The WORST Door Handles; a Free Car; Leno's Bill

Summary

The Smoking Tire – September 16, 2025

Episode: The WORST Door Handles; a Free Car; Leno's Bill

Hosts: Matt Farah & Zack Klapman

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Episode Overview

This episode dives deep into the quirks, frustrations, and occasional comedy of automotive culture, focusing on contemporary design trends (notably flush door handles and their problematic implications), the joys and logistics of upcoming track tests, the fate of California's “Leno Law,” and stories about scoring a “free” Mercedes convertible. Matt and Zack mix firsthand journalism with inside baseball and the wry commentary fans expect, rounding everything off with listener Q&A.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Secretly Expensive Cars & Automotive Journalism

• Value Perception: Early on, Matt and Zack riff on how certain cars, like a used Bentley, can cost far less than a loaded new pickup but deliver more wow-factor.
• The Power of Titles in Media:
  • Matt discusses having his article's headline changed (“SSC Tuatara is the Corvette of Paganis” to “Corvette of Hypercars”), which caused confusion and criticism online.
    • Matt (01:17): “It was all just about how stupid I am for making this comparison in the headline, which I didn't even write.”
  • Zack shares empathy from similar publishing experiences.

2. Writing For Print vs. Web

• SEO vs. Creativity: Print allows more creative titles, while web and video formats demand clickable, sometimes misleading headlines to attract readers.
  • Zack (05:14): “Video titles have to be attractive...[but] print magazine titles are pretty creative. They don’t need to be SEO friendly.”

3. Track Day Preview: Mustang Family Test at Chuckwalla

• Matt’s Upcoming Solo Track Session: Matt details his private Ford Mustang experience, where he gets to test multiple variants (GTD, Dark Horse, Dark Horse R, GT3, and possibly a drift car) at Chuckwalla Valley Raceway.
  • Matt (06:44): “I'm driving the whole family of Mustang race cars...I have all afternoon.”
• Race Car Logistics: Matt ponders how much track time is reasonable to request (settles on orientation + two 10-lap “hot” sessions).
• Zack’s Anecdote: Watching multi-class Mustang racing at Le Mans and the chaos/confusion in real time.

Memorable Quote:

• Zack (09:09): “Let me tell you, Matt, I am not colorblind, and my vision’s pretty good. And I had real trouble trying to determine which class was what, because they’re all Mustangs.”

4. Road and Track Events & Car Adventures

• Event Teasers: Matt plugs upcoming events, including “Seaside to Sierra” and “Blue Ridge Ramble,” blending scenic drives, bourbon tastings, and track days.
• Pride in Road Planning: Matt details the rigorous route scouting: “No notes, no changes—other than a couple of legs are long and require coffee.”
• Long Drive Philosophy: Their internal rule: every 90 minutes warrants a coffee stop (“Long by our standards.”)

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5. Automotive Design: The WORST Door Handles

[Starting ~34:22]

• New Investigation: Discussion about Bloomberg covering problematic flush, power-actuated door handles, especially Tesla, and associated safety issues (first responders unable to access crashed/burning cars).
  • Matt (34:48): “If people are trapped in the cars and the exterior door handles are flush and won't pop out, emergency first responders can't get the cars open.”
• Door Handle Rankings: The hosts go through a rapid-fire list of the worst offenders from best-of-the-worst to truly awful:
  • Least worst: Taycan/992 Porsche – has a lip, can get fingers under.
  • Biggest offenders:
    • McLaren MP4-12C – weird capacitive touch (nearly impossible to use).
    • Lucid Air – power-presenting with atrocious key proximity logic (“possessed”).
  • Tesla Model S/X and Mercedes SLS – handles that fail to deploy, lose out to mechanical simplicity.
• Concluding Sentiment: “I’m glad somebody is finally pointing out that there might be problems with this type of design.” (Matt, 43:24)

Notable Moment:

• Zack (43:26): “People are working right now! ...Don’t you fucking people work?”

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6. The Fate of the “Leno Law”

[Starting ~43:32]

• What is the Leno Law? Meant to relax emissions requirements for collector/classic vehicles in California.
• Why it Failed:
  • Quickly watered down—limited to 35+ year-old cars with collectors' insurance (thus daily drivers, working-class old-vehicle owners left out).
  • Still didn’t pass; provides zero benefit as a result.
• Collector Insurance Problems: Can exclude owners without a garage or those using their cars frequently.

Memorable Quote:

• Matt (45:26): “It eliminated all the people in the lower half of the income bracket who would have benefited… now it will help zero.”

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7. Free Car Stories: The Mercedes E320 Cabriolet

[~51:46 and 52:00]

• Matt Inherits a Classic: Scores a 1995 Mercedes E320 Cabriolet from his wife’s legendary publicist aunt, Aunt Liz Rosenberg.
• Nostalgic Value: Matt reflects that growing up, a mom in an E320 cabrio meant drama (“the dad banged the secretary, now mom…”) and affluence.
  • Matt (54:26): “In 1994, this was an $86,000 car… when a mom rolled up in one… it was like, oh, the dad…”
• Project Possibilities: Considers whether to restore, modify, or maybe do nothing, depending on underlying condition.
• Zack’s role: May daily it for a while (“Everyone’s gonna think I cheated on my wife and got this in the divorce!” – Zack, 58:06).

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8. Listener Q&A Highlights

(Timestamps variable, ~48:49 onward)

• Leasing vs. Buying (59:24): Advice for cost-conscious buyers trading down; favoring used EVs with remaining warranty, rather than new leases.
• Played-Out Design Trends (61:27): After the light bar, things like “squarified” wheel arches and weird C-pillar plastic valences; “floating roofs.”
  • Matt (61:59): “Haptics... are going away, thankfully.”
• Modern NSX (62:38): Great to drive, but cramped; may become a “performance bargain” future classic.
• Watches vs. Cars Patina (89:08): Added value in watches (if unpolished with a story), but not always true in used cars unless the car’s history is compelling.
• Dream & Nightmare Garages (69:19, 70:06): Three-car “nightmare” garage: Ferrari F50, Porsche 959, and VW Phaeton—guaranteed to bankrupt the owner.
  • Matt (70:07): “Best of luck to you, son.”
• Patina and Value: Refers to the nuance of how wear can add/inhibit value, depending on story or prominence (cars and watches).
• Reverse Depreciation Specials (92:11): Expensive, under-the-radar cars like dark-colored Singer 911s or obscure Italian classics look “cheap” to the casual observer yet cost a fortune.

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9. Fun & Memorable Quotes

• On Internet Outrage:

  • Matt (01:17): “It was all just about how stupid I am for making this comparison in the headline, which I didn't even write.”

• On Collector Car Law:

  • Matt (45:26): “...eliminates all of the people in the lower half of the income bracket who would have benefited from the law anyway.”

• On ‘Free’ Mercedes:

  • Matt (54:26): “When a mom rolled up in one of these in middle school, it was like, ‘Oh, the dad banged the secretary, now mom…’”

• About Worst Door Handles:

  • Matt (41:09): “My worst was Lucid. ...But the MP4-12C absolutely beats Lucid, but only just.”

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Important Timestamps

• 01:17: Matt on headline outrage
• 05:14: Zack on title-writing for video vs. print
• 06:44: Matt previews Mustang track extravaganza
• 34:48: Door handle dangers and design rants
• 43:24: Wrap-up on bad handle chat
• 43:32: Leno Bill breakdown
• 51:46: Killing time with a “free” E320 cabrio
• 61:27: Design trend gripes (light bar, haptics, C-pillar weirdness)
• 70:06: Nightmare garage picks for financial ruin
• 92:11: Reverse depreciation/sleeper status picks
• Full episode Q&A: ~48:49 onward

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Episode Tone & Flow

Conversational, irreverent, and personal—just as Smoking Tire fans love. Matt and Zack blend deep knowledge with unfiltered commentary. The episode is part advice show, part therapy session, part schoolyard gossip, all with a thread of car-enthusiast relatability and self-aware wit.

