the Concourse Club in Miami as “private, but with extraordinary attention to detail. The staff are aces.”
• Attended "Flat 6 Fest" – large Porsche gathering, “never seen more RUFs in one place… probably like 30 RUFs.” (07:44)
• Discusses RUF Yellowbird variants—original narrow body vs. wide body, arguments over authenticity (“If you want to talk shit… own a narrow fendered Yellowbird… almost nobody else is allowed to talk shit.” – Matt, 08:09)
• Drove a '91 widebody Yellowbird with a sunroof; softer setup than earlier cars, less dogleg-quirky gearbox (“To drive one on track, like quickly, having weird gear patterns is… less optimal than regular ones.” — Matt, 11:00)
• Notable: The car’s first owner (from Japan) “was ripping grits” (smoking) in it—Matt romanticizes night drives, cigarettes, and the car’s lived-in vibe (20:15).
• Drove a vintage Cayman race car at the track, came P3 after battling more powerful cars—“I was so much sweatier and more tired after 30 minutes [in Miami] than after 2h40min at COTA in Texas. The climate was brutal.” (23:42)

3. Miami as a Car Town & Club Culture (32:25–36:11)

• Matt praises Miami’s social and driving culture, but laments the utter lack of corners/roads outside the pricey club scene. “Outside the club, there ain’t a fucking set of corners for 600 miles. How do you love cars and live in that town if you can’t afford a membership to this place?” (33:10)
• Brief discussion about exclusive club racing in Miami, F1 track access, and economic barriers for enthusiasts.
• Digression on South Florida architecture—"here it's a little douchey to be too flash; there is no such thing down there."

4. Automotive Shrinkflation & Economic Divide (36:16–39:47)

• Matt describes “shrinkflation” – his company checks arrived thinner and more expensive than ever.
• On economic stratification: “Now there’s the haves, the have-nots, and the have-lots—a new class outside government or the rule of law… you stop buying things and purchase access and power.” (39:01–39:47)

5. Affordable Classics & Auctions (40:00–42:50)

• Showcases an Alfa Romeo Spider for sale (“low five figures, mint, super well-loved...Cheap Italian sports cars.”), reflections on unique shifters and quirks in old Alfas.
• Segment underscores the value and character of smaller, older, accessible enthusiast cars.

6. LA Car Culture & Canyon Wrap-up (43:21–49:29)

• Zack recaps a frigid Good Vibes canyon gathering with legendary engineer David Twohig and rare cars, discusses icy roads and automotive mishaps (including an old BMW sliding on ice, 45:53).
• Noted wild builds: a “Miata Safari” lifted off-roader and a turbo K24 Lotus Exige (“looked like a DIY Hennessey Venom”).
• Reflection on the variety, ingenuity, and risk-tolerance seen in local car meets, even in winter.

7. Project Updates & Car Setup (49:34–50:54)

• Zack hasn’t yet changed his car’s track settings; Matt plans to drive his 911 Spider after a month’s hiatus.
• Popular mod in their circle: short-gearing conversions for more lively canyon performance.

8. Patreon Shout-outs & Miami Watch Spottings (51:05–52:30)

• Gratitude for Patreon support, mention of exclusive content and access.
• Watch spotting: “Miami is wild for watches…saw lots of Richard Mille, Pateks, gold APs.”

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On RUF Yellowbird Authenticity:
  “If you want to talk shit… own a narrow-fendered Yellowbird… almost nobody else is allowed to talk shit.” – Matt, 08:09

• On Night Runs:
  “Imagine…night runs in Japan, ripping grits in a fucking Yellowbird. That’s what cars are about, dude.” – Matt, 21:03

• On Miami’s Car Culture Limits:
  “Outside the club, there ain’t a fucking set of corners for 600 miles… if this was all I had, I’d be tired of the same racetrack. I couldn’t live in Miami.” – Matt, 33:10

• On Modern Economic Strata:
  “Now there’s the haves, the have-nots, and the have-lots. There is this new class…beyond the rule of law…You purchase systems.” – Matt, 39:01

• On Vintage Car Use:
  “If you just start using [1980s Ferraris] as a car they work really good actually…but a Testarossa cannot be a regular car.” – Matt, 101:15 (1:41:15)

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Timestamps of Important Segments

| Segment/Topic | Timestamp | |---------------------------------|------------| | Opening & Holiday Recap | 00:50–04:50| | Miami/Concourse Club Recap | 06:54–21:03| | Miami Car Scene Reflection | 32:25–36:11| | Economic Injustice & Shrinkflation | 36:16–39:47| | Alfa Romeo Spider Sale | 40:00–42:50| | Good Vibes LA, Winter Culture | 43:21–49:29| | Patreon, Watch Spotting | 51:05–52:30|

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Listener Q&A & Lightning Round (52:30 onwards)

• F/M/K—Toyota Gazoo Racing:

  • GR86, Corolla, Supra (“Marry the Corolla, fuck the 86, kill the Supra.” – Matt, 53:11)

• Mechanical Watch Habits:

  • Advice for manual winding practices, power reserve accuracy (55:41).

• Car Advice:

  • Commiseration on the reliability of brand reputations, reflections on car buying, NSX market value, driving skills vs. career breaks.

• Arizona’s Unrestricted Speed Zone Proposal:

  • In-depth discussion of proposed law for certain Arizona highways:
    “If you’re going to get rid of speed limits… make it illegal to camp in the left lane…” – Matt, 77:58
  • Analysis of feasibility, need for driver education, US vs. European lane discipline.

• Old Car vs. New Exotic (Testarossa vs. R8 V10):

  • A thorough comparison of the two vastly different sports cars’ experiences and practicality (98:58 onwards).

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Overall Tone & Style

• Candid, conversational, occasionally profane—never far from a car nerd digression or a social/economic tangent.
• Deep expertise and enthusiasm balanced with real-world, ownership-focused advice.
• Engaged directly and knowledgeably with audience questions, with honest asides about industry practices and personal foibles.

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For More

Check out The Smoking Tire on YouTube for car reviews and bonus content.
Support on Patreon for ad-free episodes and exclusive Q&A sessions.

Transcript

[Matt Farah]

What up, everybody? Welcome to the Smoking Tire podcast. Today's episode, as always, is brought to you by off the Record. We love off the Record so much. And over the holidays, I got three more emails of people whose backsides were saved by off the Record. I love when you get that text message after you sign up for off the Record, you send them your information. You tell them what happened when you got a ticket. You send them a copy of the ticket. You don't hear from them for a while. But my favorite thing is when you get that text message, just out of nowhere, your ticket has been dismissed. Oof. Man, does that make me feel warm and fuzzy inside. Don't plead guilty. Get off the Record. If you get pulled over and ticketed for anything at all, off the Record has attorneys in their network in that jurisdiction. They're gonna fight that ticket on your behalf. Take it all the way if need be. And of course, all you have to do is go to offtherecord.com TNT that's offtherecord.com TST. We'll give you 10% off all legal services booked through off just for getting there through your boys at the Smoking Tire. One more time. Offtherecord.com TST. Do it. All right. Our first show of 2026, we took last week off, you see, and we're back in the studio. I was down in Miami. Got to drive myself a RUF Yellowbird. Yes, I did. Also did a little bit of vintage racing and murdered a lot of quail. Also murdered some quail. We got shrink flated on up here. Zach saw some cool stuff on the mountain. And, boy, these rich people really have a lot to purchase, don't they? All that and more on today's episode of the Smoking Tire. Let's go. What's happening? What's going on? Hello. Hello? My. No, my voice is a little bit shot today. There's a lot of loud talking in Miami this weekend. Racetrack talking, racetrack talking, nightclub talking. You know, loud. Restaurant talking. Miami's loud. It's a loud place. I'm right at home there. People are loud. But, like. But it's. My voice is a little shot.

[Zach]

Yeah.

[Matt Farah]

So. Hey, everybody, we're back. This is our first show of the new year. I didn't make an announcement that we were just taking off the week of January 5th. We just did.

[Zach]

Yeah. So I told the Patreon members, okay.

[Matt Farah]

I think I got a couple. I got a couple, like, DMS that were like, like, wtf? And I was like, bro, little.

[Zach]

I got far Fewer than I was thinking. Which I think highlighted how busy everyone is the first week of January because we made content basically through Christmas.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah.

[Zach]

So, you know, and we had one question on Patreon today. Like, yes, we took the first week of January off. I think a lot of people didn't notice because everyone was back at work answering 800 emails that were kicked from December. But yeah, we took our holiday in January.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah. Basically because mainly, you know, because I have to work at the shop all through the holidays so my staff can take off. So then I leave after that. And I went bird hunting with my dad for a couple days. Got some birds, as you do. Ate some birds. Didn't bring any birds back this time. I always bring birds back, but I didn't really feel like it this time. Got a lot. Went to a 28 gauge this year. Smaller gun.

[Zach]

Way smaller.

[Matt Farah]

Smaller, yeah. Normally I would. In the past I would shoot birds with a 20 and my dad switched to a 28 in order to make it a lot harder because we were shooting really good at it. We were shooting and you're shooting, you know, they charge you per bird.

[Zach]

Okay.

[Matt Farah]

You know, so like if you're good and you go shoot a lot of birds, like it's, you know, it's really expensive.

[Zach]

Are you making it harder so that it's less expensive?

[Matt Farah]

I mean, that's, it's like at a certain point, once you can kill all the birds. Yeah. You know what I mean? Like playing the game, playing the video game on easy. But you know, once it's. Once you beat it on easy, you know, you ratchet up the skill level. Try again. So a 28 gauge is a smaller gun, but it's also lighter, which is nice. It did not seem to negatively impact my ability to kill birds. We killed just as many birds with the smaller gun.

[Zach]

Well, the problem is, like if you're center shot, even with the bigger bore, if you shrink it down, you're still hitting the middle.

[Matt Farah]

Well, there's a trade off, right? You could do this to cars, right? Little less horsepower, little more agility. I can move the gun faster. I can draw the gun faster. You can do stuff faster.

[Zach]

You're the Miata now. Racing the Camaros in scca.

[Matt Farah]

Whatever. Something like that. Yeah. Yeah.

[Zach]

That's cool.

[Matt Farah]

It was fun. And I found a new favorite hunting dog. Shout out to Clover. My new favorite hunting. Little cocker spaniel. Love a cocker spaniel.

[Zach]

Yeah. I didn't know they use those for hunting.

[Matt Farah]

That's the flushing dog. So we use Three dogs. When we hunt, we use two shorthair pointers, either English or German short hair pointers. And they just fucking run. They run these figure 8 patterns all over whatever direction you point. And then when they smell a bird, they freeze. And then you walk up with the cocker and they go flush in there. And the cocker like does like jumps around and scares up the birds.

[Zach]

Makes a bunch of noise and scares up the birds.

[Matt Farah]

And then all three of them retrieve the birds. Pretty sweet set.

[Zach]

Very impressive.

[Matt Farah]

But the cockers are like snuggly. Like the shorter pointers are like, they're friendly but they're like, they're pretty much all business.

[Zach]

Yeah, they're sporting dogs and they're, they're.

[Matt Farah]

That's a working dog for sure. The cocker is a working dog. But it's like pretty happy to be there. And like we'll sit on your lap for the truck ride back to the, you know, the lodge.

[Zach]

We saw one of those yesterday at the beach and Sarah looked at and she goes, when I'm 70, like that's the dog I'm gonna get. Or I think it's King Charles. Nevermind. Different breed.

[Matt Farah]

Cavalier King Charles. Also very good dog size. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But the move is to, you know, you get yourself set up with one of these hunting lodges and you can either adopt a retired hunting dog, cause they retire them at like four. The cockers, because they have shorter legs, they have to work a little harder. The pointers can go a little further.

[Zach]

Well, each mile for a cocker spaniel is like seven miles.

[Matt Farah]

Sure.

[Zach]

The other ones, yeah.

[Matt Farah]

But then every litter of puppies, even if it's the offspring of hunting dogs, every once in a while one of them just doesn't like hunting and they adopt them out once they fail hunting school.

[Zach]

That makes sense.

[Matt Farah]

So you can get one that's never hunted or you can get a retired hunter and they're, they're like, they're basically free.

[Zach]

I mean it'd be so funny if you got a former hunting dog and all it did all day was flush your cats out of wherever they are. You know, because it has that in its brain. It needs to find.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah.

[Zach]

And frighten.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah.

[Zach]

And that's just its job.

