INEOS Off-road; OEM vs Engine Builder; Australian Supercar License

Summary

The Smoking Tire Podcast – Episode Summary

Episode Title: INEOS Off-road; OEM vs Engine Builder; Australian Supercar License
Release Date: December 5, 2024
Hosts: Zack Klapman & Matt Farah

---

1. INEOS Grenadier Off-Roading Adventure

Timestamp Highlight: [03:00]

Matt Farah and Zack Klapman kick off the episode by recounting their recent off-roading trip in the INEOS Grenadier Quartermaster pickup truck. Emphasizing that the Grenadier is a production vehicle rather than a prototype, they express confidence in its reliability, noting, “The engine should work... Solid axles are fairly simple. It’s not experimental” ([04:55], Zach Klapman).

Key Discussion Points:

• Power Steering Challenges: Both hosts discuss the Grenadier’s power steering system, which struggles at low speeds, leading to a constant whistling noise. Matt remarks, “It seems like it struggles a little bit” ([05:57]).
• Vehicle Robustness: Despite minor issues, they conclude that the Grenadier performs well off the trail and plan to produce a detailed video review. Zack adds, “But overall I think the review of this vehicle is pretty positive” ([06:05]).
• Aesthetic and Practical Features: They joke about potential aftermarket additions like roller shades for the Grenadier's glass panels and ponder its suitability as an estate manager’s vehicle, highlighting its spaciousness and functionality.

---

2. Australia's New Supercar High Performance License

Timestamp Highlight: [27:37]

The conversation shifts to recent news from Australia, where the introduction of a high performance driving license for supercar owners has led to the first citations. Matt explains, “They got a ticket for no tags and they got a ticket for driving without the ultra high performance license” ([28:52]).

Key Discussion Points:

• License Requirements: The new law mandates that owners of vehicles exceeding a specific power-to-weight ratio must obtain a specialized license. Matt shares his long-held belief that there should be a high performance license with additional training and restrictions.
• Critique of the Regulation: Zack suggests that the regulation appears more as a revenue generator than a genuine safety measure, questioning its effectiveness and comprehensiveness. He states, “I think they'll just restructure” ([31:23]).
• Implementation Concerns: Both hosts express skepticism about the depth of the licensing course, with Matt describing it as a “pretty bullshit” ([30:48]), and Zack highlighting potential loopholes and enforcement challenges.

---

3. Demand Cayman vs Stock GT3: Rental Recommendations in Los Angeles

Timestamp Highlight: [35:40]

Listener Eric inquires about purchasing a Porsche. Matt discusses his general manager Eric’s 997.2 Turbo manual with low mileage and an extended warranty, highlighting its rarity and value.

Later, listener Christian seeks advice on choosing between a new BMW 7 Series, Mercedes-Benz S-Class, or a Range Rover Sport for renting in LA. Zack recommends the Range Rover Sport for its visibility and comfort, while Matt suggests alternatives like the Panamera for a balanced ride.

Key Insights:

• Porsche GT3 Reliability: Matt shares experiences regarding the reliability of high-performance Porsche engines, noting that while he hasn't personally witnessed engine failures, others have reported significant issues early in usage ([47:57]).
• Vehicle Selection for Comfort: The Range Rover Sport is favored for its soft ride and practicality in urban settings, making it an ideal choice for LA’s diverse driving conditions.

---

4. Listener Questions and Discussions

Timestamp Highlight: [37:31]

The hosts engage with several listener-submitted questions, offering expert opinions on a variety of automotive topics.

Highlighted Questions:

• Audi RS3 vs RS5 ([37:54]):
  Matt prefers the RS3 for its inline five turbo engine, finding the RS5’s six-cylinder turbo less distinctive. “I'd still rather have the RS3, the one we had” ([38:12], Matt Farah).

• Memorable Driving Roads in the Pacific Northwest ([38:35]):
  Zack advises using tools like Google Earth to plan routes by identifying smooth, scenic roads, emphasizing flexibility and adventure over rigid planning.

• Engine Reliability: Demand Cayman vs Porsche GT3 Touring ([44:30]):
  Matt defends the reliability of the Demand Cayman’s engine, sharing that he hasn’t encountered issues, whereas he recounts incidents of GT3 engines failing prematurely. Zack appreciates the unique driving experience but cautions about potential uncertainties. “I have no evidence that a demand motor is less reliable than a Porsche” ([47:57], Matt Farah).

• Car Condos in Los Angeles ([50:25]):
  Both hosts express skepticism about the feasibility of car condos in LA due to high land costs and stringent regulations, though they acknowledge such facilities exist in the suburbs.

• Future of Nissan/Stellantis ([52:07]):
  Discussing the potential restructuring or sale of Nissan, Zack surmises that a restructure is more likely than a complete sale of intellectual property, considering Nissan’s global footprint and Renault partnership. “Someone is always willing to pick up the pieces at a discount” ([52:37]).

• Separating Drivers into Skill Levels ([53:34]):
  Matt and Zack outline criteria distinguishing average, good, and great drivers, emphasizing smooth inputs, situational awareness, and predictive driving behaviors.

• Listener’s Preference for E90 M3 in a Z4 ([57:05]):
  Matt discusses the feasibility and desirability of engine swaps, sharing his experience with the Z4 GT3 race car and suggesting that integrating an M3 engine into a Z4 would be an interesting project.

---

5. Notable Quotes

• Matt Farah on the Grenadier’s Reliability:
  “The engine should work... Solid axles are fairly simple. It’s not experimental” ([04:55]).

• Zack Klapman on Power Steering Issues:
  “Like when you drove by me going down in a straight line, it was kind of... You can hear the pump doing its thing.” ([05:57])

• Matt Farah on Australia's Supercar License:
  “It seems like it's probably a revenue Generator. More than a safety thing.” ([31:23])

• Zack Klapman on Engine Reliability:
  “I have no evidence that a demand motor is less reliable than a Porsche, bar none.” ([47:57])

---

6. Conclusion

The episode wraps up with the hosts reflecting on their off-roading experiences and engaging deeply with listener questions, offering valuable insights into vehicle performance, regulatory impacts, and automotive maintenance. They emphasize the importance of balancing performance with reliability and practicality, especially when navigating diverse driving environments like Los Angeles.

Final Thoughts: Matt concludes, “Thank you to our patrons for your questions today. Thank you to everyone else for listening to us yak. And we'll see you later." ([64:02])

---

This episode provides a comprehensive look into high-performance vehicles' real-world applications, the implications of automotive regulations, and the nuanced decisions enthusiasts face when selecting and maintaining their cars. Whether you're an off-roading aficionado, a supercar enthusiast, or someone navigating the complexities of vehicle ownership, Matt and Zack offer a blend of humor, expertise, and candid discussions that resonate with a broad automotive audience.

Transcript

[Matt Farah]

Let's start with this turning radius. Look at this cold open. It's like a Wes Anderson movie. What's up, everybody? Welcome to the Smoking Tire podcast. As always, today's episode is brought to you by off the Record. We love off the Record here. And you guys are always emailing me. And please keep doing this. When you use off the Record and they get you out of a ticket, man, I got a good one the other day. It was in Nebraska. Big, big one. And it was a patron, actually, and totally got out of it. Basically, if you get pulled over, if you get a ticket, if you get stopped by law enforcement and issued a summons, call off the Record. Well, don't literally call. Go to offtherecord.comtst or download that off the Record app and use code tstpod. And off the Record will fight that ticket in the jurisdiction. You got it. They'll connect with a qualified attorney that'll handle that ticket, go to court, meet with the prosecutor, the whole deal. You don't have to do anything. It's so easy. You'll send them a photo of the ticket, a brief explanation of what happened, and off the Record will take care of the rest. I've used them so many times and you guys out there in podcast land have clearly as well. So once again, that's offtherecord.com TST or download the off the Record app and use code TSTPOD TST P O. D for 10% off all legal services with off the Record. All right, kids, in this one, Zach and I are returning from a little off roading adventure in the INEOS Grenadier Quartermaster pickup truck. And so we talk about that a little bit. Plus, someone has actually been cited in Australia's new supercar high performance driving license requirements thing, so we really get into that. Plus, should you get a demand Cayman or a stock GT3, what is the best rental car for a trip to Los Angeles? And a whole lot more. Let's take a drive home from the mountain with Zach and I. It's the Smoking Tire podcast. Let's go. Cold open, turning, reuse. What?