Transcript

[Zach]

That's amazing. 80 grand. And most people won't know it's 80 grand. It's 200.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah, that's what I'm saying. Like, it's like if. Do you want to, like, do you want to shock someone with how high the MSRP was on your F150, or do you want to spend less and roll a fucking Bentley? You know, even a 2018 Bentley with 5,000 miles is much nicer than a brand new F150.

[Zach]

That's wild.

[Matt Farah]

So anyway, that's the article. Dude, you know what's crazy? I. I glanced at Reddit looking for a story for this show because we talked about a lot of things yesterday, covered a lot of ground. We can do the Reddit stuff if you want to do that. But I noticed that in the. Our Reddit cars section that someone had shared not our video, but my Road and Track article about, about the SSC Tuataro. And it really, it really reminded me of the importance of titles because when I submitted this, the written piece to them, I said, the SSC Tuatara is the Corvette of Paganis, which is the same title I used in our video. I think it was the same title. Someone at the magazine changed it to the Corvette of Hypercars, which is a change that. I understand why they made it, but it's. It's not what I wrote. Fine. I'm not the editor. When I went into the Reddit cars comments section today, it was like, every comment, like, there was like 30 comments, and all of them were about how that, like, that we're all about the title. Like, one was like one of the comments, like, actually was, like, actually in the article. He clarifies pretty quickly what the argument here is. But, like, it was all just about how stupid I am for making this comparison in the headline, which I didn't even write.

[Zach]

Right? Yeah, yeah, that. That happened to me a year ago or something. Like, I. They changed the title or they made the title, whatever. But it definitely was a point that I had not made and didn't totally agree with. And so when I posted it on Threads, I was like, my post literally says, I wrote the article but not the title. Please go read my piece about something.

[Matt Farah]

Or when someone wrote an article about me, it was a very nice article, very complimentary, beautiful photography for a magazine. But the headline of the article was, Matt Farah has never worked a day in his life. Which not a good line. You need the first half of. I know what you're. You know what I mean? It's The. I know what you're trying to say.

[Zach]

Yeah.

[Matt Farah]

But you picked the wrong words out of that about the wrong person who is clearly very insecure about that specific topic and therefore overworks.

[Zach]

What is the photo. You in front of a countach.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah. Overworks himself to the point of having panic attacks.

[Zach]

Right. Yeah. And if you read paragraph one, maybe that's in there. But if you don't read paragraph one, most people just scroll. Fuck. And they're like, I knew it.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah. Damn. It looks like it reads like a hit piece if you only read the fucking headline. Crazy.

[Zach]

And I know exactly, like, I didn't read the article. I'm like, oh, they're going, he likes cars. He works in cars. He's not working. Dah, dah, dah, dah, dah.

[Matt Farah]

Meanwhile, I have the towel hanging at our house that says the truth about that.

[Zach]

Oh, yeah, yeah, absolutely. It's a towel. I thought. I thought it was like a canvas thing.

[Matt Farah]

Well, it's. I suppose it's called a fucking tea towel, but I didn't want to be all hoity toity. It is technically a tea towel.

[Zach]

What is a tea towel?

[Matt Farah]

That. It's a can. It's like a bit of thin, like, you put it.

[Zach]

Shroud of terrain.

[Matt Farah]

You put it down on your table before putting hot tea on it. Ah, it's that. It's a. That's a tea towel.

[Zach]

Got it.

[Matt Farah]

Anyway, what we're talking about is the thing that Hannah got me that says, if you do what you love, you'll never work a day in your life. And then after yolk and never work a day in your life is crossed out. And it says, work extremely hard all the time with no separation or boundaries. And also take everything extremely personally. And everyone who comes in my house and works in any area of media is like, oh, yeah, that.

[Zach]

Yep. Yeah, that exactly. 100%.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah. That's how I feel all the time. Thanks. So cars titles are hard.

[Zach]

Writing titles for video and it is challenging.

[Matt Farah]

It is. And folks at the magazine, like, sometimes they come up with a great one. Really good puns, great wordplay, AJ's getting in there, you know, fucking AJ's like, what if. What if I. What if it was like, childlike wonder? No.

[Zach]

I don't know.

[Matt Farah]

I don't know how AJ's thought process is other than that first part.

[Zach]

The written titles, like, I'm jealous, you know, because video titles have to be attractive. Like, literally attract the eye and the interest in a moment and not give away the conclusion, ideally.

[Matt Farah]

Right.

[Zach]

Do it still has to make people go, well, I want to see how they got there.

[Matt Farah]

Right?

[Zach]

I mean, yeah, but with the. With, well print. I mean if someone gets the magazine, they don't. They probably don't care what the title is there. They have the whole magazine. But you do need to make it work for web a little bit. I think there's a little more freedom.

[Matt Farah]

The print magazine titles are pretty creative.

[Zach]

No, they are.

[Matt Farah]

I think they don't need to be SEO friendly.

[Zach]

That's what I'm saying. They can be more creative without being as shiny of a fishing lure.

[Matt Farah]

Totally, totally. Click me. That's why I like writing for the magazine. You don't need to write an SEO friendly star.

[Zach]

You don't have to be a pick me.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah.

[Zach]

Person.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah, man. I'm excited though. Tonight. I am. I'm driving out to Chuck Waller tomorrow, bro. I'm driving the whole family of Mustang race cars. So it's like four cars starting with a gtd which is obviously a street car but a very track focus GTD starting with gt. Yeah. Dark. Well, I guess I'm driving a dark horse to the track which I'm allowed to use on track. If I want to run 20 sighting laps. I have a whole day. It's just me. It's me and all of Ford's like. But the GT3, it's Ford's GT3 race car team, like their factory team. They're also bringing a dark horse R, which is the GT4 car, I think. I don't know if it's the GT4 car or if it's the spec, the.

[Zach]

One that we saw Le Mans, but I don't know.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah, yeah. So I'm driving that. That's the GT3.

[Zach]

Holy crap.

[Matt Farah]

That is going to be quite a thing. And I'm driving the gtd which is the street version of this. And then they also have the dark horse R. Can you just grab me a picture of the dark horse R? I have all afternoon.

[Zach]

The darker horse.

[Matt Farah]

The dark horse R. Is that. Yeah, that's a club racer. That looks like a good time.

[Zach]

I bet that is that half cage maybe. It looks like.

[Matt Farah]

Oh, and it has a cage. No, that's a full cage. That is a track car. But that's like the equivalent. It's like a.

[Zach]

A cup car spec Miata. The Mustang.

[Matt Farah]

Yes, exactly. I bet that's so fun. And that's what. That's what Harris raced it to Goodwood.

[Zach]

Oh, and this is still age pattern, I think.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah. That's a. Based on a GT.

[Zach]

Right. So I'm saying, like, because I think the GT3 car. Yes. Paddles. So that's one of the differences.

[Matt Farah]

I remember gtd.

[Zach]

I think Tanner got like, Tanner one or got second place in his heat, and then they found out he'd used sixth gear, and he's like, I didn't. I forgot. In the meeting, we were told we couldn't use sixth gear at Lamar, so they pulled his trophy.

[Matt Farah]

Oh, no way.

[Zach]

Yeah, it was really. There's some. Yeah, there's a no.

[Matt Farah]

6 the gear rule.

[Zach]

And someone in the comments. If you. If you saw that briefing, like, please explain, because I didn't. I watched the race and then the aftermath, but I don't know. I didn't watch. Oh, we should just briefing.

[Matt Farah]

Call Tanner and ask him.

[Zach]

We could just do that. What's Interrupt his Living his best life.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah. Dude, think about if you're a racing driver, if you don't have a literal mechanical lockout for that, how that could happen by accident at Le Mans. I mean, it's not like you can zone out during a racing. During a race, but, like, you could so easily, at lap after lap after lap, accidentally find yourself in sixth gear for sure. Although if he didn't know you couldn't do it, he might have done it repeatedly. He might have been doing it the whole. Over and over and over the whole show.