[Matt Farah]

Totally, totally. Yeah. So a little of that. And then Miami, the Concourse Club. The Concourse Club is really. It's a private club. So it's, you know, you can argue whether or not private racetrack that those two center pictures are both Concourse Club. You can, you can argue whether private racing facilities are good or bad. For humanity. But this one happens to be run just. I mean the attention to detail is extraordinary. These guys are fucking aces. Their staff over there is great. Aaron, the guy who runs the joint is awesome. We were down there doing some stuff last year and they're just as good. So they had a thing called Flat 6 Fest. You can guess what that is. It was basically a big Porsche show. 6, 700 people, heavy hitting metal. I have never seen more roofs in one place.

[Zach]

Whoa.

[Matt Farah]

Now granted, Roof North America's headquarters is at the Concourse Club. So there's going to be more than like normal and curated's there and there's a lot of local customers there. But there was probably like 30 roofs. Like that's more than I've ever seen in one place.

[Zach]

And what was the, you know, build year for those? Like, were they mostly new, full spread?

[Matt Farah]

There was, there was two or there was one true yellow bird, meaning a narrow body. Then there was the one that I drove, which I will happily call a fucking yellow bird. But it's an M491 wide body. So like there's some like whiners like fucking Timmy Pappas up there. Wrong fenders. Now listen, if you want to talk shit in the comments about whether or not a yellow bird has the right fenders, your best position of attack to make that argument is to own a narrow fendered Yellowbird and Timmy Pappas does. So that guy is allowed to talk shit and almost nobody else is allowed to talk shit.

[Zach]

Okay, wow, what year was that made compared to the one you drove by.

[Matt Farah]

Bruce Meyer's car and Timmy Pappas cars are 87s the first year they did them, I think there's like 11 from that year. That's the narrow body car. Super light. So this one, which is photos on my Instagram and I made a little video of the production value is very low. I was limited on time and I was by myself. But this is a 91, so it's the same mechanicals, but it's in an M491 wide body, which was the customer's request. They just wanted it to look different. Whatever.

[Zach]

I think it looks awesome.

[Matt Farah]

And this is also, according to John Temarion, the only yellow bird ever made with a sunroof.

[Zach]

Interesting.

[Matt Farah]

This one does have a sunroof. So I've driven three of these. Now this one was the softest, you know what I mean, of them.

[Zach]

Okay.

[Matt Farah]

Like it was just set up more for like maybe like road driving a little more. That doesn't mean it wasn't fucking sick. And also the 87s that I drove had this weird funky dogleg. It's a six speed, but instead of just being three vertical lines and one horizontal one, it's a dog leg first. Right. Imagine like a five speed dogleg gearbox, like a Ferrar, an 80s Ferrari or 80s Lamborghini, but then with a sixth gear added, upright.

[Zach]

Got it. So it's right. Yeah.

[Matt Farah]

So it's a dogleg first and then it feels almost like a traditional five pattern.

[Zach]

Well, that. Cause after the war, the pattern they wanted to get away from the hh, so they added these two little end pieces. That is very weird.

[Matt Farah]

Essentially because RUF had modified a Porsche gearbox and that was just like what they could do. Right. By the time we got to this car, which is a 91, it's a 6 speed, but it's a regular 6 speed. So actually, what a fucking delight.

[Zach]

Yeah.

[Matt Farah]

I mean, it's one thing, like I like a quirk. And if the quirk of having this weird shift pattern meant I get to drive a yellow bird, yep, that's okay, no problem. But to drive one on track, like quickly having weird gear patterns is, let's just say, less optimal than having regular ones. Well.

[Zach]

Cause you're used to traditional H pattern. So I think, because a lot of people make the argument that the dogleg first is better for racing because you just get out of the pits in first and then it's just 2 to 3, 3 to 4. But I think if you're used to the 2 to 3 being a diagonal, 3 to 4 being used more often, it can just trip you up.

[Matt Farah]

If you are driving one race car for a whole season and looking for the best time possible, then yes, a dogleg first. So you're not in that. And it's just back forth. Back forth is the best. If you're testing a car for 15 minutes, the best pattern is the fucking.

[Zach]

Right, right, right.

[Matt Farah]

You know what I mean? Folks gotta take a quick break because support is coming in hot from delete me. You know everything about delete me now because I've been talking about delete me for like at least a year. It's easier than ever to get people's personal information online. You can buy people's personal information online and people will sell you people's personal information online. You know what, I think that stinks. I think my active online presence means that privacy should be very important to me. Right. And I know people who have gotten scammed or been victims of identity theft. For me, fortunately, the Worst thing that's happened is lots of scammy text messages and emails and all kinds of stuff. Phone calls. You guys hate all that stuff, right? The harassment, all the scammy texts. That stinks. You can take control of your data and keep your private life private by signing up for Delete Me special discount for our listeners. All you gotta do is sign up for DeleteMe, tell them the information that they want that you want deleted and they go through and they get going. It's not a one time service. It's an ongoing system that finds your information on data brokers, websites and essentially files take down and delete notices on your behalf. That first time they're gonna find a lot, but the second, the third, the fourth round, and on and on and on. It's less and less and less every time. It's nice. I like it a lot. I'm still going with that. Deleteme. Take control of your data. Keep your private life private by signing up for Deleteme now at a special discount for our listeners. Get 20% off your Delete Me plan when you go to JoinDeleteMe.com Tire and use promo code Tire at checkout. That's the only way to get 20% off is to go to JoinDeleteMe.com tire and enter code Tire at checkout one more time. Join DeleteMe.com Tire CodeTire also sponsored to you today by TrueWerk. Loving those TrueWerk pants. I took them on my last trip. They are perfect for freezing mornings, wet conditions and wind that cuts right through cheap gear. I wore them for quail hunting. That's exactly what you would use them for. You can also wear them to work because you need workwear that performs when it's brutal out there. And True Work is building performance workwear like it matters. Because it does. Founded by a trade professional who is done with soaking wet heavy gear slowing him down, TrueWerk set out to make workwear that keeps pros comfortable, capable and ready for whatever the day throws at them. While certain other brands focus on cotton based gear that gets heavy when wet, Truewerk uses advanced performance fabrics developed for extreme outdoor conditions. Now engineered specifically for trade work, it's moisture wicking, wind resistant and insulated, keeping you comfortable and mobile all day. Every piece is tested on real job sites with trade pros before it ever goes to market. And when winter hits hard, you're still ready to work, not fighting your gear. So don't let cheap gear slow you down. This winter, upgrade your day with workwear built like it. Matters get 15% off your first order at truework.com Code Tire that's T R U E W E R K.com Code Tire and now back to the show. But I also drove this to the track from curated. What a fucking.

[Zach]

This is a gorgeous car.

[Matt Farah]

What a street car. I mean, what a nice street car. Because for all the exceptional performance that you get out of one of these things and like this thing is fast. Like this is a fucking. This is a fast car. The build sheet says 469 horsepower. I bet that's at the wheels. This car flies and it's got good brakes and it like turns in nice. Like it's just, it's just so good. Like it's just so good. I mean it's a 40 year old car. I pull it out of the showroom. I ran 10:12 laps around the track. Not pushing it, pushing it, but not slow. The car was like whoop dee fucking do. No problem. You know, 40 year old car, everything's all right.

[Zach]

Is this basically the old version of the one we drove there last year, which was the new. The scr was it.

[Matt Farah]

We drove the CTR and a. And actually John had brought out a CTR anniversary also and I was gonna get to back to back them. But he took a few laps in it and while nothing went wrong, there was a smell, a vapor smell of some kind. That was. It just made him not feel so good about putting it back out on the track was all that was like he was about to sell it and it might be, you know, he didn't want there to be a problem. So fair. He let me drive this fucking thing all day. He let me. This was like this was your car for the day.

[Zach]

That's wild.

[Matt Farah]

Like, that's amazing.

[Zach]

He's the nicest dude.

[Matt Farah]

This was awesome. I did their podcast too. I don't know when it goes up, but wherever you get podcasts.

[Zach]

You went to Miami and you cheated on me.

[Matt Farah]

I cheated on him, yeah. But it's, you know, because the yellow bird, narrowbird, narrow body, whatever. The engine, the CTR engine, it's a 3.4 liter twin turbo Porsche. Turbo was a single. The 959 was a sequential Porsche didn't even offer a twin setup until the 993. So this is effectively the same kind of vibe as putting a 993 Turbo X51 engine into a G body car. Like that's basically what you're doing here and then you're reducing weight and then you're adding Rigidity. And then you're shaving the rain gutters, and then you're doing all that other roofy stuff that they do. But it's like, because it's twins, you have. It pulls much more evenly and from a much lower rpm. It's not that zingy, which, like, you know, as a quirk, as a vibe. A930 zingy setup is like. Can be fun, but when you're, like, on a track trying to, like, actually go fast, a broad power band with, like, torque.

[Zach]

Well, this track especially has a lot of U turns, almost like a lot of really tight stuff that leads to a long straight and really tight stuff. So having that laggy, you know, 5,000 rpm before the power, the power band kicks is not optimal.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah, like. Like the Concourse Club. There's like three hairpins where you're coming out of the corner from, like 3,000 RPM in second gear. Yeah, you want that torque shove, right then you don't want power to not happen until five. And you don't want to be going down to first. Going to first. Stinks.

[Zach]

Yeah. I was weird about. I know there's cars that have transmissions that are meant for it, and they can handle it. And Marco's car, the brown one, he was like, it's built. You can do that, but it just feels so strange.

[Matt Farah]

Stinks. I hate it. So. So anyway, there is a video. The car sounds unbelievable. It's. It's.

[Zach]

I think this is perfect looking. And I. You know, I. Even Tim Pappas has, like, the narrow one, and that was the first one. I credit where it's due, but I think aesthetically this is better. And this is like. Like Singer, you know, when they redesigned their cars, they widened everything a bit. Everyone seems to like it.

[Matt Farah]

I mean, look, if you already own a narrow Yellowbird, then you can talk shit about whether or not this is or is not a Yellowbird, but this is a fucking roof CTR from the period. They made like 40 total. This one happens to have wide fenders. So the top speed will be probably a little lower. It's gonna be a little heavier. Cause it doesn't have that different thing.

[Zach]

But, like, I think they're the same.

[Matt Farah]

I think we're really splitting hairs.

[Zach]

I feel like this is the same as someone has an sls, someone gets an SLS roadster. And the other first person goes, it's not a real sls because I ticked an option box. Because it's the same car, just different body. Like, different body.

[Matt Farah]

It is A little heavier. And the wider body would mean that your top speed is probably a little.

[Zach]

Lower, which is the same for convertibles.

[Matt Farah]

Which is the same for other things. Yeah. And. And whatever that sunroof weighs, which is probably something, you know. Okay. It's not the absolute, but I'll tell you something. I pulled out the fucking cigarette lighter. Somebody, the first owner, was ripping grits in this thing. Oh, the first owner. How do you know? Huh?

[Zach]

How do you know?

[Matt Farah]

You can tell if that. One of those cigarette lighters, like, there's brand new, never used, used a couple of times. And then, like, that's your cigarette lighter. Those are the three phases of that. And for at least three or four years, that was this guy's cigarette lighter. Wow. Yeah. The first owner of this thing was ripping grits in this thing. And so, like, that tells me that this was, like, probably some rich dudes, like, daily for this thing is like 80,000 kilometers on it. Like, this was probably some rich guy's fucking daily in Japan.

[Zach]

Get on the Autobots. From Japan, originally.

[Matt Farah]

Wow.

[Zach]

Okay, cool. Imagine they, like, smoking.

[Matt Farah]

Fucking dude. Night. Night runs.

[Zach]

You are hard right now.

[Matt Farah]

Night runs in Japan. Ripping grits in a fucking yellow bird.

[Zach]

I can feel how much you miss cigarettes right now. And that's half this equation.

[Matt Farah]

That's why I'm like, I'd like a cigarette.

[Zach]

You're like, imagine how great it would be. I'm like.

[Matt Farah]

To drive it.

[Zach]

You like to smoke cigarettes?

[Matt Farah]

Just smoke cigarettes at 100 miles an hour down the freeway at night in Japan.

[Zach]

Yeah. That is an iconic moment.

[Matt Farah]

That's what's up. That's what cars are about, dude.

[Zach]

Before, they had the weird electronic limiters on all the highways there.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's.

[Zach]

That's you and smoking together.

[Matt Farah]

So nice. But they also, you know, they. I also go back to that other photo, that silver car I drove, that other thing. I drove this race car, a Cayman.08 Cayman race car. Believe it or not, that's a vintage race car.

[Zach]

Now.

[Matt Farah]

08'S a vintage 17 years, right? I drove in this vintage race with a bunch of, like, 993 cups and 964 cups. And they put me in this, and I was like, well, okay, finished P3. Not terrible finished P3, but P4 behind. Oh, no. So I thought it was P4, but it turns out someone that I thought was way ahead of me broke and didn't finish. So it really was P3. But the cars in the race were very spread out. It was like 12 cars and they were pretty spread out in performance. There was like a 69, 911, a fucking. An IROC AJ Foyt's like IROC one and then like a couple of like super hot rodded like 993 cups that had like big bore motors in them.

