Maserati MC20 GT2 Stradale Review; Toxic Brake Pads; Forum Drama; Q&A

Summary

Podcast Summary: The Smoking Tire – "Maserati MC20 GT2 Stradale Review; Toxic Brake Pads; Forum Drama; Q&A" Release Date: February 20, 2025

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1. Maserati MC20 GT2 Stradale Review

Zach Klapman returns from the Ascari track in Spain to provide an in-depth review of the Maserati MC20 GT2 Stradale. Meanwhile, Matt Farah shares his experiences driving a GR Corolla automatic in Austin, Texas, exploring some of the region's finest driving roads.

• Design and Aesthetics: The MC20 GT2 Stradale boasts a striking design reminiscent of Pagani, featuring a unique color palette and aggressive aerodynamics.

  • Zach: "It looks very Pagani ish... The front, everything's more strange than Pagani, for sure." [06:47]

• Performance Enhancements: The Stradale variant includes significant aerodynamic work, increased carbon fiber usage, and a larger Brembo carbon ceramic brake system aimed at improving track performance.

  • Zach: "Downforce is tripled, but not till 184 miles per hour, of course." [07:00]

• Brake Performance Issues: Despite upgrades, both hosts noted that the brake performance didn’t meet expectations, especially during repeated hard stops on the track.

  • Zach: "It still feels like it slows down too slowly." [08:38]
  • Matt: "You have to go really deep into the pedal... It feels like a more 80,000 better." [13:46]

• Driving Dynamics: The Stradale maintains a good ride quality and neutral handling, though some inconsistencies were observed in brake responsiveness.

  • Zach: "The chassis is super stiff, the ride is good. The handling feels neutral." [18:02]

2. Toxic Brake Pads and Environmental Impact

The conversation shifts to the environmental implications of brake pad and tire dust, highlighting concerns about carcinogenic copper particles and the broader impact of automotive components on air quality.

• Brake Pad Dust Concerns: A study is discussed, pointing out that copper in brake pads is highly carcinogenic. The hosts debate the effectiveness of electric vehicles (EVs) in mitigating this issue.

  • Matt: "Brake pads and tire particles are really bad... regenerative braking could reduce brake usage." [37:09]

• Regenerative Braking: The benefits of regenerative braking in EVs are weighed against traditional braking systems, considering the potential reduction in brake dust.

  • Zach: "Much of the braking in EVs is done regenerative... unless you're driving really fast." [37:12]

• Industry Responses: Manufacturers like Akebono are advancing copper-free brake pads, aligning with stricter environmental regulations.

  • Zach: "Going forward all Akebono brake pads will meet two leaf level B requirements... the new requirements contain less than 0.5%." [44:02]

• Policy and Regulation: California’s stringent laws limiting copper content in brake pads are highlighted as a driving force for industry changes.

  • Matt: "A law passed in 2017 to limit copper content... applies to all cars sold in California." [42:19]

3. Forum Drama and Online Communities

The hosts delve into the dynamics of online car forums, sharing anecdotes about the often toxic interactions and conflicts that arise within these communities.

• Ferrari Chat Drama: A significant incident involving John Hennessy getting involved in heated forum discussions, exacerbating tensions.

  • Matt: "John Hennessy getting involved in the forums when people are calling him a thief." [49:04]

• General Forum Conflicts: Examples include users blaming car manufacturers for mechanical failures without understanding the underlying issues.

  • Zach: "There's a guy who posted a video... and everyone's like, you happened. You did this." [48:21]

• Impact on Manufacturers: The negative interactions on forums can influence public perception and brand reputation.

  • Matt: "The most memorable online forum drama... it's beyond out of hand." [49:15]

4. Q&A Session

Listeners submitted a variety of questions, ranging from technical automotive queries to personal anecdotes related to car ownership and maintenance.

• Car Maintenance and Storage:

  • Matt: "We keep the cars on battery tenders... start the cars up once a month." [65:30]

• Electric Vehicles and Market Trends:

  • Matt and Zach discuss the affordability and practicality of EVs in the American market, emphasizing the need for models like MG’s under $20k EV to make a significant impact.
    • Matt: "Most people who buy Model 3s... it's because it's the cheapest electric car." [67:50]
    • Zach: "If the US had an electric car here that was $20,000 and something... That would change the market." [67:40]

• Optional Features and Car Reviews:

  • The hosts critique the prevalence of high-trim reviews and the lack of base model evaluations, highlighting potential biases.
    • Matt: "Most car reviews nowadays are only for top trim models... it's very rare that we can say I want an AMG GT but I want a stripper one with no options." [108:09]

• Favorite Historical Roles and Useless Car Options:

  • Questions about ideal liveries for cars and the most absurd optional features encountered.
    • Matt: "The livery doesn't mean anything... the flowers on old Beetles were pretty silly." [85:27]
    • Zach: "The openometer in Mini Coopers was adorable but pointless." [85:01]

5. Concluding Remarks

The episode wraps up with listeners' thoughts on the future of automotive trends, the role of government incentives, and the evolving landscape of car ownership in the face of environmental and technological challenges.

• Government Incentives and Market Influence:

  • Matt: "Manufacturers want to push trucks because they're more profitable and demonize EVs to maintain higher margins." [112:20]
  • Zach: "Who benefits from the story that's out there? The root of the answer is always who benefits." [112:13]

• Future of Driving and Car Culture:

  • Discussions on how driving styles may change more than the cars themselves, especially with advancements in autonomous vehicles.
    • Matt: "If someone wants to drive to an AV route... it's just gonna change the way we interact with cars." [66:08]

• Listener Engagement and Support:

  • The hosts encourage listeners to support the show via Patreon for exclusive content and ad-free episodes.
    • Matt: "Support the show [e-mail] thesmokingtirepodcast... you can also get the show without advertising." [47:53]

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Notable Quotes:

• Matt Farah: "Brake pads and tire particles could potentially be worse for the environment than gasoline or potentially diesel." [02:34]
• Zach Klapman: "It still feels like it slows down too slowly." [08:38]
• Matt Farah: "If money is no object, you like the cars enough where you would want to have them regardless of power." [75:28]
• Zach Klapman: "The root of the answer is always who benefits from the story that's out there." [112:13]

This episode provided a comprehensive look into the Maserati MC20 GT2 Stradale, the environmental concerns surrounding brake pads, the often tumultuous nature of online car forums, and engaged directly with listener questions to offer actionable insights and personal anecdotes from the hosts.

Transcript

[Matt Farah]

What's up everybody? Welcome to the Smoking Tire Podcast. As always, this episode is brought to you by off the Record. We love off the Record and boy, do we have some news for you. Coming soon, we're going to be phasing out the code on the app now. It's still good for the next few months, but for the second half of 2025 it's going to be offtherecord.com TST only. But for now, if you want to sign up for off the Record, if you get a moving violation of any kind in any state, you want to check with off the Record before making any move, off the Record's network of attorneys in almost every jurisdiction in the US can help fight those tickets, right? Can help get points off your record, Keep them off your record. And look, those points can cause all kinds of problems later in life. You don't want them get off the Record now all you have to do is send in a photo of that ticket, describe the incident in your words and off the Records team goes to work. They got you covered, so go to offtherecord.com TST if you get a moving violation and they are here to help. We've got 10% off all legal services booked through off the Record with our [e-mail] TST on this episode of the podcast, Zach has returned from Ascari in Spain and gives us his review of the Maserati MC20 GT2 Stradale. While he was there, I was in Austin driving a GR Corolla automatic, scouting some of Texas finest driving roads. And it was gonna go well, but it kinda didn't. We also talk about how brake pads and tires could potentially be worse for the environment, even gasoline or potentially diesel. And we have some phenomenal questions. So many questions from the Patreon. We got a lot to talk about today. Let's get to it on das smoking attire podcast.

[Zach Klapman]

It didn't work very well.

[Matt Farah]

Here's how you know your shit is gonna stop working. If you get a pop up that says latest update has been installed. Now with whatever it's called, AI, you go, oh shit. They are now spying on me everywhere.

[Zach Klapman]

Water with AI.

[Matt Farah]

Fuck me. You know what I did today, Zach? I denied.

[Zach Klapman]

There we go.

[Matt Farah]

Advertising dollars even in this fucking economy. I denied advertising dollars to an AI pendant, an AI assistant that you wear around your fucking neck like it's a fucking Abbot Kinney gemstone. Like it's a crystal.

[Zach Klapman]

It's a crystal.

[Matt Farah]

Like it's a Sedona Crys. Except it listens to everything you fucking say and probably your heartbeat.

[Zach Klapman]

Why do you want that?

[Matt Farah]

I don't know.

[Zach Klapman]

This is a microphone.

[Matt Farah]

I responded to our agency, people who are very kind and, you know, they're doing their job. And I said, new rule, blanket anything that contains the letters AI is just. Don't even include me in the email. Blanket. Yes.

[Zach Klapman]

It's in too many things. It's in Apples now. It's just. It can fix anything. But that's just a microphone with an app that probably piggybacks to Siri.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah, it's just like. Or it just piggybacks to some fucking dude in India typing shit into chat GPT.

[Zach Klapman]

Curiously googling the things you're wondering about as you walk down the street. You're just like, wow, I wonder. I wonder where that build, how long that building's been there. And the guy's like, where are they? Oh, my God. Oh, my God, I'm gonna get fired.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah. So hard. No, there.

[Zach Klapman]

Do you think they would listen to stoner conversations and also Google? Because, you know, if you're just like, do you. Do you ever wonder, like, are snakes jealous that they can't fly? And this person's like, how do I even. How do I even research this?

[Matt Farah]

You just described what it's like to be Jaime. Lovely guy.

[Zach Klapman]

So true.

[Matt Farah]

Far out of his element.

[Zach Klapman]

Who could be in the element? No one's qualified. You need eight people to be in that element.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah, yeah. And they all need to be on a Daniel Dale level.

[Zach Klapman]

Who's Daniel Dale?

[Matt Farah]

Oh, he was the guy who was such a good fact checker on Twitter that he became the real time fact checker on, like CNN during the debates.

[Zach Klapman]

Whoa.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah.

[Zach Klapman]

Wow.

[Matt Farah]

So I know, like, half the people in the audience are like, no, cnn. And fact check. It's like, no, no. But this dude is like a historian and would like real, real time fact check both candidates on television during debates. That is a talented individual.

[Zach Klapman]

Yeah, so he's out of a job now, so he's. Yeah, he's unemployed.

[Matt Farah]

Well, facts don't mean anything anymore. Yeah, anyone who made their living on facts is in some real deep shit.

[Zach Klapman]

Right?

[Matt Farah]

Yeah.

[Zach Klapman]

Yeah.

[Matt Farah]

TST reading list. Must read. It's by a former Republican, Tom Nichols, called the Death of Expertise. He wrote it in like 2016 or 17. But it's worth going back to read now.

[Zach Klapman]

Is it fun? Is it like a light hearted.

[Matt Farah]

It's real fun. Makes you feel very confident about our society as a whole. But it's a fucking serious read and it's not by one of those fucking commies that I like to read either. It's by a Republican.

[Zach Klapman]

That is a good. Yeah, that is a good qualifier.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah. Some people don't want to read anything I recommend because it's by some fucking leftist, but this one's by a Republican.

[Zach Klapman]

You got to read books from Goebbels and be like, even he said that this is a problem. Yeah.

[Matt Farah]

Fucking Mao was like, farah, chill it with the reading lists. Yeah, okay. You just. You were gone all week. Cars. Let's do cars. We were gone all week. You went to Spain, to Ascari.

[Zach Klapman]

Indeed.

[Matt Farah]

How great is Ascari?

[Zach Klapman]

It's pretty awesome. It is stunning.

[Matt Farah]

That would be a good home track.

[Zach Klapman]

Hard to. Well, I had about six laps to try to, quote, memorize it. And all the walls are green and all the grass is green and all the trees are green. So you're.

[Matt Farah]

It's the European version of Long Beach, I think.

[Zach Klapman]

Long Beach. You could at least go, okay, I could turn right at that billboard.

[Matt Farah]

No, no. When we do tracks in America like Long beach, it's gray on the jersey barriers and stuff. You just can't see.

[Zach Klapman]

That's true.

[Matt Farah]

I tried to make a joke. It didn't work. Back to his.

[Zach Klapman]

There's just not that many markers in a quick read, so. But it's beautiful. I mean, what an amazing, amazing place. So I went to drive the new Maserati MC20 GT2 Stradale. Stradale means road going in Italian.

[Matt Farah]

In this photo you've got which is sort of from the passenger side looking front three quarter. It looks very Pagani ish. Actually. It looks like they're doing a little bit of a wira thing here.

[Zach Klapman]

A little till you see. I mean, the front, everything's more strange than Pagani, for sure. This color was called powder Nude, I think. And in. In dim early morning light, it looked just kind of pinkish. But actually as the sun came out, looks pretty rad.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah.

[Zach Klapman]

But I couldn't stop saying power nude. So it just.

[Matt Farah]

That'll be. Someone will get that custom plate. You know, the Montana one will be taken instantly, but then California. You'll see it here subsequently. Yeah, I love the color. I'm so. I'm 100, as you probably guess.

[Zach Klapman]

This makes sense.

[Matt Farah]

This is. This color has my name written all over it.

[Zach Klapman]

Yeah.

[Matt Farah]

It goes from gold to pink and it's sort of a. Most of the time.

