M2 CS Review; A Bad Car that Changed History?

Summary

The Smoking Tire Podcast – "M2 CS Review; A Bad Car that Changed History?"

Hosts: Matt Farah, Zack Klapman
Date: April 9, 2026

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Episode Overview

This episode is a packed, freewheeling conversation where Matt and Zack cover everything from their deep-dive street and track review of the new BMW M2 CS, to updates on Matt’s ongoing Countach and Mercedes E500 Cabriolet projects, and a lively discussion on dyno testing, industry news, and listener Q&A. The show covers what makes a “bad car that changed history,” explores the nuances of BMW’s latest hardcore coupe, and digs into quirky personal car builds—all with the duo’s signature humor and sharp insight.

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Key Segments & Discussions

1. Personal Updates: Matt’s Projects

Timestamps: 00:47–03:59, 38:29–48:26

• Countach Suspension Refresh:

  • The six shock absorbers, which are notoriously tricky and unique to the Countach, have been shipped off for rebuilding.
  • “The good news is my bill was much, much smaller this month.” (40:56 – Matt Farah)
  • Some mechanical holdups (like a custom hub tool breaking), but optimism remains high.

• Mercedes E500 Cabriolet Project:

  • Hand-crafted, molded steel fenders are in progress for true E500 widebody authenticity.
  • Special mention of interior plans: sourcing deal on fabric, weighing Recaro seats vs. refurbishing OEM with Mercedes kits for Matt’s back comfort.
  • “What did Sean say? Super Sprint makes the exhaust.” (44:14 – Matt Farah)
  • Powertrain: Acquired a donor 2002 E55 AMG for its M113 engine and five-speed auto. All drivetrain, brakes, and pedal box will be transplanted.
  • Ongoing debate over doing a body-color grille—lots of web searching and design iterations live on the show.

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2. Dyno Testing Deep Dive

Timestamps: 05:18–19:36

• Insight from Matt’s Recent Road & Track Article:
  • Did a multi-shop dyno shootout: the same car on four different dynos, showing a horsepower spread of up to 100hp on identical pulls, mainly due to correction factors and machine differences.
  • Weather correction factors can dramatically change numbers, leading to potential manipulation—though most shops seem honest about their machines’ quirks.
  • “He gave me four dyno sheets that showed four different numbers…you can use four different weather correction factors and output four completely different numbers on the same pull.” (07:10 – Matt Farah)
  • All-wheel drive dynos now essential for modern performance cars.
  • Conclusion: Use the same dyno before and after mods for meaningful results.

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3. BMW M2 CS Review — Street & Track

Timestamps: 19:36–38:29

Looks and Quality

• Hosts both agree it’s visually superior to the regular M2—better paint, wheels, carbon trunk, and spoilers.
• “The whole front end of the car is way better than a regular M2.” (21:41 – Matt Farah)
• Optional $9k ceramic brakes are lauded for performance.

Ride and Driving Dynamics

• Suspension/damper tuning is outstanding: compliant on-road, superb control on-track.
• “I wish this is how a new GT3 felt!” (22:16 – Zach Klapman)
• The breadth between comfort and Sport+ is well-judged; comfort mode is never sloppy.

Transmission & Powertrain

• 8-speed auto is functional but uninspiring compared to DCTs; manual is only available on the base M2.
• “The transmission gets the job done, but not in a way that excites me.” (25:32 – Matt Farah)

On the Street

• Tremendous canyon car—huge power and confidence-inspiring chassis (with the proper settings).
• Seats are supportive for spirited driving, but entry/exit and daily comfort are a chore.
• “Going to the grocery store is real stupid [with those seats].” (27:37 – Matt Farah)

On Track – Main Insights

• Disappoints relative to expectations:
  • Pervasive understeer on entry, with a tendency to suddenly transition into snap oversteer on corner exit with traction control disengaged.
  • Hard to hold consistent slides; less fun versus manual M2 or older M2 CS.
  • Steering heavily criticized: numb, too thick wheel, not much feedback.
• “Every corner, really, when I started to push this car and started to go quick, it pushed all the way to the apex of every corner. And then as soon as I started to get back on, the gas just switched from push to snap oversteer.” (30:34 – Matt Farah)
• “There was never a way to really initiate a slide on entry.” (33:00 – Matt Farah)
• Comparison to previous-gen M2 CS: last-gen was more fun, could be had with a manual, and better-looking.

Value Judgement

• At $108,000 (with ceramics), hosts struggle to see the value over the regular M2 (which can be had with a manual, still extremely capable, and $30k+ cheaper).
• “Other than the dampers and the ceramic brakes, I can’t really say that it was $30,000 better than an M2.” (28:24 – Matt Farah)
• Both would choose the base manual M2 for real-world, fun-focused use.

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4. Listener Q&A and Interactive Segments

Timestamps: 55:34–106:11

Highlights:

• Dream Car Destinations: Where would hosts want their own cars to end up if sold? (e.g. Matt’s Countach should stay in LA, Delica fits Nantucket, POW in Monaco, etc.)
• Fuel Price Spikes:
  • Positive: Might spur downsizing, better fuel economy, or EV/hybrid adoption.
  • Negative: Less affordable for those with razor-thin budgets, disproportionate societal harm.
  • “EVs—I have been pretty well convinced that EVs in general are a good idea. And so our government’s decision to abandon all support for EVs is fucking insane.” (70:33 – Matt Farah)
• Cars That Changed History for the Worse:
  • Ford Explorer (ushered in the SUV era) and Hummer H2 as candidates for “bad car that changed history.”
  • “The Ford Explorer pretty much created what the modern SUV is…” (76:22 – Matt Farah)
• Daily Quietness: Recommendations for compact, exceptionally quiet cars (Volvo XC40, Prius with Dynamat, Lincoln Corsair, etc.)
• Q: Car one mod away from greatness?
  • Many modern performance cars would be perfect with more steering feel.
• Long-Distance Bucket List Trips: Driving a BRZ from Dallas to the Arctic Ocean? Both hosts: “Epic, absolutely do it, just not in winter.”
• Quirks from Listener Cars: Matt’s Countach has a mirror perfect for “coke use” (per 1980s context, not personal use), and the POW’s hammock-back/tailgate gets a shout-out.

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Notable Quotes and Memorable Moments

“The hosts of the show enjoy talking about cars, but what they really love is a good project, a bad seat, and a car that snaps from understeer to snap oversteer in a heartbeat.” (26:12 – Matt Farah, paraphrasing the show’s dynamic)

“Every corner, really, when I started to push this car and started to go quick, it pushed all the way to the apex…the gas just switched from push to snap oversteer.” (30:34 – Matt Farah on M2 CS’s dynamic flaws)

“Going to the grocery store is real stupid [with those seats].” (27:37 – Matt Farah, on how the hardcore seats work in daily use)

“The Ford Explorer pretty much created what the modern SUV is.” (76:22 – Matt Farah)

“If you want to see what America will be in 20 years, look at Miami. Miami is America in 20 years.” (as quoted by Matt, referencing Billy Corben, 88:45)

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Final Observations & Tone

• The hosts balance sharp technical knowledge with accessible, bantering dialogue.
• Criticisms are direct (“Transmission gets the job done, but not in a way that excites me”; “Steering’s numb…that’s a BMW problem.”).
• Personal project updates give connection and context for the broader car enthusiast community.
• Listener Q&A is lively and at times hilarious, with tangents into pop culture, taste, and practicality.
• The episode closes with appreciation for their supporters and an invitation to enter a Turbo S giveaway.

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Section Timestamps

• 00:47–03:59: Friendship banter and personal project updates
• 05:18–19:36: Dyno testing and Road & Track article discussion
• 19:36–38:29: In-depth BMW M2 CS review (street and track)
• 38:29–48:26: Further project car updates (Countach, E500 Cabrio)
• 55:34–106:11: Listener questions, broader industry debates, and offbeat car culture discussion

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This episode is a must-listen for BMW fans, project car nuts, and anyone curious about the sometimes weird, frequently hilarious edges of the automotive zeitgeist.

Transcript

[Matt Farah]

What up, everybody? Welcome to the Smoking Tire Podcast. Today's episode is brought to you by off the Record. We love off the Record. They're looking out for you if you get a moving violation in any of the 50 US states. Don't plead guilty. Get off the record. Go to offtherecord.comtst for 10% off legal services provided from off the Record from your friends at TST. Once again, go to offtherecord.com TST to get yourself represented by a qualified legal attorney in the jurisdiction where you got that ticket. It any moving violation, big or small. Offtherecord.com TST. And also this morning, welcome to Avants. You guys know Avance, right? It's a quarterly print magazine. It's a cool editorial website and Instagram and they do awesome in person events all over the US I've known about Avance for a long time. My red car was even on the COVID of their magazine. And now they've got a new membership program allowing you to save money on things that you're buying anyway, like tires. Avants members get 10% off a discount tire, plus an additional 10% off all Michelin and BF Goodrich. So if you spend 1500 bucks on a set of Cup 2s, you're going to save $300 just for being an Avance member. It's only $99 a year and it comes with a $70 griots garage gift card. So it's basically paying for itself right off the bat. Now you can use code TST for 10% off your membership. Go to avance.com TST and use COD to sign up one more time, Avants A V A N T S.com TST and code TST for 10% off your avance membership. And thank you to Avance for sponsoring the show today. All right, folks, on this episode of the Smoking Tire, I have an update on both my Countach and my Mercedes E500 cabriolet conversion project. Zach and I give a thorough street and track review of the BMW M2. And I have a whole lot more details about my project E500 Cabriolet. It's the Smoking Tire. Let's go, guys. The Smoking Tire is giving away a 992.1 Turbo S. In partnership with Dream Giveaways, we are giving away a $275,000 car with some slick choice mods. The proceeds benefit charity and you don't have to buy any merch. It's a straightforward entry process. So the link in the show notes and get entered to win today. But we're going. This is it.

[Zach]

This is it.

[Matt Farah]

This is the fucking show.

[Zach]

It's happening now.

[Matt Farah]

Did anybody make. Anybody out there on the Patreon make Carl's matzo ball soup? Couple people talked a real big game in the comments saying they were gonna make Carl's matzo ball soup. I want to see fucking photos, receipts, photos, or it didn't happen. You know, I didn't realize when I posted that on April 1st that Carl's birthday was April 2nd. I didn't realize.

[Zach]

Really?

[Matt Farah]

Yeah. I didn't realize that. I probably should have. He was my friend. But, you know, as one of my very best friends, I'm bad at birthdays.

[Zach]

Oh, yeah?

[Matt Farah]

Yeah. I just am.

[Zach]

Yeah. But that's why I. I am also. A lot of us are.

[Matt Farah]

I. I have mated with a species called a Hannah. And a Hannah, the best Hannah fills in, like, most of the gaps in my personality and talent pool. You know what I mean?

[Zach]

Yeah. Your Venn diagram between you two. Like, there's enough overlap where you get along same. And this is very true with my wife, too. But there's enough separation where she can handle and thinks in ways you don't and vice versa. Yeah. Yeah. It's important.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah. Yeah, it is. And so anyway. Hi, everybody. Cars. Welcome to Cars. In theory, we're supposed to talk about cars, right? I wrote that piece for Road and Track about the income inequality. They didn't write income inequality in the headline. And they took out some of the more political stuff I put in there in the edit. But is it not. It's probably not at the top anymore. Cause Lawrence Ulrich drove that really cool thing. But that's. That. That's the artwork for. Oh, no. Oh, they moved. They moved. It's down in, like, the culture.

[Zach]

Okay. Someone said they read it. They said they enjoyed it.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah, go down. Keep it going. Yes, it's in culture. Or if you scroll down, you get to the culture section eventually. What the fuck? Where did it go? Habibi.

[Zach]

No, that's funny. Cause I didn't jump that car.

[Matt Farah]

What the fuck? Hey, what happened?

[Zach]

What am I doing here? Ferra. Is it a monthly column?

[Matt Farah]

It is if you click Farah had a Road Trip and then click my name. It should. It's like, it shouldn't. It should give you. No, it just gives you that. Read full body. Oh, there go. There it is. There it is. Jesus. That thing was on the front page all weekend, but then they buried it.

[Zach]

They don't want people to know, man.

