← The Smoking Tire
The Smoking Tire
Lotus Emira 2.0 Review; Mark Rober v. Tesla; Electrical Gremlin FOUND
01:39:46
Does the U.S. version of the 2.0-liter turbocharged Lotus Emira really have a better transmission than the one we drove in the UK? How did Matt FINALLY fix the mystery electrical issue plaguing his wife's Nissan? What happened with Mark Rober, the Tesla, and the fake wall? Plus, we answer Patreon questions including: - Why do car companies stop making parts that people need? - Which car is ALL over Montana? - What will Matt do with his Manx buggy? - Our best deal on a used car, ever? - Cayenne hybrids: smart used buy or danger to wallet manifold? - $25k question: 2007 Cayman or 2022 Subaru BRZ? - Road trip breakfast of champions - Which rental cars have the most room? - Do cheap boats exist? - What would a banker buy in 2008? - What's a DIY job that ended up costing you way more than a shop would charge? - Is Porsche Active Ride worth it? - What $100k used car will be worth $150k in 20 years? - And more! Recorded March 17, 2025 Mark and Tesla: https://www.theverge.com/tesla/63...
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- [00:00]
A
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 at tst. And we have a new code, people, new code. They want to keep the codes moving for every year so they know who signs up in what year. You feel me? So go to offtherecord.com TST or on the app, use code TST25TST25 at Off the Record. And if you're going, hey, what's off the Record? First off, first off, welcome. Thanks for finding us. Secondly, they're a service that helps you fight tickets, okay? No matter where you are in the country. They cover 97% of the U.S. their partner attorneys will work to fight that ticket, keeping those points off your record for all of the reasons you don't want points on your driving record. Go to offtherecord.com TST or use code TST25 on the off the Record app, and we'll give you 10% off all legal services booked through off the Record. I'm telling you guys, not a week goes by that someone doesn't hit me up in the DMs or send an email and say, man, off the Record got me out of a big one. Or off the Record was super clutch. These are good people. They're working for you. So go do it offtherecord.com TST or code TST25 on the off the Record app. Okay. On this episode of the program, we talk about some of the issues that the fire damage has caused to the car enthusiast culture in LA. We review the Lotus Emira with the 2 liter AMG motor and the dual clutch gearbox. I do a little bit on skiing. We answer some great questions, and then I give a ridiculous update to the Nissan Pow electrical system, which has spiraled quite out of control. But the end is here. It's a good cruise show today because Zach and I are happy to be with you people. It's the Smoking Tire podcast, the box of six pilot fountain pens that I said, if I finish this, I'll buy a fountain pen.
- [02:09]
B
Oh, okay.
- [02:10]
A
I've decided I've basically finished it, except for red. But, like, what would make me finish a red pen? You know how much red I'd have to write? I've been writing purple checks.
- [02:19]
B
You have to grade so many papers.
- [02:21]
A
For, like, I think for like the second half of last year, every bill I paid, which is like, it's a business. I write, like, I don't know, 4050 checks a month was in a teal fountain pen for like a quarter.
- [02:35]
B
And some. I mean, some scanners only use black and blue. Right. They only work. So, like, if your employees have gone, I can't deposit this.
- [02:42]
A
Oh, not to. I'm not hand. I'm not hand signing payroll checks. But you get paid this through the same system. No, I'm talking like. But I pay my bills with checks.
- [02:49]
B
Oh, right.
- [02:50]
A
So. But that's. They're not in stone paper, so that's what I was using them for.
- [02:54]
B
Teal. That's funny. A very third grade girl of you. I feel like back when everyone's like, oh, I got different colored pens and.
- [03:00]
A
That was just a little fun in your power. Yeah. When you're writing a lawyer a bill for $7,500, that's billing you for phone calls, you're like, let's put a little fun spin into this. How about lilac?
- [03:12]
B
Does your checkbook have dolphins on it?
- [03:15]
A
I did that for the first smoking tire checkbook. I did that to fuck with people. I put clowns on it. Do you remember that? Fucking first smoking tomorrow.
- [03:23]
B
I do. Like, when they give you the options. Like, what graphic do you want?
- [03:25]
A
At one point, I probably paid you some very small amount check what fucking clowns are.
- [03:31]
B
Why not? Why make it? Why not have a little fun?
- [03:33]
A
And then we were with Wells Fargo at the time, and then we went to soundcheck, live folks. And then we went from the clowns. I think I went to like the stagecoach. It was one with a stagecoach scene. Cause it was Wells Fargo. And then Wells Fargo stole a lot of people's money. And then I was like, okay, Wells Fargo. That was literally why I left.
- [03:57]
B
I actually, I remember you did that.
- [03:59]
A
You know how hard it is to protest? Quit a bank. God, what a. That was. Oh, worth it, though.
- [04:07]
B
I still have a Wells Fargo that I've had since I was 12 and I hate them. But I only have like 400 in it because I don't want same. Same reason I moved it to somewhere else. But they make it so difficult to quit. I go, you know what? You get zero interest from me.
- [04:20]
A
You might as well just leave the account. As long as there's no annual fees. I'm not.
- [04:23]
B
I keep it right above that. I treat them as an atm. That's all they are to me.
- [04:27]
A
Not that there's, like, there really aren't any good banks, but like the one we have now, which doesn't deserve a plug, is better than the one that was openly stealing from People.
- [04:38]
B
Yes. Or creating accounts in their name. Or again. Again. Again.
- [04:43]
A
Holy shit. If you want the. If you have no idea what I'm talking about, please go listen to the Dollop podcast about Wells Fargo. You will laugh while crying. Or vice versa.
- [04:53]
B
Yeah.
- [04:55]
A
Hi. Hi, everybody. I've clearly had half of my large cold brew, haven't I?
- [05:00]
B
This guy's over there. It's funny, you texted me and I biked here. I had gotten a coffee, but I can only carry one on the bike, so I didn't text you to ask if you wanted anything.
- [05:08]
A
That's fair.
- [05:09]
B
I would have crashed it.
- [05:11]
A
So you're saying I'm a more generous friend? I. No.
- [05:14]
B
I offer to get you coffee over there all the time. I go there way too far.
- [05:17]
A
You do offer to get me coffee all the time. Yeah, and their iced coffee is good, but God damn, is it annoying to get every drink. Takes forever there. So if there's like three people in front of you, you're there for 20.
- [05:28]
B
You have to pre order on the app. Changes your life.
- [05:30]
A
Yeah, that's a good point.
- [05:31]
B
Yeah.
- [05:32]
A
How was your weekend?
- [05:34]
B
Long. Fun. But we did a lot.
- [05:36]
A
Really?
- [05:36]
B
Yeah.
- [05:36]
A
Why did you do so much?
- [05:38]
B
We just booked ourselves a lot of stuff with friends. But also I drove at Chevelle to Malibu. And like, going to Malibu, you do this frequently. You drive to Malibu in the morning to get breakfast, you do a canyon drive, you come home and it's a long adventure.
- [05:51]
A
It's now become a lot because PCH is closed.
- [05:54]
B
Exactly. So it was an hour and a half drive down from the old place on the 101 405. So 90 minutes of stop and go in the Chevelle.
- [06:04]
A
Yeah, I mean, PCH and we can talk about the Chevelle and I want to because it looks batshit sitting downstairs, but I think we talked about it a couple weeks ago. But, like, on top of all the other tragedies of the fires that we had, PCH still being closed is a real problem. Not just for us recreational people who want to access canyons and Malibu and things like that on our weekend drives and surfers and stuff. But, like, everyone who lives like west of the fire now, if they want to get to the city, has to take like a 20 mile detour to the 101 freeway on the other side of the mountain, which then bottlenecks at where it meets the 405 to come back south. And if you're not from LA, I'm sorry about the localness of this, but, like, if you're from the Malibu area or what was Pacific Palisades, and is now nothing. The pch, which we drive recreationally, is like how you commute and there's traffic on it, like, a lot normally. So this being closed pushes in the craziest, shittiest detour imaginable. So Eric, who comes from up north, his commute length has doubled from an hour to two hours.
- [07:29]
B
Yeah. During the weekend, like, you know, there's a lot of tourism that goes to Malibu from the north or they. They're heading to la, to Anaheim or something. People out of town, but they're like, why not take pch? So all of that also has to go around.
- [07:42]
A
Yeah.
- [07:42]
B
So anyways, it makes for a much longer day. So, you know, we got. We. We left at 10:00am I think we got home at 3.
- [07:48]
A
Yeah.
- [07:49]
B
And. And it was fun. And there's like. We went to the old place and there's a cool little tiny cars and coffee happening with a very eclectic mix like Vanderhall, Venice, motorcycles. Sterrato was there. And then some guy was driving. I don't even know what it was. The car was like a 1926 something, had no badge on it, and he had a shirt that said Motion Picture Car Association.
- [08:14]
A
Oh, okay.
- [08:15]
B
And he's like, just got it running. And I looked down. It has no tail lights. It has wires, I think, for tail lights, but no tail lights, no plate. He's like, we're just gonna hope that we don't get pulled over. And this guy was like 26. So shout out to him for keeping that dream alive.
- [08:28]
A
You'd have to do a lot wrong to get pulled in a car that old.
- [08:31]
B
Exactly.
- [08:32]
A
You get a pass on basically anything when you're driving something like that.
- [08:36]
B
You're definitely not a danger to other people other than pedestrians. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- [08:41]
A
There is a guy, I've seen a bunch in Malibu whose, like, weekend surf wagon is like a Model A five door. Like a. Like what would have been not a chauffeur's car, but like the big Model A. And it's got a surf rack on top. And the guy's probably in his 50s, but I see them roll up to like, vil grocers, flip flops, the wetsuit hanging over the cracked open window. And this motherfucker just chugga, chugga, chugga, chugga, chuggas up with his coffee. I've seen him a couple of times.
- [09:16]
B
Sounds like the Willy Wonka machine.
- [09:17]
A
Yeah. And you know when you see people that have cars like that and they drive them all the time. Like regular cars, they can maneuver them like as easily as a regular car, pretty much. And so it's a cool thing to see. Yeah, that's fun. But it's a long fucking way there and back. We use the metaphor. It's like if you're looking at a clock face, like where we live would be at 6:00 on the clock and where we like to go to chill in Malibu would be at 9:00 on the clock. And you used to be able to go from six to nine like a clock does. And now you have to go counterclockwise to get to the nine both ways. That's like. It's pretty much how that looks on a map.
- [10:00]
B
Yeah. And I completely understand why PCH is closed to anyone who's not a resident, like, that was affected. They have things to deal with. Makes total sense.
- [10:08]
A
Yeah.
- [10:08]
B
It's just. This is the nature of things.
- [10:10]
A
Yeah. No, I'm like, what's funny is when I was up there last weekend.
- [10:16]
B
And.
- [10:16]
A
I was talking to some people who I know who do live there, and you know, obviously these guys are sort of ultra high end. You know, I saw them at one of the restaurants in Malibu and they were, you know, driving McLarens and fucking.