[Zach Klapman]

And 8s.

[Matt Farah]

Eight. No, the 8s is supposed to be still off. We still in off road mode. Does that last through a cycle?

[Zach Klapman]

I'll check. We'll use the favorite button.

[Matt Farah]

Settings vehicle ads. Oh, wow.

[Zach Klapman]

Still deactivated.

[Matt Farah]

No.

[Zach Klapman]

No.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah. Deactivate. Yeah. Hello?

[Zach Klapman]

Jesus Christ.

[Matt Farah]

What's going on?

[Zach Klapman]

What is that?

[Matt Farah]

I don't know. I don't know. Oh, it's. It might just be because we're maybe we're out of off road mode and our tires are still low. You think it's just warning us?

[Zach Klapman]

Maybe.

[Matt Farah]

I don't know. Hi, everybody. Learning in real time with Matt and Zach.

[Zach Klapman]

Yes, it's called we don't read the manual.

[Matt Farah]

Welcome to another rolling edition of the Smoke and tire podcast. Hopefully if you're. If you're listening on one of those like $100,000 tube systems where you have to sit in a very specific.in the middle of the floor, the off roadiness of the INEOS Grenadier right now isn't messing with you too much.

[Zach Klapman]

That's a good test for sound deadening in this car. Can the person with the hundred thousand dollar, whatever Sonos system feel the rocks beneath our feet?

[Matt Farah]

This is our version of that Howard Stern bit where he made the lady have an orgasm base.

[Zach Klapman]

If you're sitting on your speaker, don't tell us.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah, the rumble. But actually pretty good. It's pretty good in here.

[Zach Klapman]

It's.

[Matt Farah]

And we'll be off this trail soon. This is a. This is a. We're driving home from the off road shoot and because we're talking to you now, you'll note that we didn't die.

[Zach Klapman]

Right. That's true. If you hear this show before you watch the video, you kind of know the end of the movie before you watch it.

[Matt Farah]

Right. And like, you know, I think I do have to say that we took this vehicle off road pretty confidently considering it's, you know, the first car from a company and there's not a lot of like, backup plan. You know, we don't have another vehicle. That's true vehicle or anything. Just gotta go.

[Zach Klapman]

But it wasn't, you know, it's not a prototype. This is a production vehicle. And sure, some production cars have had problems, but I think it's. The hardware has been tested enough. Like the engine is not. They didn't make their own engine. They got it from dmw.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah.

[Zach Klapman]

The engine should work. And then the rest of the hardware is fairly simple. Solid axles are fairly simple. Like they're known ideas. It's not experimental.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah. But I think as we found on the way back down the hill, and by the way, we're having a video of this that we're not going to do a whole review of the Grenadier in this podcast. In fact, we're gonna. We're gonna do mostly our best to talk about things other than this because we have a whole video that is this. It's gonna be like 28 minutes or something. But just to finish on that thought we did stress out the power steering system a little bit.

[Zach Klapman]

We did. I mean this thing has big tires, but I mean even I think we were coming down the hill, but we were doing three point turns on fairly flat ground and it didn't seem to like it. You really needed to be moving a tiny amount to help the power steering system. And it was kind of like you said was whistling the whole time.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah.

[Zach Klapman]

Like when you drove by me going down in a straight line, it was kind of. You know, you can hear the pump doing its thing. So it seems like it struggles a little bit.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah. But overall I think the review of this vehicle is pretty positive.

[Zach Klapman]

Yeah.

[Matt Farah]

But you'll see how it, how it drives on the. On the trail in that video and we're going to drive it home in this thing on the, this little podcast here.

[Zach Klapman]

Something we didn't however, on the review and I wish we did it on the drive up is I wish we had a roller shade over these glass panels.

[Matt Farah]

Did I said I wanted a shade?

[Zach Klapman]

Did you say that in review?

[Matt Farah]

Yes, I did. It didn't. It would be a nice add on and if these things become popular, the aftermarket will certainly take care of it. It might also be an accessory that's available that this one just doesn't.

[Zach Klapman]

Another option maybe.

[Matt Farah]

Or any house owners let any. They'll get mad. Inio.

[Zach Klapman]

Ineos.

[Matt Farah]

Not Ineos. It's Ineos. You must pronounce it exactly like the oil company.

[Zach Klapman]

It's named after my father, John Shell.

[Matt Farah]

Well, it had me thinking about cars named after oil companies.

[Zach Klapman]

Stephen. British Petroleum, the third.

[Matt Farah]

Chevron.

[Zach Klapman]

Yeah.

[Matt Farah]

Chevron was a car and is. And is now a gas.

[Zach Klapman]

That's true. Oh, that was named after a person, right?

[Matt Farah]

Chevron.

[Zach Klapman]

Yeah. No, I think it's the Chevrolet was a French man.

[Matt Farah]

Well, Louis, Chevrolet is a person.

[Zach Klapman]

Yeah.

[Matt Farah]

Chevron is not Chevrolet. Oh, okay. Chevron. You know what a Chevron is?

[Zach Klapman]

Yeah, it's a little angular.

[Matt Farah]

Two sides of a triangle. Yeah. Yeah. Often seen on and around racetracks for various purposes. Yeah, that's a Chevron.

[Zach Klapman]

We got a dust.

[Matt Farah]

It's. It's dirty.

[Zach Klapman]

We drove with the window. Holy crap. There's another one a second.

[Matt Farah]

Any of the out of here.

[Zach Klapman]

This is.

[Matt Farah]

Zach was all, why did we get.

[Zach Klapman]

The forward facing K. Louisiana County Fire Department? No, get out of here. What are the odds?

[Matt Farah]

Zach was all why are we going to put on the forward facing fire department? I did say that. Really? See anything interesting and now both seen that is one of three cars we've seen in this park. That's wild one.

[Zach Klapman]

A white ineos wagon. Station wagon.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah.

[Zach Klapman]

We have the pickup truck.

[Matt Farah]

Yes. The quartermaster.

[Zach Klapman]

Quartermaster. Quartermaster. Trial master with. What was the other trim we have.

[Matt Farah]

On this Field master.

[Zach Klapman]

Field master.

[Matt Farah]

Oh, it's a lot. It's just a. It's just a master of so many things. Right. Well, a quarter master is. That's the master of the quarters. Right. So is that just a nice way of saying like a housekeeper or like a house. A house person. A butler, maybe, that. An estate manager. I mean, it seems like a good estate manager vehicle, actually. Right.

[Zach Klapman]

Because you get in the bed, you can throw furniture in or something like that.

[Matt Farah]

You know, it's so funny. This is. This really is. It's a good. Because you could do the grounds, you know, if you're driving around the rich people, you know, it's. It's reasonably nice, but it's a good place to spend your time when you're driving around the ground. But like, the one person I know that is so interested in this car and wants to buy one is an estate manager.

[Zach Klapman]

Oh, I know. Yeah, I know who you mean before you even said it.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah, he is. He wants to replace his Forerunner with one of these.

[Zach Klapman]

This makes sense for him.

[Matt Farah]

Oh, yeah.

[Zach Klapman]

It actually really does.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Zach Klapman]

Oh, so you don't like your 16 miles per gallon city? Meet the 14 miles per gallon city.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah. Yeah. It's not very fuel efficient, but it is very optimistic. It stays on full for a really long time.