[Matt Farah]

Enough out of you. So, anyway, I wrote the piece that we were debating about. You can go read it at Road and Track. I also put the dino tasting piece is up on the web. It's from the print magazine this month.

[Zach]

I have not read that. Truly and I.

[Matt Farah]

The dino tasting piece. Yeah. Well, we can talk about it now. Do you want to read it first?

[Zach]

I'll read it first. I'll get some context for myself, you and I. Otherwise, I'm listening to our.

[Matt Farah]

You and I consume content in such different ways. You watch videos that are made by our friends. Like, I don't really watch, and it's like, it's not. Cause I don't like our friends. Like, we joke about this. Like, it's just that, like, you know, some people that we know who make good videos, you know, they put a lot of time into the shots and the narrative and whatever and the dramatic buildup and like, dude, if I. If I want to know what Henry Catchpole thinks about a car, like, I'll text him. And that sounds snobby, but, like, it's just. It's just the way to get the information that I want out of my friend, if I have one. Right. Whatever. Fine. But you consume the information.

[Zach]

Well, sometimes. I mean, in those cases, a lot of times I'm doing it to see what our competition colleagues are doing stylistically and often recognizing that we can't do that because they have a team of six or whatever it is. So I'm doing a little bit of that. And also occasionally, I don't think I watch that many car reviews anymore. It's very specifically chosen once every few months, but I watch a lot of other random content.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah, I guess you watch when our friends make content about their own cars and things like that. Yeah, that's true. But yeah, it was an interesting test, the Dino tasting. I'm a little disappointed they didn't use my title, Dino Tasting. I thought that was a pretty good fucking clever title. I titled the fucking Word document that

[Zach]

I thought, oh, yeah, but they want. I mean, they need to be very obvious.

[Matt Farah]

It's behind the paywall right now. Sorry. Because the print magazine just came out. That's sort of how they do it. You can get the print if you're a member. I don't know how much it costs. I'm sorry. But if you're a member, you can get the print magazine stories on the web the month before they come out. So anyway. But fuck it, it's on newsstand, so I can talk about it. There is A spread. But if you look at all the curves, all the different dynos that we used essentially measured the same curve, just the numbers were a little higher and a little lower. And we learned. One of the dyno guys gave me the same run, the same pull. We did a poll and then he gave me four sheets that showed four different numbers. And he's like, you can use four different weather correction factors and output four completely different numbers on the same poll. And a trained eye would be able to tell you maybe which one they were using. But on the printout, the printout that everyone wants to take, that they then show their friends, like, there's almost no way to tell from the printout, which so like there's effectively multiple ways for you to have a dyno operator output you an incredibly favorable looking result.

[Zach]

Sure.

[Matt Farah]

If you using what are called weather correction factors. And like weather correction factors are very useful. They're not like for cheating on dyno. Like they're essentially so that if you go, you know, a dyno is useful so that if you're going to install some parts or do a main modification to your car and you want to know, is this going to improve my performance? Or if someone is doing the same thing with an ECU tune, you lay down a baseline pole, record it, do your mods, and then you run it again and then you go, oh, I gained 50 horsepower, great. Or maybe I didn't, or maybe I lost some in the case of Jason Camisa and his cams in his BMW E30. And so that's what it's really useful for. But a weather correction factor is like, what if I do my baseline pull and it's 85 degrees and humid and then it takes me like it's in the summer. And then it takes me like three months to do my build and now it's December and I'm doing the same shop, but it's like real cold. So you can adjust and normalize your numbers to a hypothetical optimized number. Which is the most common one is the SAE weather correction factor, which essentially optimize, which essentially, if you don't have a California day, makes you a California day. That's like basic. Actually. Dyno testing in the spring in Southern California is remarkably similar to the SAE weather correction factor, which doesn't. Which you can tell. It's like the temperature, the humidity, like

[Zach]

60 degrees, not too humid.

[Matt Farah]

It's a specifically ambient thing.

[Zach]

Sea level.

[Matt Farah]

Correct. But there's a bunch of other factors you could Use, you know, this guy gave me four dyno sheets. It was 100 horsepower spread, right?

[Zach]

Wow.

[Matt Farah]

Like on one car, like on the same car, same pull. Like you can make a dyno sheet say almost anything.

[Zach]

It's wild.

[Matt Farah]

If your goal is to.

[Zach]

So if you were a bad actor in this space, we'll say, and like, if you're a dyno shop that offers tuning services, your tuner could, let's just say they do legitimate tuning and the graph looks good, but then they want to be like, hey, our shop is the best tuner in town. And you just fudge with the weather correction. And so you guys are always making 30 horsepower over John's shop down the street.

[Matt Farah]

Well, it moves all the numbers and curves together. So I think, I mean, you'd have to be like, you'd have to be a piece of shit who also has exclusively dumb customers. Because while not every customer knows that dinos read differently and that it's only a before and after on the same dyno, that really means anything. While not everybody knows that, like a decent number of people do know that. And you couldn't run a business, you know, not for very long based on trying to get everybody on this. It wouldn't work. So I think most of the, conversely, like most of the dyno shop owners were pretty aware of where their dyno would output compared to the other dynos. Nobody was trying to make excuses. I'm just like, yeah, this one reads a little higher, this one reads a little lower. And they did, and they did. But the curves really, for the most part all looked the same. And there might be reasons you want to use one type of dyno versus another. Apparently a lot of modern cars will only work on the all wheel drive dynos. And the only all wheel drive dyno I used was the World Motorsports one down in Torrance. The winter tunnel dyno that we tune my car on. As it turns out, that's the quote. Optimistic dyno. It does read a little bit on the higher side.

[Zach]

Will the modern cars only work there because the front rollers need to be spinning because of speed sensor stuff?

[Matt Farah]

Yes, Matched speed sensors and I don't have a way of knowing. Folks, taking a break from the action today because this episode is brought to you by fitbod. Dude, there are so many ridiculous fitness influencers on Instagram who are trying to sell you less for more, right? They've got a system and it's like a multi level marketing thing and it's like manosphere adjacent. It's all bad stuff. But fitbod combines workout planning, tracking, you need to stay consistent, a whole bunch of helpful tips and demonstrations to help you make more progress, right? Like when I'm working out, I cannot work out without professional help. Whether that's a trainer, physical therapy, I can do cardio, I can do a couple basic things, but I need my workouts adapted to my brokenness, my fitness journey. And so when you have something like fitbod, right, it makes working out an easy process. It's like having a personal trainer in your pocket because it customizes workouts based on your goals, whether that's targeting a muscle group, having better recovery, weight loss, better energy, etc. And it shows you how you're working your way through that process, right? You can learn new exercises and techniques from fitbot. There's all these demonstration videos and it would help you get to a goal with a sort of step by step process. It's super, super easy. And now when I'm working out with weights, I used to not like weights anymore. I realize that now when I work out with weights, I have to like start light and get heavier. And four days a week, the key to my workouts is getting to the next one. So I don't push super weight. I just try to like, I work out today, I get sweaty, I get tired and I make it to tomorrow. So it's super important to have a coach like fitbod because they create a personalized workout routine based on your goals. Those workouts adapt to your growth. Fitbod tracks your muscle recovery so you can avoid burnout and keep up your momentum. And all these workouts are fine tuned by experienced, certified personal personal trainers bringing out best practices and bringing their exercise science to you. And you can level up those workouts with customized fitness plans with again, over 1,000 demonstration videos. So level up your workout. Join Fitbod today to get your personalized workout plan. Get 25% off your subscription or try the app for free for seven days at fitbod. Me Tire that's F I T B O D Metire and oh boy. In my 44th year on this planet, BlueChew has supported our podcast. That's right, the future of erectile function is here. Bluechew gold is changing the way millions of men are having sex in 2026. That's right. The new arousal boosting formula combines passion and performance into one tablet that dissolves under your tongue for super fast onset. No more waiting for a pill to kick in no more moments ruined by performance anxiety. The you want when you want them. Because most ED meds only focus on blood flow, Bluechew Gold goes further by combining two ingredients for blood flow with two for mental arousal and connection. So you're not just physically ready, you're actually in the mood. This type of innovation is why bluechew Gold is the number one brand in erectile dysfunction. The process is simple and all online. Get started [e-mail] and go for gold. And then it says to riff on these thought starters. But to be honest with you, Bluechew hasn't sent me any product. Get on it. Bluechew. I'm going to need to get some bluechew. I'm going to need to discover my [e-mail] this reed came out of nowhere this week. I was not prepared. With product in hand, I can't tell you about my boners. So we've got a special deal for our listeners right now. When you get two months of BlueChew Gold, you get the third for free with promo code tire. That's promo code tire. Go to bluechew.com for for more details, important safety information, and thank you for Bluechew for sponsoring the podcast, but for God's sakes, man, get me some bluechew Gold over here. We need to endorse this product accurately. And now back to the show. I don't know if it just reads higher because it reads higher. I don't know if it reads higher because it's got the wind tunnel and somehow the combination of the. Because all three of the other dynos just had, like, little fans blowing at the radiator. This one has 87 miles an hour of wind over the entire car. I don't know how that affects the car, like what percentage that changes. I'm sure it's something, but I don't know how much. So anyway, that one reads a little higher, other one reads a little lower. It's kind of an interesting thing. Most people don't go through the trouble of testing 4 dynos. Pretty cool in one car. So it's interesting to see what the spread is like and what the owners and operators of those dynos have to say about.

[Zach]

Yeah, I think it's a good article.

[Matt Farah]

It was fun. Yeah. You should, I mean, read it and tell me what you think.

[Zach]

I'll read it. I think it's a cool concept that you did it.

[Matt Farah]

It was a good idea. Yeah. And the dark horse that we used didn't I really need to sign in with my fucking membership. I believe this image here, Zach, is all of the Dino lines put onto one graph.

[Zach]

Oh. From all. Because you used one car, four places.

[Matt Farah]

That's one car at four shops. And they're all on one graph.

[Zach]

Nice.

[Matt Farah]

Okay, so that, you know, they all showed, you know, pretty similar power curves. Not exactly the same, but there is a little bit of a spread, you know, about 10% in how they read.

[Zach]

And three of them are really close together. You know, it's just the red. Whatever this red line is that's like significantly jumped up from the others.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah.

[Zach]

Wow. Yeah.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah.

[Zach]

Rad.

[Matt Farah]

Pretty cool. Cool article. Good story. And the dark horse did perform well. One of the guys, one of the guys who owned one of the dynos, absolutely insisted that we get an American car with a manual transmission. And he's just like, it's just gonna be way less headaches. So he's like, any other car that's above that, you start having more and more. Because original, we were actually gonna get the BMW M2Cs, which we'll pivot to in a minute. And he's like, the automatic gearboxes, you gotta have the all wheel drive. It won't work on any of the rear wheel drive ones. Whoa. Yeah. Okay, so interesting stuff.

[Zach]

Yeah.

[Matt Farah]

Funky. Yeah. So the M2Cs CS usually means it's the best we can do in BMW speak. Modern BMW speak. Right. I mean, that's the M5C.

[Zach]

It's always the top of the performance line, the M3Cs.

[Matt Farah]

Right. I didn't put a better picture of it on Instagram because we actually have a video coming. You can see the camera gear. Ready? Because we were at Willow Springs ripping it. So Zach and I both drove this thing a bunch. It's got quite a bit more power. 536 horsepower. 32, 36.

[Zach]

I think it's. I think it's 523.

[Matt Farah]

523.

[Zach]

And it's only like driven too many horsepower more than the regular M2. I think it's not a lot.

[Matt Farah]

It's not a ton more horsepower. But what it is is 523. 523.

[Zach]

479 pound feet.

[Matt Farah]

Thank you. Sorry, what? It seems like it is.

[Zach]

Oh, my bad. 50 more horsepower than the regular 20, 25 M2.

[Matt Farah]

It has the M3 engine.

[Zach]

Yeah.

[Matt Farah]

Like, that's what it gets. It's the M3 engine. But the last M2 I drove was a manual performance car of the year. And if you turn off traction control in that car, it would spin the tires in fourth as a six speed manual. And it was crazy. But it was very nice to slide. And when it broke traction, it did so in what I would say is a nice way. That car, to me, the manual gearbox M2 of this generation is like really a proper hooligan type car. So I sort of thought that this would somehow be even better. So like things that are better. It looks very nice. I think it looks very nice.