[Zach]

That would explain. He was so fast.

[Matt Farah]

That's why he was.

[Zach]

He was passing fools. It was awesome.

[Matt Farah]

While everybody else was maybe.

[Zach]

And he was like, no. I mean, he's also tenor. But there were a lot of good people. But there were also a lot of drivers in that race that had lost focus on other parts of the car. There were some very creative accidents that happened. Very unfortunate. No one was hurt. But, like, there's some stuff where you go, why that person stop.

[Matt Farah]

Literally these guys driving Mustangs.

[Zach]

Yeah. Dark, dark, dark horse Rs. It was. It was. I think they were all. There were dark horses and dark horse Rs. It was a weird race. There were three different classes of car all racing at once. And let me tell you, Matt, I am not colorblind, and my vision's pretty good. And I had a real trouble decide trying to determine which class was what, because they're all Mustangs. And all the shots for le Mans, unlike F1, are long, wide shots. So. And they're announcing and they're saying, someone's moving up. And I'm watching it with Sarah, and my wife is, like, twice as smart as me. Literally, like Lasik. And a better iq. And she's going, what is the difference between the purple and the red on the. On the Chiron lower third? I'm like, I don't know. Yeah, it was challenging, but so. So it was like a dark horse R and other dark horses, and they had like a Stars class, the pro class, and then some other class. So there's different classes of driver, slightly different cars, all racing at the same time. So someone could come in 6th, but they won their class.

[Matt Farah]

Much like WRL or AER race too.

[Zach]

It was like that, but it was just harder to determine which who was what.

[Matt Farah]

Well, and in the amateur races, like I'm doing in November, and whatever, it's. It's. Your class is determined by lap time, not your make and model. So it would be. It's even like you're, you know, a fucking. A Miata might be in Class one because it's got like an LS in it or something, you know, And a BMW could be way at the bottom. Like, who know, knows. So if you have, like. If you have, like, slow, shitty drivers in a Corvette, you might end up in Class four. Whereas if you have a rock star in a spec E46 or whatever, it might be in class one. Okay, so, yeah, it's done on, like, qualifying lap time. So there's a quality session and, you know, whatever.

[Zach]

But who's driving your quality, is it?

[Matt Farah]

Probably not me.

[Zach]

Yeah, Sir. Probably. What's his name, son. Right.

[Matt Farah]

I mean, Tato is really fast, but, like, it's the team, so I'm not sure. The fourth seat I've. I have. I have two. I don't know if it's four or five drivers. I think it's four, but it could be five. It's certainly me, Johnny and Tato, and I believe Tommy Kendall and Justin Bell.

[Zach]

Oh, my God.

[Matt Farah]

Which is like. I didn't know Justin was in there, but there's a racing group chat and he's in it now. So Justin lives around the corner from me. Just moved around the corner of me. I'm gonna call him and ask. But.

[Zach]

That'S awesome. That's super awesome.

[Matt Farah]

That's like other people, I think I'm. I'm very excited. I hope we have telemetry so that I can look at Tommy and Justin's lines and, you know, learn from that.

[Zach]

Yeah, but breaking graph, all that stuff, dude.

[Matt Farah]

Like two. Just extremely fast.

[Zach]

But that's red. I mean, that's like. Like Harris, man. I watch his Instagram. He's over in UK racing alongside Whoever the hell in these old mustangs. And you're going to get to do that in an M3.

[Matt Farah]

It'll be a good time.

[Zach]

Yeah.

[Matt Farah]

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[Zach]

But we could go back to.

[Matt Farah]

Okay, so dark horse. Yeah, it races. Dark horse. R is in Mustang challenge and Mustang Cup. So that's a GT based car. But yeah, dude, I got a whole fucking day at Chuck Wall and it's just me and there it's. We're not even doing video. It's just stills. So, like, I'm actually kind of like, it's like, actually too much, like, day. Like, I can't be like, can I have like, you know, six hours of laughing in the GT3 car? I don't know what I'm allowed to ask for. Like, I'm like, me and the photographer are the only people in road and track. I. We arranged this. Dan, my boss, arranged this. So, like, I think I'm in charge. Like, we are paying for the track. So, like, I'm not really sure how what I'm allowed to ask for, I get. I mean, the GTD it once it's there, that's mine. I could do anything I want with it. I got extra tires, can lap it, fucking time it, drift it, whatever. Great. Good times. But the race cars, how many sessions do I ask for?

[Zach]

Yeah, I don't know. I feel like they'll have rules with my car. Yeah.

[Matt Farah]

My original plan. I Think was a, was a five lap orientation session, a chat, and then maybe like a 10 lap good session before lunch and then another 10 lap session after lunch and then photography. I feel like that's okay to ask for. Right? That's reasonable.

[Zach]

With each car or just with GT3?

[Matt Farah]

Just the GT3.

[Zach]

Okay.

[Matt Farah]

I don't think they really care that much about dark horse R. Like, okay, like, I didn't.

[Zach]

I meant like, do you care about, like, are you gonna go. I'm gonna do. I'm gonna do 30 laps in each vehicle, three different sessions. So you keep like.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah.

[Zach]

Going back and forth and, you know, experience.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah, I would do the three cars in a row. Right, you would do dark horse, dark horse r and then GTD and then GT3. And I would do roughly the same thing with all three. And if there was extra time, I would just keep lapping the gtd because why the fuck not? Right? And, and, and then I want to give the photographer as much time to do, you know, whatever they need to do. But I was just thinking, like, is it with this race car, I think asking for a five lap getting to know you session and then two 10 lap hot sessions, I think that's a fair ask. That's a reasonable ask. To write a review of a car.

[Zach]

Sure. Right?

[Matt Farah]

That's pretty good.

[Zach]

I would do it. Yeah. This is like in high school, my friend. Like, I want to go talk to that chick and I go, yeah, do it. Yeah. Because it's. Because I don't have to have the anxiety of going to talk to her, you know, being nervous. But yeah, go do it.

[Matt Farah]

I mean, to have a car like that and a big track like Chuck Walla all to yourself, that's fucking crazy.

[Zach]

That is crazy. That is a great racetrack.

[Matt Farah]

That's fucking great. We were originally gonna do thermal, which nothing wrong with thermal. No point against thermal, but. Because the GTDs were already there for the launch. But I was like, wait, maybe we can get a bigger track. And we called and the rates were better. Here at Chuck Walla, the rates were just better. And I was like, oh, this is a much better track for this gig. So that's.

[Zach]

Oh, it's September. Yeah, it's so hot out there.

[Matt Farah]

It's gonna be bad, though. It's gonna be toasty. Yeah, I got one of the cabins tonight.

[Zach]

They're great.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah. Gonna bring some eggs, make myself a little breakfast in the morning. 100% good to go. Yeah, it's. And there's no hotels for. I'm gonna drive out after Dinner.

[Zach]

So hopefully after traffic you'll get great night sky. You can watch the. You should check the. The space station app because it goes by there sometimes and you can see it very clearly. Oh really? And it goes so fast. It shocks you how quickly it goes across the sky.

[Matt Farah]

Oh, that's fun.

[Zach]

It's very glinty and gold and. Yeah, I've seen it before.

[Matt Farah]

It's from other place. From other desert places.

[Zach]

It's fun staying out there.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah. But man, what a. I'm always. These GT3 cars I get to drive are always huge. Like the M8. It's like enormous.

[Zach]

This is a huge look.

[Matt Farah]

It is a huge car. But I'm gonna be on the track by myself, so it won't really matter. That's a big track. Even if your car is big. Wow. Look at the interior. You're sitting way back. Hell yeah.

[Zach]

When I drove that M4 GT4 at thermal for the. The Hoosier tire day.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah.