[Zach]

So is that what you were chasing, is 993cups with built engines?

[Matt Farah]

Yes. Okay. That's what I was chasing. And, and, and, and members like people whose track this is. And I was driving a car I never drove before. I'm not trying to make excuses, but I was able to battle with those front couple of cars for about a lap and a half and then they pulled away and I just couldn't catch them anymore. And so for like it was a half hour race, but I'd say for like 25 minutes of it, I was mostly lapping by myself.

[Zach]

Whoa.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah. I mean, I lapped seven or eight of the slower cars. And so like there were some passes to make, but if I'm lapping people in a half hour race, like that's not fast. So like getting, Sorry, getting around them wasn't, you know, difficult or really a fight. So like I'm not. It was a fun time. Having said that, you know, I did 2 hours 40 minutes in Texas straight. I did 30 minutes in Miami. I was so much sweatier and more tired after 30 minutes than after doing now.

[Zach]

Is that because of the climate there? Yeah, there's still humidity.

[Matt Farah]

Oh, I was fucked up. It was tough.

[Zach]

This track is tight. I feel like Cody gets some rest in a couple places.

[Matt Farah]

So you have that too. The car I was racing was automatic. I mean, paddles, but. But my left foot didn't have to do much. I was left foot breaking. But this track, 1.5 miles, it's like 13 corners, I think. And it's 2nd, 3rd, 2nd, 3rd, 2, 3rd, 2nd, Third, 4th, 3rd, 2nd, third. It's a bunch of shits.

[Zach]

I'm saying it's like a karting track. I don't mean that disrespectfully, but in terms of how dense it is with activity, you are turning and breaking and there's the clover thing and you're popping out and then you're on the straightaway. But the straightaway is only as long as the pits. The front straightaway, the straightaway, four seconds.

[Matt Farah]

Just enough time to get to like the top. You go from second to the top of fourth and then have to go right back to second again.

[Zach]

It's a U turn and it's a U turn straight and then that's.

[Matt Farah]

And then it's the fourth again and back to second again. And so in a stick shift car, you're doing a lot more work, a lot more work than you are at Cota. Even Coda or a big track like that. It's gonna be like third and fourth gear most of the time. It's not. Second, third, fourth, third, second, third, second, third, fourth, third, 2nd, third, second, third, Second, third, third, fourth. Yeah, it was a lot. My fucking ass is so sore even today from that. Just from all the left. The left. All the left footwork. The left footwork. Yeah, yeah. It was fun though. And then flip over. I drove this Rocs R O C S Rocks design folks, one more break because support is coming in this week from AG1. You know about AG1, you heard about them before. But there's no right time for better health. There's just today and now. And AG1 is the easiest and most impactful habit you could implement this year.

[Zach]

Why?

[Matt Farah]

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[Zach]

It has that vi.

[Matt Farah]

This is like your typical period built track rat type 911.

[Zach]

Looks cool.

[Matt Farah]

It did look cool. It looked cool and had a great shifter. Very notchy and tight.

[Zach]

So is this shadow, this meatball shadow on the door. Like a real sticker they peeled off a long time ago.

[Matt Farah]

Maybe. Maybe. I don't know. The exterior is real scruffy. There's a couple little bits of rust here and there. It's meant to be super scruffy and the interior is super scruffy too. So here's the thing. If I didn't just get out of a Yellowbird and get into that I'd have been all about that, you know what I mean? It's a beautiful vintage hot rod 911 experience. It's fucking loud. There's no sound insulation. It's got that race car mirror that goes across the entire top of the windshield. The steering is very sharp and it's got all these old school bucket seats like they would have driven in the 70s where. And I'm just going, God, if I have a crash in this, I am dead as a fucking doornail. That's it from the other side. Yeah, but it's a great vibe. I mean it would be a great car to rip around LA in for sure. But after the Yellowbird, I mean just this is a lovely car and the guy who built it was really nice and it didn't have any like terrible vices. It turned nice, it stopped pretty good, like it was fine. It was a cool, sordid old 911, you know, fucking yellow bird though, you know, I mean like you the difference between something like this and what year.

[Zach]

Was this car by the way?

[Matt Farah]

I have.

[Zach]

I mean it's got to be.

[Matt Farah]

No idea, 70, 69, 70, something like that. It's late 60s, early 70s, so that's.

[Zach]

You know, a 20 year difference just in the body shooting, body construction and then plus you add like roof being.

[Matt Farah]

Roof, 300 horsepower problem.

[Zach]

Turbo refinement. Yeah, I mean just all of it. Yeah, yeah. I think they have very different intentions. Yeah, this feels like something Fattius would like just.

[Matt Farah]

No, for someone who wants old school raw rough, I mean Magnus would love it, you know, and Jethro was there as well and he had a go at it and he thought it was great fun too. It is. It was really cool. It was nice to get to try it. Like I like the no paint. I think that's a cool aesthetic. It certainly ran well and sounded cool. And it was carbureted, so it did that little spittley thing that happens when you come off the throttle that only the carbs do where it sort of of like almost like pops back out the carb a little bit, you know what I mean?

[Zach]

Cool.

[Matt Farah]

Fast, quick, quick, quick. I mean look for what it was fast. I just got out of a yellow bird. So like not fast. No yellow bird is fast. This is not fast. But it was lovely. I mean look, in today's world, fast doesn't matter. That much fun beats fast. Sure. So it was certainly enough horsepower to have a good time in though it was not fast enough for me to be happy with it as my Track car, you know. But if you were racing a bunch of other cars that looked and sounded like it, that would be a good day. That would be a good day.

[Zach]

Very fun day. Yeah.

[Matt Farah]

Cool. Yeah, for sure. But you know, fucking for six days a year, Miami's the best place on earth. You know, you hit the weather, right? You hit the. And it's just the restaurants are vibing and people in Miami have a sort of optimism about despite reality, you know what I mean? They're having a good time. Everything else is burning. There's like no laws there. They don't pay fucking taxes. But they're about it. Like whatever else is happening in the rest of the world, Miami's fun.

[Zach]

Yeah, it does have a fun vibe to it. It does.

[Matt Farah]

Six days a year. I'm 100% about it. But outside of this club, there ain't a fucking set of corners for 600 miles.

[Zach]

I know.

[Matt Farah]

I mean, seriously, like, how do you love cars and live in that town if you can't afford a membership to this place? And frankly, even if you can and they do as good a job as can be done. The community, the track, the amenities, the staff, this is as first rate as fucking first rate gets. I'd be tired of the same racetrack if that was all I had. You know what I mean? If I didn't have the racetrack and canyons and some other racetracks once in a while, if this was where I could go to drive and in Miami that's wouldn't satisfy me. So I couldn't live in Miami.

[Zach]

Well, yeah, I mean, I think there's two things there. Like if you were forced to live there, you might find ways to keep the track fun. You just get really into the racing, really into shaving times.

[Matt Farah]

Well, they do that. They've got this club series that spec M2s they're all racing apparently is a very good, very good series. And the club does stuff. They do activations at the F1 track and stuff like that. Oh, I forgot the F1 track. There is a way to join some kind of a club that gets you 30 or 40 days a year at the F1 track also. And there may be some type of reciprocal with concourse club that's pretty rad. So I don't want to say that this is the only place to turn corners in Miami. The F1 track is the other place.

[Zach]

Well, also you have to be a certain economic bracket to experience either of these. So if you're a car fan in Miami who's not in that bracket, I think it highlights, though that people can find a lot of ways to like cars. Like when I was reading magazines as a kid and reading, this car goes this fast or it handles better, you know, than this thing. If you had handed me that car there, I wouldn't. In Santa Cruz, I wouldn't have gone, oh, I can't go to any of these racetracks. Like, even if you just drive around for a while. I think it's so exciting because you're so excited about the car.

[Matt Farah]

That's true. They're just like, there isn't anywhere to go. I mean, imagine la, but without the mountains.

[Zach]

No, I get it. I think because we live here, we've become not like spoiled, but also this is the kind of driving we like. That's why we live here in part. So for us to think of moving somewhere that doesn't have that would be crippling.

[Matt Farah]

Well, yeah, no, it is. But it's too bad. Cause I meet really nice people there and the food is great, the hospitality is great, the vibe of it's great. I like South Florida architecture. I think it's an interesting mix of art deco, mid model, way more colorful architecture. Colorful people don't give a fuck. You know, here, like, here it's like, even in la, it's like a little douchey to be like, too flash. Like, there is no such thing down there as too flash. And it's like kind of hilarious.

[Zach]

Yeah.

[Matt Farah]

So anyway, it's a fun time, as long as it's the right time of year.

[Zach]

How far is the firm from Miami?

[Matt Farah]

That's in Gainesville. Those are extreme ends of Florida. It's far.

[Zach]

Homestead. That's the NASCAR track.

[Matt Farah]

It's really far. Yeah, there might be something to do with. At Homestead. Do they have an infield road course?

[Zach]

There's Miami Exotic Auto Racing. Like, I think there's probably some more things you gotta find one of those tracks we stumble upon. They're like out in the woods.

[Matt Farah]

I'm sure there's a track in the middle of the woods somewhere. I think, like, Jake Paul just bought some huge piece of land at George.

[Zach]

H. I heard the best description for him, which was hawk TUA for dudes. Yeah, that sounds perfect. Yeah, they both scam people with crypto.

[Matt Farah]

Oh, wait, so I got a shrinkflation. This one's hilarious because it's my checks. Like, I ordered new checks for Westside and it's the big binder of business checks. It's the sheet that's got three and then the ledger and you tear them off, right? And I just click to reorder. Just reorder the same product I have. This is my third time in six years reordering. Okay. The checks come. They are notably thinner. The paper is thinner. And I can't use my fountain pens on them anymore because it bleeds through. They made my fucking checks. And they're more expensive. They made them thinner and more expensive. Thanks. Deluxe.com.

[Zach]

That is. That sucks.

[Matt Farah]

They shrink plated the thing I use to pay bills with. Isn't that crazy? Oh, and that. Dude, I read a story this morning that made. I mean, it just. There's a story on Axios this morning saying that there should be a new class of people. You've heard of the haves and the have nots?

[Zach]

Sure.

[Matt Farah]

Well, now there's the haves, the have nots, and the have lots. And there's a whole thing about the have nots is basically like the 50% of this country that are like priced out of everything. The don't have $1,000 for an emergency home ownership. So that's the have nots. The haves are like, like people that probably would have been considered rich like 10 or 15 years ago that are like stable. Fine. They own their own homes, they have some money for some retirement. What today's version of middle class people is that probably would have been upper middle class 10 years ago. And then you have the have lots, which is the 0.001%. That's like riding the fucking AI truck. Boom. That it's like the list of people that. It's like they list off 12 people that made like over.

[Zach]

There were 19 families last year, made like $500 billion or something.

[Matt Farah]

And you're like, what? And so anyway, that's a new class of people that are outside governments. I mean, when you have enough resources, you don't need to be loyal to a city, a state, a country, laws, like anything, like nothing. And so anyway, yes, I think that's.

[Zach]

Good to have a new descriptor definition. Yeah, that makes sense. Language evolves and there's a huge difference.

[Matt Farah]

So, yeah, I mean, and like it's an incredible like, privilege to be able to like own a house and not have to think about the price of groceries too often. That's an incredible privilege. But like, there's this just. There is this new class of people where it's like beyond the rule of law. Where it's like post power, like where you just have the power, the access and the influence to make markets. You can insider trade, you can have Access to what the government's gonna do before they do it. You've bought your way into a club that just enshrines your power outside of.

[Zach]

Yeah, you stop buying things and you've purchased access and power.

[Matt Farah]

You purchase systems.

[Zach]

Yeah, true.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah, it's kind of fucked up.

[Zach]

Yeah, it's going really well. Really well.

[Matt Farah]

Would you say this is about 1930 where we're at?

[Zach]

Yeah, 28, something like that.

[Matt Farah]

28 to 30 is probably, you know, we're getting there. We're getting there. Don't worry guys, it'll happen. The. Oh, let's talk about affordability for a second. We've got this Alfa Romeo Spider Spider on Bring a trailer. Affordable sports cars. We put. It's two. There's two days left in this. By the time you guys listen to this on Tuesday, it's not. There's a photo of it on the, on my Instagram top photo. You can do this little red Alpha Spider, we sold it last month and then after the guy clicked bid he got like a terminal health diagnosis.

[Zach]

Oh shit.

[Matt Farah]

And like, and like couldn't. Yeah, so. So I'm very unfortunate. And so we're, we're running, we running it again. No fault of the car. So this, this is going to be like low five figures, guys. Mint, super well loved Alpha Spider. Get in the Italian car game.

