The Best AMG Isn't the 63; Heli Crash; Robotaxi vs Waymo

Summary

The Smoking Tire Podcast – "The Best AMG Isn’t the 63; Heli Crash; Robotaxi vs Waymo" Hosts: Matt Farah and Zack Klapman
Date: October 16, 2025

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Episode Overview

In this episode, Matt and Zack dive into a whirlwind of recent automotive news and experiences, focusing on their review of the Mercedes CLE53 Cabriolet and the Infinite Machine P1 electric scooter. The conversation detours into the wildest Cars & Coffee crash involving a helicopter, EV scooters vs. traditional motorcycles, and a heated discussion about autonomous driving tech – notably comparing Tesla’s FSD to Waymo. The hosts also respond to listener questions about car modification regrets, sports car dreams, and the challenges of sharing automotive enthusiasm with non-car-loving significant others. As always, the banter remains sharp, insightful, and laced with signature humor.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Mercedes CLE53 Cabriolet: Why the "53" Wins

• Impressions: Matt and Zack both praise the CLE53 (AMG) as an unexpectedly balanced, enjoyable sports-luxury convertible.
  • "Normally, this would not be my type of car...I fucking loved this car."
    – Matt (43:16)
• Engine & Driving Experience: The inline-6 with mild hybrid tech is exceptionally smooth, making start/stop seamless and city driving pleasant.
• Chassis & Handling: Outstanding suspension tuning—comfortable on the highway; genuinely composed and fun on winding, bumpy canyons.
  • "Ali was a racing engineer...He was like, dude, who tuned this? It was so good."
    – Matt (44:02)
• Interior & Comfort: Highly adjustable seats from the AMG GT, premium materials (notably "tuxedo wood"), and a surprisingly premium look and feel.
• Community Reactions: The car draws a lot of positive attention, despite a neutral color.
  • "I got so many compliments...could not believe how many people noticed this car."
    – Matt (43:52)
• Comparison & Value: At ~$100k, hosts feel it justifies the cost, especially compared to BMW M4/M3 and even the pricier SL.

2. Infinite Machine P1: The Tech Bro’s Urban Commuter?

• Background: Designed in part by former Cybertruck talent; aggressive, angular styling; meant to be a “Cybertruck” of scooters.
• Performance: 6kW motor, 60 miles claimed range, 65 mph top speed; Zack was unable to verify full ranges or speeds.
• Features: CarPlay integration, phone-as-key, removable (though heavy) battery, reverse gear.
• Downsides: Flimsy glovebox, $10,000 price tag—steep for electric scooters, judged against efficient used Vespas.
  • "They're just too expensive for what you're getting."
    – Matt (40:16)
• Market Realities: Tech-forward, but the hosts agree the premium price and practicality gap vs. gas alternatives limit widespread appeal in the U.S. today.
  • "If Vespa made an electric equivalent...I'd probably get it...but every electric two-wheel vehicle I've ever ridden, my real-world range has been about half what the manufacturer claims."
    – Matt (29:22 and 29:50)
• Environmental Angle: Electric scooters theoretically helpful, as traditional motorcycles/scooters are disproportionately dirty emissions-wise.

3. Helicopter Crash at Cars & Coffee – The Ultimate “Cars & Coffee Crash”?

• Incident: At a high-profile “Cars & Copters” event in Huntington Beach, a Bell helicopter crashed during a landing maneuver—caught on numerous videos.
• No Fatalities: Hosts stress humor is allowed since nobody died.
• Details: Crash apparently caused by tail rotor failure, possibly exacerbated by “hot-dogging” in front of the audience.
  • "The ultimate game over Cars & Coffee crash will probably never be topped. The helicopter crashing at a Cars & Coffee. That one-ups all Mustangs."
    – Matt (09:01)
• Surreal Aftermath: The event continued with the wrecked helicopter as a backdrop.
  • "They just left the crashed helicopter there and had the car show right around it."
    – Matt (10:40)
• Safety Reflection: Reinforces helicopters are inherently riskier than planes; failures often more catastrophic.

4. Tesla FSD vs. Waymo: Real Autonomy, Real Results?

• FSD Skepticism: Matt and Zack maintain FSD isn't truly "autonomous" when it requires human supervision.
  • "You refer to that Tesla Model 3 as an autonomous driving system. It is not. That is absolutely not an autonomous driving system. Waymo is...level four."
    – Matt (91:53)
• Waymo’s Safety Record: Citing recent studies, Waymo’s millions of driverless miles have logged minimal incidents, none at-fault.
• Tesla's Robo-Taxi News: Recent PR about accidents and industry-exit of robotics execs from Tesla raises further doubt.
  • "Tesla is still using camera only, which—dude, we should take a Waymo today in the rain."
    – Matt (92:40)
• Memorable Deadpan:
  • "Your experience isn't data. It just isn't. The data that is collected over millions of miles of driving is data."
    – Matt (92:44)

5. Listener Questions: Regrets, Dreams, and Debating Porsche Purity

• Modification Regrets: Both hosts recount "scamming themselves" as teens—buying questionable car accessories.
  • "I didn't need someone to scam me."
    – Matt (53:39)
• Porsche Aspirations: How wide is the window to buy a new, manual, NA flat-six?
  • Likely at least another 10 years (specifically GT3 and GT4 variants), but hosts urge not to let perfection be the enemy of good—used options are excellent.
  • "Perfection is the enemy of good."
    – Zack (62:00)
• Super SUVs in Emerging Markets: Poor roads and buyer preferences explain why luxury brands pivot to high-performance SUVs.
• Convincing Non-Car-Lovers: Multiple questions around persuading significant others about “unmanly” cars or owning more than one vehicle.
  • "Your girlfriend sucks, Carter...A car doesn't make you girly or unmanly. I have a pink fucking Boxster."
    – Matt (83:08)
  • Advice: Let enthusiasm dictate, but acknowledge some people simply don’t get it.
• Affordable Track Time: Only real answer: Become a performance driving instructor or volunteer (e.g., as a corner worker)—but requires above-average skill and risk tolerance.

6. Bonus Banter & Notable Quotes

• Matt’s Pink Porsche and Attracting Attention:
  • "If you're gonna get a fun thing, get the one that girls like. That's just a pro tip from someone who's been there."
    – Matt (41:08)
• Classic Road Disappointments: Not all “famous” scenic drives are great for fast cars—time of day and expectations matter.
• EV Swaps in Classics: Skepticism toward electric conversions of cars where the engine is a core engagement factor (e.g., AE86).
  • "To me, it's a solution to the wrong problem. But, you know, fun for science."
    – Matt (88:05)
• Electric Lawnmowers & Landscaping as the Next Frontier: Practical electric tool chat spun off from scooter/battery talk.
• Steering Wheels, Dream Garages, and More: Some strong opinions on the best (and worst) steering wheels ever.
  • "The Singer Turbo is the best steering wheel I've ever used."
    – Matt (72:33)

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Notable Timestamps

• 09:01 – “Car crash” one-upped: Helicopter goes down at Cars & Coffee
• 23:14 – Infinite Machine P1 scooter review: features and drawbacks
• 43:16 – 49:20 – Deep dive: Mercedes CLE53 Cabriolet review
• 91:37 – 93:34 – Tesla FSD vs. Waymo: data, safety, and definitions of “autonomous”
• 53:13 – Listeners’ teen car mod regrets
• 62:00 – Porsche dreams and market outlook
• 83:08 – 84:31 – Debating cars with a non-car-loving partner

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Memorable Moments & Quotes

• "The ultimate game over Cars & Coffee crash will probably never be topped. The helicopter crashing at a Cars & Coffee. That one-ups all Mustangs."
  – Matt (09:01)
• "Perfection is the enemy of good."
  – Zack (62:00)
• "If you're gonna get a fun thing, get the one that girls like. That's just a pro tip from someone who's been there."
  – Matt (41:08)
• "You refer to that Tesla Model 3 as an autonomous driving system. It is not."
  – Matt (91:53)

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Tone & Takeaways

• Candid, clever, and congenial: The duo’s chemistry shines through as they riff on everything from newsworthy blunders to nuanced product reviews.
• Welcoming to enthusiasts & the car-curious alike: Even technical or existential automotive debates are presented with humor and clarity.
• Expertise with humility: Matt and Zack speak from deep industry and personal experience but make space for listener questions and discovery.

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This episode is a must-listen for anyone who cares about the state of performance luxury cars, the ever-livelier debate over EVs, the dangers (and distractions) of car culture, and the ever-entertaining interplay of automotive passion with everyday life.

Transcript

[A]

What up, everybody? Welcome to the Smoking Tire Podcast. Matt Farah here. And today's episode is brought to you by off the Record. Look, if you get pulled over, if you get a ticket of any kind, don't plead guilty. Get off the record. Fight that shiznat. Off the Record will connect you with a qualified attorney in the jurisdiction where you got that ticket. They will fight it all the way to the Supreme Court if need be. Right? Right. Go to offtherecord.comtst for 10% off all legal services booked through off the record. Big or small, doesn't matter anywhere in the U.S. hit them up offtherecord.com TST all right, folks, on this episode, Zach and I review the Mercedes CLE53 cabriolet as well as the Infinite Machine P1 scooter. We talk about the most epic cars and coffee CR trash of all time. And we have some fabulous questions from our patrons, including how to help some of our patrons break up with their girlfriends because they don't like cars. On this episode of the Smoking Tire. Let's go. Oh, good morning. I have a feeling this coffee cup has a little less coffee in it than I thought it did when I walked in here. And yep, we're down at about an inch and a half. Inch and a half at the bottom.

[B]

Oh, they meant only an inch and a half left. It's third down or, sorry, from the top.

[A]

No, no, no, no, from the, from the bottom. This is this car, this Porsche coffee cup, which I love matches. My car is both bigger and smaller than like it's, I think it's like 16 or 18 ounces probably. Oh, wait, it's 15 ounces. But because of the design of the sip hole, coffee really comes out of it very slowly.

[B]

Oh.

[A]

And so that 15 ounces is made to last like a 911 with an extended tank that, you know, 24 gallon, just sips along 600 miles.

[B]

It's a direct injected mouthpiece incredibly well.

[A]

I would say it's an efficient coffee delivery. I'd say it's an efficient coffee enjoyment system because it can draw out the amount of time that I'm enjoying my coffee without increasing the amount of coffee. Right. Yeah.

[B]

Get more mileage.

[A]

Except I'll tell you what, here's a design flaw in Porsche's design. Look when I put the lid back on, okay. It's got a flip top lid, works really good. I could, I could like throw this on the floor right now. Nothing would spill out of it. There's a really nice, like rubber seal that goes into the sip hole and keeps it nice. But watch my face when I sip. Notice the contact of the rubber stopper with the tip of the nose. Now in this cup of coffee, I will put the equivalent of like one and a half sugar packets in that coffee. Just enough to make the coffee just sweet enough to cut the bitterness, but also just enough that this leaves a sticky residue on my nose as if I was. As if I was dunking my face in a bowl of chocolate.