[Zach]

The seating was crazy. It was way back in the thing. It was all like carbon floor and sliders and stuff. It's super cool. Turn in was amazing.

[Matt Farah]

I bet this will be so, so fun.

[Zach]

Yeah, this is gonna sound good. Side. Look at the side pipes. Oh, here we go. Here we go.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah. Glowy break photo. I love a glowy break photo. How do you not.

[Zach]

That's great.

[Matt Farah]

That's pretty cool, everyone. So far I can't. I suppose I can't say what I've heard about the gtd. No, that's not true. I can. I was. I didn't hear from people who are on a fucking press launch. I talked to Bo. He said he loves driving his gtd. He said it's great. He said it's really nice as a streetcar. He didn't expect it to be nice as a streetcar, but it is perfect. Yeah. Actually I should. During lunch I should make sure to like go drive the GTD on that road. That road in the Chuck Wall is bumpy and shit.

[Zach]

Is.

[Matt Farah]

I gotta make sure to do that during lunch.

[Zach]

That's a good point.

[Matt Farah]

Because that's the. That's the other good news. When we have this, we have all this time, we can do a 90 minute stop down from 1 to, you know, from 2:30 or whatever. So where it's not like death in the middle of the day. The light sucks.

[Zach]

That's what we used to do when we filmed out there. We'd film in August because it was the cheapest.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah.

[Zach]

For proving grounds. And we would take lunch from like 1 to 3 or 2 to 3. Because it was. It was. 3 is the hottest part of the day. So we would like start really early, take lunch in the hot part of the day and then, you know, film more at golden hour.

[Matt Farah]

You okay?

[Zach]

Yeah, I'm just reading.

[Matt Farah]

Okay.

[Zach]

Just checking.

[Matt Farah]

So anyway, that'll be really fun. And it's for the magazine, so I can't really. I won't be able to really talk. I guess I can talk about the GTD once the embargo lifts on the 17th. I think I'm supposed to adhere to the embargo.

[Zach]

That makes sense.

[Matt Farah]

I think there's an embargo. I haven't been told that there's one, but the people who are on the launch have one and it's like, not yet. So.

[Zach]

Yeah, I should probably can scoop them.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah, no, that's. I know that's a dick move. I believe in honoring embargoes. That's important, but. Yeah, that's gonna be fucking fun, dude. How exciting.

[Zach]

Aren't they bringing a drift car also?

[Matt Farah]

I think I heard they were bringing a drift car. I don't. On the call yesterday, the drift car was not mentioned.

[Zach]

Okay.

[Matt Farah]

I. I have. I. I forgot in the call to be like, what about the drift car?

[Zach]

Yeah, the warm up. You should.

[Matt Farah]

One of those things where if it's there, I will be like, oh, happy day.

[Zach]

If you need to call Lee Keane and ask how to drift Chuck Walla, because he did a lot of it, but like, it's a fast place.

[Matt Farah]

Well, if you. Yeah. And I. The last time I tried to do slides there, I was not as good of a driver as I am now. That's not to say I would try to slide every corner, but now my strategy would be different. I will figure out where to slide by going fast first.

[Zach]

Yeah.

[Matt Farah]

Instead of trying to think about sliding, that's. That's like. That's what Chris taught me how to do. And that's like the better way. Like, just keep going faster until you find where you will naturally get oversteer if you just do a little more. And like that's your spots. So that's a. That's a good strategy rather than trying to just be like heavy foot out of every corner. Like that's. That's bad.

[Zach]

No, no, you'll. You'll figure it out. There's corners there that are like really huge long.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah. I don't think. I mean, maybe if there is a Formula D car, I might be able to do that, but not on a regular car. I'm not I'm not Chris. Sorry. I can do a little bit, but not fucking.

[Zach]

Lee drifted. He did the bowl.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah.

[Zach]

In the ctsv.

[Matt Farah]

He's pretty exceptional. Although I did the bull at Streets of Willow in a ctsv. It's the smaller bowl, but I did do it and it was third gear.

[Zach]

Okay.

[Matt Farah]

And I will do it again because now they have new tarmac. See it?

[Zach]

Yeah. It looks amazing. All the videos are going out.

[Matt Farah]

It looks awesome.

[Zach]

There might be a track day for us there in December.

[Matt Farah]

Oh, at Willow?

[Zach]

Yeah.

[Matt Farah]

Well, there.

[Zach]

We could.

[Matt Farah]

We can. Well, you and I can go there.

[Zach]

There might be an event.

[Matt Farah]

I guess we don't need a day. Yeah, we could just go.

[Zach]

All right. We should just go.

[Matt Farah]

We were gonna. I was gonna try to use it for this actually, but the scheduling didn't work out.

[Zach]

Gotcha.

[Matt Farah]

But it was. It was an option.

[Zach]

Okay.

[Matt Farah]

It was. Yeah, it was. It's available to rent right now. Streets of Willow is fully repaved with like all new, beautiful runoff. If you're in California, you can rent that track today.

[Zach]

Not just new runoff. Matt Ferret. It has runoff. Because it never did. Well, it had dirt. It had dirt.

[Matt Farah]

Definitely.

[Zach]

That's runoff.

[Matt Farah]

No, it has real. And it's much, much safer than it was in the past. I think you can. I think they have photos of it.

[Zach]

They have video up now. They do some promo video. Yeah.

[Matt Farah]

Oh, there. Top right. Yeah. Let's take a look at the new streets of Willow. It looks. The painting looks great. They've got a lot. They've added the. They've added some new tarmac. They haven't 100% repaved it, but actually. But they only repaved it a couple of years ago.

[Zach]

Yeah.

[Matt Farah]

And so the. The most of the tarmac was pretty good.

[Zach]

They added these walls, I think, for wind and dust to keep that off. So there's a couple places where there's these like, thin fences.

[Matt Farah]

So this isn't the. You know, this isn't the final plan. You know that, right? Like, this isn't the finished track. So basically what. What they're doing is because they have like, architects and landscape architects and like, they're like re. Engineering not only the tracks, but like the whole property. They're rerouting the water. They're doing like all this shit to plan for all the things that they're doing. All that is gonna be like a two to three, perhaps even up to five year plan check and approval process. And they're getting those in in order of importance. And why Do I mention that I ment totally re engineering the tracks is pretty deep into that plan.

[Zach]

Well, if you're gonna run water lines, you do that before you put down pavement. Sure.

[Matt Farah]

Right. And like. And so. But also they wanted to do some urgent improvements to make the tracks much safer in the near term. So they're doing things that you don't need to go through plan check for. So if you already own a racetrack, resurfacing your racetrack and or adding runoff on your RA track, like you don't need to get approval to do that. So they're just doing that now to make it better now before the big plan where they're going to add the clubhouse and add.

[Zach]

Well, are they going to change. Do you know if they're going to change the shape of streets and like.

[Matt Farah]

They'Re going to add a pass through so that you could split the track into two.

[Zach]

Got it.

[Matt Farah]

If you wanted to for a reason. They're also doing that on Big Willow. And they're also on Big Willow adding chicanes like they have at Lime Rock and other optional chicanes where if you wanted to for instance, slow down the entry into turn eight. If you wanted to slow down the exit of turn nine, there's another one that was a chicane that changes the shape of the over crest. I don't know if it's turn six or seven, but it's the negative G crest. There's an optional chicane that's gonna go sort of the lower part of that hill.

[Zach]

That's a good idea.

[Matt Farah]

Just kind of interesting.

[Zach]

Yeah, that's cool. Yeah, that's good for press launch stuff. I mean it's good for schools. Any sort of educational thing. Yeah, that makes sense.

[Matt Farah]

There's a million different reasons that you'd want at least the option to split the track into two.

[Zach]

Oh, definitely.

[Matt Farah]

And. Or run a optional configuration.

[Zach]

Yeah.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah. So anyway. But like improvements are like now. So that's the now plan. They're doing Big Willow next but I don't know exactly when that is happening.