[Zach Klapman]

Right. We did, what, 60 miles before the fuel gauge moved off of fold.

[Matt Farah]

I've told you about my weird NSX fuel gauge. That's apparently normal, right? No. So it stays on full for like 40 miles. A lot of cars do that, right? 35, 40. It stays on full, then it starts to drop and it moves normally and it gets to a quarter like. Like pretty quickly hovers there for a while and then gets to that red light. Right. But here's the thing. The red light I've done, I've. I've measured this out like a bunch of times. Nice looking Rubicon. I actually think the choice of wheel and tire on that one was very good. Here's the thing I've done. I've done this. Wait, where was I? The Rubicon distracted me.

[Zach Klapman]

Fuel gauge. Oh, thank you.

[Matt Farah]

Right. When I fill it up, when the red light comes on, it has 5 gallons left in it, which in an NSX is like 120 miles of driving. Wow. And so it's like it.

[Zach Klapman]

Wait, how big is the tank capacity?

[Matt Farah]

I think it's. I want to say it's 16 gallons offhand or maybe it's 16 or maybe even 18 gallons.

[Zach Klapman]

Oh, so that's kind of an early alert.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah, it's a very conservative gauge. It's weird, but fuel gauge.

[Zach Klapman]

You have a third of your tank left, pull over and fill up.

[Matt Farah]

Fuel gauge behavior is a real hobby of mine. Saying I could talk for days about the different behaviors of. Please, fuel gauges.

[Zach Klapman]

I can't do that.

[Matt Farah]

That's my version of like Jeremy Clarkson's like MG thing, you know.

[Zach Klapman]

MGs are nice though. I think they're gorgeous, you know. Are they fast? No, they can be. They're just cool looking. Were you? What? I think they're cool. I don't think they're that much. Dude, the hatch thing. Oh man, that thing's awesome.

[Matt Farah]

Wait. It's the moment of truth. Ready? And.

[Zach Klapman]

Silence.

[Matt Farah]

I got to say, I love off roading, but I also love getting back to a tarmac after hours of off roading.

[Zach Klapman]

Your camping is great, but when you're hiking back and you finally see the parking lot, the relief that washes over you is so powerful. Like you're done walking and you're alive and you know you didn't get lost. All of that.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah. When we stopped to set up the cameras for this show, I texted wife. Like off mountain, it's okay. Yeah, right.

[Zach Klapman]

I do that too. Like we came back. Actually I do it more when we come back from the canyons because of the Palmdale 500 folks, like I'm pretty, I'm pretty nervous about that. A head on situation.

[Matt Farah]

You have some real unscrupulous double yellow line crossing happening that morning commuting hours. People think it's like crazy when we're up there, but like the to commute on that road is really where stuff is nuts.

[Zach Klapman]

People are really bold.

[Matt Farah]

I've seen crazier stuff with the commuters do on those roads than what enthusiasts do. For real. If you count standard issue canyon speeding as something that is not morally wrong, then I've seen.

[Zach Klapman]

Because we're discounting people that go up there to drift or drive.

[Matt Farah]

I'm not discounting drifting up there. I don't think you should be doing that.

[Zach Klapman]

No, I don't either. I'm saying those are the people that are the dangerous enthusiasts, but normal people who's out of good vibes and speed a little bit. The people that commute in clapped Camrys and work trucks and like we Came around a corner once, double yellow out of a tunnel. And when someone was taking a peek on the outside to see if they could pass a car and some S's and people are just. They're running way too late.

[Matt Farah]

I remember that incident. Do you remember what the car was taking a peek?

[Zach Klapman]

Civic.

[Matt Farah]

Oh, no, it was a Suburban.

[Zach Klapman]

Oh, it would have killed us either way.

[Matt Farah]

And we were in. We're in like a McLaren or something going the other way.

[Zach Klapman]

It's just wake up five minutes earlier, whoever you are, and don't kill anyone on the highway.

[Matt Farah]

Zach, I have a question for you. Do you think that recirculating ball steering with minus 10 psi in the tires is improved or worsened in terms of how it tracks?

[Zach Klapman]

You'll probably have less tram line, but it will be even slower to react to your inputs is my guess.

[Matt Farah]

Yes, Slower to react. And it is a lot heavier, which.

[Zach Klapman]

It didn't need to be, which because the steering, the steering weight of this car, the. The heaviness gives you the false impression that it is sporty. And then the revolutions to get it to turn tell you otherwise. Yeah, yeah, it's a little. Well, it was our worst in the off road and it's not great on road. That's. That's the trade off.

[Matt Farah]

So, yeah, if I was an estate manager at like, like that house in the Gentleman. Did you see the Gentleman? One of those big. The idea of the Gentleman, either the film or the television series, both of which are great. The idea is that there's these a lot of. A lot. But enough people in England that have inherited royal titles like Duke or whatever, and they have a big estate. Right. But they've never had, like, jobs, so they don't really have any money. They certainly don't have enough money to care for these estates and have staffs and all that. But they're trying to keep up the lifestyle. So in the Gentleman. And this doesn't spoil anything because this is revealed in the first couple of scenes of both. They lease out their land to weed growers who build underground grow rooms on their estates.

[Zach Klapman]

Got it.

[Matt Farah]

And then, you know, a variety of.

[Zach Klapman]

Of hijinks like Clarkson's and mushroom in growing area.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah, the huge. Right. Huge, you know, big commercial. So anyway, estate. If you have one of those estates, this. This would have been a perfect product placement in the Gentleman.

[Zach Klapman]

But I feel like the amount of wealth you would need to make this your estate vehicle over a John Deere something.

[Matt Farah]

Right.

[Zach Klapman]

Is insane. Like you have no money left to maintain your estate, but you or your groundskeeper drive a hundred thousand dollar truck around instead of a $22,000. You know, John, your Polaris, whatever.

[Matt Farah]

Clarkson farms in a Range Rover, a Lamborghini tractor.

[Zach Klapman]

And where did his money come from? Television.

[Matt Farah]

Aren't all farms TV shows?

[Zach Klapman]

I think Tanner Fowl seems to be.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah. This farm looks fun. We should go visit. Look.

[Zach Klapman]

Amazing. That guy has won that life.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah.

[Zach Klapman]

Yeah. He's got a huge ranch. Awesome.

[Matt Farah]

So we probably don't even need to drive. I could probably just be like, buddy, next time you're in la, let me just hop on the. Yeah, hop on the plane.

[Zach Klapman]

Hop on the twin prop. What are you.

[Matt Farah]

Did he get a twin?

[Zach Klapman]

He's got a turboprop or something.

[Matt Farah]

He had. He had a plane that I saw that was a single propeller plane, but it was like a pretty fast.

[Zach Klapman]

Yeah, I think it's a servo. Single prop, man.

[Matt Farah]

Okay, I didn't. I heard you. I thought I heard you say twin.

[Zach Klapman]

I did, but I don't know anything about planes or his personal fleet, so.

[Matt Farah]

Doesn't Aaron have a twin? Like an older one?

[Zach Klapman]

I thought he just had a Cessna. I thought he had a normal single prop.

[Matt Farah]

Oh, okay. I don't know.

[Zach Klapman]

I'm not sure.

[Matt Farah]

I don't know. I don't know about planes, but once.

[Zach Klapman]

These guys get into planes, I know I shouldn't be. This is as close to piloting a plane as I should get.

[Matt Farah]

Really?

[Zach Klapman]

Yeah.

[Matt Farah]

You flew that drone thing.

[Zach Klapman]

And. And as soon as I did the checklist with supervision led by the coo, I went, I should not have. I'm not a person to do this by myself.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah, by yourself.

[Zach Klapman]

I have a handler. And they kept saying, zach, why with.

[Matt Farah]

Another person in it.

[Zach Klapman]

The weight limit, you'd be aware. Weight limit. Yeah, but they said, this is why people that fly have checklists, because you don't have to remember all the things and you just have to remember to start the check. You just have to remember and care enough to go through the checklist.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah.