[Zach Klapman]

Yeah. It is very much a wine rose color. Do I have another picture? I don't.

[Matt Farah]

People in your comments Asked if it was the same color as my car. It's much more gold.

[Zach Klapman]

It is definitely more gold with a hint more brown. Also, I would say my car is.

[Matt Farah]

Only a tiny little bit gold and only in the right light.

[Zach Klapman]

Yeah. Yours is definitely more pink.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah.

[Zach Klapman]

So this car is the road version of their race car. Which is. The race car is based on the road car of the MC20.

[Matt Farah]

Yes. It's the road version of the race version of the road version.

[Zach Klapman]

Exactly.

[Matt Farah]

Got that.

[Zach Klapman]

100% precisely accurate. So they do a lot of aero work to it. It's got more carbon fiber. It's got a carbon hood and carbon roof. Giant wing on it. Downforce is tripled, but not till 184 miles per hour, of course.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah. But it's linear. So it's more all the time.

[Zach Klapman]

It is more all the time. And it's more efficient. There's better cooling for the brakes. The big thing, I was hoping the big thing would be that the brakes are improved. They're bright Brembo now they're bigger and thicker and they're carbon ceramic brakes.

[Matt Farah]

Was the weak point of the streetcar.

[Zach Klapman]

Exactly.

[Matt Farah]

And it's not weak on the street. It's weak when you start doing repeated hard stops on the track. That's where it was weak.

[Zach Klapman]

Yeah. It was also kind of weak in the canyons, I think. I went back and I watched our video and just the deceleration rate felt less than what we expected based on the parts and the cost of the car. Now, I think at the time when we reviewed the car, we thought it was £3,300, because that's what they told us it was. Car and driver weighed it and it's 3700. That's the regular MC20. So it also may have just been heavier than we thought. So it won't slow down as quickly as you think. So that's one of the things they said that they addressed on this car.

[Matt Farah]

We also, if I recall correctly, made the mistake of driving a CT5 Blackwing to the MC20 launch, which is a car that has some of the best brakes of any car on sale at any price. True. And if you want to drive a new supercar and really see if it's any good or not, drive there in a Blackwing. Because a Black Wing will do what almost any mid tier supercar will do. You have to go pretty fast to beat a Black Wing.

[Zach Klapman]

They make almost the same power too, because the regular MC20 was like 621 horsepower. Blackwing is 668. So more.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah.

[Zach Klapman]

Well, they did turn the power up on this one by 10.

[Matt Farah]

Yes.

[Zach Klapman]

So 6. 31. So ultimately, it's supposed to be like a more focused car. They tightened this. They changed the steering a little bit. The springs are only 9% stiffer. The dampers are the same. I already talked about aero, et cetera, et cetera. So the good news is that you didn't lose the really good ride that the streetcar had, because I think the street car. Fantastic.

[Matt Farah]

Did have a good ride. Right.

[Zach Klapman]

Good ride. Performed well enough, but comfortable, not overly sprung like a lot of cars today. And the steering is still very good, as it was in the old car. The looks. At first, when I saw it, I thought it was like two clashing design languages of angles and round. But I actually grew on me a lot throughout the day. I think it looks pretty awesome on the road with very few does.

[Matt Farah]

Look. Race car.

[Zach Klapman]

Looks very. Race car.

[Matt Farah]

Looks a lot race car.

[Zach Klapman]

The shifts got a little bit better when we drove the regular car in our video, the downshifts were a little bit, like, a little slow, and they kind of upset the chassis. This doesn't do that. If you're, like, at full brake downshifting in the right mode, it's pretty cool.

[Matt Farah]

It isn't the Tremec. It's a Tremec dct. That's why that was weird. Because, like, in the Corvette, it didn't do that.

[Zach Klapman]

Right.

[Matt Farah]

I was like, why didn't what? You know, in the GT500, it didn't do that.

[Zach Klapman]

Exactly.

[Matt Farah]

Why is it doing it in this car?

[Zach Klapman]

I don't know. And actually, in this car, it seems to change a lot depending on your speed, your steering input, your throttle, and your mode. But it can all be. There were plenty of times on the track where I was like, it did not upset me at all. Yeah. And there's like four new driving modes. If you get the performance plus pack, you get Evo mode and then four submenus of Evo, which basically turn your traction control down. But all the. But all the shifting and stuff is really good. The problem with this car is that the regular MC20 exists because this actually didn't fix the brakes, in my opinion. It still feels like it slows down too slowly.

[Matt Farah]

Jethro said the same thing.

[Zach Klapman]

He was on. We were on the launch together, so we would get out of the car from different cars and be like, hey.

[Matt Farah]

Come here for a second.

[Zach Klapman]

I have a question. And so, like, you know, on the track, they were having us lift before braking. In some Places which was either they're trying to protect themselves. I don't think the instructors knew the level of driver in my wave. And I'm not saying I was definitely probably the least experienced person because Jethro's there, Casey Caldwell's there, Chris Perkins is there. Like at least two of the people there. All three of them have racing licenses. Jethro's. Jethro instructors were like grabbing the steering wheel at some point. But the biggest thing was like, why are we lifting when they have these new brakes? Shouldn't we be demonstrating and it's not a hot day. Shouldn't we be demonstrating that these brakes can uphold hold the thermal load? Because they talk to us about these new ducks and all this stuff. So that was a little weird. And then when it breaks, you had to go really deep into the pedal. I mean, they kind of have a long strip.

[Matt Farah]

I remember that last time they had the regular car had a long pedal.

[Zach Klapman]

Versus, I mean, McLaren and Porsche. I think they kind of put the friction point is much higher.

[Matt Farah]

Like McLaren's very unique. Porsche and Ferrari have similar brakes, but McLaren has that. They want the brake to pedal to almost feel like it's not power assisted. You have to hit it really hard.

[Zach Klapman]

It's very stiff.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah, it's meant for left foot. It's really good. If you like left foot braking. It's the best brakes true ever.

[Zach Klapman]

And I would say that the pedal doesn't have to travel that far. One inch of travel. Let's just for random Math, is is 3 inches of caliper travel. I know they don't move that far. This is like the inverse. Like three inches of pedal travel is one inch of caliper pressure or one of caliper pressure. Um, and even when I got further and further into the pedal, I was like, I wish I was slowing down more than I am. And then a lot of the good sounds the other car had. The car, the streetcar. The regular car had a lot of cool turbo stuff.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah.

[Zach Klapman]

Wastegate stuff. This. That's mostly gone. If the windows are up and all you hear is kind of a mechanical whirring, which is really strange. I don't know how that changed, but a lot of the different. Let's say the different instruments are gone.

[Matt Farah]

Less turbo.

[Zach Klapman]

Yeah.

[Matt Farah]

Why would you hear less turbo?

[Zach Klapman]

I don't know. It could be new.

[Matt Farah]

Is there like a different intake design? Like, do they change the air intake of the car? Does it use the same intakes as stock?

[Zach Klapman]

I don't recall that being in the press release. I Know, they changed because usually that.

[Matt Farah]

Whooshing noise, you're hearing it almost like backwards, right?

[Zach Klapman]

You only heard that if you put the windows down, then those huge intakes, like, then you hear some stuff. But with the windows up, it's like you went from having five instruments in your orchestra to one, and it's just like mechanical spin. And then on the outside, it's real quiet. We're at the racetrack, people are going flat out where they can. And just I think the distance was probably 300ft from where I was standing to the car at full clip, third gear. And I'm telling you, it was like Camry noise.

[Matt Farah]

Do you think? Guys, got to take a quick break because today we're brought to you by True Work. I love the true work clothes they sent me. They are hell bent on creating the most technical, high performance workwear in the world. Think about those advanced fabrics that you see from, like, some of those nice, like, California workout brands with the sky high prices. Apply that to workwear, right? The True Work story begins in the Colorado mountains, where trade workers knew there had to be a better solution than wet, heavy gear that was weighing him down. And I get it. After trying on the pants, after trying on the hoodie they sent me, I would love to spend a day outdoors wearing these products. The TrueWerk stuff is engineered for maximum comfort, protection and efficiency with minimum bulk and extra weight. The hoodie they sent me is so soft and stretchy. I wore it on my flight to Austin last week and it was great. The pockets were great. The zip pockets kept my wallet, my phone from falling. And the sweat wicking soft shell pants are awesome in this winter weather we're having in California, it's very wet outside. TrueWerk has over 50,000 5 star reviews and countless stories from trade pros in every state and every job across the country. Upgrade to True Work for a major change in the way you work. True Work helps you be your best when your best matters most. So check out the full lineup and get 15% off your [e-mail] tire that's 15% off at t r u e w e r k.com tire and now back to the show. Do you think that they might. Because when I was just at the GT3 launch, they made a very big deal about the new emissions and all these regulations for 20. Do you think Maserati maybe snuck some of that stuff into this model and just, like, didn't tell you?

[Zach Klapman]

Well, I actually sat next to an engineer at dinner the day I got there. But someone else was leaving. So they had driven the car and they had the same complaint. Why is it so quiet? And yeah, the guy said it's basically, it's emissions, it's noise regulations in the eu which are really strict. It's those things combined. And now they do offer a titanium track exhaust. That's like track only.

[Matt Farah]

But will the US cars have the same exhaust? Are they going to take out the DPFs?

[Zach Klapman]

I actually didn't ask that.

[Matt Farah]

Right.

[Zach Klapman]

I guess they might have a different exhaust.

[Matt Farah]

It might be a different US exhaust.

[Zach Klapman]

Maybe it's different.

[Matt Farah]

We had to press Porsche for hours.

[Zach Klapman]

To see if it was going to get a different one.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah. To see if the ADAS stuff was going to come over and to see if the US exhaust was going to be different.

[Zach Klapman]

I didn't ask that question. I should follow up with that. They did say the titanium. Well, this exhaust is titanium. But there's the better one. That should be louder because track car should be louder.

[Matt Farah]

Courses would be Italian track, supercar.

[Zach Klapman]

Yeah. And like course should be loud. The bones of this thing are good. The chassis is super stiff, the ride is good. The handling feels neutral. The steering ratio is good. It feels really linear. There's not like a huge difference from comfort to track in terms of steering weight. They don't add a bunch of heavy shit. You know, they don't like fake it. It's fake steering feel, but it just feels like they added all these pieces and you didn't actually get anything. That's really much better than the streetcar. But you did add almost.

[Matt Farah]

That's hilarious. That's like tuning a car in high school. It's like you do a bunch of mods to your high school car and it like just doesn't make it go any faster. Yeah, it probably does go faster. I bet it does at the Nurburgring or whatever.

[Zach Klapman]

Well, on their test track it's like five seconds. I mean it is way faster. I think the tires are stickier. So the result is good. And their racing results are good. They won their season of it's like Fanatec GT2 series. But I just found myself going, if I'm spending $300,000 on a road legal, track oriented vehicle. Yeah, the competition's really stiff. I mean you can get a good McLaren, you can get an Artura, you can get a GT3. Yeah, like that's, I mean that's the one, right? Yeah, I mean that doesn't have these little 300 grand.

[Matt Farah]

You're, you're, you're knocking on the door of a 750s.

[Zach Klapman]

Right.

[Matt Farah]

Like, and that's not even. That's. There's no question.

[Zach Klapman]

And that has 120more horsepower.

[Matt Farah]

Forget. Forget the horsepower. It's a. It's a much crazier car.

[Zach Klapman]

Well, I think you get a better visceral experience because that's what this was kind of lacking in terms of the sound wasn't there. The braking wasn't there. It feels big. It feels kind of heavy. So you're just like. The bones of it are really good. But, I don't know, the execution of.

[Matt Farah]

It is bummer because the regular one is actually a better street car than a lot of the other, like, supercars.

[Zach Klapman]

Totally.

[Matt Farah]

Like, I'd rather drive an MC20 around LA for a week than a 296.

[Zach Klapman]

Yeah. You know, more than a. Or a GT3.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah. Or an Arturo. Yeah. Like. Like, it's just a rad street supercar. It's really good at that. And so I was hoping that, like, the track version would be that tight, you know, super responsive, you know, fizzy version of it. And go show both sides of the same thing.

[Zach Klapman]

Right. Because this still has a lot of regular buttons inside. Like, 296 is all capacitive.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah.

[Zach Klapman]

So this doesn't do that. But I think it's hard when car companies go, let's make the racy version of the street car, because if you go too far, then people will say it's too. Most people will say it's too stiff. And if you don't go far enough, you have people like us who go, well, it's not exciting enough. It's too close to the road car. And I think that's what happened. Yeah, but those. The brake thing, man, I don't know what's going on with that. It just doesn't feel like it slows down from, you know, a hundred.

[Matt Farah]

How do you not fix that? Every person who drove the car said the same thing.

[Zach Klapman]

Wasn't, like, they did change the brakes. It just still feels like. And again, like, look, Maserati. Or con. If you're listening. Like, if. If someone does objective testing, like car and driver, and they go, hey, this thing does stop from 60 or 100 in the same time as, like, a Z06 or whatever, then I'll eat my hat. Like, I might be wrong, but from.

[Matt Farah]

The driver's seat, you've driven enough cars like, you're qualified to talk about, you.

[Zach Klapman]

Know, it does not feel like it slows down at the rate I would expect, given the price.

[Matt Farah]

The performance here's a compare one direct comparison that you objectively have. You just did three days of racing school, full on as fast as you could go in C8Z51 Corvettes stock. How are the brakes compared to a stock C8Z51 Corvette?