[Zach]

Cool.

[Matt Farah]

But the event is on October 11th if you want to come out. If you're in LA or near LA or Southern California. I'm kind of emceeing the event. There's going to be some historic racing demos. People are going to be giving some ride alongs. We. I just spoke with Max from Zinger. They're going to be trying to bring out a couple of cars and. And maybe we can have a little go on the track in one of their wing Cars. Now that you've done the orientation.

[Zach]

I have done the orientation. So now I'm ready for racetrack with Zinger.

[Matt Farah]

You know, singer's gonna have a bunch of stuff and they're gonna have, you know, food and it's cars and coffee. Judged cars and coffee. So that's Sunday. Excuse me. Saturday, October 11th. I'll bring at least one car.

[Zach]

I think I'll drive mine up.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah, you should. I mean, if you want to drive your car or if you feel like driving one of my cars, whatever, we can do that or whatever. If we have some amazing press car someone wants us to drive something sick, we can do that too. So check that out. It's on Willow Springs Raceways Instagram, all the information and stuff. Speaking of like events and things, I should say, you know, two weeks remaining. What date? What's the date today? The 11th. What's September 11th? 12 days remaining until this Seaside to Sierra thing up north, road and track, couple spots left. Come drive with me. And then we, we just opened up registrations for the Blue Ridge Ramble in November. That's the thing. I just scouted. Talked about it last episode in the 992 Carrera S. We've got fabulous southern hotels, Smoky Mountains, Charahalla Skyway, Tale of the Dragon, Bourbon tasting in Knoxville. It's going to be on two track days. Oh, excuse me. The pec in Porsches and then Atlanta Motorsports park in your own cars. And I'm going to be giving ride alongs and possibly something really insane.

[Zach]

You should ride alongs in the Zinger 21C. It's got a back seat.

[Matt Farah]

I kind of implied that I wanted to give a couple and Max said that might be possible, but I don't know about maybe on track. The insurance policy is different. Their insurance policy was hardcore, but that's going on. We got in the end of September, Northern California and then November, we're driving from Atlanta to Nashville the fucking nice way. The pretty way. Verified by me. I was, I'm pretty proud of myself that root scout. I did not have to change from my plan. I didn't accidentally hit gravel, you know, every once in a while in one of these root scouts because like I'd look at the street view, but I can't look at every single mile.

[Zach]

Right.

[Matt Farah]

I check a few points along the road and then I get there and I'll find out that like a three quarter mile section in the middle of nowhere is just fucking gravel.

[Zach]

Sure. Or it's getting resurfaced and it's cut to gravel.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah. And I gotta go around. But I had no. No notes, no changes other than couple of the legs are long and require. And do require coffee. Bathroom stops is what it is. Long by our standards.

[Zach]

Long by our standards. That means long. You mean long by normal standards. No, no, no, no, no.

[Matt Farah]

Long by road and track standards, which is. Any leg more than 90 minutes requires a stop. If you were. If this was fucking gumball, you'd be like pussy.

[Zach]

Yeah.

[Matt Farah]

You know. No, this is.

[Zach]

Get a Catherine.

[Matt Farah]

No, this is our internal rule is 130 and it's like one is like 150, 56. Like you know, it's not. We have to account for.

[Zach]

Makes sense.

[Matt Farah]

The passenger that. That is not as hardcore. Sure as you know somebody.

[Zach]

Ladder constraints are real.

[Matt Farah]

It means there's coffee along the way though. It means if you come drive with us, there will be coffee for after 90 minutes for you like good coffee too. I scout that. Did you have other things that you wanted to just.

[Zach]

Well, you know, we can do. I don't. Because I told all my.

[Matt Farah]

I have one story that I thought was very interesting. It's from Bloomberg, it's from yesterday. There's an inquiry going on into the power flush door handles that they are, you know, problematic, unsafe, particularly Tesla. One of the faults of the cars is they're not opening, you know, if people are getting trapped.

[Zach]

Sorry, specifically people getting out of the car. The door handles are not working inside or from the outside?

[Matt Farah]

Both. If people are trapped in the cars and the exterior door handles are flush and won't pop out, emergency first responders can't get the cars open.

[Zach]

Oh my God.

[Matt Farah]

Locking from the inside. Right? Yeah. And then if the person is unconscious in a burning car, you know, that's it. Right. They do. These cars do have mechanical emergency. Mechanical door releases, provided you have to know where they are from the inside and be conscious like. Like after a crash and fire. But I was thinking about like I hate flush door handles too and I know they have an aerodynamic advantage and if we're looking for tenths of a percentage everywhere we can. I get it. But I was thinking, what car do you. I can think of four offhand just. And this was very quick 30 minutes ago. I'm sure there's. The commenters will have. And if you're watching live, get in the chat. What are the worst flush door handles that you've ever used? Folks, hang on a minute. We gotta take a quick break because mud water is coming in hot. Look, on this podcast I have told you that I struggled with both anxiety and a sensitivity to caffeine. As I discovered back in June, I can't really have caffeine anymore. I feel anxious. In fact, I thought I was like having a heart attack. But I do like that clarity that comes with the morning coffee. And I like the ritual of the morning coffee. That's why I've been loving Mud Water. It's a coffee alternative, but made with cacao, chai, turmeric and adaptogenic mushrooms so you get a warm, focused boost without the jitters or the crash. Just mix it with hot water or milk, froth it up and it's the perfect fall ritual to stay grounded and clear headed. And now there's Nourish, the world's first mental wellness shake. It's like a protein shake but for your brain and body. With 25 grams of clean plant based protein, nootropics, adaptogens and probiotics, it supports focus recovery and digestion without fillers or artificial sugar. Just real cocoa, real vanilla and ingredients that actually do something. If you want to fuel more than just your muscles, Nourish is a game changer. And if you're out and about, Mud Water is now at Target and Sprouts nationwide because pumpkin spice is nice, but focus recovery and gut support? That's even better. Check out Target and Sprouts and switch to cleaner energy atmudwater mudwtr.com to grab your starter kit today. Right now we've got an exclusive deal up to 43% off your entire order plus free shipping and a free rechargeable frother when you use Code tire. That's right, 43% off with code Tire at M U d w t r.com after your purchase they'll ask you how you found them. Please support and let us know. Let them know. Last but certainly not least, Quince is in the house. Those cooler temps are rolling in and as always, Quince is where I'm turning for the fall staples that actually last Cashmere denim boots. The quality holds up and the price still blows me away. Quince has all kinds of staples you'll wear non stop. Like super soft 100% Mongolian cashmere sweaters starting at just 60 bucks. And I have news Zach. They sent me the Mongolian cashmere sweater and it does feel just as nice as the sweater I got from that brand my dad used to work for back in the day. Very high end stuff. 60 bucks for a cashmere sweater is all right. The denim is durable and fits right and the real leather jackets bring that clean classic Edge without the elevated price tag. Quince partners directly with ethical factories, skipping out the middlemen. So you get top tier fabrics and craftsmanship at half the price of similar brands. I have been rocking the linens all summer and I will be rocking that cashmere all fall. You will be seeing it in the videos, believe you me. You can keep it classic cool this fall too. Long lasting staples from Quince are in the house. Go to Quince.com Tire for free shipping on your order and 365 day returns. That's Q-U-I-N-C-E.com Tire for free shipping and 365 day returns. Quince.com Tire now let's take it back to the show. I can think of the four worst that I've used in order of worst. In order of least worst to worst. Worst. Okay, least worse is my Taycan and also the 992 generation 911s.

[Zach]

See, I like those. I mean they sit flush but they still have the lip under it. Right?

[Matt Farah]

They have a lip on.

[Zach]

So you could get. I guess theoretically, I've never used one in an emergency, but at least you can get fingers under the lip.

[Matt Farah]

You can get fingers under the lip. If the car is unlocked and the doors are flush. You can open the door.

