Reviewed: Porsche 911T, CT5V Blackwing, Bentley CGT

Summary

The Smoking Tire Podcast – Episode: Reviewed: Porsche 911T, CT5V Blackwing, Bentley CGT
Release Date: November 21, 2024

In this exhilarating episode of The Smoking Tire, hosts Matt Farah and Zack Klapman delve deep into comprehensive reviews of three high-performance vehicles: the Porsche 911T, Cadillac CT5V Blackwing, and Bentley GT Speed Hybrid. Through detailed discussions, firsthand driving experiences, and insightful comparisons, the duo offers listeners an in-depth analysis of these automotive marvels.

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Porsche 911T Review with Zack Klapman

[26:23] Zack Klapman: "The new 911T, while only slightly upping the horsepower to 388 from the previous 379, maintains the cherished manual transmission—a feature that's becoming increasingly rare in today's PDK-dominated lineup."

Zack provides an enthusiastic overview of the latest Porsche 911T, highlighting its subtle yet impactful upgrades. The inclusion of rear steer as a standard feature enhances the car's agility, making it a standout in the modern 911 series.

Key Highlights:

• Performance Enhancements: The 911T boasts a modest power increase and retains the six-speed manual transmission, praised for its "super nice" operation compared to the previous model's "crunchy" feel.
• Weight and Balance: At 3,283 pounds in its lightest configuration, the 911T is 60 pounds lighter than the Carrera, thanks to optional features like the carbon bucket seats and omission of the rear seat.
• Driving Dynamics: Zack emphasizes the car's exceptional handling, steering precision, and minimal weight distribution changes (48% front, 52% rear), likening its balance to that of a 911.

[33:39] Zack Klapman: "This truly gives driving enthusiasts all the things they want—quick enough, sounds good, comfortable, and dynamic."

Zack concludes that the 911T is not a consolation prize but rather a meticulously crafted vehicle that offers unparalleled driving pleasure for those willing to invest in its premium features.

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Cadillac CT5V Blackwing Review with Matt Farah

[37:47] Matt Farah: "The Precision Pack is a game-changer, enhancing everything from shock reprogramming to the Performance Data Recorder (PDR), making it not just a performance upgrade but a comprehensive enhancement package."

Matt shifts focus to the Cadillac CT5V Blackwing, detailing the newly introduced Precision Pack. This package is designed to refine the driving inputs without compromising the vehicle's daily drivability.

Key Highlights:

• Precision Pack Features: Includes reprogrammed shocks, different spring rates, enhanced bushings, and reinforced structural elements to improve handling and performance.
• Performance Data Recorder (PDR): The integrated PDR allows real-time lap analysis, driver coaching, and telemetry overlays directly on the car's screen, eliminating the need for external devices.
• Driving Impressions: Matt shares his experience driving both the standard and Precision Pack versions, noting significant improvements in handling and lap times, especially when compared to professional drivers like Jordan Taylor.

[43:57] Matt Farah: "This is the perfect sports sedan. No notes. If I had one instead of the Bentley, I would have just as much fun."

Matt praises the CT5V Blackwing for its balance of power, weight, and technological enhancements, positioning it as a superior choice for enthusiasts seeking both performance and comfort.

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Bentley GT Speed Hybrid Review with Matt Farah

[05:08] Matt Farah: "The new Bentley GT Speed Hybrid is possibly the most well-rounded car on the market today. It's not just about luxury; it's about delivering uncompromised performance."

Matt recounts his extensive 1,400-mile road trip in the Bentley GT Speed Hybrid, emphasizing its exceptional balance of power, efficiency, and driving dynamics.

Key Highlights:

• Performance and Efficiency: With a base price of $400,000, the GT Speed Hybrid offers a staggering 26 miles per gallon and 40 miles of electric-only range, making it both powerful and relatively efficient for its class.
• Driving Dynamics: Matt highlights the car's rear-wheel-drive architecture, near-perfect weight distribution, and advanced features like PDR, which significantly enhance the driving experience.
• Comparison to Other Vehicles: The Bentley GT Speed Hybrid is lauded for its superior handling and balance, often outperforming heavier and similarly priced counterparts in track settings.

[35:06] Matt Farah: "This car is extremely sick. If you have the money, don't pay $50k over the sticker price for one. But if you can get one, it’s worth every penny."

Matt extols the GT Speed Hybrid as a pinnacle of automotive engineering, combining the luxury and craftsmanship Bentley is renowned for with cutting-edge hybrid technology and performance.

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Driving Experiences: Radford Racing School

[07:34] Matt Farah: "Driving Hellcats at the Radford Racing School was an exhilarating experience. These cars are like rally stage-level machines, offering intense oversteer and wheel spin management challenges."

Both hosts recount their experiences at the Radford Racing School, where they drove high-performance Hellcats in autocross and track settings. They discuss the thrilling yet controlled environment that allows drivers to push these powerful vehicles to their limits.

Key Highlights:

• Car Control Challenges: The Hellcats provide a "loose as a goose" driving experience, perfect for learning advanced car control techniques like oversteer management.
• Autocross Dynamics: Participating in autocross events with Hellcats offers a spectacle of power and control, making it a favorite among beginner to intermediate drivers.
• Community and Fun: The school hosts a diverse group of cars, including Corvettes, Ferraris, and various Porsches, fostering a vibrant and competitive atmosphere.

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Listener Questions and Host Responses

Throughout the episode, Matt and Zack engage with listener questions, offering their expert opinions on a range of automotive topics.

Notable Q&A Highlights:

1. Toyota GR Yaris in the US:

   • [58:05] Zack Klapman: "I wouldn't just because I think the GR Corolla is more usable and I've heard the Yaris is slightly more fun and smaller, but I don’t live on a rally stage as much as I wish I did."

2. Bentley Depreciation:

   • [60:18] Matt Farah: "The real value lies in ownership history, service records, and overall condition. A well-maintained Bentley can retain significant value, but modifications like aftermarket wheels can detract from it."

3. Crossover vs. SUV:

   • [72:46] Matt Farah: "I draw the line based on the platform—crossovers are typically built on car platforms with bigger tires, while SUVs like the Grand Cherokee and Durango are on more robust, traditional platforms."

4. Steering Ratios in Larger Cars:

   • [93:07] Matt Farah: "Models like the Porsche Panamera, Macan, and Cayenne GT boast sharp steering ratios, making them excellent choices for those seeking responsive steering in larger vehicles."

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Concluding Insights

The episode wraps up with Matt and Zack reflecting on the reviewed vehicles' market positions, value propositions, and the evolving landscape of high-performance cars. They emphasize the importance of informed decision-making when investing in premium vehicles, considering factors like maintenance costs, technological features, and personal driving preferences.

[35:39] Matt Farah: "If you have the money, they’re a really good car that happens to be the second cheapest car Porsche sells. They hold their value well and offer incredible driving experiences."

[35:42] Zach Klapman: "I agree. The Porsche 911T and Bentley GT Speed Hybrid are not just status symbols but true driver's cars that deliver on performance, comfort, and technological innovation."

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For those passionate about high-performance vehicles and seeking expert insights, this episode of The Smoking Tire offers a wealth of knowledge and engaging discussions. Whether you're in the market for a sporty coupe, a luxury sedan, or a hybrid powerhouse, Matt and Zack provide invaluable perspectives to guide your automotive decisions.

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Upcoming Episodes:

• Next Week: In-depth look at the Cadillac Blackwing
• Road and Track Austin Event: April 1st, featuring bourbon barbecue and track time at Coda Sick

Be sure to subscribe to The Smoking Tire podcast and follow Matt and Zack on their social media channels for the latest updates and exclusive content.

Transcript

[Matt Farah]

We got three car reviews in today's show. Zach drove the 911 Carrera T, which I'm very excited to hear about. I drove a Cadillac blackwing the embargoes today and also did 1400 miles in the new Bentley GT speed. What's up, everybody? Welcome to the Smoking Tire podcast. This episode is brought to you by off the Record. Man, do we love off the Record. And boy, do I have a new story for you. I got a friend down in Texas, got himself a new car and on the way home home, boy, did he have a little bit of a problem. Folks had a biggin. He called me, I set him up with off the Record and boy, was he excited when he texted me back this morning, just this morning. And he goes, I cannot believe it. I got pulled over doing a number. That was who it was a big one. And off the Record got it dismissed, fully dismissed, not even just reduced. Off the Record is the best. They are a service that connects you with a qualified attorney in the jurisdiction where you got that moving violation. Could be a big one, could be a small one. Doesn't matter. Don't plead guilty, get off the record. Go to offtherecord.com TST or use code TSTpod on the off the Record app. Again, go to offtherecord.comTST or download that off the Record app for iOS and Android and use COD TST pod. That will get you 10% off any legal services booked through off the Record. I've used them a whole bunch in my career. I tell my friends, I tell my family, I tell you people. And when you use them and they come through for you, you guys tell me back. It helps me do these promos. So I like it both ways. So offtherecord.com TST or code TSTpod on that off the Record app. Have it in your pocket, ready to go. If you get pulled, you're using them confidently and you're not pleading guilty. All right, kiddos. On this episode, Zach went to Atlanta to drive the all new 911 Carrera T. Very exciting for our Porsche audience. I also went to Atlanta, but for a different reason. I drove the new Cadillac CT5 Blackwing with performance package. And I just got back from a 1400 mile road trip in the new Bentley GT Speed Hybrid. A car that I think is possibly the the best, most well rounded car on the market today. And it should be because it's $400,000. We review all of those cars and answer some really good questions on today's Cruise show. Welcome to the Smoking Tire podcast.

[Zach Klapman]

I had closed it. I had closed the live monitoring window.

[Matt Farah]

Why? Why'd you do that?

[Zach Klapman]

For efficiency for the department of podcast.

[Matt Farah]

Efficiency for the department of. Yes. We should start the department of podcasts.

[Zach Klapman]

We should. And we should both run it. Both of us. That's efficient. Two people in charge.

[Matt Farah]

You know, Hannah listens to all podcasts at 1.5x.

[Zach Klapman]

Really?

[Matt Farah]

She cannot bear to listen to people talk at the speed that they talk. It's really.

[Zach Klapman]

Oh, that's good to know. All right. So when her eyes glaze over when I talk to her, she's just going, come on, just go.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah, just go faster.

[Zach Klapman]

Let's go faster. Hannah, how you doing?

[Matt Farah]

And don't, like, abbreviate anything. Just, like, talk like you're on coke.

[Zach Klapman]

Okay. With all the.

[Matt Farah]

Just sell me something. Anything.

[Zach Klapman]

So annoying.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah. Yeah. You know what's funny, though? I've had to do it in the car with her. And, like, it. It works.

[Zach Klapman]

Some shows at the right speed. It absolutely works. It brings them up to, like. Cause sometimes they're too slow.

[Matt Farah]

It turns NPR into, like, a comedy show in terms of pacing, and it.

[Zach Klapman]

Can bring it up to New York speed. I think there's a lot of podcasts that are.

[Matt Farah]

Can you set this to New York, Jew? I got somewhere to be.

[Zach Klapman]

Right? There's definitely a speech in New York. Conversation.

[Matt Farah]

Oh, yeah. And a density.

[Zach Klapman]

Mm.

[Matt Farah]

And I'm for that. And sometimes a really appropriate level of.

[Zach Klapman]

Rage, because sometimes the serial killer were investigating. You're like, go.

[Matt Farah]

And then her cousin went up the bedroom stairs.

[Zach Klapman]

Yeah, yeah, right. But what happened at the top of stairs?

[Matt Farah]

Get this fucking thing going.

[Zach Klapman]

I have other podcasts to listen to after this one.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah, I listen. Holy shit. On the. On the. You know, the road and track thing I just did, it was really fun. We did Arizona. I also drove to Arizona from. From la and in the Bentley GT Speed Hybrid, which we've got. Welcome to the show, everybody. Long, long, slow bleed intro there. We got three car reviews in today's show. Zach drove the 911 Carrera T, which I'm very excited to hear about. And Taycan gts, I guess.

[Zach Klapman]

Yes. Can't talk about that till tomorrow.

[Matt Farah]

I could guess what that car is 100%. Could write a review for a Taycan GTS without driving it. Guaranteed none of you would ever know. Right? We don't have to say that, but, like, I'm just gonna throw that out there. But he drove 911T. I drove a Cadillac Blackwing the embargo is today. And also did 1,400 miles in the new Bentley GT speed. Well, if you remember I was supposed to drive the Bentley GT Speed to performance car of the year. That was the plan, right? To do that long fucking haul in one of these, which let me tell you something my friend, would have been glorious.

[Zach Klapman]

It would have been just as good as you thought it was going to be.

[Matt Farah]

Would have been glorious. My ability to pick cars for journeys is unsurpassed. And So I did 1400 miles in this instead. The drive from here to Phoenix left at 5:30 in the morning. Steam trained it. Dude.

[Zach Klapman]

Yeah.

[Matt Farah]

Running ways on the big screen. The Valentine 2 Rip Mike Valentine. With my new USB C converter you can finally power a Valentine 2 with a USB C port.

[Zach Klapman]

Is it a whole new cable? So it goes from.