[Zach]

Just tag Tom Holland. Just tag him a bunch.

[Matt Farah]

Is he about that.

[Zach]

Well, he already has an old. He's got an old one but he needs more.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah, it's a lovely front engine, rear 2 liter, 4 cam, 5 speed, limited slip diffuser, convertible. Nice leather. The cigarette lighter has not been ripped. A thousand grits.

[Zach]

It's a 95 Alpha Spider owner 91. 91.

[Matt Farah]

No, it's been owned since 1995. The little old lady that owned this has owned it since 1995.

[Zach]

Wow. Yeah, I want to see. I just want to see the interior and different angles real quick.

[Matt Farah]

Oh, yeah. Oh, you spell it with a. Yeah, that's why it's with an I.

[Zach]

You know, if Italy could just get some consistency on how.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah, that's. Lamborghini does it with a. The Lamborghini and Porsche do it with a Y and Alfa and Ferrari do it with. There it is in the middle. Photos by Thaddeus and it's. This is one of the ones that's got the, you know, like the shifters up on the dashboard. Ever see that? See the interior? One of these.

[Zach]

What a friendly little vehicle.

[Matt Farah]

So see, look where the shifter comes out of. Isn't that great?

[Zach]

Right.

[Matt Farah]

They're fun to shift. It's a totally different thing.

[Zach]

Pull down, press down.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah.

[Zach]

Lift up.

[Matt Farah]

It's like this. It's funky.

[Zach]

It's like you're operating a drawbridge, dude.

[Matt Farah]

It's a. You know, if you want, like a different and unique driving experience, like really, really cool little car.

[Zach]

And if you want to drive around a car that doesn't make it look like you're an insecure idiot, this is the car for that.

[Matt Farah]

And what you really want to do is get rid of that airbag steering wheel. This is a 91 gen 1 airbags. You probably don't even want that in your car. Like, you're probably more likely to get hurt by that airbag than have it save your life. Just get rid of that steering wheel. Little wood nardi.

[Zach]

Yeah.

[Matt Farah]

And then you're. Now. No one knows what year this thing it is. Now it could be a 73 or a. But it's.

[Zach]

I like the seats, dude.

[Matt Farah]

Does this look like a 133,000 mile car? This is mint. It looks like it's got like a third of the miles it actually has.

[Zach]

Yeah.

[Matt Farah]

It's been really, really well loved, this car.

[Zach]

I like the gauge binnacle.

[Matt Farah]

Gauge binnacle is cool. All the controls are really cool. It's just if you're really gonna drive, it needs a new set of tires. Tires. The tires are old, but it is absolutely lovely. So go check it out on. Bring a trailer and get in the game. Cheap Italian sports cars, people. What else did I have that I wanted to talk about? It's pretty much. Pretty much. I mean, I. We could talk about the Aston Martin DBXs, but that seems like something that we should maybe save for next show, I think.

[Zach]

So we're at 35.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah, we can.

[Zach]

Because that'll be 20min.

[Matt Farah]

What did you do while I was gone?

[Zach]

I went good vibes with David Tuig and.

[Matt Farah]

Oh, really? How's David?

[Zach]

We had a great time. Him and his buddy Zoil, they rented a V6, a red V6 Mustang from Vegas and they drove it here. They were at ces.

[Matt Farah]

Oh, okay. All right.

[Zach]

And I. I was gonna say, why.

[Matt Farah]

Would they rent such a. One way. One way rentals is what.

[Zach]

And they. And also ces. I think a lot of people had more money than them rented cars. First, like, it's like the biggest trade show second to sema. So they ran into that thing, which was very funny to watch. Engineers go like. It's just so slowly. Yeah.

[Matt Farah]

For those who don't know Who David is. He was the. I think I forget the title, but he basically. Program manager, program director. He basically ran the entire Alpine A110 program.

[Zach]

And before that, he ran the Nissan Qashqai program. We called it the Rogue. One of their most successful crossovers.

[Matt Farah]

Our audience really cares about that.

[Zach]

No, I'm just saying, like, he worked for huge companies. He's ran projects for three huge companies. And then he wrote an amazing book you should read called Inside the Machine. Super nice guy and engineer. So we hung out and went up to Good Vibes. It was frigid, sir.

[Matt Farah]

Was there snow?

[Zach]

There was ice.

[Matt Farah]

Oh, really?

[Zach]

Yeah.

[Matt Farah]

In the shady part of the road.

[Zach]

There was ice in the shady part, right when you approach Newcomb's, which that was a really funny thing. So on the way up. Up road's dry. I'm watching the temps, though. Like, it's chilly.

[Matt Farah]

Did you go up big to hunger. Did you go up Angela's Crest?

[Zach]

The whole way, Our normal way up.

[Matt Farah]

Oh, and it was open. Yeah. Oh, good. Okay.

[Zach]

There was no snow, like, visible. There was one corner where I couldn't tell if it was ice or water coming across. And then as I went over it, I felt the whole car, like, drift. I went, that's nice. And it was a very short moment. I knew I'd be okay. So after that.

[Matt Farah]

But there's the winter local little inside baseball in the winter. There is a section of rope that never sees sun.

[Zach]

That part was dry. Shocking. 100% shock, really. I was expecting to go 2 miles per hour, really. With my tires that was clear. I think they'd plowed it. Maybe sun had hit it at some point. There was ice right when you get to Newcomb's. And it was probably a 50 foot, maybe 100 foot section of ice and slush. We all. And everybody who showed up slows down. Except for one guy in an E30, 34 M5, I think, who kind of came in at like 25 and all of a sudden kicks left and slides into the oncoming. No one was there. But we're like. And then he just pulled in the parking lot and didn't say anything. And all of a sudden he said himself.

[Matt Farah]

Nobody saw that.

[Zach]

Yeah. And some of the, you know, folks that were there were looking up the hill to make sure no cars were coming. Like, safety priority there. But that guy probably learned that you need momentum, but you don't need that much momentum.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Zach]

Very light showing of Good Vibes. It was like 38 degrees.

[Matt Farah]

Well, yeah.

[Zach]

Also, first week Back at work, I think like 20 cars showed up. It was really strange.

[Matt Farah]

Well, yeah, cold. And it had been raining all week. The reason I asked is about not what you were doing, but which route you took. Because right after the rains, when I had to go film Big to Hunga was closed. And I didn't know why. I was hoping. Cause it was not damaged or in any way.

[Zach]

I didn't see. I saw no signs of road work or anything. So I'm not sure.

[Matt Farah]

Maybe it was just preventative, you know, maybe it was just closed in case something happened they didn't want people going up there.

[Zach]

There were. I mean, there were sections, I think more in Angela's Crest where there was like evidence of mud that had gone across that they plowed away or big rocks and stuff that they'd cleared. But there are just a couple wild cars up here that I wanted to show you.

[Matt Farah]

Miata Safari.

[Zach]

Miata Safari. I think stock engine just lifted huge tires. I mean, this thing looks like it's on, I don't know, 32 inch tires.

[Matt Farah]

And they. It looks like it's got longer control arms too. They look like they're outside the body of the car.

[Zach]

They are a little bit. I looked underneath and I mean I saw suspension. I couldn't find the person that built it. But the back says like. Oh, what was it called? It was called like rough rides, fabrication or something. Something that's kind of like we do shitty work, but more of a joke. But this thing just looked like a good time. How come it does look like a good time? Wait, let me go. There we go. You know.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah, that looks fun.

[Zach]

Fun. Yeah.

[Matt Farah]

No lower. No front bumper. No lower rear bumper.

[Zach]

It was so tall. I did a profile shot. I don't think I put up, but it was next to a Ferrari 355 which had the nose was below the bumper of this thing. You could drive this over, you know, a Corvette.

[Matt Farah]

That's sweet.

[Zach]

Just a good time that someone probably had with a car they got for like $12. Yeah, I read that.

[Matt Farah]

Great fun.

[Zach]

Yeah. Z06. Sorry. So pretty tall and then this. The only other car I wanted to show you was. Was this Lotus.

[Matt Farah]

Oh, I've seen this car before. This is a black Exige with like white wheels, like JDM style, like track day wheels.

[Zach]

It looks fantastic. It has good ground clearance. What a genius. But it's got a turbo K24.

[Matt Farah]

Oh, I bet it rips.

[Zach]

And the guy that owns this thing, I think he's like 20. If you're listening, you look, 20. You probably are. He bought it from a guy he knows who's like a racing engineer. So this dude drives it around right now with 270 wheel horsepower. He says it's the lowest power setting possible before the thing just stumbles. And I was like, that's a good place to start. You can live with this car for the rest of your life and you can probably never out drive it.

[Matt Farah]

Well, yeah, I mean, you can grow with this because the fastest these cars ever got from the factory were 260 crank horsepower. If you're making 270 at the wheels, that's significantly more.

[Zach]

He said the engine and the setup, I mean, look at this external wastegate shit. Like, it looks so rad. It sounds amazing. He said the engine's good for like 6 to 800 horsepower, but the transmission will explode.

[Matt Farah]

That's. Yeah, it will. Cause it's stock gearbox, right?

[Zach]

Yeah.

[Matt Farah]

Or is it the Honda gearbox or the, or the.

[Zach]

He said it's stock gearbox. And with the grenades, he can put something else in there, but for now, he's just driving around like this. But it just, it looked like a DIY Hennessey Venom. It sounded amazing. It's got this crazy lower splitter. I mean, it was just total race car. And to drive it up on the day where there's, like ice and snow on the road, just the bravery.

[Matt Farah]

Impressive.

[Zach]

Yeah, it was rad, but otherwise someone.

[Matt Farah]

Else in an exige.

[Zach]

Yeah, I looked at it and went, man, this seems like a great idea. And also very uncomfortable.

[Matt Farah]

So uncomfortable. Uncomfortable. So uncomfortable. Unfortunately. But, but if you fit. God bless you.

[Zach]

Yeah, Sounds good. We had a good time. It was a great, great drive. Good hang. But that's pretty much all.

[Matt Farah]

Have you, have you changed the, the settings in your car since your track day?

[Zach]

No.

[Matt Farah]

Okay.

[Zach]

I have not.

[Matt Farah]

Okay.

[Zach]

I want to change the springs. I haven't done that either. Yeah.

[Matt Farah]

I need to drive my car this weekend. I, I, my Spider, I haven't driven in, I think a month has knocked. Great. I need to drive it.

[Zach]

Dan McInnis was there, and also one of David's friends has the Gray Spider.

[Matt Farah]

Remember Chris the gray Spider? I know the guy.

[Zach]

He got the gears done. So they both have short second through fifth.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah, I know that. The chalk one, right? Yeah, I see that guy a lot.

[Zach]

I think that's the move for so many people. Shorter gearing.

[Matt Farah]

It's expensive, but it's not as expensive as adding horsepower. And it has a better return and it reduces stress off your engine. Yeah.

[Zach]

And you keep the Tall, six gear. So you keep your highway miles per gallon, which you wouldn't if you added horsepower. Yeah, I just, I'm very excited about it.

[Matt Farah]

My. My engine is only like 2 miles per gallon less than stock. And even, even with that, I met a guy in Miami with a demand motor in his car. I also met. Ran into Shout out to Diego who bought my safari car. Ran into him down in Miami. He and his wife, I think she's his wife. She's very lovely. They're having a great time. They're going to all these events. They're putting all these miles on the car. They're doing. They're. They're really. They're enjoying that car for what it should be enjoyed for.

[Zach]

Was your car at.

[Matt Farah]

No, there was another one. It wasn't there. It was. It was not there. There was a yellow keen safari there. Yeah.

[Zach]

God, they're so rad.

[Matt Farah]

They are so good. They're awesome.

[Zach]

All right, we can go to the.

[Matt Farah]

Let's go to the peoples. Patreon really kept us going that the wire from Patreon came through this morning. It was a good month over there on the Patreon. So thank you guys for keeping it going. Welcome to all the new people for 26. If you're new to us. And the way it works is if you sign up for us at the patreon, which is patreon.com thesmokingtirepodcast you can watch the live stream. You can ask us questions for the livestream. You can get the show before anybody else the same day it's recorded rather than waiting Tuesday or Thursday. You can get extra show because there is a show at the pro driver tier. That's just a ninth show every month just for them. You can get the show without ads and you can get access to exclusive collabs and stuff that we do with brands before anybody else, such as the next generation of notice watches. Yeah, Aaron down at Concourse Club asked me to reserve him one of the pinks. He will be taking one of the pinks. Saw two canyons down there in Miami. Nice big watch spotting.

[Zach]

Yeah.