- [10:32]
B
You know, drinking gold milkshakes, stuff like that.
- [10:34]
A
Yeah, just like, you know, just like hooking up their blood bag of, you know, the blood boys.
- [10:40]
B
Just an 18 year old stands there.
- [10:42]
A
And drinks, you know, and it was all about like the, you know, the city mismanagement and the mayor and this and that. And it was, you know, I was sort of like, this seems like a hard problem to fix, that it probably isn't going to be fixed, like. Right. You know, and I understand because they're the ones who live where I was talking about the hellish commute into the city. That is what they have to deal with. And they were talking about like one of them lives on the west side of the closure and their kid goes to school on the east side of the closure. And so like it's either like 15 minutes or like two hours around.
- [11:20]
B
But they can go through the closure, right?
- [11:22]
A
Well, they can, but they couldn't. No. Cause they didn't live in the zone. Oh yeah, it was like it was. But like, it's just like, it's just like disorganizational shit that comes with cleaning up after a major, major disaster challenge.
- [11:39]
B
That comes with that.
- [11:40]
A
Yeah. And it's. At first it's like, all right, you know, safety. Then it's like stability. Then it's like, you know, some hierarchy of needs. Yeah. Like someone's kid getting through the zone to school, like, is certainly important, but, like, it's probably, like, 12th on the list, you know, First. Yeah, sorry. We just got into, like, little local politics there. But, like, that's what's happening when you're a car enthusiast in this area this spring. The fires, like, of course, way less important than people's homes and livelihoods and all that shit. But you were affected and massively inconvenienced this as a car.
- [12:17]
B
I mean, I don't like doing that very often. You do it probably once a month, I'd say. You do the Malibu morning.
- [12:22]
A
I probably do it once a month, and I very much enjoy it. Yeah.
- [12:25]
B
And that's when it's running normally normal time. And to me, I'm still just like. It's just a long afternoon in the morning.
- [12:31]
A
Yeah.
- [12:32]
B
So I go early. You go very early.
- [12:34]
A
And that. That does help.
- [12:36]
B
But. But I went to Misha Mansoor's house the night before to watch F1 because the race was at 9pm which is a fairly normal time for fast.
- [12:43]
A
Did you have a headache from the altitude of walking. Walking up to his house.
- [12:47]
B
Oh, is the driveway.
- [12:48]
A
Misha's house is awesome. And it's got. It's like, fucking heavy vertical.
- [12:53]
B
We have three floors and it's. Yeah, it's a lot of stuff.
- [12:55]
A
Three floors and a real steep Dr. Up to his house. I was, like, wheezing like crazy. And then, like, for his birthday, it was on the roof. So it's like, oh, I get up there, I'm like. And all the cardio isn't just me. Like, all the cardio I do, which is a lot. And you exercise a lot, too. Four or five flights of stairs. I'm fucking. I'm a wheezy pile of shit.
- [13:17]
B
When people do StairMaster, I think it's hard.
- [13:19]
A
Yeah, it's crazy.
- [13:20]
B
I don't know. I didn't. I always took. I took breaks, though. When I went to his house, I'd stop at the main floor and look around. That's my trick, is I'm actually rested on this floor. Yeah. My car is not great. I'm just. I'm just resting.
- [13:31]
A
He got a new cat.
- [13:32]
B
I know.
- [13:33]
A
Is it the cutest?
- [13:34]
B
Yeah, it's tiny. It's like the size of this water bottle, and it weighs half as much.
- [13:37]
A
Hairless kittens.
- [13:39]
B
Yeah. Well, they have hair, not fur, I think so. They're.
- [13:42]
A
Is it not the same as the other One.
- [13:43]
B
It is the same as the other one, but they both have hair. But they're.
- [13:46]
A
They're not like. They're like sphinx kittens.
- [13:48]
B
They're not skin. They have hair.
- [13:51]
A
They do, yes.
- [13:52]
B
They don't have fur. They have hair, which is why they are hypoallergenic and they don't shed.
- [13:56]
A
But I met it when it was a kid and it had no hair. The hair grew later.
- [13:58]
B
It has. It had hair. I think it was hard to tell what. I promise you.
- [14:03]
A
Did we see the same cat?
- [14:04]
B
Yeah. Because I saw it again.
- [14:06]
A
I'm like, I know cats pretty well. I know almost as well as I know cars.
- [14:11]
B
I know cats like skin. It's very strange. And you see all the bones and stuff.
- [14:15]
A
Yeah.
- [14:15]
B
It's not fluffy like a kitten. So it looks like. It looks like if you cut your cat's hair to like half a mile. That's why.
- [14:23]
A
Yeah. Maybe it was even wispier because it was real. We saw it at his birthday. They'd had it for like a week.
- [14:29]
B
Right. The new cat looks exactly like that. It's like a time warp. We saw the same cat twice. That's what I feel like. Yeah.
- [14:36]
A
I love Misha and his hypoallergenic cats.
- [14:39]
B
Yeah. It was fun over there, but we stayed till 1 because, you know, F1 ended at midnight. It was so funny. I mean, I know you don't watch F1, so I'll keep it short, but I'm like, oh, it's Australia. There's no rain ever in Australia. There's no delays. This will be a race. This race will be over in two hours. Lap one, heavy rain, crashes, full course yellows.
- [14:55]
A
Oh, wow.
- [14:55]
B
There were multiple full course yellows and crashes because it rained. A deluge.
- [15:01]
A
Well, at least there were things to watch.
- [15:02]
B
There were definitely things to watch.
- [15:03]
A
As long as nobody got hurt. At least there were, hopefully, things to watch.
- [15:06]
B
No one got hurt. Some rookies went out on formation lap. Embarrassing, but it happens. Fernando Alonso crashed in the rain. Rare. So did Sainz, but I think that's a car problem with Williams because he won there last year and, like, he kind of knows what he's doing, probably. So there was a lot to see and the racing went really good in the last 10 laps. Yeah.
- [15:25]
A
At 1 in the morning?
- [15:26]
B
Pretty much, yeah. Yeah.
- [15:27]
A
Cool. Sorry I didn't watch F1, but that doesn't matter. I'm glad you enjoyed it.
- [15:31]
B
I did.
- [15:31]
A
And you had a cat to watch it with. It didn't make you sneeze.
- [15:34]
B
It did not. They don't make me sneeze anyway, but shit.
- [15:38]
A
Well, that's fucking a weekend. Oh, do you want to talk about the Chevelle?
- [15:41]
B
We can talk a little bit about it. I need. I'm sending them some questions because there are some things I am. I want to ask about on it.
- [15:47]
A
We got other things. We can back it up and talk about the Amira.
- [15:50]
B
We need to talk about the Amira.
- [15:53]
A
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- [20:40]
B
So it seems like it's called the Lotus Amira 2.0.
- [20:43]
A
Okay. So I added AMG editorially there, it's just 2.0. If you drove the old car and new car immediately back to back in the same conditions, maybe you could feel the changes to the gearbox two years apart. You cannot. Right.
- [20:59]
B
Unfortunately, yeah.
- [21:01]
A
Having said that, it does some things actually really well. I took it up to the canyons last week. I did the hideous traffic filled loop. Zach had it for half a week and then I had it for half a week. We both drove it in the city and we can talk about it together in the city. And then I took it in the canyons and I first hated it in the city.
- [21:23]
B
Really?
- [21:24]
A
Okay, well, yeah, I mean, yeah, I mean, hate is a strong word, but I think from zero to five and five to zero miles an hour, it's bad. It's genuinely bad. Like the way that it engages power from nothing to like going and the way that it comes to a stop in that very jerky fashion.
- [21:45]
B
The 5 to 0 is a weird issue. Yeah, we'll get more stuff.
- [21:48]
A
It's not good because fundamentally, like this powertrain is a. It's a hot hatch powertrain. Like that's what it is. And so when you put it in luxury cars, and this is a luxury car, even though it's a lightweight sports car, it's extremely unrefined. It's vibrate y and same in the SL, the SL45.
- [22:09]
B
I do think it's better in this because the engine is mounted laterally.
- [22:13]
A
Transverse.
- [22:14]
B
Transverse. So the vibrations are going forward aft. And you don't know you truly. I really didn't. It didn't bother me nearly as much. But in that slight. The car shook. I was like, why am I in an R5 rally car right now?
- [22:25]
A
Yeah, the SL, it's really, really bad, especially. Cause that's a GT car.
- [22:30]
B
That's a GT luxury car. I don't want that. It shouldn't be present. Yeah, I do want a little bit of pomp and circumstance or something like that.
- [22:38]
A
Well, pomp and circumstance I like, comes from the intakes outside of the window where you have every fucking turbo noise possible. And it's like. It's actually fabulous.
- [22:48]
B
Great.
- [22:49]
A
Yeah. The sounds, you know, at low throttle, creep through traffic. It sounds like an airliner taxiing, where it's like, like that. And then you get your. You know when you're going through a tight canyon and you're on and off and on and off. It's like a super tuner car. Just, you know, all that goodness and then there's just a constant good surge of sound. When you're on the throttle, it's very nice.
- [23:17]
B
It's everything we liked about how the MC sounded, the normal one. And that is diminished a lot in the GT2 Stradale, unfortunately. So this is how mid engine turbo cars should sound. Great.
- [23:29]
A
Yeah. It's embrace. And actually it never sounds bad. Like the GT4Rs has like the best intake sound ever asterisk. As long as it's not in this very narrow window of RPM that you have to go through every time you drive the car.
- [23:46]
B
This is.
- [23:46]
A
It's good all the time, which is really nice. But if you drive around in normal mode, it's like boggy and it upshifts really low. This engine needs to be above 2500rpm. If it's above 2500rpm, which is not that much, it's smooth. Below that, it's rough as shit. And the normal mode, that it's a default startup and you presumably would use when just puttering around in traffic. That mode sucks. So you have to put it in sport.
- [24:18]
B
The auto is a little. I mean, the auto is slow in manual or in automatic. I hate the shift. It's not that I hate the shape of it. I don't care. The shape is like whatever. It looks nice. The responsiveness though is so delayed. Like when you're parking, you know, pull up next to the cars to. I parallel parked this a number of times. Put it in reverse. I had to hit it like twice. Dude, you'd wait a lot.
- [24:40]
A
Scroll down on my Instagram review to the not so good. Here's what I wrote. Okay, Three pointers are a disaster because of the world's most sadistic fake shift lever setup. You must double tug, but not too fast or aft to engage drive or reverse, and then have to move the lever side to side to shift manually. This is the most insane shifter setup.
- [25:08]
B
It's like an old Tiptronic, right?
- [25:09]
A
Yes.
- [25:10]
B
Yeah.
- [25:10]
A
This is a sports car. Side to side to shift manually. How did that pass anything at Lotus?
- [25:17]
B
Well, I mean, they think you're gonna.
- [25:19]
A
Lose the paddles, but still you have an option to use the lever. It's software, it's not mechanical. There's no reason. Who goes, okay, I got it right.
- [25:28]
B
Why not just go forward and backwards?