[Matt Farah]

No, it's the telephone cable into a little adapter for $45 and you can pay by fax. Shout out to Mike Valentine.

[Zach Klapman]

Oh, they sell. I bet they're the only ones that.

[Matt Farah]

Sell that you can sell that. Sell what? The adapter? Yeah, probably it's branded.

[Zach Klapman]

I mean Amazon has everything but that is so niche that you know, like Chinese copies, they go, who's converting telephone? What is a telephone wire to USB C? You need eight adapters in a row.

[Matt Farah]

Well, remember when Christian needed a cable that didn't exist and our homie with the secret place all of a sudden showed up with like a dozen of these cables like no one had a made.

[Zach Klapman]

Yeah.

[Matt Farah]

So yeah, for you know the drive out to Phoenix. Amazing. And then Radford Racing School. I got the, I got the little bit of the skinny on the Radford Racing School because as we know Radford car companies having a little bit of trouble. They are completely different businesses. It's really just the name and brand is licensed to the school. So the school has nothing to do with really anything with the cars other than the fact that there's like photos of the cars all around and like a full size mockup and like whatever. It's like the branding. But the school is all good.

[Zach Klapman]

Okay.

[Matt Farah]

And they've got all the Hellcats. They have like 85 hellcats.

[Zach Klapman]

I mean that's just like Bondurant before them.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah, yeah. But I got, I drove one going back to back with between a Bentley GT and a Hellcat you go, I see where the money's going. A Challenger or a Charger two door Challenger.

[Zach Klapman]

Okay.

[Matt Farah]

They had, they had a couple chargers also. But the school cars are Challenger Hellcats which I mean what a car to do a racing school in. Them cars are fucking loose as a goose.

[Zach Klapman]

Right.

[Matt Farah]

I mean you will have almost a rally stage level of car control doing like because you know, and the road and track events we do like fast lead follow hot laps. Like they don't let them go full open course, which I think is probably the right choice for this crowd. But there's always a fast group that ends up doing like full speed lead follows in their own cars led by the staff in school cars. Right. It always, it goes great, it's fun. Bunch of great cars on this trip. A lot of corvettes, a lot of Porsche, a couple Ferraris. You know, it's good spread, really nice. But then they do an autocross challenge on the big bondurant autocross with hellcats and like hellcat autocross is an amazing activity.

[Zach Klapman]

Yeah, that's just drifting and hitting cones and.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah, it's pretty awesome to watch. If people are beginner to intermediate level drivers. It's a fun thing to watch someone try to wrestle one of those cars through an autocross and it's fun to drive into like I went ahead and had a go and for me it was just, it was wheel spin management the whole time which is a really interesting skill to learn and just so much oversteer. So I think going to a driving school with hellcats would be a really, really good time.

[Zach Klapman]

Do they have normal challengers at all or is it just hellcat school?

[Matt Farah]

I didn't see any. It doesn't mean they don't exist somewhere. But all I saw were wide body hellcats as far as the eye could see.

[Zach Klapman]

Yeah, I think that's why. And like obviously it's a very good time. Last time I was at bondurant filming I drove a hellcat a lot and it was really, really fun. But I chose the spring mountain school because I was like the hellcat school seems like a cartoon like of itself. And I was like, that does seem like a great time.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah.

[Zach Klapman]

But I think it would get in the way of my lesson plans slightly.

[Matt Farah]

Well, I think you'd learn a different lesson. Yeah, I mean, I mean, I think.

[Zach Klapman]

What I'm saying is I've done enough drift schools.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Zach Klapman]

In order to take a break from that.

[Matt Farah]

But when people ask us about what driving school should I do? I mean the kind of car that you're driving, it matters. So it's like, well, what kind of skill do you want to develop? Like mid engine car control or like super horsepower. Loosey goosey Car control or whatever. And a lot of schools have really good teachers. It's not. I can't. One doesn't definitively have the best teachers.

[Zach Klapman]

Oh, definitely not. No.

[Matt Farah]

But it's a big part of it because you're driving a specific type of car. Like, well, what kind of car do you want to learn how to drive?

[Zach Klapman]

Yeah.

[Matt Farah]

But the Bentley on their track, this car, the reason this car is so expensive and it is so expensive. This car was $300,000 base 406 as tested. This car has. This orange car is driving had four options on it that totaled $105,000.

[Zach Klapman]

Well, like one package is 25 grand.

[Matt Farah]

Well, one of the packages, the first edition package is 50 grand. That's. That's the big one. Okay. It then had a satin orange flame paint which was 26 grand. It then had ceramic brakes which are 18 grand. And it then had a blackout trim which was like 3504 options, 106 grand.

[Zach Klapman]

I think. I think we talked about this on the other show. The ceramic brakes, they're more expensive than Urus brakes replacements. Like they're some of the most expensive ceramics on the market.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah, but if you are going to hustle around a 50500 pound car, you want them.

[Zach Klapman]

Yeah. £5,500.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah. Heavy as shit.

[Zach Klapman]

Yeah, but you should see heavier than some Taycans. That Hurricane.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah, yeah, probably is. Has a gas engine too.

[Zach Klapman]

Right.

[Matt Farah]

You should see how this thing fucking boogies. The weight transfer, the initiation of the oversteer. Third and fourth gear slides. I was doing slides in fourth gear.

[Zach Klapman]

Does it just send most power to the rear wheels at that point? Yeah, yeah.

[Matt Farah]

Well, it is a rear drive architecture. So you do have some all wheel drive, always at the front. It won't totally discouple the front, but the battery pack being in the back and it's Panamera architecture. So same kind of thing. And you can just. And it's great.

[Zach Klapman]

Could you feel the pull at the front at all?

[Matt Farah]

Not really.

[Zach Klapman]

Wow.

[Matt Farah]

No, not really. It was awesome. Really fun and managed tire wear like super well. And then great on the canyon driving and the highway transits and stuff. But the point was there's a lot less turns in Arizona. So I was listening to a lot of podcasts and I went through like seven, eight full length podcasts on this one. Easy. Some of which were like, you know, the behind the bastards is like four part, you know, four parter thing. But like, you know, I get. And I let a couple people drive this. I let Christian drive it. I let Gibran drive it. And I every, both of them were like, I didn't understand that a car could be this good like just at everything. And then I was taking people for ride alongs around the track and doing like drift laps and stuff. And people were like, this is the crazy. Like I cannot believe this huge thing is doing this on the track. It's just like no one will ever do that. No one's ever going to take this thing with track day. But if you buy one, you fucking should because it's awesome.

[Zach Klapman]

Look, I have to imagine like, you know, the 991 or 997 turbos were pretty good at sliding. And then they take that, they put it into Panamera and like all those iterations, all those lessons they've learned and now you have that in this. So like you said underneath it, those are the bones in the programming. It just.

[Matt Farah]

This is what a 928 would be. I mean it's a short wheelbase Panamera two door, like that's a 928. Basically. If you, if they platform share this back to Porsche and did a 928, they could do it pretty easily. But this is already there. And yes it's 400 grand, but you could make it 318 like that. Don't get a fucking matte paint job, you know what I mean? Like skip that.

[Zach Klapman]

It does look nice.

[Matt Farah]

It does look nice.

[Zach Klapman]

But.

[Matt Farah]

But the car will perform exactly the same for a hot. For 25% less or whatever. 20% less than the example I drove.

[Zach Klapman]

I will say in the photo, and so I want to preface by like, does it look this way in real life? But in the photo you could look at that and say it's a satin orange wrap because it has a softness to it that is very common in wraps. Does it look different in person where you go, oh no, this is definitely paint.

[Matt Farah]

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[Zach Klapman]

Oh, just this orange.

[Matt Farah]

So you can get the color for 3500 or you can get it satin for 26,000. That's the gap on satin paint. So like, yeah, skip the fucking satin paint. And if it's. The funny thing about these cars is everyone's like, it's not like getting a GT3 or a McLaren or something where by its very nature you would only use it like on weekends. Like you wouldn't buy this car to only you like this. You have to be so rich to Buy one of these that you can spend 3 to 400,000 on. Just like your car. Like if you have one of these, it's just your car that's just what you drive to shit. Or it should be because it's so good at that that you should never drive anything else if you could afford that. But like it's a different. Like I know people from being in the storage business that have a very high end, expensive car for the, for the weekend. Maybe it's used, Maybe it's a three year old McLaren that's half price or whatever. But a flashy sports car and their everyday car is like a Honda CR V or an Audi Q5. It's not like they're like rolling dope shit always. But if you're at the level for this, you're rolling dope shit always. Your other car is even sicker than this probably.

[Zach Klapman]

You know, they're amazing. When we had that other, the GTC speed like I don't know, six months ago, a year ago, I was so impressed. Canyons, highway driving, quiet. You get it. You get it. And I've driven other Bentleys from other generations and they lacked in different areas. I feel like they were much more just status and maybe speed. Like they were very proud of the top speed number.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah.

[Zach Klapman]

But dynamically they were just kind of. They're just okay. But now it's like it's everything.

[Matt Farah]

The first gen cars just weren't that fun. And then these, this gen which started in 19, I think maybe 19 or 20 when they went to Panamera, all of a sudden they were fun.

[Zach Klapman]

Yeah.

[Matt Farah]

And now like. But the V12, the W12, like that wasn't that fun. The V8 was more fun. But now you have the V8 but with more power than the 12. And you can drive on electricity alone if you want to just cruise and you can do, you know the weight.

[Zach Klapman]

Difference distribution better in this than it was 12. Right.

[Matt Farah]

12 was 55 front, 45 rear. This is 48 front, 52 rear. Weird. That's what I'm saying. So you can just whoop like a 911.

[Zach Klapman]

That's funny.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah. Like the balance when you get it sideways is like so good. And you know, at the Radford School, there's that part like over crest, there's like a kind of a yump. I got four wheel spin going over that.

[Zach Klapman]

Nice.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah, like full zero G fucking. It was great. So anyway, absolutely love this car. Possibly the most complete car in the entire world. Pick a metric and there's nothing that it's less than like an 8.6 at. And then, oh, by the way, starting with a full charge from my house to Scottsdale, I got 26. Go back. It's on the, on the next, on this one. 26 miles a gallon. And I was. And look, and my overall average was 74. So I wasn't like breaking cannonball records. But like, it's not like I was.

[Zach Klapman]

Going slow For a car that weighs 5,500 pounds, you said, Geez, I mean, yeah, that's pretty good miles per gallon.

[Matt Farah]

Especially with the power test and stuff like this, it's probably 25% improvement in efficiency. And then for your everyday, it has a legit 40 miles of electric too. So like you could, if you were just cruising around an urban area driving electricity like almost all the time.

[Zach Klapman]

A good weird comparison test would be this and the new M5. And I know that this is a coupe and that's a four door, but that would be a really fun comparison to do.

[Matt Farah]

Well, you can do the Panamera Turbo S hybrid with the M5. That's the same bit of hardware and it works. Yeah.

[Zach Klapman]

What is the range on the Panamera Turbo?

[Matt Farah]

Same.

[Zach Klapman]

Hybrid, same.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah, it's okay.

[Zach Klapman]

We should do that.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah, but fuck me, you know, for all that money, like at least you're getting, you're getting something. You can feel it when you're driving it. You can feel it when you're touching stuff. You can feel it after eight hours, you're not as tired. I'm running massage seats the whole time.

[Zach Klapman]

Does this make Rolls Royces feel, you know, second place now?

[Matt Farah]

Like a Rolls Royce, like a Wraith or a Dawn or a Phantom is a completely different type of experience.

[Zach Klapman]

Like they're not sporting to be the same experience. And they've diverged.

[Matt Farah]

Well, Mike, my Turbo R, like, was literally like they took off the B and put on a fucking Angel. Like it was the same for 40 years. They were literally the same cars with just little tweaks. And they obviously diverged when BMW got Rolls and Volkswagen got Bentley. And all of a sudden they started to care about Bentley's being much sportier than Rolls Royces.

[Zach Klapman]

Yeah, they kind of reconnected back to their racing pedigree, whereas they used to, just for marketing. But this is like, no, no, like.

[Matt Farah]

Actually, yeah, the cars. And then when they got access to the Porsche platform, it was like, okay.

[Zach Klapman]

Let'S get some fucking Germans now we can turn to.

[Matt Farah]

Let's get some Germans on this. And. And so now they're at a point where performance and dynamics are like really important to those cars. And they're like legitimately fun to drive and super fast and very dynamic. Whereas Rolls Royce is a unique experience because it's as close as like a car gets to a yacht. Like, that's not, it's not even like regular driving. It's weird driving that's cool in its own way, but it's not like sports car. Like, this is sports car. But that also is like 90% to Rolls Royce. It's fucking so sick.

[Zach Klapman]

This is like buying a used mig and then they somehow decorate the interior like a Learjet. So it's just those two things.