[Zach Klapman]

The C8 feels better.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah.

[Zach Klapman]

Yeah, it does. It just. It feels like a more 80,000 better. It seems like the pedal stroke is tuned better. I mean, these might be brake by wire and they could adjust it or something, but it just feels like you have to go way too far toward the firewall. And I was like, wow, I'm really not slowing down as much as I thought I would from this.

[Matt Farah]

If you're driving a $320,000 car on the street, sports car on the street, you should be able to outbreak anybody. Literally the top 99.9% of the other cars on the street. You should be able to outbreak that car. It's not even a question. That's like a given with that type of car. That would be very annoying.

[Zach Klapman]

I'd be frustrated with that because otherwise, like, the visibility is good again, the handling is good. They've gotten a lot of things right. And there's. Those are things that some companies get wrong. But at this price point, you kind of have to get everything right.

[Matt Farah]

20, 25, 300 grand. Carbon tub. Yeah, a carbon tub and bad brakes. Come on.

[Zach Klapman]

It is so funny that they have a carbon tub. And down the street, Ferrari's like, still with the aluminum.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah. You know, and you must buy the prosangue if you want one.

[Zach Klapman]

Yeah, absolutely. So.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah. Well, while you were in Spain doing that and did you post the video? Is it up?

[Zach Klapman]

No, not yet.

[Matt Farah]

Okay. The video is coming. Of course, the embargo lifts, like, while you're on the flight home, which is a totally reasonable thing for a car company to do. That's. It's like building a carbon tub and then not having good brakes. Kind of the same thing. There I was in Austin, Texas, general area, hill country, scouting the road and track route with Hannah. We took a GR Corolla automatic. I wrote a story about it for road and track. But. But here's a one. Austin's nice. I like Austin enough. The hotels we're at was very cute. And rest. The food that we ate in Austin was exceptionally good. Their roads suck balls. Like, everyone's gonna cancel their road tracking. No, no, no. I'm talking about the roads in the city of Austin. The roads that are on the drive route. I'll tell you about them in a second. And they are a little unique, but it's what driving in that part of the country is like. It's representative of that part of the country and what driving is like. But in the city, God damn. Is there a tarmac? Straight trash.

[Zach Klapman]

Wow.

[Matt Farah]

Awful. And there's holes everywhere. There's, like crazy melty ruts. There's like a million surface changes. Just awful.

[Zach Klapman]

Do they have, like, little earthquakes there, like we do?

[Matt Farah]

I don't know. City. If I. If I had to take a guess, I'd say there's a lot of big trucks running, building supplies all over that place.

[Zach Klapman]

Okay.

[Matt Farah]

On roads that were probably never designed for it, if I had to take a guess. And also, a government should only be so small. If you ask me. They need to, like, do things like fix the streets.

[Zach Klapman]

But I wonder.

[Matt Farah]

I don't know. But the streets in the city of.

[Zach Klapman]

Austin, is that what fucks up the roads in New York is because you have big trucks going everywhere just doing stuff.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah. Heavy. And then you have weather, you know, water. It goes into holes, freezes, turns into ice. Expands. Breaks the shit apart. Yeah, yeah. When you get little cracks and they water and it freezes, that's when you're in deep shit.

[Zach Klapman]

Yeah.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah. That's why the city's like. Like when it's really cold, like Canada cold, and it stays, like, below freezing for a while, then you're usually okay. But when it's, like Boston, New York, where it's that wet slush and the water gets into shit.

[Zach Klapman]

Yeah. Then it freezes, pushes the crack apart. Right.

[Matt Farah]

That's when it gets nasty.

[Zach Klapman]

Okay.

[Matt Farah]

But, yeah, Austin, get your shit together with your tarmac. Seriously, love the barbecue, but we need to work on this. So, you know it's hill country, right? So people think of Texas as, like, straight and flat. So we're going there to drive the windiest roads that they got, which is basically to the southwest. West and southwest of Austin. And I got a GR Corolla automatic. Now, we had one briefly here, but we didn't get to film it because of that crazy windstorm. And so I. I got one so that Hannah could drive it. Also because it's an auto and. And because I was going to write a piece for Road and Track and I wanted to get some pictures and blah, blah, blah. So we're driving and I'm. You know, immediately like, the roads in Austin suck. And we get outside and. And. And like, I'm like, God, kind of like all the road. Like, I'm like. I start to think, like, maybe I You know, because you drove that GR Corolla. I only really drove it, like, one day when we had it.

[Zach Klapman]

Yeah, I drove it for two.

[Matt Farah]

You drove for two days and I drove for one day. And as I'm driving this one, I'm like, God, the ride is, like, bad. Like, what did they do? And I start looking up, like, what changes they made. And they did make some changes to improve the handling and improve the launch. I mean, and they changed a few things here and there. Springs and tighter sway. Basically. They made it stiffer. So we're driving it and I'm just going, God, they really messed this thing up. The ride is just awful. Like my Focus rs, whereas I drove three of these things before and they didn't feel like that. And so, damn, that's a bummer. And, you know, the gearbox, just like the 3 liter Porsches, you have to put it in sport. It's unusable and normal. It's just bog, bog, bog and vibrating and awful. But. And the roads are like. The first couple days, the roads are these sort of. It's called the Willow City Loop. It's sort of like a rural farm road, single lane. And it's not like it's bad enough that, like, you know, you have to crawl through it. You drive 40, 45 miles an hour on it, but you're not going like, 70. And there's, like, there's some things to avoid. There's some potholes and things like that, and you kind of have to avoid them. But I'm like, this car is just. The ride is just killing me on this thing. And. And then we do some other nice roads. Like some really, really. Probably some of the best roads in Texas called the Twisted Sisters, which is very much sort of like Bouquet Canyon Road here in California. It's these sort of even back forth, back forth with some over crests and undulations. And even then the car's being, like, weird and darty, and I'm like, what did they do to this thing? Well, I told Toyota when I got it back, and they're like, okay, you know, thank you for letting us know. And here's what's. And they told me about the changes, but they never actually said it made the car stiffer. And I figured, like, with Maserati and this brakes thing, I figured, like, they were dancing around, not wanting to say they just made it stiffer. So I get the list of changes and I text Joey Sele, Emotion Engineering, and I go, hey, man, I have, like, imposter syndrome here. I Need you to help me. I just drove this new Year version of this car with this updated suspension. Here's what they've done. I go, I've driven this car a bunch of times before. I swear, the ride is totally different. They've really done something wrong here to mess it up. I go, would these changes make it just ride like garbage? And he's like, yeah, they definitely could. Okay. So I wrote this piece. I submit it to Road and Track. Next day, I get an email from Toyota. Hi, Matt. We've done a thorough inspection of the vehicle, and I apologize, but one of the shipping spreaders was left in one of the springs.

[Zach Klapman]

So one corner.

[Matt Farah]

One corner had a forced spreader that prevented its spring. So what? One corner had no travel. Wow. Or like, you know, or an inch.

[Zach Klapman]

And then it would.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah. Or whatever. 10% of available travel. One corner. So you think that might fuck the ride up a little bit?

[Zach Klapman]

Yeah, it was locked off.

[Matt Farah]

That's. Isn't that crazy?

[Zach Klapman]

Yeah, that's pretty wild.

[Matt Farah]

So now it's like, well, what do I do with this story? Like, do I, you know, do I have to shit can this whole story, or do I put a disclaimer that says, oh, by the way, there was a shipping spreader in the spring, or.

[Zach Klapman]

I think you have to throw the story away.

[Matt Farah]

I think I kind of have to throw the whole story away because otherwise.

[Zach Klapman]

You'Re just doing a review on the stereo and the seats.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah.

[Zach Klapman]

So. Because it obviously wasn't a fair analysis of the ride or of the new suspension, because it was not suspending.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah, it was definitely not suspending.

[Zach Klapman]

Yeah.

[Matt Farah]

Sucks.

[Zach Klapman]

Related note, my friend often, who you've met, he's got an alpha quad, which he loves. He's had it for, like, three years. No problems, amazingly. But he took it in for a routine service, like, a year ago, and he. When they gave it back, they were like, by the way, we realized that some of the shipping spreaders were left in two of the springs, so we took those out for you. And he.

[Matt Farah]

For years. For years. Yeah.

[Zach Klapman]

And for years he loved the car. Anyway. He probably just thought it was like race car suspension.

[Matt Farah]

Did he say how it felt afterwards?

[Zach Klapman]

Yeah, he said it was a lot better. Yeah, of course it was.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah.

[Zach Klapman]

I mean, when I helped Corey install suspension. Our friend Corey, I helped him install coilovers on his Mazda 3 like, eight years ago. And we get it all bolted in and we, like, set it off the jacks, and we're like, why is the nose so high? Like, just, like, aimed at, like, Trophy truck aimed at the sky. And we realized that these plastic things that we thought were, like, required spring perches were actually just protective something or other. But, like, it all fit, so we had to take them off again and take the things out.

[Matt Farah]

So, yeah, that's bad. But I will say, you know, that Willow City loop, it's absolutely gorgeous. It is a little slow. And then the twisted sisters. The next day is a fantastic day of driving. There's a couple fabulous roads down there outside of Leaky, Texas.

[Zach Klapman]

They have some nice flowy roller coaster stuff. I was there for the Bronco launch, and I remember going, wow, this would be a fun sports car road.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah, Well, I think was it outside of Austin. So we passed a place that looked like some kind of farm or ranch that had 20 broncos.

[Zach Klapman]

That's the off roadeo.

[Matt Farah]

Okay. Yeah.

[Zach Klapman]

So they have two of those in the country. I think is only two. One's in Moab, which I told you I stumbled upon. The other one is where the launch was, which is that place outside Austin.

[Matt Farah]

So you did drive on good sports car roads to get there. Yeah.

[Zach Klapman]

And that's when I learned that you hit the brakes in the Bronco. It dove to the left, to the right.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah. I will say that, you know, driving in Texas is definitely different from driving in other parts of the country, But I think that's what makes it very interesting. I mean, it's not like it's. It's not like it's like gravel, dirt, rally stage. It's just like some of the tarmac isn't up to quality snuff like in the city.

[Zach Klapman]

You mean in the city.

[Matt Farah]

But, like, some of the rural roads are not. Are not as good as I would want them to be. I mean, they're fine. They're not like, they're not bad. But I'm just like, I'm gonna be encouraging people to pretty much leave their car in comfort mode the whole time because you're just gonna want the suspension. And we had a full track day at Cota to drive really fast. So it's a beautiful drive. The food is really good. The hotel we're staying at is sick. The first hotel is really nice. The second hotel is very sick. And it's fun. Just when your car literally has a broken suspension, it's.

[Zach Klapman]

It's not a good time just shaking across the. The state.

[Matt Farah]

I just. It was just. It. It's so hard to ignore something like that. It just beats the.

[Zach Klapman]

Is it worse? Which corner do you know?

[Matt Farah]

You know, it's funny. They didn't tell me. And I actually couldn't tell. I couldn't. In hindsight, I couldn't tell was it.

[Zach Klapman]

Wasn'T different on left turns versus right turns.

[Matt Farah]

No, not really. I mean, we were driving on the street, right. So I'm not pushing the. I never, ever pushed the handling. I was using the suspension to absorb bumps, not to. And, like, the other thing that's unavoidable in Texas, by the way, is cattle guards. Yeah, they're everywhere. And like, even on good roads. Like, even on, like the best road that I drove on there, I believe it's the 337. Unbelievable. It's like Charahola Skyway. It's extraordinary. Cattle guards, like, they're everywhere. So, like this, this suspension was taking some. Some big hits because, you know, I wasn't. If I was In a fucking McLaren, I'd probably slow down to a crawl. But in a pseudo rally car, you know, you hit him a little bit.

[Zach Klapman]

Well, in some. Some cattle guards, the transition is very minor and you can just kind of keep going. And then some of them can be like a 2 inch drop and. Yeah, you gotta slow down.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah. But it was a. It was a fun time, though. It was definitely a fun time. And then I have an update on the Bentley. It's going live on cars and bids March 6.

[Zach Klapman]

Awesome.

[Matt Farah]

There was a del. Lay of game because Doug had to film other shit. And so I certainly understand how that goes. So he's. He has filmed it and it's in. It's in post and it's going. Our video. I made a video about how much it costs to run the Bentley for the year. And that video is going up the same day as the auction, which is March 6th.

[Zach Klapman]

So you live podcast to Patreon as the auction goes.

[Matt Farah]

And just watch the end. We want to.

[Zach Klapman]

Yeah.

[Matt Farah]

Live podcast is the end, right? Yeah.

[Zach Klapman]

Okay.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. But not the beginning. Yeah, yeah, the video, the beginning and then the podcast.

[Zach Klapman]

How long is the auction? Is it a week?

[Matt Farah]

It's. I believe it's a week.

[Zach Klapman]

Okay.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah. Yo, Shout out to a Fast and Furious musical is coming back in New York.

[Zach Klapman]

Nice.

[Matt Farah]

So New York people.

[Zach Klapman]

Yes.

[Matt Farah]

You can go to find them on Instagram. Fast and Furious musical parody. A hundred percent worth your money.

[Zach Klapman]

Absolutely.

[Matt Farah]

One of the best theater experiences you'll have. It's in Brooklyn in May.

