Tesla & Mark Rober Update; $$$ 1970 Chevelle Review; Cats; Q&A

Summary

Podcast Summary: The Smoking Tire – Tesla & Mark Rober Update; $$$ 1970 Chevelle Review; Cats; Q&A

Release Date: March 20, 2025

In this engaging episode of The Smoking Tire, hosts Matt Farah and Zach Klapman delve into a variety of automotive topics, blending insightful discussions with humorous anecdotes. From dissecting Mark Rober's latest Tesla video to reviewing a high-end 1970 Chevelle and experimenting with Cat TV for their feline friends, this episode offers a comprehensive look into the world of cars and beyond. Below is a detailed summary capturing all the key points, discussions, and notable quotes from the episode.

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1. Tesla & Mark Rober Update

The episode kicks off with Matt and Zach addressing a recent video by the popular YouTuber and engineer, Mark Rober, who conducted a test on Tesla’s Autopilot system. The hosts critically examine Rober's approach and the implications of labeling Tesla as a "self-driving" car.

Key Points:

• Misleading Terminology: Matt criticizes Rober’s use of the term "self-driving" for Tesla vehicles, emphasizing that the cars were operating on Autopilot, not Full Self-Driving (FSD) capabilities. He argues that this misrepresentation can mislead the audience about the actual functionalities of Tesla’s systems.

  Matt Farah [21:05]: “Mark Rober... he called it a self-driving car. That’s my only real problem with what Mark did in the video.”

• Testing Methodology: The hosts discuss the testing scenarios employed by Rober, including placing a mannequin in the roadway and observing the car's response. They highlight discrepancies in how the Tesla Autopilot disengaged moments before potential collisions.

  Zach Klapman [24:23]: “He cut the shape so it looks like the fucking cartoon. To not understand that is ridiculous.”

• Forbes Article Critique: Matt and Zach critique a Forbes article that followed Rober’s video, pointing out its lack of acknowledgment of Tesla’s successes compared to other vehicles tested.

  Matt Farah [27:16]: “The Forbes article was kind of light on acknowledging the successes the other car had versus the Tesla car.”

Notable Quotes:

• Matt Farah [25:22]: “Well, I found the video to be made in good faith... Other than the title, which drives me insane.”

• Zach Klapman [29:10]: “I think that entire thing is 100% good faith from Mark.”

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2. $$$ 1970 Chevelle Review

A significant portion of the episode is dedicated to reviewing a luxurious and highly customized 1970 Chevelle Resto Mod, built by Ironworks in Bakersfield, California. Zach shares his firsthand experience driving the vehicle, while Matt provides technical insights.

Key Points:

• Customization and Build Quality: The Chevelle, part of Ironworks' Legacy Series, showcases extensive modifications including a supercharged LT4 engine, JRI shocks, big Wilwoods, and bespoke interior elements like leather door cards and milled aluminum dashboards.

  Zach Klapman [31:09]: “It's got manual brakes. I would go power brakes... the owner wants manual brakes to have the connection to driving.”

• Performance and Handling: While the car boasts impressive horsepower and torque, Zach notes several issues that detract from its overall performance. These include stiff suspension leading to minimal body roll, an unconventional steering wheel tilt mechanism causing steering anomalies, and a problematic clutch system.

  Matt Farah [35:30]: “And the gearbox is like a tremec of some kind... But none of it felt confidence inspiring.”

• Ergonomics and User Experience: Despite the car’s power, Zach mentions the lack of sensory feedback during cornering and braking, making it challenging to gauge momentum and stopping power effectively.

  Zach Klapman [35:53]: “It drives very agile because of the stiff springs... but you don't get any of that communication because it's so sticky stiff.”

• Potential for Improvement: Both hosts express optimism that the issues identified can be addressed by the builders, emphasizing the high cost of the vehicle necessitates flawless performance and refinement.

  Matt Farah [43:19]: “That's not fair. It was a little disconcerting.”

Notable Quotes:

• Zach Klapman [34:23]: “It requires a lot of leg muscle... and it requires a lot of pressure.”

• Matt Farah [36:15]: “The ergonomics of it are really good.”

• Zach Klapman [44:14]: “I think it's like the R&D car or something... They need to smooth these things out before they send it out.”

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3. Cats: Experiment with Cat TV

In a lighter segment, Matt shares his experiment with Cat TV—a YouTube live feed designed to entertain cats with moving images of birds and squirrels. The experiment aimed to enrich his four cats' environment while he was out of town.

Key Points:

• Initial Setup and Reaction: Upon turning on Cat TV in his living room, all four cats were immediately captivated, attempting to interact with the screen. Matt had to clear away toys to prevent his cats from knocking over the TV.

  Matt Farah [51:37]: “Within 30 seconds, all four cats are sitting there staring at the screen. Monty's trying to jump.”

• Problems Encountered: The high engagement led to one of the cats, Finn, pawing at the TV, resulting in the screen being damaged. This prompted Matt to relocate the Cat TV to a safer area, ensuring the cats remained entertained without risking further damage.

  Zach Klapman [55:02]: “They'll be disappointed you come home because they know you're going to turn it off.”

• Reflection and Concerns: Matt reflects on whether continuous stimulation from screens could adversely affect his cats, likening it to human addiction to digital devices. He expresses a cautious optimism about the benefits of such enrichment tools while acknowledging potential downsides.

  Matt Farah [54:32]: “It’s enriching for a cat... but can it turn these cats into fucking crackheads?”

Notable Quotes:

• Matt Farah [52:48]: “All four cats just... slow turn and stare at me like, what the fuck?”

• Zach Klapman [55:16]: “If they're truly dedicated to this addiction, coming in the door won't bother them.”

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4. Q&A Segment

The final segment of the podcast is dedicated to answering listener questions, ranging from seeking car recommendations to practical advice on vehicle maintenance and modifications.

Selected Questions and Answers:

1. Finding a GT Car for His 60s Father:

   • Listener's Query: Help finding a reliable, sub-$30K GT car with an automatic transmission suitable for his father.

   • Hosts' Recommendation:

     • Matt Farah: Suggests a C6 Corvette as an obvious choice but acknowledges alternatives like a 996 Porsche automatic, BMW 6 Series, BMW 8 Series, Audi A5 Convertible, or an Audi TT Roadster with a DSG transmission.
     • Zach Klapman: Recommends considering vehicles like the BMW X3M with a manual transmission or opting for a sedan like the M3 for better performance and reliability.

   Matt Farah [56:50]: “I hate to say it, but Corvettes are where you're at.”

   Zach Klapman [57:54]: “But like, I don't think it's as big a deal as a lot of people make it out to be.”

2. Upgrading Older Cars with CarPlay:

   • Listener's Query: Can older cars be easily upgraded to support Apple CarPlay?

   • Hosts' Insight:

     • Matt Farah: Emphasizes that while older cars may lack built-in infotainment systems, there are numerous aftermarket solutions available that allow integration of CarPlay functionalities with manageable costs.
     • Zach Klapman: Mentions successful upgrades in vintage vehicles, highlighting instances like a low-mileage 1980s Mercedes S-Class with a Porsche CarPlay head unit.

   Matt Farah [70:25]: “If you don’t need all-wheel drive for winter weather, then the rear drive car is better.”

   Zach Klapman [75:01]: “But like the strut, it's not... Did the 991.2 not handle well?”

3. Best Crossovers for Manual Gearboxes:

   • Listener's Query: Which crossover would be best suited for a manual gearbox?

   • Hosts' Recommendation:

     • Zach Klapman: Suggests the X1 for its wagon-like feel, although he personally prefers traditional sedans for manual transmissions.
     • Matt Farah: Posits that manual transmissions are less common in crossovers, recommending a shift towards performance sedans like the M3 for enthusiasts seeking manual gearboxes.

4. Registering a 1980s Mazda B2000 in California:

   • Listener's Query: How to legally register an old Mazda B2000 (Ford Ranger) in California without immediate smog certification.

   • Hosts' Advice:

     • Matt Farah: Recommends transferring registration responsibilities to the new owner, suggesting the vehicle remains registered under the father’s name until a smog test is necessary.
     • Zach Klapman: Agrees, emphasizing the importance of adhering to California’s smog regulations and ensuring proper insurance coverage.

   Matt Farah [73:52]: “But like, I mean, what I would do is ask him if he would keep it registered in his own name and just let you have it...”

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5. Additional Discussions and Anecdotes

Beyond the primary segments, Matt and Zach engage in various light-hearted conversations and share personal anecdotes, adding a relatable and entertaining layer to the episode.

• Jim Farley’s Podcast: Matt promotes another automotive podcast hosted by Jim Farley, CEO of Ford, highlighting its insightful interviews with automotive personalities.

  Matt Farah [30:33]: “He's a boss. And you gotta check out this show.”

• Golfing and Hobby Insights: The hosts briefly discuss their personal hobbies, such as Matt’s new set of golf clubs and Zach’s interest in snowboarding bindings, showcasing their multifaceted personalities beyond automotive expertise.

  Matt Farah [80:09]: “I've got my new clubs. First new golf clubs in 20 years.”

• Humorous Takes on Car Accessories: They humorously critique Ferrari's latest merchandise, specifically a controversial "jizz hat," blending automotive discussion with pop culture references.

  Matt Farah [58:25]: “For those who want to fellate Lewis Hamilton, just get ahead of the game.”

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Conclusion

This episode of The Smoking Tire effectively balances in-depth automotive analysis with personal stories and listener engagement. By critically evaluating current automotive technologies, providing honest reviews of high-end custom vehicles, and addressing listener queries with thoughtful recommendations, Matt Farah and Zach Klapman deliver a comprehensive and entertaining experience for car enthusiasts and casual listeners alike.

Useful Links:

• Watch Car Reviews: The Smoking Tire YouTube Channel
• Rent or Buy Their Movies: Vimeo – The Smoking Tire
• Follow on Twitter: @thesmokingtire | @zackklapman
• Follow on Instagram: @thesmokingtire | @fakezackklapman

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Notable Quotes with Timestamps:

• Matt Farah [21:05]: “Mark Rober... he called it a self-driving car. That’s my only real problem with what Mark did in the video.”

• Zach Klapman [24:23]: “He cut the shape so it looks like the fucking cartoon. To not understand that is ridiculous.”

• Matt Farah [27:16]: “The Forbes article was kind of light on acknowledging the successes the other car had versus the Tesla car.”

• Matt Farah [35:30]: “And the gearbox is like a tremec of some kind... But none of it felt confidence inspiring.”

• Zach Klapman [34:23]: “It requires a lot of leg muscle... and it requires a lot of pressure.”

• Matt Farah [36:15]: “The ergonomics of it are really good.”

• Zach Klapman [44:14]: “I think it's like the R&D car or something... They need to smooth these things out before they send it out.”

• Matt Farah [51:37]: “Within 30 seconds, all four cats are sitting there staring at the screen. Monty's trying to jump.”