- [25:30]
A
Let's. Instead of making drive one click to the left and reverse one click to the right, which would be fine. And plus to downshift and minus towards you to upshift like, I don't know, fucking sports cars, they put reverse forward and you have to hit it twice, but not too fast. Don't engage. You gotta dunk, dunk. And then to go drive, you tug.
- [25:57]
B
Twice because it goes neutral, then drive. But if you pull it too quickly when it's not ready, it does nothing, which is really annoying.
- [26:05]
A
Dude, you look like such a loser trying to make a three point turn in this car.
- [26:09]
B
Oh, you're like, oh, I went to neutral. Yeah, that was very dumb. What I will say in the city is within literally 10ft. I turned out of the driveway here. And your driveway is smooth. And the road right outside here is one of the worst in the nearby half mile.
- [26:24]
A
Yeah, they're repaving from the other end down towards here. And they're about a half a mile away.
- [26:29]
B
Yeah, here it looks like a turtle shell. I mean, it is cracked as hell. And using my car as a baseline, which is stiff, like it shakes around, but this thing just floated over that in a way that few press cars we've had ride that nice. I mean, that is truly the Lotus Magic because it's still agile and fun in the canyons. But it's non adjustable, right? It's non adjustable. Fixed suspension. It's just a good. They just did a good job.
- [26:53]
A
Yeah. So, yeah, the ride and in the canyons I was going to get. When I went up the mountain and I went in Malibu, which is a tighter canyon, a tighter and a bumpier canyon. It's where we typically would test hatchbacks and Miatas. And if you're testing supercars and stuff, you need to be up in the big mountain, which is more open sweepers. This is the small mountain. This car was fucking spectacular on the small mountain. It more resembles a British B road, but with some elevation, the car takes bumps really well. It maintains a real consistency through corners. It was a nice day. I had the windows down just like fucking. When you're really in the pedal. Just like so many fucking noises that are just great coming out of the car. It's not actually that loud from out. The noise is really directed kind of inward at you, which is cool.
- [27:47]
B
There's a lot more intake noise that you hear than exhaust noise.
- [27:50]
A
Yeah. And at that speed and you shift 1,000 rpm before redline, you're really shifting in a torque band. It's really three to six is where you're going. But it's third, fourth gear with this dct. The paddles themselves suck and there's a delay between paddle to gearbox, which sucks. They could go a long way by making the paddles Clickier. They feel like cheap video game paddles and not. There's not a. You know, for a company that does focus on tactile input a lot, there should be some better click for those paddles, especially considering the lever option sucks too. But the steering ratio is great. The brake pedal's really nice. When you're going, the brake pedal works really well. On the canyon, it made total sense. But then I came to a stop and the last bit was the jerk.
- [28:44]
B
There's this weird thing where you're slowing down from any speed, but once you get to like 7 miles an hour and you go, okay, it's time to stop the car. And usually, like, you apply a slightly higher amount of brake pressure to stop that car. Before you get to the stop line or whatever, it suddenly you move the pedal 1 millimeter and it seems to move the brake caliper 4 millimeters and it jerks forward. And like, I couldn't figure out how to do it well. And I haven't driven a car that has that kind of brake pressure change. It's weird.
- [29:13]
A
And then to make matters worse, even though it's a dct, it's got a pretty aggressive idle creep. So when you lift off the brake, it engages, creeps forward. Now you've gotta hit the brake again. So in traffic, you're doing that shit all the time. I had to, like, apologize like four or five times on a drive to dinner. She's like, what the fuck is wrong with you? I was like, I swear to God, it's the car. She's like, that isn't possible. You do this for a living. This is a brand new car. I swear this is the car.
- [29:45]
B
Shout out to the podcast called it's not the Car. Perfect. So perfect.
- [29:51]
A
And then, oh, this drives me insane. We've got a photo up on my Instagram. It shows the trunk in the back, which is fine. It then has a full plastic engine cover because presumably this engine doesn't look very good. It wasn't designed to be displayed, and that's fine. There's only one part of this engine you can see from the outside with this clear engine cover closed. And it's that cap, which I believe is for coolant overflow. And it's this shitty autozone plastic with a little pop on rubber. Like, it's the only part of the engine you can see. You've covered the rest of it, right?
- [30:31]
B
Why not go with a fake aluminum one or something?
- [30:33]
A
Yeah, like for fucking $3, it would cost to have one. That looks nice. It's like looking at the top of a bottle of toilet cleaner. It's crazy.
- [30:44]
B
Well, what bothered me that I noticed when I drove this car because we drove it in similar conditions, is that if there's water on the trunk lid and you open the trunk lid, the water falls onto the engine cover, which you can see in this photo. But let me assure anyone who's listening, there are 15 to 20 drops of water splattered about the engine cover. So if you have. I don't. If you have something in your trunk.
- [31:05]
A
It falls on the engine cover, which then becomes an ice luge into the vehicle.
- [31:09]
B
I mean, I think it, I think it gets caught in the seal around the trunk. I don't know if water would go in there necessarily, but if it splatters on there, it's just, it's just something like you just look at that, you go, the water is falling on the engine. Maybe that's why the engine covers there. So it's funny, I drove it in.
- [31:26]
A
The rain, it was really nice. It's actually a great car in the rain. Rain as all British cars.
- [31:31]
B
It's a really good car, but it just reinforces that for me. The one to get is the manual. Now if you could get the manual with the 2 liter, that might be a fun discussion maybe because it sounds awesome and you could probably tune it and get a lot more power out of it than you can the supercharged one. But the auto is still so bad I don't know what they change, but we can't tell. It still doesn't do the things we wanted to do. And it's not just that. It's like a little slow on these downshifts and upshifts.
- [31:56]
A
Like it's really noticeable in the canyons shifting manually. I was able to adjust my driving to it, which ideally you shouldn't have to do. But once I learned okay, I'm looking ahead and I tug the paddle a half a second before I really want the gear, then it became fine. As a 7/10 car, it's really nice. If you're driving routine is moving, you're not sitting in traffic a lot like the thought process. Well, I get the automatic so I could daily drive it versus the manual. Like no, you'd rather have a manual with a very light clutch than a shitty automatic. If your car is moving, the auto's not bad. If you're coming to a stop a lot it sucks. And to Compare with the V6 guys, support for the smoking tire comes from the podcast drop with Jim Farley. You know Jim Farley. He's the CEO of Ford. Not only that, this guy has a GT40 and a Cobra and all kinds of amazing vintage American metal that he races wheel to wheel at places like Goodwood. He's a boss. And you gotta check out this show. It's where Jim talks to some of his favorite people about what they drive and what drives them to succeed. They just started season three with some sick new guests, including Vicki Butler Henderson, the British racing driver, and Fifth Gear personality Randy. Randy Nonenberg from Bring a Trailer and T Pain, the musician turned drifter. Guy's got skills, actually. I listened to it the other day. It is great. Jim is a great interviewer. He's insightful and it's interesting hearing these folks open up to him. I really am about it. I support Jim's venture here. To listen to Drive with Jim Farley, just search Drive With Jim Farley in any podcast app. That's Drive with Jim Farley. And thank you for supporting this episode, which is. I mean, the one thing that continues to stand out to me about the V6 is what a smooth engine it is. It doesn't vibrate at all. So this thing vibrates a lot. So it's a much more exotic and refined experience with the V6 just all over the place.
- [34:15]
B
Yeah, I agree. And you still get really cool sounds. You get supercharger wine. You get into it, you can hear the little squeak of the blower opening when you downshift it. And that engine had its own issues of like, that kind of delayed rev response when you would go to downshift, remember that it would vary a little bit and the shifter moves, but I think it is the lesser of two evils. And the auto, to me, shifts at a speed that feels like I am shifting a manual myself. That's kind of the time it takes to downshift using the paddles. And when your competition is Cayman or Boxster, because that's literally the only competition you have right at this price point. Engine configuration, I go, well, if I want a PDK experience, I need it to be like pdk. So I'm gonna get a manual because I love this car and it does so many. I think it's that it rides at like a 9 out of 10 and it handles like a 9 out of 10. But then the transmission, like you said, is a 7 out of 10. And I don't want that offset.
- [35:12]
A
I don't either. I think if you have two functional legs, you should get the V6 with the stick because, and it's just better. A more cohesive package that simultaneously feels more exotic and more refined and more powerful. It feels all of those things. And the clutch is so light that even if you sat in traffic all the time, it's not like you'd be beating the shit out of your clutch foot. That's a really, really, really light clutch. It's not, not a hard thing. And if you compare a Cayman or a Boxster manual gearbox to a Lotus manual gearbox, they're very closely specked. I would totally understand anyone who goes, you know, I thought about a Cayman, but this seems a little more interesting and different. And I like what it's offering. I go, yeah, absolutely. But if you go paddles for paddles, Lotus loses, unfortunately. But it makes fucking cool tuner car noises, doesn't it?
- [36:17]
B
And it looks spectacular. Y it looks like an expensive supercar. And it's cool to see it.
- [36:22]
A
I mean, if you park one next to a McLaren Artura, most people wouldn't go, yes, the Artura is 350,000 and this car is 100. One of these is not three and a half times more exotic than the other one.
- [36:39]
B
Related idea, I wonder if you took the badges off this and you asked people what do you think that is? They might say it's a McLaren. McLaren. And related note is that I've seen photos of people are rebadging their Teslas with other badges and it works really well. And it kind of highlighted me how much of the identification of a car because they're all very similar shape. Now, like Mazda badge works really well. And the shape of the shape of the Mazda M, you know the whale tail one, when you put that on a Model X or like a 3Y, it kind of matches the shape of the car.
- [37:10]
A
That's pretty funny.
- [37:11]
B
Sure, totally.
- [37:13]
A
That's funny. I mean, you look at what Doug Tabit and Arnie were doing when they turned an Audi S8 into it looked like a Taurus, a police car.
- [37:23]
B
Oh, yeah.
- [37:24]
A
All you have to do is change a couple things. And they also, I think did a Mercedes. I think it was an E63 that they made look like an Accord. And there's a whole thing. Yeah, look at that. That really does look like a Mazda.
- [37:38]
B
This is a Model S with a Mazda badge.
- [37:40]
A
Yeah, it fucking works.
- [37:42]
B
It's like, hey, nice Mazda.
- [37:44]
A
It does actually work. Yeah, there was the whole. Do you remember that thing that someone did a few years ago? They put every mid sized sedan vertically and then blocked off the nose and the rear fascia. And asked you to identify which was which. It was basically a possible task. Yeah, it's very funny, though, how that people are rebadging their Teslas. It's not as funny as if they were selling them, which is what they should be be doing. You. At this point. At this point, there's. Oh, yeah, look at that. At this point, there's no doubt that, you know, you're, You're. You're. He's a Nazi. He's an act. Like, he's.
- [38:23]
B
Yeah, yeah.
- [38:23]
A
And so, like, you know, it's time to sell your car, guys.