[Zach]

It looked for what they've done with this design in general, I do think it's a good looking car. Profile is great.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah.

[Zach]

The paint color is great. The wheel choice wheels look awesome. And the lip spoiler on the back is pretty rad.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah.

[Zach]

Yeah. Pretty good looking.

[Matt Farah]

It's a carbon trunk.

[Zach]

It's a proper carbon trunk.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah. When I parked it at Good Vibes next to a regular M2, it looks way better. The whole front end of the car is way better than a regular M2 in my opinion. Other things that are good, the dampers. Oh, yes. The same great shit that made fucking Chris Harris and Jethro and all these guys shit themselves with glee about the old M5Cs. This has that. This has those. It handles like bumps and stuff like that one did.

[Zach]

Yeah. On the highway was. It was fantastic how like comfortable it was on the highway. I remember when we drove up, I said, I wish this is how a new GT3 felt.

[Matt Farah]

Right.

[Zach]

Because. And then in the canyons and also at the track, like, it was absolutely tight enough. Lockdown. Had some things we'll talk about in a minute. But the ride comfort was there and the sportiness was there. And it was a really good breath of like softness for these shocks.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah. Like, the spread of comfort to Sport plus is a pretty good spread. But when you dial it down to comfort, it's not sloppy. It's still nice in comfort. And in fact, I think Sport plus was maybe a little too much. But on the track, I think I was in sport.

[Zach]

Yeah, we were in sport most of the time. We tried Sport Plus. What this did that the MC20 GT2 Stradale did not do is that in comfort mode. Rode softly, but it pulled all the damper out. And that's what a lot of them do. People like the shock is not doing anything. You're just basically riding on spring is what it feels like. So there's more movement in the car, but it will. The tires and wheels are more pliable.

[Matt Farah]

Think 2015 C63 like AMG cars from 2005 to 2016. You know, 20, 16, 17.

[Zach]

Yeah, you just, you lose some of the control over the chassis. But the exchange is that the car rides really nicely over for certain kinds of bumps. This, they don't take all the damper out of it, so it's a really nice balance of responsiveness to bumps and potholes without feeling like the thing is just all the springs are cranked up and the dampers have been removed.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah, and this has the ceramic brakes. They're optional. They're like nine grand, which makes this $108,000 car. But they are very good. I mean, no shit they're good. Okay, so after that, is there anything else about this car that you absolutely love? Guys taking a break from the action because support is coming in fast. Like Jim Farley, the CEO of Ford who's now got a podcast. And you're always asking me what I'm listening to when not recording this show. And right now it's this, the new season of Drive with Jim Farley in. And the Ford CEO talks to some of his favorite people about what they're driving and what drives them to succeed. Like Formula one driver Daniel Ricardo. Listen, there's a well worn trope about racing drivers not being interesting to listen to, but if there is one that is interesting to listen to, it is Daniel Ricardo. I think this guy's takes on stuff and life are great. And look, Jim is a racing driver also. I personally raced against him like two months ago. And for me, a CEO that drives race cars on the weekends is about the pinnacle of CEO dom when it comes to car companies. So the two of them together obviously have a lot of things to discuss on Drive with Jim Farley, which you can get on your podcast app. Very easy to find Drive with Jim Farley. Check it out.

[Zach]

I mean, transmission's pretty good. It seems like the same as the other one. You know, it's eight speed fine.

[Matt Farah]

The transmission to me gets the job done, but not in a way that excites me.

[Zach]

Very true. And that's true of any good ZF8 speed. They've gotten it to a point where I feel like if you're braking really hard into a corner, you're not using the engine to decel anyway. And the transmission will meet you when it's time to roll back onto throttle. But sometimes the downshifts are just like slower than I want them to be. Whereas a DCT is like, you know, snap, a snap, a snap, and it's right there.

[Matt Farah]

Counterpoint. The vantage S we just had was as close as I could imagine it getting. It's not a D, but it's like a real.

[Zach]

It's real good.

[Matt Farah]

It's real snappy. But gearbox not inspiring. And then I sort of. I couldn't get. Now maybe I suck at driving possible. And you had go on the track as well as on the street. Now let me just start with the street. I thought on the crest this thing fucking ripped. I thought it was great. I left the stability control shit on. I left the shocks in comfort and let put the powertrain in kill. And I thought it was a great, great canyon car. I still hate the seats. I'm always gonna hate these seats. But at least in this car. What was the last car I drove with these seats? I can't remember if it was the M3 or the M8. But the last car I drove with these fucking seats. The seats didn't quite face straight at the pedals. And so I had to like offset my feet to the right. Which this bucket thing then left like a bruise in my thigh. So at least the pedals were right in front. But getting in and out of this thing was brutal.

[Zach]

Yeah, it's annoying tough. I mean, once you're there, look, it's the cs. So.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah.

[Zach]

I mean, in the canyons, like it holds you in place. And then your arms are just free to do what they want. Like my car or other cars we've driven. We have that, the F80 we rented for that video. Like you have to hold yourself in place a little. Sure. So this is a race bucket. But getting these seats in a car, that's not going to be tracked.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah. Going to the grocery store is real stupid.

[Zach]

Really, really silly.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah. The seats, like, you know, I don't know if you can get this car without those seats. But that would be really delightful. If BMW like whatever their special wishes program is, does it. That would be kick ass. So don't love the seats. But okay. And the Canyons absolutely love this car. But I can't. Other than the dampers and the ceramic brakes. I can't really say that it was $30,000 better than an M2. And in fact, if you throw in the fact that the regular one comes in a manual. To me, that may make it the better street car.

[Zach]

Yeah.

[Matt Farah]

Especially if we're talking about money being real. And we're not playing car journalist fantasy camp.

[Zach]

$30,000 super real money is a real money. And it's. And it's 50% higher than the regular one. Yeah, nearly. Right.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah.

[Zach]

So, you know, we drove that light Blue manual car. That was when it launched. Like we did a video on that and go watch it. And for that money, that is a very good, very capable fast car. Takes over where the M3 has kind of abandoned because it's a four door now. There wasn't a ton I didn't like about that. That wasn't just subjective aesthetics. Like, like even the screen, it's annoying. There's all these icons, all that stuff.

[Matt Farah]

Like some Windows 95, it looks terrible.

[Zach]

It looks brutal. I mean Hyundai takes the cake on difficulty in adjusting things, but different.

[Matt Farah]

So Hyundai has menus within menus and menus that lead back to menus. And like the maze of menus is Hyundai's problem. This shit is just an endless grid of same looking icons.

[Zach]

Very true. Yeah, there's no like color coordination. Think of what you like about cars when you go, oh look, all the app icons are different because that's how apps work. Not this. This is just a bunch of blue folders that all look the same.

[Matt Farah]

This might as well be taxes 2024 PDF. You know, dad's, dad's whatever resume PDF, Brian's homework PDF. And it's just white fucking boxes of bleh.

[Zach]

That's very, very true.

[Matt Farah]

It's like that.

[Zach]

And maybe now I didn't mess with this car long enough. Maybe there's a way to do like shortcuts and things like your most frequented folders. I'm sure there is. But that aside, regular M2 is a very good capable car.

[Matt Farah]

With the CS and the regular 2, it's the same.

[Zach]

So this 30 grand more. I mean, yes, you get a quote M3 engine, but I mean some of the value people put on that is like the mystique of it. And it's a real M engine. The regular engine is so strong anyway, like I kind of don't care. It makes tons of power. You can mod it to tons of power. The manual is fine. The big thing was after we drove this on the track, I was like, I don't know what you really get for the money. And in fact we didn't even talk about that.

[Matt Farah]

This is the first time you, the first time you even say track. So we also, we actually take advantage of the corporate Willow Springs membership here, took it to the track, had a lovely day. Fucking Willow to yourself. This is wild. The tits as it were. And they've got candy in there. It's crazy. And we spent a day at the track with this car and it, I don't know, I mean I just raced one of these things like a BMW that's shaped kind of like this for hours. And we did pretty good. I like to think that I'm capable of driving this car in a decent way. Every corner really. When I started to push this car and started to go quick, it pushed all the way to the apex of every corner. And then as soon as I started to get back on, the gas just switched from push to snap oversteer. And if you left the traction control fully on, it wouldn't do that. But if you turn the traction control off, that was its natural tendency. When I had the M2 at performance car of the year, if you turn the traction control off, off, when you stood on the brakes and turned into the corner, it would rotate the back out under braking. This car doesn't do that. Now that could be because it has cup twos and the suspension setup just gives you that much more grip that its natural intent is not to slide, but instead its natural intent is to push a little bit, which once. So once you start to feed in throttle coming out of the corner, it then takes very little throttle to overwhelm the rear tires and transition from a push to a big snap. Which I did over and over and over in the video. And again, if you leave the traction control on, okay, that's fine. I'm not anti traction control if you want traction control. But if you leave it on and you tried the multi stage, there was level four, level five where there was a pretty big drop off in stability. And I thought even all the way down to like 2 or I forget is high, whatever.

[Zach]

The second it was from 0 to 10 and like either 0 or 10 was off, I forget. And I kind of explored three or four of them.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah, even the last one was like pulling more power than I wanted. And so I don't know, I never found a balanced way through a corner. I never found a way to really initiate a slide on entry. It took me two. Considering I shot the fucking Valhalla video like three days before I shot the BMW video, you'd think like same guy.

[Zach]

Well, MC20, we were there the week before and you did really nice slides on the same tires.

[Matt Farah]

Right.

[Zach]

There were Pilot Sport Cup 2s on that car obviously mid engine versus front engine. But for most people a front engine car is the easier one to fly.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah, front engine, rear drive, 500 horsepower car.

[Zach]

Do pilot Sport Cup 2s, because I have not. I don't have that much experience on them. Do they normally snap like, you know, PS4s are known for being really progressive, as are a lot of other like street sport tires.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah.

[Zach]

But once you get up to like cup race tire, they're not.

[Matt Farah]

It's snappy, but still it shouldn't push like that at the front and then transition to snap. It's weird.

[Zach]

And I agree. I mean, I went out there and it just. I mean, the steering's numb. That's a BMW problem. Has been for a long time. Steering wheel's too thick. Don't know why, but that means you don't get dialogue with the front tires. So you're coming in the corner and you have to like listen or it's really hard to notice that you've lost the front a little bit. And then, yeah, you start to just lean on the throttle and you feel it lean, lean, lean, and then just kicks out. It's very weird.

[Matt Farah]

I just remembered. I'll tell you what compounded this, was that that in the six speed with the B58, the regular M2 is B58, right? Yeah. With the six speed, with that engine, the torque curve and the gearing are matched really nicely. Same as the manual transmission supra, actually. Whereas now you have with the 8 speed auto, if you want to do slides, second gear is too short and third gear is too long. And so I found myself like in between these gears a lot in terms of pace. There's kind of a big gap there. Not in terms of like the gear ratio, just in terms of whether going through these sort of these corners, whether you're like in or out of boost, it's like a pretty sharp spike of boost in this particular engine.

[Zach]

Sorry. The engine in the regular M2 is the S58.

[Matt Farah]

Oh, okay. What is it in this one?

[Zach]

It's an evolution of the B58. The code in this.

[Matt Farah]

Sorry.

[Zach]

That's okay.

[Matt Farah]

I don't know my BMW engine codes. That makes me not credible in this scenario. Same when Zach does this thing with his eyes. I know something

[Zach]

I don't know.

[Matt Farah]

So. So anyway, it's. If you are a huge BMW nerd, I totally get wanting to have this thing. Especially if your spine can handle the seats. And the dampers are fucking awesome. They really are. Like, the tuning of the shocks is great. The tuning of the brakes is really good. And we had a, you know, it was a very hot day. High 90s, I think we was out there at Willow. It wasn't super hot.

[Zach]

It was really hot.

[Matt Farah]

And the car behaved itself just fine. Although after a while you could smell it dumping fuel into the cylinder head to like Cool itself.

[Zach]

Yes you could.