[B]

That's also a terrible design for women or anyone who wears makeup all the time. Like they would just. It would slowly take it off in a little oval.

[A]

So. But in this case, it, it's really good for like if you're like ham fisted and like if you close this like this is. This is airtight, liquid tight.

[B]

Right.

[A]

So you could be pretty clumsy with it in that regard. But yeah. And also it's shaped a little weird because it's designed specifically to fit in 992 cup holders.

[B]

I like it shaped weird. I think it's shaped like. Is it the normal width of a can? Like a 12?

[A]

Shaped like a fountain soda cup?

[B]

Oh, okay. Yeah, it's.

[A]

It's narrower at the bottom and then flares a bit at the top. It's not like the original yeti size. Like the original yeti straight will not fit in a 992.

[B]

Yeah, I know. I have one. It doesn't fit in any of my cup holder. It's very stupid.

[A]

This is specifically for that. Except there isn't a really good one of these. They need to make a 71 8. One of these that fits in the pop out cup holders. This. I'm glad the seal is good because it flops all over.

[B]

Was that because the base isn't held tightly enough or there's just too much weight?

[A]

The base, it's, it's. It's both. Because it has that expandable thing for different sizes. Like if you're rocking like a paper Starbucks cup, the tension will. Will like hold that. But this, it's not. It's too heavy.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And it's, it doesn't quite grip it enough. So it just, it wobbles and then it's loose and loose and loose and loose. And it like works its way loose.

[B]

That makes sense. Especially if it's full. It's heavier at the top than the bottom.

[A]

Yeah. Right.

[B]

So yeah.

[A]

But I can't find a proper. I mean, and the fact that it fits the color of my car makes me want to use it with the car. It's like a thing. But I have yet to find a tumbler of some kind that fits perfectly in the 718 cup holder without working itself loose.

[B]

Wonder if there's a shorter tumbler.

[A]

There's like, I have like a little one. It's like maybe like 4 or 6 ounces. That's like that. But it's like, it's so small. Like, I have this because I want to bring more coffee with me. Because I want to bring a tiny little bit of coffee with me.

[B]

Right?

[A]

I don't know, but maybe someone knows. If someone out there and our audience.

[B]

Getting fired, like, gutted. So these engineers need something to do.

[A]

Who is Aston?

[B]

NASA.

[A]

Oh, NASA. Yeah, Come on, NASA. Speaking of space, there's a fucking pilot who crashed in the jungle in like South America somewhere in a smallish private plane full of yayo, okay? And it was like literally like American corporate looking white dude, fucking small plane flight. The photo they showed of this motherfucker was the most documentary ready photo. It was like him in like a Hawaiian shirt, white pants, and again, the whitest looking corporate guy ever with like three chicks in bikinis, you know, in like a hotel room in Miami. It was like, all right. And this guy crashed, whole bunch of yayo on the plane. He died. And you know, the plane has like no transponder, extra fuel tanks. I mean, the guy's obviously moving units, not just once.

[B]

And the treasure that's in the forest.

[A]

Yeah, and they show the bricks that they. The bricks are all labeled SpaceX. Really? Yeah, yeah, they're wrapped in like when I first scrolled in the PODO photo, I was like, I didn't recognize that those were the bricks. I was like, oh, shit, this guy's also working for SpaceX. And they found his like, whatever, you know, And I was like, wait, that's the bricks.

[B]

I wonder why they wrapped it in that. Like, is that going to get you past anybody or is that just like.

[A]

I mean, one can only conclude that Elon Musk is running a fucking operation.

[B]

I mean, that feels like a large.

[A]

Leap, but maybe, I mean, listen, it's smaller than the fucking leaps. His ass is taking over on Twitter every day.

[B]

That's true.

[A]

That is. This is more direct evidence that SpaceX is involved in a drug running operation than he is using for white genocide.

[B]

That's very true. Yeah, yeah, because those photos are from like Nigeria or something.

[A]

Yeah, no, yeah, it was like, not real. Yeah, real, but not of the thing that you're talking about or of the time period you are talking about correct. Yes. Both fake. But anyway it's just all ketamine. Anyway, the new hot fucking shit from South America is that SpaceX sends you to the moon pure. You fucking lift off and then you explode midair.

[B]

Right. It's fantastic. It's a heavy lift.

[A]

I thought that was pretty funny.

[B]

The branding of Narcotics is quite funny. Where we've talked about this before but like Tesla or Mitsubishi or Mercedes or whatever. And it's just we went through pill reports.

[A]

Yeah, that was a fun show actually. And I got a lot of fun emails apparently. I think we did miss an obvious brand. I think maybe it was Ferrari or something. I remember the Mitsubishis and the Mercedes. I think we found that Mercedes had the most pill reports.

[B]

Yeah. But Ferrari, the logo is very intricate so it's probably harder to press in. The spacexx would go right in there. But seemed like it.

[A]

Or any of his other exes. Yeah, pick it. Pick an ex.

[B]

Of which he has many. Get it? 11 children. How many marriages?

[A]

I think it's 13 that we know of. Whatever. Oh, but speaking of speaking of those things or actually how about speaking of. Not that at all. The funniest thing that happened I thought over the weekend was the ultimate. The ultimate game over cars and coffee crash will probably never be topped. The helicopter crashing at a cars and coffee. That one ups all Mustangs. And it was, it was in fact the Mustang of helicopters. Ali was right. It was a Bell helicopter, which is the Mustang of helicopters. It was not a Sikorsky or an Airbus. It was a Bell, which is the Mustang helicopters. But at the most, the most OC car show possible, which is cars.

[B]

We should say that no one died.

[A]

No, no, that's why I'm making fun of it because no one died. If people died, we'd probably not, but. But so this. Apparently there was a mechanical on the helicopter. It caused it to go into his spin.

[B]

Well, the tail rotor, if people, if you haven't heard, there was a crash in Huntington beach this weekend. Helicopter. It was in the process of taking off, I think and landing. Landing.

[A]

It was. They were. It was literally a cars and helicopters. Cars and coffee. And they were landing the helicopters.

[B]

And you can see in the video the one shot from the beach, the tail rotor just flings away and then of course the thing just starts spinning.

[A]

Yeah. So the story said that before that crash the guy was doing some low flying maneuvers, which isn't necessarily dangerous or illegal or anything, but it looked like he was kind of like hot dogging a little bit as One might do because there is an audience of people there. There's like 20 fucking videos of this. And then. Yeah. And then appears to lose a tail rotor somehow and crashes. But. And that's. It's funny cause it's a cars and coffee and it's a crash. That's why it's funny. But it's funnier that they had the car show anyway and they just left the crashed helicopter there and had a car show right around it.

[B]

Well, how do you extract a helicopter? This was a. For people listening. If you haven't seen it, this is a big helicopter with 6, 8 seats. It is large and it wedged itself between a building and palm trees.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Probably 20ft off the ground. Like it's. I think. I think part of the helicopter's on the ground and then the other part of it's like sticking up in the air.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Like at a 45 degree angle.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Yeah. You're not, you're not calling AAA. You're not getting Hagrid to pull that thing out of there.

[A]

They also didn't cancel the event.

[B]

They did not cancel the event. Right.

[A]

And like, apparently it was huge. Apparently the event was huge.

[B]

Isn't it the cars and copters event? It's humongous. Yeah. The overhead shots from drones. It is well attended.

[A]

It would like, imagine so many Montana.

[B]

Plates at that event. I bet.

[A]

Oh, my God, helicopters too. It's the funniest thing because it's like, it's this, it's this, this event where there is simultaneously like so much white collar crime involved in that area. And also the event is like hugely sucking up to the cops. It's like a we love the police fucking blowjob rally.

[B]

Well, it's a 1099 rally.

[A]

Yeah. And it's 1199.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

1099 is a contract. And it's also like the only place I've seen I watched a white cop ask the only like young black kid at this entire show to pop his hood. And like, it was kind of. It was pretty fucked up. Like it happened right in front of me and I was like, oh, we are definitely in Huntington beach right now. And it. Because the kid had like a fucking big turbo E30 or 2J swap D30 or something. I'm pretty sure I told the story on the podcast a few years ago when it happened. But yeah, so anyway, that's like, that's what you have there. But the fact that there's just a crashed helicopter like in the corner of it among all this other things Pretty fucking funny to me. Wow.

[B]

It was very scary video. This thing's, man. It's a big helicopter.

[A]

Yeah, it was a huge, like, executive level. It's like one of those, like, a jet copter, you know, it's like a fast one that you would take from, like, New York City to the Hamptons or something.

[B]

Oh, okay. Huh. I'm not familiar with jet copter.

[A]

Well, no, there's like. There's like little copters.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

The little fucking bubble around. And then there's the ones like Micah has, which are like a news helicopter.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

The ones that you see flying around to do traffic reports and.

[B]

Oh, right. Yes.

[A]

And then the.

[B]

This is luxury transport. It's the limousine of helicopters.

[A]

Yeah, yeah. These are like executive baller up there. Well, there goes the tail rotor does fly off, but it does start spinning before. Go back. It starts spinning before the tail rotor flies off. Like.

[B]

That would be.

[A]

The tail rotor is present there.

[B]

It's there, but it's stopped.

[A]

So if you. I don't know. It's hard to see from that angle, but you wonder if he clipped the tree with the. The tail rotor coming in, like, does that. Like it's out of frame there. It looks like he wouldn't have that looks like forced perspective, but. Yeah, I mean, there is. There is definitely something very bad. And starts to spin. There goes the tail rotor.

[B]

It spins so quickly. Yeah. I mean, this thing spins five times, four times before it hits the ground. And it's not. That's probably 100ft off the ground when it starts going wrong. Maybe 120. It's just above palm tree height. That would be so terrifying. All of a sudden you're like, why are we. Why are we spinning?

[A]

And you have long enough to process that something very, very bad is about to happen.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

But, like, it's kind of funny that it was at a Cars and coffee. I have to say, I'm sorry. I can't. I can't exit that part of my brain.

[B]

Well, it's. I think. I think I hear what you're saying. Where. You know, car show is the worst place to have a car accident because you're there to show your car and show everyone how cool you and your car are.

[A]

Right.

[B]

And then you do the most embarrassing thing in front of the biggest audience.

[A]

Right, Exactly.

[B]

And so this is. This is. We're all here to show off our helicopters and our Koenigseggs.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And someone crashes.

[A]

I mean, this appears to maybe not be because the person was showing off. I don't want to like throw that kind of. It was. It's not, it's not like the guy like trying to do a bank turn and hit.

[B]

But even if you drive at two miles an hour into a car show and park, like, you are still showing your vehicle a car show and you are showing it off.

[A]

And they are still showing off the helicopter. You can go look at it now.

[B]

It's gonna be a monument.

[A]

It's quite a sight now.

[B]

Yeah, it's big, man. Yeah. So scary. See, this is the argument against. I've been in helicopters twice. They're amazing and scary. And we talked about this before. We're like, if something goes wrong, you auto rotate. And yes, that's true if one thing goes wrong, but if this thing goes wrong, you rotate.