[Matt Farah]

Oh, and I'll tell you what, the cabin filter is so good. I'm leading a group of eight cars down a one lane road and like a fucking small crossover in front of us is just going mad slow and unaware that there's this huge group of sports cars behind them. And just rolling roadblock for like 10 miles. And finally they pull over and we go by, we get to our next stop and like three people in the group come up to me like, man, that guy, huh? I'm like, yeah. He was going so slow. They were like, they were all like, oh, he must have been so stoned. And I was like, what do you mean? Like, you didn't smell that? I was like, what do you mean? He's like, there was like so much weed coming out of that car. And I was like, oh, wow. Plus one for Bentley. Did not smell the outside world.

[Zach Klapman]

Wow. Yeah. It truly wants you to just be able to drive around and not proper.

[Matt Farah]

There is an air quality screen in the menu. You can like real time see your air quality.

[Zach Klapman]

I wonder if you can see outside and inside. Like, does it measure both? That'd be cool.

[Matt Farah]

It does.

[Zach Klapman]

Oh, it does.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah. Yeah. It's not. The, like Tesla started doing that and other Rivian and a few other people started doing that.

[Zach Klapman]

Well, Tesla was like, if there's a bio attack, which is look clever marketing because I'm sure a lot of other.

[Matt Farah]

Cars, they're coming for you.

[Zach Klapman]

I'm sure scared.

[Matt Farah]

Vote Republican.

[Zach Klapman]

I'm sure other companies were like, they also have cabin filters and they saw that ad, they're like, you know, and they just went for it.

[Matt Farah]

Well, you know, for four or five years, companies blindly chased everything Tesla did without actually asking themselves, is this good for the company?

[Zach Klapman]

Well, they still, well, like Rivian. They also have, you know, really good cabin filter things. They just didn't say, this will Keep you safe in a bio attack.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah, the Rivian. No, Rivian keeps you safe in a wildfire.

[Zach Klapman]

Yeah, right, yeah. If the other hikers near you are wearing patchouli.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah.

[Zach Klapman]

Activate the cabin filter.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah. But yeah, if the next Road and Track experience, Austin, Texas, April 1st. I think it's the first or second week in April. Experiences.road and track.com. i'm making the route this week and then go. Going to drive it in December. So it should be lovely and you know, bourbon barbecue, Coda. Track time at Coda Sick, which will. Which is legit. That's a nice one.

[Zach Klapman]

Are you gonna use NASCAR configuration where the turns don't matter?

[Matt Farah]

We're gonna use the deep, deep cut. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Track limits. No track limits. Yeah.

[Zach Klapman]

You just can't cut the S's.

[Matt Farah]

So that'll be very fun. Sign up now if you want to come drive with me. Everybody seemed to really enjoy. It was a very good time. Zach.

[Zach Klapman]

Yeah.

[Matt Farah]

Can we talk about. Thank you for putting that up. The Road and Track Experiences website. 7th to 10th, April 7th to 10th. And then we've got June 4th to 7th, the Colorado one. We got mountains and there's hills in Texas outside of Austin. Yeah, it's all them roads we were filming on.

[Zach Klapman]

There's some nice rolling stuff.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah, it's great, great driving roads outside of Austin. But you went to Georgia.

[Zach Klapman]

I did both in Georg.

[Matt Farah]

I was in Jojo for Blackwing. But you were there for the 911T?

[Zach Klapman]

Yes. What's up with the 911T? So it's pretty funny. They had a new 911T in 2023. So this is the new one. 2025, two years later. So it's not that different. But there are a couple changes of course. Power is up very slightly. It's 388 horsepower now. Used to have.

[Matt Farah]

Is it 379?

[Zach Klapman]

Correct. So it's up by nine. Torque is the same.

[Matt Farah]

I mean, I'll take nine.

[Zach Klapman]

More power is always good. It's still the base three liter Carrera engine. Fundamentally, it's the same car. Right. I mean, this is a good formula. It's one I do not want to go away since 2018. I like it. I mean, technically it started in the 60s, but let's talk about the modern cars. It's a little bit heavier. Rear steer is now standard. It is not optional. Big story though is that you can only get it in manual and you can get it as a cabrio. Now they have a drop top version.

[Matt Farah]

Okay.

[Zach Klapman]

Which is pretty Cool. Because I'm pretty sure that at present this is the only manually shifted cabrio you can get in a 911.

[Matt Farah]

At present. At present, yeah. Because the GTS you can't. And there's no S yet. And we don't know what the turbo.

[Zach Klapman]

Is, so they'll probably make an S. But I don't know if they're going to put a manual in it because the last T you could get PDK or the seven speed. So this now only has a six speed. The seven speed is gone, which is great because they had an old there.

[Matt Farah]

So is the same six speed as the GT3.

[Zach Klapman]

They said it's very similar. They said the GT3 has different gearing, different synchros. Okay. And they said. And I asked. I'm still waiting for confirmation. One person said that has the same linkage, bushings, et cetera, as the GT3. And then someone else. Someone else said similar. So. But what I will say is that the shifter feels great.

[Matt Farah]

Okay.

[Zach Klapman]

It's like I got in and out of the old one, back to the new one, and the old one, you know, feels like crunchy. And every shift felt like two shifts. You know, you go from two to three and like. Yeah. Out and then in. This doesn't feel like that at all. Okay. It's got the expensive shift.

[Matt Farah]

Six better than seven gears.

[Zach Klapman]

Oh, yeah, for sure. The seventh thing, like it was just super tall. Yeah. I just. I mostly didn't like the way that transmission felt. I just thought that the shifting action made it feel a lot cheaper.

[Matt Farah]

There's never been a good feeling. 7 speed. Speed, like 6 is such a happy thing with the, with the center being the center. You know, they're just like the seventh. It's either it's down left for first or it's up and away and they've added, you know. Right. And it, it just creates an extra gate that like, there's no good way to engage it.

[Zach Klapman]

What's usually very far over.

[Matt Farah]

It's far over. Or it's the. The V12 Vantage. It's like down here, it's like, oh, that's true. Like to. To not. How about this? You take the seventh away from the manuals and then you make the autos just at. Make it a 9 speed instead of add the gear right here for gear.

[Zach Klapman]

That's a good idea.

[Matt Farah]

Keep throwing a ratio on the auto and we'll get back down.

[Zach Klapman]

That is a good point.

[Matt Farah]

Symmetry. Because symmetry in cars is good. That's why. Unless we're talking about an early Testarossa with a wing mirror.

[Zach Klapman]

Let's see what else I have.

[Matt Farah]

Okay. Is it heavier than before?

[Zach Klapman]

It is slightly heavier than before, so. And the numbers are a little weird. That's why I'm looking at my notes. In the lightest configuration, which means no rear seat. It comes no rear seat. You can add it as a no cost option. And there's lighter glass and all that stuff already baked in. So, lightest configuration, which is keep the rear seat gone and option for the carbon buckets. And it is 3,283 pounds.

[Matt Farah]

That's pretty good.

[Zach Klapman]

60 pounds lighter than a Carrera, which does have PDK.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah. And back seats.

[Zach Klapman]

And back seats. So like Car and driver tested the 2023 one and the spec that they received was only six pounds lighter than Carrera.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah, it depends on what you get in the car.

[Zach Klapman]

It's so close. I don't think weight is really the story. I mean, it's nice that it's under around £3,300. And mine had the normal four way sport seats.

[Matt Farah]

Is that screen showing to the audience?

[Zach Klapman]

If so, just.

[Matt Farah]

Okay, cool.

[Zach Klapman]

Sorry. Now it is.

[Matt Farah]

So the one you drove had what?

[Zach Klapman]

It had the normal four way sport seats, had a bunch of options I didn't think it needed. Most of it was like the appearance package, like the stripe on the outside and then these gentian blue accents inside.

[Matt Farah]

In this photo here, is that the car you drove? Maybe. Can you pull that photo up so everyone can see? Is it me or are the wheelbarrows blue?

[Zach Klapman]

They are.

[Matt Farah]

Oh, that's kind of a neat detail actually. Does that look good in person?

[Zach Klapman]

I think it looks okay. It's not for me.

[Matt Farah]

Okay.

[Zach Klapman]

Like I wouldn't. Blue wheels to me, you know, just doesn't normally.

[Matt Farah]

I agree with you in most cases. But like, I don't know, I'm. I mean, granted I'm looking at a photo of it on a fucking website in studio lighting, like not in the real world. So can you go, is that photo that you have, are they in there?

[Zach Klapman]

Well, they're really not lit.

[Matt Farah]

I mean, it's not what we're looking at in this photo, so it doesn't matter. But yeah, okay.

[Zach Klapman]

I mean, I don't know. I think in this sun, like you see that they're blue, but can you.

[Matt Farah]

Only get blue or can you get those in other colors?

[Zach Klapman]

Ooh, I don't know. That's a good question. But this just. Mine had this gentian blue accent package which is inside and out. And I think total costs like 10 grand. Like, the seat backs were covered in blue leather. There's no back seat, so no one's really gonna see those seat backs.

[Matt Farah]

I might disagree.

[Zach Klapman]

You walk by the car, I think.

[Matt Farah]

You might see more of them without a back seat because you could see them through the back window.

[Zach Klapman]

Now I just felt like that was.

[Matt Farah]

A very unlikely spend the money on. But I just think from a literal. Can you see it better or worse point, I think maybe better.

[Zach Klapman]

I guess if you walk by the car and look at the back of the seat, which does not draw the eye the way the shifter would. I bring it up because this thing starts at $134,000, which is a big increase over the last one. So that is the downside of the T is in 2018, it was like 103 grand base. So now it's 134. So I would say save money where you can.

[Matt Farah]

What is $108,000? Inflation calculator. What is that money worth today? Because I get it that prices are going up, but I suspect that you're getting basically the same car for today's value equivalent. You know what I mean? Like, I think with inflation from 2018 to today, that's awfully close.

[Zach Klapman]

That's true. It is close. It'd be 129 today.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah. So five grand. Five grand more. All right. I mean, so yes, they are. They're adding a little bit. Maybe you're getting a little more.

[Zach Klapman]

Well, you get rear steer, you do get a little bit more power. You get a different transmission.

[Matt Farah]

I would say that you're getting approximately equivalent value for car Five. Yeah. Because rear steer is a couple grand.

[Zach Klapman]

Used to be, I think on the Panama. Sorry. On the Taycan, it was like a $2,000.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah. So there's so. So two for that. And you know, you got a few horsepower. That's worth something. Plus not having a seven speed. I think you're. In my opinion, car guy math, the value is equivalent.

[Zach Klapman]

That's true. I'll agree with that.

[Matt Farah]

The real value is getting a low mile 991.2 Carrera T. That's the fucking banger value. It's like 100 G's for one with a couple miles on it. That's the value proposition right there.

[Zach Klapman]

Yeah. Because this car drives so good. I mean, it handles great. The steering's great. It has bigger brakes now. They respond great. The six speed is super nice to operate. There's less sound deadening, so you hear more sound. I mean, to me, this was like not the antidote to GT3s, but, like, it just seemed like so many people go, oh, if you're going to get a 911 stretch for the GT3, and that's just not how math works for most people. And they're 250 grand now. I think this truly gives, like, driving enthusiasts all the things they want. Like, it's quick enough, it sounds good, it's comfortable. Even the four way seats, I feel like they've refined them. They feel better than they used to. And you get all of that good shit. You get rear wheel drive and it's got pasm and you get all that stuff and it's like the entry level car.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah, they're fun.

[Zach Klapman]

Pretty great.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah.

[Zach Klapman]

Yeah.

[Matt Farah]

I mean, they still. They still cost a lot, so they're still gonna be. They're gonna be good. You know, GT3s are like 250 grand now to start. Yeah.

[Zach Klapman]

You know, so any with options, they're gonna be $300,000. And in between, at least for now, everything has PDK.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah.

[Zach Klapman]

So I think this is. It's not like a consolation prize. Like, I think this is a really good car if you have the money. Granted, it's expensive for most people, but you're not getting a base, low rent, shitty car. You're getting a really good car that happens to be the second cheapest car they sell.

[Matt Farah]

And they're easily tunable to plus 100 horsepower from where they are right now, which means you drive it for a year and you go, all right, I'm used to this power. I need the next thing you could, for a very reasonable amount of money, get there, you know, reliably. It's proven reliably at that because Porsche is using the same fucking block and pistons and internals for, like, all the way up.

[Zach Klapman]

Yeah.

[Matt Farah]

At least, you know, within reason. That's cool.

[Zach Klapman]

All right. It's pretty great.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah.

[Zach Klapman]

It's really a great car.

[Matt Farah]

Shocking. It's very good to drive.

[Zach Klapman]

I know it's very good to drive, but it's nice to. It was great to go report on that.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah.

[Zach Klapman]

Ooh. I really had to do the hard work there.