[Zach Klapman]

You will laugh your ass off.

[Matt Farah]

It's amazing.

[Zach Klapman]

I'm soaked for them. It feels like they're climbing that ladder.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah, those guys are great.

[Zach Klapman]

Dude. That's gonna be a Broadway show one day, I swear.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah. And my. And dude and my friend Frankie who plays Charlize Theron is amazing too.

[Zach Klapman]

They're really funny.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah, they're awesome. But did you see a study and it was on. They covered it on the drive. But I read the. I at least read the first couple non sciencey pages of the go down if that is a real Volvo. Oh, it's fake. No, the thing about brake pad dust, there was a study that basically said that brake I was on this morning, that copper, copper particles, that is super carcinogenic. And we knew brake dust and tire particles are really bad. But this study really, really seems to be convinced that switching the powertrain of our vehicles will not be an effective way to reduce much of the horrible shit in the atmosphere. Because brake pads, as the vehicles get heavier and tire particles as the vehicles get heavier from going EV are potentially just as bad.

[Zach Klapman]

Ooh.

[Matt Farah]

But I partially disagree because of regenerative braking.

[Zach Klapman]

There you go.

[Matt Farah]

Right.

[Zach Klapman]

So much of the braking in EVs is done regenerative.

[Matt Farah]

That's the thing. There's a couple things in the study that don't quite add up. One is they refer to it, they make a comparison with diesel engines, but there is an enormous spread in what is called a diesel engine.

[Zach Klapman]

Sure, of course. I mean, is it a Volkswagen or is it made by someone else?

[Matt Farah]

Yeah. And also they kind of gloss over regenerative braking, which I think in an EV with a one pedal drive feature, you would drastically reduce how much you're actually using the brake.

[Zach Klapman]

Tens of percent. Yeah, I think so. Unless you're driving really fast. You might. It'd be cool if we could get data from an OEM or if your car could tell you, hey, here's how much time was spent with regen and here's how much time was actually spent using Caliper.

[Matt Farah]

I bet we could get somebody in some engineering department to tell us that it's going to be different depending on.

[Zach Klapman]

I know you're listening.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah, he probably would know.

[Zach Klapman]

I would know.

[Matt Farah]

Dave, if you're out there, let us know. But it's probably different in a car that has. Well, maybe not because the Taycan doesn't have one pedal drive, but when you hit the brake pedal, that is regen for the first half of brake. It's only when you really need to stop that it. Because you can feel it transition. Most stopping is done on regen, but pedal activated, not one pedal drive activated.

[Zach Klapman]

I think that's true of a lot of EVs though. Even if they have one pedal, when you touch the pedal, it's going to use Regen as much as possible until you need more clamping force, right?

[Matt Farah]

I think so, but I. But what I.

[Zach Klapman]

No, because. Yeah, I was talking to somebody at the launch and they were on, I think it was Chris Perkins. They were on the, the road and track test you did. And so you can speak to this. When they noticed that when the battery was fully charged, yeah, regen was not effective for the first few laps because.

[Matt Farah]

If you charge to 100, right.

[Zach Klapman]

There's nowhere for that electricity to go. That's pretty interesting.

[Matt Farah]

So I noticed that because I drive on one pedal drive on the Ford when I had it right. So when I would charge at my house to 100%, I live at the top of a little hill. So I'd leave my driveway and I would start to go down the hill and I would notice right away that one pedal drive wouldn't work because there was nowhere to regen that energy. So a screen would pop up and it would say one pedal drive unavailable until battery discharges, whatever. And so when the battery got to 99, it was enough that it would come back on. I mean it was within the first half mile or so or mile. But yeah, there was nowhere for it to go.

[Zach Klapman]

That's interesting.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah, very fun. So anyway, I just, I think what's important about the study is not a. To shoot holes in what kind of diesel engine or to talk about the ignoring of regenerative braking. But I just think that it's an important thing to think about how we could improve our air quality in other ways besides forcing the entire world to go ev. You could probably meaningfully reduce brake particles and tire particles which would drastically improve air quality all over the world, which in conjunction with an efficient gas engine could, net result be much cleaner than if you have an EV that's, I mean it's an extreme example, but a Hummer EV or another, a very heavy EV that's going through tires and going through brake pads like crazy.

[Zach Klapman]

I mean, hybrid too, like series RAV4. Whenever I hit the brakes, that little meter goes charging, it goes all the way to the top.

[Matt Farah]

For I wonder what the veracity would be of the Porsche surface coated brakes. The PSCB's, the white calipers, those are supposed to be dust free and I'm sure they're not dust free. But the point of that white caliper is to show that they don't collect dust. And I think they do make a lot less dust. I Just don't know how expensive they.

[Zach Klapman]

Are and if that's the standard. But yeah, I mean, I know that this has been an ongoing discussion. Is this kind of carcinogenic properties of brake pads and people that live closer to highways. It's not just exhaust, it's also brake dust in the air. Yeah, yeah. I don't know. Maybe they'll start manufacturing them in a cleaner way if possible. But I'm sure they've already tried.

[Matt Farah]

I mean. Well, maybe they have tried and I'm sure somebody's trying. Yeah, someone go down to the bottom of this story. Somebody makes a copper free go down the very last thing. Several suppliers, including Akebono already sell a range of copper free and low copper brake pads.

[Zach Klapman]

There was a law passed in 2017 to limit copper content in brake pads to a maximum of 5% in 2021. And it's supposed to go down to a maximum of 0.5% in 2025. What do you sold for every car sold in California? So that's not nationwide.

[Matt Farah]

So you think there's going to be 49 state brake pads, 50 state. They're going to include it on your annual inspection. Check for your carb brake pads.

[Zach Klapman]

Isn't that the case with catalytic converters? And there's like California cats.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah, you can't necessarily get. Yeah, you have to get. Yeah, for sure. I think if you. I would say can you click on the range of the Akebono brake pads? I would say this consumer advice. If you must buy brake pads for your car, particularly like a regular car, not a supercar, but just your regular car, ask for copper free brake pads if you can. You will probably your car will stop exactly the same. So I think. Oh, there we go. They have the different leaves, different leaves on your brake pad. So there's a little icon. It's got three leaves on it and they're outlines. And if one leaf is filled in with color, it means the brake pad contains no asbestos or heavy metals. That should be your baseline. Level B is two leaves. The brake pads meet level A requirements and contain less than 5%. That's that 2021 standard. And then level N is three filled in leaves. And that means they meet the new requirements and contain less than 0.5% requirements.

[Zach Klapman]

And it does say that going forward all Akebono brake pads will meet two leaf level B requirements with more of them with majority three leaf. So it's going to be hard to get the level A. Thankfully.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah. Well, no asbestos. They did that like that's 30 years ago, at least. Right, so. So just something to think about. And by the way, the lighter your car is, no matter what powers it, the lighter your car is, the less brake dust and tire dust and all of that, by the way, because the less dust means your consumable is lasting longer.

[Zach Klapman]

Right? Once again, the answer is always Miata.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah, well, light. The answer is any fucking light car, really. I mean. Oh, there we go. By the way, someone commented on the story. Page 13 describes the diesel engine. It was a 12.6 liter inline six on a test bench. So it was basically a semi truck. It ran at 1200 rpm. So it was basically mimicking a semi truck engine, cruising at highway speeds. Okay, well, so Euro 3 standard compliance. So it's a modern semi truck engine. I think this study could have been focused on trucks more so than actual cars, but. Okay, but it's a modern engine is the point. Not. Not a 40 year old engine. So I stand corrected on the not knowing what kind of engine is.

[Zach Klapman]

Yeah.

[Matt Farah]

Anyway, we have so many questions, you guys. So many questions. I could talk a little bit about the revuelto, but we're gonna do that a whole other show.

[Zach Klapman]

Well, let's do it because I'll drive it tomorrow. Sorry, let's talk about it later because I'm gonna drive it tomorrow.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, it is. It's $682,000. $682,000. But I'll tell you what, it's. It's you, you feel value you. Actually, it's hard to say something is quote worth it, but it's in. You can see where the money's gone. You definitely understand where the money's gone for sure. Well, you'll. I think you'll see that when you drive it too, because for that amount of money you should have everything. There should be nothing that that car isn't great at.

[Zach Klapman]

I agree.

[Matt Farah]

And we'll get to all those things on our next show, I'm sure. Of course, if you want to talk to us through the Internet, the best way to do it is to pay us Patreon to support us to support the show. Because ads ain't gonna run this bitch forever, let me tell you. Especially when our fucking billionaire overlords get what they want and shut it down when we're all wearing AI pendants to ask permission if we could piss 30 years. Yeah, Patreon, that's where we're at. Support the show [e-mail] thesmokingtirepodcast you can also catch the live stream. You can also get the show before everybody else. You can also get the show without advertising and you can ask us questions about cars and other things that we will answer on the air. So let's get to that. Silence of the Lambo. That is like what happens when I start a revuelto in my driveway in the morning in EV mode and silencio away. It's so nice. You can not only not have to wake your spouse and your pets, you can choose whose spouse and pets to wake. You can hit that button anywhere on your block and just unleash the fucking fury.

[Zach Klapman]

I like that because you can go three doors down and then go, I don't like.

[Matt Farah]

And you go, you know what? This guy was kind of a dick bag. Let me just fire a V12 at him. It's 6:40am yeah. And I feel good about it. But Silence of the Lambo says, what are your favorite OG Online car forum drama? That's a fucking good one. Do you remember, do you have any online car forum?

[Zach Klapman]

I can't recall. I know that the Ferrari chat is usually full of drama. I mean, I figured that would. You'd have some stories from that.

[Matt Farah]

Oh, yeah.

[Zach Klapman]

But Subaru forms. I don't recall having drama. It was just nerves.

[Matt Farah]

They were all like, oh, bro, it's good. There's no drama.

[Zach Klapman]

It was usually people blowing up transmissions and then blaming the car for what they did. Now the five speed was one thing, but the only. This isn't really drama. But there was a guy who posted a video and the video was titled like, what happened to my Car? And he had a brand new black and gold sti and it's a video of him clutch drop launching five times in a row. And I mean like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. And the sixth time you hear ka chunk and the car stops and he's like, what the fuck happened? And everyone's like, you happened. You did this. What do you think? So that's not really drama. It was just. It was a good pile on.

[Matt Farah]

Sure. I mean, the case study of online forum drama is of course John Hennessy getting involved in the forums when people are calling him a thief.

[Zach Klapman]

Right.

[Matt Farah]

And really not helping himself.

[Zach Klapman]

That's true.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah. That's the most memorable online forum drama that I can recall in terms of a specific incident or thread that really got just beyond out of hand. But dude, Ferrari chat in 2008 and seven, it was so crazy. It was so weird. Cause I'd meet these people in person. These were like rich, rich, rich. Like Wall street guys with like families and they're all rolling these expensive ass cars. And then you'd read the forum and you'd think you were talking to like middle school people. These were the biggest fucking loser wieners. Where it's like, don't you have jobs and families? Like, what are any of you doing? You're just like bitching at each other over. Not even related to the cars. It had nothing to do with the cars. But like before, you know, a lot of like the modern social media tools like the Northeast, like in within Ferrari chat, there's like, you know, model specific stuff. Like, you know, people who are wrenching on their own cars and tech questions and your regular forum stuff.

[Zach Klapman]

Now, if you own a360, are you allowed to post comments in the F12 area or is it barred because you're not?

[Matt Farah]

I don't know, because I never had a Ferrari at that point. But what you had on Ferrari chat was you had the model stuff and I never even went in there. But then you had the regional. And so I don't know what was going on in any other region. But I can tell you the New York, Northeast, tri state was a complete shit show of these people. And, but, and like some of people didn't own Ferrari. Some people did. Like that was just the local forum. It just happened to exist on Ferrari chat. But like, that was like all of it was.

[Zach Klapman]

That should have been an indicator of where we were headed in general. Like the Internet was gonna get as angry as it is.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. It was crazy. Andrew Wu says, I just pulled the pig. Pulled, pulled, pulled the trigger on a G80X drive. That's a Genesis. Oh, wait, no, it's a BMW. That's a BMW M3. Sorry, do you think there's anything I need to get as an upgrade out of the box if I'm doing spirited long drives in this car, like brake lines or pads?

[Zach Klapman]

No, usually I would say fluid. Usually if you're gonna drive it hard, like the brake fluid is probably the first thing that would overheat.

[Matt Farah]

Wait till you do it. It's an M3.

[Zach Klapman]

It should be great at every. Good enough at everything.

[Matt Farah]

It's not like getting in a WR going, I'm going to do a track day in that. And M3 should be at a pretty high standard out of the box. You should be able to drive and enjoy for a little bit.

[Zach Klapman]

And then he says, I'm looking at flashing the suspension and Transmission from the M3Cs. I don't know. We haven't driven that back to back, have we?

[Matt Farah]

I haven't. But I mean if it really is the OEM stuff, it probably won't make it worse, right? You know, if you're really getting the OEM stuff, just that real good shit.

[Zach Klapman]

Makes it a little softer.

[Matt Farah]

The brand name shit, not that Alibaba.

[Zach Klapman]

Yeah. If you're getting the actual software. Yeah. Make sure you're getting.

[Matt Farah]

I don't know if it's the actual software.

[Zach Klapman]

I don't know. Depends on who's installing it.