[Matt Farah]

Fucking heavies down there in Miami. I saw lots of Richard Mille, lots of Pateks, lots of gold APs. There's a guy sitting in fucking coach coming back from Miami wearing a gold fume dial ap Royal oak chrono. If it was real, it was about a quarter of a million bucks.

[Zach]

Wow.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah.

[Zach]

Well, he spends his money on what.

[Matt Farah]

He enjoys, not flying first class. Yeah. Okay, let's go to the people pts. Angela White says, oh, the. Oh, the car version of Fuck Mary Kill is Turo Finance Crush. That's cute, but I'm just gonna keep it Fuck Mary Kill. So we're not plugging Turo on this. We don't need to turn into an ad for Turo. All right. Gazoo Racing. Fuck Mary Kill. 86 Corolla, supra.

[Zach]

I would. I would marry the GR86. I would fuck the Supra, and I would kill the Corolla. Mmm.

[Matt Farah]

Marry the corolla, fuck the 86, and kill the Supra. Yeah, the Corolla would be the one that I'd want to have as my car for a while. The 86 I would like to beat the shit out of as hard as possible for like a day and then just go like, thank you, See you later. And the Supra is fun, but doesn't interest me all that much.

[Zach]

I like the Supra straight line speed. I would just enjoy that for like a minute. But then the GR E6, I just love interacting with that in every way as much as possible.

[Matt Farah]

Okay, Big Ben says mechanical watch Question. I don't wear my watch daily. And when I take my Breitling Navitimer out of the box to wear it, I just put it on and walk around for a few minutes, and the motion of my wrist gets the movement going. And then I just set the time. Time and continue about my day. My question is, am I doing it wrong? Is winding the watch manually before putting it on necessary, or is this considered accepted practice? So I don't want to tell you that you're doing it wrong, because if the way you're doing it works, then it's not wrong and it's certainly not causing any damage. But if you don't manually wind that thing up, just the natural motion of your wrist, you are never going to get fully wind that barrel. The motion of your wrist is really designed to maintain, not to increase the level of windedness of your watch. And so I would say that the way you should be doing it to get the most accuracy and the most power reserve out of that watch is probably going to be to wind up it manually, set the time, wind it manually, and then. And then go about your day. You don't have to spend that long doing. It's 20, 30, 20, 30 spins will do it. And then. And then you'll do it. It'll. It'll work. But I don't. I don't think you're getting a good wind that way I don't think your. Your watch will be either as accurate or have as long a power reserve as it could otherwise have. Listen, and sometimes watch says, I love my EV as a daily, but miss having something with character. Even when driving city doing errands. If I had room for only two cars plus Hannah's daily, would one of them still be an ev? Well, our one EV now is Hannah's daily.

[Zach]

So let's delete that part of the line and let's give you two cars.

[Matt Farah]

If I had two cars, one would absolutely be an electric car. Yes. In my life. My life was. Is full of other cars. But like, yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. Why would I not have an EV for here? That's. It's just so much better. It's just so much better. And I'm about to go on a EV road trip next week. The new lucid Gravity. And I have to go to places that do not have a ton of. I have to drive across the desert. I'm doing a big lap of the fucking desert to scout the Desert Run 600 road and track event. It's coming up in eight April. It's about 60% sold out right now. You can come drive with me. We got track time, we got great hotels. Gonna be super fun. Super fucking fun. But I got scouted, so I'm doing the gravity and the gravity can use Tesla superchargers now. So it'll be my first time using superchargers. But I think we are. Obviously new cars are expensive and EVs. If your goal is to save money by not buying gas, it may not work out for you. But I love the times when I have to sit in traffic or light to light or whatever. I'd so much rather be in a fucking electric car. So much rather. I'm so. I get so much more relaxed and everything, you know? Would you.

[Zach]

Yeah.

[Matt Farah]

If you were gonna have two cars, would you have an EV and a sports car?

[Zach]

Absolutely.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah.

[Zach]

I just. I like the way. I like the quiet, the lack of vibration, truly. I mean, I now notice the difference when I get out of my car and get into any press car we have with a V engine. The difference in vibration is totally noticeable. And then the difference from my car to EV is so nice. And the instant torque. Just not worrying about like the maintenance side of it, all those things. Totally.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah. Send Preludes.

[Zach]

That's a great name.

[Matt Farah]

I do World War II reenacting Allied stuff side.

[Zach]

Who does the other side is that bag of folks. Anyone who's excited about that problematic.

[Matt Farah]

I always wanted a Jeep for events and putting around town. What military vehicle of any era would you want to drive? I mean a tank. Like a small tank, right?

[Zach]

Yeah, I mean that's the coolest thing. You can just drive. And there are small tanks. That's what's funny. There's like. There's ones that are like the size of. I don't know, like a Hummer either.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah, like little tanks.

[Zach]

Yeah. Versus Willy's. Jeeps are cool and friendly and everyone likes them. They are just nightmares to drive over 25 miles per hour.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah, they're trash.

[Zach]

And those, those troop transporter things, the ones like a six wheel, whatever it's called, that just feels too cumbersome.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah. So, I mean, dude, tank, hovercraft. I think I'd like to do a hovercraft. Maybe. That would be fun.

[Zach]

Do they use those in World War II? Well, I guess.

[Matt Farah]

No, not World War II. He said military vehicle of any era.

[Zach]

Oh, that's true. True.

[Matt Farah]

I met a guy who. I met a guy who drives a hovercraft. Remember at.

[Zach]

Yeah, yeah, we talked about that on the way back from San Diego. You know, I still think the Hummer H1 is oddly fun. When I drove that one for cars and bids. Shocked at how easy it was to drive.

[Matt Farah]

It has its charms. Yeah, it has its charms. Most of them are shit piles. But it does have it. The one I. That one. The Drift Hummer I drove in Detroit. That thing was awesome.

[Zach]

Oh wait, the amphibious vehicles. Those one. The V hole that you can drive in the water, but they're all small. That's what I would do.

[Matt Farah]

Those would be fun. Yeah. Run GMC.

[Zach]

That's pretty good.

[Matt Farah]

More fuck, marry, kill. Wagons, second gen CTS V manual, E39 M5 Touring, C6, Audi RS6 Avant, twin turbo V10.

[Zach]

This is. This is kind of a tough one.

[Matt Farah]

I mean, the M5 touring doesn't exist. That's not a real car, right? BMW never made that.

[Zach]

Well, same with E46M3 touring. They list it up there.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah, I chose to ignore that.

[Zach]

Well, except you'd love it. You don't think you'd like an M3 touring wagon?

[Matt Farah]

I probably would, but like, I don't know, I had an M3 and I didn't fall in love with it.

[Zach]

That's a good point.

[Matt Farah]

I would marry the CTSV manual. Fuck the E39 M5 and kill the RS6 Avant.

[Zach]

I would marry the CTSV manual. I would fuck the RSV6 6 Twin Turbo V10. And then I would kill the BMW team because I've driven them enough.

[Matt Farah]

William Ray wants to know if we've ever driven a TVR Tuscan. I have not. No. Downshift family says. Do you think youtuber cars such as your NSX are generally less valuable in the market because their exploits have been on full display? Play. I don't understand what that means.

[Zach]

No, I. I actually think it goes the opposite direction for cars like yours. I think it depends on what the YouTuber is using the car for and what has been documented. So in your case, you always buy a car you document and talk about. I got maintenance done here. This was on time, I improved this. Here's why, like, you really lay out what you've changed and the justification and what things you change or update or maintain are always to the highest quality and for very good reason.

[Matt Farah]

I actually kind of resent the question or resent it being compared to my nsx. First off, what exploits have been on full display? Where is this video of me beating up this car or doing something to it that would make it less valuable?

[Zach]

Right. I think that's also why the second part of their sentence, which I don't really want to read, is flawed. Because if you had taken your NSX and turned it into a drift car or something like that.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah, no, if there's like a.

[Zach]

And then you try to put it back to stock to sell it, like.

[Matt Farah]

Sure.

[Zach]

Then it's gonna reduce the value. Cause you've shown people that you don't give a shit about it.

[Matt Farah]

But all I've done with this car is service it, add paint protection, film, and then I put different wheels on it, which I took off before I sold it.

[Zach]

Yeah.

[Matt Farah]

And then, oh, by the way, the guy who bought it bought the wheels.

[Zach]

So.

[Matt Farah]

I think every car I've ever sold has sold it top of market. I've never put a car at auction that fully tanked. So is there an example that this person has of a, quote, YouTuber car that did sell for less because of that? I don't watch other people's auctions.

[Zach]

I mean, we have friends that like, they'll buy a car, new dealership, they then modify it, track it a lot, and then they put it back to stock before they sell. Sell it. But they don't put it up for auction because they would probably. People would comment about it and then they usually sell it to like another dealership or something. Yeah, I think that's the example of someone kind of documenting their exploits and then trying to pass that down to somebody. But you don't really do that.

[Matt Farah]

I mean, I could see it, like, here's where I could see it, like, and it's not a one to one, but like Cletus.

[Zach]

Sure.

[Matt Farah]

Where he does a car giveaway and he, like, rips the fucking car and he's doing burnouts and donuts. Like, if, like, let's just say that for some reason they don't do the giveaway after that, and instead he just puts the car on cars and bids. Sure. But like a giveaway car and selling a car at auction are, like, not the same thing at all.

[Zach]

Yeah. I think. Yeah. That's a better example.

[Matt Farah]

I doubt anybody wouldn't enter the giveaway that Cletus is having because he did a burnout on Instagram in the car. You know what I mean?

[Zach]

I think like, Vinynatra just gave away that M3. If he had built that car because he put a lot of. He had a lot of thought behind the parts, tested it, what not. But he did track it. He did slide it. Would that reduce the auction value compared to if Joe Schmo, who doesn't have a YouTube channel, built the car the same way? I still think the YouTube thing would actually help it because you under. Because you are presented with all the information of why someone made the changes they made, instead of it just being a forum post from a guy that you're supposed to trust. I think help.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah, I think it reflects the character of the YouTuber.

[Zach]

Yeah.

[Matt Farah]

If that person is known for taking care of their cars, then it can only help if that person's known for being shady or beating on their cars or whatever, then it can hurt. True queers shifting gears. I hope I said that in the right accent.

[Zach]

I think you can say it in any accent.

[Matt Farah]

Do you say it in a redneck accent or do you say it in, like a fan, like, drag queen accent?

[Zach]

Oh, like an ally or. Well, I mean, people in south can be allies. I don't know. This feels like.

[Matt Farah]

Sounds better to say it as someone who looks like me with a Southern accent. Queers, you gotta say it like that. Sure. See anything from CES coverage that was notable? I did not pay that much attention to ces. I find that CES really has a lot of stupid stuff in it.

[Zach]

David Tuig actually said we should go next year. He said we. It's probably pretty interesting and there's a lot of stuff that we would be able to make content about, like, talk about on the show.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah.

[Zach]

And he. They were trying to sell it to us.

[Matt Farah]

Now, I went a couple years ago and like, the AI ification of everything, like, doesn't make me want to go more, but I mean, you know, it's a thing to see. I guess we could, if we could figure out a way to get something worthwhile out of it.

[Zach]

I mean, I guess this year the big thing were robot fights. So that's terrifying.

[Matt Farah]

I mean.

[Zach]

Or robots moving car parts to replace humans.

[Matt Farah]

I mean, here's the thing about robot fights. What year did BattleBots come out?

[Zach]

Oh, 2002.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah, I don't give a fuck anymore. And also saw that when I was in high school.

[Zach]

Well, now they look. The robots look like us. That's what's interesting about it is it's the humanoid robots that are like boxing or doing, you know, karate to each other, which I find actually very scary. Robot Wars. I was never like, someone's going to use that to, you know, corral the populace into doing what they want. I was like, look at the thing spinning and hitting the thing that jumps.

[Matt Farah]

Oh, if they're going to, you know, if they're going to use robots to crab the corral the populace, they're not going to look like humans. Well, they have, like, they're going to be drones and.

[Zach]

That's a good point. Yeah, it'll be both. Yeah.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah. Just wait till next year. We won't need. We won't need CES for this.

[Zach]

Pretty much.

[Matt Farah]

Once you. All you got to do is put Stephen Miller and Elon Musk in a room together and you will have some white supremacist promises that will never, ever get met.

[Zach]

Great point. It'd be great if they use Tesla robots. Yeah. Cuz they'll never happen or they'll break.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah, that's true. We need to assign Elon Musk to every Stephen Miller idea. That's how we're gonna save this fucking country. Make sure Elon Musk is in charge of everything Stephen Miller thinks of and then it'll just never happen.

[Zach]

This is like doubling down down in a casino on blackjack. But you have two could go really wrong.