[Matt Farah]

But it did behave. It had absolutely no issues ripping around a very hot racetrack. We do have a video. It will be coming out soon and I didn't not like it. I just like for the extra money I thought it would be a lot more fun on the track than the regular M2 and I don't think it was. In fact I think it maybe was a little less fun fun. Which is a. Kind of a bummer.

[Zach]

Yeah. It would be interesting to see what the lap time would be between the two of them on a track that doesn't reward huge power because 50 horsepower is a lot. So like on streets you probably make up some time on the straightaways. But if it was just a pure like handling track, I wonder what the difference would be with these sophisticated dampers. And mostly if you turn traction off on both of them, which one's actually easier to manage and would that ease result in a quicker lap time or is the grip level really similar other than the tires? I don't know. I was kind of. I was shocked and disappointed because I thought this was the one. And with the old M2Cs, that was the one because it had the adaptive dampers. But now.

[Matt Farah]

But you could also get in a manual.

[Zach]

You could get in a manual.

[Matt Farah]

You could get a CS and a manual. Last gen. And it was so pretty. Remember how pretty it was?

[Zach]

Blue and gold. Oh all day. All day.

[Matt Farah]

Blue and white gold. It was fine.

[Zach]

It was also 100 grand, wasn't it?

[Matt Farah]

92. 93 with ceramics.

[Zach]

Yeah.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah. That was the first one to crack down.

[Zach]

90. Yeah.

[Matt Farah]

That thing is pretty though.

[Zach]

Holding value.

[Matt Farah]

Well I think for sure with a stick. Of course it is. Of course it is. It would be criminal for a car like that to not hold value. That was a no brainer. I said in the video we drove that thing. I went this is a. This is an extremely obvious buy in. Sure.

[Zach]

Cuz it looks good and it's fast and it has all the pieces. Cuz the new M2 comes with the regular one. You can get a manual. You can get it with adaptive dampers. Yeah. But it doesn't have the styling of the old one.

[Matt Farah]

Right.

[Zach]

And yeah, yeah.

[Matt Farah]

So that's the. That's the M2Cs I spent today. You know what I spent today doing? I spent the day doing a lap around Los Angeles to visit my car. So I didn't post any photos yet. They're actually, they're. I'm waiting to. I'm doing a little content strategy. No, I'm Not. But I went to visit the Countach at Franco's European sports cars. Damien was there, and the boys. And the good news is. Yeah, the good news is I have an assembled rear suspension, minus a dash damper. Excuse me, Dampers. Because the Countach, if you recall, has six shock absorbers.

[Zach]

Two in the corners, double rears.

[Matt Farah]

Double rears. And then one in the front. And those six shock absorbers took a little of vacaziones to South Florida to be rebuilt.

[Zach]

Oh, okay.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah. Fortunately, they were present. They weren't lost, which is good. Cause they could be a bitch to fucking replace. But they definitely were shot. And so they've gone to be rebuilt. They'll be back in a couple weeks.

[Zach]

Not the first old Italian to go there to get some work done.

[Matt Farah]

In this photo, you can see the rear hub, which has been refinished and rebuilt. So all re. Greased. Good to know. So they were doing the front hubs and Damien's tool, the thing that he uses to remove the bearing from inside the hub, it's a very specific tool. He says the tool is, quote, older than he is. My hub sheared it, so he has to have another tool made. Whoa. So we're a little bit stalled. Yeah. You can see this is the rear, but if you're looking at the photo, you can see in the center, in the inside there, that little bit. There's a tool that removes those, so.

[Zach]

And your Lambo thing broke it.

[Matt Farah]

Well, we have. Three out of four are good to go, but we're on a holding pattern for the fourth. So hopefully the tool comes back around the same time the shocks do. Wow. Yeah. Yeah. So the good news is my bill was much, much smaller this month.

[Zach]

That's good.

[Matt Farah]

That's good.

[Zach]

These end links look so nice. Dude, these are such. This color, it's like a bronze ish color on these end L links. It's rad.

[Matt Farah]

Every bit of that is brand new. All of those hardware, all that is brand new. It's just the. The hub is the only thing that's. That's left from before.

[Zach]

Wow.

[Matt Farah]

So that's cool. Very cool.

[Zach]

So some.

[Matt Farah]

We have some things. There are. There are, in fact, look at the

[Zach]

frame of the subframe of this car. So it's just tubes. I mean, it's just. Which is cool, this race car.

[Matt Farah]

It is.

[Zach]

It's just so different from today's, you know, supercars. You'll eat carbon or, you know, pressed aluminum. And this is just. Just too.

[Matt Farah]

It's just tubes handling crane with speed holes in, like, the fucking weird plates. Yeah, it's great. So then I went to go see Mr. Shont over at CMS Motorsports to talk about our powertrain plans, but also to get a look at this photo's from the other day. But now all the fenders are on the car and they've been blended.

[Zach]

Whoa. Yeah.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah. So this dude is hand. We. They're hand making the steel fenders.

[Zach]

So they do like English wheel style or whatever.

[Matt Farah]

Wow. Yeah. I mean, it's. I don't think it's necessarily wheel. They have. They bought an E500 donor car and they're. They took a mold off of the. The car. I mean, not even like a mold. They literally. He molded this one off of that car, so it's like. It's just molded off of an E500. I don't think he has to English wheel it.

[Zach]

Okay.

[Matt Farah]

It's just because it's a relatively small part. But he was hand. Like he was tacking and fucking blending it in so it's gonna look exactly like an E500. Like, it's pretty. It's pretty sick.

[Zach]

Super cool.

[Matt Farah]

So I ordered the fabric.

[Zach]

Dude.

[Matt Farah]

It went on sale.

[Zach]

Hey.

[Matt Farah]

The fabric I wanted went on sale in between when I was looking and now.

[Zach]

How did that happen?

[Matt Farah]

I don't know, but it's half price. Lucky me.

[Zach]

Me.

[Matt Farah]

What. I mean, it wasn't like that expensive anyway.

[Zach]

Yeah.

[Matt Farah]

But it went from $62 a yard to like 26. Score.

[Zach]

Yeah.

[Matt Farah]

So I got myself six yards. I think I should only need like four, but, you know.

[Zach]

Yeah, I. I bought weight. I bought 10 yards for my car, and I have 5 yards left over. Yeah, it's too much.

[Matt Farah]

So. So I'm going to do. I'm gonna do six. Should be enough because I'm just doing front seats, back seats, and door cards.

[Zach]

Okay. Yeah. Six should be just right on.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah.

[Zach]

Yeah.

[Matt Farah]

Just. Yeah. For Just inserts.

[Zach]

And you can always. Where's it from? Where'd they send it from?

[Matt Farah]

It's from modern fabrics. It's from the same place I got the fox body from.

[Zach]

So it's easy to get more is what I'm saying. It's not.

[Matt Farah]

I could get more. No, I could get more. I don't know what country it's in, but I could get more. I don't know where it's coming from, but. But I. I could get more. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So it's that.

[Zach]

This is gonna look rad. I can't believe it's happening so quick. Quickly.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah. And the powertrain we bought a 2002 E55 donor car for $6,000.

[Zach]

Wow. Yeah, it looks fucked up, but the engines works. Crashed great.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah.

[Zach]

Yeah.

[Matt Farah]

Cool.

[Zach]

Use all parts of the Buffalo.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah.

[Zach]

Dude, that's rad.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah. So it's gonna be. It's gonna be really interesting thing.

[Zach]

Top down, glug, glug.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah, I think. What did Sean say? Super Sprint makes the exhaust. He has an E. He has an actual E500 with a Super Sprint exhaust on it. Sound nice? And we were originally talking about getting those crazy Ricaro seats with, like, all the buttons and they are so expensive.

[Zach]

20, 20 GS?

[Matt Farah]

No, no, no, no. But they're like. But they're like 3500 side.

[Zach]

Okay. So you end up with. Yeah, that's a lot.

[Matt Farah]

That's a lot. Yeah. No, no, no. That's a no. But there's a seat rebuild kit from Mercedes that Sean says we should just get him on the show freaking next week. But he says basically they can turn my old tired seats with the rebuild kit into factory looking and feeling new E500 seats using the same frames.

[Zach]

All right.

[Matt Farah]

So like, he and I sat and hit because I was like, look, my back. The reason I can't drive old cars without putting brand new seats in them is that my back is fucked up. We need to do this. So he goes, okay, go sit in my wife's car, whatever it was. And I was like, oh, this is good. It has like, thigh bolstering and like. And like all this. I was like, can you. You can make this out of my seats? And he's like, yeah. And it's cheaper than getting the other seats. Perfect. Great. Perfect. Great.

[Zach]

Cool.

[Matt Farah]

So we have to choose exactly what we're gonna do. The dash insert because we're pulling out the wood grain.

[Zach]

Yeah.

[Matt Farah]

No go. We're also doing a full chrome delete.

[Zach]

I wonder if you can get some sort of mother of pearl panel. It would be.

[Matt Farah]

Probably be fake and it would be trashy.

[Zach]

Maybe looks pretty good.

[Matt Farah]

That would get into, like, Japanese vip. That could be cool. It would be fake, though.

[Zach]

Yeah.

[Matt Farah]

Is the problem. We were just gonna do aluminum. We just thought just keep that because there's already crazy pattern that's, like, in the seat.

[Zach]

That's true. You don't want to clash patterns.

[Matt Farah]

You don't need to go nuts on the pattern. And so we're just gonna do just the aluminum. The brush, like the brushed one, which I think will work.

[Zach]

It'll work. Especially if your wheels are aluminum.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah, the wheels we're gonna do silver, you know, but like I want like, like it's got. I want it to look like bright, like liquid. Like liquid. You know what I mean? Like icy fucking bright. But not, not chrome. You know what I mean though?

[Zach]

Yeah.

[Matt Farah]

Where they put that clear on it, where it gets that real ap, they

[Zach]

have like, they have a brushed silver and then they have whatever the other one's called where it's got a thick layer of clear coat on it and it's incredibly bright and shiny without being chromed. Reflective.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah. Because the, because the wheels, they're 17s. 17 and 18s. We're not even. We're not even doing it. We're using the exact size of a factory E500 wheel. Like just like Mercedes would have done. It looks like a monoblock, the HRE. But, but we gotta do it in 17s to make it like look right. So because it's small, you know, you wanna do it in a bright color so it looks bigger effectively.

[Zach]

That's true.

[Matt Farah]

Especially with the red. Red with like bright clear coat. Silver is sick. That looks hot. Yeah.

[Zach]

Dude, this is rad.

[Matt Farah]

Be really fun to make the coolest fucking cruiser. But we're going to do the OE E500 suspension, which if you were getting a replacement kit today for like a factory car, it's an H and R spring and a Bilstein damper. That's just the OE replacement. So it's going to sit at the stock E500 height. And apparently the brakes that you want to get are the ones just off the R129SL like I had. They're effectively just as good, but like they're way cheaper. So those are just available. We can just get those for fucking nothing.

[Zach]

Nice.

[Matt Farah]

And then the rest of it, the complete powertrain comes out of the E55. The gearbox, the rear end, all of it.

[Zach]

So they just make it fit?

[Matt Farah]

Yeah, they rebuild it and clean it up and make it fit. But it's gonna be a five speed automatic and you know it'll be. But the M113 engine, that is the E55 engine is like smaller physically. So it was like, you know, either you'd have to fucking knock back the firewall and shit to put an actual E500 engine in there. And that's a worse engine than the E55 engine. Like you might as well just use the fucking E55.

[Zach]

Yeah, absolutely.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah.

[Zach]

The firewall work is. That was significant too. That's serious work.

[Matt Farah]

And rather than trying to figure out how to make the pedals and. And the throttle by wire worked. You just take the pedal box from the E55. You just use the complete pedal box. Apparently you just have to make like a bracket and then it just works. Cool.

[Zach]

Do they give you a time? Like is there an estimate now? Because it's.

[Matt Farah]

He wants to bring this car to fucking car week. He said that?

[Zach]

Yeah.

[Matt Farah]

I don't give a shit. He.

[Zach]

So four months.

[Matt Farah]

He said that. So. But he said the body work will be done by the middle of next week. Wow. Yeah.

[Zach]

I mean they're on it.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah.