[A]

Yeah, you also automatically rotate. The more conventional use of the term. And not.

[B]

Not how the tail rotor is preventing the helicopter from doing that all the time.

[A]

Yeah, yeah, that's bad. They fucking. Yeah, they are cool, man. Do they scare me.

[B]

Yeah, because of, you know, and maybe it's like the EV car fire thing where, yeah, there's not that many accidents, but they get a lot of attention, especially with social media folks.

[A]

We got to take a quick break for Delete Me. And right now the headlines are chock full of data breaches and regulatory rollbacks, making us all vul. But you can do something about it. Delete Me is here to make it easy, quick and safe to remove your personal data online. The fact is, we are all at risk. I mean, how many times have you gotten an email or a letter saying your data's been breached? Or how often do you get annoyed by spam texts, emails and phone calls? Let's get rid of all of that. Delete Me does all the hard work of wiping you and your family's personal information from data broker websites. That's where all of this comes from. When you sign up for stuff online, whether it's credit cards or discount plans or membership plans, or make a new account to use this website, you know how it goes. Your data then gets sold to a data broker who then sells it to whoever, which results in spam, phishing, hacking, et cetera. So you tell Deleteme what your personal information is, they scrub it from those data broker sites and they do that in an ongoing way. It's not a one time service. They do it continually and then they send you regular reports. Now you can take control of your data and keep your private life private by signing up for Deleteme now at a special discount. For our listeners. Get 20% off your delete me plan when you go to www.joindeleteme.com tire and then use promo code Tire at checkout. The only way to get 20% off is to go to www.joindeleteme.com tire and enter code tire at checkout. Just one more time. Www.joindeleteme.community tire codetire and it is so nice to see Factor back in the house for Fall. I love Factor in the Fall because I am trying to prep for the holiday season and that means sort of resetting between the summer and my busier fall routine. Shorter days, not really having time to cook but wanting to eat healthy to get ahead of it for the holidays. And Factor's Chef Prep Dietitian approved meals. They make it easy to stay on track and enjoy something comforting and delicious no matter how hectic the season gets. Factor's got more variety and more meals than ever before. You can choose from a wider selection of weekly meal options including premium seafood choices like salmon and shrimp at no extra cost. If you're on a GLP1, which a lot of people are no judgment. You can enjoy even more GLP1 friendly meals and new Mediterranean diet options packed with protein and good for you fats. And for the first time, try Asian inspired meals with bold flavors influenced by China, Thailand and more. That's why 97% of customers say that Factor helped them live a healthier life. More choices and better nutrition. You can feel the difference no matter your routine. I love Factor for my lunches at work. I work really hard from like 6 to a.m. until noon and by the time I take a break for myself, food is not available and it leads me to make bad decisions. But when I've got that factor in the fridge, heat it up in 23 minutes and I'm back to work and feeling full and full of nutrition without making a bad decision that results in me eating too much or the wrong things. You can get on this train as well. [e-mail] Tire 50 off and then use code Tire50OFF to get 50% off your first box plus free breakfast for one year. That's code Tire50OFF@Factor Meals.com for 50% off your first box plus FREE breakfast for one year. Get delicious ready to eat meals delivered with Factor offer only valid for new Factor customers with code and qualifying auto renewing subscription purchase. Again, factor meals.com tire50off and code tire50OFF and now back to the show planes like we know like there's so many planes flying all the time. Right. The number of planes we see and interact with is. And the number of, the amount of times that they are flying globally is so much higher than helicopters. Right. And, and it seems like the, and also like if you have a failure in an aircraft, it seems like there's more redundancy and like worst case, you know, you can, you glide like to somewhere. Right. Still scary. But you know, the, the, the, but the, that fear. The falling out of the sky, the just falling out of the sky, which doesn't happen in aircraft. Even if you lose all your engines in planes, you know, you might crash, but like you're gliding there, you're not fucking falling out of the sky.

[B]

Right, right.

[A]

You have a, you got a shot at.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Helicopter.

[B]

It's got to feel like, you know, if you're flying in, your wings suddenly fell off. So I looked it up. In recent years, the number of helicopter crashes has averaged in the US has averaged around 80 to 120 per year.

[A]

Only 11 fatal of those in 2024. Majority survivable.

[B]

Worldwide. There are thousands of fatalities annually. Exact global figures may vary. Now I'd have to look up, have private plane crashes per year.

[A]

So it's probably, it's, it's probably more plane crashes because there are a lot more planes.

[B]

Yeah, you need the percentage.

[A]

Yeah. Because there's definitely a thousand accidents annually on average.

[B]

That's more. Yeah, yeah, there's more.

[A]

Yeah, but I bet you that's. It's more, but it's, it's, I bet it's proportional to the number of aircraft flying.

[B]

Someone let us know in the comments because I'm sure someone out there is a pilot and they know.

[A]

Yeah. An aviation statistician. That could be. Do you, do you want to talk about that scooter?

[B]

Let's talk about the scooter. All right.

[A]

Scooter life.

[B]

Let's get into school life. Scooter life.

[A]

Dude, I've been riding my scooter too. I'm excited.

[B]

The stand up one. I need to try this.

[A]

Yeah, yeah. Nuts.

[B]

I have a helmet I keep here now and I'm gonna wear it.

[A]

Yeah, you should.

[B]

50 miles an hour on a stand up scooter.

[A]

This is a different scooter.

[B]

This is a different scooter. So this was loaned to me for a week a few weeks ago. This is called the infinite machine P1. And yes, it looks a lot like the cybertruck or inspired by because one of the people who designed this scooter worked on the Cybertruck team. Now, they brought us a prototype a year ago. It had some issues. They took it back, but now I got to ride the early production version. So they are for sale, and they are delivery starting in California soon. They're already some out on the East Coast. All right, so what is this thing? It's got a 6 kilowatt motor. Range is 60 miles. Top speed is 65 miles per hour, which is pretty fast.

[A]

Did you experience either of those things? Either 65 miles an hour or 60 miles of range?

[B]

No, I did not ride it that much due to. Let's call it a registration situation. So I did not test the range, and I also did not top it out. I think I went 40 something miles per hour on it, and that was fine. Okay, so I can't.

[A]

You're right.

[B]

I can't attest that it can achieve either of these things. So that is a good point. The pros of this, I will say that it rode very well. The suspension setup was good. The damping is good. It had a refined ride. It had. It has CarPlay. That worked excellent. You can use your phone as a key. That worked very well. Totally seamless. And I actually, actually, the key fell out of my pocket at one point, and so they had to add my phone as a key, and it worked. You approach it, you can unlock it, you can turn it on, all that stuff. It's got a little storage under the seat, which locks, and you can unlock with the button. You can take the battery out. So they're pitching that as if you live in New York, where, I guess scooter theft is common. You can at least take the battery out and people are less inclined to steal. Also locks itself, so it won't just roll neutral.

[A]

Do you then charge the battery on a dock in your apartment?

[B]

Well, that's the other thing. If you live in New York, people, like, they're not gonna run a cable out to it. So the. Yeah, good point. You can bring the battery inside, charge it inside. Okay, so there's kind of, I guess, two reasons to do that. Battery is heavy, of course, because it's a battery, but it comes out pretty easily.

[A]

Is it like. Like a car battery?

[B]

No, no, it. I mean, it's a lithium ion.

[A]

No, I know. I can't think about. I can't picture the size and weight of this battery.

[B]

Like a thick VHS tape or for anyone who's listening, who's not as old as we are, like a really big book. But it probably weighs. Okay, well, that's not that probably like £20, I think.

[A]

All right, all right. That's actually smaller than I was thinking.

[B]

Yeah, it just. It's under the. It's in the floor, like, right where your feet land. So that's where that sits. It's got reverse, which is cool. It's a little button you press and it, like, it does. You know, you just tap it and it just nudges you backwards. And at first I thought, oh, that's silly. Shouldn't you just twist the handle or. I can't modulate this. But actually, it's all you need. It's just like, tap, tap. It rolls you backwards and then you.

[A]

Yeah. You'd only ever use it if you had to park it, like, kind of on a little down. If for some reason you had to back it up, like, up a hill. The only reason you would use that. And that's like. Yeah, that's like the only annoying thing about scooters sometimes.

[B]

Yeah. So I didn't. And at the time I think I was riding, my back was extra messed up, so I didn't really want to shove something backwards and all that. Let's see. So two negatives. Start with the lighter one first. The glove box, which resides just under the handlebars, is terrible and just flops open. Wouldn't close. The little click thing doesn't. It has, like two tabs on each side and then the lock thing in the middle. And after two days, like, it would just flex open. Also, someone could break into it with, like, a toothpick. Yeah, it's very flimsy.

[A]

That's not good.

[B]

And the other negative is the price, because it's $10,000. And the reason this is important, and we've talked about this a lot with electric stuff, so I looked up the competition. A Vespa Electrica or. Electrica is 8 grand and costs, or top speed, 45 miles per hour.

[A]

Yeah. The problem with the Vespa is they're really slow. It's the equivalent of the 50 cc, where. This is the equivalent of the Vespa. 150 cc. Yeah. So not exactly the same, but cheaper quality.

[B]

I think my point is that. No, no, my point was that EV scooters of all kinds are expensive. You know, I mean, the Vespa's cheaper. It's not as good or as powerful, but, you know, that's $8,000, and you get 60 miles of range and you can go 65 miles per hour. Whereas your Vespa. What was your Vespa? New.

[A]

If you bought it new, so the problem is the Vespa. The Vespa like is so good that it eliminates any other competition in fucking two seconds. Because like the, like these like ev luxury like scooter things are cool, they're stylish, they're interesting. And yes like they are nice to ride for the most part. But motorcycles are so fucking fuel efficient and they're so practical. And the Vespa in particular is so good at its job with a cargo box behind and the cargo box below. Especially mine now, mine was like 8, 900 new, but it's a 300 and goes 80 miles an hour and you can ride on the highway. It has all different. I bought it used for 5,200 five years ago and I just looked a couple weeks ago, out of curiosity, I could sell it at a profit. Wow. Like easy. Like on day one I could put that fucking thing on Facebook, marketplace, everything expensive. It's gone in day one at a profit and I could have 5,000 miles for free. It's gotten me 60 miles a gallon the whole time and it's cost nothing. There's no headaches about it. I've said it over and over. It's the best consumer product I've ever bought.

[B]

Yeah, I think these things, it's what you said. It's a luxury product and this I, I really enjoyed riding on electric power. It's the same thing as a car. It's very relaxing. You just kind of hear the tires. You're just a little more connected to the environment. I mean motorcycles do that too. But you remove the sound. Especially if the motorcycle I'm riding doesn't have a cool sound. Then it's like I don't really care.

[A]

Oh yeah, I don't give a about the sound of if Vespa made an electric equivalent of what I had have. I'd probably get it just because I enjoy the electric. I can afford it. I charge at home, like whatever. But the reason I asked about the range, I'm sure that with the right conditions this thing will do 60 miles an hour in every electric two wheeled vehicle I've ever ridden. My real world range has been about half of what the manufacturer claims.