• Zach Klapman [55:02]: “They'll be disappointed you come home because they know you're going to turn it off.”

• Matt Farah [56:50]: “I hate to say it, but Corvettes are where you're at.”

• Matt Farah [73:52]: “But like, I mean, what I would do is ask him if he would keep it registered in his own name and just let you have it...”

This episode stands out as a testament to The Smoking Tire's commitment to delivering rich, engaging, and informative content to their automotive-savvy audience.

Transcript

[Matt Farah]

What's up, everybody? Welcome to the Smoking Tire Podcast. As always, today's episode is brought to you by off the Record. We love off the Record here at tst. And we have a new code, people, new code. They want to keep the codes moving for every year so they know who signs up in what year. You feel me? So go to offtherecord.com TST or on the app, use code TST25TST25 at Off the Record. And if you're going, hey, what's off the Record? First off, first off, welcome. Thanks for finding us. Secondly, they're a service that helps you fight tickets, okay? No matter where you are in the country, they cover 97% of the U.S. their partner attorneys will work to fight that ticket, keeping those points off your record for all of the reasons you don't want points on your driving record. Go to offtherecord.com TST or use code TST25 on the off the Record app and we'll give you 10% off all legal services booked through off the Record. I'm telling you guys, not a week goes by that someone doesn't hit me up in the DMs or send an email and say, man, off the Record got me out of a big one. Or off the Record was super clutch. These are good people. They're working for you. So go do it offtherecord.com TST or code TST25 on the off the Record app. All right, folks, on this episode of the podcast, many important things happen. We give an update on the FSD crashes into photo of war wall drama. We talk about an upcoming car show at the Helms Bakery and an iconic delivery van based on that bakery's history. Learn some things about the 992.2. And I learned some things about what happens in my home when I turn on Cat tv. Plus, Zach has spent a few days and I spent a few minutes driving a 3/4 of a million dollar 1970 Chevelle Resto mod. Let's talk about all of that and a whole lot more. It's the smoke and tire pod. Go my bok.

[Zach Klapman]

Oh, yeah.

[Matt Farah]

I really need to hire a driver for the week.

[Zach Klapman]

Hire Nino.

[Matt Farah]

I could do like, oh, I should.

[Zach Klapman]

Be kind of demeaning, but I don't know. Or it's a goof.

[Matt Farah]

It's a Maybach, right? It's not like. It's not like I was like, you'd be like, you'll drive me around. Drive me around in, like, Rick Ross level Of pimping.

[Zach Klapman]

Yeah.

[Matt Farah]

It's got front massage seats.

[Zach Klapman]

You can do that thing like a Die Hard where the limo drivers like calling up hoes while Bruce Willis is in the building.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah. Or I like the limo driver in the Lincoln Lawyer. The movie, not the TV series. The TV series is. I'm fine with. But the movie, the Limo Driver is real cool.

[Zach Klapman]

Oh, okay. I don't remember that movie very well.

[Matt Farah]

Matthew McConaughey.

[Zach Klapman]

I know who he is.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah. Yes. Playing a lawyer for the second time who's sort of constantly on the move in the back of a Lincoln Town Car because his.

[Zach Klapman]

What was his first movie? Sam Jackson, Time to Kill. Yeah. That was his first movie, I believe, ever killed. It. It was.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah. No, you should watch Matthew McConaughey on screen and not listen to his personal opinions about.

[Zach Klapman]

Some of his opinions are very fun.

[Matt Farah]

Some are so fun and crazy. But he just did an interview that I heard. That was the. It was just insanity.

[Zach Klapman]

Yeah, yeah, fine. I watch his movies. Not. I don't need his brain.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah.

[Zach Klapman]

To back up all his movies. Sometimes you don't. You meet your heroes. It's not a great idea. Sometimes actors, good idea.

[Matt Farah]

Actors. It could go either way.

[Zach Klapman]

Right.

[Matt Farah]

Someone is a talented actor. Like, they could be a genius or they could be a completely demented lunatic.

[Zach Klapman]

There could be someone who has not had ideas professionally because they've just been reading and taking direction.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah.

[Zach Klapman]

And then you ask what their ideas are and they have just taken direction from the wrong people.

[Matt Farah]

Well, and when I was younger, people that I knew who were actors and became actors were, like, had, like, you know, mental and developmental issues and, like, were really. And felt were, like, looking to escape themselves by being somewhere. They were also the people that were, like, kind of like pathological liars. And granted, this is a sample size of, like, people I knew growing up, but I find like, in now that we live where a lot of those are, it's like 50. 50, 50 is that. And then 50 is, like, fairly well adjusted.

[Zach Klapman]

Yeah. I have a bunch of friends that are like voice actors and stuff. And they are interesting, well adjusted voice act.

[Matt Farah]

You want to hang out with them. They're the ones that you absolutely want to.

[Zach Klapman]

Some of them are some of the most well read and spoken people I've ever been around. I'm like, wow, they know so many words.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah. Voice actors rule. Hi, welcome to the. Welcome to the program Today. It's out of what. What episode is this today? Zach?

[Zach Klapman]

996 6.

[Matt Farah]

Oh, correct. We haven't considered the fact that we should have dedicated this to Porsches. I should do better about thinking to the. Should we talk about water cooled Porsches?

[Zach Klapman]

Just like the beginning of water cooled Porsches. Let's drink a lot of water.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah.

[Zach Klapman]

I like the engine, I don't like the headlights.

[Matt Farah]

And then we have to talk about like slightly better water cooled Porsches forever. And then skip. Go back in time actually to991, which makes sense. But then forward again to992 and hopefully the timeline doesn't skew into an alternate tangent where Biff Tannen is powerful and married to your mother and it's kind of there.

[Zach Klapman]

So maybe we actually go back in time, forward into a new dimension. And Al Gore's president.

[Matt Farah]

Right? Yeah. Like, no, in terms of like movies that have changed meaning recently. Back to the Future 2 is on that. On that track for sure. Hi everybody. I wrote things down to talk about for this show.

[Zach Klapman]

How rare.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah. And the first one, the most important one is that Johnny Lieberman is having a car show in Los Angeles. So I know California is our biggest market shocker. So if you happen to be in Los Angeles on March 23, there's going to be a car show at the Helms Bakery, which is also being co. It's Johnny. And then our friend Tsang, the chef who owns father's office and a whole bunch of other restaurants and is relaunching the Helms Bakery restaurant, which was an actual famous commercial bakery. And it's connected to cars because if you've ever seen like a big Barrett Jackson or Mecham, Helms Bakery had these very custom specific vans made to deliver. They're bred and shit. And it's a really unique van that almost looks like French, like one of those Citroen Hy kind of vans.

[Zach Klapman]

Is it shaped like a baguette? Like it's a long torpedo van.

[Matt Farah]

Like not like the wiener mobile, but kind of. It's just. Look, just Google Helms Bakery van. And they sell once in a while at the sort of muscle car kind of auctions. Cause they're of that time. So anyway, bakery closed down. The building became other things. And then Tsang is relaunching the bakery as a restaurant.

[Zach Klapman]

These are cool.

[Matt Farah]

Is the face cuz of the vans. The vans are sick. Right?

[Zach Klapman]

This.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Zach Klapman]

This is very French. It is not. It's not shaped at all like a baguette. This is. This is like a personally shaped trolley car.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah, yeah.

[Zach Klapman]

It's a personal trolley car.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah. Like imagine you took a trolley car and Then chopped it down to be a two seater size.

[Zach Klapman]

Yeah. Wow. With racks in the back for bread. Kind of dig it, right?

[Matt Farah]

Like, don't you kind of want to like cruise one around?

[Zach Klapman]

Oh, yes.

[Matt Farah]

I think this would be a great pebble beach week. I bet you could roll this stock at Burning Man. You probably show up on the Playa with this.

[Zach Klapman]

This is a great. That's a great idea. If these weren't so expensive, you could deliver food out there and people would love you. But this seat, which is like a bicycle seat for people who are listening. Sitting in traffic at pebble beach for three hours and your spine would fall.

[Matt Farah]

Apart out of people looking at you at exactly 90 degrees from slightly below. It's not a complimentary driving position.

[Zach Klapman]

The steering wheel looks fake.

[Matt Farah]

The steering wheel looks fake. The cockpit is a aluminum box.

[Zach Klapman]

This is the largest dashboard I've ever seen. Other people could sit up there.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah. No. Like, you know what it would be great for if you had a really big dog? If you have a Great Dane, you could throw a Great Dane bed on the dash of this vehicle.

[Zach Klapman]

Dear Jeff's Wort. But there you go.

[Matt Farah]

Oh, and it's got a huge rack for cakes in the back.

[Zach Klapman]

It's got wooden racks with glass windows so you can see your cakes as you go down the road.

[Matt Farah]

Oh my God.

[Zach Klapman]

How much do they sell for?

[Matt Farah]

I don't know.

[Zach Klapman]

It's on Sotheby's.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah. This is an auction page. Does it show the result or did it show an estimate on this one? And you know what I jokingly said. Mechum and Barrett Jackson. This is $246,000. This is R.M. sotheby's.

[Zach Klapman]

Nope.

[Matt Farah]

246 grand. This is. This sold at Pebble beach three years ago.

[Zach Klapman]

Dude taxes people. Hey, please pay them. This is where we're at. Okay? It's not even a fun. It's fun for five minutes.

[Matt Farah]

You know? You know what this is? You got to throw some studs on it and then it's your Yellowstone Club fucking ski trolley.

[Zach Klapman]

My previous statement remains, but it only carries one person. There's no room in the back.

[Matt Farah]

Oh, no. You have to. You would have to modify it for two.

[Zach Klapman]

You know what you got there? You got a bus. That's what you're talking about.

[Matt Farah]

Well, you put a rear facing. Rear facing chairs on the dashboard.

[Zach Klapman]

The driver looks through their legs and their legs hang over the steering column and you crash because you can't see.

[Matt Farah]

And they're singing like Puff the Magic Dragon while you drive this Is a.

[Zach Klapman]

Mystical place you've entered.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah, man. If you.

[Zach Klapman]

These are magic cakes. They are.

[Matt Farah]

I bet. Oh, man. 148 of these were made. Dude, think about how big fucking Helms Bakery was to have 148 of these dumb little things made. That's a bunch.

[Zach Klapman]

Yeah, I agree with you.

[Matt Farah]

It's enormous. Yeah. Accompanied by delightful accessories. Oh.

[Zach Klapman]

I mean, they clearly took a truck frame and then, let's see.

[Matt Farah]

Could keep going down. Flat nose vans. Okay, wait here. Twin coach of Kent, Ohio, to produce 148 of these vans. A stout Hercules four cylinder engine. While wooden cabinets in the back house delivery items. I mean, it's probably just like a coach builder, a square ladder frame of some kind, Right?