- [38:26]
B
He's retweeting some very concerning tweets. Like, I've had this discussion with a friend and he's like. And every. Just. This was a week ago I was having this discussion, and three days ago, more evidence showed up where he's retweeting this thing. And I sent that. I was like, look at this shit, dude. It's really weird.
- [38:40]
A
Here's what I hate. You know, there's the, The. The sticker that's there that's showing up all over the. I bought it before we knew he was crazy.
- [38:48]
B
Yeah.
- [38:49]
A
Unlike a 2022 model car. Eat shit.
- [38:52]
B
Eat shit.
- [38:55]
A
We have been saying this guy was a fucking dick bag for like nine years.
- [39:00]
B
Well, it's definitely escalated, I'd say, in the last 12 months.
- [39:03]
A
Yo, if you're rolling a 2014 and you say, I bought this before I knew. Okay, you can have that. We didn't know, but he started selling fake autonomy in 2016.
- [39:14]
B
Oh, yeah. I think that's different than the.
- [39:18]
A
Oh, he wasn't a Nazi until a little later. Yeah, for sure. That's pandemic era was Nazi, but bad guy before that. Now there's no more excuse.
- [39:29]
B
Yeah.
- [39:29]
A
But yeah, if you put it. If you're rolling a 22, if your shit has a yoke, you can't put that fucking sticker on.
- [39:37]
B
Yeah. And if it's 2024. Yeah, 2025.
- [39:41]
A
You bought the fucking bit. Did you see the story of the video the guy made where FSD crashed into a Wile E. Coyote style.
- [39:49]
B
But thing. I also saw a lot of responses like the drive was getting lit up on Instagram saying that the video showed that Mark Robert. We're talking about Mark Robert, who does amazing videos of all kinds of, like, I don't know, Rube Goldberg machines and experiments and stuff. And so he made a wall, like a foam wall across a road and painted like Wiley E. Coyote to see if this autopilot would stop and it didn't. People are saying in the comments that he didn't have FSD activated and you could see it on the dashboard. I have not investigated it further and half pages, so I don't know if that's just thoughts or not.
- [40:25]
A
The response is that. That he used Autopilot and not fsd. And their capabilities to recognize a real wall versus something painted like a wall are different. Even though they're using the same cameras and sensors.
- [40:43]
B
Correct. Which I completely agree. Like, I am a supporter of. LIDAR is better than camera, so it would make sense that the radar LIDAR system would detect. So people, I think.
- [40:54]
A
Wait. To be clear, I support a combined sensor suite.
- [40:57]
B
Yeah, yeah. I want all of that.
- [40:58]
A
Not LIDAR is better. Camera plus lidar, plus radar.
- [41:01]
B
Yeah, but I don't think plus cameras is enough.
- [41:03]
A
No, no, no.
- [41:04]
B
Look what Waymo has everything. It's ugly, but it fucking works.
- [41:08]
A
Yeah.
- [41:09]
B
People's complaint, and we'll see if it's valid or not, is that the Tesla was not using Autopilot nor fsd. They were just trying to test the emergency braking detection. And it worked on like a mannequin that they put out in front of the road, but it did not work for the wall, whereas the lidar car worked on the wall. There's also people accusing the video of being paid for by the lidar company. I don't know if that's true. I'm basically just saying what I read this morning. Sure, yeah, yeah.
- [41:38]
A
But I agree with like a Dan O'Dowd project. This is like, this is a dude, this is just a guy.
- [41:44]
B
Right, Right. And I don't know if it was paid for or if that's just people, you know, testing Tesla bots, accusing. But either way, I would be shocked if FSD or Autopilot would work on this wall. This is speculative, I admit, but it's because it's a camera. And if the. If the wall's painted well enough.
- [42:00]
A
Yeah.
- [42:00]
B
The camera's using its method and data, which is to look for roads. It stands to reason that it would just drive through that.
- [42:08]
A
Yeah.
- [42:09]
B
And that's why, you know, now, I mean, I'm a proponent of radar lidar combination because it works through fog, which we know the camera, you're more likely to encounter fog than a fake wall.
- [42:20]
A
No, but the fake wall thing, and presuming the video is trustworthy and made in good faith. Okay, admittedly I didn't read the comments on fucking Reddit or anywhere else, but presumably if the video is made in good faith, And I'll assume from there the fake wall thing just illustrates that the human brain is so much better at interpreting the inputs here than a camera is. Especially a camera without a brain powered cpu, a human brain powered CPU behind it and therefore, or a camera alone should not be totally trusted to do the job. And therefore, if you're going to sell something and promise that this vehicle will drive itself based on evidence that this system is better and it continues to show that actually it's not and that the other way actually does at its current today 2025 March level, the settings have like the total suites are better. As of today, Tesla is still fucking full throttle on this camera only thing I think because he's just so committed he can't be seen as being wrong.
- [43:55]
B
I agree with that. And I think this wall, the painted wall thing reminds me of that case in Florida where a semi truck trailer was like pulling across the road and the car that was on autopilot crashed into it. Like it didn't see this giant, giant broad white thing across the road and that wasn't painted to look like the road. So either it was looking under the semi truck or whatever. But again speculation. But it seems like a radar system would detect this giant thing and probably slow down.
- [44:22]
A
I have yet, and I'm interested, you pulled up an article that says that this Guy tests cameras versus LiDAR and gets it wrong. And I'm open to hearing expert arguments but I have yet to see any evidence that going camera only produces a safer vehicle than going multi sensor.
- [44:42]
B
Totally agree.
- [44:43]
A
Nobody has, I mean no argument. The only arguments ever presented are from a fucking proven liar like Elon Musk and from people who are talking about it being cheaper. That's it, just cheaper.
- [44:58]
B
And the only reason I'm presenting this, I'm not cheaper is because, because what people are saying is that his methodology was not what?
- [45:04]
A
Okay, so what is it? So what does this say?
- [45:06]
B
I don't haven't read this.
- [45:07]
A
Oh it's just we found a health Forbes.
- [45:09]
B
This just says that YouTuber Mark Robert takes the cameras versus LiDAR and gets it wrong. But I've not read this article. I'm saying that people are more seem more irritated that the methodology was not what was said on the video title. If he's like lidar beats FSD and they're saying, well you weren't using fsd, you were using emergency accident braking, it's like okay sure, but does the system do both FSD and emergency braking use cameras? If so, then their complaint doesn't disprove the ineffectiveness of full self driving in my opinion.
- [45:44]
A
Well, were the. But the other car with the LIDAR was also using the emergency braking. Right. It's not like it was using some type of self driving system.
- [45:52]
B
I think I need to watch the video.
- [45:53]
A
Yeah. I mean if they were both using the same setting, then I don't see the problem.
- [45:58]
B
One stopped for the wall and one didn't stop for the wall. Yeah, we'll look into it. More mortal living.
- [46:06]
A
Yeah. I don't want to like share fake news but I mean it's also other. I don't want to say it backs up a preconceived notion. It backs up what other experts, like actual experts, like fucking Coopman have been saying about camera only systems for a very long time. I don't personally think they're up to the task unless they're incredibly limited in scope. Like Super Cruise and Blue Cruise are where they're only allowed in certain places where there wouldn't be a fake wall. Maybe. Yeah, they should just.
- [46:45]
B
Just do it again with FSD and that would be the thing to do.
- [46:49]
A
Yeah.
- [46:50]
B
I mean. Yeah.
- [46:54]
A
Here's the raw footage of my Tesla going through the wall. Okay, point.
- [46:57]
B
This is very interesting though. We've talked about this before.
- [47:00]
A
So just read Mark's the highlighted part or the tweet.
- [47:05]
B
Read the highlighted part.
- [47:06]
A
Highlighted part says update online. Critics have pointed out a number of concerning inconsistencies in the video and a quote raw clip provided by Rober. Further, it seems that the appearance of the cartoon pattern in the brick Wal paper before he hits it indicates it was hit before and reconstructed for the take which was shown. Okay, so then here's the video embedded. Here's the raw footage of my Tesla going through the wall. Not sure why it disengages 17 frames before hitting the wall, but my feet weren't touching the brake or gas.
- [47:44]
B
Now that's something that we've talked about a lot on this and I think NHTSA has been investing investigating is that Tesla will often report that when there's an accident autopilot was not engaged.
- [47:53]
A
Right.
- [47:54]
B
But they have seen the speculation from NHTSA and other people is that right before it's about to crash and knows it, it deactivates autopilot. So that you can't blame autopilot. Right.
- [48:05]
A
I have read that from a variety of places and accusations and some of them, including Ed Niedermeyer are very thoroughly backed up.
- [48:15]
B
Exactly.
- [48:16]
A
Yeah. So yeah. In order to place blame on any accident. Yeah. To create A sort of catch 22. Either the driver's driving or the driver took over, you know, whatever. So at the point of impact, it was disengaged. So, I mean, look, the company has a habit of doing really shady shit, like really shady shit in order to falsely inflate the capability of this system on which the entire value of their fucking company is based. They're selling old ass cars and getting smoked by both the Chinese and other legacy fucking automakers. The cars aren't that good and the cybertruck's a fucking flop. This is what they have.
- [49:06]
B
While continuing the stock trade, Even with this 40% haircut it's gotten in the last, it still trades at this PE ratio that, you know, it's like every other car company combined. Yeah. Would equal that stock price. So. And it's all based on this magical technology that, you know, and now people.
- [49:24]
A
And now people are fucking ashamed to be seen with their cars badged as Teslas.
- [49:30]
B
Yeah, it's going well.
- [49:32]
A
Yeah, it's good. I really like giving people in cybertrucks thumbs down. It's. I find that thumbs down is a really good, good, good way to indicate that how you feel without it being aggressive.
- [49:47]
B
It's not as aggressive as the middle finger.
- [49:48]
A
Oh, yeah, no, no, I, I'm not middle fingering somebody just for existing with a cyber truck, but a thumbs down 100%. Especially if it's like modified in any way because then they're really in a gold plated one.
- [50:04]
B
I think Daily show did a story. There was some guy who's trying to sell his gold wrapped cybertruck because of the negative response that's been happening. And he's like, but I can't sell it. And Daily Show's like, I mean, yeah, come on, this is a hard thing to sell anyway. How many people want.
- [50:19]
A
But like the negative, like, because of the response, like, this is a person who bought, went out and bought a fucking fuck you got mine vehicle and then made it an even more attention seeking color.
- [50:34]
B
But I don't think everyone looks at it as a fuck you got mine vehicle. I think plenty of people go, oh, it's the cool new thing. It looks like a truck from the 80s Future sci fi movie. Sure.
- [50:44]
A
Nah, you couldn't take, you had to take delivery of that vehicle in 2024. By the time you took delivery, you knew what that thing stood for.
- [50:52]
B
I don't think so. I think there are some people that just think it looks cool and they thought it was fast.
- [50:56]
A
I'm not buying it.
- [50:57]
B
All right, yeah.
- [50:58]
A
Not buying it or you at least knew it was a total shit. But box.