[Zach]

This isn't like we're doing yours for a little bit and then we're doing this other car and this other car.

[Matt Farah]

He's on it.

[Zach]

Cool.

[Matt Farah]

I don't have any photos to share just right yet. But the other debate is the 80s benzos, like the pre merger shit, the wide body stuff. They did a body color grill instead of shiny grill. My car, we have to replace the grill because it's fucked up.

[Zach]

Yeah, but your car's red.

[Matt Farah]

My car's red.

[Zach]

Yeah.

[Matt Farah]

I don't think a body color grill works at all on my car. Yeah.

[Zach]

Because those cars were gray, Right? The ones you're talking about, they're like.

[Matt Farah]

Well, there are some that were red that in the 80s, it's different. And the SEC Grill, the wider grill, some of those work in red. But like, like what about that? Is that. Is that. Is there a red one? Do you see any reds?

[Zach]

Not yet. These are silver gray. These are all like dark gray hammers we're looking at for people listening.

[Matt Farah]

Did you Google red? Yeah. Add the search term red. So okay, now what do we think? I think some. I don't think it's terrible.

[Zach]

It's better than I expected. But I. I would still want to see it with at least like if

[Matt Farah]

the slats were black and black. Really?

[Zach]

No, I mean every. No, the black here in the center is where the actual radiator fins are, I think.

[Matt Farah]

What about. What about the.

[Zach]

This is bad. That's so bad.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah.

[Zach]

That's too much.

[Matt Farah]

That's what mine would look like. That's not good.

[Zach]

That's not good.

[Matt Farah]

No, we can't do that at all.

[Zach]

If you have.

[Matt Farah]

That's an 83 different shaped grill and that. And one might even say that that's too much. That's. I don't think that's great.

[Zach]

I don't. Yeah.

[Matt Farah]

Is there one. Is there one with a silver grille? Let's see. There. Just look. How about that one? The 5, the 300 CE. Yeah, look at that. So I think that's better. That's just the stock silver grille.

[Zach]

There's also different headlights. I mean, this is a different year, I think I kind of don't hate, like, if the grill surround was red, but then everything inside was black. I might like it better because it is kind of a smooth shape.

[Matt Farah]

Oh, that's kind of interesting.

[Zach]

This silver stands out, and I don't like that. It kind of goes back up the hood a bit, and it's so bright. So this might be what is too much.

[Matt Farah]

The 300C. Yeah, the one there. 300C. 3.2. What is that? So that's red surround, silver slats, inserts, we'll call it.

[Zach]

Yeah, slats. Huh.

[Matt Farah]

Huh. Tough. I don't know. Red surround with black could actually work. Is that like that? Is that red? Black.

[Zach]

Black. That's kind of red, silver, red, gray.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah. The red surround, I think, is a starting point, isn't it?

[Zach]

Yeah, it's not as bad as I thought. Like, this is body color, right?

[Matt Farah]

That's just grid. No, that's sort of silver gray. Very interesting. I'm gonna have to do some more homework on this one.

[Zach]

You know, I guess I think in the 80s and granted, like, you're making a car that. Oh, here you go.

[Matt Farah]

That. So that's different, though, because it's the wider grille.

[Zach]

It is, but it is red and black.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah.

[Zach]

Just. Just to look at how that would.

[Matt Farah]

I think that works, doesn't it?

[Zach]

I think it's better. I think it's a great compromise. I think the all red is very, like. It's gonna be awesome. No, everyone's gonna know what I am when I roll up. You know what I mean? You know what I mean? You know what I mean? It's a lot of that because you got to stand out from your. Your. Your boss who also works at the firm. But you're not coming in like that. You know, it's like, fuck it.

[Matt Farah]

Oh, go, go. So go up a little bit to that blue one. See that? So that is, if you imagine that as a convertible, that's pretty much how my car is going to look.

[Zach]

I mean, the fender flares are great.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah, that's my car as a convertible, more or less.

[Zach]

And let's try to find a shot of the grill.

[Matt Farah]

This is blue.

[Zach]

This is a terrible website.

[Matt Farah]

Blue, blue. It's broad arrow. You click up to it is clunky. Oh, yeah, those are the seats I'm not getting. So that's blue surround with a stock Insert.

[Zach]

Yeah. The stock insert looks faded. I think. I think you might get away with blacks around. With black. Yeah.

[Matt Farah]

Wow.

[Zach]

I never would have thunk it when we started.

[Matt Farah]

I wouldn't have either. But I'm on board now. But let me look how, by the way. Sold price $885,000. Dude, it's a six liter. That's why. Because it's an actual Hammer coupe. But that's in terms of the bodywork and shit like that. Picture that in red and that's exactly what my car will look like, pretty much.

[Zach]

I'm looking for. There we go. I want to see how far this hood kind of. Or sorry, the grille draws up the hood.

[Matt Farah]

Oh yeah.

[Zach]

This seems like it. Less the one we looked at that was red. It's like this huge wave of silver was crashing up the red hood. So maybe yours is smaller, like this.

[Matt Farah]

Mine is mine. What year is this one? What year is this car? 91. Mines are post facelift. Mine's a 94, so I don't know. But I think the red surroundings. Black insert could be where it's at.

[Zach]

Cool.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah. Yeah. Interesting. Good times.

[Zach]

Fun.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah, I think that'll be a really neat cruiser, you know. Fucking hell. Is that it? That's it. We're giving away a Porsche, people. Did you know that? You probably heard me say it in a sting I recorded earlier today at the beginning of the show. But we are. You can go to the link in our bio to get entered to win. You can read all the rules and regulations. Please do. You can enter from other countries besides the U.S. not every country. But there are some countries I think, including Canada that you can enter. It ends August 20th. There is a charitable component to it which does make your tickets tax deductible. Just saying. Just saying. And yeah, Ned, go use the link in our bio. Use the link in the show notes and you can win. I would like to take it to the people, to the patrons. What do you say, Clapman?

[Zach]

Let's do it.

[Matt Farah]

Let's do it.

[Zach]

Give the power to the people.

[Matt Farah]

Can you talk about what they get? I think I might pour myself a Japanese whiskey. Would you like one? It's an evening show.

[Zach]

No, I'm good.

[Matt Farah]

Are you going to the gym already today?

[Zach]

I did already, but I had wine last night and that's enough alcohol for me for. I'm. Dude, I just don't drink that much anymore. My brain does not like it.

[Matt Farah]

Okay? Mine does. Yeah.

[Zach]

I wish I was who I was five years ago. I just enjoy it it more if you are not a Patreon member. What you get are things that our crowd asked for vehemently, constantly bugged us all the time. Before we had a Patreon, they wanted the show early. They wanted the show without ads. They wanted to be able to post questions. And we were getting too many of them. So if you go to patreon.com the smokingtirepodcast you can join our amazing, friendly community of patrons. Tiers start at just three bucks. You can watch the show live there. You can get an ad free show. You can get an early show. And pro and champ tears get one extra show a month that the public will never, ever hear.

[Matt Farah]

Never, Never. They'll never hear.

[Zach]

That's where I secret.

[Matt Farah]

That's where I spill the goods.

[Zach]

That in the Epstein files.

[Matt Farah]

That's where I talk about the people I know in the Epstein files. What's that? All right, we'll go to the fucking people. Let's do it. Now that I have my Japanese whiskey, I am ready. Smells good, dude. We're like halfway through the rum.

[Zach]

Really? Yeah, you're.

[Matt Farah]

I've been. I mean, I'm not sipping it by myself. We've been people. I. I hosted. I cooked four meals for people this weekend.

[Zach]

Oh, okay.

[Matt Farah]

And I hosted and ever. I'm telling everybody there, and we're going

[Zach]

through it, you know, we need to do buy a couple cases, keep telling everybody. Like the Dino guy. Pump the market. Yeah.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah, for sure. Flipsky Ferrari Lucadora says Kenan from Cars and Bids sold his SL65 to a buyer in Dallas. It seems like the right place for it. High speeds and no curves. I gotta say, every time I've been to Dallas, all I've done is sit in traffic. But you do you. If you sold each of your cars, what's the perfect landing spot? Oh, boy. Well, that's a lot of cars and a lot of landing spots, so I'll pick a couple. If I sold my Lamborghini Countach, I would like it to stay in Los Angeles. It's a Hollywood car. Yeah, it's got the Cindy Crawford Pepsi. It's been in commercials and shit. It's been in Hollywood for a long time. I'd like it to stay in LA. Remember, I sold the DeLorean and went to Germany, and the guy was like, driving it around with the California tags in Germany and apparently getting huge cred for that.

[Zach]

That's pretty cool.

[Matt Farah]

It's dope.

[Zach]

Yeah.

[Matt Farah]

Where would you like your M3 to go if you sold it to someone? Somebody,

[Zach]

Oregon. Good Roads, no rust. I don't know. It's green. A lot of forest up there. Maybe that would work

[Matt Farah]

if I sold the Delica. I think it should go to Nantucket. I think it would be a good. A great Nantucket. Nantucket vehicle.

[Zach]

Doug would probably point at it and you could park it next to his convertible G wagon thing.

[Matt Farah]

Nantucket is all about weird vintage SUVs. That's the move there. So I think that would be good. I think the POW would be really fun in Monaco.

[Zach]

Oh, of course.

[Matt Farah]

Because it's almost like a Fiat Jolly. But I bet you in Monaco they see more Fiat Jollies than they do fucking POWs. I bet you the POW would be proper exotic in Monaco.

[Zach]

And it would work there. That's the biggest thing.

[Matt Farah]

Oh, it's working.

[Zach]

It's an exotic, practical exotic.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. The Manx would also work in Monaco.

[Zach]

It would.

[Matt Farah]

That would be fucking vibe.

[Zach]

Park in front of a casino. Be very cool.

[Matt Farah]

Wow. I mean, you do not want to drive around Monaco during Grand Prix weekend. But like that would be a baller ass move to bring your Manx to Monaco for Grand Prix weekend. My buddy.

[Zach]

Just leave it on your yacht so people can look at it.

[Matt Farah]

My buddy's in Monaco right now. Oh, it's not doing anything. Chach from my bachelor party. Shout out to Chach.

[Zach]

Oh, he's there, he's there.

[Matt Farah]

He's in Monaco right now. For his buddy is having. I forget what he was calling it, but it's effectively. It's the mirror of a bachelor party, which is a divorce party. It's a divorce party.

[Zach]

Somehow I knew. Somehow the way he looked at me,

[Matt Farah]

I was like, go for a divorce party.

[Zach]

Yeah, this is a divorce party. Of all the places to go.

[Matt Farah]

So my homie from high school, he's over there and he's sending me photos of cars. He's not sending me photos of hookers, he's sending me photos of cars. But he's like, there's a T50 parked in front of this and a Veyron and this and that. And I'm kind of like, yawn. And then finally he sends me a picture of a street parked Lancia Stratos. And I'm like, now we're talking. Yeah, that's a gorgeous car. That's the Monaco I know and love.

[Zach]

T50 is pretty cool too. No T50 taste.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah, of course it does. There's nothing wrong with that at all. But like, of course there's a T50 in Monaco. There's probably 12 T50s in Monaco. But yeah, the Manx would be good in Monaco as well. I bet they haven't seen shit like that. I had, you know, I had over was one of the people I cooked for this weekend was Max from. From. From Manx. Max from Manx. But Max is from Bespoke who makes the radial engine and he was with them before Manx acquired the company. So he's been there for a while. And they're doing like a bun other stuff. Like I sort of thought that once Manx acquired the company that it was just all about engines for cars, but still they're doing a bunch of shit. They're doing like, I don't want to accidentally speak out of turn and talk about something that I'm not supposed to, but like they've got a lot of other things they're doing with radial engines which are very fucking cool, actually.

[Zach]

Helicopters,

[Matt Farah]

aviation stuff and military stuff and all kinds of interesting things. I'm not trying to tease and then not say, but I was listening to the story he was telling about what the company was like before they got involved with Manx and how they've pivoted a little bit, but also how they've gotten some other interesting contracts and commission because it's literally a company for building weird engines. And so do you want to build, you know, a flat 12 out of three Subaru four cylinder engines, like, and that kind of thing? Like Rob Dahm would love these fucking people.