[B]

Oh, and if you, if you're going 60 miles per hour, you're not. And they, they said this, you're definitely not getting 60 miles of range. Like you have to be going slow, slow urban.

[A]

Like when I rode that, that can am Pulse, which is an electric motorcy but really was like a scooter. Plus when I rode it to Malibu and back for breakfast. I got 44 miles of riding and I had 20% left, but I was essentially holding 30 to 35 miles an hour the whole way because it was very restrictive up PCH and all that. And then I tried to ride it, like, on the freeway. And after 10 miles, I'd gone through like, 30 miles of range. I was like, oh, God. So, like, the. The faster at highway speeds. These EV scooters are terrible. Really terrible. Yeah, but in the city they're great. But in the city, the gas ones are easy too.

[B]

It's like, it's a hard sell. This is definitely for someone who has a good chunk of money. It's for a very specific user, in my opinion. Like, I don't know how broad they need the market appeal to be. And this is true of, you know, of Infinite Machine and also Vespa. I mean, any of these things, it's. It feels like a luxury thing that someone just goes, oh, this is fun. And I have an EV at home, so I can charge it next to it. And that's just a cool thing to bop around on.

[A]

And to give them credit, like, the tech. The tech bro perspective, which is based in. In truth, scooters and motorcycles, which have essentially no emissions controls, are disproportionately dirty. They may be fuel efficient, but their emissions are disproportionately bad. So, like, my Vespa probably produces the same emissions as like a 9 11, you know, because it doesn't have a cat or anything like that. And so if you're a tech person, you go, well, let's work on the dirtiest stuff first. Let's get rid of lawnmowers and leaf blowers and scooters and motorcycles because they're disproportionately dirty. And I've heard that thinking a few times. I just don't think consumers are willing to pay the kind of markup that they demand, along with put up with the level of inconvenience that they require at this point. I think they'd be better off fucking catalyzing motorcycles. Like, how easy would it be to just fucking invent emissions controls for motorcycles compared to making everybody do this shit?

[B]

I think it's a question of no one's making anybody do our electric scooters more popular in either different regions of the U.S. or Europe or something. Like, obviously there's far more scooters per capita in Europe, in different countries, small cities, et cetera. The streets are narrow. Do people like them there? Because you can just bring the battery in and it keeps the sound down, which is kind of cool instead of. And to your point, if you're in Italy, you smell two stroke and dirty four stroke engine exhaust all over the place. So this could be cool for that.

[A]

Getting rid of two strokes would probably be. I mean, those are some of the worst. Yeah. I mean they are. Yeah. Two strokes are nasty.

[B]

I forget which magazine it was, but like a two stroke leaf blower is worse, you know, for an hour is worse than like a raptor for a day or something like that. It was pretty wild.

[A]

Yeah. No lawn equipment is fucking horrible. Like I really want. I mean it must exist now. Got to take one more break, guys, because support is coming in warm from Quince because the weather is cooling and I'm swapping in those pieces that actually get the job done. I'm talking about warm, durable and built to last over things. And Quince delivers every time with wardrobe staples that'll carry you through the season. Quince has the kind of fall staples you actually want to wear on Repeat, like the 100% Mongolian cashmere from just $60. Classic fit denim and real leather and wool outerwear that looks sharp. Sharp and holds up. I've got my eye on the suede trucker jacket this week. It's perfect for layering and looks really casual but put together and I'm still rocking weekly. That Mongolian cashmere that I got last month, it is super warm and it's cold this week and it helped me get through a Sunday with a top down in a Mercedes. By partnering with ethical factories and top artisans, Quince cuts out the middlemen to deliver premium quality at half the cost of similar brands. So layer up this fall with pieces that feel as good as they look. Go to quince.com tire for free shipping on your order and 365 day returns. Now available in Canada too. That's Q U I-n c-e.com tire for free shipping and 365 day returns. Quince.com tire and of course, support is coming in today from True Work and look Quints. We just talked about them. That's about fashion. Casual, looking good. True Work is here for the workers, for people who are outside doing trades, in and out of trucks, up and down poles and trees and basements. Fall weather is unpredictable. You got to be out there working. It can be hot, cold, wet, windy, sometimes all in one shift. And True Work is performance workwear. Built like it matters, because it does. TrueWerk was founded by a trade professional who was tired of wet Heavy gear weighing him down. And Truewerk set out to make workwear that keeps pros comfortable, capable and ready for whatever the day throws at them. Designed with advanced performance fabrics for lasting comfort, all day mobility and year round job site protection. Every piece is tested on job sites with trade pros, so when conditions change, you're still ready. Check out the over 50,000 five star reviews from pros in every trade and every climate. It they sent me a lovely plaid overshirt and this will be perfect for when it's hot out, but also super windy. Like at Willow Springs the other day. It seems like I could get sandblasted by the Willow Springs wind and this thing will still look good when I got to get to dinner later at night. You can have the look too. Upgrade your day with workwear built like it matters. Get 15% off your first [e-mail] with Code Tire. That's T R U E W E R K.com Code Tire. And now back to the show. But I wanna, I'd love to see. And it may be hard to come up with a financial model that makes like this make sense. We'll have to ask Ali about it. About. Imagine he had his, his, his range trailer, not the big semi one, but the one he built to tow his BMW. Yeah, that could run lawn equipment fucking all day long.

[B]

Sure.

[A]

You know, if you just, if you had, you know, swappable batteries or whatever and you know, you could charge the lawnmowers while going, but driving between, you know, place to place. Like, I wonder what the economics are of selling an electrified gardening setup. If you sold the trailer with like four mowers and a bunch of leaf blowers and a bunch of fucking weed whackers. All of which could be just charged off the trailer.

[B]

Yeah, that's a good question. I don't know if we. Someone has a landscaping company out there. Like, seriously, in the comments, are you seeing, are you, are you able to just buy a leaf blower with three extra battery packs and that costs x? Would be better to charge them between, you know, jobs, which would cost y. I mean, that would be very interesting.

[A]

Yeah. My guess is landscapers don't make a lot of money and so they're just going for whatever the cheapest thing is.

[B]

I mean, I think if, I think people that own the landscaping business, you can do quite well if you have a bunch of teams out there all making money at once. Yeah. But I wonder how many battery packs, like if you have those electric blowers, like how many of those Batteries do you go through in a day for five houses? Yeah, be good to know.

[A]

We use, we use the electric like the heavy duty Ryobi's to dry cars and I mean not the same as a house, but one battery is pretty much all day.

[B]

Yeah, they use those at my apartment to blow leaves and stuff.

[A]

Yeah. And I have, you know, I have one at home too. It's like for home. Shoes are awesome. Although my. Mine has a weird pro. We've had my, my little leaf blower for like, I don't know, a while. And I think it needs to be replaced now because won't. It can't turn off. If you put the battery in the battery pack. It goes. It maintains a slow idle, but that's still blowing. And then it, it works fine. But to, to make it like stop blowing all air, you have to take the battery out.

[B]

Has it always been that way or.

[A]

No. It started doing that like six months ago.

[B]

It's becoming aware, sentient.

[A]

It's like it's just got like a mellow idol, I think I imagine like something in the trigger isn't like fully releasing or whatever. And we've tried to like take it apart but like, like dude, this thing's like 80 bucks. We've had it for a long, long time. It's probably just dying, but for now I'm okay just taking the battery out.

[B]

You know who loves those inventions is F1 teams. Because like when the cars pull in or they're on the, on the grid or whatever, they just, they have all these purpose built things that shove into the intakes and it keeps flowing air.

[A]

And into the brakes and stuff. Yeah, so. So the brakes don't catch on fire when they come to a stop.

[B]

What did they do before? Just fans just like.

[A]

Yeah. Or I mean. Yes. And maybe the engines didn't require the same ton type of cooling. Or maybe they, they just accepted the loss of efficiency of a heat soaked car for a lap or something.

[B]

Yeah. Maybe the tech. Maybe the air blowing tech allowed them to change the brakes or engine design because they went, oh, we can cool this. Pretty cool.

[A]

Yeah. Yeah. Like if you, if you can do, do a little extra juice during a pit stop, maybe you can make it 1% lighter or something, you know, before we. Okay, so, so that's that. It's. It's. I think it looks weird, but it's, it's. The review of. This is. This is the same as the review of every electric scooter. They're just too expensive for what you're Getting.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And I don't even know. Like, there's got to be a very small number of people that are looking to make a fashion statement with something like that too. Like, it's not that fashionable.

[B]

Well, I, I agree with you, but I think, look at the number of people that thought, think the cybertruck looks good. And you know, for everyone who likes a Vespa, there's probably someone who thinks the Vespa is too, whatever. And they go, this thing got lots of thumbs up, it got lots of stairs. Exactly. You know, European, feminine, whatever.

[A]

Very manly men. Can't believe that someone like me would ride a Vespa. The manly man would know.

[B]

Yeah, I mean, that's. There's scooter design, motorcycle design. It, you know, it comes in all colors and forms. So meanwhile, I can see people.

[A]

Italian man in a scarf is banging their wife on their girl trip.

[B]

So.

[A]

He rolled up on a Vespa. He roll up on a Vespa and he rolled out.

[B]

So his confidence is more important.

[A]

Yeah, yeah, no, listen, it's the, the green Vespa. It's exactly like the pink Porsche. If you're going to get a, a fun thing, get, get the one that girls like. That's. That's just, that's just a pro tip from someone who's been there and bought a lot of shit. Trust me.

[B]

Now, I think women like your Porsche more than they like the black mustache thing, bro.

[A]

I li. I literally had a supermodel. What you in the pink. That's you. I need to know about that. That's. That's. You don't need more data than that. That's the. That's enough. Thank you very much. I'm retiring. I met. I met a guy who had some really cool pink cars. He was showing me at, at Willow the other day. That was a really fun event. I really enjoyed all. Talking to all the people that we were there, there. Can I review the Mercedes CLE53 convertible real quick? There's photos of it on, on the gram right there. I got. Oh, you drove it too. You drove it because we used it for, for a thing for that day. I have to say, it's not that I like. This isn't my type of car. It's an AMG 53, so it's not the biggest engine. It's like the middle one. Although for the time being, it is the biggest one you can get in this car by displacement until the new V8 finally comes out. But the inline six with a mild hybrid and turbos it's all wheel drive. It's a two plus two cabriolet. And normally this would not be my type of car. I fucking loved this car. I thought this car was so good at so many things. It was like eights across the board. It's, it's, it. The engine, inline six with a 48 volt mild hybrid. Incredibly smooth. And with that mild hybrid system, I didn't even bother turning off the start stop. Just left it on. It was fine. The seats are the same as the AMG GT's very adjustable, you know, good lumbar and nice shape, but not too, too sporty. Top goes up and down and it's not the fastest. It's maybe like 14 seconds, but you can do it at up to 30 miles an hour. The, the dashboard, the interior, that's all like the same as Mercedes. It's the, it's the same as the sl, same as the rest of it. But I did like the tuck. This one had the tuxedo wood, wood pinstriping, you know that wood. It's, that's lovely.