[Zach Klapman]

And I'm not that person, you know, I improvise too much. And if I went through the list and one thing was broken, you need to go, oh, never mind. We're not going on the trip. We're not, you know, sunk home. Fallacy cannot exist. If you're flying a private aircraft, I would go, we already came all this way. It'll be fine. Probably. We can glide if we need to.

[Matt Farah]

We can glide if we need to.

[Zach Klapman]

Yeah.

[Matt Farah]

Hey, Zach, what are the things that you never want a pilot to Say.

[Zach Klapman]

I'm a big fan of contingency plans and having a bunch of them. So I would have parachutes and people go, oh, that's. Do you go skydiving? I go, no, no, no, that's for us. Just in case, because I skipped something on the checklist. This is why I shouldn't have a check. I shouldn't fly an aircraft. Just, I'll go ride in one. I'll ride with Tanner or Aaron. That's fine.

[Matt Farah]

I really liked the little tiny bit of flying that I did when Hannah got me a lesson. It was literally. And I'm sure I could learn it, but I didn't want to. The radio shit.

[Zach Klapman]

Oh, yeah, that's hard. Yeah, there's a lot going on. Oh, I think once you're out, away from the city, there's less.

[Matt Farah]

I think, yes, I do think that's true. And you could probably go sometime without hearing much radio at all. But I just like, I couldn't, I couldn't understand, like, not even like 1%, I agree. Of what was being said on the radio. And I didn't give enough of a fuck to try like the next. The next level of commitment from that first, you know, couple hundred dollar test flight, 20 minutes. The next level of commitment is like a whole, you know, but all your free time for a year.

[Zach Klapman]

Do you think that it's like if a pilot who's not into cars listens to us? Talk about with chassis codes.

[Matt Farah]

Folks, we gotta take a quick break from today's episode because Delete Me is supporting this one. We love them and they are back. Listen, has someone that you know or maybe yourself been a victim of identity theft? Or maybe harassed, stalked, doxxed? Right? Here's what my problem is. Robocalls. I hate them to the point where I picked up a real call today and I started with the line, are you a human? Which is something I've been conditioned to do because I have so many. Robocall. Personal data is out there on the Internet for anyone to see. And more than you think. Your name and contact info, Social Security number, home address, etc. Even information about your family members are all being compiled by data brokers and sold online. And they make a profit off it. Your data is a commodity. Anyone on the web can buy your private details, which can lead to identity theft, phishing attempts, harassment, spam and more. But now you can protect your privacy with Delete. I used it. It was so easy. All I did was make an account like same usual information. But then they started asking Me very basic questions about my past, where I lived, where I worked, phone numbers, who I'm related to, where I went to school and on and on. It took about 20 minutes. Then they went to work and I didn't hear from them for a couple of days. And then I got this email summary saying they found like 1,000 bits of information most of could get automatically removed. But then there was a process where I had to go through and individually select about, I don't know, 20 or 25 different things which was like we found this. Are you related to this person? Is this phone number related to you? Is this address related to you? And it was yes, no, yes, no, yes, no. Took a few more minutes and then a couple weeks later I got another email, same kind of thing. And Delete me. It's not just a one time service. It's always working in the background, constantly monitoring and removing the personal information you don't want on the Internet. Deleteme does all the hard work of wiping you and your family's personal information from data broker websites. So take control of your data. Keep your private life private by signing up for Deleteme now at a special discount for our listeners today. Get 20% off your DeleteMe plan when you go to JoinDelete Me.com Tire and use promo code Tire at checkout. That's JoinDelete Me.com Tire. Enter code Tire at checkout JoinDeleteMe.com Tire code Tire. And thank you to Deleteme for sponsoring today's episode. And let's get back to it on the Smoking Tire podcast.

[Zach Klapman]

Like it's just a little chassis code.

[Matt Farah]

To drive a car.

[Zach Klapman]

You don't need one. That's very true. But I'm saying like, it's like a language you have to learn. You learn the short drug mobbing. And Mike Amusio, who works for Kelly Blue Book and he took me for a flight in his helicopter, said that if you can learn air traffic control in la, you can do it anywhere because it's the hardest place to learn to talk. There's so many frequencies and so many things happening.

[Matt Farah]

Sure.

[Zach Klapman]

It doesn't make it easy.

[Matt Farah]

And I understand the passion for it for sure. I understand the passion for it. It just like it was not like, oh, in order to do the thing I want to do right, I need to do this other thing. And the math, that was bad math for me.

[Zach Klapman]

Right. Before you're allowed to drive a car, you have to learn Japanese. Yeah, that's kind of what it's like. You know, you have to learn all these call signs. East, west, what are we doing? All that stuff. Yeah.

[Matt Farah]

That's like. I've already done that once with boats and I really like it. I like it with boats, but you don't have to do it very often.

[Zach Klapman]

And it's like the pacing also seems slower.

[Matt Farah]

Look at they've. Look what they've built here, this shopping center.

[Zach Klapman]

It's a building.

[Matt Farah]

It's a shopping center.

[Zach Klapman]

First time seeing one?

[Matt Farah]

No. But it means that for once, Zach, there might be something good to eat when we come off that is this particular point hill.

[Zach Klapman]

That's a good point.

[Matt Farah]

I love you, Sand Canyon. But listen, if you're passionate about food, go somewhere where there isn't good food and start making good food. Because I think it's a beautiful neighborhood around here and I would love to live at the foothills of these mountains, but there ain't a fucking thing to eat out here. Oh, look, Frederic Ospo on the side of the wall here.

[Zach Klapman]

That's right.

[Matt Farah]

That's probably a gen horsey placement. Shout out to her.

[Zach Klapman]

Yeah. Our friend is the agent for like Paul Tops all of Papadakas. Yeah. It's a good team to represent.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah.

[Zach Klapman]

They keep doing well. Although James Dean won FD championship last year again and he's part of rtr.

[Matt Farah]

Well, they're very good too. Yeah.

[Zach Klapman]

And he is a psych.

[Matt Farah]

What the fuck? Oh, it's a tire pressure warning.

[Zach Klapman]

Yeah.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah. Okay. Well, I'm sorry, podcast people, you may have to live with that one. When we aired down to go off road, when you put the car in off road mode smartly, it disregards all ADAS stuff. It disregards tire pressure sensors. Unless you have like a blowout, I think. But other vehicles we've driven, like something I did recently. I think I want to say the Land Cruiser, like wouldn't turn off the parking sensors when I was off roading. And so I'd get close to bushes and stuff and it would beep like crazy.

[Zach Klapman]

I'm glad you brought this up. I have a complaint about the RAV4 hybrid that I want a Toyota engineer to hear and explain to me.

[Matt Farah]

Okay. When, or at the very least David.

[Zach Klapman]

Twig or David Twig. When you're. Let's say you're parked at a spot and there's a bush in front of you, you put the car in reverse, your forward parking sensors go off. Like they beep a lot, but you're in reverse. The audio camera is on.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah.

[Zach Klapman]

However, we noticed that if you back into a spot when you pull it, put it into drive, the rear sensors don't alert you to what's behind you because they know you're going forward.

[Matt Farah]

Oh.

[Zach Klapman]

You know, you understand what I'm saying? Like the car goes, I know that you can only go backwards but watch out for the thing in front of you. But when you reverse it or flip it around it goes, don't worry about what's behind you, you're going forward. Yeah, it drives. These are in a lot sense.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah.

[Zach Klapman]

And it's loud. The, the Toyota safety alerts. They really want you to be safe and they yell at you so very loudly.

[Matt Farah]

I know we wouldn't try, try to talk too much about this truck but it just happened and I want to put it on the record. Did you notice while making our three point turns for doing our drive by shots because you drove some and I drove some. Did you notice that in off road mode the backup, backup camera doesn't come on in reverse?