- [51:02]
B
I also don't. People don't drive as many cars as we do. And if they want. If they watched. Dude. So many of the early reviews were like, this is amazing. And one of the best ones that went viral was the comparison this woman did against this woman's like cyber mama or whatever on Instagram. And she's like, look, it has a place for my purse. And then you cut to the woman with her minivan and she's like, this also does.
- [51:21]
A
Oh, yeah, yeah.
- [51:22]
B
And the cybertruck chick was like, look, it has a glove box. And she. She came back later and was like, I was being sarcastic. That was not disclosed in your video.
- [51:29]
A
Yeah.
- [51:30]
B
So it was trying to show that the cybertruck has invented these ideas, which it definitely had not.
- [51:34]
A
Well, that's.
- [51:34]
B
I mean, so I think a lot of people bought them because they were like, wow. All these videos say it's amazing. And then it wasn't. It was a flash in the pan. This was a hit single. Yeah.
- [51:44]
A
Elon Musk inventing things that were already invented since fucking 2009.
- [51:50]
B
Just worse, right?
- [51:51]
A
Worse. I was listening to the behind the Bastards. Oh, Oprah today, the six parter. Because Oprah, while not the most bastardy person out there, is the only person to have spawned three other people that got multi part bastard episodes.
- [52:09]
B
Jerry Springer doc was really fascinating.
- [52:11]
A
Well, this would be Dr. Phil, Dr. Oz, and John of God, who had got their own behind the Bastards and were all introduced by Oprah.
- [52:19]
B
John of who?
- [52:19]
A
John of God was a Brazilian faith healer that Oprah promoted and he raped like 600 women.
- [52:28]
B
Yeah, I thought the bad part was that he fake healed people.
- [52:30]
A
No, no, that was the good part. The fake healing was the good part of John of God.
- [52:34]
B
God, that's all. That's the raping, which is worse.
- [52:37]
A
The raping was the bad God. Yep.
- [52:39]
B
I'm not trying to diminish either one. I'm like, well, one of them. You take people away from real medicine and they might die. And the other one is like the most egregious thing you can do to a human up there, because they keep living and live with the trauma.
- [52:50]
A
Yeah, thanks, Oprah. So anyway, if you want six hours of great fucking radio. But anyway, one of the guests on the show who's incredibly astute was just said today, it's like the last fucking. He's like, I live in la. And he's like, these fucking people would rather fucking invent self driving cars than just do something that was invented in the 1800s and works like build a.
- [53:16]
B
Goddamn subway or build a library or something. People are talking about Carnegie Mellon. They're like, yeah. I mean these people, people were billionaires back in the early 1900s, but what did they do with their money? They built universities and libraries.
- [53:29]
A
Yeah. Does that make them better? No. Does that make them better?
- [53:32]
B
I think so. Because at least they left something that can be used for good in education instead of like buying Twitter and manufacturing controversy that just.
- [53:40]
A
Yeah, well, yes, that's better. But yeah, but I mean, you know, the Gettys bought newspapers though. That's bad.
- [53:47]
B
That's bad. But the museum also. So there's offset entirely. But it's something because yeah, like Oprah.
- [53:54]
A
Had did a couple good things.
- [53:55]
B
Let's say publicized wealthy people right now.
- [53:58]
A
Oh yeah.
- [53:59]
B
Like they've only done very selfish things.
- [54:01]
A
Yeah.
- [54:02]
B
Clock in a mountain and avoid $600 million in taxes at the same time.
- [54:07]
A
Right.
- [54:09]
B
When Bezos University opens, maybe I'll change my.
- [54:11]
A
I can't. I can't wait to go to Amazon. You.
- [54:14]
B
It's additional tangent related to your Oprah viewing. So my favor channel show I watch is Dropout tv, which is what spun off from college tv and it's ran and owned by Sam Reich, who is Robert Reich's son. Reich famous economist, amazing follow online.
- [54:32]
A
Yeah. Drives a mini.
- [54:33]
B
Drives a mini. And so Brennan Lee Mulligan is one of their longest employees. Very funny person. But they often do this show where they give him improv prompts. And they basically set Brennan up to rant about billionaires. He always goes off in the funniest way way about Bezos and Elon and Trump and whoever. And last week they did a prompter. They were like, brandon, we always love your takedown of billionaires. Please address the billionaires. Rihanna, Oprah and what's her fucking name? Beyonce. So it's like because it's always rich white dudes who are unmaking the world. And the awkward improv that followed as he tried, tried to like literally get himself out of. This was hilarious.
- [55:16]
A
It is.
- [55:16]
B
He probably didn't know about the faith healing.
- [55:18]
A
I don't know if. Yeah, Oprah is. I mean look, there was enough for a six part behind the bastards about her. Which is one of, if not the longest, I think they said it was. I think Robert Evans said it might have been the longest one he'd ever done. It was 24,000 words was the script. It was fucking. Yeah. Six hours.
- [55:37]
B
That is really Long.
- [55:38]
A
I don't know if Beyonce and Rihanna are quite. Bastard. I think they're probably okay, right?
- [55:43]
B
That's probably. That's why they don't seem like they're bending the world to their whim. They just, like, built the products and music that people love.
- [55:51]
A
I think that's probably true. I think that's probably true. Yeah. There are. There's. There's some of those, too. There. There are. There's people that sell things to people who want to buy them. That's okay. Fuck. Should we go to the people? Do we have things to the people?
- [56:04]
B
We do.
- [56:05]
A
We can go to the. God, my lips are so chapped. I went skiing this weekend in Montana, and we got a foot of fucking powder.
- [56:16]
B
So sweet.
- [56:16]
A
And it was the greatest. It was so nice. And Tim, I got to ski with.
- [56:23]
B
Tim, A. Oh, he was there.
- [56:24]
A
He was there. So he came out and. He came out and skied with us. And Hannah, I'm so proud of Hannah. She is in her middle 40s like I am, has never ski, skied. And in two days, you know, the end of the second day, we got her fucking on chair lifts, going down green runs, looking pretty good. And she even said she wanted to continue to learn to ski, which I think would be amazing. Cause, like, I fucking love. I love skiing. And it sucks that I can't do it with her.
- [56:57]
B
Yeah.
- [56:57]
A
And I would happily, like, dial down my skiing to meet her if it meant we could do it together. So, like, I think if we committed to, like, maybe four or five days of lessons, she'd probably be at a comfortable level.
- [57:11]
B
Yeah. And then you can teach her a little bit also.
- [57:13]
A
Yeah.
- [57:13]
B
After she does pro lessons, she gets leveled up and you can talk, like, nuance and stuff.
- [57:17]
A
Yeah, that would be a good. That would be a good use of our. Of our time. But, man, Montana snow. Delightful.
- [57:24]
B
Yeah, that's the dry stuff.
- [57:25]
A
Yeah, that's that. That's that smoke. Deep smoke balls at. On the Patreon.
- [57:32]
B
I remember that. Love it.
- [57:33]
A
Of course, if you want to ask us questions for the show, get the show live, get the show without ads, get the show early, get extra show, all them things. Patreon.com thesmokentyrepodcast. You can also just DM Ballzak. We'll get you in.
- [57:47]
B
Yeah, I don't know who that is, but DM that person.
- [57:50]
A
He's at number three at Doge, right under big balls. I told you that fucking kid went to my high school, right?
- [57:58]
B
Yeah, I've read some funny, funny.
- [58:00]
A
They need to do a Behind the bastards on Rye Country Day school for fucking sure for churning them out.
- [58:06]
B
You have to stop telling people you went there.
- [58:08]
A
I ain't ashamed.
- [58:10]
B
You would be after they do a deep dive.
- [58:12]
A
Yeah man. Right. One of my favorite teachers just died a couple weeks ago. Actually. It's kind of a bummer. Shout out to Mr. Pike. Balzac says Volkswagen no longer manufactures some parts parts for Mark 4 and Mark V Golfs. How long should OEM manufactures parts after the build date of the vehicles. And should the law require them to build them for a certain amount of years? I think there is a law that does require manufacturers to support vehicles for a certain number of years. And I think Volkswagen and Audi stop supporting the cars when that law runs out. I hear this about old Audis all the fucking time. The problem with old Audis is you can't get parts. This is the first time I'm hearing about golf. But fucking B5s4s. God help you if you need something from Audi. Yeah, my client has a beautiful. TT was his first car and it sat for like six years, seven years because he left it like at his parents house or whatever and moved on about his life. And he got it back and the gas tank had rusted and there was not a gas tank to be found anywhere in the country. Couldn't find it and we had to like put out all these feelers and wait months to find a gas tank for this car.
- [59:29]
B
I wonder if Audi has just looked at the math and their cars are just not either as collectible or whatever. I mean BMW club is a thing. Porsche club is a thing. I'm sure there's an Audi club but it just seems like that market goes lease, buy shorter term, move on. They want the newer luxury thing. There are people obviously who want to drive those cars. Cars. But I mean Volkswagen community is definitely more passionate about mods and driving old stuff for sure. Audi. But it's probably just like the cost to them is not worth it.
- [59:59]
A
I think a lot of Audi enthusiasts are not about classic Audis, they're about the newer Audis. Even if it's not the newest Audi.
- [60:08]
B
And they got way better. I mean I would much rather drive a new S3 than a. We've drove those B5 S4s. Like they're cool but man they break and they don't handle that well.
- [60:16]
A
Yeah. 1.21 gigawatts. Did you see more Montana tags in Montana or at a cars and coffee in la? You're not wrong and I will say that it was weird being in a place with all Montana tags. I kept looking around and chuckling and you know what? Up there, in there. Apparently there's, like, very few dealers. So I was at a place called the Yellowstone Club, where. Which is just something else. It's fucking crazy. I was a guest of somebody, and I will never in a hundred lifetimes ever be able to afford to go there. But it was something nice of someone to bring me. But it's all these insanely rich people. But because there's only a couple of car dealers in that general area, everybody drives a Tahoe or a Suburban. I took a picture of the valet lot, like, in front of this place, and they're. There were like, 12 Suburbans just parked next to each. Like the fucking Chevy dealer in Bozeman must be crushing it.
- [61:18]
B
Yeah. That's all you can get.
- [61:20]
A
That's all anybody's got. It's amazing. Dixon Ciderbox says, where am I most looking forward to driving the Manx once it's finished? When will I take delivery? And will I take it to the Manx Club Big Bear Bash? It's. See, I am supposed to take delivery, in theory, in May. And they've told me that once all the parts reach Manx Classic in Costa Mesa and they start to actually assemble it, that I could come down and do some content on the build process. So you guys will be able to see what's going on with the Manx probably once or twice throughout the build. And then, of course, when it's done, it takes about a month for them to actually assemble it once all the parts arrive. Small company. I'm gonna take it to pebble this year, ideally.
- [62:15]
B
Cool. You drive it up there. Gonna tow it?