[Zach Klapman]

Wow.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah, it's pretty pimp. I mean, that's. That is like a real billionaires toy.

[Zach Klapman]

It really is. And they drive around their housing division and bring out and deliver cookies. That's what it's for.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah, yeah. Like if their daughter is doing Girl Scout cookies, you're just crushing in this.

[Zach Klapman]

Yeah.

[Matt Farah]

Rolling around Bel Air, you're like, oh.

[Zach Klapman]

Well, we needed a vehicle to deliver the cookies because our normal vehicles wouldn't do such a thing. So we bought this. Isn't it fun?

[Matt Farah]

I'm. I'm pretty sure Sang has one though. Like there is one at. There was one at the Helms Bakery. I don't know if it runs or anything, but like there was one there.

[Zach Klapman]

Okay.

[Matt Farah]

So like Sang may actually have one. And if he does have one, he might be the kind of person who would make it run so that he can go drive around in it.

[Zach Klapman]

This one looks museum quality. So maybe like I could see if he bought the Helms building. There was one just included.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah, it was like inside.

[Zach Klapman]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Matt Farah]

There's another one in the furniture store there. It's called HD Buttercup. It's like a big furniture store in LA that's like right next to that building. There's one of these inside there too.

[Zach Klapman]

Cause you can use it as a closet in your house.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah. Now that they know what it's worth, it's worth just keeping in there.

[Zach Klapman]

I think the market can only support maybe four of these. You know, you put too many of these on the road in this condition, this market's gonna tank.

[Matt Farah]

Well, you certainly wouldn't want to sell them in the same decade.

[Zach Klapman]

Right? That's what I'm saying.

[Matt Farah]

Well, because you know what happens in the collector car market, right? One, you have one big, big hit. You know, you have one car comes to Market. An unexpected big sale. You know, the first Skyline. Yeah, the first Skyline across a million or whatever. Right. And then the next year there's like six.

[Zach Klapman]

Yeah.

[Matt Farah]

And then they come back down 25%. Yep. So. But they. Are there enough of these for that to be a concern? I don't. I don't think so. Because 246 grand means that multiple people were interested in this if one of these came up. You know what I mean?

[Zach Klapman]

Like, yeah, there's only one person, but like 10 bucks.

[Matt Farah]

The opening bid wasn't 245, so. Yeah. So anyway, Helms Bakery, Cars and Coffee. Johnny and Sang and of course I'm going to be there. I've decided to bring something that's not my car. I'm gonna bring the car that we were just talking about earlier, like 20 minutes ago, before the show started.

[Zach Klapman]

The one that's in the front right now.

[Matt Farah]

No, no, no, no, no, no. Not Ross. No, the other car. The gold car downstairs.

[Zach Klapman]

Oh, I know what you're talking about. Yeah, cool.

[Matt Farah]

That'll be different. Interesting. So anyway, that's Helms Bakery in Culver City, 8 to 10am and there's going to be coffee and probably food. Come on down.

[Zach Klapman]

I will be out of the state. That's why I won't be there.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah.

[Zach Klapman]

Just want people to know.

[Matt Farah]

Also, I got a text this morning from our friend at Porsche who was driving a US specified 992.2. We've only driven Euro spec cars so far. US spec cars, a bunch of the ADAS features. Guys, gotta take a quick break because today Support comes from DeleteMe. They're making it easy, quick and safe to remove your personal data online. At a time when surveillance and data breaches are common enough to make everybody vulnerable. You put your data out there. It's not your fault. It's really not. You bought a thing online. You wanted that Rainbow Brite doll off of ebay. You wanted a car somewhere, you wanted a ticket to a concert. And then what do they do? They turn around, they sell your data and now you're getting spam. You're getting all kinds of garbage phone calls and texts. And now you need to get rid of that information, take back your data. So delete me. It's a service, right? You sign up, you give them all the information that you want taken off of these data broker websites and then they go to work. You don't hear from them for a little bit, they come back and they go, I found these hundreds or possibly thousands of instances of your information on these sites. Here's what we've deleted automatically. Here's ones you need to approve for us to delete and then these ones we can't do, but you can fill out this form and have it done yourself. And then every month they keep working for you, sending you more reports and keeping all this new new instances of your data off of these websites. It's awesome. And if you are tired of the spam, you're tired of the calls and texts, you're tired of the idea that your privacy isn't private. You want deleteme and we can give you 20% off of your DeleteMe plan. When you go to JoinDeleteMe.com tire and then use promo code tire at checkout, that's JoinDeleteMe.com tire and Then use promo code tire at checkout. The only way to get 20% is to go to JoinDeleteMe.com tire and enter code tire at checkout that's JoinDeleteMe.com tire code tire and thank you to Deleteme for sponsoring today's episode. Also brought to you today from Factor Lovin the Factor if your problem is time, energy or just really any reason for not eating healthy, gourmet, nutritious meals this year, right Factors solution. They've got dietitian approved ready to heat and eat in two minute meals so you can fuel right and feel great no matter what life throws at you. Factor arrives fresh and fully prepared, perfect for an active, busy lifestyle. They've got the keto meals, they've got the calorie smart protein plus the chef selections. All this stuff is delicious. They've sent us so much food. We've tried everything from pasta dishes to protein and veggies to breakfast to smoothies, grab and go snacks, everything. You refresh your goals this year with ingredients you can trust and convenience that can't be beat. My problem is I don't schedule time in my day for eating and then when I finally get time to eat, I'm actually like too hungry. And then I make bad decisions. I eat whatever's around. It may not be healthy. I eat whatever I can get quickest. May not be healthy. I don't want to cook. Cooking's the healthiest option, et cetera, et cetera. Factor when it's here, I can heat it up quick, two minutes in the microwave and then I'm having a healthy snack. I'm back on my game and you can too. Get [e-mail] FactorPodcast and use code FactorPodcast to get 50% off your first box, plus free shipping. That's code [e-mail] Factorpodcast to get 50% off, plus free shipping on your first box. Thank you to Factor for sponsoring today's episode. And now let's get back to it. US Spec cars, a bunch of the ADAS features stay off. Like, if you turn them off, they'll stay off with restarts.

[Zach Klapman]

Oh, cool.

[Matt Farah]

Including all of the really annoying ones.

[Zach Klapman]

Great.

[Matt Farah]

Like all the lane keep steering intervention bullshit like emergency braking, rear blind spot detection, shit like that.

[Zach Klapman]

I like that feature.

[Matt Farah]

Stuff that really doesn't bother most the lane. The steering. The steering shit is what bothers most people.

[Zach Klapman]

Well, because the rear thing doesn't matter when you're going forward. It never interrupts how you're driving. Yeah, great.

[Matt Farah]

But like, he just wanted to be clear that not every ADAS feature can be turned off and kept off with every restart. But the most annoying ones can.

[Zach Klapman]

Cool.

[Matt Farah]

So you can, or fear not, order your US spec 992.2s. And the things I said about the ADAS in the European cars will only 30% apply to you.

[Zach Klapman]

Be funny if someone out there is screaming right now because they bought a 992.1 after your video. They were like, this is the last one with no ADAs.

[Matt Farah]

Last one with no ADAs. Yeah. So that's good news, right? What? Okay. After we talked about the Mark. Mark Rober video yesterday.

[Zach Klapman]

Yes.

[Matt Farah]

Which was two days ago. Sorry. It was actually two days ago.

[Zach Klapman]

It happened two days ago. We talked about on the show. Neither of us had watched the video at that point.

[Matt Farah]

Right.

[Zach Klapman]

We were. We were reacting in real time, basically.

[Matt Farah]

Yes.

[Zach Klapman]

And we both went home and watched the video in its entirety.

[Matt Farah]

Correct. I think there are a couple things that probably possibly could be considered. I don't know. Mark Rober first. Is he like. You've watched his videos?

[Zach Klapman]

Watched three of them.

[Matt Farah]

Okay.

[Zach Klapman]

Yeah.

[Matt Farah]

Do. Do people look at him as a. Like a scientist?

[Zach Klapman]

Yeah. Because I think he's an engineer by trade. Okay. I think he worked. Did he work at NASA? Let me look real quick.

[Matt Farah]

Like, are they. Are they hold. They're holding him to a scientific standard.

[Zach Klapman]

I believe so.

[Matt Farah]

Okay, well, if that's the case, there.

[Zach Klapman]

Are NASA before he did his YouTube channel. Well, he started making viral videos while at NASA. So, yeah. Engineer by trade of what I would call a high degree.

[Matt Farah]

All right, so in that case, I think there are a couple problems with the video. One is the title. I think it's irresponsible to have 65 million subscribers and even imply a Tesla is a self driving car. I think that's a problem. I know why he would do it. Makes absolute sense why he would do it. I still really disagree with the use of that. And I think there's probably 20 different ways to write a great title to this video that don't refer to a Tesla as a self driving car. Particularly a Tesla that he admits is not using fsd. So it's not even, it doesn't even meet Tesla's standard of self driving car.

[Zach Klapman]

Right.

[Matt Farah]

Which is a bullshit.

[Zach Klapman]

And his title is the most broad, reaching, attractive thing to the masses. But I completely agree with you. And the fact that he didn't use it in fsd, which we'll get to, but you call it sd, essentially.

[Matt Farah]

If your credibility is based on being a scientist, then I don't think misleading titles are to your benefit. Even if your job is entertaining 65 million people.

[Zach Klapman]

True. Especially when the crowd of people that will come in support of Tesla with merit or without. I don't like, there's a lot of minutia in that. But 10, like if they find a problem, a single small problem in your methodology, it's gonna get exploited, magnified, etc. So you really need to be buttoned up.

[Matt Farah]

Right. And then, and the other one is, you know, he was using Autopilot and not fsd, right. Now I don't actually think that in a practical sense it makes any difference at all. For this test, they both use the same cameras and sensors and the cameras don't get more powerful because of fsd. They just don't. And in either sense the car should have had automatic emergency braking.

[Zach Klapman]

Right? Which did not activate because in this test, if you haven't watched the video, they do a couple things before they crash through the wall and we should talk about the wall also. But they did tests like putting a man, a mannequin running out into the road like a kid and it did not always stop in time, which that would be automatic emergency braking.

[Matt Farah]

Right. So, yeah, so those I, those I think are the actual problems with the video. He didn't use the latest available car software or at least one of the most recent, you know, thing that they're selling. Right. That's one problem. And then he called it a self driving car. Those are my only real problems with what Mark did in the video.

[Zach Klapman]

I would add that, and he would probably do this in hindsight is, you know, there's a lot of quick cuts in the video. Because that's how you make a video exciting. I think when you're doing stuff like this, having a camera that stays locked like on the dash screen to show people it's in autopilot. And then it clicked off like he had to explain later. Here's the RAW video. You have to kind of do a.