[Matt Farah]

I mean, like, me, I had to go to Atlanta to drive the new Blackwing, which, like, talk about wasn't much wrong with it to begin with, that needed updating. But the story is they've now got this precision pack. So the precision pack is a good word for it, actually, because it's not like calling it like a Z07 pack or a track pack or anything. Like that. It's designed to make, make your inputs feel more precise without taking away anything from the ability to daily drive the car. They didn't want to do a Camaro Z28 or ZL1 1LE package because those are like, those are pretty compromised cars. Like, they're awesome, but they're stiff, they're fucking, you know, Darty, whatever to make those cars go really fast. And so with this it's like, oh, and of course I brought my portable notebook to that one so I don't have the actual updates. Powertrain is the same. Six speed, still a thing. Ten speed auto. It's like a fuzz on my fucking hat. It's right in my line of sight. Stupid cats. And they've done a lot. They've reprogrammed the shocks, they've got a different spring rate, they've got different bushings, they've got different tow lengths, they've got different this and that stuff that could. They change the steering, the E pass a bit, they change the brakes a bit. Stuff that really does need to be done at the sort of factory level. There was a. I mean, yes, you can get different like toe links, but there was a lot of things that I'm not mentioning right now that are involved in this that are like we added, you know, extra welds here, we added reinforcement like here, like inside.

[Zach Klapman]

It's like what they do with the Integra Type R back in the day.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah, yeah. Like it's specific, it's not like a seam welded, but it's like they stiffened the structure of the car. And the idea is just that the inputs should translate into better outputs. And they've also got this all new PDR thing, the performance data recorder, which now I think we talked about it a bit on a previous show, but it used to be that you'd get your video overlay and your lap time and you could take it all into an app or a pro computer, computer program and do do more things with it and analyze your laps and whatever the. The sort of big story is. Now you can do that in the car. So you don't even have to have a separate device at all. You can run because they've got one. They now have the big continuous screen like BMW is doing. So they use that screen to. You can run, playback your video, you can do telemetry overlays. It gives you sector times, you can compare your laps. Does driver coaching in real time. So like as you're driving in real time, the thing will show your Lap time on the screen and then, and then go red or green. Like are you faster in this corner or in this sector so you can practice a corner. You don't. It's not just about practicing a whole lap and being like, well, I don't know where to pick up time. Like you can either. You could have your instructor get in, get in the car and run a good lap and then you could ghost car that lap where it'll show you. I mean it's literally. I don't want to say it's everything a V box can do, but I can confidently say that it's everything I've ever seen a V box do built into the car. Including running side by side video of your reference lap and your last lap or any lap in any lap full with telemetry and everything going. And so I got to compare my laps with Jordan Taylor, with Jordan Taylor's lap. And so there were certain places where in the slow corners we were actually at basically the same, you know, same overlay. And then there was these two sections that he took absolutely flat and there was zero chance I was going to do that. And those sections both, both added up to the about. I want to say he, I did a 131 one and he did a 129 six. So he beat me by a second and a half. Which if I had continued to use this PDR coaching system throughout maybe like let me say 30 or 40 more laps of the track if I did about, about 15 laps, maybe 6, 15, 16 laps, something like that. Which is a pretty good amount of track time actually for a press launch. And Jordan did like a hundred. And obviously he's a professional racing driver. He's going to anywhere, any racetrack, any day, this guy's going to have me. There's no chance I could ever beat this guy. Maybe not ever, but not today. But I think If I got 30 or 40 laps using that coaching system I could get to within a second of Jordan around that track. I genuinely think I could. And they also have a new. You can get the car on like a Cup tire. I don't know if it's cup shit. Of course I did write this down. It will be in the story. It might have been a Trofeo R. It's a fucking like you can get it with a racing tire on it which. So they had some of those on the track and then they had the street car tires on the street. And I don't think, I think it's a no cost option to Pick either tire. But with the. Yeah, with the precision pack, you can pick either tire. No cost option. Non precision pack just gets the regular tire. Okay, so the precision pack is, it's a little misleading because it's $9,000, but you have to take ceramic brakes, which are $9,000 also. So it's fundamentally $18,000 and includes ceramic brakes. It's actually better to say it that way. It's 18 grand, includes ceramic brakes or you get ceramic brakes as a standalone option. But like straight up, it makes the car better in every way. I mean it's, it's, it, it didn't to me. I drove it on relatively good roads. The roads weren't that bumpy. North Georgia, pretty nice roads.

[Zach Klapman]

They're so good.

[Matt Farah]

It's a little different from driving it around la, but I drove the Non PP and the PP and like it was almost exactly the same on the street, but all the inputs were still better. And on the track the inputs were all better. And it makes it faster. Like it's. I, I want to say at like Milford proving grounds or like the GM test track. I think it was like three seconds faster. I mean it was a lot. Now granted, cup tire, so chassis improvements and cup.

[Zach Klapman]

So two seconds might be tired.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah, something like that. But look, if you're going to go blackwing anyway, you know the 18 grand, what we know about high performance GM car cars is that they're an amazing value. This car is 4100 pounds in 2024. For a car with 700 horsepower. 668 horsepower. That's so light.

[Zach Klapman]

That's true.

[Matt Farah]

In today's world, this is such a great power to weight ratio. The car feels like the lightest car in its class by a lot. There's a fucking stick shift, but there's also massage seats. It's also super simple to use. The climate control has physical buttons. There's the drive mode selector knob. It can do a lot. It's very powerful. I mean the computing power of the car. But it doesn't like outside of the pdr, which there's a lot to outside of that. It doesn't like overwhelm you with menus and tech and stuff.

[Zach Klapman]

Perfect.

[Matt Farah]

And the shit you need is pretty much right there. And like, furthermore, more after driving this thing again on the track, anyone who thinks one of these things needs more power needs their fucking head examined on the track. I did, I did two laps, maybe with traction control fully off because I was running with a stopwatch. So I was trying to keep the Car in control. I wasn't trying to do big slides. And Jordan's fastest time was in mode, like race one, which is the last line, the last line of defense, you know? So I was like, okay, look, if he says that's the best mode, I was like, but I want to try full off this fucking car. I mean, it's awesome. It's under control. It has great balance. You know, the front, the weight distribution, and the steering, it's all great. If you get it into a slide, it's nice, but it's not fast. If you turn traction control fully off in this car, you will spin the tires into and through fourth gear.

[Zach Klapman]

Sure. Of course.

[Matt Farah]

So the idea that this car needs more power when. And in every other traction mode, it is pulling power. I mean, you know, when Jordan was doing his. When he was on the floorboard through that last open sweeper where I was, like, shitting my pants, he was. He was on the floorboard, but he said the car was not actually delivering.

[Zach Klapman]

He's leaning on traction control.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah.

[Zach Klapman]

Like, no disrespect, like. Yeah, that's.

[Matt Farah]

No, no, that's like how you go fast. Right. That's the reason that mode is called race one.

[Zach Klapman]

Yeah. Let it figure out exactly how much you can pull.

[Matt Farah]

Right. Yeah.

[Zach Klapman]

I think most people. I would assume that most people that buy something like this and they want to add power and tune it are either Runway racing, maybe highway showboating, parking lot showboating, or maybe they go to drag strips. But, like, most people are not running road courses in these at all, which is a waste. And if they are, they probably recognize this does not need more horsepower because it's not going to help you really get it.

[Matt Farah]

All trucks, no, it already has so much more power than rear grip that all the way to off every step of the way. From, like, wet to tour to sport to dun to dunt. There's like seven modes before you get to off. All of them pull power at some point except the last one. And when you get to the last one, you go, this is so much more power than tire. Like, everywhere. It's just wheel spin, like, all over the place. It's like, not actually. I mean, it's fun if you want to drift, but if not, not, it's completely unmanageable.

[Zach Klapman]

Nah, they're great, though. I love them.

[Matt Farah]

Oh, they are great. Yeah, it's like, it's the. Pretty much the perfect sports sedan. Like, no, no notes. Like, if I had one of these instead of the Bentley, I would had, like, just as much fun.

[Zach Klapman]

Right.

[Matt Farah]

And this has massage seats and you know it's 1400 pounds lighter on the track.

[Zach Klapman]

You've gotten much worse miles per gallon much.

[Matt Farah]

Which is on road and tracks dime like right. Who cares? And they were nice enough. You know. They got me a headset to lead the. Because I was holding the radio.

[Zach Klapman]

Oh yeah.

[Matt Farah]

For years I've been holding. And my arm hurts.

[Zach Klapman]

You have the. You have the ear.

[Matt Farah]

The earpiece. So. Which frees my right hand to drive a manual.

[Zach Klapman]

Pretty sure you've had one of those in your one take case for a long time.

[Matt Farah]

An earpiece.

[Zach Klapman]

Yeah, we've had. I mean I. I had a tangent for a long time.

[Matt Farah]

I don't have. I don't have.

[Zach Klapman]

I probably had one I never gave to you. Yeah.

[Matt Farah]

Well I'm gonna now I'm gonna buy one now.

[Zach Klapman]

They're so handy. Yeah. You just click, click, click. Yeah.

[Matt Farah]

Best so I mean look, this. This car is. Is extremely sick. And if I'm not don't pay 50 over for one. But if you can get one, they, they. That new green is really nice. It's got some like ocean name. I can't remember what it's called. Something. Something oceanic. Although. Do we talk about Cyber yellow?

[Zach Klapman]

You hate the name.

[Matt Farah]

I know there's a cyber Yellow. That is the car that's going to be in my video for the street drive. And the name is terrible. But yeah, there's that other color. The other color they've got. That one is sort of a kind of a blue gray that almost looks.

[Zach Klapman]

Like the Tacoma, like slate.

[Matt Farah]

It's got a little more blue in it than that. But it's. Dude, it's such a nice car.

[Zach Klapman]

These things are so I'm a big fan.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah. Even the auto. I took a couple of laps in the auto. In fact, my very fastest lap at the end was the auto. I was about 4/10 quicker in the auto. So I did set my fastest lap in an auto. And I was about half a second behind in the stick car.

[Zach Klapman]

But that's only half a second. I mean that's impressive I think considering how many times you're shifting on that track. There's a lot of tight hairpins on that track and big sweepy things. It's not a 1:2 gear track.

[Matt Farah]

No. And the automatic is an 8 speed. The ratio are closer. It rips through them pretty good. I mean I. If I was buying one, I'd buy a stick obviously. But I can't hate on the auto. But anyway, what we know about Buying these cars is that the more optioned up ones, the Cadillac V's and Black Wings, you get most of that money back on the other end. You know, these cars hold a lot of cars. They hold their value really, really well.

[Zach Klapman]

And props to them. And also to go back to 911, both of these cars have just enough screen, but the H vac radio, those are all hard buttons and knobs in both cars. And I was so happy to see that because I had gotten out of the Taycan, which I drove in the morning. And I can't talk about the driving dynamics, but like it's all touchscreen.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah.

[Zach Klapman]

And then you get in the 911 and you're like, oh, the little metal things for fan up, down. Great. Same with this. Like they have the buttons.

[Matt Farah]

You need some buttons, you need that, you need some stuff. Yeah. This car, I really like it. I mean, I'm sure there's some. Oh, you know, the only thing I didn't like about it, that drove me kind of nuts. And it's not unique to this car. No satellite gps. It's cell phone gps. And I really, really don't like that they are doing that. I get that Most of the US has coverage, but yeah, people are using their phones 90% of the time. And it's, it's. And. And if they can't use their phones, you got to have a satellite connections because there's no surface.

[Zach Klapman]

Yeah, I'm sure that's just an accounting thing where they go. Most people don't drive beyond service anymore, so it's such a neat. And you know, if you have Google Maps pulled up and you have your directions already, even if you lose service on the way.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah.

[Zach Klapman]

Like you keep the direction like Georgia, all over Georgia. We're on the drive route for us. Did not have service. I mean, honestly, 40% of the mountain route did not have any cell service. But because the route was pre plugged into an iPhone.

[Matt Farah]

Right.

[Zach Klapman]

It kept me going where I was going.

[Matt Farah]

I guess it's a journalist problem getting places without.

[Zach Klapman]

I mean, you know, there could be a case like if you're a family road tripping these things, middle of nowhere, you stop your Google Maps.

[Matt Farah]

If you're a vacation house in Sun Valley on a mountain or something. I mean there's a lot of situations in which you might need to get directions in a way that doesn't involve cell phones.

[Zach Klapman]

Yeah. It probably just doesn't happen that much.

[Matt Farah]

I know.

[Zach Klapman]

And it saves the money to not have the SAT connection. But I'm with you.

[Matt Farah]

And actually when it does have a good connection, it uses the native app is Google Maps. So it's a very familiar interface. And they were looking at the interior. Is that picture pulled up for the people right now or can you.

[Zach Klapman]

It is.

[Matt Farah]

So it's got the big screen and you can see how the screen on the right side is curved around. They actually have the map fill that entire thing. It's not a square or a rectangle in the middle with borders.

[Zach Klapman]

It fills it like Audi used to, which does make. Not the speedometer, but like the way it filled it in a way that just felt very organic.

[Matt Farah]

Enveloping and organic. Yeah.

[Zach Klapman]

Cool. I'm into these things. I mean, these are just so much fun. Like long wheelbase, big power cars. Like, I would do the CTS v School just for fun, even though I don't own one.

[Matt Farah]

Where's the school? Spring Mountain.

[Zach Klapman]

Yeah. I'm not trying to plug them again. Like they have a school for that.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah, that would be fun.

[Zach Klapman]

And I've heard it's a good time.

[Matt Farah]

That would probably be halfway between the Corvette school you did and the Hellcat school I was just talking about. Yeah, yeah, yeah. These cars are extremely rapid. Yeah. And they sound great and they're fast as fuck.