[Zach]

Oh, cool.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah, so they're doing weird engines for a variety of applications, which is pretty fucking cool. Wheat City Night Court says it's a trope with car guys to eventually get old enough that realize dailying a finicky car is untenable. And then they get a daily daily. Does the same happen in the watch world? Do guys settle down with a nice quartz or two as regular wear watches? Well, people have their own really interesting habits for watches. I don't. Unless you're talking about stuff that's either so artistic and weird and fashionable that you're like, you couldn't. You can't wear MB and F just to your day job. You'd look like a weirdo. You know, unless you're Pharrell. Like you can't just wear something like that around like $150,000 watch. Outside of shit like that, I don't know. Me and my friends are not necessarily afraid of wearing our medium to high end watches every day. That's an okay thing for the folks that I fuck with. And so we don't really have like a daily. At least that's, that's like my people. I know a lot of people. Zach. Zach has a daily. You're the fucking G. Shock is the daily. And you wear something nicer for nicer occasions.

[Zach]

For sure.

[Matt Farah]

Which is fine.

[Zach]

I just like that it's super light and I don't have to worry about it. And, and I also really like wearing it. Like I look at it and go, just comics. I really like it. So it's kind of both. But I wore, I wore my, my black watch yesterday. Wore that on the Rolex.

[Matt Farah]

Good. Yeah, good. I mean, I just. And I'm not. It's not about like being like afraid or whatever. Like it's, it's not for every occasion. But I, I do try to match my watch to my company if I'm hanging out with certain people. Like, because it does project an image.

[Zach]

Sure.

[Matt Farah]

One way or the other.

[Zach]

Sure.

[Matt Farah]

So, you know, it depends on your personal vibe, though. I don't think it's. I think it's just like how you're feeling. Feeling, you know, even if you have nice watches and if you're like your boss, like, you know, maybe you don't want to wear a watch. It's like nicer than your boss.

[Zach]

Yeah.

[Matt Farah]

But like, maybe if you have like pretty dope watches, like, maybe you and your boss like bond over that. Like, I could see that going both ways.

[Zach]

Yeah. If you don't overstep or outshine him or them.

[Matt Farah]

Right.

[Zach]

But it shows. Especially if you wear something that's like a little bit off the beaten path and shows the end of the hyper hobby. And that's how you guys can.

[Matt Farah]

That's when you get down with the micro brands, the lecturers, watches and all the weird stuff. Yeah. Obviously you're not a Golf R. That's a good one. Fabulous. Okay. I'm looking for a less than 5 year old car for long road trips and parking in la. But I really care about a quiet cabin. I basically want a Lexus LS the size of an A3. But even the luxury brands seem to have a lot of road noise at 80 miles an hour. For their smaller offerings. Current frontrunners are a Macan and a Genesis G70. Anything smaller or quieter in your experience. Now that's very interesting.

[Zach]

Very specific.

[Matt Farah]

It is very specific. Also, you can quiet your car down.

[Zach]

Down. True.

[Matt Farah]

You can take virtually any car and have a custom shop, add Dynamat, like in places that will actually make your car noticeably quieter.

[Zach]

Very true. You also can change the tires and make your car quieter because a lot of these cars, it may be the tires that they're sold with. If you look at the reviews and the decibel level is whatever, some of that could be tire noise. A lot of, a lot of the noise that comes into cars is either like the wind buffeting or wind noise from its drag and wheel well sounds. So that's some things you can address.

[Matt Farah]

So let me think. Volvo XC40 could be a good one.

[Zach]

That wasn't bad.

[Matt Farah]

That wasn't bad.

[Zach]

Drove that around. That was pretty good. I think that was quieter than the RAV4

[Matt Farah]

small.

[Zach]

I mean my recommendation because I, I just don't stay up on kind of the normal commuter cars and the decibel levels. I would go look at a Car and Driver or similar magazines like they do 10 best. Car and Driver specifically does a lot of like here are 10 commuters and we're testing all of them and they do a lot of data and they will have all of the decibel readings for 70 miles per hour and that might get you where you want to be.

[Matt Farah]

So also they mentioned an A3. I have to feel like an A3 has got to be one of the quietest cars in its class.

[Zach]

I'd hope so.

[Matt Farah]

I feel like there's also, well, there's that new Lexus that's like the size of the Prius.

[Zach]

Oh yeah, that's like the Lexus Prius.

[Matt Farah]

There's that thing.

[Zach]

Honestly, a Prius might be quiet. A Prius with Dynamat would probably be very quiet, super slippery and if you put some like softer tires on it that might be pretty, pretty Hush, hush.

[Matt Farah]

You're not. Well, you don't want a fucking, you don't want an electric car. Long road trips, I imagine you're not going to want an electric car. Gas Macan, Genesis G70 are good options like they both are. And if you optimize for tires like either of those would be, would be very nice I think. I think possibly a Volvo XC40 would be maybe worth checking out. What's the smallest Lincoln? The Nautilus.

[Zach]

Oh, it's a pretty good looking car too.

[Matt Farah]

The small Lincolns are quiet. They're fucking tuned. Tuned real quiet.

[Zach]

I would. The Corsair.

[Matt Farah]

The Corsair.

[Zach]

The small one.

[Matt Farah]

The Corsair, yeah. I would maybe check out a Lincoln. A Lincoln Corsair Air maybe. Right. P car photos. In 10 years, what car is going to be the new Altima? Clapped out paper tags, bumper hanging off, swinging down the 405 this is so easy. Model 3, Gen 1, obviously first gen model threes are already. Are already like so far on their way there.

[Zach]

Yeah. And driven like psychopaths.

[Matt Farah]

I am starting to see some really you know, for a while people like, people who bought Teslas like tended to like keep them up pretty nice. I'm starting to see the beaters. Oh for sure. They're now old enough and there's enough of them that I'm really starting to see some beat model 3s I've gotten

[Zach]

picked up in some that are real haggard and you know, they. And they. The powertrain feels fine. They still ride like garbage, but they are trashed inside.

[Matt Farah]

They look like a. With blown out dampers.

[Zach]

Is a stain season.

[Matt Farah]

Oh boy. Don't rob me. Says fuel crisis. I read the first sentence in my head and I was like I better read the second half of this before I just read it out loud. This motherfucker will read anything we write. Even though Zach does pre read. Zach would probably keep me from reading anything too terrible.

[Zach]

Yeah, I did look at these.

[Matt Farah]

Okay. Fuel crisis and spikes have brought us Japanese Econo boxes, the right turn on red and high price hybrids. But also reduced speed limits by the way. Also fucking twin turbocharging and a bunch of technologies that now deliver 1,000 horsepower pretty easily.

[Zach]

Right. The second part of this question basically leads to where you are.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah. What is a positive that the current fuel price spike could bring about and something you hope it doesn't? A positive is people might decide EVs are a pretty good idea after all.

[Zach]

That's true.

[Matt Farah]

Look, EVs. I have been pretty well convinced that EVs in general are a good idea. And so our government's decision to effectively abandon all support for EVs is fucking insane. It's just backwards science. It's like climate denialism. It's like we had already agreed on this motherfucker. You know what I mean? It was like. And I don't mean mean that Biden's 2030 ban on internal combustion cars was realistic. That wasn't either. But I'm talking about the funding to build the infrastructure network that will help us get to more EV adoption. The thing we need to get to the place, whatever. Anyway, I think if the price stays where it's at or continues to go up, I think people will consider new EVs as well as used EVs for their next car and maybe hopefully they'll consider a downsize in some way, shape or form in terms of the physical size and displacement and fuel Economy of their vehicle.

[Zach]

That would be amazing and miraculous, I think. Look, direct injection is one of the most amazing and powerful automotive technologies of, like, the last 20 years. And it came about because of mandates, both from the public and from the government of saying, hey, we need cars to be more efficient in a bunch of ways. So they said, okay, how do we do that? How do we get. How do we burn the fuel more completely? And the result of that is all the crazy horsepower we have mixed with

[Matt Farah]

turbocharging and mixed with vastly improved efficiency, if that's the goal as well.

[Zach]

I mean, you know, because they came, they went at it with like, we need to burn more of the fuel more completely. They did that. But then you also get more power.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah.

[Zach]

So maybe we'll gale banks method. Yeah, it is, right?

[Matt Farah]

Yes.

[Zach]

Don't stop sending all the horsepower out the exhaust pipe with the smokestack. So maybe we'll get more power from smaller engines. But I also think it'd be great if people rethought how they consume gasoline. And for people yelling like, the grid that can't handle it, the grid can respond. If the market demands the grid respond.

[Matt Farah]

I thought about the fact that I took the Spider out on Friday and I went to the car meet up the hill, and I had a lovely drive by myself, and I filled up my Spider with $6.99 a gallon gas. And I went, I'm about to burn this off for fun. And I was like, I'm very fortunate. And even if gas gets pretty expensive, you know, I'm in the car business. Like, gas isn't, you know, gonna affect our bottom line. I realize it's not the same for a lot of people, but I did it for perhaps the first time ever. I was like, huh, huh. I'm about to burn off a whole tank of this just recreationally. And all I'm doing is.

[Zach]

You're about to drop $70 in three hours.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah, just kind of the math to drive. To drive. So it's like, oh, boy. So someone emailed me or d something from Europe and said, I've done the conversion and my everyday gas is the equivalent of 8.75 US dollars. So I think if gas stays, my boy Brandon, shout out to him back east, said the average is like four something in New York, where he lives in the suburbs. And I'm like, maybe 699 over here. If the rest of the country starts to see what we're getting in California and California starts to get to eight, nine, that's the other Half of that person's question was something you don't want to see, which is just that, you know, people that cannot afford to pay more for gas and their fucking lives fall apart because they have to decide, you know.

[Zach]

Well, I mean the article we cited last week, you know, for most people this increases their gas costs by 300 bucks on average. Yeah, some people more or less. Blah, blah. But if it starts increasing people's annual spend on gas by 500,000, I mean there are people that do not have $500 in a savings account. Yeah, they can't handle that kind of swing and like that'll put a ton of pressure on a lot of people and that would be really horrible.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah, this is a very hard question. I saved a bunch of money on insurance by selling my BMW says, was there one car that if it was never made, cars as a whole would be in a much better place. Now what car are, has, has inspired some kind of industry wide adoption for the worse? Like I,

[Zach]

I think this is a really hard butterfly effect question because like when we would make a mistake in production, you know, the mistake would lead to people the next shoot going, let's not do like, let's not do a class. Like, let's not do that again, whatever that might mean. It might mean forgetting to like, you know, format your card. It might mean don't roll over the atv.

[Matt Farah]

Right.

[Zach]

But like everyone was probably a little better at their job because of that error. And I think I, I am sure that when like the Aztec came out, there were meetings.

[Matt Farah]

Aztec was like 12 years ahead of everything else. Everything's an Aztec now.

[Zach]

Yeah, I'm sure there were meetings happening around town that were like, okay, you're gonna draw a crossover, but please don't draw that. You know, so we might have. Cars might have improved their design because someone had to really their face. I don't know, I don't know what you could get rid of. And the whole car community would be net positive.

[Matt Farah]

All right, I have one. I actually have one. I think the first generation Ford Explorer. The first generation Ford Explorer pretty much created what the modern SUV is. And that began the shift away from cars, sedans and wagons and minivans to everyone has an SUV or what is now called a crossover, but an SUV shaped thing just in a different size packaging. And like that may have happened eventually, but it was really the fucking arrival of the Ford Explorer that that did it. Maybe I could say the second gen explorer, the 95. Cause the first gen explorer was a huge success, but it was also like a fucking truck. The second gen was when it was like, let's make this into a car that it looks like a truck. You know what I mean? So I would say maybe that.

[Zach]

See, I don't know if that's net negative, though, because I think the buyers have shown they'd rather have a crossover. And we talk as we age, like, getting into low cars kind of sucks. And so if the Explorer led to a new kind of car that has the efficiency of a car and the ride comfort of a car, meaning a sedan or a coupe, but it has a hit point of like a truck or an suv, then people kind of got a product that they actually prefer. So I don't know if that's a net negative. Now, as car enthusiasts, we go, well, the sedans are going away, the wagons are going away. Yeah, bummer for us, right? But I don't know if it's a bummer for us, everybody else.