- [62:18]
A
I don't. I probably. I'm working on a gig opportunity right now that would basically provide me with a press card of some kind, because there's a thing I'd have to do that would require some performance driving. And I would probably ship the Manx up there to fuck around with during the week, and then I'd ship it home. I wouldn't be opposed to driving it up there, and I totally would. But if this gig goes, I actually need a fast car. Having two cars at pebble would be egregious and luxurious and potentially gluttonous. But I'm also trying to nudge Freeman into having them display the Manx at the Quail. Be one of those cars. I'd still pay for the transport, but. But like, provenance. Never know. And I think it would Be fun to be like I'm displaying a car to the quail.
- [63:21]
B
That's very cool.
- [63:22]
A
Just walk up to it and kick it in front of a bunch of rich people.
- [63:25]
B
You won't do that.
- [63:25]
A
No, I won't. And I know about the Manx, the Big Bear bash, which does seem really fun. It's a big Manx club thing and I'm sure we would go. I don't know when it is. Matt Rantle, what's the best deal you've ever got when buying a used car or new for that matter?
- [63:48]
B
Best deal.
- [63:49]
A
The E46 wagon I got for all cars.
- [63:52]
B
Three for two grand. Was it 21800 or something?
- [63:56]
A
I think it was two grand or the Previa for 1800 that I drove 1000 miles off road with no problem. Problems.
- [64:03]
B
Those are great deals because that thing was really clean inside too.
- [64:07]
A
The Previa. Yeah. Yeah, the Previa. Could have done a couple hundred thousand road miles more. Absolutely.
- [64:12]
B
How was the 46 before we put suspension on? Actually, I guess we never drove it. So I mean that was a pretty good deal.
- [64:17]
A
It wasn't like. It wasn't terrible. I drove it around a little bit.
- [64:20]
B
You had no check engine lights like the thing. No, it worked great for two grand.
- [64:23]
A
It didn't rattle or anything.
- [64:24]
B
Yeah, it was a little smelly, whatever.
- [64:27]
A
But it served its purpose.
- [64:29]
B
Yeah.
- [64:30]
A
Max Field thoughts on Cayenne Hydra. My wife wants an SUV newer than 2020 and a plug in hybrid might be nice. I mean look, my dad has the Cayenne hybrid. I don't know about the first gen. My dad has a 2023 model year. He loves it and I think it's great. Assuming, you know, this is a very complex vehicle. Get an extended warranty. I'm not sure I'd want one out of warranty, but in general, lovely. Absolutely lovely. Subaru in the left lane. Weekend flat engine fun car dilemma. 07 Cayman base versus used but current gen BRZ for 25,000 I'd probably go BRZ. Honestly.
- [65:18]
B
That's a 15 year newer car.
- [65:20]
A
Yeah. And the base Cayman from back then is not very fast and very expensive to maintain relative to a brz.
- [65:27]
B
Is that still open diff too? Cause it's not an S. I couldn't tell you.
- [65:31]
A
But like the early base cars are not that great.
- [65:35]
B
Yeah. Plus a soft top and was it plastic?
- [65:37]
A
No, Cayman.
- [65:38]
B
Oh, sorry. My brain went Boxster. Yeah. Brz.
- [65:42]
A
Yeah, I probably would. Okay. Dre from Houston wants to get new tires on the Taycan 4S. It's currently on The Oecontes. And I've got pilots on my 911. Any benefits to changing to the pilots? Assuming you mean pilot sport four S's on the Taycan, benefits could be incremental handling improvements and possibly a quieter ride. But those are sticky and on an electric car that may negatively impact your range. I just ordered for my Taycan for the new wheels, the Pirelli EV tire that comes. That is the OE on the Taycan Turbo. Turbo S, not the gt, not the super sticky shit. Turbo or Turbo S, I don't know. It's whatever the p0ev one is. I didn't pay that. I just did Taycan fitments, blah, blah, blah. Because I didn't want to go make the range worse, basically. So I'll let you know how they are. But I think as Camisa found out, whatever a couple years ago on his Golf, you know, sticky tires will fuck your range right up. So be careful about that. Okay. Hypothetical. You're on a road trip. You need to eat a full meal while driving due to the fact that you're already running late. What's the best thing to get to satiate the hunger but not make a mess of the car?
- [67:16]
B
So we're eating in the car.
- [67:17]
A
Eating while driving.
- [67:19]
B
The best thing to get. Oh, I mean, a burrito.
- [67:21]
A
A burrito.
- [67:22]
B
A well constructed burrito.
- [67:23]
A
That's Louie's breakfast burrito or one of Bill's breakfast burritos would be. Is the perfect move. Totally second to that.
- [67:36]
B
You know, sauteed hot dog.
- [67:38]
A
Like a. Like a chicken. You know, chicken fingers. You know, you need to have some wipes or some alcohol hand sand ready, but you can go one hand straight dunk. I think you're okay there.
- [67:50]
B
Yeah.
- [67:51]
A
A kebab meat on a stick.
- [67:54]
B
I ate an A and W on our Kansas road trip and I haven't eaten in, I don't know, whatever, 30 years. And their chicken fingers are like the best protein ratio of chicken fingers, like chicken to breading. And it's not toothpaste chicken. Like there's actually real chicken, you see, like the strings of whatever muscle and stuff. I would do that.
- [68:14]
A
I've had a pretty good. I know they've gotten big and very commercial, but I've had a pretty good run with raising canes if I'm feeling fingers on the road.
- [68:21]
B
That's true.
- [68:21]
A
Raising canes does an rhythm.
- [68:23]
B
And the raising cane's the container is good because the glue on the aw container like melted.
- [68:29]
A
Oh shit.
- [68:29]
B
And then it leaked chicken juice like all over my Lap.
- [68:32]
A
That's no good.
- [68:32]
B
So that's not helping the mess.
- [68:33]
A
You remember the car, you. Garbage Question. Have you ever modified your car to be easier to eat in? That was a good one. Kippy and Foley liked that one. Shout out to. Did you watch the Route 66 special? It's pretty funny. It's worth your time on YouTube. It's very, very funny. It's not just. It's a comedy. BTS road trip. It's fun. Okay. Hunter Sands is a big boy and travels for work. Rents a lot of cars. Always goes for an SUV because he's similar size to me. What manufacturer can I rely on to best accommodate someone my size? What? Manuf. Do you mean, manufacturer or what rental car agency?
- [69:21]
B
He says manufacturer, manufacturer, but I don't. I feel like most cars, you know, of classes are the same basic interior, volume.
- [69:29]
A
Yeah.
- [69:30]
B
My brain went to, like, Dodge. Like, Dodge Durango or something like that. Or Challenger.
- [69:35]
A
Wait, wait. He's talking about rental cars still, right? He's not talking about buying one of these cars. This question means rental cars. Like, it's highly inefficient, efficient. Like, if you're traveling solo, you probably don't need to do this. Nor is it, like, efficient, but like a Tahoe. A Tahoe is a very comfortable vehicle for a tall, broad, or fat person.
- [69:59]
B
True.
- [69:59]
A
Like, if you got to do a bunch of miles in a rental car and someone else is paying for the gas. I know the Explorer also.
- [70:05]
B
I remember the Explorer. Distance from seat to armrest was huge.
- [70:09]
A
You know why that is?
- [70:10]
B
Police officer. Cops. Yeah, exactly. Cops.
- [70:13]
A
Yeah. Or minivans.
- [70:17]
B
Yeah, bro.
- [70:18]
A
Catch yourself a fucking Pacifica with low miles or a Sienna. Hell, yeah.
- [70:25]
B
But the challenge this person's running into is, in my experience, most rental agencies can't guarantee manufacturer vehicle.
- [70:32]
A
Right.
- [70:32]
B
They can guarantee class.
- [70:33]
A
Right?
- [70:34]
B
So. But usually you walk out and pick.
- [70:36]
A
Yeah, usually, yeah. You go. Then you go with Hertz or Enterprise, and you walk the aisle, and you go, yeah, that's that one. And then you do the smell check. Just a little. Because you never know. You don't point and go, I'll take that one without a scent check. Or an odometer check.
- [70:51]
B
Yeah. Or if it was a. Listen, it was a flood car.
- [70:55]
A
Unless I'm in a hurry hurry. I'm looking at three vehicles minimum.
- [71:00]
B
Really?
- [71:01]
A
Minimum.
- [71:01]
B
Oh, man, I don't have time for that.
- [71:03]
A
Yeah, we got lucky in South Carolina. Remember? They gave me that Pacifica with 150 miles on it. Oh, that was. That was great. I just want to go oh, no, if. I mean, look, if it's a one day or. Yeah, but if I'm living in this for a week, I'm checking.
- [71:16]
B
Like, I don't. I just haven't been burned yet. So that's why, really, I haven't gotten a rental car. I'm like, oh my God, it smells terrible in here.
- [71:22]
A
Oh, you seem to have forgotten Panama's different. The black mold and lungs.
- [71:29]
B
But I think you're carrying that trauma too long. That was 10 years ago. In a different.
- [71:32]
A
That was not Panama or Hertz's fault. That was not my fault, definitely.
- [71:38]
B
No, no, I'm saying carrying that with you and going, I'm gonna have that same experience here as I had in Panama.
- [71:42]
A
Oh, you. Come on. I guarantee you leave a fucking comment in the youtubes if you've had a car that looked fine on the outside and you got in and went and it was instabad.
- [71:53]
B
Add to the comment, was it a black mold smell or like a fart or cigarette smell?
- [71:59]
A
I mean, look, one of those results in a near hospital hospitalization. The other one's are merely terrible.
- [72:05]
B
But like.
- [72:07]
A
But like, yeah, no, I'm checking. Three for sure.
- [72:10]
B
Okay.
- [72:10]
A
Yeah. Cuz why not? What do they care? You got two minutes.
- [72:14]
B
No, you can check. I'm just. I'll. I'm going to wait with our camera cases and I'll let you check and then get in the car.
- [72:18]
A
See that? Like, 68,000 miles at Enterprise. Like, what the.
- [72:22]
B
That's true. Remember we rented a yellow camaro for a TV shoot and it had 38,000 miles on it and when I closed the door, when I picked it up, the latch for the convertible top fell off onto the center console.
- [72:34]
A
Yep. Vlad Tataranu. I'm one of these days I'm gonna get that right. Jesus Christ. Here's an expensive friend to have. I'm thinking of getting a classic wooden sailing yacht to cruise around Scotland. Oh, to BU. Sounds all right. Starting at 6,000 bucks for a good runner that needs a little interior TLC and four grand a year for berth and regular maintenance. How ruinous can a cheap boat really be?
- [73:02]
B
Cheap?
- [73:03]
A
I mean, look, if you're handy, they're not expensive in terms of, like, parts.
- [73:11]
B
Okay?
- [73:11]
A
But they're very labor intensive. You're always fixing or sanding or painting or scraping fucking something. I mean, especially if we're talking about a saltwater boat, right?
- [73:23]
B
The wooden boat. You have to keep lacquering it or whatever to seal it.
- [73:25]
A
Well, yeah, wooden boats are super expensive to.
- [73:29]
B
That's why? I'm stock classic wooden sailing boat for six grand. But I don't know boat prices. Is that crazy?