[Zach]

Right.

[Matt Farah]

I like those.

[Zach]

I think they look good. They probably are pretty aerodynamic, but they seem to have that little bit of extra functionality and safety versus Tesla's full flush thing.

[Matt Farah]

Right. So they're the least worst.

[Zach]

Right?

[Matt Farah]

And I don't like them because they don't. I don't always open when the car is unlocked and I like approach or touch. Like they're just not reliable.

[Zach]

Okay. Worst ones that leap to mind MP412C because that was like a hidden.

[Matt Farah]

Wow. So that's not even a flush door handle. That's not just a wave, but it.

[Zach]

Was like a capacitive haptic thing added.

[Matt Farah]

To the list that you just topped.

[Zach]

That tops the worst, I think is it Aston that has the one where you have to push on the front of it and then the back, it's like a lever.

[Matt Farah]

So to me, that's not a flush. I mean it is flush. It's not. It's not a power. It doesn't present. So that's okay.

[Zach]

All right.

[Matt Farah]

Same with like the Tesla Model 3 or Model Y. That's a flush, but also not like. I hate that less. The Model S and X have the. Yeah, same as the Mercedes. Hate those on the sls. Boo. Those. Those stink. My worst worst Though was lucid.

[Zach]

Oh yeah, the top of mind for me.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah, yours beat me. The MP412C absolutely beats lucid, but only just.

[Zach]

Yeah, and they don't make the MP4 anymore.

[Matt Farah]

They bailed after one year.

[Zach]

Yeah, it was terrible. So. But let's go to lucid because that's also bad.

[Matt Farah]

The lucid. The problem wasn't so much with the power door handle itself, but with the proximity sensor of the key, which is an example of having, you know, acceptable hardware and totally fucked software. And this shit had the most mind of its own. These cars are possessed.

[Zach]

Here we go. I just wanted a picture for folks, for people watching.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah, these are. They're flush when they're closed and they present out sort of like the Porsches, but you can't get your hand in it. If you. If you walk up to the car and you press it in, it will then. It's supposed to then pop out.

[Zach]

But this and the Tesla, I believe they both have. Is it two posts powered that push it outward. It's like the Lucio is like a manhole cover. It's flush with the surface around it. And then if you were to push that main hole cover up from underneath, then you can grab the handle. There's, you know, two posts supporting it. And your hand goes in between those.

[Matt Farah]

Two posts, but it pushes it out like, look, look at my hand. If my hand is flush and the body, it pushes out like this angles it out. It doesn't the Mercedes and Tesla come like this, like a. Like a barbell, like a. Like a.

[Zach]

They come out evenly. There's an air gap around the whole thing evenly, right?

[Matt Farah]

Yes.

[Zach]

Okay.

[Matt Farah]

So anyway, I'm glad somebody is finally pointing out that this, that there might be problems with this type of design. And you might notice that like the very best Porsches like the st and the GT3Rs don't have it. They save it for weight. They use the old door pull like my Spider has, which is the best door pull of all. And you should always go back to a. Yeah, that's the Tesla one. And also that. That one looks essentially the same as the Mercedes one. Yeah. Has anyone in the chat brought up another bad power door handle or have we covered all the. All the worst ones?

[Zach]

No one has responded yet.

[Matt Farah]

Okay, so I think we've pretty much.

[Zach]

People are working right now.

[Matt Farah]

We've covered that topic. Some of them have things to do around here. Don't you fucking people work?

[Zach]

Don't you about worry. Should we talk about the Leno law at all?

[Matt Farah]

Yeah, the death of the Leno law, pretty much. It was like a. It was a bit of a.

[Zach]

I.

[Matt Farah]

Don'T know necessarily why it died. I just saw that it didn't pass and went.

[Zach]

Well, it didn't pass. So that's. That's part of the story.

[Matt Farah]

But in the beginning, it got. It got whittled down right away. I mean, it went from. It went from all these cars from the certain era to just 35 years old. And that still didn't help with a lot of cars.

[Zach]

But then didn't it also have the restriction of. You had to have certain type of insurance.

[Matt Farah]

You had collector's insurance.

[Zach]

And that reduced the type of car from just old to old and not driven a certain amount of miles per year. And that reduced everything further.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah, because part of it. If you have to have collector's insurance now, we're eliminating all of the workers who are driving old trucks to work. Right. You're also. You're eliminating people who, like, you can't just get collector's insurance on a car, even if it's a collector car.

[Zach]

Like, I can't get it on my car.

[Matt Farah]

Why not?

[Zach]

Because I drive it too often.

[Matt Farah]

Because you drive it too much. Yeah. You also can't. You can now with a garage. But if you didn't have a garage for your car, you could. And it was a collector car, you can't. So, for instance, one of our clients, like, literally has to keep his cars here. Cause he lives in a really nice house, but the house doesn't have a garage. It has a carport. Like a lot of really nice houses in LA that were built during a certain period of time don't have real garages. And so he can't get collector's insurance unless the car's kept here. So that just eliminates. It eliminates all of the people in the lower half of the income bracket who would have benefited from the law anyway.

[Zach]

Yeah, totally. And it happened quick. The law was announced and then the whole change to the collector's insurance thing was announced and it just kept getting reduced and helping fewer and fewer car enthusiasts, really. And then it didn't even pass anyway.

[Matt Farah]

Now it will help zero.

[Zach]

Yeah.

[Matt Farah]

And by the way, if you can insure your collectible car as a collectible car, you should. Like, that's a good thing to do if you qualify. But if you don't have a private garage, you may not qualify. If your collectible car is your daily, you will not qualify. You know?

[Zach]

Know.

[Matt Farah]

But if you can, you should.

[Zach]

Because the thing Is what? Stated value, what do they call it?

[Matt Farah]

Yeah, declared value.

[Zach]

Such a big deal. Yeah, that's really important.

[Matt Farah]

Sometimes there's mileage restrictions, but not usually. It usually is just this can't be your daily driver, right?

[Zach]

Yeah, I should get a two thousand dollar daily.

[Matt Farah]

You can. There's. They don't. There is no rule on what that.

[Zach]

Daily is and there's no mileage limit on the that.

[Matt Farah]

No, you just have to. You like, you have to have a daily and the daily has to be registered with a normal insurance company.

[Zach]

Sure.

[Matt Farah]

Like you'll have to send in a copy of your like progressive insurance bill for your Prius.

[Zach]

That's fine.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah. And it can't be the daily. Can't be a motorcycle. I tried that. I was like, my daily is a Vespa. They're like, sorry. So. So yes, you must have, you must have a daily and then you can get collectors.

[Zach]

Let's see, Hagerty agents guidelines says that mileage of 3,500 miles or less is generally consistent with operating vehicles that have collectible value. Generally consistent is mileage up to 7,500 maybe considered.

[Matt Farah]

Oh, okay. So.

[Zach]

But they don't have a strict mileage limit. Interesting.

[Matt Farah]

Okay, well I'm not, I'm not an agent and I, but, but I, I can say for certain that nobody has ever asked me for an odometer reading ever. Like it's not happened.

[Zach]

I can finally get my geometro.

[Matt Farah]

You can finally realize, oh dude, we can we find you? Like, because I would. Would you. I mean do you want a shit box or do you would, do you, do you actually want a daily?

[Zach]

No, I think if I was gonna get a daily it would, I would get like a volt or like something that's actually useful would make way more sense.

[Matt Farah]

Like it sucks to say, but like an actual Prius.

[Zach]

I've thought about it. I have thought about it.

[Matt Farah]

A volt would work because you could charge it here. Does your, does your complex have chargers? Level two.

[Zach]

They're not public. Like they have their assigned spots. Spots.

[Matt Farah]

So does your garage have power?

[Zach]

Yes, it does. It has a UNO 10.

[Matt Farah]

Oh, so you could 110 a volt? Sure, yeah. You can 110 a volt overnight.