[Matt Farah]

Follow up to explain smoking tire. It would be three cameras synced together and you would see them all at the same time.

[Zach Klapman]

Because then it's just basically.

[Matt Farah]

Sure, but I, but I don't. I'm not trying to say, I think that the, with other than those two oversights from my perspective. And I'll, I'll give you that. That one I think might be with, with, with. With doing a single cut. I would probably want to show it uncut. But like again, you know, 65 million views and you understand why he would have done it in a way like, I don't get. I don't really agree. But like, I could kind of maybe give him that one. In general though, I think this entire 100% good faith, I didn't see anything that looked like shenanigans at all. The criticisms that we saw in the comments about the thing being it looked like he ran, crashed into the wall twice. Horseshit. He cut the shape so it looks like the fucking cartoon.

[Zach Klapman]

Exactly. To not understand that is ridiculous. Or maybe cartoons have changed and you don't crash through walls, but that is straight out of Looney Tunes. And it's pre cut, obviously.

[Matt Farah]

And then the, the autopilot disengaging 17 seconds before the wall, either milliseconds. Right. 17 frames. Excuse me, not seconds. Excuse me. 17 second. Yeah, 17 frames is two thirds. Two thirds of a second.

[Zach Klapman]

How many frames per second?

[Matt Farah]

That's a very good point. Good. Very good point. Very good point. I assume if someone was counting frames, then they know how many frames per second it was.

[Zach Klapman]

We shoot 30 frames. It's pretty standard on YouTube. So that's half a second.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah. So that either says a couple things. One, he did sort of what a natural human reaction might do, which is panic, hit the brakes there, or touch the wheel in a way that you maybe shouldn't have done, or the car disengaged right before in order to be able to provide some air cover, to saying, well, it was not engaged at the time of the impact.

[Zach Klapman]

Right. And he said in his Twitter post, I believe, like, he did not hit the brake. It did this. And I saw comments supporting that argument saying, I saw someone said, I have a Tesla. It was exiting an off ramp once and it got confused so it just disengaged. And that's why they say you have to be paying attention all the time. But as we've talked about, it's been shown to do that before accidents. And it may be to prevent lawsuits from sticking because they go, well, autopilot was engaged.

[Matt Farah]

Well, I've read lawsuits where it's both ways. I've read lawsuits where they accuse the car of disengaging right before in order to say it wasn't engaged. I've also seen ones where the driver panic brakes or panic, tries to steer, is unable to avoid an accident. And then they blame, they say, well, it wasn't engaged, the driver disengaged, because.

[Zach Klapman]

If you move the wheel it will probably disengage.

[Matt Farah]

Right. Like if it's about to have an accident, you're gonna do what you can do to avoid an accident. You may successfully avoid the accident, you may not. But if you can't avoid the accident that the software sets you on a literal collision course for. And they go, well, it wasn't engaged at the time of the accident. Well, fucking no shit. I was trying to save myself. Of course it wasn't engaged. So it's like they've given themselves all these if thens that always end at it's the driver's fault, you know, So I don't know. I found the video to be made in good faith and I found the Forbes article that criticized it to be in some ways, quote, you know, valid criticisms. In which case, one, the full self using autopilot rather than full self driving. But again, I think the argument doesn't change the outcome of the video at all.

[Zach Klapman]

Yeah, I mean the Forbes article was kind of light on acknowledging the successes the other car had versus the Tesla car. So like people seem very focused on this. Was using autopilot, not fsd. Therefore the argument is completely dissolved, which I think like there's, I mean the way they do five different tests. Right.

[Matt Farah]

Like I think the test is also more about LiDAR versus camera only.

[Zach Klapman]

Right.

[Matt Farah]

It's not about that. Volvo isn't marketed as a self driving car. Yeah, that's a Volvo with a LIDAR system on it. It's not. This isn't about, you know, is one of these a self driving car and is the other one. The test is camera versus lidar.

[Zach Klapman]

Right.

[Matt Farah]

And so using autopilot versus FSD fully qualifies for a camera only test.

[Zach Klapman]

That's true. I don't know enough about the difference in programming and Whatever. Between FSD autopilot and like, their radar cruise control. Like, I just don't. So maybe that's where some of the crowd's criticism comes from. But they did a lot of tests of like, person walking in the roadway in daytime. Nighttime. They did a water test. Right. The headlight.

[Matt Farah]

Right.

[Zach Klapman]

The brightness of the semi trucks obscuring the cameras and fucking with them, which the Tesla passed, which is impressive. And then of course, detecting the wall. But it.

[Matt Farah]

What?

[Zach Klapman]

He only got two out of five tests. The Tesla successfully did.

[Matt Farah]

The Tesla did two out of five. It did the blinding lights and it did the wa. I don't know. It did one of the other ones. I forget which. The kid running. The kid running out. I think it was the kid running out that it stopped for. But I will. You know, if it was us, I would have put a gauge. Can a gauge cluster cam and I would have put a pedal cam to demonstrate that I'm not touching the pedals. But like, nevertheless, I think. I think it's a good faith video.

[Zach Klapman]

Yeah.

[Matt Farah]

Other than the title, which drives me insane. But he's not the only person that does that.

[Zach Klapman]

Yeah, I think I agree.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah. Do you want to talk about the Chevelle that you were driving this morning?

[Zach Klapman]

Yeah, sure.

[Matt Farah]

Guys, Support for the smoking tire comes from the podcast Drive with Jim Farley. You know Jim Farley, he's the CEO of Ford. Not only that, this guy has a GT40 and a Cobra and all kinds of amazing vintage American metal that he races wheel to wheel at places like Goodwood. He's a boss. And you gotta check out this show. It's where Jim talks to some of his favorite people about what they drive and what drives them to succeed. They just started season three with some sick new guests, including Vicki Butler Henderson, the British racing driver and fifth gear personality Randy Nonenberg from Bring a Trailer and T Pain, the musician turned drifter. Guy's got skills. Actually, I listened to it the other day. It is great. Jim is a great interviewer. He's insightful and it's interesting hearing these folks open up to him. Am about it. I support Jim's venture here. To listen to Drive with Jim Farley, just search Drive with Jim Farley in any podcast app. That's Drive with Jim Farley. And thank you for supporting this episode and that. I just had a quick spin in.

[Zach Klapman]

Here we go.

[Matt Farah]

It is a 19, 1970 Chevelle.

[Zach Klapman]

This is built by a company in Bakersfield, California called Ironworks. They've been around for over 20 years, but this car is the third car in what they call Legacy series, I believe. So basically, it's their most expensive line of cars. They've done a lot of stuff. They have done some seven figure cars for like one offs. For that people compete in like Riddler Award or stuff like that. And they've also done cheaper muscle car parts and custom builds and things like that. But this is a very expensive car.

[Matt Farah]

But like, you could call them and pick a color and get this. I want a Legacy series.

[Zach Klapman]

Yeah, totally Chevelle.

[Matt Farah]

And this is basically what you get in your choice of car.

[Zach Klapman]

Yeah. And you can send them a donor car if you want. And there's a lot of customization and things you could choose from. But what's interesting is like the first two cars. One, the first one was a Buick 442. The second one I think was a 70 Chevelle, but with a vinyl roof. So it's like the Legacy series and they're all G body cars, but.

[Matt Farah]

But it's like any G body car. Cause they're all basically the same.

[Zach Klapman]

Exactly. They're all pretty much the same car, dude.

[Matt Farah]

Sidebar right now. TST Book club. A lot of people have been asking me about books. I really should make the whole list. But this month's book, on a clear day, you can see General motors. The John DeLorean didn't want it to come out book, bro. He just like. He just like flamethrowers the entire fucking executive floor of GM. I understand why he wouldn't. Halfway through the 70s, he's like, oh, shit, I need money to build this DeLorean. I better fucking not burn every bridge I've got. And he didn't want this thing to come out because he was about to be like, fuck you, I'm out.

[Zach Klapman]

It's all about everything they've done, they did wrong.

[Matt Farah]

And it's just like his like hit piece on the inside workings of General Motors while he was there.

[Zach Klapman]

And that would be. That's why. Pretty interesting.

[Matt Farah]

I'll give it to you when I'm done. It's fucking wild.

[Zach Klapman]

They talk about door cards and the complexity of that. And why feel so cheap?

[Matt Farah]

I mean, he basically admits they're selling exactly the same car from the late 50s through, like the middle 70s.

[Zach Klapman]

Great. Yeah, yeah. Not a lot changed.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah. Yeah. So anyway, if you can get it, you know, used somewhere, buy it. Don't. Don't, you know, don't get it on Amazon, but get it somewhere else. But I'll give you my copy.

[Zach Klapman]

That's a Good thing to bring up because, I mean, this car is very expensive. And they did try to engineer as much Detroit out of it as possible, like doors and things like that. Things that rattle. Although there are some things that sound a little weird once you're moving. It's got a supercharged LT4. It's got a bigger blower on it. It's got a built transmission irs, which is pretty interesting. I mean, they do a chassis that's supplied to them that they customize a bit. It's got, I think, JRI shocks on it. Wait, shocks, Sorry.

[Matt Farah]

Okay.

[Zach Klapman]

JRZ shocks, remote reservoir, big wilwoods. Like, there's a lot of stuff done. And they cut like the entire floor out of the car and drop the seats. Like, they do a ton of metal fabrication. And that's a good thing because his car costs a lot of money. What we learned on the drive is that, like, there are some refinements that are needed. There's some choices that were made that are not what I would choose. It has manual brakes. I would go power brakes. So the owner said that the owner does track work and does some club racing things. He wanted manual brakes to have, like, the connection to driving. Sure, I get it. But this car is £4,150. And like, I drove this car pretty quick in the canyonstay, but definitely well below what I've driven any modern car. And slowing this thing down when it's like just getting off a very 800 pound feet of torque. Like, I'm using a lot of leg muscle. Like, I don't do legs every other day, but I do it enough. And like, it requires a lot of pressure.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah.

[Zach Klapman]

And the other thing I didn't like about it is that the suspension is really stiff. I think it's the damping. I think it's just a couple clicks wrong. So when you jump on the brakes, there's almost no dive in the nose. Same way, like, I know you drove around here, but in the corners, there's very little lean. There's very, very little body roll so it sticks like a motherfucker. But you don't have the communication grip left.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah.

[Zach Klapman]

And you don't have the communication of how well am I stopping other than, like looking at your. The rate of deceleration.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah.

[Zach Klapman]

It's just. There's not a lot of. Sorry. Like sensory feedback on the momentum of the vehicle cornering or stopping.

[Matt Farah]

When you have heavy cars and then you have hardware designed to make those heavy cars stay flat, what you end up with is a car that Responds quickly, but also runs out of both feel and talent quickly because you don't have that gray area between grip and slip or where you're loading up the nose to find out how. How hard you're braking. Right.