[Zach Klapman]

And how much was the msrp?

[Matt Farah]

It was basically the same as like before it was. I think it was. It's like. It's like 120, 130. With the performance.

[Zach Klapman]

So much car.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah. It's a lot of car. It's a lot of car. Yeah. Order one, get one, let's fucking go manuals where it's at. But the auto is okay. The fact that you can. I mean, but look at the fucking. Look at the resale. If you can stop stomach owning the stick, you could probably drive it for free for like 10 years, you know, you could probably do like couple thousand miles a year for free.

[Zach Klapman]

Yeah. That is very attractive.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah.

[Zach Klapman]

And now. And just when you go to sell again, don't say this is the last one because they might make it again.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah. But I do recommend one. And Atlanta Motorsports park is a very tricky place to drive. Drive them.

[Zach Klapman]

It's.

[Matt Farah]

They, it's the, the. They've been promising me my PDR footage for. They were not giving it to people. I don't know why, but they weren't. But I, but I, I had a little sidebar and I. And I talked to the guys from Cosworth because Cosworth does the pdr. So I was talking and they agreed they would get it to me.

[Zach Klapman]

It's essentially Cosworth toolbox inside the computer. Yes, that's great.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah. Which is fine.

[Zach Klapman]

No, fantastic. As a compliment, I used it at school. Not to go back to it again. It's amazing. So the fact that they have that just on your screen is so great.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah, yeah. But they haven't gotten me the footage.

[Zach Klapman]

That footage is gone.

[Matt Farah]

I hope it's not. I hope it's not. Because I was gonna use it as the forward facing camera for the track. Like, we made a whole thing about it. It wasn't just like, okay. It was like, okay, they agreed to do it, and now we're gonna help you get the best of it.

[Zach Klapman]

If they didn't wipe the cards, and I'm not saying they did anything, they may go, all right, we have to figure out which car Matt was in.

[Matt Farah]

No, no, they kept it separate.

[Zach Klapman]

They kept it separate.

[Matt Farah]

I handed the card to a man in a Cosworth jacket specifically for this purpose.

[Zach Klapman]

Okay.

[Matt Farah]

This was agreed upon.

[Zach Klapman]

So, like, they gotta find that man.

[Matt Farah]

I hope that by the time people hear the show on Thursday, that I will have received this file.

[Zach Klapman]

Me too.

[Matt Farah]

Because I've worked my way up the PR pipeline to get it now, and hopefully.

[Zach Klapman]

Well, we want to put it in the video.

[Matt Farah]

That's the point.

[Zach Klapman]

Yeah, of course. The PDR shit's cool.

[Matt Farah]

This. This press launch was tough. They didn't love the car. Car was great. Track was fun. The people who were involved in putting us in the cars, on the tracks or functions, they clearly know how to make an amazing fucking car. But, like, they didn't have. The B roll was, like, of a different colored car.

[Zach Klapman]

I love that you're whispering in front of a microphone.

[Matt Farah]

I know. I just. Like, I don't want to. Like. No, I just don't want to be. Like, I don't want to be a shithead. But, like, you shoot a bunch of B roll and then the car you let me drive doesn't. They don't have a car that matches the color.

[Zach Klapman]

I mean, I told you that happened to me on a launch six months ago from a different company that never, rarely makes such mistakes.

[Matt Farah]

That is. That is a amateur level fail. Yeah. Yeah. And then. And then, now. And then I. We leaned on this bit of footage from the PDR to use for my track review segment and the embargoes today, and I don't have it. And they said. They said on October 31st it would be a couple of days. So, like, fortunately, there was another embargo today, and we elected to put up your 911t video today anyway. So like we couldn't do both on the same day, so we had to make that choice. But like, come on, let's go. So. But the car, it's awesome and I'm writing some things about it for Road and Track also for the print edition. Next print edition. Should we go to the people? Yeah, to that time. Let's go to the people. We've got. Are we doing a bunch of new ones or these?

[Zach Klapman]

These are all from today.

[Matt Farah]

Okay, cool.

[Zach Klapman]

Asked today.

[Matt Farah]

Great. First off, obviously Zach is fine. He had to exit yesterday's show in a hurry.

[Zach Klapman]

Yeah.

[Matt Farah]

And we were concerned, but obviously he's fine.

[Zach Klapman]

Yeah.

[Matt Farah]

Lastly, the pens went out this morning. This morning being Tuesday the 19th. They're on the Patreon page. If you're a patron, you can buy one of the 100 pens that we have for sale with the tactile turn collab. I actually messed up. I. I thought it was gonna be titanium or aluminum. They're just aluminum this time. We may do a different titanium pen later, but they're half the weight of the stainless steel pens.

[Zach Klapman]

Okay.

[Matt Farah]

I like it for traveling cause I carrying around a stainless steel pen. Like when I travel I'm trying to like cut weight from places which is ironic cause I'm fat. But I try to like. I got like a lightweight like dopp kit thing and I've got a lightweight like this and I just take extraneous heavy shit out of my bag cause I'm carrying it all over the world. And I realized I loved our tactile turn pens but they' really heavy. So I said, hey, can we make the next one lightweight? So it's the same and it's half the weight. Haha. If you want to ask us questions for the show, if you want to get an ad. Free listening experience. If you want to get the show ahead of time, if you want to watch it live, even patreon.com the Smoking Tire podcast is where you do it. Save podcasting, join a Patreon. We joined Scotto's Patreon. Yes. Today I think we should join some Patreons. I think we need to join a few more. We promised Gareth we would join their Patreon and then didn't do that. We need to do that.

[Zach Klapman]

I subscribe to rocket powered Mohawks. Patreon highly recommend that F1 content.

[Matt Farah]

Okay. Was that the guy in the bathtub?

[Zach Klapman]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Matt Farah]

Cool. I approve of that message. All right, let's see what the people have to say. NK says if Toyota decided to bring the GR Yaris to the US Would you buy one? Why or why not?

[Zach Klapman]

I wouldn't just cuz I think the GR Corolla is. The size is fine, it's more usable and I've heard that the Yaris is like slightly more fun and smaller and whatever, but I don't live on a rally stage as much as I wish I did. Yeah, I'd rather have a little bit more usability. The Corolla still feels it feels small enough when you're in it.

[Matt Farah]

It does.

[Zach Klapman]

It's wide. When I parked it in my garage, it's like I had to watch those mirrors.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah, I agree. On American roads, I think the Corolla still feels like a pretty small car. And I don't think that you have a lot more returns by going even smaller most of the time. Doesn't mean I wouldn't love to have a go in one. Sure I would. But it's not the kind of thing I would buy because it's smaller than I need a car to be.

[Zach Klapman]

And like the absence of the GR Yaris is not keeping me from buying. Like I'm not going, oh, I'd buy that if it was here. But I won't buy a GR Corolla.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah, yeah. Paolo Pazuki wants to know about a Bentley that was on cars and bids. Zach, can you pull up the link that's in the comment there? A Continental R recently failed to sell on cars and bids at $19,000. After owning your Bentley for more than most of a year, what do you think the real value is of this car? Okay, so a couple valid things here. We've got it pulled up. The main drivers of value for these specific cars. It's really hard to talk about like depreciated luxury cars because they are really expensive to maintain. And so there's a big. A lot of people will cheap out on certain things or change certain things from stock in order to save money or update the cars. And those things don't really add value. So. So in the case of this car, it's got 50,000 miles on it, which is not a huge number. That's okay for one of these. But I actually saw this car in the photos. It's got aftermarket wheels, which in my opinion don't look very good.

[Zach Klapman]

They do not.

[Matt Farah]

And I don't know if the car comes with the stock wheels, but if it does and they didn't put them on, they did the car a real disservice. Not to mention those are, those are just the Wrong wheel for that car. That just doesn't look very good. And my guess would be because it's upsized by at least 1, probably 2 inches, maybe even 2, maybe even 3 inches. I bet it absolutely wrecks the ride of that car. So if they have the stock wheels and didn't put them back on, that definitely took away from the value. Also if you go Zach on the interior, the dash is cracked a bit. There's some, there's some cracking in the veneer. It's not horrible, but it's there. And if you wanted the car to be mint, you'd probably want. Keep keep clicking, clicking to the right. There's a, there's a couple up close photos of, of the wood grain there on the left. Bot left, left row, the bunch of gauges down one left one. So you can see a crack right through there. And also like the leather wasn't particularly well conditioned, et cetera, et cetera. Now I didn't look into it much deeper than that. I don't know about the service records go down to say I don't know how many owners it's had. I don't know anything about that. But it's not what I would call a collector's grade example. That doesn't mean it might run good, it might drive good. You could get different wheels on it. You know, you could have a car that like pretty cool for a low amount of money. But the question was, what is the real value in these cars? If you have ownership history from new service records from new and the car is in good condition with relatively low miles, you know, it's what you'd call the right car where it's got all the things that been taken care of that have, you know, no expense spared. The cars are worth a good amount of money because it's hard to find those. And you don't want to get into a rabbit hole of a $19,000 car that needs 40 grand in maintenance. But if you buy one that is truly, truly a no stories car, then you can get an overwhelmingly reliable and nice to drive car for. I mean look, the top of the market for one of these is like 45 grand right now. That's the top.

[Zach Klapman]

That's amazing. Like the price difference is not that big.

[Matt Farah]

It's not.

[Zach Klapman]

Yeah.

[Matt Farah]

You know, and you can roll a fucking dope ass Bentley.

[Zach Klapman]

Right. This is a driver essentially.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah. And all you need to do is do a great detail, put different wheels on it. You know, maybe you don't care if the veneer is cracked you don't necessarily have to replace that. I don't know, it might need a bunch of other services. But, like, if you got rid of the wheels and put the stock wheels back on, like, all of a sudden you're a fucking pimp in the neighborhood.

[Zach Klapman]

For sure. Yeah. These are just. They're kind of cheap looking wheels. And the car, the paint looks really good. The shape of the car is great.

[Matt Farah]

Red is great on those continental Rs.

[Zach Klapman]

Yeah.

[Matt Farah]

But I mean, I think if this car was presented properly, it's probably a $35,000 car, maybe a $40,000 car. But presentation counts, kids. Okay, below average nerd says. Outside of Top Gear, what are your favorite and least favorite car shows? I mean, how.

[Zach Klapman]

Television, I assume. Not YouTube, which is weird. Yeah, because that's.

[Matt Farah]

But like, does streaming count as TV or Internet?

[Zach Klapman]

Yeah, that's a good question. Because like, TIFF show is on Amazon, which is not YouTube, but also not television.

[Matt Farah]

No, I think. I think we got account streaming.

[Zach Klapman]

Okay.

[Matt Farah]

Like.

[Zach Klapman]

Oh, hyperdrive.

[Matt Farah]

I thought hyperdrive was super. Well done.

[Zach Klapman]

Awesome.

[Matt Farah]

That's a great.

[Zach Klapman]

That was great. I forgot about it a couple years ago. If you haven't watched it, go watch it. But that was automotive Olympics in a way. Like drifting stunts, all that stuff. Different builds. I mean, that was. That was fantastic.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah, that was a man and machine combo. And our friend ACP designed. Helped design the course.

[Zach Klapman]

Course is insane.

[Matt Farah]

The course is Peter Totter.

[Zach Klapman]

What the fuck? I mean, so dangerous. Yeah. Like rail slides. The bucket of water that got. They canceled that at that particular.

[Matt Farah]

Oh, yeah. Because it smashed the window obstacle after.

[Zach Klapman]

It smashed the windshield.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah. That was a great show. That might be one of my favorite car shows I've. I've seen. Yeah. That show, I was able to. It actually felt. Because the problem with all car shows is that they don't really feel authentic.

[Zach Klapman]

Yes.

[Matt Farah]

Like, I don't believe you're doing that build in seven days. Nor should I.

[Zach Klapman]

That was my cause. You're lying to me. I'm not going to specify, but any shows where there is this manufactured or seemingly manufactured pressure to get the thing done. It's just that that kind of show has been going on since American Chopper. Right. They pioneered it. We have to get this done because the company needs their $300,000 tax write off the motorcycle that looks like a fighter jet and we gotta get it done by next week. And they were all beat the shit.

[Matt Farah]

Out of you this episode also.

[Zach Klapman]

I mean, look, I believe that they had a very contentious relationship.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah.

[Zach Klapman]

I think they Yell at each other. That's how it rolls. But enough shows have continued that tradition of we have to get this done for this deadline. And I know that that works on the audience, but it's just not for me.

[Matt Farah]

I agree. And hyperdrive was. I'm not saying there weren't elements of the show that were slightly contrived. It's fucking tele, after all. But I actually. I think it was a real competition with real driving and real practical stunt work. And it was fun.

[Zach Klapman]

Yeah. That's what I wanted from.

[Matt Farah]

I'm with you 100%. Gunner Ray wants to rapidly age a watch. He wants to buy a watch and put it on his friend's roof in Central Australia and just expose it to sun.

[Zach Klapman]

Okay.