[Zach Klapman]

Yeah, I did notice that. That was weird. I use the mirrors to look at the straw so I hope we don't drive over it.

[Matt Farah]

I think the backup camera is quite useful if you have to go in reverse.

[Zach Klapman]

Yeah, that's, that's a circuit they should fix because this also has forward facing cameras for automatic emergency braking. But when you put it in off road mode, obviously it turns that off, which is good because sometimes it will detect the ground. You know, you're going down a slope and there's an uphill and it might auto brake, that'd be a problem. But we know that the cameras can be super helpful off roading.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah.

[Zach Klapman]

Especially if you, you know, you don't want to drive over the vegetation if you're turning around.

[Matt Farah]

No, you go up. When you go up a peak with a big breakover like Land rovers, camera cameras are so good on their modern stuff.

[Zach Klapman]

Yeah.

[Matt Farah]

With that seeing under the nose thing.

[Zach Klapman]

But those I think are mounted under the front bumper for that purpose. Whereas like this has a camera at the top of the windshield. So it wouldn't work for that but the backup camera would be, you know, invaluable for turning around.

[Matt Farah]

I was disappointed in the G Wagon's front camera. It's really wide angle and to the point where on that sort of camel backed rock that we go, we drive on, on these trails. Like it really, it makes it very distorted and hard to, to really discern what you're looking at at all. It's not great. I mean otherwise I think rules. But like it's, that was a bad camera. You know what I did? I dropped the bottle cap on the floor and it's gone under the seat. And now he's got a chug. A lug or hold it. So you know what? A bunch of people sent me a story this morning or last night about the first ticket was issued for that Australian supercar license. Oh. So the law went into effect like whatever, you know, a week ago or days ago, and on the very first day someone was driving around in a Lambo. I believe it was a huracan. It had no tags on it. Got pulled over. I didn't know you could roll no tags in Australia. Australia is a little more surveillancey than America.

[Zach Klapman]

Well, you can't.

[Matt Farah]

And they got pulled over. Right, true. But I didn't know it was like culturally it was a thing that was even done.

[Zach Klapman]

Okay.

[Matt Farah]

When I say can. Yeah. There's legally. And then it's like, is it done in that region?

[Zach Klapman]

Gotcha. Well, what do they. So what do they get a ticket for?

[Matt Farah]

They got a ticket for no tags and they got a ticket for driving without the ultra high performance license.

[Zach Klapman]

Right. Because they now require you to have people.

[Matt Farah]

You don't get any special privileges. People send it to me. Because this is when I, I've been talking for years along with Rob Ferretti about there should be a high performance license that allows you to drive a higher speed than the regular speed limit, but comes with like extra levels of training and possibly restriction. Right. Almost like a commercial grade driver's license, like a CDL for speeding.

[Zach Klapman]

Right.

[Matt Farah]

But in Australia it's not that. It's. It's. If you're going to buy a car that's over a certain power to weight ratio and I, we. It's the nut. We would look up the number if we weren't in the car. It was like 300. It was such a Australian number. It was like 370 kilowatts per ton.

[Zach Klapman]

Okay.

[Matt Farah]

Which was like we have to do individually on every single letter.

[Zach Klapman]

It's an ev. And then. Okay.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah, yeah. Oh, actually. Right.

[Zach Klapman]

It works for that.

[Matt Farah]

That's actually true right there. And I hadn't thought about the fact that their default was also the ev, even though in hindsight that seems incredibly obvious. But anyway, he got ticketed for not having the license and you need. It's like an. It's like an hour online course. It's like pretty bullshit.

[Zach Klapman]

Well, so it seems like. And I'm not usually one to go this direction, but it's sounds like it's probably a revenue Generator. More than a safety thing like you don't get. Because what we want is extra training within extra privileges. You have this high performance vehicle that can go fast at safe, safely go very fast. Here are the conditions you're allowed to do that. And you know how to handle the vehicle because. But they're going. These cars are dangerous. You can go faster and lose control. Let's give you a quick hour long online course. You paid money and now you can go driving.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah.

[Zach Klapman]

That's not really preparing you for if the thing kicks out at 120 miles an hour because you're going too fast or it's raining or if the tires are our compounds in the wet. So we need to look at the class. Maybe if someone's listening from Australia, tell us what's in that course, because that doesn't seem thorough enough.

[Matt Farah]

No, it seems dumb. But also it seems like it gives a possible prerequisite and maybe to pull people over. I don't know if they can. They are a stop and frisk for supercar drivers.

[Zach Klapman]

Like, you know what, that would be karma. Like the stop and frisk was definitely not aimed in people that can afford super cars. So maybe went down. We get to see what it's like. Exactly.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah.

[Zach Klapman]

Real quick. I'm pretty sure that when that Harley rider got on, he adjusted the damping on his rear suspension as he merged. Like he reached back and like did something with his shock.

[Matt Farah]

Oh, you don't think he gave us a little what's up for being in kind of enthusiast?

[Zach Klapman]

I think he. I think he gestured to signal because he didn't have. Doesn't have signal or, you know, blinkers.

[Matt Farah]

And then.

[Zach Klapman]

And then he reached back and set his shift to soft or hard. I don't know. It just looked like someone who races motorcycles up in Sunland and then whatever. Just like a weird detail I noticed.

[Matt Farah]

Remember right before they closed the Snake in 2018, all the Superbike guys had switched over to like Harleys and because they got bored of like doing stunts and like carving on, you know, jixers and shit, they're like. But see what this is like on a fat boy. He's amazing. It's like dragging Sparks up.

[Zach Klapman]

Some of the most amazing motorcycle riding you'll ever see is people. Yeah. Dragging Sparks with ape hangers.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah.

[Zach Klapman]

And their knee is like inches from rocks.

[Matt Farah]

Really.

[Zach Klapman]

It was impressive. It was really impressive.

[Matt Farah]

King of the Baggers has become like a thing, right. That they gone going.

[Zach Klapman]

You know, it is. They're in multiple seasons and the times they run Are really fast. Yeah. Because the engines are really big. It's incredible what they've done with those people that don't know. They take bagger motorcycles. Motorcycles with saddlebags traditionally like and they race them wheel to wheel at racetracks. You know famously for us, Laguna Seca. But they do multiple events and they haul ass.

[Matt Farah]

Like they're like someone started as like a me, like a meme basically as like a joke. Like wouldn't it be funny and silly if we raced these things? And then it sort of became. It was like such a hit that it then turned into like a real thing.

[Zach Klapman]

Well and they got competitive because that's what you know.

[Matt Farah]

How often will you see a RAV4 flat tow another RAV4? Not often.

[Zach Klapman]

30. Sort of a human centipede.

[Matt Farah]

It's a pretty good.

[Zach Klapman]

So we have 30 minutes left. Should we go to questions from people or.

[Matt Farah]

Oh we do.

[Zach Klapman]

Only because there's no traffic today.

[Matt Farah]

Like why not?

[Zach Klapman]

Because it's later than we normally drive back by like two hours. So yeah.

[Matt Farah]

Okay.

[Zach Klapman]

Normally we drove. This drive takes us an hour and a half.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah. All right.

[Zach Klapman]

You have more topics. I'm just. I'm just noticing the time.

[Matt Farah]

That's a good thing to notice. I really appreciate that. What was I going to say? So Eric, Eric heard us talking about his Porsche.

[Zach Klapman]

Oh yeah.

[Matt Farah]

Show and now he wants to sell the Porsche and he gave me details on the the warranty. And again if you're. If you didn't listen to last episode my general manager Eric has a 997.2 turbo in a stick with like I think it's like 15000 miles give or take. I don't know exactly but it's in that read the re the the area 15000 miles stick two turbos are very very rare and low mileage valuable and he's had this one for a long time. What makes it interesting is that it is still under warranty. This is a 2012 car that has a bumper to bumper Porsche warranty until I believe like fall of 2026 or 70000 miles. And so we're going to list the car for sale.