[Matt Farah]

I agree. But I don't know of a car that is net negative for society. But also, like, all right, how about the Hummer H2? Right? Because the Hummer H1 was a military vehicle, clearly.

[Zach]

Right.

[Matt Farah]

They made it legal for the road, but it was still always going to be stupid and neat. But the H2 was, like, huge for everybody.

[Zach]

No, no, I think that's a good.

[Matt Farah]

That's a good one.

[Zach]

That's a good one. Because it was really a Tahoe.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah.

[Zach]

But it might have led to, like, trx, Raptor, other stuff like that. Cybertruck. Yeah, I mean, cybertruck.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah. But I. But I. But so far I can't see anything that it's inspired. I mean, we. Our lives would be better because we wouldn't have to look at cybertrucks. But, like. But it's not like people are copying. I hate to say it. And people would call me a hater because I would say the Model S because I like what the Model S did in terms of making EVs a desirable thing and cool and refined and sleek and all that shit. But at the same time, I can poo poo it because of the tablet.

[Zach]

Oh, it did give the world tablets, right?

[Matt Farah]

It gave the world tablets and touch screens for 10 years.

[Zach]

But it also. But like, it also goes in sexy EVs.

[Matt Farah]

It's a mixed bag.

[Zach]

Yeah, that's true.

[Matt Farah]

It's a mixed bag.

[Zach]

Yeah.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah. Good question.

[Zach]

Good question.

[Matt Farah]

Murray. Long last name. I like that better. Thanks, Murray. Keep going. I'm contemplating replacing my GR Corolla with two cars. A fun car. And a daily ev. I get this. I've narrowed the list to a mach E, an Ionic 5 and a Polestar 2. Is there a reason to go for the performance variant of any of these? If my fun car is a BR or Miata, my commute is 30 miles round trip and I can L2 charge at work or home. I do not think there is a good reason to go for the performance version of this, of any of those cars for your commute. Do you? No, Zach, I don't think so. I think if you need, if you really need all wheel drive for the winter, get the all wheel drive. But if not, rear wheel drive. Long range is the sweet spot for all these cars when it comes to commuting.

[Zach]

Yeah.

[Matt Farah]

And then rip your BRZ or Miata exception if they'll make you a great deal for a Mach E rally.

[Zach]

Yes, because that also rides better than like the Mach E all wheel drive. That one had the stiffer suspension we didn't like. So the rally rides really nice. But yeah, put comfort over those other things.

[Matt Farah]

Your poorest patron. I somehow doubt it. But I'll let you call yourself that and I appreciate, appreciate you. Clearly you're still a patron.

[Zach]

So 36 bucks a year.

[Matt Farah]

I will take it and I will, I promise I will spend it wisely. Not on something frivolous like drugs or alcohol or gasoline.

[Zach]

As you sip whiskey.

[Matt Farah]

This was given.

[Zach]

That was paid for by a different patron.

[Matt Farah]

This was paid for by someone.

[Zach]

The one above or below.

[Matt Farah]

No, it was paid for by those other people. Yeah, it's crazy. Okay. Really enjoyed the RT article. Oh, about car companies abandoning rail cars. Yes. Do you see this as being a potential hole the aftermarket fills where enthusiasts are able to tune, build restomod cars to satisfy the itch? Yes, I do. But hand building cars is expensive too. I've had multiple people email me in the last six months about. Do you think there's a market for a six figure Restomod X 80s 90s cars? Fairly obvious candidates and you know, maybe, but like still very expensive, you know.

[Zach]

And then you also don't have a warranty. You don't have all of the technology that a new car comes with. You don't have OEM support, dealership support, all that stuff. So that is something that we all have lost by car companies moving away from affordable sports cars.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah. And right now, anybody with a lot of talent who's building cars and stuff, they're having trouble finding folks who want to come work for them. So maybe the market will sort itself Out. And people realize, hey, there's some money in building cars for people. There's some money in restoring and modifying and whatever. And I'm going to go and do that.

[Zach]

But

[Matt Farah]

I mean, buy an enthusiast car now, I guess. I do think it's possible, but also those cars are expensive. Dre from Houston, did we see the video of the cybertruck that tried to self drive a woman off of these freeway interchanges here in Houston? I did see it.

[Zach]

Me too.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah, I mean, you know, over and over. FSD is great right up until it isn't. And that's the problem with it because it lulls you into a false sense of security. It fucks up at the worst possible time. You're not prepared, and then the crash becomes your fault.

[Zach]

Yeah, and this was broad daylight, by the way, like a well marked highway. What was very funny about this is one of our mutual dear friends. Matt today sent me a video of a Tesla avoiding like an accident on a highway at night where there was just smoke, you couldn't see anything. But the Tesla somehow knew to go around with the vehicle in the shoulder. And he's like, isn't this impressive? Impressive? Jump ahead three hours and someone's like, here's a video of a cybertruck crashing into a stationary K rail in the middle of the daytime. And just Tesla giveth and Tesla taketh away.

[Matt Farah]

I mean, something can be impressive and also be problematic when used in public. Yes, it's impressive that it could do one thing, but that has nothing to do with how it might handle this other thing.

[Zach]

Right?

[Matt Farah]

And ultimately in these L2 systems, systems like you're responsible for what it does. Like I got into kind of an argument with a guy the other night and he was like, he's, I guess a pilot, he has a pilot's license, whatever. And he basically was like, he uses it all the time whenever he is not concerned. And he basically says, it's the least of all the things I do. I ride motorcycles, I fly. He's like, it's less dangerous than that, than any of those things. And I go, well, I mean, yeah, okay, but like, you know, it could also crash into somebody else. It could also cause another problem. And, and like ultimately it's on you to monitor it. It's like it's just not until the company making the software and operating the software takes responsibility for it. It's not real, it's your fault still if something happens. And I think some people are just more than willing to do that math and go, okay, that's my fault. But also I don't really like driving. And so if it's like eh, it's worth risk.

[Zach]

Your friend in Miami, right, I'm a shit driver. This is better. And that person's willing to accept that so far it's worked out fine. And that's, I mean human thinking is it's worked out fine so far, why change anything?

[Matt Farah]

There was a very funny. I mean it wasn't supposed to be funny. It was only funny to me about a guy, an article written by a guy who was on one of the Uber self driving car development teams and he has a Model X on FSD and it crashed with all his kids in the car and he was like, I used it all the time and it was fine and it was good and I just assumed it would be fine. And then I woke up in the hospital and he's like, the problem with being 99% good is that you treat it like it's 100% sure. You, me, you, me and a guy who works in the fucking industry. True. Treats it, treats 99 like it's 100. And there's such a big gap from 99 to 100. Anyway, my third leg can't touch my third pedal. Installed some new tires, but they squeal a lot. Mid corner at a moderate pace. I still have grip. I can continue to turn it harder, but they squeal a lot. Should I be. I'm not sure what the last sentence is. Is it a result of a noisy tire or am I driving badly? Some tires just squeal a lot.

[Zach]

Yeah, that's true.

[Matt Farah]

Especially like all seasons. All seasons squeal like a bunch more compared to the softer compounds of the summer tires.

[Zach]

Yeah, it can. And it can be well before you're at the limit of grip or sometimes it's the surface you're on. Like around here when they have those, the freeways that look like they were, you know, pressed with a comb and just like all the that stuff. So it could be a mix of both things. But I don't know if you're turning at a normal speed because this person's driving a Chevy bolt. Like if you're not speeding through the corner and it's doing it, it's just the nature of the tire. When it gets leaned on for some reason, it squeals way before it lets go. I don't know.

[Matt Farah]

Desmolderingrim said people started buying the Pontiac Aztek ironically. How cheap does the cybertruck have to get to to be in the same Position. So. Good question. But we have to contextualize. When did people start buying the Aztec? Ironically, it certainly was not when they were fucking new.

[Zach]

No. It was when a show was made. Breaking Bad Meth. Yes.

[Matt Farah]

Right. So the question is, what piece of media will canonize the cybertruck as what? The depressing car of, like, a failed teacher. Like, of a Not failed teacher, but like a broke teacher in Albuquerque. The irony of the Aztec came much, much later. Once Aztecs, Once the world became Aztecs. You know how Billy do you know Billy Corbin, the documentarian? Billy Corbin says, if you want to see what America will be in 20 years, look at Miami. Miami is America in 20 years, which is not. Not fucking good. But he ain't wrong. The cybertruck, it's like that. You know what I mean? The Aztec was America. In 20 years, the Cybertruck will be that, maybe. But the cybertruck is politically toxic, whereas the Aztec was merely a failure that ultimately wasn't that ugly or that terrible because the world just sort of bent back to it.

[Zach]

Then it needs. Then the cybertruck needs at least 20 years, because I think that's about how long it took before you started seeing 911 jokes on Instagram. It needs a huge amount of distance. But also the distance hasn't begun yet, actually, because it's still politically toxic, because the owner of Tesla is still politically toxic and operating. So he would have to depart. And then you need like 20, 25 years before people can go, oh, remember that thing? That was a weird idea. And they're gonna start buying it for text.

[Matt Farah]

In 25 years, maybe everybody involved with Back to the Future will be dead. And I'm not saying that I'm looking forward to that, but, like, sure, the reality is math. Probably that in math. And then someone can remake Back to the Future because Bob Gale and everyone involved says no remakes. It's a perfect movie. You cannot remake it. Which I believe, I agree, actually cannot. Should not. Once they. If they're dead, someone's gonna. And then the cybertruck will become ironically cool because Doc Brown will turn one into a fucking time machine.

[Zach]

Cause it's a joke. That's a great call. Because he could also make fun of its past.

[Matt Farah]

In 1985, when Back to the Future 1 came out, the DeLorean was a joke. It was a failure. It was like, we didn't. We were children. And now it's like, it's still. It's a cool looking car. But, like, it was a failure. He would have bought that Thing for nothing.

[Zach]

I think Doc Brown would use a different car, but they would then travel back to 2020 and they would see cybertrucks and make fun of them.

[Matt Farah]

There's a goof and there's a goof.

[Zach]

And then people start buying them, ironically, because they were like the villain car in this new Back to the Future reboot from 2016.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah, whatever. The. Whatever. Biff. Young Biff.

[Zach]

Biff will drive a cyber truck.

[Matt Farah]

Young Biff would be a manosphere influencer.

[Zach]

Oh, my God. He will absolutely be that person.

[Matt Farah]

Gramps.

[Zach]

Yeah.

[Matt Farah]

Nobody could turn this yolk from me.

[Zach]

That's exactly right.

[Matt Farah]

That's good. Dungeons and Datsuns. All right. Freaky Friday. Garage swap. Zach, if your budget was similar to mine.

[Zach]

Oh, this is a long answer.

[Matt Farah]

What would your garage look like? And if I was down to a two car household, what would my garage look like?

[Zach]

You go first because you have fewer things to describe.

[Matt Farah]

I mean, look, if we. If I.

[Zach]

How many cars do you have right now? Six and a half.

[Matt Farah]

I think like eight.

[Zach]

Oh, okay.

[Matt Farah]

I honestly don't recall and I don't want to do it out right now. I think it's like. All right, wait. The Taycan. The Taycan. The Spider. The Manx, The Pow. The Delica. The Mercedes. The Lamborghini. The Aston Martin.

[Zach]

Martin.

[Matt Farah]

Are there more? I don't recall. I don't think. I don't think there's more. Yeah. Oh, I think it's eight, but it might also be nine. I don't know. The point is. But you don't have to come up with nine cars.

[Zach]

I'm going with six. I can't.

[Matt Farah]

Ridiculous. If my garage was two cars, I mean, genuinely, I would be very happy to have. Have my. The Taycan and the Spider. You know, what do you need? What do you need past that? That would do it. I mean, those are both very, very nice cars, but if I had to choose two. An ev. Nice EV for every day. It's a wagon hold Shit. And then. And then the Spider for weekends and road trips and fun activities. I'd be happy with that.

[Zach]

Okay, I. Oh, I forgot that you have a Countach. Did you forget that too? Did you say that one?

[Matt Farah]

I. I don't call.

[Zach]

I just realized my budget could go up by quite a bit. But yeah, okay, then I'm just gonna go Manx, Pow.