[Matt Farah]

And hopefully get a fade going. And wants to know what automatic watches would work for this. So any watch that has an aluminum or a metal bezel and has loom on it will fade over time. Now, usually we're talking about 25 to 40 years of wearing a watch outdoor. We're talking about gears. We're talking about, like, I'm a captain of a boat, and I wore this watch in the ocean and the sun and the sand and whatever for eight hours a day. For eight hours a day for a career. Like, that's how you get to where we're talking. I'm gonna wreck. Now, you can try this. You leave it in the sun and, like, see what happens.

[Zach Klapman]

But it still might take.

[Matt Farah]

It might take a long time.

[Zach Klapman]

Like faster in New Zealand. Less ozone.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah. Well, you said central Australia, right?

[Zach Klapman]

So go even further south.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah. My original Rolex Submariner with the green bezel. The Kermit was my only watch for 10 years, and I wore it everywhere. In the ocean, in the desert, all over the place, Everywhere, every day. Only watch. And it has a very slight fade from original. And we're talking about 10 years of actual. Not just sun exposure, but other elements as well and knocking it into stuff, and you name it. So like he said, Gunner says, even if it takes God knows how many months, I think you're looking at years. I don't think you're looking at months. I think you're legitimately looking at years.

[Zach Klapman]

What is the ultimate goal in terms of, like, what color change or style is.

[Matt Farah]

Just Google the term tropical watch. So it's called tropical. It's where the blacks just go to images. The blacks turn into sort of browns on the top left. That's a great one. Yeah, that. So in this particular watch, the dial started out as black and the Bezel, which is now a light gray, started out as black.

[Zach Klapman]

Right.

[Matt Farah]

So in terms of a bezel, you call that ghosting, where it becomes ghost, like. And the bezel on my. On my Rolex is slightly ghosted from the standard. But this is. This is the idea is that the lume, which is the glow in the dark stuff, becomes a sort of cream color. The dial turns in sort of a brown. I mean, even an orange like that one is crazy that.

[Zach Klapman]

This is from 1962.

[Matt Farah]

This is a watch that was worn in the sun every day for 50 years. Is that. Is. That watch is probably so expensive.

[Zach Klapman]

So it seems like you have two options. One is you could, you know, send your watch to someone like Shadow Watchmaker.

[Matt Farah]

Or someone that was going to be. My other suggestion is just fake.

[Zach Klapman]

Fake it.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah.

[Zach Klapman]

Or you live the life that you want the watch to represent, which I know takes longer, but then you'll have the stories to back up this style of watch.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah. And by the way, I met a surfer in Venice outside of my old house who was walking by with his board in a wetsuit. And I stopped him in the street because he was wearing a Seiko diver that had the most ghosted bezel I've ever seen. And I said, what is that? And he said, that's 20 years. It was Australian, 20 years of surface. And I was like, how fucking much? Like, right now. How much? And he's like, nothing. Not for sale. Never. So. And I was like, all right, fair. I get it. No. And that's when I called Shadow Watchmaker, and for a couple hundred dollars, I had him fake it on one of my Seikos, because I don't give a. It's not a thing of. You know, I wanted the look, and I like the look. And it was a couple hundred bucks. And so I would suggest he does.

[Zach Klapman]

You know, what else you can do? And this would be like, well, for a YouTuber, make some sort of box that has salt water in it and teeter totters and, like, splashes the watch, but lives outside. Like electric power, sun. That would probably do it.

[Matt Farah]

That's the. That's the Lost Spirits Distillery method.

[Zach Klapman]

Yes.

[Matt Farah]

Remember Lost Spirits Distillery? They opened in Vegas. Of course they did. It's a Vegas attraction.

[Zach Klapman]

I have a story for you about that off Mike later.

[Matt Farah]

Really? All right. Look up Lost Spirits Distillery if you're. If you're interested in a fucking Willy Wonka.

[Zach Klapman]

Oh. One of our fans asked if there's fun distilleries in Los Angeles to that one.

[Matt Farah]

They closed.

[Zach Klapman]

They Did.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah, the LA one closed. It's Vegas only now. Yeah. So anyway, I gunner I would suggest hit up Shadow watchmaker on Instagram and ask him to fake age a Seiko for you. Save you a lot of time and energy and it'll look really cool. Marty McFly, 86, wants to know what are your thoughts on what is considered a crossover versus an suv? I went to rent a Durango and an Enterprise considers that to be a crossover, but I see it as an suv. I mean, I think that's a kind of a moving target for me. I think it kind of ends like a crossover is when you have a small, a small SUV that's really on a car platform but just like bigger tires, which is basically what the Lexus RX300 started. That was on a Camry/ES350 platform just on bigger tires. So you've got all your Volkswagen MQB stuff. Right. The Tiguan and the, the Q5, the Macan. You know, those are crossovers you've got. And then when you get to that sort of full size dedicated platforms such as the Grand Cherokee. The Grand Cherokee and Durango are on the same platform and Tahoes and big stuff like that, particularly if they're body on frame. That's where I'd personally draw the line.

[Zach Klapman]

But like, like the Durango and Grand Cherokee are still unibody, but they do share the platform with each other.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah, that's what I meant. Yeah.

[Zach Klapman]

Yeah.

[Matt Farah]

They're not on the Ram platform.

[Zach Klapman]

Right. And they're also not on the.

[Matt Farah]

What does it go back to?

[Zach Klapman]

Who is it the 2000? No, I guess Chrysler 200 or.

[Matt Farah]

Well, would it be the smaller one like on the Alpha platform? Like what's the Hornet?

[Zach Klapman]

Well, like the Patriot and the Compass.

[Matt Farah]

And those are all new architecture. I don't. But basically if it's based on a car or not, that's where I, that's where I personally draw the line. But. Draw your line.

[Zach Klapman]

I think it used to be like you said, it used to be clearer when things were body on frame and not. And now everything's unibody and now SUV's quote, SUV's drive like cars and they're trying and they'll take a crossover and they'll put rugged tires on it in a kayak and they're like, this is now sort of an activity vehicle and the definitions are very fluid.

[Matt Farah]

Sure.

[Zach Klapman]

Yeah.

[Matt Farah]

Jake Shores is looking for a third car. Daily's an RS3, got a GT4 for the weekend car ooh and wants to round.

[Zach Klapman]

Nice.

[Matt Farah]

Is Raptor the answer? He says, or maybe something like a Tacoma TRD Pro or Colorado Bison. We might need more interior space though, so a nice F150 might be on the table. That's just not as fun. Thoughts or recommendations under 100k, does a Bronco Raptor work? If a Bronco Raptor works, that's where I'm at.

[Zach Klapman]

Yeah, that's pretty fun. I mean, the V8 Raptor is also super fun and ridiculous and not that much faster than the regular Raptor, but the sound is fantastic. I will say I drove that Bison ZR2 thing and I thought interior space at least in the front was fine. I don't know, if you have a big family, you need the back. But that was nice because you could operate it around cities and also in the desert. And it fit both. Whereas radio adapters are huge and feel huge.

[Matt Farah]

How about this one? Rivian? I think a Rivian would complement your garage pretty well. You have two gas cars. So assuming you live in a home and can have a charger installed at home, like Rivian, plus two gasoline powered cars, like, you're pretty covered.

[Zach Klapman]

Yeah.

[Matt Farah]

Because like, you're fine now without an suv. You don't need an suv.

[Zach Klapman]

Yeah. It doesn't seem like their life demands a truck or SUV. Or like if you're not towing your GT4 to the track. Track towing isn't a big thing. Rivian's a great idea.

[Matt Farah]

I like.

[Zach Klapman]

And it's still really fun. And to drive around.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah.

[Zach Klapman]

You'll still get some of that sports car juice. Or you can go Bronco Raptor, which is just a rowdy time.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah. Different vibes.

[Zach Klapman]

Yeah.

[Matt Farah]

I mean, or if you can stretch to. If you can stretch by five grand, you get that entry level Range Rover I drove and that was a real delight. Also.

[Zach Klapman]

How much is that Octa?

[Matt Farah]

More. Oh, it's so expensive.

[Zach Klapman]

Okay.

[Matt Farah]

They're like, guess what?

[Zach Klapman]

You think that costs 140? Oh, yeah. Oh, it starts at 152.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah.

[Zach Klapman]

Okay.

[Matt Farah]

They expansive.

[Zach Klapman]

Yeah. Never mind.

[Matt Farah]

That's real expensive.

[Zach Klapman]

You can get a Bronco Raptor for 80.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah.

[Zach Klapman]

And then. Yeah. Oh, I saw one down in Manhattan beach with painted fenders. Looks amazing. That's the thing to do. Pay someone to paint your fender's body color. God, it looks way better.

[Matt Farah]

There's one in my neighborhood with painted fenders also. And it's green like the press car we had that green with painted fenders. Looks great.

[Zach Klapman]

Yeah.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah. White. I might not paint the Fenders. It might be a lot with the white.

[Zach Klapman]

Maybe I'd have to look at it. This was like a mint green tapioca.

[Matt Farah]

CBS's young Shelby new member bought my dream daily at 24, which is a new GT500 with handling pack. Wow. 24.

[Zach Klapman]

Congrats on being alive.

[Matt Farah]

Congrats on not dying. Yeah, just hit the one year mark of ownership. Interested in a gt. But having talked to existing owners, I've been told not to as the car would seem slow compared to what I'm used to and I wouldn't enjoy it. Any thoughts? Better to just build the Shelby Build.

[Zach Klapman]

You already have 700 horsepower.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah. I mean, look, they're different experiences, so I can understand why someone who owns a GT4 would tell someone with a GT500 this will be too slow for you. But the fact is it's a completely different experience. And if you want to have a different experience than you've had for 30,000, 30,000 miles on a GT500 is probably in the highest 10% of all GT5 hundreds ever made driven.

[Zach Klapman]

True.

[Matt Farah]

Those cars don't get driven. So like, good for you. That is great. A Porsche is a different experience. And so yeah, it doesn't have the fucking 700 pounds of torque or whatever this thing makes, but it's better at other shit. The handling is sharper, the steering's better, the cowl is low. It's a totally different vibe.

[Zach Klapman]

And if you are, you said you've done track days, so assuming that's road courses, not drag strips, I think that means you'll recognize and appreciate the lighter weight and the mid engine configuration of the GT4. Like, it's not like if you took someone from a drag strip and like you're gonna like this, they might go, it's not that fast. But I think you'll appreciate the difference in balance and how agile it is and all that stuff and you'll probably really have fun with it.

[Matt Farah]

And oh, by the way, it's probably not much slower around a racetrack.

[Zach Klapman]

Very true.

[Matt Farah]

I mean, GT500s are fast cars, but I wouldn't be surprised if lap, lap for lap, it wasn't a huge step back. And it might not be a step back at all. You might be able to go, you might be able to go quicker around the track in a GT4 than in a Shelby. It's totally possible that that could happen. And there's performance mods like fucking get a demand motor if you really don't like it. But it's just, the point is not To I don't like that advice is the car will seem too slow.

[Zach Klapman]

GT500 weighs 4200 pounds.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah.

[Zach Klapman]

Same as CT5.

[Matt Farah]

The GT500 is 1100 pounds heavier. So your power to weight is substantially improved.

[Zach Klapman]

It is £1,000 more. Yeah. I think you'll have fun with it. Just prepare for a different acceleration experience.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah. I mean, or for the price of a 718 GT4, you could get a 991.2 Carrera T with turbos and have a 500 horsepower 911 easily.

[Zach Klapman]

Yeah, that's more worth tuning because the GT500 adding 100 horsepower won't change how it feels. No, it won't really do that.

[Matt Farah]

It might add more wheel spin.

[Zach Klapman]

Maybe you can make it handle like slightly better if you make it stiffer. But I think that car is set up pretty well.

[Matt Farah]

It is.

[Zach Klapman]

So I wouldn't, I wouldn't try to change it.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah, at a certain point. It's a Mustang. It's a great Mustang, but like Mustangs have like limits. That's why the gtd like doesn't look anything like a Mustang because that's what you had to do to make that car go.

[Zach Klapman]

That's story. The company that was building a body kit that looks like they got sued TJ months. Was it his company? Oh, yeah. When you see the side by side, you go, yeah, that makes sense. Like this is an overstep.

[Matt Farah]

You guys like, sorry, dj, but like, come on.

[Zach Klapman]

You copy pasted. Come on.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah, it wasn't great. Cease and assisted Hyman Roth says, is the Raptor R a buy at 10k over sticker? I didn't care for the Raptor R that. I mean the Raptor r Raptors with V8s are so much better than the one ones with sixes that I think at a 10k over sticker, you'd get your money back. And like it is a lot better with a V8. So like, yeah, pay the cost to be the boss, I guess. Right?

[Zach Klapman]

It's way more fun. Whenever I see a regular Raptor drive like this, just sound isn't there. I mean, the acceleration is not that different, but man, supercharged V8 in that thing. It fits the motif of the truck.

[Matt Farah]

That's. That's the right way to say that. Yes, it definitely does. Raptors doesn't work with the six.

[Zach Klapman]

It's like if the T. Rex in Jurassic park popped on screen the first time and then it was like, you know, the sound didn't make any sense.