[Zach Klapman]

And you see it's gorgeous on BBS's right?

[Matt Farah]

Yeah, it's on BBS's but. But it comes with the stock wheels too.

[Zach Klapman]

That is like the best turbo though. Cuz you get what 997.2 interior. You get the good interior but it's a manual in its mesger and it's so fast. It's so fast and can be made even faster and hold up to whatever boost you want to throw at it. That is one of like the unicorn 911 turbos.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah, it's a. It's a good one. You don't. You do not see them very often. Almost all of the 997 turbos that you see are DOD ones. Manuals. All the manual manuals, everyone went pek. Yeah. And because most of them were sold as turbo assets which were PDK also and the acceleration obviously with p. The introduction of PDK to the 911 Turbo, it was a big deal at the time for sure. And it was the best automatic at the time. And it was the first time that people didn't feel as much like pressure to buy the stick because the PDK was also like respectable.

[Zach Klapman]

Yeah.

[Matt Farah]

It wasn't like this shitty auto like with the 996. So anyway, that's kind of funny. That's a lot of warranty remainder for a 2012. That's crazy. But yeah, let's. Let's talk to the people if you want to ask questions for the show. Comment on the wind noise of the Ineos Grenadier. Get the show ahead of time. Get it had free listening experience, all that good stuff that you're used to that you love. And it makes podcasting a direct to consumer experience. Patreon.com the Smoking Tire podcast.

[Zach Klapman]

All right, so for patreons listening, we're hitting the leftover questions from last show and then we'll hit the new ones. So this is from Barely Streetable says other than the convenience of four doors, what would your pick be between an Audi RS3 and RS5 and why.

[Matt Farah]

Our.

[Zach Klapman]

RS3 gets the inline five turbo?

[Matt Farah]

Yeah, the RS5 is like, is like a six cylinder turbo. Like it's not a bad car at all. But I don't know, it doesn't really. Doesn't really do it for me. That powertrain doesn't feel as special.

[Zach Klapman]

Yeah, true.

[Matt Farah]

I'd still rather have the Rs3, the one we had.

[Zach Klapman]

That was the. What was the trim level with the upgrade? If like they upgrade if this are.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah, they were like the competition or.

[Zach Klapman]

I mean you get that that was a pretty good driver's car.

[Matt Farah]

It was.

[Zach Klapman]

But yeah, the engine's not as unique and I think they had the exact same front interior volume. Like, like front seats, front seat, shoulder. Everything was basically the same.

[Matt Farah]

It is pretty close.

[Zach Klapman]

So you're not getting a ton more luxurious space with the RS5 versus the RS3.

[Matt Farah]

So yeah, the RS3 rides well enough that you don't need to go to a bigger car in order to get a better ride.

[Zach Klapman]

All right, someone says, I hope Matt likes my username. Do you have any memorable driving roads in the Pacific Northwest, specifically around Portland? How do you plan a route for a driving group? We've covered this before. You just Google Earth. Look for squiggles.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah.

[Zach Klapman]

Look for as few squiggles with as few roads or driveways intersecting with the squiggle. And then go to street view and look for good tarmac because you can usually tell if the road is dirt or bad cracked up tarmac unless it's been repaved. Yeah, you look for those things.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah. It isn't all that difficult. You pick your start and your end points and then you drag the line around and find the squiggly roots and then you inspect the quality of the road from there.

[Zach Klapman]

Right. And if you have time, you could pre run it. Yeah, if you really want. I mean that's the best thing to do if you can, but if you can't, just go on the adventure.

[Matt Farah]

I don't have any memorable Pacific Northwest roads. Not because the roads aren't great, just because all the times I've driven them have been on like press launches and stuff where they give you a route. And so I'm not, I'm not really paying attention so much to the names of the roads. But I mean, wherever you are, find the mountains and then find the, the roads on and off those mountains.

[Zach Klapman]

True.

[Matt Farah]

Is generally a good place to start.

[Zach Klapman]

Yeah. Or head into the woods.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah.

[Zach Klapman]

And head back out of the woods. Pretty much it.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah. Mountains rarely let you down when it comes to finding a road.

[Zach Klapman]

Yeah. They can't go straight up them for a reason.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah.

[Zach Klapman]

Murray Manchantazook says he had a deposit on a BRZ series purple, but changed his mind after test driving and then buying a GR Corolla core as his only car and first new car. How should he preserve it? How do you decide between PPF over ceramic or ammo Reflex math.

[Matt Farah]

PPF is expensive.

[Zach Klapman]

Yes.

[Matt Farah]

You know, to PPF a car costs probably as much as, you know, not a full, not a repaint, but like, like a car is anywhere from like 6 to $10,000 to PPF.

[Zach Klapman]

Yeah, we're talking full coverage.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah, full coverage.

[Zach Klapman]

But that's a lot of money.

[Matt Farah]

That's a lot of money. If you could do the nose, you can just, you know, you could do half a car.

[Zach Klapman]

A lot of people do. Let's call it like Impact areas. Yeah, that's like the nose, a lot of the ears. Yeah, stuff like that.

[Matt Farah]

But like, so I, what I like to do, I mean if you, if it's a car that you're gonna keep for a long time, I mean that's usually the first math. Are you going to keep this car for a very long time? And, and if I have to repaint the bumper or repaint bits of the car, how much will that cost versus spending six to nine thousand. Thousand dollars. Let's call it on a full PPF to guarantee you won't, you know, do that. That's one thing. Also, you can't really ppf like old cars quite as well because the paint is as. Is more fragile and, and so you, you don't really want to put PPF on like an original paint car that's 20 or 30 years old. Ceramic is like fine. And reflex product is a ceramic like coating that just lasts about half as long as ceramic. Ceramic has in theory a five to ten year commitment, you know, level to it. I like to do PPF with ammo reflex on top of it. And that makes look really great. It makes it really easy to wash. But that's for cars like my Porsche or the Acura NSX where I really want to preserve that original paint as, as long as I can with a Corolla. I know you think you want to keep it forever now, but, and maybe you do, but I would say the value, the cost to PPF it probably outweighs the return because even if you have to paint the front bumper, it won't be that much for a Corolla, comparatively speaking, compared to like a Ferrari. Right.

[Zach Klapman]

If you pgf the whole thing, it's like 20% of the cost of the car, you know, and that's, that's a lot.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah.

[Zach Klapman]

And you won't, you will not get that back when you sell it. I mean it will, it will make the car easier to sell to tell someone, hey, the whole thing's ppf. You could, but I would call a shop and see what they would charge for the high impact zones.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah.

[Zach Klapman]

The frequently impacted zones and see what that's like. But it's, it's a lot more expensive than ceramic coating.

[Matt Farah]

You know what I love about BPF though? The, the unintended other thing about BPF is I don't have to feel bad about like leaning on my car or other people leaning on my car. You know, like if I'm just standing around a parking lot or wherever, like I want to lean on the car, like I'm not going to scratch it. I'm going to put, I want to put this beverage down on the car. I'm not going to scratch it or like leave a ring in the pain or anything like that. Yeah, it just like, it allows me like one extra step of like, I don't have to be too precious with this because it's got the protection on it. Right. And that makes me feel good. Even on the Safari 911 when we did it, it really made me feel good. Lean on the car and sit on it like whatever.

[Zach Klapman]

Well, and take it off in the dirt, go shred and without worrying about it.

[Matt Farah]

It made me feel real nice.

[Zach Klapman]

Great M8 mate says he has a 718 GT4 manual. He was thinking of doing the demand thing, but he's worried about long term reliability on an engine built to such an aggressive level. So his question is kind of multifaceted. Do you know anything about the long term reliability of that engine or would you rather Switch to a 991.2 GT3 touring or a 992 touring to get that horsepower in what is perceived as a more reliable package?