[B]

Yeah, it looks nice.

[A]

I like the wheels. It's got PSS5 tires. I happen to think it's a very good looking car. I got so many compliments, so many compliments. Driving this around. I could not believe how many people noticed this car. Especially because it was gray. It's not like a pop color. It's a good looking car but man did my neighbors and everybody. Wherever I went with this car, people really liked it. But the most impressive thing to me about this by a lot is the shock to it. It's really nice to drive on the street. Handles the 405 really well. The everyday comfort setting is not too wallowy and sloppy. But up in the canyons I took me and Ali, ran over Piuma, which is bumpy right now. And with the shocks in sport and everything else in sport, plus the body control was amazing. And Ali was a racing engineer. He's built shocks, he rebuilds the shocks in his own car. He was like, like dude, what? Who tuned this? Like it was so good. It had such a nice balance of. And, and I don't know about on track but like on a regular windy, somewhat bumpy canyon road, this thing was sticky pointy, plenty of grip, didn't beat you up. Like for a regular person, this is a great sports coupe. Like if you're used to GT3s, it's not like crazy or anything but like, like very, very, very well rounded. I'd rather drive this than an M3.

[B]

It was definitely more comfortable than.

[A]

I'd rather. I'd rather actually have this as my car than an M3 or M4 for sure.

[B]

Yeah, those are really stiff. I think, I think when you get into really sporty driving, those will beat this thing, you know, both on track or something. But around town this thing drove really.

[A]

Really nice size or having a nice go up the mountain. Like It's. Dude, it's 449 horsepower, I think 443 horsepower and 413 torque. But it does have a torque overboost function so you can get an extra 30 for short bursts.

[B]

But also the big thing is that as we've talked about, the little four banger that they put in some of their cars, like the AMG cars is so buzzy, so loud. Does not feel luxurious, does not feel expensive. It feels like your kid stole your engine and replaced it with the engine from his turbo, like swapped, you know, Civic.

[A]

Yeah. It's like an Evo motor.

[B]

It's an Evo motor and it's. Yeah, this inline six super smooth, of course. And this just suits the car and the mission of the car and the mission of a lot of the brand's models, I think way, way better.

[A]

Yeah. I mean AMG is about really good, powerful, luxurious engines. And this actually does, it does get there. Like it's not the fastest thing I've ever driven, but that's a great engine, great powertrain and, and I, and I was really, really impressed with how much I liked driving it in the corners, driving in the highway. It's nice with the top down. Although if it's cold out and you try to drive with the top down, even with the air scarf where my. Between my left hand and my left knee is a. It gets sucked a pocket of freeze freezing air. It's a low pressure zone. Yeah, yeah. But very few gripes with this car. I don't, you know, I still don't love the touchscreen, the big touchscreen, but it's the same as all Mercedes. Now I can't like this car. It's not any better or worse than the other ones when it comes to touchscreen. People asked if the top down if that made the screen less readable. There's a thing to tilt the angle of it a few degrees either way if it's problematic. I didn't find that to be a problem. I don't love that system. But, but everything else about this car I really did like. The top buttons are real buttons to operate the top, you don't have the touch screen like the sl. They got rid of that, thank God.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And the trunk is. It's not that it's small, it's that it's kind of weird shaped very. Because of where the top has to go. So you have a sort of full height portion at the back but then a half height portion that goes forward from there. So I don't know, you'd have to.

[B]

It's a mouth with teeth. Yeah, that's what it is. And it's open and. But you gotta like, you know, you gotta slide the medicine in there like, you know.

[A]

Yeah, I didn't try, I didn't try to get suitcases in there and. But the camera case did fit in there.

[B]

I mean it looks like it'll probably hold two carry ons.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Or you know, something like that.

[A]

Yeah. But in general this was a hundred grand. But I, and which is. It's not nothing. It's a lot of money. But I have to say I think it, I think the, the quality of the car justifies the price. I really do. This one's loaded with options. You could get something very similar with. Without two tone interior and a color matched top. You could, you could uncheck some aesthetic boxes on this and probably save 10 grand. But I really do think it justifies the price. It's, it's in my opinion nicer to drive than the sl which costs a lot more. And it's a, it's a real, it was a real surprise, Surprise and delight how much I liked this car and a couple people who saw it and I said yeah, it's a hundred. It was 100, $1,000 out the door and they thought that was low. They said oh, I thought you were going to say 150.

[B]

So it also makes more power. So I just looked up BMW's competitor M440i convertible. Comes with 386 horsepower. Starts at 74 grand. If you add much options, you'll probably hit 100. We could get one of those. Compare it.

[A]

Well, this makes a lot more power than that.

[B]

Yeah, no, it does seven with 60 more horsepower.

[A]

Yeah, a lot more.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

This is a really, really nice car. Do not sleep on the 53s. They're, they're nice. But this, this CLE53, it replaces the C class convertible and the E class convertible. It's now like one. Which is probably for the best. But damn. I'm, I went back yesterday and if not for the rain this week, I'd say I would really miss it because it was fucking nice.

[B]

Nice surprise.

[A]

Yeah, really nice surprise. Really nice surprise. From there. From that. Should we go to the people? Yeah, we got some Patreons who have some things to say. The Patreon is [e-mail] the Smoking Tire podcast written out. You can get more show, you can get early show, you can get shows without ads. You can get access to special merch collabs. For instance, the black mother of pearl notice did not make it out of the Patreon. In fact, I don't think the, I don't think the mint one did either. The first one only went to patrons, I think. And I am. We're officially working on the new watch. We have, we have two, we have two ideas. I've been talking to Wes at notice. We have two ideas. One is the all new watch which I have delivered my requirements for the first draft and we'll see what the first ones look like and then we'll tweak and tweak and then we'll have a. We'll have an all new watch which is going to be really fun, something I'm really excited about doing. And I pulled out one of the prototype canyons to show to Ali one of the colors we didn't make. And he was like, you're not going to make this. And he was like offended that I wasn't going to make it. And he was like, I personally know like three or four people that would buy that. They would buy this right now. Wow. And so I was like, I went back to west and I was like, ah, maybe we revisit, maybe we do a one more color. So we're kids, we're noodling it and we'll see if we could, if we can maybe get it done. But. But either way, patrons always get first crack at, at my watch designs. So let's go to them. I still can't. I gotta find out, Zach, what the right pair of glasses is for reading the monitor.

[B]

Well, this is pretty far away.

[A]

Pretty far. So your readers, can you make it bigger? Can you make this 125% and maybe. Yeah. All right. 125. No glasses is the science on that runo nag. Naga. Naga. Not gonna be a patron here anymore, is it? Sorry, Rudo. Nagamra. Nagamra. Oh, just wanted to say hi. New patron shout. Oh, there's a question. Here we go. Okay. When I was 16 and thought my 91 accord 5 speed was a badass tuner car, it was. It Was and still is. I spent a lot of time perusing the goods. They saw a sucker and almost convinced me to spend 100 bucks as a. Earned. As a Subway sandwich artist. Shout out to him on a Gretti exhaust sticker to plaster across my hood because it was cool, even though I had nothing greddy on the car. Do you all remember a time way back when, before you knew any better, that you were or narrowly avoided being scammed in the context of cars? So, okay, here's the thing.

[B]

Thing.

[A]

I don't know that I was ever scammed, but I definitely spent money on things that were going on my car that the person selling them to me probably rolled their eyes and went, okay, kid, whatever. And it was garbage. And, like, they didn't say, hey, like, you're gonna look like a loser if you put.

[B]

You scammed yourself. That's what you did.

[A]

Yeah, I didn't, like, need someone to scam.

[B]

You're like, hey, Matt, let's put a T handle in the Subaru. And your other Matt was like, that's a good idea.

[A]

Totally. Yeah. And I literally bought my exhaust for that subaru at, like, AutoZone. And it was not an exhaust for a Subaru. It was like a generic muffler with tips that, like. Yeah, like, I was dumb enough to do that to myself.

[B]

But also, that does work, you know, if it looks right. I mean, it's, you know, like, not work, actually.

[A]

I mean, it. It, like. Like, it fit and it. You know, and it. It did sound like, all right. It wasn't, like, horrible, but I. But it was definitely, like, I don't know, like a magnaflow, you know, muffler that was just generic. Yeah, I didn't. Did you ever get scammed?

[B]

I don't think I ever got scammed into anything. I bought dice for my car because I had a 65 Pontiac and I thought I was 85 years old.

[A]

Right.

[B]

I think that's the. That's the closest I came.

[A]

Yeah. Good question, though. Welcome to the. Welcome to the program here. Mr. Nail Head says, oh, a name idea for a new YouTube channel. STP plus Smoking Tire Porsches. I mean, I. Clunky, huh?

[B]

I think it feels clunky.

[A]

It does feel a little clunky. I like where your head is at. I mean, there's probably an argument that we could just do all Porsches on one channel and everything else on another channel. There's probably a math argument.

[B]

That'd be a way to do it. I think it would be. If anything, it'd be TSTP plus.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Which is also clunky. But, you know, we have. We've had so much. Wait, nobody in TST.

[A]

TSTPTs.

[B]

Oh, I see.

[A]

It's a palindrome.

[B]

Dude, paint a sample.

[A]

TST pts. See, when you want to name something, you come to Farah.

[B]

Well, this was the spaghetti throwing at the wall thing. He. He.

[A]

That's true.

[B]

He posted the idea.

[A]

True.

[B]

He loved.

[A]

He loved.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Thank you for the alley Oop. Mr. Nail Head. Good looking out. AM 87. I'm in. What the. Where. Where is that?

[B]

I don't know where that is.

[A]

Oh, wait, is that Mexico City? Ciudad Mexico. Oh, maybe I'm in CDMX right now. I think that's Ciudad Mexico, I think. Right. Okay. Okay, cool. Sorry, I didn't. I. Now I can call it that.

[B]

Cool.

[A]

Okay. And as hip and wealthy as parts of the city are, it is absolutely terrible for sports car driving. No shit, dude, Mexico sucks for sports car. Why? They run Baja there, not Lamar.

[B]

Their potholes are rivaled only by our own.

[A]

Dude, I love Mexico, but it's fucked up to drive down there.

[B]

I had a rental car. I left the airport and I was like, why are there so many holes in the tarmac?

[A]

Yeah. Is part of the reason for the super suv, from the performance marks to introduce their brands to these markets where the driving environment is less than stellar. I mean, like, it's not even that. It's like in fucking. And in. In places that aren't Mexico, our infrastructure is crumbling and people. I want to drive a Lamborghini, but not drive a Lamborghini. You know what I'm saying? Like, I want to drive a Lamborghini, but I don't want to drive some low, loud, scrapey thing. I just want it to, like, you know, be a Lamborghini, but also be like a regular ass car.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Like, that's how people think.