[Matt Farah]

Chef Neil wants to check in on Christian Hand. He hasn't. He hasn't seen him do live in a while. Yeah, he can't do live anymore because the record companies really didn't like that. He's doing literal live shows in a la. And there's one next Sunday. Are you going?

[Zach Klapman]

Maybe?

[Matt Farah]

I think I'm gonna go for it. I think I'm gonna go. And actually, we're. We're talking about doing live podcasts in a couple places that aren't la. And if we do, we would bring him with us in order to share him with an appreciative audience. Huh?

[Zach Klapman]

Share him with the world.

[Matt Farah]

The world. I feel like we've gotten this question every show for the last couple shows. Best and worst mods in terms of retaining their value when you go to resale.

[Zach Klapman]

This question was on the Scotto show. Did you guys answer it?

[Matt Farah]

I think we answered it. Oh, I think we did because we were talking about wheels.

[Zach Klapman]

Well, it turns out that wheels on a Bentley might not help your research.

[Matt Farah]

No, they have to be really good wheels. Yeah. Levi says. With the rise of software defined vehicles, are you having more tech reviewers reach out for tips and advice on how to do car reviews? No, no, no. They just, they're just, they're reviewing cars from a tech perspective. They don't care about the things we care about.

[Zach Klapman]

Although Marques Brownlee's partner, who does car reviews, reached out to me for, like, email advice. Emailed me about some advice.

[Matt Farah]

Oh, really?

[Zach Klapman]

Yeah, they're trying to figure that out. But, yeah, I get Marquez didn't blur out the speedo when he ripped through a school zone. And did you see that?

[Matt Farah]

No.

[Zach Klapman]

Yeah, it was a very short moment in a video that people were already blasting for whatever reasons. I won't get into that, but he's in the Lamborghini and, you know, going, I think, 60 to 90 past the school sign.

[Matt Farah]

Oh, that's amateur hour, dude. That's so dumb. Can't do that.

[Zach Klapman]

Yeah, I think he was trying to show off the camera he was reviewing and I was like, well, you did it. Captured the moment.

[Matt Farah]

Flagrant foul. Dude, that's no good. Yeah, that's. That's poor. I mean, he seems like a pretty all right guy, but that's. That's a dumb fucking bonehead move for someone who's a professional. Let's see. Bad gardener says your experiment to see what the total cost of ownership for the Bentley is versus a modern ev makes me wonder, what vehicle have you done the best on? When thinking about total cost of ownership.

[Zach Klapman]

Probably your Skyline, the Safari.

[Matt Farah]

Oh, I turned. I sold the Safari and got the Spider for free. The spyder was 100% profit from the Safari.

[Zach Klapman]

What did you buy? The air, the night, whatever. The air cooled four.

[Matt Farah]

The car was $34,000.

[Zach Klapman]

Oh, geez. That was a good time to get it.

[Matt Farah]

Lee gave me the super friend price on building it. Marco gave me the super friend price on the engine, and then I sold it for enough of a profit that $122,000 went into the Spider for free.

[Zach Klapman]

That's amazing.

[Matt Farah]

That's the. That's the best I've ever done. A lot. Yeah. Yeah.

[Zach Klapman]

All right.

[Matt Farah]

That was very good. Most other ones are not even close.

[Zach Klapman]

Didn't the 32 you doubled skyline?

[Matt Farah]

I doubled, yeah. Yeah. Which. I mean, it. If I had. If I still had it, it would probably be six times what I paid for it.

[Zach Klapman]

Well, in the Skyline, you didn't do a bunch of mods with friend prices.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah, I didn't do anything.

[Zach Klapman]

Yeah. And you just were like, you held you had it.

[Matt Farah]

I bought it for a year and then I sold it and that was it. And then homie tried to sell it back to me for twice what I paid what he bought it for. Let's see. Oh, wow. Lucas said on the last couple shows you've sold me on the leased appliance vehicle daily. Picked up a Ioniq 5, all wheel drive long range for 219amonth.

[Zach Klapman]

That's crazy.

[Matt Farah]

My family friend got a base mach e for 225amonth. Brand new lease, three year lease, 10,000 miles base.

[Zach Klapman]

It seems half the price of what you thought a Mach E lease would be.

[Matt Farah]

Well, I want the premium, premium long range, so it is about $10,000 more MSRP, but I think I might be getting another Mach E by the end.

[Zach Klapman]

Of the year for like 300amonth.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah, I mean, if they're really that cheap, I gotta get one. Like, how do you not. It's like, that's that. Like, I'm not trying to sound elitist, but for what you're getting, that's almost free for like a fucking $50,000 car that. Oh, by the way, costs like $10 to fill up at home once a week.

[Zach Klapman]

Right.

[Matt Farah]

Like, that's so. That's a fucking. Our Internet bill here is three times that. Yeah.

[Zach Klapman]

And look at what your average. Like, how much do I spend on gas a month? Well, especially before I move close to the office. I mean, it was probably half of that.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah.

[Zach Klapman]

Lease just on fuel.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah. I mean, it's it's crazy. It's so cheap. You're getting so much for your money. This is the like. Remember a couple of years ago or like a year and a half ago or whatever when the fucking dealers were like raking everybody over the coals? And I was saying, like, this pendulum goes both ways and it's the other.

[Zach Klapman]

Way now, especially next year with the ev. If the EV credit goes away, which it probably will, I mean, it's not going to help people buy them, but it's going to hurt that market and prices might fall even more.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah, it's going to start being like, with. It's all going to get so fucking trumpy that it's like they're going to ban EVs now. So it's like you got to get an EV before they stop making them until.

[Zach Klapman]

Well, they're not going to ban all of them.

[Matt Farah]

Right?

[Zach Klapman]

Yeah.

[Matt Farah]

Right, right, right, right. Oh, God. Oligarchs are fucking awesome. My favorite. Love an oligarch. We're so afraid of that word in America. But, like, that's what we've got. Full on bad. Yeah. Is there. Wait, what? What is that the Miata that won't quit. Any way to tell us what podcast that you will be appearing on so we can watch out for it?

[Zach Klapman]

I responded to this.

[Matt Farah]

You mean if we do like other people?

[Zach Klapman]

I think if we're on other people's shows and I just, like, I put it on Instagram if I do it. So we share.

[Matt Farah]

I usually share on social media when I'm on someone. Yeah. William Ray wants to throw his hat in the ring on hating. Voice commands in cars. We're with you. Voice commands in cars are no bueno. I've got the electric G wagon this week, which we'll talk about in the next episode because I've only driven it to the office and back a couple times, but I had to go. Go into some menus and untoggle so many things. Active lane. Keep active this fucking. You know, make sure you don't turn your head to the left because it'll punch you in the face. Like, just like. Like a dozen untoggles.

[Zach Klapman]

Yeah, there's a lot of.

[Matt Farah]

Including voice commands.

[Zach Klapman]

Is this a Euro spec car or US spec?

[Matt Farah]

I think it's us. Okay, well. Oh, yeah, no, no, just because, you.

[Zach Klapman]

Know, sometimes the press.

[Matt Farah]

No, yeah, yeah, no. This is a production car.

[Zach Klapman]

Okay.

[Matt Farah]

It's. I think it's got. It's. I think that I wasn't told anything about it not being a production car. Yeah, it's kind of Neat though. Kind of like it. It's charming. Like I was unsure if the, if a G wagon would be good without the little glug glug. It is. It's. It's exactly the car you think it is. Right. But I didn't think it would make the crossover from gas to EV as sort of nicely as it has.

[Zach Klapman]

I think so much of that car is the style of it and the appearance of it and the engine matters to us, but I bet it matters a lot less to most of its market.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah. And with the instant torque, you can drive one like even more of an.

[Zach Klapman]

Asshole before driving faster without announcing it.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah, yeah. You can be a stealth shitbag instead. It's still way more power than brakes though, I'll tell you that much. Really fuckin. This thing should have half the power.

[Zach Klapman]

Even with like the super regen.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah, a lot more power than brakes. Joey Bagadonuts says some movie franchises and stars had iconic single car grant brand partnerships. Think Aston Martin and James Bond. Are there other famous characters and movies that missed an opportunity with a multi generational partnership? Thinking Indiana Jones and Land Rover could have been one. Indiana Jones takes place in like World War II. I don't think Land Land Rover was like a real new thing then.

[Zach Klapman]

Yeah, that's true.

[Matt Farah]

In fact, I think it was. I think it was like the late 30s. It may not even been 40s.

[Zach Klapman]

The first one. The first one.

[Matt Farah]

I think the first one was 30s. Yeah.

[Zach Klapman]

Probably because in the movies the Nazis were like traveling around and everyone was like, well those guys are annoying.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah.

[Zach Klapman]

These guys are digging for the same rock.

[Matt Farah]

We are multi gener. I mean, I don't know.

[Zach Klapman]

I mean James Bond also did BMW for a bit during.

[Matt Farah]

He had a Lotus.

[Zach Klapman]

Yeah.

[Matt Farah]

Before that.

[Zach Klapman]

Well, they did multi multi movies with Pierce Brosnan.

[Matt Farah]

Oh yeah. With the BMW era.

[Zach Klapman]

Yeah.

[Matt Farah]

Aston's just better at capitalizing on that. I don't think BMW really sold it that well outside of the movie. They didn't cope branded.

[Zach Klapman]

I think the cars were already selling. I think the big thing was the motorcycle. That was Right. Wasn't that where he jumped it off the roof and it was this huge BMW like cruiser thing.

[Matt Farah]

Aston is like Aston leans on James Bond so much and I don't think BMW needs that.

[Zach Klapman]

Like what other cars have been central to a movie but I mean Porsche.

[Matt Farah]

Porsche and Bad Boys.

[Zach Klapman]

Yeah, that's true.

[Matt Farah]

You know he did the Ferrari in Part two, but he went back back to it in three. So Porsche, Porsche and Bad Boys I.

[Zach Klapman]

Think is the first Bad boys. That car was Michael Bay's car.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Zach Klapman]

So I don't think that was like a brand deal.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah, that car's at the PC right now in the lobby. Perfect. What are they like?

[Zach Klapman]

Like, Baby Driver was the Subaru wrx. But I'm sure they, you know, one movie. Right.

[Matt Farah]

Was there a second Baby Driver?

[Zach Klapman]

No, but I'm thinking what year would that come out? 2017.

[Matt Farah]

I feel like Ocean's A could have probably had a car element tied into it. You know, that's a ensemble cast. 3 movie. 4 movies if you include the female remake. Yeah, but you need first you.

[Zach Klapman]

Right. In the Baby Driver car, It was an 06 WRX.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah, it was a good movie.

[Zach Klapman]

2017.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah, it was a good movie.

[Zach Klapman]

I was like, wait, it was a Hawkeye. But that doesn't make sense.

[Matt Farah]

Audi. I mean, Audi had the transporter.

[Zach Klapman]

They did.

[Matt Farah]

BMW was in the first one, but then Audi took over and they were it.

[Zach Klapman]

They were also the big sponsor in Gray man, which is pretty rad. I don't know if they're going to be the sponsor in the second one. I think those brand deals pop up a lot now, but they're not as iconic to the movie. They're not a character in the movie. They're there. They try, but I don't think it really lands.

[Matt Farah]

It doesn't. I agree. It does not land. It comes off as obvious corporate placement. Yeah. Like, I think, I mean, there might have been paid product placement if you go back in the day. But a lot of those cars, car placements really feel organic up to a point. But like, you know, Bullet or any of those, like really iconic movie cars, like they. The really iconic cars are the cars where the plot and the characters drive the choice of car as opposed to a paying sponsor. I can always tell when, like GM has sponsored a movie.

[Zach Klapman]

Yeah. Like all the bad guys cars are this. All the good guys cars are that exception.

[Matt Farah]

Demolition Man. Of course, in Demolition man, it was GM's concept cars were all in the future.

[Zach Klapman]

Right.

[Matt Farah]

Let's see. Okay, hang on. Mr. Meowgi, I live in Switzerland and I'm considering getting an Alpena B5 or D5 Touring. That's the Alpena 5 Series. Big power. And the D5 would be the diesel one, the tuned diesel for an autobahn road trip car. What are the upsides and downsides of ownership compared to a regular fiver in terms of maintenance and parts, etc. Well, you're in Switzerland, so you're really close to Alpena which is in Germany. So you're almost as close as you can be. BMW owns Alpena now, so you can probably get Alpena parts from through any BMW dealer and you could certainly get it serviced at any BMW dealer. Knowing what I know about Alpena, I would not be concerned about reliability. I think their cars are built to a factory standard. I don't think they're tuner cars in the same way. And I mean, like any, you know, other high performance German car, it's going to have maintenance needs. But I don't think there's anything about an Alpena specifically that would be more expensive to maintain than another high end BMW.

[Zach Klapman]

And I mean look, the diesel has 400 horsepower, 600 pound feet of torque, that's 0 to 16 and 4.4.

[Matt Farah]

That's probably a good fucking time.