- [73:35]
A
No. Like, you could get a boat that like, that you could. I mean, you wouldn't want to, but like our friend George, Moto Man George, like a boat like his that he literally lived on for a couple years. Six grand will get you that boat.
- [73:49]
B
Okay.
- [73:49]
A
Like a cheap boat. People fucking dump boats for nothing once they need something big or, you know, they run out of money or whatever. But if you're handy and are into the idea of working on it all the time, then they can be a fun, you know, rewarding project. It's like a car, but like, dude, the salt. Trust me, I live there. The salt fucking fucks it up. But sailing around Scotland.
- [74:14]
B
Yeah. He says he's young and he has plenty of time on his hands.
- [74:17]
A
Dude, with a fucking grab a bottle of Bunna having and a nice coat.
- [74:21]
B
Well, and as George explained to us, like, this dude might be able to get a cheap boat, fix it up, and then later sell it for profit.
- [74:27]
A
Totally, totally. Yeah. It sounds like a fun hobby, Billy. Jimmy Zox says, what do you typically see photographers charging for photo shoots for the bat cars and bids, auctions and what's included. Trying to get a quote out to a potential customer. We pay at WCCS, we pay our photographers $450 for 200 exactly. 200 edited photos. And that's generally about. I mean, a half day work for these folks on site. You can. I know if you. I mean, literally, if you click on, like, get a photographer from bring a trailer, they charge less. I think they charge like 399 maybe. You know, the guys I'm hiring are my friends, which are literally the guys who shoot for the car magazines. Literally the guy who shot this Ferrari 430 that we're about to list on Bring a trailer shot a major feature in road and track not very long ago. So they're photographers that I've personally vetted. But 350 to 500 is probably the range, depending on what kind of level of detail is involved. Don't forget, by the way, if you're shooting for bat or cars and bids, undercarriage. Undercarriage is important. I'm sorry. I'm like, so gross. My fucking lips are. My lips didn't get chapped until I. The doors opened at LAX and it went, yeesh. Yeah, the desert hits you, dunzo. Nathan T. Reynolds says it's 2008 and you've recently been promoted to VP at your investment banking job. I'm guessing this is before. This is the beginning. This is the beginning of 2008. It's not. You're in your mid-20s and you want a premium sports sedan that says I've arrived, but doesn't quite say I'm compensating. What do you choose? The B7RS4. Oh, this is basically the Top Gear comparison test. It's sports sedans in 08. So you got the RS4, the E90, M3, the C63, the Lexus ISF.
- [76:39]
B
If I'm mid 20s back then, I still think I'm an oversteering Stig person, so I'm going M or C63. I think the more responsible and comfortable purchase is the RS4. That's the more restrained one.
- [76:56]
A
Yeah. If I'm living in Scarsdale, where is that? Scarsdale is one of the places rich people live in Westchester County. They commute to the city. I live in Scarsdale. I'm commuting to the city on the Henry Hudson Parkway, west side Highway. All seasons, right? Four seasons, all weather. But I want to look great and I might have a young family or, you know, some friends to carry around. Maybe I want to go skiing in Vermont. I'm RS4 all day. RS4 is the perfect Northeast sports sedan from 08. Yeah, that's the one. Wow. Fucking new in the running. I'm not fat, but my waistband uses the NASCAR line at Cota, which is pretty funny.
- [77:42]
B
Yeah, that's the username. That's the longest one. I think it got cut off at.
- [77:45]
A
The A. Yeah, I've been having lower back issues since I have to slump to fit in a C6 Corvette. I'm 6 foot 2. I'm planning on getting a different vehicle for longer trips. I'm looking at super sedans and saw used Panameras for not too much. And then remember the SE hybrid is a partial phev. And I'm curious about having hybrid option for in town trips for your 30-40k. What would be your choice for performance and comfort with a great supportive seat? I would say for most supportive seats, Porsche and Mercedes are probably your best.
- [78:25]
B
And Acura are also a close set. Yeah, it depends on the model and if it has lumbar, but yeah, Porsche and Mercedes are fantastic.
- [78:32]
A
Yeah. Now used Panameras are depreciated, but the hybrid like we were just talking about, Cayennes could be an issue with expensive repairs. Potentially. It's a complicated thing. So extended warranties are your friend with these type of cars, you know, but that's just. That's Porsche, but also Mercedes 30 to 40k gets you a pretty nice dude. E Class diesel, fabulous seats, and very efficient, very powerful.
- [79:07]
B
And if you're driving five hours at a clip, you want that big tank. You got a good range. That would be fantastic.
- [79:12]
A
Fantastic. Big Ben Zack's nightmare power steering job reminded me of a time I decided to change the turbo on my Duramax in my driveway.
- [79:22]
B
Wait. But he says dealers take the cab off to do this. That is ambitious, dude.
- [79:27]
A
What's the job you decided to do to save money and diy that ended up being a horrible mistake.
- [79:33]
B
Well, you don't wrench. But have you done this at your house? Have you done things because you've started getting. Getting, like, house projects that you've taken on?
- [79:41]
A
No, I have a wrenching one. I got those Baja bumpers on my raptor, my F150 raptor. And the instructions were very short. It was like, drill these couple of holes and remove this and mount this. It was like one or two pages, but they don't. The holes you have to drill were in the frame. They're in steel. And so it took like, eight drill bits, two drills, and maybe, like, six trips to Home Depot to drill four holes.
- [80:15]
B
Yeah. You kept wearing the bits out, right? Yeah, I forgot what that was.
- [80:18]
A
And then I killed a drill, and then I killed a second drill. And, like, eventually I called, like, a shop. I forget who I called, but I was like, just. It took 18 hours to put two bumpers on me and Tim, and my back hurt. I'm, like, broken. And eventually I call. I was like, how much would you. They would have charged me, like, you know, $285.
- [80:40]
B
Yeah, that's when you get that hourly math that sucks. I won't tell a BMW story, but Thad and I replaced the rotors on his old Mini, and one of the rotors, like, a bolt was seized. And then we tried to pull it out, and we ended up stripping the bolt. And we literally spent one entire day trying to get one rotor off. Cause we had to go to the shop to get, like, the tap and die kit to reverse the thread and pull this bolt out. That was a nightmare.
- [81:05]
A
Christian says, is Porsche active ride actually worth 7k in terms of comfort? In my opinion, it is if you're already buying. Put it this way. Porsche has a million options, and some of them are stupidly expensive. And you don't get much for that. You get contrast this or some special this that. It's like a little fucking nothing. And it's five grand, right? And if people want it, like, go ahead. You can feel active ride every time you get in the car. It's pretty hard to ignore the fact that active ride is making your drive better. Whether it's comfort or efficiency, or the popping up to make it easier to get in and out of the car, or the way it leans into corners for comfort, or the fact that it can corner perfectly flat like that affects your drive every day. So it's expensive as hell, but in the context of dumbass expensive Porsche options, at least you feel it in the drive, which is very important. Yeah, we did back to back at Panamera launch and the air suspension is great. I mean that was the upgrade. It's now the standard. They all get air suspension now. But it's a big, big difference with activity ride. Especially if you either live somewhere with bad roads or you plan on doing dynamic driving. Joey Bag of Donuts, pick an entry level exotic under 100k. Wait, hold on, wait, wait. Oh, this one is tough because Joey Bag of Donuts here wants us to buy an entry level exotic under 100k that will appreciate 50% in 20 years.
- [82:56]
B
Okay, so new now or new ish? I guess. Or just anything.
- [83:02]
A
All right, I got one. How about a Ferrari 360 coupe with a stick but with miles?
- [83:09]
B
You took the words out of my mouth. Yeah, because it's timeless. And yeah, that'll be more expensive.0458s or 2 expensive right now?
- [83:17]
A
No, they're too much. How about a very well cared for Ferrari 348 GTS or GTB. Those are great. And you know, 80, 90K gets you a good one.
- [83:29]
B
What are spikers today?
- [83:31]
A
More than that, Spikers. You could Spikers. The second Spyker went out of business. The cars were worth a buck.
- [83:39]
B
I know we said it last week also, but I think an R8V8 with a man manual will be a classic. It's just there's still people aren't paying enough attention to them yet. I don't know why, but that would probably float a little bit.
- [83:50]
A
Yeah, you might be able to the.
- [83:56]
B
Eight vantage, like a real good one.
- [83:59]
A
You could probably buy the nicest like 1993 Viper anywhere and for that much.
- [84:07]
B
And maybe do that that maybe I don't. But I think the Vipers got so much. Well, collectability is not always about quality. Like the later Vipers were better, but people don't really care they're better.
- [84:18]
A
But like better doesn't mean better.
- [84:20]
B
Yeah, CT5 v Blackwing.
- [84:24]
A
Yeah. Shout out to Tony A. Dude, one of my favorite people, Tony A patron, former customer of mine, the former owner of my Acura NSX will be joining us at the Texas event, the road and track event I'm doing. And Tony A is BO because Tony A buys a new car for each of these events and he always finds like a depreciated. He's a man of means, but he always finds a fun depreciated car to do the events in and then makes like a big road trip out of it. He came on one of them with the E92M3 that he traded Vinnie his Alpena B8 for a supercharger, his Alpena B7 for a VF supercharger. So he did the supercharged E90M and then for last year's event he bought a used Panamera Turbo for $28,000 and did it. Car was great, by the way. And then he just bought a 2 year old CT5 Blackwing for this one. He's like, what do you think of this? I was like, you're in the fucking game. Yeah. So that's a good one. Nathan T. Reynolds NA2 Acura NSX or a really nice 360 manual.
- [85:36]
B
360.
- [85:38]
A
I probably have to say 360 based.
- [85:42]
B
On sound alone, but also means Ferrari. Like, you know, I like the nsx, but I didn't grow up as a kid lusting after owning an NSX one day.
- [85:51]
A
Sure. And I mean even as an NSX owner I think I'd probably, you know, if I could, if I could do a direct swap of my NSX to a 360 manual that was, was in similar condition and in a nice color, I'd probably do it.
- [86:07]
B
You want to trade Vin Anatra for his hand dyed your item?
- [86:12]
A
I trade him the pow. Oh shit. By the way, I have an update on the pow. Don't let me forget that because it's hilarious. But yeah, man, if I could do a direct swap because my NFX is worth a little more than I paid for it at the time I bought it, the idea that I could get a good manual 360 for that same money was not really. It was more. The NSX has caught up.
- [86:39]
B
That might also be a candidate for the buy at 100 now and sell for 150 in 20 years.
- [86:43]
A
An NSX? An NSX, yeah. 100k gets you a lot of NSX. It won't get you like an 04 or an 05, but it'll get you Another great year. I was just talking to our buddy over there in North Carolina, the young1, about NSXs, and he's in the game.
- [86:58]
B
Nice.
- [86:59]
A
Very excited. Oh, let me sidebar the pow. Have I talked about the POW having a mystery drain?
- [87:06]
B
Yeah. And this has been ongoing for six months more.