[B]

But I think this is definitely a bonus selling point if you're in an area. Like we went to Panama.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

A lot of tarmac, a lot of roads around. We're just doing dirt. And they were. And they went to houses and stuff. So you can then drive your Lamborghini anywhere in the country or area you reside. But also if you're older, getting into a sports car kind of sucks. Like, there's so many benefits, we'll say, and so many reasons that it was easy to sell high performance crossovers to, you know, a slightly aging market.

[A]

Yeah. I mean, once. Once Porsche opened the door to a very fast SUV and BMW and Mercedes, a little bit behind the AMG. The Mercedes may have been the ML55 may have been slightly earlier than the Cayenne Turbo. But the Cayenne Turbo had like a hundred more horsepower and went way faster. Once they realized that you could do an SUV that was stupidly fast and deep in the six figures, all of those brands, especially the Volkswagen AG brands were like, wait a minute, we could platform this bitch up to a Bentley. And then BMW was like, wait a minute, we could go up to a roll. You know, like, dude, once that the, the floodgates were open on that shit. Because now it's like, now it's not the weekend car anymore. Now I could sell these people their regular car for 400 grand and it's really a fucking Q8 under there. You know, as nice as the Urus drives, like, let's fucking call a spade a spade. Baymobile. My grandfather had a dream of owning a 9 11. My father got the chance to fulfill his promise after he passed. Now he fulfilled his promise by committing fraud by registering the car in my dead father's name. No, nevermind.

[B]

I know what you mean.

[A]

Yeah, I'm not gonna depend.

[B]

He got that dream after he died from somebody else. Somebody else has his dream. Really?

[A]

Can I just say for the record, if I die with unfulfilled dreams, don't fulfill them. Fulfill your own dreams instead. You know what I mean?

[B]

Oh, it's like bragging, you know, I won't know.

[A]

I'm gone. I'm gone.

[B]

And if you do know because of afterlife, whatever, you're going, well, I wanted to do that.

[A]

Yeah, I'm fucking gone. Yeah, I'll be gone. My hope is to achieve the same goal of getting a manual transmission naturally aspirated flat six. Masterpiece. Brand new from Porsche. Porsche. How wide is my window on this goal? Or can I rest easy knowing I'll always have this? An option? You're asking how long will they be selling naturally aspirated manual transmission flat sixes? The. The future question.

[B]

Very specific future question.

[A]

Extremely specific. By the way, grandfather had a dream of owning a Porsche 911. But in order for you to fulfill this dream, it must be a brand new naturally aspirated manual transmission car. You're not making it easier on yourself, buddy.

[B]

Right. There are plenty of them for sale right now.

[A]

Yeah, you could. Yeah. Okay, so I mean the story be damned here, Porsche is making at least through the next. It's gotta be 10 years manual transmission, GT3 and probably, probably some kind of Cayman variant. Probably, you know, because they'd be stupid not to because they're, you know, they're, they're ditching the, they say they're ditching the regular 718 gas powertrains. But the GT cars are going to be gas. That's what they're saying. So like your options are really going to be like two cars. GT3, GT4, like those are. That's it. So. But like, come on, does it have to be new?

[B]

There's so much fun to be had with a used one. I know some of the cars in some ways are better than the new ones. They're smaller, they're easy, you know, lighter. There's a lot of fun to be had at many, many price points.

[A]

Yeah, no, but your window's not infinite. But if you have enough money to go for a GT3, you got probably 10 years at least.

[B]

But also you could attain your dream sooner if you buy a used one.

[A]

Yes. You could also just do this. I don't know how much money you have but like you could also just do this now.

[B]

Well, brand new GT3 is 2 to 300 grand, right?

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And a used one of some age is like 150 maybe, maybe less if you get a high mileage one like you can take.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

But depending how much money this person has, like you could take years off of your drink.

[A]

Well, they don't have, doesn't have to be a GT3. There's, there's a million natural aspirated Carrera variants that are lovely. Like, I just.

[B]

I think they should broaden their.

[A]

Yeah, I don't, I don't think you should put that restriction on yourself. I mean it's your dream, have it. But like, come on, you know, like.

[B]

The perfection is the enemy of good. Right?

[A]

That's what I, that's, that's what it.

[B]

That'S what it is.

[A]

Life's too fucking short to deal to have that be the thing.

[B]

David in chat said this is perfect. Bro is peeking through only two bars of a birdcage right now. Oh, that's so funny. Right? Spot on.

[A]

Don't do drugs. M113K says despite the growing trend court toward crossovers, the BMW M3 continues to be very popular. Is.

[B]

Huh? Nothing. Yes it does.

[A]

Is there a market for smaller, a smaller Porsche sedan to compete with the M3? I don't think Porsche is moving down. They've talked about when is there going to be a Porsche hatchback. When is there going to be a Porsche is not going down market. They don't have to.

[B]

I think the Most profitable car company on earth right now.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

For a long time.

[A]

The base macabre is the down market. Like Panameras aren't doing very well. Like they're not selling a ton of Panameras. I don't know how the sales are of Taycan compared to Macan Electric. Now my bet would be they're selling more macans than they are Taycans. But like I just.

[B]

And going back to the platforms thing, I think it'd be hard. They'd probably have to use the Macan.

[A]

Yeah, they would.

[B]

But squish it, drop it somehow and then you just have a lowered macan. But it would look, I think more awkward than an M3 because it's meant to be a crossover, not a car.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

So I think you'd run into a bunch of issues.

[A]

And for the record, I'd much rather daily drive a nice macan than an M3.

[B]

Sure. But if I want what a Macan is or. Sorry, what an M3 is and then you just lower a macan, I'm still gonna want the M3.

[A]

Right. Lowered Macans look pretty good. I wouldn't want to drive one like that, but they do look cool. Thunder Coogan, Falcon Bird. Registered trademark. I don't know what that is, but it's awesome. Thinking about trying to get into a right hand drive car, but I also want something weird. Not just a typical JDM Skyline or something. Were there any right hand drive European cars that could be fun? I mean. Yeah, tons of them. Like England. That's a real thing.

[B]

Get a tbr.

[A]

Sure.

[B]

That's weird.

[A]

Yeah. ABS TVR is a great one. Or you know, a right hand drive Lotus. Or get the good Lotus Carlton.

[B]

Yes.

[A]

You know, or Escort Cosworth.

[B]

Cosworth. You know, that is the skyline of Europe in a way.

[A]

Yeah. There's a bunch of right hand drive E30 tourings out there. They're a lot cheaper than the left hand drive ones.

[B]

Yeah. I think Vin bought one in Europe. Like three grand.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Pretty cheap. If you ship. Then ship it over.

[A]

Yeah, there's a bunch. I mean there's also weird. There's also a bunch of non typical Japanese cars. Get a Nissan Pulsar gtir, Toyota Starlet. I just saw Hannah was like, baby, this Suzuki cappuccino on Facebook Marketplace, I want to buy it. And I was like nah. And she was like no. I was like, you don't even want to drive fucking stick. Like you can't have, have. You can't have a stick car if you're not going to drive it. Like you can buy any car you want as long as you actually want to drive it. And you're not going to drive that. And I don't fit in it. So what are we doing here? And then she showed me a picture of it. This is the nicest modded Suzuki cappuccino I've ever seen. It looked like a mini Z8 Alpena with like alpena style. It was sick. I was like, for like 13 grand. I was almost like, I'm in, but I can't fit in them things.

[B]

Maybe she'd learn to dress stick it. Huh? She would learn to drive stick. Come to like it. She has, she has dreams.

[A]

Look, she just got rich. She can buy. She doesn't need to ask me. She buys, she buy anything she wants. She can go buy a house if she wants. Now I don't, it doesn't makes no difference. But like, I mean it does make a difference. But like, if she wants a car, she does not need my permission to get anything. But I've, I, I regularly remind her of having cars that you don't plan to use all the time. Like that's, that's there. That is a curse to just amass cars you're not driving. So I was like, you buy whatever you want, but you, you have to use it. And I'm not convinced that you are, are ready for a stick shift car. She's like not demonstrated that she actually wants to drive stick anywhere.

[B]

You know, it's a great, you know, would be a legit good car to practice on is the nsx. That is the easiest car to drive.

[A]

It would, yeah, they're super easy. Yeah, she, it's, she just like doesn't like it. Yeah, like she can do it.

[B]

But the cappuccino is cool looking.

[A]

She's driven, she's driven multiple stick cars with me in the car and like a little jerky, but fine. But to get out of that, it's like force yourself to do it for a week to get to the next phase. And she won't do it without me in the car. So like, you know, you got to practice, Practice, practice. Moose, test wagon 87. Oh, sorry. We already talked about the next Colette. It's gonna be more watches. Bad gardener says, what car you've driven this year, did you actually hit the highest speed in.

[B]

I mean on a racetrack? Of course. That's what we're talking about.

[A]

That's an interesting question.

[B]

Hit 104 in the ranchero. Yeah, but it sounded like 300. No, it's.

[A]

You know, I haven't, I haven't had all that much room to really, really, really go well. Okay. McLaren 750s Coda hit the brakes at 175 on the back strike straight.

[B]

That's very fast.

[A]

That's fast. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And that's roughly within a mile, an hour or two of what Jack from Savage Geese was posting about zr1 at the same track. And he's a good driver.

[B]

Yeah, he is.

[A]

Yeah, he's fast. So. And that's a straightaway coming out of a hairpin. So even incremental differences in driver are not going to make a huge. It's not like, it's not like, you know, fucking balls to the wall over blind crest. Fourth gear. Like, who's going to exit that faster? It's like a, you know, that's a 20 mile an hour hairpin onto an enormous straightaway. That's cars and horsepower. I think they're about the same. But we didn't have enough room with ZR1. I don't think I went 175. I think it must have been the fastest.

[B]

I went very fast.

[A]

Right?

[B]

Yeah. I mean, previously on racetracks. Like you went 180, I think at.

[A]

Cal Speedway. 184.

[B]

Right. But that was a huge, like NASCAR. NASCAR, yeah. A lot of.

[A]

Probably 150 in the GTD at Chuck Walla or I don't know what the fuck number I saw in the GT3. Maybe that was faster, but probably, maybe, probably not. Less power. And I had the. No, that was the same McLaren. I didn't have another McLaren. When, when pick. When calculating how fast you. You've gone this year, you usually start with McLaren and work your way down, down.

[B]

They're very, very fast.

[A]

But like the Zinger and the ZR1 are. We're both insanely fast. But we didn't. We drove. I drove. Did not have room.

[B]

Right.

[A]

To go that fast either on the road or on. Yeah. Domesticated Jaguar xgs. Will you have Ammo's new Spit Wax. Spit Spray wax in stock at wccs? Yes. Larry is like so excited. Spit is, is probably his most important product. It's basically spray wax, AKA Quick Detailer. But it's his. All his formulations are proprietary. But like, he's so excited about his new spit. So yes, we're gonna have new spit. We don't have it yet, but we will have it at wccs. For those who don't know wccs, my shops here in la, both of them are the only two places in America where you can physically buy ammo products in a store. Store. Other than that, you have to get them and from Larry's website. So if you're in LA and you like ammo products, you can just walk into either of our stores during business hours and just buy it. We have every product they make except for like the compressors. Like, but we don't have. We will have new spit as soon as he sends it. Probably weeks, you know. But I'm excited. Regular spit is the best. I love it. 6.4 liter hemorrhoids.