[Zach Klapman]

And this is very agile because of the stiff springs and everything else. You can adjust your corner mid corner like modern sports cars can. I mean, it's really impressive. With the steering rack is quick. The big front tires are wide, but they don't actually tramline on the highway, which is fantastic. Like, there's some really good things about that, but you don't get any of that communication because it's so sticky stiff.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah, I just drove it for 10 minutes around here. I have to say, I didn't love it. I liked certain elements of it. It felt like it was built well by muscle car standards. Not the best I've seen, but pretty good. The seats were comfortable. I liked the steering wheel and the shifter and the seating position.

[Zach Klapman]

The ergonomics of it are really good.

[Matt Farah]

Were pretty good. Obviously. It sounds great, but. And the gearbox is like a tremec of some kind, right?

[Zach Klapman]

Yeah, it's a tremec system one. Yeah.

[Matt Farah]

But, you know, so many cars have a tremec that if I tell you, oh, it's a T56. Like, you know what the shifter feels like. Nothing wrong with that. Good shifter. But, like, there were some, like, some like this. So the steering. I did a couple corners. Just highway on ramp when you're in the corner. And like you said, making those adjustments, it was good. But on center, going from 5 degrees left to 5 degrees right. Like, what's happening there? Like, there is something very, very strange happening right there. And then it's got a tilt steering wheel as you tilt it from up helms bakery truck down, you know, down to formula one car, GT car that actually changes the steering ratio.

[Zach Klapman]

Oh, I didn't adjust the wheel at all.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah, the angle of the wheel changes how it steers, which is weird as hell.

[Zach Klapman]

Well, that's. So when you brought it back. Yeah, no, no, When I was driving. So I had to go look for parking to go to lunch, which actually was great because I had to do a lot of slow maneuvering and a lot of center to 90. Center to 90. And I told the owner of the shop three days ago, like, hey, this does something weird from off center to. Let's call it steering on center. But maneuvering around the neighborhood today, the column was actually, like, moving up and down slightly. I think something's loose in this column that they installed. So it needs some tightening up there. Okay, that is a weird.

[Matt Farah]

Maybe something is broken, but it didn't, it wasn't.

[Zach Klapman]

I agree.

[Matt Farah]

I wouldn't call that good.

[Zach Klapman]

No.

[Matt Farah]

Certainly not fair.

[Zach Klapman]

It was a little disconcerting.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah. And then the pedal spacing. You can't heel toe the brakes, you know, the power brakes, in my opinion are mandatory for a 4,000 pound car with 800 horsepower. Every fast car I've ever driven that didn't have power brakes, most of which were driven by Busy Moto, built by Busyboto who I love and who gives me shit about my choices as like I give him about his choices all the time because he's building like lunatic EVs now. But every fast car I've ever driven that didn't have power brakes was awful. I mean it just. They have good power brakes now. I don't. That I just don't get.

[Zach Klapman]

And I think their only benefit is if it's a race car where you are always decelerating at your highest rate and therefore the G forces of slowing down are pushing you into that brake pedal even more. Like that's the only time I go, okay.

[Matt Farah]

And if it is still, it's not a 4,000 pound car. 4,000 pound race cars have power brakes.

[Zach Klapman]

Yeah, true.

[Matt Farah]

I've driven them. They do like little formula cars that are £800, have manual brakes or rally cars that are going sub 50 miles an hour where your left foot braking. And that's the thing.

[Zach Klapman]

Now they might have wanted to keep the engine bay really clean and not have a big booster, but now you have, I think the aftermarket has electric powered boosters that are much smaller. So if you can give it some electrical current and use that instead of having a giant brake booster, then you keep everything tidy. But you also get the benefit of power brakes.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah, I mean, and I hope there's a modern solution to these brakes so that they feel more like modern car brakes than old ass Chevelle brakes. And then the last one was, although the throttle response in gear, if you, you know, 2,500 RPM, you roll on the throttle, roll off and roll back on it again. Like that response is pretty good. But blipping a downshift, the throttle response is awful.

[Zach Klapman]

It's really slow.

[Matt Farah]

So slow.

[Zach Klapman]

I think bigger blower it could be.

[Matt Farah]

But it doesn't spin up. It's got no response.

[Zach Klapman]

So the blower on this is 2.7 liter and the stock LT4 blower is 1.7. So it might be a Lot bigger and therefore has more inertia and just has to spin up the other thing. Okay.

[Matt Farah]

Oh, and then the clutch. The clutch is a different story. No, this made no sense to me. If you put the clutch to the floor, put it in first gear, you lift off the clutch, the first, like, inch or two off the floor, you can feel it catch and the car starts to inch forward. Yeah, but that. So that's where your friction zone starts. Right. And the friction zone ends when you're fully engaged. Right. It's all the way up here.

[Zach Klapman]

Yeah. It feels like it's a friction zone.

[Matt Farah]

The friction zone is the entire length of the clutch pedal travel.

[Zach Klapman]

Yeah, it's weird.

[Matt Farah]

Why does it catch so low but not let go until the very top?

[Zach Klapman]

And it made it hard to drive up the ramp. The guys were saying this too. Like, you start to slip the clutch out and you think you're underway and you can let the clutch out all the way. But then there's almost a second catch point. And because there's so much torque, like, I did this starting from a stop sign, not on a hill. And it would, like, chirp.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah.

[Zach Klapman]

Because it was getting, like another sudden dose of torque. The wheel.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah.

[Zach Klapman]

So, like, tuning that, I guess you can tune a clutch or tune the friction point because the clutch has 400 miles on it or whatever.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah. I don't know. All I can tell you is what the car did. Not what's wrong, but like, it was. Was weird. So, like, the elements are there, but, like, it's all. None of it felt confidence inspiring at all.

[Zach Klapman]

Yeah. Like the bones. And, you know, I do want to say nice things because I did, like, parts of it. Like, it felt like a muscle car and it was exciting in that way because I like that shit from high school. Like, it had a lot of attitude. It looks cool. And, like, the seating position is great. They got rid of all the cheap interior shop. Like, the whole dash now is milled aluminum or it's carbon fiber and it feels really solid. The door cards are all leather and, like, billet aluminum. Like, the things you don't see have been attended to. Which is kind of the hard thing about cars like this, though, when you get to this price point, unless you know that stuff. Yeah, you don't. You might not notice it. You have to really know Chevelles or honestly interact with every single thing. And maybe a B compare before you'll go, oh, wow, this door card feels a lot better. Or this door doesn't rattle like a bucket of bolts. Like the Old ones did, yeah. So it's. Whereas like Singer, you know, Singer attends to all those things also. But you usually know as soon as you look inside, it's very obvious. Like, this is very clean, but it's just black. It's got nice badging and stuff. And all that stuff has been like milled from aluminum. But you won't really know unless you start touching stuff.

[Matt Farah]

And, you know, things being handmade, you know, and bits that were plastic being replaced with an identical bit that's metal. Like that kind of stuff costs a ton of money. And so you can tell where the cost of that adds up. But for the price of this, which is high six figures, it needs to be everything. It needs to be 100%. There's not. We can't be talking about. The steering's weird. We can't be talking about stuff like that.

[Zach Klapman]

Right.

[Matt Farah]

That's. This should be fucking extremely dynamic for that kind of money.

[Zach Klapman]

It should. And I'm optimistic. Like the owner of the shop wanted to hear all the feedback and they're like, it seems like he wants to do the right thing and build the best car possible. And so this is stuff like some of it is suspension refinement. It could be valving in the shocks or it could just be as simple as reducing compression and rebound a little bit because it's just too stiff right now. Because on high frequency bumps and cracks and things it's really stiff, but when you hit rollers mid corner, it's actually really good. So I go, okay, well I think it's just too stiff on those high frequency compressions, high speed compression, but on low speed stuff it's fine. So some of it I hope is adjustable or at least fixable. Like I like where the steering column lives so much, but you know, this on center thing is a problem problem. So hopefully.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah, no, I liked, I liked how it felt in my hand. But like having the steering change because of the angle, that's weird.

[Zach Klapman]

That's very weird.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah.

[Zach Klapman]

I didn't mess with the tilt column at all because it just. It was where I liked it.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Zach Klapman]

But yeah, it seems like there are. It's like this is the R D car or something and it just. They need to smooth these things out before they send it out.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah. And because Chevelles start at such a lower point than say 911.

[Zach Klapman]

Yes.

[Matt Farah]

You know, like this was a big.

[Zach Klapman]

Thing I thought about today is you are starting with a worse product. You're starting with a body. I mean, no disrespect, like you're starting with disrespect. Yeah.

[Matt Farah]

You're starting with a product that was built so badly the fucking executive in charge of it wrote a tell all book. That's what we're dealing with.

[Zach Klapman]

He did cocaine and he got real honest.

[Matt Farah]

Let's be honest, these are shit piles. A stock Chevelle is a terrible, terrible thing.

[Zach Klapman]

What's so interesting to me about muscle cars is that the driveline can feel absolutely indestructible and is in many cases overbuilt. Like they have axles and transmissions back then that people would kill for to put on their wrangler project today. Right. They're like, I put Dana 44s on you.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah, like a Muncie or whatever. Yeah, exactly.

[Zach Klapman]

Muncie's 21.

[Matt Farah]

Didn't they have a transmission called a Rock Crusher?

[Zach Klapman]

Yes, they did, exactly. They had stuff like that. But everything around the car was like made like TEMU before TEMU existed. Oh, but so your starting point is junk and body on frame. So you can spend so much time and money addressing those things. Whereas if you are modifying a Porsche, the Unibody is great. You don't need to fuck with it. You can. Then you can spend time setting up suspension perfectly. Setting up the way these tangible things feel perfectly.

[Matt Farah]

Well, your horsepower costs all the money.

[Zach Klapman]

Well, this, I mean. Well, that's true. This is a crate engine LT4.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah, an LT4. An LT4 don't cost fucking nothing. A Gunther or a Singer engine or even a, you know, even a BBI built 3.8 or something. That's a $70,000 engine.

[Zach Klapman]

It's, it's a. That stuff like this is hard because I feel like I can have a really good time in a muscle car that costs five grand. Yeah, or you can get in something like the Revology, which costs half as much as this. I will say when I drove the Revology that I and I liked it and the drivability was a 10 out of 10. I, if I close my eyes, this feels like a new Mustang.

[Matt Farah]

It doesn't feel like a new Mustang, but it feels a lot better than an old one.

[Zach Klapman]

It feels very close to one. And I do feel like it lacked some of the character that muscle cars have. This had all that, but with a modern engine. But it also had these other little issues that you have to address for this amount of money.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah, I think with muscle cars it's all about expectations. You buy a cheap one, your expectations are pretty low and it's pretty easy for the Car to exceed them. When you're buying something for this kind of money, your expectations have to be very high. And I mean, granted, if something like this is tailor made and the customer that this is built for, if it's exactly what they want, fucking great, right? But you're lending it out, like, right.