[Matt Farah]

My gosh. Some trustworthy motherfuckers. What are you gonna do? You gotta take their word for it, you know? How do you know anything when someone gets in your fucking ecu? Just have to assume they know what they're doing.

[Zach Klapman]

And then you have to sheepishly go back to the dealership and be like, will you set my car back to stock?

[Matt Farah]

Yeah. Elderly woman behind the wheel in a small car.

[Zach Klapman]

Good. There's some really good names today.

[Matt Farah]

Fuckin you guys are really coming through with the usern. That's superb. About. Oh wait. Are auto shows going to be a thing of the past? Will they move to modern conventions like ces, like Honda? The thing about auto shows is they're. They're mainly held on by regional. Put on by regional dealer associations. That's who provides the cars. The manufacturers don't really actually support it all that much.

[Zach Klapman]

Really.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah.

[Zach Klapman]

I mean I know the dealers usually bring the cars. I figure that OEMs pay for money too. Okay.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah. And like. But I think the manufacturers force the dealers to do it. But I think, you know, attendance is down across the board. But it's still like where people go to like sit in cars with their families and like try them out. I think, I think.

[Zach Klapman]

But I wonder if that market now it's just car people that do that. Whereas before it was like that was everyone's access to sit in a car. And Carvana and other people have proved that like some people don't give a shit. They just want to click order or they'll just go in and pick one. So I just think it's. I think the way people buy cars is splintering a bit.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah. But no, I don't think they'll move to big conventions like CES unless there is some kind of specific tech feature, you know, that they're trying to do. Because they can, if they want to have media cover their shit, they'll just have a fully controlled press launch which is way cheaper and easier than public facing auto show.

[Zach Klapman]

Or they can glom onto SEMA in one way or another and not have to set up up an entire convention just for new cars.

[Matt Farah]

I don't. Do you know what? Bad gardener. Oh, wait. Sorry. But Hardness. Okay, about last episode's electric turbo spooling on the new 911 GTS. Honda has teased a motorcycle that's a V3 with an electric turbo that does not use exhaust pressure. I don't know how they plan to generate the wattage to power such a thing. It would have to be.

[Zach Klapman]

Oh, I remember. So last episode I think. But Hardness asked, why doesn't Porsche use electricity to power the turbo entirely and not use exhaust gas?

[Matt Farah]

Yeah. So I mean the reason I think is that beyond a certain rpm the exhaust gas is just there and it's more efficient. And also they need the turbo to generate energy. Not just the turbo is now a two way energy device. It's not just a one way energy device. That's sort of the difference with this new E motor turbo.

[Zach Klapman]

This is the Moto.

[Matt Farah]

So Honda. Let's see.

[Zach Klapman]

Sicleta.

[Matt Farah]

Okay, wait, hang on. V3 motorcycle with an electrical compressor. It's a water cooled. Blah, blah, blah for large displacement motorcycles. First, electrical compressor, which is labeled to control compression of the intake air, irrespective engine rpm, meaning high response torque can be delivered at lower rpm. Okay. It does not require any form of intercooler. That's cool. How does it. Let's see. Can you scroll down? It doesn't have a. It doesn't say. Can you click on that electrical compressor image? Can we make it bigger? No.

[Zach Klapman]

Oh, wow.

[Matt Farah]

Well, I mean it looks like a turbo that just blows straight into what looks like an intake manifold of some kind. That's pretty cool. I don't know how it generates the energy to do that, but I like the idea. I mean for a big like torquey bike, that would be sick. For a cruiser. Yeah, like that's 100% going on a Gold Wing and not a fucking Fireblade or whatever their modern superbike is.

[Zach Klapman]

I wonder if. I guess we'll see. It all depends on the tuning. Right. So if they use it mostly to get off the line at low rpm, but then as you get higher in the rpm it's just hands it over to the engine.

[Matt Farah]

That could be.

[Zach Klapman]

Yeah, that speculation.

[Matt Farah]

That could be. And then while it's running on engine, it could, it could, you know, charging somewhere. Yeah, it could do both ways. Yeah.

[Zach Klapman]

Yeah.

[Matt Farah]

How interesting. That's a good one. But I think in the Porsches it makes sense that the Exhaust would take over because it's there. Bad gardener new M3. 1300 horsepower. What do you know about that? I don't know anything about that. Do you know anything about this? Never heard of it. Sorry. Band Gardner canceled.

[Zach Klapman]

I see car. Wow. Did a walk around. So BMW VDX concept that has 1300 horsepower. It's electric.

[Matt Farah]

It's electric.

[Zach Klapman]

Oh, that's why.

[Matt Farah]

That's why. Tim, A. When you went to the GT3 launch, did Porsche give hints about a manual transmission turbo model? They did not. Tim says it's looking likely with a wide body. Turbo touring. Bless you. Driving around Germany, essentially a mass market 911 sport classic. I called this six months ago, eight months ago. So I wouldn't be surprised if they do it if they make the regular turbo a mass market sport classic. Maybe even rear drive. And the turbo s the big daddy hybrid PDK all wheel drive and I think that would be excelented. Yeah. Jeremiah. Jeremiah Dicklesworth III wants a new fun daily road trip car that will carry the dogs. Cayenne GTS or Turbo Alpena XB7RS6 Avant. Current garage is a 911 TTS, Amira Truck, Pajero and a couple old muscle cars. Wow. Okay. A front seat. All right. I'm gonna say the XB7 is a nice luxury car, but not fun.

[Zach Klapman]

Yes, it's too soft.

[Matt Farah]

The RS6 Avant seems like it would be fun, but after a few days it's not that fun. It's fast when you're in it, but it's not that fun. The Cayenne GTS is pretty aggressive.

[Zach Klapman]

Sounds good.

[Matt Farah]

It sounds good. It's more fun than the RS6 for sure.

[Zach Klapman]

And I think it's firmer and more sporty than the XB7, but still very comfortable. Still feels special.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah. Cayenne turbo is faster than a Cayenne gts, but not, I guess it's a turbo hybrid. Now the hybrid is nice if you also want to roll on electric for short trips around town. And it's nicer on the highway than the gts. It's more relaxed on the highway, but it's less fun.

[Zach Klapman]

Yeah, I think you just have to test drive those two cars. The GTS feels depends on the roads near you. Like it feels a little stiff on the wrong bad tarmac, but it is fun and it sounds good and it's kind of like an exciting thing to drive all the time.

[Matt Farah]

Let's see other things that could be fun. The Audi RS Q8, which is the same price as the Cayenne GTS and is basically an Urus Light and a total sleeper. Those are classy and very nice.

[Zach Klapman]

Jeremiah says most of the driving will be long distance and rallies.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah.

[Zach Klapman]

Okay.

[Matt Farah]

The RS6 is comfortable enough to use as a grand tour. The problem with it is for the amount of money you're spending, it's just not that fun. That would bum me out. I'd rather a C63 or a lightly used or not a C63. Excuse me, an E63 wagon or a lightly used Panamera Turbo S wagon. I'd much rather either of those for fast wagons.

[Zach Klapman]

I agree. And I think the next step from Panamera to me is gts. Especially if you're a Tale of the Dragon. The roads around there are very smooth, twisty. You'll be happy. That's good.

[Matt Farah]

I agree. Randomly grilled Tale of the Dragon wants to go to the track more regularly and aggressively this year looking to install a roll CA harnesses in my daily GT500 for safety and because race car. What mods do you later view in life as stupid or not worth the inconvenience such as a potentially unnecessary roll cage racing Harnesses. Harnesses. Taking out not just having harnesses, but replacing factory seat belts entirely.

[Zach Klapman]

Yeah.

[Matt Farah]

So dumb. So fucking dumb.

[Zach Klapman]

I mean, because you need some of that forward movement to hit the airbag. Crashing with a harness on can be very dangerous.

[Matt Farah]

If you don't have a Hans.

[Zach Klapman]

If you don't have.

[Matt Farah]

Right.

[Zach Klapman]

If you don't have a HANS on because your neck's gonna stretch.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah. Also crashing with a cage is. Can be very steady.

[Zach Klapman]

Yeah.

[Matt Farah]

So if you're talking about track, like if you're talking about doing a rear harness bar and then also a high back bucket seat.

[Zach Klapman]

And I think that's fine.

[Matt Farah]

That's pretty safe for the street.

[Zach Klapman]

Yeah.

[Matt Farah]

But I wouldn't do anything with a halo bar or a door bar on a streetcar.

[Zach Klapman]

I agree.

[Matt Farah]

Absolutely not. You could die in a very low speed crash like that.

[Zach Klapman]

Yeah.

[Matt Farah]

But other mods like I do. I ran like a straight pipe for a while in my Corvette. Like that's real stupid. Just beyond when the. When the car is like loud. Beyond where it makes stops. Making more power. Taking out cats is stupid. Running catless. That's dumb. Street glow.

[Zach Klapman]

I didn't want to bring it up.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah. Fuck. Marry. Kill steering feel. Suspension feel or engine power. Fuck engine power. Kill steering feel. No. Kill engine power. Fuck chassis feel. Marry steering feel.

[Zach Klapman]

Oh, that's. I think I'd marry suspension chassis and then. Oh, man, that's really tough. That's like, what's the most important thing? I think you fuck power and then you can kill. I can even kill steering feel okay.

[Matt Farah]

Blurple has. Car's been parked for a year with a blown head gasket. What would be the first thing you would do after getting your favorite car back after a year of repairs? Road trip, dude. Road trip weekend. Not too much commitment. Light schedule.

[Zach Klapman]

Yeah, I was gonna say if it's a fresh build, do a short trip and then do a long trip to reconnect with the vehicle that you like. Because you obviously like it because you've had it for a year.

[Matt Farah]

Mama mai miata. There we go. Given how successful sporty crossovers have gotten, would it make sense for Acura to do an RDX Type S using the Integra Type S engine or the Turbo V6 out of the other Type S models? I think so, yeah.

[Zach Klapman]

I mean, I'd go Turbo V6. I think the Integra engine would be a little weak for a. An RDX manual.

[Matt Farah]

No, I want. I want one to exist, but I don't want to own it. Right.

[Zach Klapman]

So we should just skip that. Yeah, we should just have a. But I'd go, you know, bigger power with a suv. Sure, sure. I think they'd sell four.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah. All wheel drive bias. First year having two cars and fortunate enough to keep my fun car in the garage most of the winter. What sort of processes and preventative measures do we use at WCCS to prevent deterioration of vehicles while they sit for so long? So we keep the cars on battery tenders if they are going to be stored and not driven for a long time. We fill the gas tanks and we put in a bottle of fuel stabilizer. We start the cars up, all of them, and warm them up to operating temperature once a month. And while we're doing that, we shuffle them around so they're not sitting on the same part of the tires. We don't use those weird tire pillow things. People keep trying to sell us those weird tire pillows where like you literally drive your car up onto a pillow and instead of.

[Zach Klapman]

To keep it round.

[Matt Farah]

To keep your tire round.

[Zach Klapman]

Oh, interesting.

[Matt Farah]

If your car, I mean, I suppose if your car is like literally gonna sit for like years, if you're gonna.

[Zach Klapman]

Do that, just put on jack stands.

[Matt Farah]

For sure.

[Zach Klapman]

Yeah, for sure.

[Matt Farah]

But like, I don't know, maybe there's a market out there for these things, but we move the cars around. So let's see. Well, I'm not.

[Zach Klapman]

We haven't Watched the video.

[Matt Farah]

Alex is. Alex Hay is referencing a video that I haven't watched. So I'm gonna pass on this one. Sorry. Alex says you're not asking me, but I think the way we drive will change more than how the cars will change.

[Zach Klapman]

I think that's a response, right?

[Matt Farah]

Yeah. I mean, look, I think even if you look, if you're worried about an administrative state with driving, even Switzerland, the strictest speeding state ever. On the fucking good roads, you can still have fun. It's only on the highways. You can still have fun in the good place. The places that are in the middle of nowhere, everywhere, wherever you go in the world, the best roads in the middle of nowhere, there's no enforcement.

[Zach Klapman]

The least convenient way to get somewhere.

[Matt Farah]

That'S where you go to have fun with a car. Yes. Let's see. Max lyall In Australia, MG are selling an electric vehicle for under 20k US with a 10 year warranty and 350km of range. Is there anything close to this in America? And if there isn't, would a deal like this change the market at all? I mean, I think so, but. But a lot of people that are at the very low end of the car market live in apartments that don't have handy charging. They're not living in single family homes. Right. I mean, yes, a more affordable electric car would actually change the market.

[Zach Klapman]

Yeah. Short answer, if we had an electric car here that was $20,000 and something that's more usable than the 500e because that's a pretty damn cheap car. But it's so small, I think that keeps a lot of people away. So if you had a simple four door for 20,000 bucks. For sure.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah. Basically. If the Nissan leaf could do 200 miles of range, that's pretty much.

[Zach Klapman]

If the Versa was an ev, that would get a lot of people in the door.

[Matt Farah]

I think it would change the market. I think people would buy it. Most people who buy model 3s don't do so because it's amazing. It's because it's the cheapest electric car.

[Zach Klapman]

Yeah. With a good charging network. They're everywhere here. They're frequently used as taxis, Ubers, Lyfts because of that. I think you would see more of that if they were cheap enough. But to buy them, for most people, it's cost prohibitive.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah. Jay Fritz, have you ever had to make a choice where your car hobby came second or was sacrificed in some way? My car hobby has been part of my work since I was 25 years old. So I mean I had to. When I, you know, when I lost my free car storage and had to fire sale like four cars because I didn't.