[Zach]

Yeah, but safe. Well, yes I could and then, but then I'd have to park the E46 here.

[Matt Farah]

Sure.

[Zach]

Because I only have one spot.

[Matt Farah]

What do I say? Last episode I don't get free parking here. You do.

[Zach]

Yeah, I'll park it at South Bay.

[Matt Farah]

Pretty soon when we start construction. That's going to be a problem. Oh, there's going to be an extra space squeezed because right now all my extra shit's in the vacant building.

[Zach]

Right.

[Matt Farah]

I've got the world's most expensive parking because I'm paying taxes every year on a vacant building that is more expensive than any parking in the fucking city for my pow and the delica. But pretty soon someone's gonna have to deal with that because that space is going to occupado with construction. Let's go to the people. Oh, do you have more?

[Zach]

I found some Reddit things if we want to do that, but we also were at 40 minutes.

[Matt Farah]

Let's go to the people. The people have a lot to say and we appreciate our patrons very much. As the Aygs say, it's a gosh darn family episode. And if you want to ask questions for the show, if you want to get the show early, if you want to get the show live, if you want to get the show without ads, if you want to get more things, show adjacent. I had an idea, by the way, about things you could do for Patreon. I think we could. Mystery Science Theater 3000 classic car movies, 100 for Patreon. I think that would be a fun thing. How do, how do we do that? Technically, it's like a backing track, fight companion.

[Zach]

What is that like, Like Rogan. Oh, right. Yeah. So you just listen to us and then you watch the movie.

[Matt Farah]

All right. Start. You, you pull up this, this pull up frame one. The Paramount logo is up. Now hit play now.

[Zach]

Exactly. Yeah, yeah. Okay, synchronize, watch.

[Matt Farah]

All right.

[Zach]

That'd be very fun.

[Matt Farah]

I actually do know somebody, an actual human who works at Patreon. I will ask him. I think, I think that would be a fun extra thing to do for the, the Patreon is find some, find like a bunch of, of classic, you know, car movies and just give our take on them. Anyway.

[Zach]

So many. Fast and Furious is.

[Matt Farah]

Well, there's a. Yeah, there's a lot more. Yeah, let's go to the people. And Matt's 2013 polo sweater says if I were going to add a front engine, rear drive car into my fleet, besides the vacation Aston, what modern era car would you consider? Oh, that's, that's actually not super difficult. I really like the Panamera Turbo S E Hybrid. Now that's all wheel drive, but it's a, it's a front engine, rear. I like the Bentley GT speed very much. I can't afford it it. But like that would Be superb, wouldn't it?

[Zach]

Yeah. I feel like if you got the Panamera seems too redundant to the Taycan.

[Matt Farah]

It kind of is.

[Zach]

Yeah.

[Matt Farah]

But Bentley GT speed, if I could afford that, that's what other like awesome front engine, rear drive cars are there right now. Like really awesome. I don't know. New.

[Zach]

Oh, I mean 812.

[Matt Farah]

Oh, I guess, I mean, I guess if we're talking about throughout all of history, the Aston makes the other one. I would really want kind of redundant, which is a 550 or 575. They're effectively interchangeable.

[Zach]

True.

[Matt Farah]

Every once in a while I have a five minute thought of wanting a really early Viper and then I go within 10ft of one and look at the inside and. Or touch something and I'm just like.

[Zach]

We know what car it is. We talked about it two days ago. Am I going to blow up a spot if we. We Mustang. There's a specific. We were talking about Mustangs. We're on the highway.

[Matt Farah]

Oh, oh, yeah, sure, sure. No, I've talked about that before.

[Zach]

All right. I just don't want to drive the value up.

[Matt Farah]

No, there's a, there's a very specific one. But yeah, there's, you know, something from my youth for sure. Yes. To say it's a Mustang variant is not weird. And also, did I, did I tell you about the, the free car I just got?

[Zach]

You told me. You guys told the audience.

[Matt Farah]

I told them. So I got a free car. I'm now jl, which is great. Cars just come. It needs to go to a good home. Hannah's Uncle Phil. Uncle Phil is the husband of Aunt Liz. Aunt Liz is, you know, Aunt Liz.

[Zach]

Aunt Liz. I confused Aunt Liz with Aunt Viv for a second. I was like, oh, my God. The names are from Fresh Prince Miller.

[Matt Farah]

Aunt Liz is Hannah's aunt Liz Rosenberg, who is a legendary Hollywood publicist, who is Cher's publicist. Stevie Nicks is publicist, Michael Bubles publicist and the fucking. She's the fucking queen of Hollywood. And she is literally is the woman who reads the intro and who inspired the bit Coffee Talk on Saturday Night Live. Like, that's Aunt Liz. Wow. Aunt Liz is literally reads the voiceover intro to that on Saturday Night Live. The first time they do that bit, it was a. It was about her, which is hilarious. She was fucking everywhere in the 70s, dude. Anyway, this was Aunt Liz's car.

[Zach]

Car.

[Matt Farah]

She's alive, by the way. The way I just said that made it sound like maybe she isn't. But she's alive and very well, but they don't want this car anymore. So it's a 1995 Mercedes E320 Cabriolet, which is a fucking cool car. It's red, which is the best. That's. Well, that's kind of how I want this to look when I'm done, so. Well, I wish it was as nice as that one. It's got those shitty wheels, you know, the regular E class wheels, the boring wheels. Yeah, it looks like that smallest picture in the world.

[Zach]

You had to choose the worst.

[Matt Farah]

Whatever, it doesn't matter. Find any of that? That one looks fine. It's red. It's red. Black, actually. It's the four seat convertible Mercedes from the mid-90s. These things are notable because. Because in 1994 this was an $86,000 car. In 94, that is. And it does. It doesn't really look like much, does it? I mean today. But these things were ridiculously expensive in the 90s. And when I was a kid at fucking Richie Rich Rye Country Day School, when a mom rolled up in one of these in middle school, it was like, like, oh, the dad up. Like, dad banged the secretary. Now mom.

[Zach]

Yeah, it's $180,000 car today. So it's like a new SL.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah. So it's very expensive car. So I got it for the grand old price of zero.

[Zach]

Can I ask.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah.

[Zach]

The theory of when you see a 1 roll up in this car, you're like, ooh, someone's in trouble.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah.

[Zach]

Was there precedent where.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah. Ah, dude, it was a small school. Shit got round. Shit got round. And not. My parents were not gossips. My mom is very fucking proper. She's not about that. But other people's parents. Fuck. There's crazy stories. Crazy stories. Yeah. So. So anyway, I actually. I haven't seen the car in two years and it was delivered to South Bay a couple days ago and I haven't been down there yet, so I haven't. It's a little scruffy, but when I saw it two years ago, I drove it. I drove it like 10 miles. It ran smooth enough. The tires were old, the paint was tired, but it drove straight. The brakes were fine. It didn't have like, it didn't seem fucked, but it's just like.

[Zach]

Well, they've been driving it for 30 years maintaining.

[Matt Farah]

I don't think they got it brand new, but they've had it for well over 20 years.

[Zach]

Look, one person's affair is another person's discounted car.

[Matt Farah]

The Rosenbergs they know a value when they see one.

[Zach]

Listen, I see you guys got divorced. Do you want to keep this gift? It doesn't remind you of that traumatic, terrible experience. You should sell it.

[Matt Farah]

It was Sonny Bono's. It came from the bonus. No, I didn't. But. So anyway, it's free and. So Zach want a cheap daily driver?

[Zach]

Oh, yeah. Yeah. I'll insure it.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah, dude, if you wanna. I'm pretty sure it'll pass smog.

[Zach]

That's a fun question to try.

[Matt Farah]

I'm pretty sure it does. It didn't have check engine light last time I saw it.

[Zach]

Kind of all you need.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah, it runs fine. It. I. I think it'll pass smog.