- [87:10]
A
A year. A year.
- [87:11]
B
It's gone to text.
- [87:12]
A
It's killed three batteries in two years. It's gone to three different places, okay? And we're talking about a one liter economy car with a fucking carburetor. Like, this is a sick, simple, simple car. So as it turns out, Mad Mike from Pimp My Ride, if you remember him, Mike works at Galpin. And I found this out through David Tracy at the Autopian. That Mad Mike is like an electrical genius. I didn't know that. Which, like, great. So I got his number and I called him and I go, I got one I bet you never seen. And boy, was I right. It took Mad Mike, a guy that more than one person said was an electrical genius, 30 hours to find what was draining the battery in the POW3,030. And eventually he did source it to the blinker. That something in the blinker, which. The blinker is on the. The right in a pow. Not on the left. It's on the right also. That's the headlight control. You twist it, something in that every 15 minutes would activate and draw three and a half amps.
- [88:28]
B
Every 15 minutes.
- [88:29]
A
Every 15 minutes.
- [88:29]
B
And there was no pun intended. Like, there's no indicator on when this.
- [88:34]
A
No, no, no, nothing.
- [88:34]
B
Blink or blink or anything.
- [88:36]
A
No. Like every once in a while, like every three or four months, the, like tail lights would spontaneously turn on, which took us down a rabbit hole of thinking it was like the light switch or something like that sticking. But nope, never found anything like that. So anyway, they discounted the bill, you.
- [88:57]
B
Know, the 30 hours.
- [88:58]
A
They discounted the bill, but we're talking about it cost me another 10% of what I paid for the car.
- [89:06]
B
How did they fix it? Like, was it a part that had a problem or did it reroute something?
- [89:12]
A
They were able to get a good condition used blinker from ebay and they redid the wiring and the problem went away.
- [89:21]
B
30 hours.
- [89:23]
A
30 hours. With, like an expert, you could rebuild.
- [89:26]
B
The engine in that time. 30 hours. I mean, that's why. Electrical gremlins. Yeah.
- [89:33]
A
I mean, you know what it does on one hand make me feel better because the odds of me or like one of my, like handy friends being able to fix it were zero. It Wasn't like, oh, you're an idiot because you can't fucking figure this out. I had some pretty smart people looking around and scratching their heads. I'm not glad that it was that expensive, and I hope that Mike didn't get too frustrated and want to blow his brains out, but I'm glad it wasn't something simple that was. Well, it is simple, but I'm glad it wasn't something that was like, oh, fuck, you're an idiot. Just. But, you know, plugged something back in and that was the end of it, you know?
- [90:14]
B
Oh, my God. 30 hours.
- [90:20]
A
Isn't that crazy?
- [90:21]
B
Yes. That's insane. She better drive that car.
- [90:25]
A
Well, I mean. And that's the thing, you know, it's. Hannah. I can't. She can't. If she's. If I'm gonna keep her in this old car game, she has to trust the car. The car can't leave her stranded. She's out if that's happens, you know? So I need. I need these cars to fucking work. I don't care how much it costs. The only reason I can be as stupid as I. As I am with cars. You think I didn't have to ask permission to get the Manx? I fucking did.
- [90:50]
B
Well, I mean, it's really.
- [90:52]
A
That was a discussion.
- [90:53]
B
She has a project car. So you're like, now you understand why I want one. She's like, but you gave it to me. Like, you. You gave her the thing that just. You gave her the loophole.
- [91:00]
A
Yeah, yeah, yeah. And she keeps referring to that car as ours, and I keep referring to it as hers.
- [91:05]
B
That's why one day. One day, what I should do is I should sell the M3 and get an old model Mustang project. Cause Sarah loves. Likes old Mustangs. And then it's our project, and then it's not just my problem.
- [91:15]
A
Yeah. Tow matter's fourth dui. What is something the general public doesn't understand about automotive journalism other than driving supercars all day?
- [91:27]
B
Tow mater.
- [91:29]
A
Oh, tow mater.
- [91:30]
B
Tow mater.
- [91:31]
A
Tow material. Oh, sorry. For example, I'm a paramedic, and everyone thinks that every call we go on is some Hollywood level drama with death and destruction. I'm sure that. Isn't that something that people don't understand? I mean, the amount of time doing other shit versus doing actual journalism or driving the intended car. I mean, there's so many times We've talked about 30 hours of travel for two or three hours of seat time. I once did 36 hours of travel for six laps around a Racetrack. I'd never been on before in the wet.
- [92:12]
B
The Maserati thing was cool, but they got us some extra time.
- [92:15]
A
Yeah, but like, I just think there's like the difference between the lived reality and the headline. I went to Spain to drive the thing versus what the lived experience is of that is just not the same thing. But, like, it's not bad. It's just. That's the general public doesn't necessarily understand. Understand. And also how much like most. A lot of people think, even though I say automotive journalism, they just go, oh, so the car companies pay you to drive the cars? And I go, no, the car company lends me the car and then I have to figure out how to pay for it myself. And they're like, what? They actually just think that that's how it works, that it's all an ad. So I suppose you could just do that and like, your life would probably be easier. But to like, not do that makes your life a little harder. Nice cams. Oh, liked the video I did with Teddy Baldessar. That was the watch guy. And he's very. Has a huge channel. And I did a video with him here at Westside and showed some watches and the video's already done. Monster numbers. Even though it's like 58 minutes long. Wow. And he was an absolute lovely, lovely, lovely guy. He was really cool, really fun. We had a great day. Very interesting. We talked about business, content, doing. He's got a retail operation now. And when he told me the numbers, I was just like, oh my God, fucking guys is crushing. But he was so chill. He was great. And he has an open invite to come hang out and do our show. Show when he's. When he's back in town. Beneteau driver. Shout out to sailors favorite sailing story or experience. I mean, we almost lost the yacht into in Thailand. That's the best story we've told it before. But long story short, we went to shore to party our fucking faces off in Thailand. There was a windstorm. We were all on drugs and we're like, yay, windstorm.
- [94:26]
B
Tide went out also.
- [94:27]
A
And then the tide also went out and our boat came off anchor and went out to sea. And it was a major, major problem, but we somehow figured out how to talk. I think I made it. I don't know how much money I gave that person, but I got some drunk fishermen to drive us out into the middle of nowhere to get our boat.
- [94:48]
B
Yeah, it was crazy. It was like 2:00 in the morning. I used Google Translate to Talk to the police.
- [94:53]
A
Yeah.
- [94:53]
B
And that guy didn't give a shit. He drew a picture of a boat. Remember that? I told him a story and he drew a picture of a boat and we realized we were foxed.
- [95:05]
A
Yep. Alex. Hey. Watch question. Oh, boy. Holy shit. Here's where we're gonna lose everybody. Do you prefer the elegance of the JLC master Ultra Thin Moon or the complications? Holy shit, dude. I'm sorry, I don't know the answer to your question. I am not an expert in Jaeger le occult Watches Thin is good. That's all I can say. All right, wait, hang on. We'll do one more and then we're going to call the show and save the rest for the next thing because I am running low on steam. Oh, okay. Here's a good question. I like this. I like Tim A's. What do you think there? Tim A says, what would you want from a mid engine C8 based Cadillac? We talked about this last show, that Cadillac, Cadillac or recently there should be a Cadillac C8 like the XLR was. The XLR had a lot of promise. I thought. I thought using Northstar instead of a LS motor was personally a mistake, but I still thought the idea was sound. A C8 based Cadillac. What would you want that to look like?
- [96:13]
B
I just want it to look. It would have to look very different. I mean, inside and out. I think the interior of the Corvette, while very functional, it matches the outside. There's just too many angles. I'm not a huge fan of the way the C8 looks. It's tough and it looks like a fighter jet, but I just prefer more organic shapes. And I know that's not really their design language right now. So I think the Cadillac would have to go chase McLaren Ferrari. I mean, McLaren Ferrari right now, 296s and 720 and 750 are very like round, organic, smooth, kind of sultry shapes. I think they have to go that way because I would. You need it to stand out from the C8 immediately. And clearly you cannot have anybody look at it and go, is that the. The Corvette or the Cadillac? Yeah, you're fucked if it's. If you do that. And the same with the interior. I would get rid of the center console wall. I would get rid of the, the abstinence wall, as I call it. And just. You have to do something totally different in that chastity wall.
- [97:08]
A
Like.
- [97:08]
B
Yeah, you have to change the dash. I mean, I know there's limitations. What the engineers and the accountants would let them, them do but it just needs to look like a completely different car.
- [97:16]
A
Well, look, the xlr, you know, you could tell because of the wheelbase and things like that that there was Corvette under there. But it really did look very different from a C6 Corvette because at the.
- [97:28]
B
Time the C6 was very round and smooth and Cadillac went real angular.
- [97:33]
A
Yeah. I actually think the styling has held up well, the proportions. Lr.
- [97:37]
B
Yeah.
- [97:38]
A
Has anyone done a fucking like a proper LS swapped like somebody should if they haven't done like a proper Z06 or LS something swapped XLR. That could be pretty cool.
- [97:51]
B
Wow. With this backdrop, this looks almost like your R129.
- [97:54]
A
It does look like an R129 against a white backdrop.
- [97:57]
B
Yeah.
- [97:58]
A
So I think powertrain wise, we probably are looking at that. The ZR1 powertrain. Right. Or maybe, you know, or actually I do think maybe the hotel hybrid, you know, it could be E Ray based, but maybe with small turbos, you know, a twin turbo based kind of thing. You know, the Blackwing engine, they could go back to the LT4, you know, maybe put the supercharged engine in there.
- [98:27]
B
That's a good way to think about that.
- [98:28]
A
That could be very interesting.
- [98:29]
B
Then it's also related to CT5. Yeah. Or that's what you just said.
- [98:32]
A
Blackwing.
- [98:32]
B
Yeah, that's a good idea. And is distinct.
- [98:37]
A
But I think there's room in the market for that for sure. Yeah. 150 grand probably for a Cadillac C8. It would have to be fast as and it would have to have an interior that justified, you know, the price. But if it would, it would be, I think, you know, a little more than Z06, less than ZR1 is probably the right place for a car like that.
- [98:56]
B
Yeah, that'd be. That'd be cool. But it just has to be.
- [98:59]
A
Man, would it be rad if that was the manual. The manual was a cat. Because the black wings are manuals. They're on board for that.
- [99:06]
B
That's true.
- [99:07]
A
Yeah, right. Oh boy, that was a fun one. Kids, thank you for joining us. Thank you to our patrons for such good questions. There's what went up today. Our Panamera Turbo S E hybrid with the Active Active ride went up today. Go check that video out on the YouTube channel.
- [99:29]
B
And last year published the Grand Wagoneer Red eye engine in it. So go check that out too. Big noisy school bus thing.
- [99:37]
A
Yeah.
- [99:37]
B
Announcements 1 Episode 1000 comes up in 13 days.
- [99:41]
A
Yeah, it does. And tomorrow we're going to record episode 999. Should be a good time. Thanks, everybody.