[Zach Klapman]

Someone put that in a combo, didn't.

[Matt Farah]

Have anywhere to keep them.

[Zach Klapman]

Someone had a reply.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah, yeah, I mean, but I'm in the, I'm the exception. Most people in the real world have to at some point sacrifice something in their car hobby.

[Zach Klapman]

Well, when I moved here, I was driving the sti, I was financing and I quickly realized that the economics weren't going to work out and I had to sell it within three months of being here and I bought a, a $3,000 Honda Civic that had a broken speedometer and odometer. That was a sacrifice for sure. Yeah, yeah.

[Matt Farah]

Old rusty Bimmer. What the hell is this? And then puts a link about the apparent story that Jeep is sending pop up ads through their uconnect UI system. If that's actually true, I don't want. I was nervous about fully repeating this without somebody at Stellantis having a statement, but that's pretty crazy according to Tech Story. Wait, wait, hold on, go back, go back to the previous page.

[Zach Klapman]

What in the.

[Matt Farah]

What has happened here? I mean that's real terrible. It's ads for extended warranty that come up every time the vehicle comes to a stop. That's crazy.

[Zach Klapman]

Oh, here. So that's a screen. Grab a photo of it. Again, this website's terrible.

[Matt Farah]

Says a website with an enormous amount of pop ups. The irony of doing a story on pop ups.

[Zach Klapman]

Yes. And then I can't close. There we go. Yeah. So the pop up from Stellantis, it says purchase peaches mind Flex Care extended premium plans are factory warranty, blah blah blah. So it's basically saying, hey, do you want to call and extend your warranty right now?

[Matt Farah]

These ads are part go up. These ads are part of the contractual agreement with Sirius xm. So is this an ad to renew your Sirius subscription?

[Zach Klapman]

I don't think they'd call it Flex Care Extended Care premium plan if it was part of that.

[Matt Farah]

That's crazy.

[Zach Klapman]

Yeah, I mean if it's contractual agreement with Sirius, then maybe Sirius gets a cut by like serious owns the real estate or something.

[Matt Farah]

Maybe.

[Zach Klapman]

That's weird.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah, that's pretty shitty.

[Zach Klapman]

Like, like if you're listening to Sirius but this pop up shows up. Yeah, maybe that's what Sirius gets a little bit of the kickback on probably. Yeah, that is very annoying.

[Matt Farah]

Yo, we're all like, I mean we're already so fucked with our, with our connected cars. They just Telling everybody about us. But like, yo, yeah, that right there is a fantastic example of surveillance capitalism. I mean, your car is watching you and knows when you do a thing and then tries to sell you something because of it. That's literally what surveillance capitalism is.

[Zach Klapman]

That's just annoying. You have the screen and all this stuff and now you come to a stop and you just have this pop up that's like, hey, you want to buy the warranty?

[Matt Farah]

It's not hard to see where this goes. Where this goes is because we're so used to following fucking ways and shit around that when you. Particularly when we eventually do get to an autonomous car, somebody's going to pay to have an AV route. You pass their shit, like.

[Zach Klapman]

Yeah, for sure.

[Matt Farah]

100%. 100%.

[Zach Klapman]

Well, because we know that we're gonna.

[Matt Farah]

Hear you talking about wanting a fucking burger. And Applebee's has keyword burger on your AI pendant and is gonna route your fucking shit past whatever you were just talking about.

[Zach Klapman]

Yeah. When you zoom in on Google for restaurant, the first pop ups are paid ads from big companies. And then you start seeing the mom and pop stuff.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah. Murray says the coffee kicked in on. Okay, wait. Okay, where the question is, is there a car where you unintentionally tested its driving dynamics due to coffee or Taco Bell mistakes? Meaning you had to deuce.

[Zach Klapman]

You had an unexpected bathroom necessity.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah.

[Zach Klapman]

And you had to drive very quickly to remedy that. Probably nothing horrific that is seared into my memory, thankfully.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah, I mean, I probably would have known if I hadn't made it. If I had actually deuced in the car as a result of not making it, it would probably be very memorable. But I think I've always made it and therefore it's gone pretty quickly. I mean, I definitely. You know, when my cat Conrad died and I tried to race him to the vet to save him in the Mach E and I broke. I must have broken a hundred traffic laws between my house and the vet. But it's not a great story. He died. He wasn't gonna come back.

[Zach Klapman]

But how was the turn in. That's the question, Matt.

[Matt Farah]

Well, it was really the. I'm never using my phone as a key again because it wouldn't. The car wouldn't unlock because I didn't have my fucking phone. I hope Matt likes my username. I do, buddy. My dad sold his first car with an ad in Autotrader magazine. My grandma recalls that his Buick was on the COVID of the magazine. I'd love to find a copy and gift it to my dad. Google searches have not worked. How do you find old issues of Auto Trader magazine? I mean, I mean have you tried going to autotrader.com and contacting their staff about specific back issues of the magazine?

[Zach Klapman]

Yeah, it's a good idea.

[Matt Farah]

I mean that's what you would do for any magazine. I will say that for Road and Track you can buy back issues on Amazon, which I hate to advertise Amazon for anything but like I literally was like Road and Track 2004, blah blah blah and I was able to buy a brand new copy of that.

[Zach Klapman]

Ebay can also be a decent resource I think. Autotrader. Didn't they make one a week? Yeah, Auto Trader was a weekly printed weekly. Right. So the problem is that the volume of magazines they put out, like someone would have to store 52 magazines a year versus 12.

[Matt Farah]

Auto Trader may also be regional meaning you have to get the office for your region.

[Zach Klapman]

Surely is. So I mean I would contact their head office.

[Matt Farah]

The first thing I would do is go to autotrader.com and go to Contact us and try to someone. You're not the first person to ever try to do this. Somebody will have an answer.

[Zach Klapman]

And ebay hoarders might help you out. Someone has a stack of those magazines in Orange County.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah. Again from Bad Gardener with the Revuelto partially in mind. Are there any cars with four digit horsepower that you actually have interest in owning? Good question.

[Zach Klapman]

Yeah, sure. The Bugatti Chiron.

[Matt Farah]

A Chiron I would buy, sure.

[Zach Klapman]

If I was super rich. I think it looks amazing inside and out. It goes like a motherfucker.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah, yeah.

[Zach Klapman]

Koenigsegg. Sure.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah. I mean if all the money in the world. Yeah. I'd have a Koenigsegg. I think that would be exceptional.

[Zach Klapman]

I would also own a thousand horsepower. Mark 4 supra. Yeah.

[Matt Farah]

I mean look, if money is real, which it is, and like if I, you know, the choice was to own one of these insane cars and nothing else, like really stretch the budget as far as it would go and then be really irresponsible on top of that, then maybe one. Nah, not interesting.

[Zach Klapman]

I agree. If I have to stretch for that purchase like the new ZR1.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah.

[Zach Klapman]

I don't know if I would stretch my budget it to 200 grand to buy that specific car because I can get so many different other things for $200,000 just to have that thousand horsepower. I don't think I would. But if money is no object, I like the cars enough where I would want to have them regardless of power.

[Matt Farah]

There's plenty of cars at 500 horsepower where you go, this is all I ever need. And you're right, it is. But there's other cars that are 500 horsepower where it doesn't necessarily feel like all of those are getting to the ground, and that's where you start to go. Maybe a little more would do it here. Let's see. Oh, this is a callback to my mom. If my mom bought what. Okay, so this calls back to a story where I tried to get my mom in 1997 to buy a Tahoe. Instead, she bought a Lexus RX300. And she was right and I was wrong. The question is, of all the terrible cars being manufactured right now, what would you be most disappointed in if your mom bought it instead of a Tahoe?

[Zach Klapman]

I mean, instead of crisis Hummer, if.

[Matt Farah]

My mom bought an electric Hummer right now, I'd be more disappointed in her than if she bought a regular Tahoe.

[Zach Klapman]

I was shocked and so entertained. I have so many questions for Vivian. Oh, my God.

[Matt Farah]

Were you here when my dad found out how much he had been scammed by buying an Escalade? So, you know, he had that Escalade when he. So it was. He. He had a driver for a while when he was at Tory Burch, and he. But he had to supply the car, so he. He wanted a car. So he's. Tall, durable, New York City car, and it turned out it was like a huge shit box. Like, it was so bad. Everything was broken on it all the time was junk. And he got 20k on the hood to buy it, and it was still junk. Like, that's how bad this thing was. This was not this current gen, but one bad.

[Zach Klapman]

Okay.

[Matt Farah]

But he came out to LA with my parents, my mom, to visit, and they rented a car while they're here, and they rented a Tahoe. And it was the base. The base Tahoe, like the Hertz Tahoe. And he's driving it around and he goes, this is exactly the same as the car that I have.

[Zach Klapman]

And he paid way more money.

[Matt Farah]

And he's like, how much is one of these new? And I was like, you know, $42,000. And he's like. He's like, I paid fucking 80 grand for money. This is the same thing. He's like, what a fucking piece of.

[Zach Klapman]

Shit with just a badge on the front of it.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah.

[Zach Klapman]

And like, slightly nicer buttons. Oh, man, that's funny. You could never look behind the curtain ever. Yeah, that is a rare opportunity. One has the same thing. I think of that when I see, like, GMC trucks and AT4s and stuff, and they look cool and they have a good hardware, but I'm like, the same thing is down the street.

[Matt Farah]

Well, remember back in the day when Maserati first came out with the Ghibli? The newer Ghibli, which was like, what, 2012 or 13 maybe, and we drove it on the press launch, and we're like, the buttons are the same as in a Dodge Charger. And the guy with a straight fucking face said, the people shopping for this car will have never driven a Dodge Charger. I was like, you're gonna die on that hill.

[Zach Klapman]

That's a bet.

[Matt Farah]

That is crazy.

[Zach Klapman]

That's an aggressive bet. Because I would actually counter that the people that aggressively finance Dodge Chargers, once they make a little money, we'll aggressively finance a new Maserati.

[Matt Farah]

If they've got a Hellcat, the side piece drives a Ghibli.

[Zach Klapman]

That's a Maserati Heart they have. They're just driving a Charger today.

[Matt Farah]

You know the house around the corner from my house where the guys got like 15 Turo cars? No, there's a dude around the corner from my house who's got a Turo spread and they're all on the fucking street. It's not my street, so I don't care. But, like, he's got, like, two Sprinters, a Hellcat. He's got. He's got two Polaris slingshots and just like, you know, it's. It's nothing. Nothing, like, special, but, like, stuff that'll hit on Turo. Like, he's clearly running a bit, but he got a Ghibli and it's wrapped matte orange like, holy shit. Find a Montero.

[Zach Klapman]

That's a terrible car in every way.

[Matt Farah]

It's not good.

[Zach Klapman]

Yeah.

[Matt Farah]

What? Would I be the most disappointed if my mom bought instead of a Tahoe Electric Cybertruck.

[Zach Klapman]

Of course.

[Matt Farah]

Cybertruck. There is no more embarrassing vehicle you can buy in the year of our fucking Lord. 2025 is the single most embarrassing vehicle you can buy today.

[Zach Klapman]

Yeah. The Hummer H1 looks great.

[Matt Farah]

Fabulous.

[Zach Klapman]

And actually isn't that big.

[Matt Farah]

It's actually shorter in terms of, like. Yeah. Age, like milk. The Hummer H1 is not that big.

[Zach Klapman]

Yeah, it's not.

[Matt Farah]

Enrico Palazzo. What's the ideal working man's generation and spec 911 use case? Normal dude that just always wanted a 911 and was smart enough with his money to have a moderately priced toy. 997. You're not 997 Carrera. Absolutely the sweet spot of 911 ownership, I think. Save yourself 40 to $50,000, keep 10 on the side for maintenance.

[Zach Klapman]

Yeah. And they look good. They look classic.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah.

[Zach Klapman]

Even when they were new. It's got a decent interior for sure.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah. So granny shifting, not double clutching like you should. Was impressed that I was able to ascertain that the Guntherwerks power button was not accurately delivering the levels. It's commonly asserted that in the car community BMW and Porsche underrate the power levels on their car. And you said before that the Mustang seems to. He wrote under deliver, but I wrote, I think I've said over deliver. How true or false do you think the claim is about BMW and Porsche? I think the Germans, all of them tend to measure their power outputs in sort of worst case scenarios. Right. You could be on any dyno in any climate and it'll put down the number. And so if you then proceed to test it in ideal conditions, it will exceed the numbers.

[Zach Klapman]

Well, isn't the thing that Porsche does they test the 060 time is done with like, like gross vehicle weight and max, like full cargo, full people. And that's why when you empty it out it beats like every time they beat their time.

[Matt Farah]

I don't know if that's true, but maybe, I mean I know they, I know that they test their cars under pretty serious conditions, but.

[Zach Klapman]

And like the Dinos, we've seen this with Audi for a long time.

[Matt Farah]

Audi put it up.

[Zach Klapman]

When you put it on the dyno, it's making 100 more at the wheel than. Yeah.

[Matt Farah]

Remember the, Was it the S8? The S8 was like underrated by like 100 horsepower.

[Zach Klapman]

It's been happening for a long time. So I don't know if they just, they overbuild the engine and they know that they can trickle out these power increases for the life of the engine for 10 years. But when you actually put it on the dyno, you're kind of getting the real number. I'm not sure.