[Matt Farah]

Right. Nobody cares about my G70. What's a car that terrified you? I've heard a lot of guys say the Gen1 Viper wants to kill its driver, but I've never owned anything fast. The Gen1 Viper does not want to kill its driver. The Gen 1 Viper actually has very straightforward and standard driving dynamics. And it's front engine, rear drive, it has a lot of power for the time. But if you were to get a Gen 1 Viper that has 20, 25 tires on it there? Yeah, it's not anything. It just has no traction control or stability control.

[Zach]

Do you think it just overwhelmed the tires of the time versus other cars that didn't? Maybe, probably, yeah.

[Matt Farah]

And if you got in one of those now and tried to maybe push it as fast as it would go, it might be a bit of a challenge and you might not know where the limit was, but at the time it was really just, just a lot of power and no traction control and the tires could not keep up with that. But if you put today tires on it, it'd be a fucking pussycat.

[Zach]

The car that terrified me that we drove was the Gildred racing red Mini. What? 500ish horsepower, rear engine. Rear engine. Strange dynamics. That was pretty scary and great, but man, you and I have never been so alert.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah, that was a lot. I mean when you put, put the engine from one side of the car to the other and then double the horsepower, you really have some crazy shit going on. But like terrified. I don't know if I've ever been terrified by any production car. I mean there just isn't a production car in my lifetime career that's been that unsorted that I was literally scared of it.

[Zach]

Yeah, I think you have to go to the aftermarket.

[Matt Farah]

You have to go to people's personal builds and shit where people will put all this power in a car and then just have stock suspension and brakes just because they're like morons. That's the kind of stuff that's really scary. Not what a manufacturer. A manufacturer in general has some kind of responsibility to its customers to not sell them full on garbage. Although I have to say just to circle around because I was in Miami with the people I was with, I was with car people all at the track and shit. But I also spent the night with my friend Jeff from college and his buddies that are not car people at all, they're in real estate and they all drive fucking Teslas. And I told them not to. And Jeff, my friend Jeff is a horrible driver, is actually a bad driver. And he was telling me that he uses FSD all the time and I was like, look, you really shouldn't. I couldn't. I don't think that non car people really understand. I think they believe all of the hype and I don't think they hear any of the data about why this is a half baked product. And they don't really know the differences between like what Waymo is Doing and what Tesla is doing, they just go, well, it didn't crash today, so it must be safe. And, you know, they're reasonable people. They're not like, yay, Elon fans. They just, like, literally are like, I'm bad at driving and this is better than me at driving.

[Zach]

I was gonna say if it's better than him. That's a slippery slope.

[Matt Farah]

I know.

[Zach]

Well, is it better to have this thing driving than to have Jeff driving?

[Matt Farah]

It would be better to have Jeff get better at driving. What would be better? There's a third door here.

[Zach]

Here.

[Matt Farah]

You know, and I tried to explain sensor redundancy and I tried to explain all that kind of stuff, and I don't think I got anywhere.

[Zach]

Right. His eyes glazed over.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah. We went home with, it didn't crash today. You know, like. And I go, jeff, if it does crash, just so you know, it's your fault. Legally, it's your fucking fault. And he goes, I don't know. But, like, I don't think it will.

[Zach]

He's gotten to trust it. I mean, it's like anything, you know, you swim in the ocean, someone's going to say, hey, there's sharks in there. And you go, all right, well, I've been swimming in the ocean for 25 years, never even seen a shark, and I want to keep swimming in the ocean. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Matt Farah]

So nobody cares about my. Oh, wait, we already did one from them. Nothing on that says living in the North. Rust kills cars faster than anything. But you guys, being in Southern California, what kills cars there? Not being able to pass. Smog. Mileage. Potholes.

[Zach]

Sun.

[Matt Farah]

Sun.

[Zach]

The sun here is like truly whatever is the amount of UV that comes through here, the intensity, the frequency, all that stuff. Like, it will eat paint.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah.

[Zach]

Doesn't matter what company made it, whatever. Like, if you get a brand new car and it lives outside here versus living outside in Oregon or somewhere else, it's going to get cooked real quick.

[Matt Farah]

The other thing could be salt. If you live near the ocean, if you. If you live. You know, Zach's old place, Zach lived second row from the ocean and parked his car outside. So the combination of the salt air and the sun, that's problematic. Smog isn't that much of a problem actually.

[Zach]

Potholes will add up to, you know, requiring more maintenance over time. Bushings, all that stuff.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah, I may be a snowflake, but Grand Seiko is too. That's pretty funny. Let's see. The progression of sports cars has been more power, more tech, more acceleration, more computers. More, more, more. Rinse and repeat, leading further and further away from the simplify and add lightness ethos. Could there be a developing hole in the market for simplified lightweight sports cars? Or those of us who wish there was doomed to be represented by the capitalistic enthusiasts who think more is always the answer? You're going to have to look outside of mainstream OEMs. Mainstream OEMs will not have a business case for a product like that. You're going to have to look at Caterhams, you're going to have to look at Morgans, you're going to have to look at older cars that are resto modded. You're going to, I mean the across the board resto mod market, there's that guy in England putting V6s and stuff into Miatas for like 100 grand. There's, there's a company resto modding almost every type of enthusiast car out there. There's imported Japanese cars, but there is no developed, there is no mass community that wants a simple lightweight sports car. It's always going to be a niche product from here on out. So you're going to have to go to niche sources to get get it.

[Zach]

Yep.

[Matt Farah]

Sweden Low. I recently bought a Studio Underdog Watch. During their recent restock event. Their founder is all over Instagram about banning people who resell their pieces. What a fucking loser. Problem is, once it's on my wrist, I really just don't like it as much as I'd to like hoped. It's a bit on the small side. Yes they are. Studio Underdog makes a beautiful watch. All of which are 37 fucking millimeter. So that's why I haven't bought one yet. But wait, what, what, what should they do? Do I take the risk and sell it anyways? Keep it and wear it sparingly or wait some period of time and sell it later? I mean look, if you buy something from somebody, it's yours. Fucking sell it. And by the way, if this guy's that upset about people reselling their pieces, he doesn't understand the market. Because you need to have some kind of robust second hand market for your piece to have any kind of value if it has no used value, unless they drop so fast, unless the used values are so low that they don't want to see that. Here's an option. Offer to sell it back to them. Offer to return it. You know I know you don't want to sell this. I know you don't want me to flip it. I'm not trying to flip It. I like it. I like your company, but this isn't working for me. What can I do? Start there. I mean, that's it. I mean, you should be able to either return it, have them buy it back, have them connect you to another buyer. Maybe it was sold out, somebody else wants it know.

[Zach]

Well, you.

[Matt Farah]

Whatever. Try the friendly ways first. But like, after that, after you've tried the friendly way, if they don't open the door, fuck them. Buy my ppi. If I could only have one grand Seiko in your collection, what would it be? Oh, this is so easy. The Kodo. The grand seiko Kodo. It's $360,000, so. But yeah, sure, if I could have a grand Seiko Kodak. Fuck with that. It's only $360,000.

[Zach]

Sell half the Countas.

[Matt Farah]

Sell everything. Sell everything to buy.

[Zach]

I know you already asked the question, but we should talk about this Arizona thing because it's kind of the story of the week.

[Matt Farah]

Nobody cares about my G70 says an Arizona rep has introduced legislation to create unrestricted speed zones on certain highways during daylight hours. Do you think it's a good idea? That's really it. Do you think it's a good idea?

[Zach]

And will it catch up?

[Matt Farah]

Intended to speed up driving times through less populated areas. Is that really something that is needed?

[Zach]

Hey, man, let's not look a gift horse in the mouth, okay?

[Matt Farah]

Look, I mean, is it a good. I haven't seen the math on what the point is of this.

[Zach]

It seems a bit like the Montana thing.

[Matt Farah]

I think it's called the Reasonable and Prudent Interstate Driving act. Rapid. Focused on eliminating speed resilience in rural sections of Arizona. Be piloted on a stretch of Interstate 8. I mean, okay.

[Zach]

And I will add, they say that additional roads will be chosen, but only after engineering studies, safety records and highway design standards. So that's good. They're not just gonna say, hey, this road is empty. Empty. Go for it. Even though the tarmac is fucked and there's a bunch of dangerous stuff in the middle of the road. So that is good.

[Matt Farah]

Sure. I mean, I am not against this. I mean, I'm never gonna say getting rid of a speed limit on a highway in the middle of nowhere is a bad idea. If I find myself out there, I'm going to do 200 miles an hour. Like, why not? If you say I can. Let's fucking go. Go. If. And I'm. And you know. The proposed highway requirements for de restricting speed limits include locations outside urbanized areas with population of 50,000 or more residents, A crash rate below the statewide average over the last five years, and existing infrastructure that meets or exceeds state standards. Strong need for correct signage and annual safety audits of de restricted segments. Driver education as well as driver education around passengers. If you are going to get rid of speed limits, you should also. You should make it illegal to camp out in the left lane.

[Zach]

Yeah.

[Matt Farah]

I mean, because if that's what's gonna happen, cars are going to be going triple digits.

[Zach]

Yep.

[Matt Farah]

There needs to be an area where a car can know that there isn't gonna be someone doing 62 moving into the left lane.

[Zach]

Yeah. I think the biggest challenge will be educating the public, because in Germany. Germany, when you get your license, you are explained. It's explained to you how the autobahn works and how lane discipline. Discipline works. We don't have that here. I mean, maybe they tell you in driver training nobody gives a shit, but they're going to have to give a shit or they're going to die.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah. So it has the worst lane discipline of any country I've ever driven in. Sure. Except for, like, maybe. No, no. Include including places that would be considered, like, developing nations.

[Zach]

I would say another challenge is that you have people passing across different states on road trips and stuff. So does this person from California or Idaho or whatever, did they get the memo on how this highway works?

[Matt Farah]

Where is Interstate 8 in Arizona? I don't even really know where that is. And can I max out this lucid gravity? I mean, I'm sure it's big, but I don't know that road in particular.

[Zach]

Pulling it up.

[Matt Farah]

Highway 8 in Arizona is. Zoom, zoom, zoom. Oh, wow. Okay, so this is. Fuck me. Okay, so this is really. It runs across the southern part of the state near the Mexico border. And it's basically like if you were going from Phoenix to San Diego. To San Diego, that's what you would take. Take. That's pretty remote. I mean, that. That area, that section between Gila Bend and wherever. There ain't out there, man.

[Zach]

Yeah. Is this all. Is this air?

[Matt Farah]

That's Mexico.

[Zach]

No, this is Mexico.

[Matt Farah]

Oh, yeah. What is. I don't know.

[Zach]

I was wondering if that's like military or do not.

[Matt Farah]

Do not around zone, Right?

[Zach]

I don't know.

[Matt Farah]

Zoom out. Let me see if it. See if it's labeled. Can you zoom out more?

[Zach]

I don't know. Hmm.

[Matt Farah]

All right. Just the fucking desert death zone.

[Zach]

I guess so.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah.

[Zach]

So that does seem like a good spot for that. You know, this is very straight. I mean, it's very straight.

[Matt Farah]

And there ain't nothing there.

[Zach]

So, like, if we do the. Like, what is the distance? Oh, how do I do that? I'm just curious how long the straightaway is. To answer your question about measure distance from there to citrusy here, that's 12 miles. Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's enough. Yeah. But yeah, I don't. Is the challenge.

[Matt Farah]

I don't hate it. As long as you don't have people camping out in the left lane.

[Zach]

Yeah.

[Matt Farah]

And fucking it all up.

[Zach]

Yeah.

[Matt Farah]

Two guys in the back of Alexis, Texas, says I'm expecting a strong raise at the end of this year. And I'm contemplating my first sports car. Is it bad that I keep coming back to an older Viper? I like how they look and yeah, 40k should be good for a decent one. I'm in Northern California. Yeah. If you. You gotta start somewhere. First sports car. We were just talking about Vipers. And what's good about Vipers is they're straightforward, they're generally dependable. You know, the powertrains are robust. There's plenty of them around that are pretty well kept.

[Zach]

Kept.

[Matt Farah]

And they do look cool. I agree. They do look cool and they sound interesting. And if you keep coming back to that. This was like me and my first collector car really was a DeLorean. It turned out that wasn't the fucking one. But the process of finding it, you know, getting it worked on, driving it a bit and learning that. Oh, actually it wasn't really what I thought. That's like part of the process. So, like, you got to start somewhere. And so, like, why not a Viper sounds good to me. Quadrifoly O Face had the lovely experience of opening the tailgate of my lucid gravity mid car wash last week as I scrambled to turn off the wipers with the non buttons on the left of the screen. They're about a pixel apart when the tailgate one pops up. That sucks. Any wrong button mishaps? You guys? Course of had wrong button mishaps.