[Zach Klapman]

Yeah, I'm into that stuff. People in Europe feel differently about diesel, but I think that'd be fun. Upsides and downsides, I mean their ride quality tends to be even better than an OEM one. They just, they put a little bit more effort on comfort. It's obviously more unique and it'll be a little bit faster, but not a lot of downside.

[Matt Farah]

No, Alpenas are awesome. I encourage them. Let's see, we have three left. Dre and Houston. Oh, shit, sorry. Six left, six left. Dre and Houston. How often, how often do we get to Asia or Australia for car related business? Never.

[Zach Klapman]

Never. Yeah, not.

[Matt Farah]

Not been to Asia on car business since 2017.

[Zach Klapman]

I think we got invited to the VIN Fast thing.

[Matt Farah]

Drive on NBC Sports was the last time I was there. 2017, I think maybe, maybe earlier. 2616. Yeah, whatever. Okay, Max Lyall, what are some larger cars with quick steering ratios? What cars have sharper steering. Basically. He's used to an NB Miata and I really want a fast steering ratio. Macan has a pretty good one.

[Zach Klapman]

So he's sticking with larger cars.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah, the bigger the car gets, the slower the steering and things that have rear steer.

[Zach Klapman]

Now that speeds it up a lot.

[Matt Farah]

Oh yeah.

[Zach Klapman]

So I mean Urus. Yeah, well, Panamera, I mean we're some 911 like has rear steer, so that does. Yeah, that feels pretty quick. Larger cars with quick.

[Matt Farah]

I think. Yeah, I mean like Cayenne GT Urus, like all of those sporty SUVs have pretty quick steering rate ratios.

[Zach Klapman]

Right. Because as the cars get larger, they're usually aimed at a different market that might not want a really twitchy front end. They oftentimes slow. That Down a little bit and then speed it up again as you climb in the price point and the performance maybe like.

[Matt Farah]

I mean the CT5 Blackwing has a pretty quick ratio and that's a full size sedan. Basically.

[Zach Klapman]

Lexus GS maybe Taycans.

[Matt Farah]

Taycan's really sharp steer.

[Zach Klapman]

Yeah, it's nice.

[Matt Farah]

Lucids. Lucids also have a pretty sharp steering.

[Zach Klapman]

Yeah. Not like super quick.

[Matt Farah]

No. But like pretty correct. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Tim, A. What are some of the great launch spec press cars that have stuck with you? Interesting question. Launch spec like it showed up how we order. I just shouted earlier this episode this Aston V12 Vantage manual that had like the Nike interior. Like it looked like a high end sneaker. Just Google Aston V12 Vantage S interior. And I bet there's a picture of. It's like gray, orange and. And where's the. There, there. Center 26. That's it. It's hard to see but this interior basically felt like like a really expensive shoe. In a good way.

[Zach Klapman]

Well it's like gray SW suede seats and then there's an orange stripe down.

[Matt Farah]

The middle of the doors. Yeah. And like bold go to. Maybe there's more a better picture of it if you go that. But that one, that. That interior to me was like. Oh yeah, that's the.

[Zach Klapman]

Is that how you would order it?

[Matt Farah]

The X? No, because look at the exterior and it's awful. That's. That's definitely the car that I drove.

[Zach Klapman]

That is aggressive.

[Matt Farah]

The exterior is hideous. But the interior see all there's see in the gallery. If they have the interior was like except exceptional. I would do this interior on a different colored car. This gallery is a mess. Motor trend. Here's why you're going bankrupt. So any. Any other.

[Zach Klapman]

I think it's like stuck with me. Oh well. Aston again. The F1 Edition car we had had like green accents. I mean they always do these really bold accent colors. The Rolls Royce.

[Matt Farah]

Oh the watermelon. Rolls Royce Spectre.

[Zach Klapman]

That crazy like two to exterior purple accents with white inside.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah. And the launch spec Dawn I drove was orange with a white interior with orange accents.

[Zach Klapman]

It was a creamsicle because sometimes we get press cars where they want to highlight like literally with color. They go, you can customize. This part, this part, this part we had a911,997 maybe like years ago it was yellow. But I remember looking down at the cup holder was yellow. The shifter part was yellow. It was basically saying these are the things you can change. They do that a lot. Yeah, yeah.

[Matt Farah]

Those are some good Ones. Okay, I don't, I don't. That. Next question. I don't have, like, this is not enough information. Stew Dog, is the Acura Integra Type S worth the premium over a Civic Type R would be used for highway commuting? I think it is.

[Zach Klapman]

It's. It's nicer inside. Yeah, slightly. The seats and the ride is better. The ride is a little bit better. Yeah.

[Matt Farah]

And the stereo. Stereo is better.

[Zach Klapman]

Stereo is really good.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah. I would say if you're commute 60 miles a day highway, and you want the Type R experience, you're going to be happier in the Integra.

[Zach Klapman]

Yeah.

[Matt Farah]

Last. Last question. Oh, boy. Okay. Ryan west says. All right, here we go. Ryan west says, as a solo lefty and not referring to which hand I write with, at what point is it reasonable to excise someone from your life, if at all? I imagine your group of peers is mixed on the political spectrum and you're open about being friends with Joe Rogan. Do you just not talk about it? Find common ground? I mean, it's reasonable to excise someone from your life, I think, in general, for almost any reason that makes you feel unhappy about being friends with a person.

[Zach Klapman]

Yeah, I agree with that. I mean, I think there's a ratio, you know, if, like, one of the best lessons you can learn, if you haven't already, is you can break up with your friends.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah.

[Zach Klapman]

I'm not saying right now to do that about any political topic. There are plenty of. But like, but like, you could, you can. If there's a toxic person, if all they do is, if they're just a succubus of whatever, you can go, I'll actually have to hang out with you. Even if you met in fifth grade or in college or whatever, you don't have to volunteer your time to attend to that person. And that feels great.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah.

[Zach Klapman]

I mean, politics, politics, it's like, it's hard. I definitely have friends on all sides, and I think I really have to focus on where their heart is and what their reason for aligning with a political party, one or the other or movement would be. And if it's like, if someone was like, I just think white is right, I'd be like, well, I'm never going to talk to you again. Obviously that's hyperbolic. But there are people out there that think that way. But if they have. A lot of my friends, like, a lot of the country voted for Trump because they were focused on, look, my pocketbook's getting squeezed. Things are more expensive. Democratic Party's not talking about that at all, which is true. So they voted for Trump thinking that those problems will get fixed or just.

[Matt Farah]

To punish Democrats or that.

[Zach Klapman]

Very true. And I think there's a lot of systemic problems that have not been addressed by either party.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah. And most certainly will not be addressed.

[Zach Klapman]

Right. Because corporations love it. So, like, so I go, okay, well, they voted for that reason. I don't think they're, you know, I disagree with their reasoning or their hope, but I get it.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah.

[Zach Klapman]

So.

[Matt Farah]

And I mean, I'm not that tight with Joe Rogan, to be honest with you. Like, and I'm not like, trying to, like, throw the guy under the bus. Like, like, I. He shouts me out a significant amount for car reviews, and I really appreciate that. And like, I text with him a couple times a year. That's. And we. It's about cars pretty much. I disagree with a lot of the things he's done recently. And if I had to talk about that with him, I really would. But considering it's pretty much like, hey, man, I got this car. Cool. Dude looks great. That's pretty much the fucking end of it. Most of my friends are politically aligned with me because that's the people that I choose to hang out with most of the time. But being involved in Car Mars, you have no choice. You know, you're going to be, whether it's on press launches, whether it's at car meets, whether it's, you know, wherever, flying all over the, you know, the Cadillac launch was in North Georgia and it was fucking Trump flags everywhere. And it was people rolling coal in old shitty 2500s with big fucking flags. And, you know, all right, that's the world we live in. Like, cool.

[Zach Klapman]

Well, there's also, like, there's people that, that are not as far as flying flags, but they are Republican, they like cars, they like modified things, whatever. The car world is a great melting pot of racist cultures, et cetera, which is what's awesome about it, but also means everybody's there.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah. So most of my peer group is not political spectrum mixed. It's pretty hard left. If not most, if not all of my actual literal neighbors in my neighborhood, you know, are to the left or left, left center. And those are the people that I like just choose to hang out with because I think we see eye to eye on a lot of these issues. But if people are not that, I mean, I could still talk cars with them. I'm not going to like, unless you roll up to me and like fucking draped in maga. Shit. And then I'm, like, not going to talk. Talk to you. Like, because you. Because you're not just ideologically different from me, you're attempting to shove that in my face, to, like, wield it.

[Zach Klapman]

Right.

[Matt Farah]

And, like, you don't just leave the house. Like, every cars and coffee, there's the one guy with the MAGA hat who's, like, looking around like, why isn't someone either talking to me or, like, offended? And it's like, you, you just.

[Zach Klapman]

You.

[Matt Farah]

You put that hat on this morning. You chose that hat.

[Zach Klapman]

Right?

[Matt Farah]

Like, you knew what you were doing. It's not just like, that's just not your just hat. Like, so if you. But if you just. If it's a person who happens to have voted differently, like, what am I going to do, not talk to you? Like, if we're talking about something unrelated, like, yeah, with the respect that I believe that, you know, certain things are a certain way because. Because of history and systems and whatever, and you don't have to think that. But, like, you know, if we can't come to an understanding of, like, what our country's history is and where that's led us, our conversation is not going to be very long.

[Zach Klapman]

Right. Yeah, that's true. Yeah. I think. I think it's good to keep discussing things with friends as long as you can, because division is what helps nobody, you know, other than the people that are, you know, nurturing that Division.

[Matt Farah]

I mean, yeah, division helps the person who can play. If you. If I. If I don't like what you have to say and I walk away from you because I. Let's say I'm, you know, trans or someone who believes in the women's body autonomy, and you don't, and you make that very known. And I believe that your positions are a threat to me, and I walk away from you because of that. The problem isn't the division.

[Zach Klapman]

Very true.

[Matt Farah]

Right.

[Zach Klapman]

You guys have fundamentally different opinions on issues that are rarely gray. I think. How do I try to approach it? Because I've definitely started posting political things in my Instagram stories to some people's irritation. I try to just present data, and that's what I try to discuss with my friends that I know. They're like, here's where I'm coming from. Sure. Here's a study about this. What do you think of that works?

[Matt Farah]

It's all I can do. Yeah.

[Zach Klapman]

You know, I don't think that works. It might not work, which sucks, but, like, it makes me feel like something's getting done, which is obviously the illusion.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. It can be very, it can be very frustrating. And after the fucking, you know, election and everything, me and Hannah were just sort of like looking at each other and it wasn't like, oh, we're fucking liberal. Tears. It wasn't that. It was just like, well, this is, this is depressing. And all we could say was like, at least, least our friends and neighbors, you know, we feel like comfortable here. We don't feel like if I lived in North Georgia, I might feel threatened or menaced.

[Zach Klapman]

Yeah. I have friends that live in the south and they definitely feel like they're a little isolated.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah. So I, I'm, I'm glad I don't have to personally feel that way. Of course. I'm also like of. I had a guy, I was coming down from the mountain the other day when I went to Good Vibes in the NSX and I had a guy come up to me. This was Friday and the election was Tuesday that week. And I'm stopping at the gas station and a guy in a regular ass looking car comes up to me and starts asking about the car. And he used to be a Honda Tech and whatever, he's retired now, this is a great car, blah blah, blah, blah, blah. And I was like, oh cool, thank you very much. And he's like, at least we're good to go again. And I go, what? He's, he goes, you know, cuz our new president. And like up until that point we had only been talking about the Acura nsx, right? And out of nowhere him looking at other bald white guy went like, at least there was no other reason to go there other than I happened to be like white and bald.

[Zach Klapman]

But it was so top of mind, you know, because I mean, on the other side people were like, you know, the election day was when we went up to film stuff. It was like, well, this sucks. That's because we know we align. So you guys aligned and it's just, it's on top of everybody's tongue right now.

[Matt Farah]

Well, yeah, yeah. So I mean, it's, I'm privileged that a lot of the horrible things that are proposed don't land on my literal doorstep. We're not having kids. I'm a fucking white guy. I got, I got plenty of money. You know, it's like the problems that this guy is going to cause are not landing on my feet, right? But like, because I feel like I have a lot of empathy and I know trans people and brown people and fucking or like, or people that go to public school, people that go, People that have kids in public schools and all kinds of crazy. You know, I have empathy for those people. So I feel, like, bad. That's why.

[Zach Klapman]

Right.

[Matt Farah]

It's just, it's, it's, it's like if you, you know. I don't know. Anyway, so. So, yeah, if you, if you don't think like I think like, it's. It'll be hard for us to have deep, level conversations. But if you come up to me in public and you want to talk about cars, like, I will talk to you about cars, you know? All right, that's our show, folks. Thanks, Ryan west, for having us end on that. Just kidding. Please subscribe to the Patreon. It's the move. It's where it's at. It's where what's it. It's the place to be wherever you are. Wherever you are, that's the place to be. Go check out the Career T video, which is up now. The Blackwing video will be up next week. Hopefully it'll have PDR included in it. And what else we got? Road and Track Austin in April. And we'll see you guys next week.

[Zach Klapman]

Bye.