[Matt Farah]

And with Mustangs it's like I actually feel, I feel like I can feel the drivetrain losses. It doesn't feel like the engine doesn't make the power. It feels like it gets away from you before it gets to the wheels.

[Zach Klapman]

I think, I think the GT500 felt pretty honest.

[Matt Farah]

Different driveline. That's a Tremec, it's a carbon drive shaft. GT based cars, I just, they're different like you, you know, you put, you put a whipple on a GT versus the GT500. Those are completely different speeds of vehicle. Even though they make the same advertised.

[Zach Klapman]

It's like all the bushings in between engine and tire. A little too squishy.

[Matt Farah]

100% Michael Cosgrove Favorite European country to drive in. God, is that tough because they're all fun.

[Zach Klapman]

I, I think I'd have to go Germany only because the autobahn does exist. But you also like, you have some mountains. There's some mountains which are good and twisty and the tarmac's really good. And then you can go over like the high mountains if you want to and get really twisty stuff. Spain is also excellent.

[Matt Farah]

Spain is fabulous.

[Zach Klapman]

Spain is excellent.

[Matt Farah]

Spain is fabulous. But I have to say Switzerland, I mean there's just actually. Oh, European. I would say New Zealand, but that's obviously not European.

[Zach Klapman]

But, but New Zealand was so slow though.

[Matt Farah]

It was, but it was gorgeous. And I think in the right car. I think we did it in the wrong car. We were in a minivan. If you do it in a fun car, I bet it would be great.

[Zach Klapman]

Yeah.

[Matt Farah]

But yeah, man, there's nothing like Switzerland. It's just extraordinary. John Lynch Strangest and most useless option or added extra you've ever encountered on a car. Oh yeah, the open and throws out the openometer. There was a gauge in the Mini Cooper that recorded the percentage of time spent with the roof down.

[Zach Klapman]

That's adorable.

[Matt Farah]

Which is crazy.

[Zach Klapman]

Very silly.

[Matt Farah]

I mean the obvious is the Volkswagen New Beetle. The flower vase. That's very dumb option. Yeah. Might have been standard. Honestly. Let's see.

[Zach Klapman]

I just had a thought.

[Matt Farah]

I mean back in the day, like you could get a coffee maker and the dash of a Volkswagen Beetle like a full on coffee maker. That seems dangerous.

[Zach Klapman]

Now you can just buy them at like a BUC EE's.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah. FDR President has a machine that dispensed lit cigarettes, which I love.

[Zach Klapman]

I used to think that the tent on the back of the Aztec was dumb, but now I car camp more and I kind of get it.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah.

[Zach Klapman]

And you know you can sell those to people that own Broncos. Broncos and four runners all day long.

[Matt Farah]

The gauge in old BMWs that just moves back and forth and shows your miles per gallon.

[Zach Klapman]

But it's just.

[Matt Farah]

No, I'm saying, I'm saying in BMW it's really just a throttle position sensor.

[Zach Klapman]

I think I forget who first had it. But like a touch button that opens the glove box.

[Matt Farah]

Oh yeah.

[Zach Klapman]

And even worse is a glove box that's Open through a screen. That is very silly.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah, yeah. Those aren't really the questions. Optional extras. It's like I haven't. I mean you really had a. You really had a very good one with the openometer. That is supremely stupid. I used to think the passenger screens were really stupid until I found this one use for the one with the Taycan. And now I think it's a little less stupid, but they're kind of dumb.

[Zach Klapman]

This isn't an option, but the Lotus Eletre, the cup holders in the center console could be hidden. Meaning, like you could depress it. It'd be a flat space and then you press down on this velvet covered thing and it just descends like a nuclear missile silo. And now your cup holder's there and then you press again and it rises back up to fill the gap.

[Matt Farah]

I mean it's a beautiful piece of design.

[Zach Klapman]

It didn't work. It was like who seems like a lot strange y like a lot.

[Matt Farah]

I don't know if I've seen any other useless options. I don't know.

[Zach Klapman]

I mean, wings on really slow cars.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah. Yeah. I don't know. I don't have. I don't have another one past that. That's useless. Options are. I'm gonna. If I think of another one, I'll come back. Dicky Tickets has an 08 RS4. Good choice. Considering swapping to a GR Corolla. Interested in some track days and more fun weekend drives? I mean, thoughts related to fun and driving dynamics. I mean, the Corolla is going to be much sharper. You're going to want to beat on it more. The RS4 is a road trip car. It's good for open sweepers.

[Zach Klapman]

It's a GT car.

[Matt Farah]

It is if you're on a track day. You're going to have more fun in the Corolla for sure. It may feel like a step back in refinement. It doesn't have lumbar support, things like that.

[Zach Klapman]

It won't look as special when you get inside it, in my opinion. But I think dynamically I, I feel like it feels more even. You go around a corner, you feel like the weight is being pulled from the front and rear. 50, 50%. Whereas in the RS4 it's very nose heavy. I think that will reveal itself pretty well and it's probably going to feel a lot lighter.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah. Like it's really hard to make an RS4 oversteer, but it's not so hard to do that in a GR Corolla. EngineerD wants My head shaving routine. I use the Brio beard skateboard to buzz my whole head and face. And then in the shower, I do full head shaving cream. I let it mellow for like a minute and a half. It's gotta sit. And then I shave the top first because that's the thinnest, wispiest bit of hair. And then I shave the sides and then I shave the lower bits. And I work my way from top to bottom. And I have one mirror in the shower. I do not need a rear mirror.

[Zach Klapman]

Now why do you do wispy first? Because my brain thinks you'd want to use the sharp blade. Fresh blade.

[Matt Farah]

I use a fresh blade every time I shave.

[Zach Klapman]

Okay.

[Matt Farah]

And the reason is I want the shaving cream to penetrate that thicker hair a little more. There's not much resistance up top. Lot of resistance in this area. So I want an extra minute or two of shaving cream penetration. And with a new blade every time that's sharp enough to get the job done.

[Zach Klapman]

True.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah. And then I use Kiehl's aftershave. Oil free. Real nice. It's real good. I recommend it. It's very aerodynamic up there. Once you have a shaved head, it's really a delight.

[Zach Klapman]

You gain two tenths when you do that.

[Matt Farah]

My name is Lane, but I identify as Street.

[Zach Klapman]

That's funny.

[Matt Farah]

I learned how to drive in a 1982 Volkswagen Transportation. That was double cab that was used by the US military in Europe. What non exotic or historically significant car would you bring to a car show to get the most attention? That's a fun one. Fire trucks would be a good one. A sherp. I'd roll up in a sherp. Dirty. Just park on somebody's roof.

[Zach Klapman]

They had those in. I just watched the new Aliens movie.

[Matt Farah]

They had sherps. You roll up to a cars and coffee in a sherp.

[Zach Klapman]

Yeah. That's very unique.

[Matt Farah]

You're gonna have some friends by the end of the day.

[Zach Klapman]

I feel like the ramp truck get attention, but it's seen too frequently now.

[Matt Farah]

I mean you. I mean, wait. I'm gonna be rolling up in an aircraft engine Myers Manx in a couple months. Things with airplane engines are good. Zach's high centered sti. Is there a populate? Wait. Do you think there's a chance that the popularity of station wagons in America will ever increase? If not, do you think if Volkswagen brought the Golf R wagon to the States, would that help?

[Zach Klapman]

No, no and no.

[Matt Farah]

The Golf R wagon stinks. I'm gonna say it. It stinks. The Proportions are not good.

[Zach Klapman]

Not as good as Weird.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah, it's not a good looking vehicle. Just.

[Zach Klapman]

I agree with you. Yeah, the hatch is perfectly fine.

[Matt Farah]

Christian Larson just watched To Live and Die in la. Great movie. Great car chase. And made me wonder what are your favorite movies where LA is central to the film, like a second character. There's a bunch.

[Zach Klapman]

There's so many very good. Fast and Furious kind of works.

[Matt Farah]

Fast and Furious totally works.

[Zach Klapman]

What's the movie with Steve Martin in la? LA Story. Like, that's very funny. There's a lot of good funny jokes in there.

[Matt Farah]

Falling Down.

[Zach Klapman]

That's true.

[Matt Farah]

Falling down is fabulous.

[Zach Klapman]

I want to rewatch that actually.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah, we should rewatch it. I mean, Demolition Man. The San Angeles Metroplex. Although it was filmed in Irvine. Right. Let's see. Pulp Fiction.

[Zach Klapman]

Oh, that's true.

[Matt Farah]

100% Pulp Fiction.

[Zach Klapman]

Oh, man, that doesn't really matter.

[Matt Farah]

Speed.

[Zach Klapman]

I'm realizing there's a lot of action movies. Oh, speed.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah.

[Zach Klapman]

Like to jump the highway that was under construction and get on the air Runway.

[Matt Farah]

The Lincoln Lawyer. Yeah, speed. Dudes. The entire, you know, speed was just like they had this highway. They had finished the 105. And it's like, well, what would you do if you had 20 miles of highway that hadn't opened yet? Like Hollywood, like, let's fucking go, baby.

[Zach Klapman]

There's gotta be a liaison one way or another that's like this thing's under construction or this building's falling down. What do you want to do with it? Do with it? You know, demo it or something. Yeah.

[Matt Farah]

Beverly Hills copy. 1, 2 and 3.

[Zach Klapman]

Yeah, a lot of Beverly Hills.

[Matt Farah]

It's DL Car Guy movie Die Hard.

[Zach Klapman]

Was shot in LA, but it's just one building, so it's not as like LA airheads. I forgot that was Encino man, dude.

[Matt Farah]

Bill and Ted's. He loves San Dimas. Ellen is very central to Bill and Ted's for sure. Any Pauly Shore movie. Encino Man.

[Zach Klapman]

Basically Hollywood land. What was it called?

[Matt Farah]

Once Upon a Time in Hollywood.

[Zach Klapman]

That's what I'm thinking of. Yeah.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah. Like all. All Quentin Tarantino movies.

[Zach Klapman]

Good point.

[Matt Farah]

Good question, though. Throw some D's on it. Top three race car liveries. And what would you put on your personal.

[Zach Klapman]

I reduced the number from 10 D's a little long 10. Top 10. You know what I really like right now is it's like AO Racing. They have the green like Godzilla. It's a green dinosaur livery on their 911 GT3 car. That's cool. It Looks very cool. Big teeth in the front and they're doing. They're pretty fast.

[Matt Farah]

I'll pull up a photo. I like the old Apple computer one from the 80s. I like the dark Interscope one also from the 80s. Both of these are Porsche 935. I like the Pink Pig butcher.

[Zach Klapman]

That was a good one.

[Matt Farah]

I like the Porsche Psychedelic. The long tail, the one we have a model in the lounge.

[Zach Klapman]

Yeah, that's also very cool.

[Matt Farah]

That one is one of my favorites. I would put psychedelic long tail on my own. On my own car. I think that would be a pretty fun.

[Zach Klapman]

The BMW like streaking colors. Race.

[Matt Farah]

Oh, that was it. Frank Stella. I think that might be Frank Stella's art car and it is incredibly sick. Whatever. The BMW M1 Pro car that raced at Le Mans, that was the art car. I think it was the Warhol car.

[Zach Klapman]

The. Not the M stripe colors.

[Matt Farah]

No.

[Zach Klapman]

Okay.

[Matt Farah]

Did you find it? Was it Frank Stella? BMW hard car. John Player special is great.

[Zach Klapman]

Frank Stella did a couple of them.

[Matt Farah]

The Lichtenstein is great. Dude, there's so many. There's so many, so many good race liveries. What race livery would you not want on your car?

[Zach Klapman]

Golf? Yeah, it's just, it's a good. It's a. It's like putting. It's a gas company, right? So that's all it really is. It's just representing the company. And I think the cars did well. But when I see it on other cars that are not race cars, I go, it just doesn't look that good to me.

[Matt Farah]

So you know, we got at. We got in storage is a. A Cal Sonic Skyline.

[Zach Klapman]

Oh yeah, it's. That's a very simple livery. It's not like a pretty.

[Matt Farah]

The livery doesn't mean anything. It's just what the car represents. It's so important.

[Zach Klapman]

You know what I don't like when BMW brought back the art car livery like five years ago and remember it was white and had like a dot on one side and a number and.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah, it was lame.

[Zach Klapman]

It was a huge fall off.

[Matt Farah]

But in general that I, I'm so supportive of art car livery. Everybody should do it. Xpatrick is driving in the US Too easy leading to more distracted drivers. I moved to Germany 11 months ago. Between the smaller roads and ever changing speed limits, I find myself more engaged. Well, the US Is so big. Dude, the US Is huge. What does driving in the US Mean? If it means driving on an eight lane freeway in the suburb of Houston or does it mean driving in a windy back road in Greenwich Connecticut. Does it mean driving a beautiful two lane in Vermont? You know, it's like driving in the U.S. you know, interestingly, when I went on the same that launch I talk about all the time, we drove the same car in Germany and then in America. And when we drove it across Germany, like, yes, driving in Germany was objectively bad, better the speed, the variable speed limits were there, the tarmac was great. Like trucks stayed to the right, like that was great. But what was interesting was compared to driving in America where I just drove like I would normally drive, but like, rather than being like 100k for 30 minutes when I was changing my varying my speed ever so slightly, when I was sort of, of slowly moving through traffic as I normally do, I usually drive just a little faster than the speed of normal traffic and I'll slowly make my way through, which is not something I did in Europe. I found myself at the end of a three hour drive more engaged. And I was sleepier in Europe, having to hold 100k for that amount of time. Even though I will totally admit it was objectively better for everybody and probably safer to do it the way they were doing it.