[B]

I like that one.

[A]

That's very good. What would happen if Stellantis, Nissan, Renault or VAG fully imploded? Would some of the smaller brands in these larger groups thrive alone or would they be too integrated to survive? VAG would be very problematic. I think that's, that's a. Too big to fail and the government owns a portion of that company anyway. Way. Yeah, Stellantis could actually fail and I think.

[B]

Well, they've already kind of separated like Jeep, Ram.

[A]

Jeep and Ram.

[B]

Like I think they would continue.

[A]

Could, could survive.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Chrysler would die. I think that. I think the, the minivan would go. Would probably become a Ram probably, you know, or, or whatever. But like yeah, Nissan, Renault I don't think would fail. I think if Nissan failed, Renault would probably carry on. Although I don't really know much about the business, the business of Renault because we don't.

[B]

I don't either. I think it depends on how much manufacturing is done under one roof for each brand. Like, like if you have a factory, a is humongous and it makes Renault and Nissan also Nissan, Nissan's gone. Can you continue to operate that factory without the revenue of selling those extra cars? I don't know.

[A]

Yeah, I mean they, they may have to sell the factories and you know, drastically reduce their operations or build car there wasn't there a joint venture where Nissan was going to build cars for Honda or something like that?

[B]

Yeah, that was briefly talked about but yeah, that could be a thing. Where Renault goes, hey, we're going to start building cars for Ford over here or whoever. Yeah.

[A]

Bush did 997. What are your favorite steering wheels? Good question. I have many. Any.

[B]

The.

[A]

The Singer turbo is the best steering wheel I've ever used.

[B]

I think Momo Proto Tipo is. That's fantastic.

[A]

Of course that's the, like that's the Momo prototypo is the like you could have this look. You know, it's like a lot of people could buy a prototypo.

[B]

Sure.

[A]

And you can put one in a variety of cars and achieve the correct vibe.

[B]

Yeah, that's true.

[A]

You could put it in a 308, you could put a 911, you could put it in an Alfa Romeo, you could put it in almost any European sports car. You could put a prototypo in and it will aesthetically make sense and it'll feel right.

[B]

The Spiker is one of my favorite to look at.

[A]

The original Spiker.

[B]

The original Spiker, even though it's like it's not dished, which is weird, it's just flat and it looks like it'll kill you because it has a spike in the middle of it. But as something that was put out in the 2000s, just. What a thing.

[A]

Yeah, that's a. That's a steamship tiller, that thing.

[B]

Exactly.

[A]

That. The.

[B]

All the. All the GT wheels are great because they're. The only knob on them is like this controls the driving mode if any or GT3RS has like all the suspension, but it's. There's no buttons you can bump with your fingers. There's no volume you can accident. Accidentally control. Like the. My least favorite wheel is the Mercedes wheels, which is everything with haptic and stuff. It's terrible.

[A]

No, I think like the, the Porsche wheel, the McLaren wheels are really good. Those. Both those wheels are. They're very similar. They're essentially perfectly round. No flat bottoms. Circles with nothing on them. Really, really good contours. Not. Not too thick, not too thin.

[B]

Well, the McLaren contour, actually, you bring. It has that perfect. Like it's got like a ridge in it where you can press on the inside with your thumbs. It's not circular around the wheel either. It's almost like. Like an oval, kind of like half a watermelon. You know, one size flat, one size round.

[A]

The Nissan Skylines. The R32, original R32, three spoke wheel is superb. Yeah, there's. Yeah.

[B]

Oh, yeah, that's just.

[A]

I mean, that's just fucking textbook, isn't it?

[B]

Yep.

[A]

Yeah. No, no notes there.

[B]

That's.

[A]

That's as good as a steering wheel gets. Good question. Segway GT3 DUI edition. Just built my dream garage, including a lift. Yeah. And I'm looking to round out my garage with an older third car to work on and play with all over the place right now, including the Mr.2 Turbo996, Subaru GC8 E30, Porsche 914 Datsun 240Z Autozam AZ1. I currently have a Lucid Air and an ND3 Miata on good suspension. What would be the most fun and provide a new experience for under 30k. Wow. You are all fucking over the place. I would not recommend a mid engine car or a car where the powertrains like hidden to be your tuner car and play with car. I would really recommend not. Doesn't have to be necessarily front engine but like fucking a996 is a bitch to modify and service. Like. Like you have to take the engine out for a bunch of.

[B]

Oh right, good point.

[A]

You know what I mean? Like the like an E30 is kind of like a Miata super easy to work on.

[B]

I think the Autozam. Well that's. That'll be hard to work on probably dude.

[A]

I think if you did an RSTI that would be good. A two door Subaru 2.5.

[B]

That'll be the easiest thing to work on.

[A]

With an SDCA powertrain swap like you could work on it. It'll feel different from your other two cars. Yeah, 30k goes like a pretty long way in getting a decent one parts availability. You know you're using a lot of factory parts for those kind of cars.

[B]

You can swap a bunch of over makes it easier.

[A]

Yeah, yeah I would do that.

[B]

That's a good idea. Yeah. If you want something to learn to work on.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

That's the way to go.

[A]

I don't. I wouldn't want something where I had to be. Sorry my hands were wet. Where I had to. Like with a mid engine car you gotta like find all in there. It's hard to get to 996 that's underneath and that stuff's really tough to get to. I would.

[B]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. 240Z might require more custom work. I don't know. I'm not as familiar with that aftermarket. But. But like you said the, the Subarus are Legos.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

So you can. You can literally bolt in you know high performance turbocharged engines that will just fit there.

[A]

So the JDM engines there's like three different gearboxes you can get. There's all kinds of fun stuff you can do with those.

[B]

And if you're spending 30 you can spend way less and get one that's already probably pretty far along.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And then just tinker.

[A]

Yeah. Steve McQueen, Latifa.

[B]

That's great.

[A]

That is absolutely superb Contraction Famous roads which disappeared when you finally disappointed. Oh, disappointed, sorry. When you finally had a chance to drive them. I was on the million dollar highway in Colorado and was underwhelmed. Pretty and Curvy, but too much traffic and didn't feel as special as I was led to believe. We then came back through Telluride and that was an awesome drive. Yes, the roads. The road out of Telluride is the jam.

[B]

I think it also depends on what you're looking for because a good friend of mine just drove Million Dollar Dollar highway and she could not stop talking about it.

[A]

Really.

[B]

So. Yeah, cuz she just wanted to sightsee. She's driving a forester. But if you're looking to, you know, cook and drive quick and if there's a lot of traffic. Sure, sure.

[A]

I think a lot of America's best roads are considered that way from the perspective of the sightseer and not necessarily the canyon carver, but there's also like time of day. Like if you want to hit that tourist road in a sports car, like you're getting up at 5, like fucking be out there. Like I've. I've run Tail of the Dragon a dozen times and if you go at fucking noon, sure disappointing. If you go at 6am and you get a clean run. That road fucking kicks ass.

[B]

I've driven a couple times and I just find it to be a bit repetitive on like the second gear, like tight turn, tight turn, tight turn.

[A]

It's not my favorite road in the area. I'm a skyway man myself. Cherryl Hall Skyway is in my opinion, the best road in the country. And it's the. It's right there. So just go. You can go do that too. But the dragon at 6am when the fog is lifting, you know, is pretty, Pretty epic.

[B]

Yeah, it's like tree skiing powder, you know, it's just tight and back and forth.

[A]

It's a workout. You know, you got to be in the right car, but like, But I also think that you got to do it, do the road at the right time. When we went to Glacier national park, what's the. There's a. There's a famous road in Glacier national park that's like the climb to the clouds or something. Something like that. And it was slow. You know, there was other people on it, whatever. Going to the Sun Road. That's it. The Going to the Sun Road, dude. I mean, it was staggeringly beautiful. And you know, part of me, I was driving an Urus. Part of me was like, oh man, this would be nice if I could fly. And Hannah was like, look at. There's a waterfall going over the road. Like it was. It was the most beautiful road. Yeah. Most beautiful road imaginable.

[B]

Yeah. Don't rush this. Wow. Wow.

[A]

This is the kind of road where you want to bring a 1925 fucking Locomobile and just chug up that bitch like our friend John Bothwell did.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

So like that would be disappointing from a dynamics perspective, but it was so beautiful. I didn't. Who cares?

[B]

Yeah, it's all about what you're after.

[A]

People. I mean if you, a lot of people, you know, driving PCH through Big Sur, yeah, you go 10:00am and you're stuck behind three RVs, that, that sucks. But you go, you wake up early and you rip that thing at sunrise. That's the jam.

[B]

And I, I also, when we drove down in Monterey Car week, I forgot a little bit of how nice it looks, how stunning it is. Cuz but we're going slow. I could look at the thing. If you're hauling ass, you're not really going to be able to take in the sights.

[A]

FWD NSX says, as a young person with limited budgets, what are some good ways to get track time? Time? I'm 30 minutes from Sonoma Raceway, but only ever done Wednesday night drags. Become an instructor. I mean that the easiest way to get cheap or free track time is to become an instructor. That's like, because that's how they pay them a lot. Like instructors will be like, you know, you get $100 a day and you get, you know, two sessions, but you got to instruct on the other sessions. Like that's how people do it.

[B]

Now how does someone become an instructor?

[A]

Well, you have to then either go to a school and you know, work your way up. Like you don't necessarily need to be a credentialed instructor. You just have to get to a level of competence within a track day company. Like there isn't a way to start from zero and end up somewhere, but there are more cost effective ways to get track time that will ultimately be cheaper than just buying it. Like so. So you have to have the skill level to be an instructor, which doesn't necessarily mean that you need to be the best driver in the world, but you have to be above average, communicative and most importantly, fucking willing to ride right seat with people.

[B]

Yep. That and you're 25. So you'll be brave enough to be 25.

[A]

So you'll probably be okay.

[B]

You could also, you could get a lot of experience in understanding vehicles, dynamics and driving, doing autocross. I know it's not as exciting, but you will learn a lot of things that will help you talk to instructors and then when you Talk to them about how to become an instructor. If you say, hey, I've got this many months or years of autocross under my belt at this place, you know, every month they will see that you're putting in the effort to get somewhere and they'll probably help you.

[A]

Yeah. There isn't a good way to do it for, for cheap. The trap racing is unfortunately expensive.

[B]

Yeah, it's, it's sim racing is the cheapest way to do it.

[A]

Yeah. But I mean, maybe you could be a corner worker also. Being a corner worker may help you get track time.

[B]

I mean, maybe.