[Zach]

Like I hit the wrong button.

[Matt Farah]

I mean, the Ferrari SF90, you brush the prompt thing for the voice command, like so often. It's like so annoying.

[Zach]

Oh, when we had the M8 and the gesture control was turned on and I was like talking on the phone, all of a sudden it started talking to me because I moved my hand in a certain way. Yeah, that was weird.

[Matt Farah]

Gesture controls stink.

[Zach]

Terrible, terrible idea.

[Matt Farah]

I mean, wrong button mishaps. I have never opened a power door in the middle of a car wash, if you know what I mean. I've definitely so in a right hand drive car, I've accidentally hit the blinker instead or the wiper instead of the blinker.

[Zach]

Yeah.

[Matt Farah]

And if I have a camera mounted on the windshield. Remember in New Zealand, I had a camera mounted on the windshield. I accidentally hit the wiper instead of the blinker. The wiper peeled off the rubber of the camera which sent it into the fucking woods.

[Zach]

Yeah.

[Matt Farah]

And we had to spend half an hour finding this camera in the woods.

[Zach]

You almost did that in the DBX video.

[Matt Farah]

I almost did. Almost did in the DBX video as well. Yep. Trippin on ADAs. That's pretty funny. Have either of you ever owned cars that were reliability anomalies? For example, a Honda or Toyota that always broke down and needed work or et cetera, et cetera?

[Zach]

I think that my 97 jet was an anomaly because it. I drove it hard for three years with like terrible maintenance. I slid into a curb hard and I can't believe I didn't like, you know, whatever time machine, the wheels and it just worked. Had no. No issues. Got so lucky.

[Matt Farah]

Never had a. Never had a Honda or Toyota that constantly broke down. No.

[Zach]

The Lexus that had power steering fluid dripping on the alternator. That was a weird thing.

[Matt Farah]

Well, the million mile Lexus, that was user error.

[Zach]

Yeah.

[Matt Farah]

Because. Because people were filling the power steering fluid with power steering fluid.

[Zach]

Crazy.

[Matt Farah]

And in that car it uses atf.

[Zach]

Yep.

[Matt Farah]

So if you do that, it then up the gasket which then drips onto the alternator and then you have a big problem. No, no. I've no. All of the. The reliability of all my. I. I have had overwhelmingly good reliability experiences with all of my cars. Overwhelmingly. So I've never had a car that was just a fucking nightmare over and over. Ever. Of any kind. Let's see.

[Zach]

Going.

[Matt Farah]

The OU8. No, I mean, do we really want to answer that guy's question? It was really the one you just deleted.

[Zach]

I replied in the chat.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah.

[Zach]

About the podcast thing. Right.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah, yeah. But I just didn't like the tone of the question actually.

[Zach]

Oh, that's fine.

[Matt Farah]

Okay. Bush did 997. What are your favorite gearboxes or shifters? And I feel like we get asked this a lot.

[Zach]

I think we do.

[Matt Farah]

04064 GT Honda S2000 Ferrari 430.

[Zach]

Manual Gen 1 NSX.

[Matt Farah]

Gen 1 NSX 550. Yeah, the Ferrari gated. Any of the Ferrari six speed gated. Okay.

[Zach]

I think basically the temp wheel in the BMW also aims things at the floor. But I think I thought that turned the heat up in the whole car in a bit.

[Matt Farah]

Oh yeah. Single barrel V8 vintage wants to go back to what we were asked before the break about climate control. That can do the upper and the lower separately, meaning you would have cool air on the top and warm air on the bottom or vice versa. And they're suggesting that BMW has the scrolling wheel on the dash with the digital for the feet and dash. Now, I've never learned how to properly use that wheel. I don't think anybody knows how to use that wheel.

[Zach]

I just, I mean, I could read the manual for my car and learn how to use the wheel, but instead, I don't know. When I went up to Good Vibes and it was cold, I turned the wheel up to hot. The car seemed to heat up quicker inside. I forget what it bypasses and someone's going to yell at me because I should know this. But I don't think it's. I don't. I have not noticed it only changing the temperature aimed at my feet. It seems to heat the entire feet.

[Matt Farah]

This is a good question. Shelby GT Tree Fitty @ what percentage price point relation to the car's value does a wrap not make sense? For example, I have a $60,000 car and if I spend 10k on a wrap, that's 16% of the car's value. That makes me want to cry even if I can afford it. But if I had a $200,000 car, spending the 10k is a no brainer. Am I crazy? Well, here's another question. Your $60,000 car, by the time you're done with it, is it going to be a $60,000 car or is it going to be a $40,000 car? Same question for your $200,000 car, is that going to be going up in value and your money is going to come out in the wash or possibly add a little bit of value on the other end. Or are you just protecting a car that is going to depreciate no matter what? Second is like if you had to repaint the front end from rock chips, what is the price point of that relative to a wrap? So if you had to get bodywork done on a paint to sample Ferrari or a tritone or a very metallic color that could be expensive or a mystichrome. You know, then you. Now it's a question of how is the paint now? Are you buying a brand new car and it's perfect? Are you buying a used car and it's maybe less than perfect or are you buying a used car? Where it is perfect and you want to drive it. So, like, to me, it's not necessarily a. I don't do the math relative to the car's purchase price. Basically, it's, what is the condition of this car today and how important is it to me to freeze the car in this condition? And I'm talking about clear paint protection film. If you're talking about color change wrap, that's a different thing. You also have a question of do you actually want to change the color? I'm assuming clear protective film. And 10K is high, by the way. That's.

[Zach]

High. It's usually like seven to wrap a full.

[Matt Farah]

Car.

[Zach]

Unclear.

[Matt Farah]

Right. A fairly normal sports car. Let's call it a 911 or my NS7508 grand. You get to GT3RS or something with a bunch of disjointed panels that involve a lot of custom work. Now, 10 11, you'd be hard pressed to find a $60,000 car that'll crack 10. Unless it's like your car where they've got.

[Zach]

A. They had to cut a lot of little.

[Matt Farah]

Pieces. Well, even if it had bodywork, even though it.

[Zach]

Wasn'T. Oh, totally. But I think, let's say if my car was brand new, made the way it was. One of the things they pointed out is, is that the shapes of cars have changed. So new cars have a lot more large panels that they can cover in one sheet. My car, the bumper, they had to cut 10 individual pieces. So it's kind of like if you bought a new McLaren for 300 grand, I bet it would be harder to cover all those little pieces that move versus a Bentley. 300 grand. A lot of big pieces with big.

[Matt Farah]

Sheets. Rolls Royces are, like, easy as hell to wrap. So you're not wrong to do the math. And you're not crazy that, yeah, putting a full. And also, there's a third door here. If you have your 60k car, you could just do impact zone PPF, which will be the nose and the mirror caps, and that'll offer you a lot more protection than nothing. And it'll be a third or a half of the price as a full one. So, like the Countach, I'm not putting film on it's original paint. It's nicked up all over the place. It's thin paint, so I would almost certainly damage it. Removing the stuff later, that's a big thing. So there's. There's no point. The nsx, I got it, and it was so mint, and I was like, Well, I want to drive it and not have to worry about it. And it's probably going up in value. And so if I do this ppf, I'll protect it. And if I go to sell it, it'll be a value add. And in the meantime, I can seal in this mint. And it fucking worked. Cause I found myself in a windstorm with sticks and shit getting blown all over the car. Like the first week I had the. The car. I guarantee you that the 7,500 PPF saved me 50,000 guaranteed. I would have had to repaint the whole.

[Zach]

Car.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah. And.

[Zach]

So. And also paint matching can be very difficult. Like on the respray thing, A friend of ours is buying a silver car and called me about wrap stuff the other day. And the front bumper has nicks in it. But to repaint that and then make sure it matches. Because if the car is used, even if the paint's in good condition, they might have.

[Matt Farah]

Faded. They don't really.

[Zach]

Know. Faded over 10, 15 years. Now, can you match the faded color? Because they're going to order the OEM color, but it's not going to be the.

[Matt Farah]

Same. Correct. So there's the math problem, and obviously your budget is going to be affected by the math problem. But there's also, what's the condition of the car today? And do you want to freeze that condition for the next 10 years? That's what you're doing. So there's other factors. Good question, though, to go back.

[Zach]

To the wheel real quick. That is called the stratification wheel, according to BMW. And it does allow you to to change the temperature of the vents directly next to that wheel versus what the climate is set to. So if your climate is set to cold everywhere aimed at your feet, but you change the stratification wheel that's on the dash, it will blow hot air towards your.

[Matt Farah]

Face. Okay. The three Shells game. If you live somewhere rural with good offerings but a lack of enthusiast options, I'm not sure what offerings means. How do you start a local enthusiast group? I don't know. I've never started a local enthusiast.

[Zach]

Group. I mean somewhere rural with good. Do you mean like good roads? Are you not near a city? But there's good roads and there's not a lot of car groups. Best place to begin if I want to meet. If you want to meet, an easy thing is food. Say, hey, when I go to.

[Matt Farah]

If I want a meet, that's about driving our cars instead of standing around in a parking lot. I mean, how do you start a group like the Internet. That's how you do it. I mean, I've never had to do this before. So you're asking me to come up with a guess of something I've never tried to do. When Larry and I had the driving club, which is what this is, how did we start it? Well, we had our.

[Zach]

Customers.

[Matt Farah]

Right. We called our. Emailed our existing car wash customers and said we're doing a thing. So, like, you know, you're starting from zero. Put on an event, put on a something. I mean, you got, you know, find it. You got to find at least a couple of people manually.

[Zach]

Right. I was gonna say, what's funny is, if it's rural, you might actually have to go old school with, like, flyers or get some stickers made. And, like, I don't go to, like, the auto like, O'Reilly's. Go to where you've seen cool cars, like, seriously drive by someone's house, and if you see a cool car, go, hey, I'm starting a driving group. Car group, whatever. You know, we're going to meet at this time. And once you get five people, like, they start sharing on Facebook, blah, blah, blah. Like, it will.

[Matt Farah]

Spread. Yeah. But, you know, rookie mistakes to avoid. I mean, here's the problem. If you start a driving group, you're then responsible for what those people are doing. Someone kills somebody who organized this. That guy. So my advice is to never start a driving group. You are assuming responsibility for what other people are going to do in their cars as you are simultaneously encouraging them to drive their cars in a way that may not be.

[Zach]

Legal. Yeah. So there might be a way to make it less official where you're like, we're going to meet here for pizza. And then when pizza's over, you're like, all right, well, I'm going to go drive up this hill thing. Anybody else want to go? I don't know. In court. Who knows what's going to happen, but that is something to be aware.

[Matt Farah]

Of. Yeah, that's. I mean, you got to be.

[Zach]

Real, setting rules up front. Like, and you can usually tell if you have some people show up that are going to be risky. They're usually going to be under 25 years old. You can start there, but if you're like, the lead driver setting the speed low and responsible because you don't want to get in trouble if someone kills somebody is a very good way to.

[Matt Farah]

Start.

[Zach]

Yeah. You just gotta be really.

[Matt Farah]

Careful. Yeah. I mean, I balance these risks all the time because I lead drives for road and track. I Mean, I lead drives that are put on by a corporation and my customers expect to have a good time and drive at a decent pace. And so I, after doing this for 20 years, have found a pace that I can lead a group that's safe, attentive, people don't get lost. But also the drivers feel like they're having a good time and the passengers aren't terrified, you know, And I really, I mean, I make it seem really uncool to drive like a shithead. I set that up from day one. And you know, if you're trying to start a driving group with people you don't know and that you know, maybe from all different backgrounds and whatever, that's risky, very risky. You're responsible for that. You can get sued for this shit like that, you know, two cats, one car. Thinking of selling my Audi RS3 because the seats kill my back on long drives. I'm doing 3,000 highway miles a month. That's a lot. What are some of the best seats you've.

[Zach]

Experienced?

[Matt Farah]

Acura. Pretty much any, I think the price point.

[Zach]

Acura. Yeah. MDX or.

[Matt Farah]

Rdx. Very, very good for just. I think Volvo is absolutely fabulous. Their seats are fabulous. I agree, Porsche is 18 ways or 14 ways, but really the 18 ways are kick ass in either the Panamera or the.

[Zach]

Cayenne. Even that going back to the funnel, the more adjustability the better because you can literally. Like my seats are 25 years old, but they're very adjustable and I can lift my back the way I need to. And if I get in a seat from a more expensive car, now that's a four way, it's oftentimes worse because it doesn't support me very.

[Matt Farah]

Well. Yeah, I mean, I was just talking in the video for that'll be out, you know, this week for the Ferrari 12C. Dude, that car's 600 grand. It doesn't have adjustable.

[Zach]

Lumbar. That's.