[Zach Klapman]

Europe, I think I bet you'd find if you live there that that would diminish over time. Because I know like when I go to Europe, I'm very like Spain. You drive on the right side of the road, it's basically the same. But I'm very focused because I'm in a different environment and things are slightly different. So I'm paying much more attention to everything.

[Matt Farah]

Sure.

[Zach Klapman]

So even if I just cruise on the highway, I'm still a little. Remember when we were in England and we're. And we were driving the Lotus and you and I both like were listening to music. It was like day three and I got like started to get a little comfortable and sing along with the song and I missed a turn right away. I was like, oh, I turned off 5% of my brain and I fucked something up.

[Matt Farah]

Right.

[Zach Klapman]

So I think, I think it's more engaging if it's if like you said, there's more variation. So if the speed limit's changing, if the, if the terrain is changing, whereas America, you can drive across Texas for two straight days at 80 miles per hour and it's like you barely turn the steering wheel ever. So there's just less to do sometimes.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah. Keel and toe. How does the Gunther Turbo compare to the roof CTR anniversary? Oh, they're diff. They're different experiences. They really are.

[Zach Klapman]

The roof steering is lighter yeah, it's just, it feels like much narrower front tires. It's a narrow car overall.

[Matt Farah]

Well, the roof, they narrow. They cut down this, you know, as Freeman talked about. Right. You know they widen sort of from the center. Whereas the roof, they keep the 993 cockpit and they just widen the axles out.

[Zach Klapman]

You mean with the Gunther.

[Matt Farah]

Excuse me? The Gunther they pull.

[Zach Klapman]

The Gunther is all fender.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah, yeah.

[Zach Klapman]

And the roof is roof.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah.

[Zach Klapman]

Right.

[Matt Farah]

So the roof to me feels lighter and the engine feels more like a996 engine. Like it's a water cooled engine. Right. So it feels like snappier in the way that the, the water cooled engines feel. The roof was a little more playful. The Guntherworth is. The Gunther is just extremely hardcore. Like it's just so hardcore.

[Zach Klapman]

Right. The Gunther feels more like race car force street.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah.

[Zach Klapman]

And I feel like the roof feels more like streetcar that's had a lot of power added to it in performance.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah. It's. The Gunther is more of a workout out for sure. And I'm not sure I'd have felt comfortable like sliding it the way that I was able to like after five minutes be like, let's just.

[Zach Klapman]

Yeah, that's true. I mean we're in it. We're in a closed location with a roof.

[Matt Farah]

But still, I don't think I would have done that in the. In the Gunther. I don't think I would have even tried.

[Zach Klapman]

I would have tried but I think. But I think I would road trip the roof. I don't think I would road trip the Gunther because like we said in the video, it's so loud in there. I mean it's really tiring.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah. You could use the roof as a pretty regular car. That would be tough to do in the Gunther. It's a lot. It's very overwhelming all the time. Whereas you could probably cruise around pretty low key in the roof if you wanted to. Yeah. But they're so different. Just like it's cool that you can sort of choose that sub adventure within the world of these sort of resto modded Porsches. Even though the CTR is a carbon tub and not a rest of the.

[Zach Klapman]

I know this will work, but maybe you understand. I feel like the roof is like going to see Muse and the Gunther is like you're going to see system of a down or like something just a little, little harder, a lot louder.

[Matt Farah]

Sure. Timbo says thoughts on the new EV Dodge Charger. I went out to a thing where Dodge invited some journalists to dinner like a week and A half ago at father's office. And Vin was there, Glucker was there. Some other. Some other people were there and. And the CEO of Dodge was there. Matt something. Matt. Mick something. He was very nice.

[Zach Klapman]

Matt McAleer.

[Matt Farah]

Yes. Thank you. He was very cool and he's like pretty, pretty young dude. Yeah. And I get what they're doing. I really do want to try an electric charger and actually I gotta follow up with them to drive one, but I'm not sure who wants big two door electric GTs right now. I'm not really sure who the customer is for that.

[Zach Klapman]

Yeah, it's valid.

[Matt Farah]

And they did the little fake exhaust noise for me. It sounds exactly like the Ioniq 5N's engine. Yeah. I can't believe nobody has said this in a review yet. At least it sounds. It's the same sound the Ionic 5N makes. It's really funny. Like it doesn't sound like a muscle car at all.

[Zach Klapman]

Is that more like. Sounds like a cat. I remember the Ionic 5 one. It was like raw.

[Matt Farah]

Yes, that's it. It's like a cat. Yeah, yeah. It's not like a cat. It's like a voiceover actor's impression of a cat through auto tune.

[Zach Klapman]

They bought the sound from Thundercats and then they just like piped that in because it was like a dollar to buy.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah, yeah. Dildo. There's a space in there. What non car related job did you have in the past that you enjoyed? I had the best job in the world. I gave it up to do this one. Scuba diving instructor in the Caribbean. This the best, best job?

[Zach Klapman]

Yeah. That's like what Monty does now. I get no stress.

[Matt Farah]

No money, but no stress.

[Zach Klapman]

No stress, though. You had to be worried about people dying. Nah, it was always fun. Fine. It was fine. Okay.

[Matt Farah]

It's always fine. I had to rescue a couple people though.

[Zach Klapman]

Right.

[Matt Farah]

But like. But then I did. It was fine.

[Zach Klapman]

Okay.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah.

[Zach Klapman]

So on occasion stressful.

[Matt Farah]

I mean, it's like mildly dangerous. It's not as dangerous as racetracks or, you know, half the other we do. And it was like girls in bikinis and tropical fish. What's not to love?

[Zach Klapman]

It's like a job that I think if the job is something you do once you retire, it's probably a pretty cool job. Like that's something.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah.

[Zach Klapman]

I would not go back to waiting tables.

[Matt Farah]

Me and Marty are going to be like fucking Morgan Freeman and Tim. Tim Robbins at the end of Shawshank. He's going to be. He's going to be Chiseling some boat and we're like, hey, yeah, I'm here with the money.

[Zach Klapman]

Yeah, yeah, exactly.

[Matt Farah]

Chris N. Recommendations for attending a NASCAR event. Looking to go with a few friends to Talladega for a bachelor party. Do not go to any race in which you care about seeing the race. But that doesn't mean it won't be a good time. Get an rv, get in the infield.

[Zach Klapman]

I think that's the move.

[Matt Farah]

You need a home base.

[Zach Klapman]

Yeah. Otherwise you're have to spend a lot of money to get like a box seat or something. Having the ability to go inside, especially when the race is six hours long and you sitting in the bleachers in the sun, you're just gonna get cooked.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah.

[Zach Klapman]

Being able to go inside and then you're part of the nighttime party, which I'm sure is a thing.

[Matt Farah]

That's exactly T Bone Mendez. Looking for a sporty GT coupe to go along with my Range Rover as a nice weather, daily 50k budget, reasonable maintenance intervals, sound being the most important factor. Front Runners, F type, AMG GT GT350E63M6 Coupe missing any good candidates. Can you get an LC500?

[Zach Klapman]

Can you?

[Matt Farah]

I don't know if you can get an LC500 in that range. It should be right up there with the F type and the AMG gt.

[Zach Klapman]

And it would. It will probably retain its value better than everything on that list except for the GT350.

[Matt Farah]

Probably. They have a floor.

[Zach Klapman]

Yeah.

[Matt Farah]

A high.

[Zach Klapman]

I like them.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah. And they didn't make enough.

[Zach Klapman]

And they don't break.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah. So AMG gt. I wouldn't get a base. Gt. I'd. Look, look, if you're not going to get into a C, the one you really want is the C. Yeah. You're not going to get into a C. You might be able to get into an S, but there is a difference.

[Zach Klapman]

They just did an article on Intercooler about that. The S's are pretty cheap.

[Matt Farah]

Are they?

[Zach Klapman]

I mean they're cheap over there. They're probably cheap here too.

[Matt Farah]

So if you can get into an S, it's worth your money. The F types, the move is the V6S manual coupe. That's the best one. The V8S are really stiff. They're loud, but they're.

[Zach Klapman]

Yeah, they sound good. But I also don't think the interior on the F type is aged the way like the MG GT interior. Still looks good and new to me.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah, true.

[Zach Klapman]

And then GT500. Yeah, totally true.

[Matt Farah]

Aiden Squire says two more. Aiden and Nathan. And then we're going to call it. We'll save the rest for the next show. This isn't the fault of car reviewers, but it seems like most car reviews nowadays are only for top trim models where the MSRP can be 40k but the price is tested is 85k. Obviously carmakers want to show off their top models, but it feels like you can make reviews biased without experience in the base model. Sometimes it's important to know what you don't get in a car versus the range topping model. I totally understand your point. And if you had a big outlet and a bunch of people and the JU stats, you know, Ford to send you three versions of the same car so you could really experience it, I mean, that would be great. You gotta see the manufacturer's side of why they would want to send journalists the top trims. I mean, not only does it is it the nicest version of the car, but it has options that you can then go describe how they work and what they do.

[Zach Klapman]

Right.

[Matt Farah]

We do occasionally get base model cars. I mean, the 991.2 Turbo S I drove had a fucking price of like $102,000. The only fucking option on it was sport exhaust. It had no other options. That was pretty cool. We drove the 991.2 Carrera T had like very few options on it. So I totally understand what you're saying. And oftentimes, unless there is a very specific feature, for instance with Taycan or Panamera, if we wanted to test the hydraulic suspension or test a car that has the rear steer, we could say, specifically can I get one with this? Or specifically can I get one that's a manual or an automatic? Or specifically can I get one that's not white or black for the center card photo? But it's very rare that we can say, I want an AMG gt but I want a stripper one with no options because they often won't really exist.

[Zach Klapman]

Yeah, yeah, sometimes magazines get those, but it's also pretty rare to have those press cars around.

[Matt Farah]

If it, if there's ever one with no options, it's usually because it's going to like Motor Trends and they're gonna weigh it. It's gonna be like, yes, there is one variant of this car that's under £3,000, but it's 400 grand and won't have air conditioning. Okay, this is a long one, but we're gonna end on it. One of the strangest criticisms levied against EVs, this is from Nathan Reynolds is that it's all artificial induced demand predicated on government incentives and then pushing it on the consumer consumers. For decades, the government has essentially subsidized the production of trucks and SUVs via various taxes, lenient safety and emission standards for light trucks, and tax incentives and write offs. I agree. Yet customers fall for it under the guise of the perceived advantage of them. Safety, utility, space, etc. Why do you think this is? Why are we so quick to call out the artificial demand, but so accepting of trucks and SUVs despite the latter having a larger environmental and societal impact?

[Zach Klapman]

Well, talking points get put forward and get injected. I'm not trying to be like a conspiracy theorist, but like if the story starts somewhere, either an article or a news story or something, that stuff oftentimes has the genesis of that is a PR campaign. And if they want to campaign against EVs or against the administration that is supporting EVs, they will look at what stories might get people's attention. And you know, calling out, quote, artificial demand and subsidies is a way to demonize your opposition. And they're not going to. If a news story comes out saying people are really pissed off about subsidizing these EV companies, they're not going to mention in the same story, by the way, we also do that for trucks and other things.

[Matt Farah]

Well, and the way they subsidize them is incredibly subtle.

[Zach Klapman]

Very true.

[Matt Farah]

It's very subtle. There's no check. Yeah, it's not a tax. A 7,500 tax credit on the hood to come buy one of these things. And also, yes, there's section 179 and there's all these other stuff. But I think it's a little too late for trucks and SUVs now. Meaning in the beginning it was you're going to be rugged and you're a utility. And then it was was we made them drive like cars and now they're all so fast. And now also it was like you're higher so you can see over cars. But then everyone got the same one, so now it's like even bigger. And we're in sort of escalating size war and height war and all that kind of stuff. Capability, horsepower, etc. There's so much profit in trucks and SUVs versus small cars and sedans and particularly versus EVs. EVs lose OEM's money right now.

[Zach Klapman]

True.

[Matt Farah]

And SUVs and trucks make them a huge amount of profit. So it is to their benefit to maximally demonize EVs so they don't have to make them and maximally market trucks, which is where their highest profit margin is. So all of the, you know, you're showing a family going camping in their Volkswagen Tiguan, even though, like, no one's really going camping in it, they're really just driving it around the same thing they're doing in the other car.

[Zach Klapman]

Right?

[Matt Farah]

And so there's a. There's the American ruggedness, there's the, I want a utility car, but that also does drives a car, and it handles well enough, it has good enough fuel economy. You're not thinking about the fact that that extra weight is going to be 10% worse than the thing you hit and whatever. But the manufacturers and their representative lobbies, they want to force the or push the American people, incentivize them to buy the thing that is most profitable and to demonize the thing that is the least profitable.

[Zach Klapman]

The root of the answer is always who benefits from the story that's out there? Yeah.

[Matt Farah]

Good question, though. Nathan, thank you. Thank you very, very much. Thank you to everybody, our patrons particularly, of course, if you want to get your question in there. Patreon.com TheSmokingTirepodcast is how you do it. And we will see all of you next week.