[Zach Klapman]

There'S decisions that were made by the owner.

[Matt Farah]

I hear this a lot. We hear, I hear this all the time. We drive a custom car from a talented group of people and they go, listen, the customer said we wanted this and the customer said they wanted that and we wouldn't have done it that way. And this is why. Shout out to Jonathan Ward when it comes to how the thing drives. He'll put some weird ass leather or whatever the guy's daughter wants. I want palomino, have at it, whatever. But when it comes to the mechanics and how they drive, he won't, won't let this kind of out the door. He'll tell people no to their face. I think I like that.

[Zach Klapman]

I do. I think, I think this also though, highlights for me and I experienced this with the Grand Wagoneer too. Like the Grand Wagoneer built by Vigilante. Like they're on truck, I don't know, early. They've made like a few dozen, right? John's made how many hundreds of Broncos?

[Matt Farah]

Yeah, over a hundred.

[Zach Klapman]

So he's, he is like at the very front of this. Him and Singer and Rod Emery, like they've been doing it a long time. They've done all the R and D. Like they really know how to, to do things. And Vigilante and shops like, like this ironworks thing. Like they're starting that journey to try to crack into that kind of market, but they haven't learned all the stuff. And the advantage of revology is they go, we make one car.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah.

[Zach Klapman]

And they tear the whole thing apart and they know exactly how it fits together. And that really shows in how fucking solid those things feel. Because this, this is different than the car number two, which is different than car number one. And then like a few years ago, they made a 32 roadster that cost all the money. Like, that's a completely different vehicle.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah. Remember Alfa Romeo a couple years ago? All of a sudden their QC went from like dead last to fucking, you know, near the top.

[Zach Klapman]

Yeah.

[Matt Farah]

Why? Oh, well, instead of making every car tailor made to spec, we now have four variants. Pick. And all of a sudden, because they didn't have to make every single car different, they were able to have some kind of a quality.

[Zach Klapman]

I Think if if Ironworks is able to keep going on this path. I hope they get to that point. And I do want to end on some good things. Drivability of this with if they fix the steering issue is really high. Like you could daily this car because the engine works, the turning radius is as good as my M3 which doesn't make any sense with 285 tires. But like I'm telling you dude, you can u turn on a two lane road. It's crazy.

[Matt Farah]

Now now I think I know how to it feels like it drives like it has an angle kit on it.

[Zach Klapman]

It does.

[Matt Farah]

That's what it drives like.

[Zach Klapman]

It drives like that but it doesn't have angle kit.

[Matt Farah]

No, I know but that's that when I that on center wonkiness. The last time I felt that was in a drift car with an angle kit.

[Zach Klapman]

Really?

[Matt Farah]

Yeah.

[Zach Klapman]

Interesting. I wonder if it has giant. Giant.

[Matt Farah]

I don't know.

[Zach Klapman]

I don't know. But I like that for doing u turns in the canyons and stuff. For some old cars I've driven like a crown vicar. It was really good at that. So if they can just fix those little things, the owner should be very happy.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah, I mean I'm not. I don't want to be shitty about it. It does. I mean, look, by muscle car standards, it's built very nicely. It looks great. It sounds great. It clearly it goes fast. I went through a couple gears. It goes fast. It just like it felt unfinished and try again. Let's try again later. Should we go to the people? It's time. Time to go to the people.

[Zach Klapman]

Oh, sure. Yeah.

[Matt Farah]

Is it all right? It is. It's time to go to the people. And by and I'm out of things on my list anyway. I did dude, I I this morning. I'm really trying to be a really good cat dad. Especially because Hannah's not here. Especially because I was out of town.

[Zach Klapman]

Are you worried you're not a good cat dad?

[Matt Farah]

No, but I'm trying to be an exceptional cat dad. When you have four, you can't just like come home from work and then not like play with them and engage with them. So like we're having, you know, for an hour, lots of play and then today I was like, I want to try this. So I put on Cat TV for the first time on YouTube live 24 7.

[Zach Klapman]

What is on cat is the cats. It's birds.

[Matt Farah]

No, it's birds. It's birds flying in and birds flying into a scene and feeding.

[Zach Klapman]

Do the cats jump at the screen.

[Matt Farah]

So the first thing I did was in my living room, and I turned it on. And when it. Within 30 seconds, all four cats are sitting there staring at the screen. Monty's trying to jump. You know the unit that we have made? Monty's jumping up on that. I'm like, oh, shit. Hannah's got her collectible toys there. So I clear all the collectible toys out. I'm like, cat can't fall. So couple more minutes. They're watching, the birds are coming. And then Finn jumps up there. And Finn's my biggest boy. He jumps up there. And now he killed the TV. He's now pawing at the TV. That's it. 247 live cat TV. No ads.

[Zach Klapman]

I mean, center card's just birds and squirrels.

[Matt Farah]

That's it. That's the whole shit, dude. And I go, okay, no, I can't have it on a TV that the cats can touch, you know, that they can get to, right? So I turn it off. It had only been on for, like, three minutes. I turn it off. All four cats just, like, slow turn and stare at me like, what the fuck?

[Zach Klapman]

Like, what are you, a monster?

[Matt Farah]

Yeah.

[Zach Klapman]

Why would you take away such joy?

[Matt Farah]

They looked at me like I said, okay, guys, it's time to get fed to the lions. They looked at me like, what, dad? We were watching.

[Zach Klapman]

Turn it back on.

[Matt Farah]

We were watching.

[Zach Klapman]

They're like, us when we were kids, when you're like, we're almost done with that show.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah. So I. All right, all right, calm down. So I go in my bedroom where the TV's up higher and it's on the wall, and there's like a unit or like a little table basically under the tv. So I move the table out like, five, six feet back from the tv. So it's basically like halfway between my bed and the wall where the TV is. And I put a blanket on the thing and I put the cat TV on there. I don't think it took 90 seconds before all cats were in the bedroom. And I'm like, I'm kind of concerned. It's like a beautiful day out. They can go out to the catio. I think I will have been gone for, like, seven hours. And I'm gonna go home at 4:00, and I think Monty's just gonna be sitting there like fucking zombie eyes staring at the tv.

[Zach Klapman]

It's like a kid addicted to the iPad. Wow, this is an interesting experiment. Oh, my God. Cause it's just activating. They're like, I need to kill that thing. But I can't get.

[Matt Farah]

So on the one hand, like, you know, if you read, you know, on, like, Reddit, like, you know, cats or whatever, if you do. If you live in an apartment or if you live somewhere. Long winters or whatever darkness, you know, it is enriching for a cat. It's not bad for the cat, but, like, my cats have, like, a beautiful outdoor area. There's birds and squirrels and all kinds of shit for them to see. Like, for real, like, can I accidentally turn these cats into fucking crackheads? Like, TV cracks.

[Zach Klapman]

Look, man, there was a time, like, I love mountain biking and I grew up across from a trail. Like, I could have gone and played the creek, but once a PlayStation or a Sega rather arrived at my house, my parents were like, we need to restrict this child.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah.

[Zach Klapman]

Yeah.

[Matt Farah]

That was the end.

[Zach Klapman]

We had to do chores during video game time. Our house was clean.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, I will. We're. We're gonna see what happens. I'll let you know what happens when I get home today. Take a picture. If Monty is still, like, will you.

[Zach Klapman]

Video when you walk in? Just.

[Matt Farah]

Just when you walk in the door.

[Zach Klapman]

Just to see if you catch him. I want to see that picture coming.

[Matt Farah]

In the door might interrupt them. Like I. It may. You know, if I sneak in through the garage, then maybe I can.

[Zach Klapman]

If they're truly dedicated to this addiction, coming in the door won't bother them.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah, right, right.

[Zach Klapman]

They'll be. They'll be disappointed you come home because they know you're going to turn it off.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah, I'm going to take them outside, though, and get home.

[Zach Klapman]

They're not going to want to do that.

[Matt Farah]

They don't want to really go outside. They're just going to, like.

[Zach Klapman]

It's like playing a skateboarding video game. Your parents, like, go skateboard outside, like, but this is different. But I could fall down at that.

[Matt Farah]

I can do 10 shitty, shitty kickflip here. Of course. Let's go to the Patreon. Patreon.com the Smoking Tire podcast. The best website in the world. You can ask us questions for the show, watch us live, catch us before everybody else. In fact, patrons already have episode 999 up in their feed with a special guest. That was pretty fun. And get an extra show every month and on and on and on. And now we get to take their questions. The smoldering wheel says helping my dad find a nice weather daily driver for the summer. He's in his 60s and wants a sub 30k GT car. Doesn't want the. Hassle of a stick wants reasonably reliable. Although I fear he fits into the Corvette owner stereotype a little too well. A C6 does seem like an obvious choice. Anything else that would perform as well or better in this area? Oh, I hate to say it, but Corvettes are where you're at. But like 30k you can get a 996 Porsche automatic. Nobody wants autos. If you. If he wants an auto, they are out there and they are cheap. Right. Do the autos have IMS bearings or are those only manuals?

[Zach Klapman]

I don't know.

[Matt Farah]

I think they do. I think they have IMS bearings. But. But yeah, C6 Corvette. You could also look at. How about a BMW 6 series used. Or even possibly a BMW 8 series new used, a recent one. Or how about an Audi A5 convertible? Those are nice.

[Zach Klapman]

That is a nice car.

[Matt Farah]

That's a nice GT car.

[Zach Klapman]

You get S5 convertible too.

[Matt Farah]

You could probably get an S5 convertible as a matter of fact.

[Zach Klapman]

Yeah, I like those options because if he's really just grand touring, I think having a quieter engine or engine in the back.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah.

[Zach Klapman]

Is kind of a nice idea.

[Matt Farah]

Or how about an Audi TT roadster with a dsg?

[Zach Klapman]

Yes. But as we talked about recently, it's really hard to get parts for those cars.

[Matt Farah]

Not. Not like a very old one. Like a 30k will get you one that's like, you know, two years old or something.

[Zach Klapman]

That would be pretty nice.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah, yeah, that would be. That.

[Zach Klapman]

That would make a TTS roadster. Did they?

[Matt Farah]

They did.

[Zach Klapman]

Remember the tts? We took it to Spring Mountain and stuff. Yeah, that was a really good car.

[Matt Farah]

Oh, that was a TT rs and those are rad. Yeah, TT rss are sick.

[Zach Klapman]

If he doesn't need a convertible, that's a good car.

[Matt Farah]

William Ray says that we've complained about Porsche's seven speed manual in the Carrera, saying that six speeds is the right number. Do you dislike the C7's seven speed just as much? Yes, yes. It is garbage. Too sloppy. Toppy5000 says thoughts on Ferrari selling jizz hats. I can't wait to see what a jizz hat is.