[Matt Farah]

Insane. Like, what are we.

[Zach]

Doing? I feel like Ferrari seats routinely disappoint us. Either it's not optimal to the gills. And even if, even when it is, those, like, I think Sabalt makes them. You got it. Like, the foam is kind of thin and so it's a little bit hard and like, yeah, it's kind of racy bucket. But in a car that cost and that big, like it's meant for crossing long distance, you.

[Matt Farah]

Know. Who I just met at the concourse club was the CEO of Sebelt. It was there and I said to him, you know, I like your products. I Like your safety products. I go, I gotta tell you, I just drove this $600,000 Ferrari and you made their seat and it does not have adjustable lumbar support. And he said, well, we make like four seats for that car and it depends which one. The base seat does not have an adjustable lumbar support. And I said, is that weird? And he said, well, I mean, Ferrari people or whatever. And I go, but this car came equipped with special contrast stitching. And I was like, do you normally see, like someone who would order like a highly optioned car with the base seat? And he goes, yeah, you see that? You do see.

[Zach]

That?

[Matt Farah]

Really? Yeah. Weird. Yeah.

[Zach]

Weird. I wonder if that's someone who goes, if I get these options on the day, if I get the contrast stitching with carbon fiber, people will see that, but they won't see the special seat press.

[Matt Farah]

Car. Press car. I mean, if you're speccing a press car, you put all the options on that you can see. And you know when the reviewer complains about lack of lumbar, you just go, well, it's.

[Zach]

Available. You do what we just did, where you're like, you can option it. Yeah, weird. You know what sucks about that? I'm saying this to the PR people that order the car is, then we can't tell anybody if the seat's good or not, which maybe you want. But we want to be able to tell people the optioned eight way is great because what do we talk about with Porsche all the time? Get the good ones because we've experienced them, they're good and that probably inspires people to buy the better.

[Matt Farah]

Seat. Yeah. Live axle rose for 100 to 200k. What is the best driving experience? If I want a gated, heated manual gearbox car that's mid engine and has 10 or 12 cylinders, R8 V10 or Ferrari Testarossa. These are enormously.

[Zach]

Different. They are so different. But I love this.

[Matt Farah]

Question. These are huge different.

[Zach]

Cars. How often do you want to use this.

[Matt Farah]

Vehicle? Yeah, I mean, like, so the R8 V10 is only going to feel not, not like a brand new car, really, because the ui, the screen and shit will be older, but like the way you use that car with like fully automatic climate control and like all the things that like a modern Audi would have. It's not going to feel like an old car. A Testarossa is an old car, 40 years old. It's going to feel old now. It's a wonderful thing. And Testarossas are very well made, in my opinion. They're not that exciting to drive. I don't think the flat 12 is that exciting of an engine compared to some other engines. The Testarossa is a lovely touring car. Like I said, they're built really solidly and if you do the major services and the maintenances they are reasonably reliable cars. People who drive them a lot, they do tend to work properly actually. But it's going to feel like an old car. It's not going to feel like a new car, like a modern car. It's not going to have like good air conditioning, you know, it's going to be clunky, it's going to be heavy controls and stuff like that. The ergonomics aren't going to be. Your feet are going to be like offset to the right and you know things like.

[Zach]

That. I think you're also. And I was trying to look up Brian Scott just had this amazing woman on his show, Victoria Bruno. She's like a 25 year old Ferrari.

[Matt Farah]

Tech. She works on vintage stuff. Oh yeah, I know who that.

[Zach]

Is. She has a Testarossa that she drove from the Bay Area down to San Diego for this show and she's like trying to highlight that yes you can use these cars but she can work on the car herself. Yeah. So this person has to be ready to incur the cost that will come with driving it a lot so.

[Matt Farah]

That it'll work better if you drive it a lot. Yeah, you're going to have to service it more but it will be more reliable. Like those 80s Ferraris. If you just start using them as a car they work really good actually. They're very happy to be driven every day and they don't like sitting so like that's pretty cool and like they are nice but it's a heavy feeling car. It doesn't have power steering. The shifter linkage is pretty tight. The clutch pedal is going to be kind of.

[Zach]

Heavy. AC might work, might not.

[Matt Farah]

Work. Yeah, I mean it's incredibly analog. So it's just, it's very hard to say one isn't better than the other. That's the problem, the problem with asking a question and I don't, not trying to but like a lot of people start a question with what's the best and they're. Unless one of your two choices is like a horrible piece of junk or something, it's very rare that you come upon best. It's like well this delivers this and this delivers this and they're not the same. So like which do you.

[Zach]

Want? Well if you want speed and More modern driving in terms of braking performance, steering feel and performance, convenience, comfort, R8. And when you roll into a parking lot, it's still going to have a presence. It's still going to draw. Look, I think they're amazing. I think they're cool cars. The Testarossa, it has mystique about it. It will draw more people in a parking lot and it will deliver a different type of driving experience. But. So you have to decide, do you want the whole vintage thing and the classic sound and the whole roll into the parking lot and win but sometimes get a flatbed home Or. Or do you want to go.

[Matt Farah]

R8? Yeah. I mean you might still end up on a flat rod, but it's just they're very different experiences. A 40 year old driving experience versus a 7 year old, 8 year old driving experience. These are worlds apart, man. You know, a Testarosa is not a regular car. An R8 can be a regular car, you know, a test. Rosa cannot be a regular car. It will never be a regular car. It's a good question, but there is no best. My cat's name is Bethany says Polestar has recently discontinued the two, at least in the US and undergone a reverse stock split recently, which doesn't look good for its future as a standalone brand. I've had a Polestar 2 for the last two years. How fucked am I if Polestar closes down its US operations? I've seen service delays on parts even before last year. Year. My guess is Volvo dealers will continue to service Polestars. Polestar is not that removed from Volvo at this point that it couldn't be right. They could pick up the pieces if they wanted.

[Zach]

To. I think they either feel an obligation. I don't know if there's a legal obligation, but I'm sure they will keep maintaining those cars because they know how to service them. They might have some parts inventory. I wouldn't want to own one. Let's say Polestar closes or whatever. I wouldn't want to own a polestar. Are too 10 years from now when part supply dwindles or they have to, oh, we got to change because the power unit uses this old cable, but no one uses that anymore. You don't want to deal with that kind of stuff. But for the short term you'll probably be all right. There's only three.

[Matt Farah]

Left. Granny shifting, not double clutching like you should. How much of a factor do you think your driving skills played or didn't play in your success? As in if you weren't as good of a Driver, would that have impeded your ability to reach the place that you've reached or not at all? What are the top factors into overall success you've had in your career? It's definitely played a part for sure. If you're known for somebody who can go quick enough without bending the car, you're in the pocket. That's the sweet spot. Everybody is willing to give you keys to their cars knowing they're gonna get that car back in the same.

[Zach]

Condition.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah. Not everybody gets to do that. And if you fuck up a couple of times big enough, it's gone.

[Zach]

Forever. Well, and you, especially with the one take stuff, you're putting your resume on YouTube fans can see it. They go, oh, that, that looks like it'll be a fun day. But my car will come back and it just kind of feeds.

[Matt Farah]

Itself.

[Zach]

Yeah. And I think for me, like, I joined because I wanted to drive the cars, but I didn't, you know, I was like behind camera for the first whatever amount of time. But the fact that you guys trusted me to drive camera car was like instrumental to my career because otherwise I would have been relegated to, I don't know, whatever else position. Yeah. And I wouldn't have gotten the other jobs I got. Like, all of that was kind.

[Matt Farah]

Of like people who get to drive and people who don't get to.

[Zach]

Drive. Yeah.

[Matt Farah]

Exactly. Yeah. No, but it's not. Driving skills come from a lifetime of giving a shit and practicing. So it's not. Nobody wakes up being a good driver. Some people. And by the way, I'm not the authority on this. There's a million fucking drivers better than me. But like, I really did care about it, and I really still do care about it. It's something that's very important to me. Continuing get better at driving and practicing and always taking every opportunity to learn and get better. It's really, really important. And if that isn't a passion or if that wasn't a passion for me, I don't think I would have been as successful for sure. It's incredibly important. Other top factors, just keeping going. I mean, keeping going when you don't want to keep going, keeping going when the money sucks, keeping going. Like Eddie Vedder said, main reason we're still here is because we didn't break up. And also lots of patience and look, straight up luck. And at least in the beginning, the resources of my parents, I didn't tap into them all that much. But the children of rich parents can make.

[Zach]

Risks. They're.

[Matt Farah]

Backstop. Yeah. That other people Most you fuck up a business, you don't get another crack at it so easily. If I fucked up a business, I would have been able to make the sheepish call, like, hey, I need some money and I wouldn't have been in a cardboard box. That is an incredible privilege and benefit that most people don't get. And dude, so much right place, right time, so much luck, just fucking.

[Zach]

Luck. I think some luck. But I think both you and I and Tom, like we moved to LA at the same time. Yeah, we didn't know each other but like we all, we all were in. I think having the passion for cars is very important because it will keep you going when there's no money. It'll keep you going when you like. That motivated us for a long time. Still does. And it motivated us to go, where do they make media with automobiles? Los Angeles, I guess. So like we put ourselves there and then there's a lot of luck with that timing. But I think we also just started saying yes to things that made sense for where we wanted to end.

[Matt Farah]

Up. Yeah, I mean, you know, my first, I got in the door not because I woke up one day and said I'm gonna start a YouTube channel and make fucking 100 videos. I got in the door because a guy said I made like five videos with Larry.

[Zach]

Right? That's.

[Matt Farah]

Right. Like five videos to promote our business with Larry. And a guy said, do you want a job, a full time job making video? Like that doesn't happen. That's never gonna happen again. Nobody's ever gonna make five videos. And then a corporation's gonna hire them to make videos full time. That doesn't happen. So like, if that didn't happen, none of this happens. I'd be running a car wash with Larry still probably, you know, so luck, you know. And then when the luck strikes, be ready, you know, like when you get the opportunity, take it. Don't fucking up, you know, Keep going through the bad times and continue to develop whatever your skills are that will make you. I mean, when I couldn't afford Tom anymore to edit, I learned to edit. You can't afford to do this thing. One better learn to do it. Can't afford to. Better learn to get this, do this myself. Like, you know, just fucking keep going, you know. Panic at my disco. What was the rationale behind setting a reserve on the NSX versus going no resources reserve. I was literally just hedging against the possibility that because it was between Christmas and New Year's that the traffic just might be horrible and it just potentially could tank. The reserve was low. The reserve was 153 or something. I would have broke even. But if it was. If it didn't hit reserve, it would have been a big fucking. It would have been a major tank. So, like, I didn't want to take a huge bath on that.

[Zach]

Car. Right. And.

[Matt Farah]

You. And I didn't. You know, I.

[Zach]

Should. You could also, if. If it peaked at 140, you can keep the car stored. You can wait till people kind of get their money after the tax returns in April, like you. Yeah.

[Matt Farah]

Yes. I. If it tanked, I could have relisted it later elsewhere and it wouldn't have been a.

[Zach]

Huge. I think some people when they go reserve off, they just need to get it out because it's costing them more money to sit on it. Right.

[Matt Farah]

Whatever. Yeah. This car. Yeah, it was just because I wanted to sell it before the end of the year. But if it wasn't going to get at least above a certain threshold that I strongly believed it would get to no matter what, and it did that I. That I did not want to have to take a low number just because whereas in the past, Fox body or whatever, like, you know, I wasn't into that car for that much money. A lot of people donated their time or donated products or a lot of sponsored stuff. And so no reserve. Yeah, fuck it, send it. Cause it's fine if this thing makes 25 grand. Like no big deal. And it was charity. It was fun. And I do love a no reserve auction under the right circumstances. This one, though, it was really that end of year timing where I go, I think it'll be fine. But like, just in case, I'm not literally gonna bet $150,000 that it'll be fine, you know, Last one, Chris suyat says happy 10 year anniversary of the supercharged Huracan video. All right. I almost thr that video away because of the log. Cause the log is. Fuck. Guy was dragging a log. They almost threw that away. Instead we did 4 million views or something in 24.

[Zach]

Hours. That's.

[Matt Farah]

Crazy. Yep. Best. That's the other, you know, luck, virality. Half the time is just.

[Zach]

Luck.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah. Crazy. Well, if you feel like you were shortchanged this month because you didn't get a podcast the first week, just think about last year where we took off the entire first month and people stuck around. So we gave you three more weeks. Plus we put up the pro show. The pro patrons got podcast last week. It was a long show too.

[Zach]

And they got it early in.

[Matt Farah]

January. They got it early in January. It was a long show and they got it while other people weren't. There is value in the Patreon, folks. Get in the game while you can. Thanks, everybody, for listening. We will see you next time.