[Matt Farah]

I mean, I've never personally witnessed a demand engine blow up. Doesn't mean it hasn't happened, but I've never personally witnessed it. And I feel like if it became problematic, I would probably be the first people person that they would call because right. As their biggest name customer, I am somehow a de facto representative of the brand, which is fine. I understand that and that I've never heard anything like that. Now I've heard people complain about Rick because he could be hard to deal with, but that's a different story. That's not the car or the motor. And I'm. Rick has told me and insists and I don't have a good reason to doubt him because he's been building race cars for a very long time. That this engine, meaning the 4.5, the service life of it is a hundred thousand street miles. A factory Porsche engine is longer than that probably. But that's what this engine is. That's his comfort level for its life. It was something like 25 hours of racing between rebuilds on this same engine. And according to him, again, you can maximize that life by doing a proper break in, which is what I did. And I went through some mild. Are we going to go into the fog? This would be so nice. I went through some, you know, a mild headache of a process to do, you know, levels of improving the throttle and pushing it Harder and whatever while doing oil changes and Blackstone tests to make sure everything was fine. So there's no metal in there that's not supposed to be there and the cylinders are, the bores are good and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. So we've had no problems. I haven't. There hasn't been a whole lot of people emailing me going, I've had these problems and, you know, they're not taking my calls or whatever, which is what would happen for sure if there were problems. Right. But like. So anyway, to answer your question, a 991.2 touring is an exceptionally good car. But I've seen those engines blow up. I've seen 990. A customer's 992 GT3 took an enormous dump about 100 yards from my driveway at idle speed. And. And Porsche Santa Clarita did a full engine replacement warranty car at 1200 miles on it.

[Zach Klapman]

Right.

[Matt Farah]

So like, I have no evidence that a demand motor is less reliable than a Porsche, bar none. So, like there's. But you know, it's sort of a. You gotta be comfortable with pushing. It's a little bit of pay the cost to be the boss. And the car is so fast.

[Zach Klapman]

I mean. And it's a different thing. The experience is different. Like the torque, the sound, all of that. For me, it is definitely a different thing than driving a GT3 touring or even S T. Yeah, it's. It's all a deeper sound, torque down low, all that stuff, it feels way more hot rod and race car. I mean, you'll have a very unique car if you get that, but you just have to be willing to deal with the uncertainty in the back of your mind, which may be unfounded. And then if something does go wrong with the engine, you can't just take it to your Porsche dealership the way if you had a GT3 with a warranty, you could. Yeah. But on the other hand, if you have a GT3 with that's out of warranty, you got to use one.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah.

[Zach Klapman]

And the engine explodes for some unfair reason.

[Matt Farah]

You're equally hose.

[Zach Klapman]

Right. Either way, you're paying for someone to rebuild an engine and it won't be cheap.

[Matt Farah]

I will say part of, part of how I ended up in the demand thing in the first place is we've driven all of the other Porsches. We haven't owned them all, but we've gotten a taste and we will continue to get taste. We continue to be able to drive the newest GT3 for a couple hundred miles in a way you'd want to drive one. And so we get that experience often enough and know what it's like that I wasn't personally passionate about having that exact same experience in my garage. By working with something that's sort of outside of that system. I don't think I'd get tired of it the way it is if I had a stock one. And then I just want the newer, faster, whatever one later, you know. Right.

[Zach Klapman]

That's possible. So anyway, Double O slow says. Do you think car condos, where people get a condo and they can modify how they want, would be successful in la or do you think it wouldn't because of regulation, cost of land, etc?

[Matt Farah]

I think it depends. Like, I mean, car condos exist in, in la. They don't exist like in the city of Los Angeles, but they exist in the suburbs surrounding Los Angeles. I think within the city they could be very, very, very expensive.

[Zach Klapman]

So expensive.

[Matt Farah]

And it's not to say you couldn't, you couldn't get it. You, you probably could. It's a crazy place. There's rich people all over the place. But like building it would be, I mean, I ran the math on doing it, you know, just the property, you know, it's like 50 million for dirt, you know. Right.

[Zach Klapman]

You know, because if you want to store what, six cars per condo? Let's just say that. Yeah, that's, you know, it's not a ton of cars, but it's more than someone can store at their house. The land needed for that, for one unit, really expensive. I mean, that's like a house.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah.

[Zach Klapman]

That you could sell. You could build in LA and sell for $2 million or you know, something like that.

[Matt Farah]

I mean, what's nice about the car condos is, you know, they could be people's offices. Also it could be a business expense if your office is there, you know, there's, you register it. It could be your cup, your corporate office and whatever and, and it's where people socialize. Like I love if I wouldn't have done anything with any of this business if there was a car condo reasonably priced somewhere in west la. Right. You know, I wouldn't have gone through all this trouble or needed to, you know, I would have seen the value in, in buying a car condo at that time. But now. Yeah, be so hard.

[Zach Klapman]

Be too expensive. This is the wrong. At least for it.

[Matt Farah]

Not to mention those are considered commercial properties, so they have to be ada commercially insured. I mean, it's a whole, it's, it's a, it's A whole other level of regulation is very, very challenging. But they exist in the greater LA area, though. Yeah.

[Zach Klapman]

Isaiah Stanley says with nothing exciting on the horizon, what is more likely to happen to Nissan? A restructuring or you completely gut it and sell off the ip?

[Matt Farah]

I think they're going to go back to Datsun.

[Zach Klapman]

I think they'll just do that.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah. You know what? We're going. We're going back to. Back to the good old days of Datsun.

[Zach Klapman]

I think they'll get restructured. There's talk of, like, Honda putting in a bunch of money to buy a piece of it. I mean, I think we underestimate the size of Nissan, how big a part of Renault they've been, how big a manufacturer they are globally and how many cars they sell. I have to look up the numbers later, but it's a lot to charge a company, right? There's. It's someone. Someone is always willing to pick up the pieces at a discount, you know, maybe 25 cents on the dollar, because for them, that's a deal. And then they can do something. With this car we're in, it was built in an old Mercedes factory. You know, I'm sure Mercedes was happy to get some money for it. Liang Ku says, in our opinion, what's it for separates a driver from average to decent, decent to good and good to great on public roads. I like this question.

[Matt Farah]

Okay, what was the lowest level?

[Zach Klapman]

Average.

[Matt Farah]

Average. Okay. Average is you. You get around without causing any accidents. People don't honk at you very often. People don't feel inspired to pass you aggressively. It breaks you off once you get past that. That's average.

[Zach Klapman]

Yeah. You signal, you yell when the light turns green.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah. You drive. Average is pretty much like textbook, you know, driver, like, you know, the licensing standard stuff.

[Zach Klapman]

Now, I think good for me, an attribute is when there's traffic, people stack up as close as safely possible.

[Matt Farah]

Right.

[Zach Klapman]

They're very aware of cars around them. And like, if a car is behind them waiting to go left and there's just not enough room between the curb and that car in front of you.

[Matt Farah]

Right.

[Zach Klapman]

The car, the driver notices and they move up and you can fit.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah.

[Zach Klapman]

That, to me, you are a good driver. You're paying attention.

[Matt Farah]

Good to me is where you start to. Where I start to notice your smoothness of your inputs, where I can really feel that your throttle tip in is super smooth. Your, like, brake pedal is really smooth and where you start to take steps to smooth out the ride by seeing road surface and adjusting accordingly. Yeah. Not just like blindingly going over potholes.

[Zach Klapman]

Very good point. I would say that that also if you're great, you go to the next level. If you're in a canyon and you can kind of minimize how much people are moving around or you downshift on the downhills so you're not eating up the brakes.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah. Great is like you start using parts of the car like manually shifting or low range or other things that are like.

[Zach Klapman]

Yeah.

[Matt Farah]

You have to know an extra level to use, but also like a greater situational awareness. Like, your eyes are always doing the four stop. Right. Like, do you do the four stop? Like every 15 seconds? I check all four positions.