[Zach Klapman]

I had the same feeling and I looked at the link and I went accurate description.

[Matt Farah]

Oh, it looks. Yeah, it is a trucker hat. It's red, it's got a Ferrari logo on it and then it looks like you've either been. Well, I would say it's either jizz or an albatross. Except did you see the shorts? I don't think the jizz hat is the problem. I think the jizzed on shorts are the problem.

[Zach Klapman]

Well, this is like where detectives, you go, oh, the shot came from over here.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah, no, that's. That's pretty bad.

[Zach Klapman]

This is. It looks like. Yeah, it looks like ropes of white paint, like an albatross would hit you with one big glob.

[Matt Farah]

For those who want to fellate Lewis Hamilton, just get ahead of the game.

[Zach Klapman]

For those of you old enough, I'm just gonna say Peter North, I think he designed this hat.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah. You have either been shat on by.

[Zach Klapman]

An albatross or an albatross that ate.

[Matt Farah]

Spatial or is gone by a puma.

[Zach Klapman]

What do they say?

[Matt Farah]

They say featuring bold eye catching graphics.

[Zach Klapman]

True.

[Matt Farah]

That's all it says. Are there comments? Tell me there's comments on this page.

[Zach Klapman]

No, they wouldn't allow such a thing.

[Matt Farah]

They've turned off comments.

[Zach Klapman]

I just wanted to know.

[Matt Farah]

Wait, are there other jizz products though? I mean, we saw the shorts. Are those the jizz shorts in that other outfit?

[Zach Klapman]

Those seem too dark. This seems like these.

[Matt Farah]

How do. No, those are just graphic. That's the T shirt. No, there's no jizz on those. This is so dumb. Do they have jizz shoes too? They've got it. Go down to the.

[Zach Klapman]

Did you just head to toe it.

[Matt Farah]

See, those are jizz shoes on the left, aren't they?

[Zach Klapman]

These, I think these are just.

[Matt Farah]

No, just a regular shoe.

[Zach Klapman]

See, let's zoom in.

[Matt Farah]

And those are clean.

[Zach Klapman]

It didn't hit the floor. It's all on the hat.

[Matt Farah]

Caught it on the brim.

[Zach Klapman]

I don't know what. And I was expecting to see something that's like, this is to honor the rain race of 2023.

[Matt Farah]

Oh.

[Zach Klapman]

But I don't see that anywhere.

[Matt Farah]

Do you think it is?

[Zach Klapman]

If it is, they need to put it in the box. Yeah, they need to put on the description yesterday.

[Matt Farah]

That's really funny. Straight up. That's gross. Justin Hobbs bought an ND Miata and wants to get a vanity plate that says hard top. But worried it might be misconstrued.

[Zach Klapman]

No, I definitely won't go for it.

[Matt Farah]

Not only will it not be misconstrued, if the word hardtop isn't taken already in your state, that would be a miracle.

[Zach Klapman]

You're gonna make so many friends.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah, that's pretty funny. Chris N liked the story about my cigar smoking alpha guy. Any other funny personalities you ran into in the car scene? Like any homeless looking guys driving crazy expensive cars? Magnus. Magnus is the most. The biggest spread between homeless looking and expensive cars.

[Zach Klapman]

I saw a guy two days ago on the highway was driving a yellow 550 Maranello and the plate said 550M of course. And he was just like an 85 year old staring out the window.

[Matt Farah]

He had to have gotten that car, that plate probably when that car was new. I bet. Yeah. I mean there's, there's folks, there's, you know, there's like car dealer folks that are kind of moving and shaking and then there's like.

[Zach Klapman]

I don't want to dismiss anyone's eccentricities either. Like, because people roll up sometimes looking in fashion I could never pull off nor think of. And then someone's like, oh, they design everything for Versace. Well, I'm not gonna talk shit to them.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah, yeah. So, yeah, no, I mean, most of the other notable personalities, let's just say, are not people I want to talk about publicly.

[Zach Klapman]

Correct.

[Matt Farah]

Mainly because they're assholes. No, not because they're celebrities.

[Zach Klapman]

I mean, I know who dresses very eccentrically, but they work for a company that's well known, so I don't want to talk shit about them.

[Matt Farah]

Oh, I know who you're talking about and that's not who I'm talking about. I'm not talking about dress or anything like that. I don't care. It's la. Who gives a shit how anybody dresses? It's more just like the people who stand out. They don't stand out because I want to hang out with them all the time. We have some great friends that we see in the canyons and at car things, but most of them are just regular folks that love cars. Bad gardener has a 50 mile round trip commute on highways and then does monthly weekend trips out of state. Thinking about used kia stingers for 25k. How stupid would it be to buy an old E55 Mercedes with cash on the side instead? W210? Is that the first E55?

[Zach Klapman]

I think so.

[Matt Farah]

Or the second? I think that's the first one, right?

[Zach Klapman]

Yep.

[Matt Farah]

The naturally aspirated one where the grill.

[Zach Klapman]

Was a little too small for me and.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah, so here's the thing about those, I get it. But if you drive them, they're not particularly interesting. I mean, sort of just like like all other Mercedes of this era. They're made really well, they're comfortable, they're stately and all that things like generally reliable. If you buy one that's been cared for, what do they sell for?

[Zach Klapman]

8 grand really cheap or less. We're on cars and bids. I mean, sold for, let's see.

[Matt Farah]

80 there, the 1, the top right, the white one I would say is considered a great one. 49,000 miles and that's 17 grand.

[Zach Klapman]

That's. I mean that's a very comfortable vehicle for that I would look at. I think you need to do the research on Kia reliability, Kia Stinger reliability versus these because we've had, we've had people in the chat before that were text for Singer or sorry techs for Kia and talk about how they have frequent problems when they get later in life. I would look at Consumer Reports.

[Matt Farah]

I mean if you ask me what car was more likely to last 35 or 40 years, an E55 or a Kia Stinger? I'd tell you an E55, I totally agree with you.

[Zach Klapman]

I think both of them you're going to have like an inflection point where the. Because the cost to maintain the Mercedes parts, the parts cost will be higher but it may have fewer issues where. And the rest of the car may last longer than the Kia. I don't know.

[Matt Farah]

I think these E55s are built pretty well.

[Zach Klapman]

Well, it's a simple engine, right.

[Matt Farah]

It's the, it's a 5.5 liter V8, non supercharged.

[Zach Klapman]

Yeah. I can't remember the engine code. I used to know it and it's like it was a really simple stout engine.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah.

[Zach Klapman]

So it might last a pretty good amount of time. I like the Stinger and, and it's a pretty good performance touring bargain as long as it's running cheaply.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah. It's the M113 V8. Yeah. It's not. I'll tell you what, if you don't need the back seat, I assume because they're asking about Kia stinger and the E55. I assume they do. But if you don't, you don't get an R129 SL500 sport instead because at least that's like prettier and whatever and you could drive that for a couple years for the cost of gas and maintenance if you keep it nice. That's what I would do. But I get it. But E55, same with the E500s before it. They were fast for like the 90s. They're just like not that fast and not that interesting.

[Zach Klapman]

Bad five speed transmission. It sucks. And I think the next gen E55 was way better looking. This was the infancy.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah. Guitar player 1999 is really struggling choosing a 911 paint choice. Well, there are a lot of them. Are there colors that we've seen in the real World that we've loved or hated a lot.

[Zach Klapman]

I hate yellow. I almost universally dislike yellow.

[Matt Farah]

Porsche has three or four yellows and there's one I like. Speed. Yellow is the only one I like.

[Zach Klapman]

It's the richest one I think.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah. It looks the most like egg yolky.

[Zach Klapman]

Right.

[Matt Farah]

That's my favorite one.

[Zach Klapman]

And it needs to be on certain cars.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah. There's a guy I know with an air cooled car who's the G body car.

[Zach Klapman]

That is.

[Matt Farah]

It's great.

[Zach Klapman]

That's the color that was on the roof CTR we just got. Right.

[Matt Farah]

Yes. That's lovely. But like that pale yellow is the worst. I love Dalmatian blue. I love south seas blue metallic. Obviously frozen berry is my jam. And Cassis red I love. What else do I love? I love some of the, some of the like GT silver metallic actually looks really good. A lot better than their like regular silver a bunch. They have like seven great greens. Oak green, aventurine, Goodwood green, which is what my dad's Cayenne is Gentian.

[Zach Klapman]

Blue is nice. They're Oslo.

[Matt Farah]

Blue is great. Moonstone is great. There's so many.

[Zach Klapman]

Even ruby stone, which I didn't like that much. And then I, when I drove that st I was like this is actually pretty hot.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah. But don't. You can't get the white wheels and white wheels on. Yeah, no good. Well like that Boxster style Edition. That's ruby star with white wheels and white graphics. Yuck. That is no good.

[Zach Klapman]

No, they did The Boxster America one which is like oh no.

[Matt Farah]

The 911 GTS America. That's the worst. Nothing should ever be called the America Edition. Nothing.

[Zach Klapman]

Wheel color choice is almost more important than body color. Cause like white wheels, white. There's just colors that. Red wheels are bad. I don't know.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah, all wheel drive biased law, many words. What do you do at WCCS to prevent deterioration of vehicles while they sit for so long? What we do is they're kept on battery tenders. We use fuel stabilizer if they're going to be sitting for a while. And we start them up and warm them up to operating temperature once a month. And we move them around so they don't get flat spots on their tires. We don't use those tire pad things. People have tried to sell us those tire pillows so many times. You need these tire pillows? No, we move the cars around so. So you don't.

[Zach Klapman]

Yeah, you don't want your tire to feel comfortable. You don't want it to be dried up. Onto a resting on velvet.

[Matt Farah]

I can't read that username. That username is Tim A. Do you think in the future all 911s will adopt double wishbone front suspensions? Interesting. You know, I don't think most drivers can feel the difference between a struts front suspension and a double wishbone front suspension. I don't. I think if you're a racing driver or on the track or you've really driven a lot of Porsches, you can feel the difference. But if you drove in a couple 911s in your history of living and you get in one that's strut or double wishbone today, I don't think you feel a difference. I mean there are differences but like I don't think it's as big a deal as a lot of people make it out to be. I mean the strut, it's not. Did the 991.2 not handle well? Like was that an ill handling car? GT3, my spider GT4RS like do those not handle well?

[Zach Klapman]

I didn't want to tell you. Yeah, but it sucks. No, it's a great point. Yeah.

[Matt Farah]

And, and so I, I don't, I don't know. I don't know if. I don't know what that means in terms of the structure of the car. If they'd have to.

[Zach Klapman]

Just true of our. I think average consumers will very rarely be able to feel the difference of gen over generations. Like when they switch to solid mounted rear subframe or something like that. With BMW, I mean the dealerships might tell you if you're that customer. I had a friend of mine used to sell cars and he's like, one thing I had to learn was some customers want to know X and some if you tell them that same information will walk away because so if you go too nerdy with one person it might work. You go as nerdy with the next customer, they might leave because they're either disinterested, they think they're talking down to them them, they don't give a shit whatever it might be. That's the lesson.