[A]

Yeah, I'm not. I know that corner workers often have track rack cars, so I see them out on track sometimes. So Carter Bliss says, how do I convince my girlfriend that small sports cars are not girly or unmanly? We just talked about this. Your girlfriend sucks, Carter. I mean, I don't know, man. I don't know. I, I think that's a, A car doesn't make you girly or unmanly. I have a pink fucking Boxster. I, you know, I don't think.

[B]

But I think convincing someone of that is hard because that means, you know, they were socialized, taught around people that said that about Miatas or whatever and that's just like part of their brain. So I think convincing them, can she, let's see, if you have Miata, can she drive it? Is she allowed to, can she drive a stick? If you, if you show her the fun of it. I think that's the best way to correct someone on that. Yeah.

[A]

Why don't you rent one on Turo, you know, and have a little week, go away for a night or a weekend, you know, a little romantic road trip weekend in one and maybe they'll find it's fun.

[B]

Well, there's also like, she thinks two cars is a waste of money. He's got a 4Runner and a JCW Mini and he can't afford both of them. Well, that's a different discussion.

[A]

No, no, he said, I used to drive a JCW Mini. Mini and now I have a forerunner.

[B]

Oh. But he wants a fun.

[A]

But I want a second car. And this, she, this has his other significant other things. Two cars is a waste of money for one person. Well, this person doesn't like cars. Like, you know what I mean? Like, I'm sorry but like if they, you can only have one car and it has to be manly. Like that's not someone who likes cars. That's a, that's like, it just isn't so you have to convince her to like cars.

[B]

Well. Or I think demonstrate to her or have a conversation that cars are really important to you and you like, you know, my wife is not that into cars. She's a little into them but she sees that I enjoy my car even with all the problems it has and she's like that's your thing. And I support the shit out of that. That's what, that's. That should be the discussion.

[A]

What does she have to us that she doesn't really need?

[B]

Two of you can't use shoes though because it's like they're cheap.

[A]

But like does she have 12 handbags? I mean I'm not and I don't have a problem with that at all. But like for someone saying she's a very logical person and thinks two cars is a waste of money, there is absolutely something this woman does that you would consider to be a waste of money. Sure. That you do not have a problem with.

[B]

Right. Because she gets joy from it. So does she have two boyfriends? And you're like that's fine.

[A]

Waymo. Hand jobs from women I hardly know. Is there any reasonable scenario for building a HPDE Canyon car out of a late 4th gen Trans Am? I mean. Yes.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Yes there is. Those cars are a chassis perspective like and a powertrain perspective like very competent.

[B]

Yep.

[A]

They're just rattling.

[B]

It's an F body Camaro and they. We've driven some that handled great.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

They can be made into pretty potent RAC machines.

[A]

You do not have to do much wear stance.

[B]

I support the shit out of suspension. Brakes get a WS6.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

The big nostrils. Yeah.

[A]

It doesn't. They're just rattly. But just like take the interior out and throw it away, you know and put in real seats because the seats are terrible and accept that it's going to be a rattly shit box. But they like they actually drive a lot better than they look and they can be set up nicely. Whipped cream save lives. I just saw Larry Chen posted a video about an electric AE86 with a manual transmission and off the she parts from Toyota or Lexus. Functional manual gearbox and motor programming similar to the original ICE engine. Do you think this might be a potential future for an enthusiast vehicle? I don't want that. Like that's. That doesn't like I'm. I'm happy that someone built something cool but like I don't.

[B]

I've seen a lot of people driving and posting about this lately. Yeah.

[A]

I don't want this. I mean here you Have a car with one of the finest gas powertrains ever. It was incredibly light. It was also incredibly fuel efficient. And it was very fizzy. A fizzy, engaging powertrain. And those are not the kind of cars that I want to EV swap. I think we should keep those cars because they're so engaging and dynamic. And EV swaps cars that. Where the powertrain is a. Is a point against, not a point for, like, Wagoneers and whatever. Now, I don't mind someone doing this like once, but all. I also don't. I don't need to drive stick in an EV either. I don't need to fake that. I want to drive real stick. And if we're gonna fake it, I'm okay with. With paddles. I don't. I don't need a fake clutch pedal.

[B]

I think this is a cool proof of concept, but unless we are all forced to drive EVs entirely. I agree with you that, like, this doesn't really appeal to me or have a market. I think it's cool and it's rad that someone built it out of like, you know, found parts and. And brain power. Yeah, it's just kind of like a why. Yeah, but just for science. They did it for fun. Cool. Yeah.

[A]

Yeah. To me, it's a solution to the wrong problem. Problem. But, you know, fun for science.

[B]

It's cool.

[A]

Yeah. But someone messaged me this, this morning and said this is exactly the thing you said you'd want. I was like, no, no, no. You are enormously misunderstanding what I've said. I want. I. What I've said is that you can make a fun and dynamic EV sports car. And the way I think you could do it is by using whimsy to mimic gas cars of. Of the past.

[B]

Well, that kind of does that if you get the right sound in there. But I think there's no. There's no reason to push for this at the moment other than that it's an experiment and it shows that the technology could exist one day. Yeah, okay, cool.

[A]

But I wanted. I might. I might want that in a new car. I do not want to be EV swapping great classic sports cars, particularly not ones with awesome engines that are also very fuel efficient. I bet you that car is more fuel efficient than fucking most of like, GMs entire fleet right now. If you exclude EVs quadrifoly o face, best Bond car. I mean, I'm very partial to the Vanquish, obviously.

[B]

Yeah, I like the DBS a lot. You know, what was the DB5 with the ejector seat. I mean, how do you beat that? That is a DB4, DB5. Yeah. I mean, how do you beat that? Thing had machine guns, smoke and an ejector seat. I mean, as a kid, you're not going to beat that.

[A]

Yeah. This has to be trolley. This can't be a real question, right? There's nobody who actually listens to the show would write this like this. Right.

[B]

I think this is a real question.

[A]

Okay.

[B]

He has questions a lot.

[A]

Okay, just the last sentence is, I'm not reading that because it's so untrue that I'm not reading it. Var. The VAR says, I know you don't like fsd, but have you tried the most recent iteration? If so, what do you think about it? My friend has a Model 3 and we've done around 20 trips and it's been perfect from my driveway to parking spot with no intervention. So that is not anywhere near enough data to judge a system. Neither is one trip taking a ride in something isn't data. Millions of miles of testing is data. And if you saw recently the story came out, Waymo versus Tesla's data, which is hilarious. Waymo's had like three accidents in like these millions and millions and millions of miles of testing. And if you look at what those three accidents are, all of them were either something else crashing into the Waymo or someone opening the door of a Waymo and then on the. On the. The traffic side of it and then. And the car hitting that door. So it's like there have, like there have been functionally no Waymo accidents like that have been caused by Waymos, like functionally. The deployment of the FSD quote, Robo taxi in Texas has had multiple accidents already, and we all know how many accidents and deaths have been connected to fsd, right?

[B]

Except they disconnect FSD right before impact, which is very suspicious.

[A]

Correct. Tesla is still using camera only, which. Dude, we should take a Waymo today in the rain. Yeah, we should see how. We should see if it. I've never tried one in the rain, but look, I. I'm glad you've had a good experience in this car. I am. But like, your experience isn't data, it just isn't. The data that is collected over millions of miles of driving is data. And in your last sentence, you refer to that Tesla Model 3 as an autonomous driving system. It is not. That is absolutely not an autonomous driving system. Waymo is a mostly level. It's an level four autonomous driving system. There are no people in the car. There are human backup drivers in a data center somewhere. So if the car has a fuck up and I press the A help button or they detect a fuck up, a human can remotely drive that car to safety if need be. I have no evidence that that's ever happened while I was in a car. But. But like there's no one in the fucking car. Like there's you. If a human still has to be there. That is not an autonomous car. It's just not. If that Tesla Model 3 gets into a crash while you're using FSD, you bet your fucking ass. Elon Musk ain't paying for for it.

[B]

Very true. You know, it would be such a bummer and this is just more of a joke that like in five years we find out that all the Waymo cars were just being driven. Driven remotely by people the whole time. Well, because those delivery robots that are just like the size of a cooler, that deliver food, that's what they are. They've got a camera.

[A]

It's rc.

[B]

Yeah. And it's just. It's a remote control. But people for a little while thought that they were autonomous around town.

[A]

It would be crazy to find out that Google has a building in like Pakistan with 50,000 people in it that are just remotely driving waymos. That would be insane.

[B]

It would be disappointing, especially with all.

[A]

So this is. Oh, here's a. Here's an article from a month ago. Tesla is attempting to conceal the details of three separate accidents involving its robo taxi service in Austin, despite having only two months of service in the fleet. Yep.

[B]

Also, Tesla recently said that it's going to pivot from its helper robot.

[A]

Wait a minute.

[B]

Plan. And the guy that was the head of their robotics left to go work at Meta. And he took a pay cut to do it.

[A]

No, but you're. No, no, no, because that can't be because they were the leader in humanoid ro.

[B]

I know. Stock went up and they said it would be 80% of their revenue at.

[A]

Some point, but the stock went up. Zach. When the stock goes up, it means they're right about everything. Don't you know how America works? We are. We are the stupidest fucking country. I can't believe how dumb we are. It's. Every day is a new level of fucking stupid stupid. Anyway, so, anyway, yeah. Teslas aren't autonomous and your rides aren't data. So please don't die. And if you do, I told you so. That's our show, folks. Oh, do you have it? Do you have a story?

[B]

Well, I Heard. I heard it on Prof. G. Podcast. I'm trying to find their source link. I can't right now. Okay. Anyway, all right, sorry.

[A]

We'll abort that part of the. The story. No, we won't. Unproven, unproven allegations. Right, but we do know. I mean, listen, we do know. We have, we have. We're on. Real good information. A real good lead. I saw it on the Internet. Tesla is bringing in kilos of Coke. No, SpaceX. SpaceX is bringing kilos of cocaine. They're using private planes to do it. One crash in the jungle. I saw it on Twitter. So it's definitely true, right?

[B]

Definitely true.

[A]

Well, this Elon.

[B]

A month ago, Tesla lost its Optimus humanoid robot executive for right before Elon said that Optimus would be 80% of the of their revenue.

[A]

Oh, two weeks after.

[B]

Two weeks after.

[A]

Why can't two weeks after Elon Musk claimed the product? Yeah, and how in how many times in those two weeks do you think that guy said, fucking take this shit anymore.

[B]

Right? And then he's like.

[A]

He said.

[B]

He said what? He said that much.

[A]

He went on tv, he said, it's.

[B]

Ready, and they're just feeding him bales of cocaine. You'll figure it out. You'll figure it out. If you never sleep and you get incredibly confident.

[A]

Yeah, you have to get hardcore. Just say you already know how to do it and don't sleep. And do a little ketamine once in a while.

[B]

Yikes.

[A]

Maybe a lot of ketamine. Thanks, everybody. Love you, patrons. You're the best. Keep kicking ass. Your usernames are getting fucking much. Your usernames are getting sentient. Unlike Elon Musk. Musk's robots. We'll see you later. Goodbye.

[B]

Someone said, what about ammo swallowing.