[Zach Klapman]

Oh.

[Matt Farah]

I position waters your eyes ahead. But then it's like center mirror, right mirror, left mirror. Yeah. Every 15 or 20.

[Zach Klapman]

Yeah. Like, if you call out something, you're like, oh, this person at my head is doing something weird. Like you're slowing down preemptively because that truck starts to wiggle. Yeah. And you go, that person's gonna make a bad pass in five seconds. Yeah. Yeah, do it.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah. Yeah. That's where I would say you're at the highest level is where you're predicting when another car is about to do something really dumb. And then they do it. Right. That's. That's like another one. You know where you get that one is like motorcycling. Right.

[Zach Klapman]

When you. You were on the scooter and.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah.

[Zach Klapman]

Saw the person.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah. But that's a very good question.

[Zach Klapman]

Yeah, I like that question.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah.

[Zach Klapman]

Nathan Reynolds. These bumps were terrible for great.

[Matt Farah]

Also, I would say if I can ride with you and you're using techniques you clearly used learned on a racetrack on the road, like really nice heel toe shifting if you like, trail brake a little bit into a corner, like nicely. And someone, like, someone taught you that on a track and you brought it back to the road for sure. That's when you get to great also.

[Zach Klapman]

All right, Nathan Reynolds has a long question. Basically, he loves the E90 M3, but he's upset that they never put that engine in a Z4. Is he alone in thinking that?

[Matt Farah]

So I drove the Z4 GT3 race car, right. Which had not quite exactly the same. It had the E39 M5 V8 in it, a Dinan built motorsport version of that engine. And a V8Z4 is good, objectively, Very, very good. And I think someone should figure out how to do an engine swap and get the. The M3 motor. The V8 ends it into a Z4.

[Zach Klapman]

Sure.

[Matt Farah]

Goes away.

[Zach Klapman]

And then Christian says he's visiting LA while he's here this week. Basically if you're going to rent a car here, would you rent a new seven Series, a new S Class or a new Range Rover Sport which will have the softest, most comfortable ride? Ooh, I haven't driven a new 7 series so I'm not sure.

[Matt Farah]

I haven't driven a new 7 series either. Johnny seems to really like it. It's a weird looking car.

[Zach Klapman]

Terrible looking car. I the S Class I drove was the new AMG and it was too stiff but it was the amg.

[Matt Farah]

The regular one probably would not be that stiff.

[Zach Klapman]

Hope so. Range Rover Sport. I would do that just for the visibility.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah. Range Rover Sport maybe. And also the, that's a tighter package. Shorter, you know, not, not as long also maybe like, I don't know, maybe. Maybe like Panamera.

[Zach Klapman]

No.

[Matt Farah]

Softest ride. Yeah, probably. Or you could probably get a full size range. Yeah, I mean full size Range Rover on either from like Enterprise or Turo would be like not that much. Yeah, I would, I would do. If you can get, if you can swing a full size Rover, that is the perfect Los Angeles car.

[Zach Klapman]

All right. My main man Casey says where do we think Stellantis will be in three years? Do we think a federal auto bailout program would ever happen again? Well, I don't think we need a massive federal program because the other companies are doing pretty well.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah, Atlantis just rename the whole thing Jeep, call it a call the game.

[Zach Klapman]

Kind of agrees to Lance. Well they own so many other companies. That's the problem.

[Matt Farah]

Bring back amc.

[Zach Klapman]

But their CEO left last week.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah, they made that, they made that out to be a little bit bigger I think than it because it was. He was going to retire in a year anyway. And I from my father, I know how shitty a company restructuring or a sale or a takeover or whatever it can be. And if I'm the CEO and I'm rich as. And now I've had a 30 year career and it's not looking so good. I kind of understand pulling the rip cord before being dragged out for. Because if he are, you know, let's say he works, you know, 40 hours a week now if there's a takeover going on or a restructuring, he's going to have to do like 80 hours.

[Zach Klapman]

A week for a year and only and he has to restructure everything and then leave.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah.

[Zach Klapman]

So and, and that's kind of, that would be a hard thing for the company. I think optics wise like this person's on their Way out.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah.

[Zach Klapman]

So if they. If everything doesn't work out perfectly, people will say, did they put in as much time as they could? They were on their way out anyway. That's probably a bad idea.

[Matt Farah]

He gets. He gets one day of bad press and then is gone versus having to deal with, you know, a corporate restructuring where there's no outcome, where he looks good.

[Zach Klapman]

Yeah. This person I pull out beach towing on Instagram. They live in Nantucket. They saw tons of Grenadiers when they saw them in photos. Hated it. Saw them in person and they like it. So what vehicles have we hated the photos of but changed our tune when we saw them in the wild? Oh, new vantage. I thought it looked weird in the wrong angle. Can make Aston's look strange. The mouths are so big in the shape of them.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah, that's a good question. Where photos were terrible. And.

[Zach Klapman]

Me and Rivian, we have one in front of us. But when I first saw the headlights, I was that stupid. Like, this isn't like the thing I'm familiar with. What are these ovals. But the shape of the car is.

[Matt Farah]

I've gotten used to the headlights on the Rivian. Man. That's an interesting one because I. I feel like I could normally think of a whole bunch like this. The. Any of the. The ineos. I said it wrong. Ineos. The ineos. It's a subtle rom, but it's a wrong. The. The ineos. I. When we saw it at Goodwood Festival speed, it was like some real early prototypes. And it wasn't so much that I didn't like how it looked, it's just that it like, it looked a little cheap, but it might have just been like 3D printed, you know, interiors or something. But. And these. The production one doesn't seem that way at all, but.

[Zach Klapman]

Gotta fill these tires up.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah, man. What other car has looked better in person than the first photos?

[Zach Klapman]

The new Z06. Because I don't really like the C8. But seeing it in person, like, it's hard to communicate proportion and subtle fender flare in pictures, especially depending on the color they use. Yeah, that helped a bit.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah. I'm just like looking. I'm like looking around hoping to see one be like, yes, that it's a Volvo S40. That's the one I wanted. Man. What car? I'm not. I'm. I don't care how boring this radio is. I'm not giving up until I. Until I come up with one. This watch. Watch how hard it is to. Oh, we're gonna pull into the bay because we gotta put air in the tires. Shit. What? Car was ugly in photos and then good in person. Adjust ISO.

[Zach Klapman]

Yeah. Hopefully it is. I'm looking around at the. The parking bay here.

[Matt Farah]

Ugly in photos and good in person. I. I am truly. I feel stumped.

[Zach Klapman]

I think it depends. When I first saw the 720s, I thought the headlights again, were strange. But when I see the profile of it, I just love it.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah. Enzo's. I mean, Ferrari Enzos, I think.

[Zach Klapman]

Look. I still think.

[Matt Farah]

I still don't think they look very good. They're definitely better in person.

[Zach Klapman]

The thing with photos is unless there's something that can communicate proportional size, it can look weird.

[Matt Farah]

Gunther works. Gunther works. Don't photograph.

[Zach Klapman]

They don't. Especially from the front.

[Matt Farah]

Especially from the front. Especially using something like an iPhone.

[Zach Klapman]

Yeah.

[Matt Farah]

Without. If they photograph fine with, like, a 400 mil from, like, 30 yards away.

[Zach Klapman]

Yeah. But if you're too high. Porsches in general, if you do the high down at the hood.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah.

[Zach Klapman]

I mean, it flattens everything. It looks like 928. It's not good.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah. Well, that's our slightly truncated show. We'll save everything for the next one. But it's important to use your time wisely. That's what we've learned. Making content. And we had an hour and change to. To drive. We thought we'd use it. Talking to you, folks. Thank you to our patrons for your questions today. Thank you to everyone else for listening to us yak. And we'll see you later.

[Zach Klapman]

By.