[Matt Farah]

Jim Khanna have we crossed the Carplay Rubicon? There's so many older cars that came with bad infotainment but are otherwise attractive. Is there enough aftermarket support now that you should buy an older enthusiast model under the assumption it can be upgraded to a Carplay unit at a manageable price in most cases your BMW, which basically means all 2000s BMWs. Think a lot of 2000s Mercedes. I don't know about Jag and Range Rover. But I mean, you know, as long as you can make your phone play sound out of your car, you know, you could have a dash mount and use the screen for your gps, like your phone mounted on the dash. Isn't that different from CarPlay?

[Zach Klapman]

We have like a 14 Pro or a 15 Pro X or something.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah. So I mean to me what's important is the phone produces a signal that then comes out my speakers once we get there. That's all I really care about. But in many. There's a lot, a lot of ways to upgrade your old car to work with CarPlay. They got the flip outs, they got the small screens, they got. We were just at the.

[Zach Klapman]

Fuck it.

[Matt Farah]

I'll say it. We were just at Jerry Seinfeld's place recording episode 999 yesterday and he had, among a bunch of other dope. Shit. A mint condition low mile old Mercedes S class sedan from the 80s that had the Porsche CarPlay capable head unit put into it, which is a boss move. But it did work. Ryan Morris says what crossover would be best suited to a manual gearbox in your opinion? Not sure why, but I feel like the X3M with a stick wouldn't be the worst thing. A macan or an X3M I think would both be fine with a stick. It's funny, I'm not like motivated to want to drive those types of cars with a stick though, you know?

[Zach Klapman]

Yeah, I think like the X1, I feel like it sat lower than the X3. Granted it's an older car, but that was basically like so close to being a wagon. They should have just called it one. And that one suited the manual better in my opinion because it just seemed like a car. X3 is like drifting into tall SUV hatchback territory when which case the ZF8 speed is not too bad. I mean, I don't know if I was gonna get an X3M with a stick. I would just get an M3 sedan. Yeah, no, I just. Just get a car. Just get a car.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah. I mean I think it's a hypothetical. I don't think he's actually talking about project carring it, but yeah. Miguel says my dad is giving me his old Mazda B2000. That's a Ford Ranger and I have a question on how to register it. He lives in California, but a part that requires smog only when selling it. And I live in a part of California that requires smog every two years. Is there a way I can take legal ownership while keeping it registered and not smog? It. I suspect it won't pass. Well, if he has to sell it to smog it when he sells it. I guess if he sells it to you, he doesn't have to smog it because you're not going to narc on him for selling a car that won't pass.

[Zach Klapman]

Well, unless. But if Miguel goes to register it. Well for sure then no.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah, yeah. Assuming it's not registered now and assuming Miguel doesn't intend to register it for a long time, then it doesn't need to pass smog.

[Zach Klapman]

Right.

[Matt Farah]

Because you're not going to. You're not going to sue your dad for selling you a truck or giving you a truck that won't pass smog.

[Zach Klapman]

Right.

[Matt Farah]

But like, I mean, what I would do is ask him if he would keep it registered in his own name and just let you have it and then add your name as additional insured. Or you get. You. You get insurance on it and I would do that. That's the move the insurance needs to cover you. That's more important than who or where the truck is registered. Stu Dog, go down, please. Stu Dog watched my video with Teddy Baldessar the other day. Please go check it out. Yeah. His eyes glazed. Yes. Okay. Sorry. I should have read there wasn't a question there. My name is Lane, but I identify as a street. What is the best tool or to keep in your car?

[Zach Klapman]

I used to think jumper cables, which then led me to thinking battery. But I think my battery is stable enough that I would go plug in. Or like battery powered fantic air compressor.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah.

[Zach Klapman]

Tire and flat tire pressures change more than we think and we let them go far too long before we actually adjust them.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah. If you can feel your car handling differently. Your tire pressures are too low. Yeah. That portable fantic tire inflator thing I use all the time. That thing is good. Big bad cam Faz. I hope that doesn't mean something terrible. Thoughts on the new Morgan Super Sport? When will you be coming over to the UK to have a go? I have not been invited to go have a go in the uk but I am excited to see it when it gets here. I think it looks cool in some ways. I think it looks. Looks a little strange in other ways. I don't love that rectangle bit in the lower half of the front. I don't like that it's automatic only it's not manual.

[Zach Klapman]

I wish it had a different shifter from the BMW, but I've heard. I forget. I talked to a tech that said to make a new shifter but using all the BMW software and computer chips in there is a massive pain in the ass. And it cost them a lot, lot of money.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah, that was what Ineos said.

[Zach Klapman]

That's right, that's right.

[Matt Farah]

Because they do the same thing, but in general, more Morgan is good. I will take all the Morgan they will give me. Paul says, craziest thing you've seen someone do at a gas station. Let's see. Oh, I mean, I was driving an Aventador back from Vegas with Thad and some family in a Ford Taurus hoarder car loaded up, rolled up right next to me and said, how about you fill us up? And like meant it seriously. And I was all, fuck out of here, yo. Okay.

[Zach Klapman]

I saw a man getting a mouth hug, but that was at a gym parking lot when I was sitting in a stoplight and I looked over and I was like, oh, they're having that kind of evening right in the parking lot.

[Matt Farah]

Minnie Finney, after dailying the Taycan 4, does the rear wheel drive, do you still think the rear wheel drive Taycan is the best, better EV than the all wheel drive version? Do you think rear wheel drive being better than all wheel drive applies to all EVs? I want to be very clear about this. I've always said this. If you don't need all wheel drive for winter weather, then the rear drive car is better. It has plenty of power, speed, plenty of grip and the steering will be better because it's not powered wheels and all those front wheels do is steer. I think the rear wheel drive tight. Nikon drives great. It drives like a Cayman, which is very, very good. And it also has more range for the same battery. It's more efficient because it's not only powering one motor. So if you live somewhere and I'm not, I don't mean somewhere where it rains, I mean somewhere where it like legit is like snow and ice. Then get all wheel drive, but get snow tires too. And if you don't, then the rear wheel drive I think is excellent. And that goes to every EV that I have experienced. The rear drive version drives better in all of them. Okay, sorry. Nathan Reynolds says, I've heard the question of what cars would benefit most from the availability of a manual, but I've never heard the answer raised in the Maserati GranTurismo. I actually think that the Maserati Gran Turismo would be a nice car for Emmanuel.

[Zach Klapman]

Yeah, that's a good point because It's a great 8, 10 car and it sounds good I think the question is, would the market support that? The Ferraris that we convert, you could spend 15 grand converting it, and you'd probably make the money back. I don't know if you would. On the Maserati.

[Matt Farah]

I agree. Yeah, I'm pro Maserati manual conversions. That sounds good. Bus stop hair. We're gonna go two more. Bus stop Hare says all my cars are green over tan. I love the way it looks, but I definitely paid a premium to get my cars in this spec. Do you think enthusiasm for this color combo is a fad, or is it wise to continue anticipating a premium for my love of green cars?

[Zach Klapman]

I feel like greens have come back a lot. I'm seeing more new cars in green, like brand new M3s, dark greens, brand new 430 or something like that, also in a dark green. It seems like more of the press cars are coming.

[Matt Farah]

Lots of Porsche's greens. So many oak greens. So many. I've seen so many greens. But green over tan is a pretty classy combo that's been around for a long time and appreciated for a long time. So, I mean, I think that, you know, it will always be a desirable and tasteful color combination.

[Zach Klapman]

And I think the supply usually is less than the enthusiasm for it. So that's why they tend to command a premium.

[Matt Farah]

Right. Right. Nice cams. One for Zach. How much has your interest in watches gone up since working with me and are you shopping for watches now that I won't shut up about that?

[Zach Klapman]

I'd say it's gone up a little bit in my appreciation for the math and everything involved in them has gone up, but it's still, like, not. It hasn't hooked me.

[Matt Farah]

A couple weeks ago, you asked me where you. Where I would park 20 grand.

[Zach Klapman]

That was a different situation. Yeah. There are reasons.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Zach Klapman]

For. I see a lot of utility.

[Matt Farah]

How do I leave the country with 50 GS on my wrist? Easy.

[Zach Klapman]

I've got to stop putting the escape business in the street. When we go to the marina to flee one day and all the boats are gone, that's your fault. I'm going to say it was all Patreon members. Yep.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah. We're gonna have to find a different marina.

[Zach Klapman]

Yeah, that's true.

[Matt Farah]

It's okay. I mean, look, it's. It's not my fault. It's really easy to steal a boat.

[Zach Klapman]

That's true. But it's your fault that we told the city people that we're gonna steal a boat.

[Matt Farah]

Right?

[Zach Klapman]

Right.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah. If we have to steal A boat. Nothing matters anymore. We're fucking out, dude. That's our show, folks. Thank you, everybody. Thank you to our patrons. Zach is going to play dirty with fucking Sam Smith in Tennessee and then gonna go do some road and tracking in Texas. And I will be here running a brick and mortar business and hiring a new employee. Yay. Cool. Sounds fun. No. I'm playing golf on Friday with Corey. Got my new clubs. First new golf clubs in 20 years. I'm ready to. Yeah, I haven't. I love golf, and I play a few times a year, but I. I have not felt like I deserved a new set of golf clubs. You know, everyone's like, everyone blames their bad game on their clubs. Oh, you got the new driver. You know, fix the slice. And it's such a deep rabbit hole. And I've already got nine rabbit holes. And I'm like, look, for three times a year, four times a year, I don't deserve new clubs. That won't make me a better golfer. Last time my dad was here, he was like, today, just play out of my bag. Cause we're the same height. So I just smash, you know, I'm smashing the ball, you know, And I'm just like, all right, it's been 20 years, and I think I do deserve new golf clubs. So I got new golf clubs.

[Zach Klapman]

I did that with snowboard bindings.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah.

[Zach Klapman]

When I got new bindings, I compared the weight, and I went, why are these a quarter the weight of my old ones?

[Matt Farah]

Are they carbon?

[Zach Klapman]

God, no. But they were just better made. The other ones were metal. Technology advances, not. It doesn't advance every year, but, you know, every decade or so.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah. Now there's. For skis, there's now a third measurement. The measurement is the length and then the. The width at the widest part and the width under your foot.

[Zach Klapman]

Oh.

[Matt Farah]

Because, like, some skis are more like parabolic. Parabolic. Some are more like straight and, like, wide under your foot for powder.

[Zach Klapman]

Yeah. Okay.

[Matt Farah]

Anyway, that's our show. We will see you all very, very soon. Goodbye.