[Matt Farah]

Delica, Mercedes, Aston. All right. Yeah, that's nine. It's nine.

[Zach]

Okay. I would have an E90, a 65 Pontiac with just a decent engine in, you know, four speed reliving high school, a forerunner for camping overland stuff. A Mach E rally as my EV daily. A C5 drift car, a 360 Modena with a manual swap and then a

[Matt Farah]

V8 Vantage S. Zach has very expensive taste.

[Zach]

Well, but if we take the Coonta I know. And we divide it by its parts, you know, I can sell some of those organs.

[Matt Farah]

What a coincidence. It's already divided by its parts.

[Zach]

Who wants to buy a hub that's frozen?

[Matt Farah]

Oh, I bought that hub twice. Okay. Re education through liftoff, Oversteer scrolls it down. When thinking about trading a car in, do you fix small blemishes and cracked windshields or do you just trade it on as the dealer can fix it for less? Trading in is a tough one. I would only fix, fix something that's real big on a trade in. They're wholesaling that motherfucker out. If you're trading a same brand, if you're trading the kind of car that they're gonna put back on the used lot. If you're trading an off lease Panamera for a brand new Panamera and they got a two year old real nice Panamera and they're gonna put that back on the lot, you maybe, maybe, maybe fix things. If you're trading in a cam to a mini dealer, they're wholesaling that fucking thing out. Just whatever it is, it is, right? I don't really believe in fixing stuff before you trade it to a dealer.

[Zach]

You think there's value in knowing what it costs to repair those things. So if the dealer, if the dealership goes, oh, windshield's ding, we gotta replace that, that's $800. And you go, I know that it's 350. And then maybe just so that way you don't get fucked and they don't start deleting numbers from the total.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah, that's like a lease, right? Return. Like if you're going to get on a lease return for a scratch or a chip in the windshield, then maybe you want to figure do it yourself. But like if you're trading the car in, they're usually not going to hose you from for like the, they're already

[Zach]

hosing you on the price they're already giving you.

[Matt Farah]

They're already hosing you on the price. It's. They're not going to hose you that much. Okay. Hitting a deer at the speed limit says, of all the cars you've tested, are there any cars that are one flash away from greatness? Such as meaning, like I Don't think that's a software flash. I just think it's like if you changed one thing, it would be perfect. Like both that Volvo Cyan thing and the Alpha, the Totem gt, both had that weird steering thing where they didn't unwind the steering properly because the cast angle's wrong. Yeah, those were both like almost perfect exceptions for that.

[Zach]

Yeah. And. Well, if they like take a new M2, new M3. Well, one flash, I mean the design is one thing, but dynamically, like if you could add steering feel somehow. And David Tuig has explained this is a very complicated thing to get steering feel, but that is like the biggest complaint.

[Matt Farah]

Steering feel. Just.

[Zach]

Yeah, put it back. It needs, it needs it.

[Matt Farah]

Just put it in.

[Zach]

Car's fast, handles well, is comfortable, blah, blah, but it has no steering feel. So yeah, Flash, that. What did he.

[Matt Farah]

Well, I mean there's. So there's a lot of cars like, like 3 liter 911s for instance. It's not, it's not super problematic because you can just flick it and it's clear that Sport mode in 3 liter 911s is the mode that the car is supposed to, to be in. And then normal mode is like eco tune, quiet sound, fuel economy bullshit. So like all 997.2, or excuse me, 991.2 and 992, the twin turbo 3 liter, all the Carrera line, you have to flick it in sport mode and then you're like, oh yeah, that's how it's supposed. It literally bogs the shit out of itself. It just sucks in normal mode. So you put it in sport mode, it's fine. So a flash from greatness is just making sport mode the normal default mode like they've invented. Sorry, Zach. They've done the whole hybrid system to solve for that.

[Zach]

Right.

[Matt Farah]

Like you don't need the hybrid system. It works, but you don't need any of that shit. Just start it in fucking sport mode. And like I recognize fuel economy standards and all these things and it's better for the environment. But a Carrera S with like none of the hybrid shit is like, you know, 200 and something pounds lighter, way less complex, all this other stuff, less raw material. But you have to do the sport mode thing, whereas the other one, you don't have to do it because it fills in all the bottom end with the electric motor to cover for the fact that, that it's just not revving. The other motor that has so much power, it already has the gas and it has so much power it just won't rev it for emissions and noise. So it has a whole other system to get around having to rev the engine. It's got. Damn, I don't want to pull that one up but twin cam. Twin cam. Homemaze says I just sold my RS5 and Audi A3 TDI and bought an Audi A4 Allroad on the quest to get down to two cars with a dedicated sports car. So you've got the allroad. I've driven a Boxster or Cayman, a GTS 4.0 Emira V6, manual, GT350, manual supra and a 981 Boxster. Besides a GT4, is there anything else I should try? Try? I mean these are all mid engine cars. No, they're not. The GT350 and the supra are not. Sorry, you should try.

[Zach]

Well I mean you should try a Corvette, I think. Yeah, like a C6 or C8. Sorry, Grand Sport or. Yeah, or a C8.

[Matt Farah]

If you should try.

[Zach]

If you're doing a mirror new then. Yeah, then you should do try a C8. Oh, try to get a UZ06.

[Matt Farah]

A U Z06 is in the wheel house. You should try. You should maybe try a Viper just for funsies.

[Zach]

Depends on your hype. But yeah, you should try it. It's a thing. It is definitely a thing worth experiencing as a car person.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah. And you could probably get a Ferrari 360 for the kind of money you're talking about as well. So. But maybe take a look at that. Keel and toe says will Jaguars transition to full electric work for them or is it beginning of the end? Let's wait out and see how gas prices work out.

[Zach]

That's true.

[Matt Farah]

I don't know. I mean, I think Jaguar's not an American company, it's a fucking British company owned by Indians. The rest of the world is going electric with or without America.

[Zach]

Yeah, but America is such a huge customer for all car companies that I think without it would be really amazing if they could survive without a strong American base. You know, I don't know if they can. It's a huge chunk of money. Yeah, but on the other hand, if Jaguar, if Jaguar is selling to people who don't care about a tax incentive because they can afford the $7,500, then

[Matt Farah]

it doesn't exist anymore, right?

[Zach]

No, I'm saying it went away. So people who need that money and they say, well now I'm not going to buy any V because it's not as Cheap. But if someone's buying a six figure Jaguar, they go, yeah, what? All right, fine, seven grand. Do I want it or do I not not want it? So we'll see. But I think it's an EV Sedani wagon in an era of hybrid crossovers.

[Matt Farah]

Well, and I think we've seen kind of the limit of what most people are willing to spend on an EV right now. Most people are willing to spend, you know, 120 to 150 hard tops. Right. Even like Taycan Turbo S's and shit like those don't go out the door at full sticker.

[Zach]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Matt Farah]

So I don't know Project Brzat like where your head's at would it be? Am I nuts to think it would be a great trip to drive my BRZ from Dallas to wherever the fuck that is gonna Google that on the Arctic Ocean. I love long road trips, but this would push things well beyond anything else I've done. Okay, so can you make a. Make a maps route to fucking there? From.

[Zach]

From Dallas.

[Matt Farah]

From Dallas. Let's see how far this is to Tuck. Toyak Tuck. To Tuk Toyak Tuck. Well, that's really far. It's super far. Wow. Yeah.

[Zach]

For people listening, this is the top of Canada.

[Matt Farah]

Is that like just drivable?

[Zach]

Just east?

[Matt Farah]

Can you drive?

[Zach]

Alaskan border?

[Matt Farah]

Can you drive to that? Is there a fucking road? I mean, yeah, there is tolls, ferries.

[Zach]

You cross a border and you're in a different time zone.

[Matt Farah]

Okay, so is a way go up to the Yukon part of it, the Northwest Territory, like. Okay, so we know, we know this is paved, you know, all the way to, you know, whatever the northern part of. But what is. Is there a street view of what this road like, looks like? Is this. Is this a road? It just says Yukon street view.

[Zach]

I wonder if there's.

[Matt Farah]

Can you zoom in enough to see satellite view view if it's. If it's paved. Is that dirt or is that tarmac?

[Zach]

That looks like dirt.

[Matt Farah]

That looks like dirt, doesn't it? Yeah. No street view though, huh?

[Zach]

It's called Dempster Highway.

[Matt Farah]

Oh, yeah, I'm pretty sure that's. That's dirt. So where does pavement end? What's the nearest, like, town?

[Zach]

Oops, I think I messed up.

[Matt Farah]

No, I mean, this is. This is Eagle Pl. So what's up with Eagle Plains? There's a hotel. All right, let's get a photo of the Eagle Plains. Can we just click on it and let's. Oh, that seems very.

[Zach]

There's three things in Eagle Plains. There's a restaurant and one hotel.

[Matt Farah]

All right, get a. Let's get a photo of it. Oh, yeah. Looks great. 4.1 stars. Oh, boy.

[Zach]

We need a view of the road.

[Matt Farah]

Can't. You can't just spin around, huh? Oh, that's. That's tough. That's tough. Wow. That looks like a Wes Anderson couch, doesn't it? All right, so we don't know. It's. We think it's dirt. Okay. I mean, dude, like, people do it, right? Like it's far and it's dirt, but people do it.

[Zach]

I think this would be absolutely a trip of a lifetime. 4,000 miles and you end up at, you know, the, what, Arctic Ocean circle. Like cold. Don't do it in the winter because you. You won't make it and you'll die.

[Matt Farah]

What is up here, dude? Hunter's bnb. Top rated.

[Zach]

You should absolutely do this. Let's look at this place.

[Matt Farah]

What does that house look like? Holy shit. Look at this fucking thing. I mean, it actually looks. Looks lovely. Looks beautiful. Look at the view. Wow.

[Zach]

During the summer, top of the world driving. I've driven. I drove through Canada once for Hyundai. Stunning. I mean, absolutely memorable drive. I mean, foliage, all of that stuff.

[Matt Farah]

It's pretty hardcore.

[Zach]

It's very hardcore in a. And if you're doing it in a

[Matt Farah]

brz, is that what you got to go back? What you got to turn around and go back once you get there. That's. That's a two way drive, right? Or you got to somehow ship the car home from there. Best of luck.

[Zach]

Noise canceling headphones. That car is not that quiet on the road. Brz. Yeah, that's.

[Matt Farah]

That's.

[Zach]

But that would be really cool. I would do it. Do you have the time? Yeah.

[Matt Farah]

Seems awesome.

[Zach]

Absolutely.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah. That it.

[Zach]

There's more.

[Matt Farah]

Oh, there are.

[Zach]

If you want.

[Matt Farah]

Oh, okay. She likes choke to get started.

[Zach]

She likes to choke to get started.

[Matt Farah]

Do your cars have any quirky features? For example, I find the visors on my 1989 11SC to be very large. I mean, my Countach has a Coke mirror, like the vanity mirror. Comes in, out.

[Zach]

That's what that's for. No question.

[Matt Farah]

That's rad.

[Zach]

That's 100 what that's for.

[Matt Farah]

I mean, it's what I've used it for. No, I don't.

[Zach]

I don't, but I know you don't, but that's like. That's what people used it for. Yeah. Talk about meeting a market need.

[Matt Farah]

The POW has all kinds of quirky features. The POW has a suv like, tailgate. Like, a hammock in the back. It's got all kinds of crazy in it.

[Zach]

My car, like, in the trunk where the CD changer used to be. I just have this weird felt cubby, and I kept lifting chalk in it. And Thad found it. It was, like, still wrapped, and it's from, like, eight years ago. And it just looks like I'm transporting bricks of cocaine.

[Matt Farah]

Last one. What does the fox body say? 2022 Mach 1 or 2020 Camaro S1LE.

[Zach]

Am I living with it or am I tracking it?

[Matt Farah]

I'd probably go Mach 1.

[Zach]

If I'm living with it, it's Mach 1. That's a fantastic car.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah, I'd go Mach 1, I think. Thank you, everybody. We appreciate yalls very much. Y' alls are good people out there. Thank you to our patrons for asking such good questions. And everyone go check out our Porsche 911 Turbo S giveaway. The link is in the video description. Get your entries in for that, and we will see you guys next time. Bye.