[Zach]

But, like, I'll pay the insurance and we can. You can drive around.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah. And then we're gonna. And then we're gonna do something fun with it. I really. After the Manx and this. The Lambo rebuild project, I don't. I don't have the funds for another project. But this thing could sit for another fucking ten years before we figured out. But we need to drive it to shant and get a consult. Like, is this car a good candidate for a project or is it or is it not? And then we figure out what else to do it with it.

[Zach]

Well, what do you think?

[Matt Farah]

Even if I sell it, like, Uncle Phil and Aunt Liz won't be mad.

[Zach]

What do you think would make it a good candidate for it? Like, they basically. Is the question, like, can an engine fit in it?

[Matt Farah]

It's an E320, so the E500 engine will absolutely fit. That's not a question. I mean, it's. It's. The question is, is it worth putting money into this specific car to. To do this, or do I sell it and just buy a better one? If that's. If that's what I wanted to do. Is that project.

[Zach]

But the. But I think that the project would require an E320 no matter what. Right. Convertible.

[Matt Farah]

It would require one of these. And.

[Zach]

I know basically the question is, does this have rust that we don't see?

[Matt Farah]

Yeah. Like, is there something in here that's fucked beyond repair that would make it mathematically stupid to proceed?

[Zach]

Cool.

[Matt Farah]

I don't know.

[Zach]

Yeah.

[Matt Farah]

But at the call. At the price of fucking free. Yeah.

[Zach]

Let's drive it over there.

[Matt Farah]

And. Yeah, Zach needs a daily.

[Zach]

This is working out perfect.

[Matt Farah]

Anyway. Free car. So the. Maybe the Patreon Can. Can.

[Zach]

Everyone's gonna think that I cheated on my wife and I got this car on the divorce. Yeah.

[Matt Farah]

That's that's what it says now.

[Zach]

Yes, right. That's what I'm saying. That's what it says now is like, oof.

[Matt Farah]

Now you picture like a sad, you know, Michael Douglas backing out of the garage in the dusty car.

[Zach]

Yeah. It's like David Duchov, his 911 cab in California. This is kind of like that.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah. When he. Well, when he got. He was driving the Beat 964 and then it got stolen and he filed the insurance claim and. And then he got a nine nine six and then that got stolen and he went Back to a beat 964 because it was recovered.

[Zach]

Yeah.

[Matt Farah]

Okay. Slow mo in DFW. Okay. Oh, shit. This mike is like. This is a fucking money question.

[Zach]

Sort of a finance question.

[Matt Farah]

You shouldn't be asking me money questions. But here we go. My wife and I are in a bind, looking to downsize our car payment. I'm currently in an Expedition as a family hauler, but the attraction of low lease deals on a mach e and ioniq5 are appealing. I would break even trading in the Expedition. I've never leased a vehicle. Would you recommend going the leasing route or buying a used one outright before the tax credit expires or wait till after?

[Zach]

I would recommend go listen to the show we did with John McGuire, the CPA. We talked specifically about leasing versus buying. My gut reaction is like, if you guys are in a tight spot that getting rid of a car payment entirely is probably the best thing and go with something as cheap as possible or much cheaper.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah. I mean, if your trade in and the tax credit can get you really close to even money on a clean 2 to 3 year old used EV, that's better because now you don't have payments, you add equity in the car and you're still well within that federal battery warranty mandate. You might even be able to buy a couple years of extra warranty, which is probably a good idea. If you own the car outright, that's probably good. Good money up front. Yeah. I mean, I think tests have shown that batteries are lasting longer than initially thought.

[Zach]

Yep.

[Matt Farah]

I mean, there's even early Teslas were built like garbage, but there's still a bunch of them on the road for sure. 13, 14 years old. These cars are still running around.

[Zach]

Well, Fenski's video, he turned his 7 year old Tesla Model Y in, but the battery life was still like 86. Yeah, it was like really strong.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah. So I think when they did initial theoretic testing on battery life, they were sort of doing these worst Case scenarios. And in truth, that's not how most people are driving their cars. Even that guy. There was a story recently of a guy with a Mach e that had 225,000 miles on it and it still had like over 80% battery health. I mean, so you know, you buy a 30, 40,000 mile off lease Mach E or Ioniq 5, there's a lot of life probably left in that car.

[Zach]

Yeah.

[Matt Farah]

You know. Yeah. Quadrifoli o face most played out current design trend after the rear light bar.

[Zach]

I still like the rear light bar. I understand it's everywhere now.

[Matt Farah]

But you mean like.

[Zach]

Like the full across?

[Matt Farah]

The full across. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. I didn't know if you meant like aftermarket rear facing LEDs or something. I don't. The sort of squarification of the wheel arches is happening everywhere. I'm not 100% on board with that played out. So played out is like a design where someone did it and then everyone else started doing the same thing.

[Zach]

Right.

[Matt Farah]

Haptics.

[Zach]

Yep. I mean. Yeah. And they're going away, thankfully. Like the fact that Ferrari's moving away and Volkswagen tells everybody to get off that trend.

[Matt Farah]

The weird treatment on the C pillar of SUVs, particularly among Cadillac and Lexuses.

[Zach]

Those sort of plastic valence.

[Matt Farah]

Plastic valence thing they're putting there is really strange.

[Zach]

Similarly is the floating roof. And Nissan started it. I think they started that trend a long time ago where the C pillars black.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah.

[Zach]

And everything else is painted something other color. But now like the lyric kind of does it.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah.

[Zach]

I don't like that. Never did. Yeah.

[Matt Farah]

Justin Gerard Taylor's version says opinion of the most recent gen NSX and how will the market view them in the future? They were ahead of their time powertrain wise. But I'm not sure there'll be a future classic. I liked both generations of the car. I thought the. The Type A or a spec or a. Whatever. Whatever.

[Zach]

Is it a spec?

[Matt Farah]

A spec?

[Zach]

I think so.

[Matt Farah]

That one was unbelievable.

[Zach]

Believable.

[Matt Farah]

They should all have just come like that. And if they did, I think the general public would have received them much better as is. They're very good cars.

[Zach]

They drive.

[Matt Farah]

They drive great.

[Zach]

It's an incredible driving experience.

[Matt Farah]

I don't fit in them that well.

[Zach]

They're. I don't fit in them though. I fit okay, but they're really tight inside. There's nowhere to put anything.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah.

[Zach]

Cup holder thing we've talked about. You know, you have to choose cups or passenger.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah.

[Zach]

There's no frunk.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah.

[Zach]

Right. At all.

[Matt Farah]

There's a tiny rear trunk.

[Zach]

There's a. So you can't really bring much stuff with you and that is a big constraint. But I think they'll age better because there'll be a performance bargain and I think people always look for that. And you know, the people with the most money will go, I'm gonna get a 911 Turbo that's used or something like that. And you go, right, right. Because that does everything. It has plenty of trunk space. NSX gives you very similar speed, front grip. The turn in all that stuff is amazing. And you go, all right. I can't really bring a person with me but it's a good time.

[Matt Farah]

It is, yeah. I mean an NSX is a very close approximation of a 918 other than the engine sound because nothing sounds like that. But like in terms of dynamics it does the same thing really. And it does it very well.

[Zach]

You know what it just reminded me of is the Evora or the Amira. Like also no frunk. But you know, we like them, they're good looking cars and they are rewarding to drive. And the NSX of course is far above those cars in terms of performance.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah, but the Amira has a decent sized rear trunk and a parcel shelf behind the seat.

[Zach]

That's true.

[Matt Farah]

We, we lived out of an Amira for a week.

[Zach]

That's a good point. Yeah.

[Matt Farah]

You couldn't do that.

[Zach]

NSX has no shelf.

[Matt Farah]

I remember I tried to pick up. I was such a dick. I picked up my dad at the airport in the new NSX and he had his head of his suitcase on.

[Zach]

His lap to come back to the house.

[Matt Farah]

He was like, why did you do this?

[Zach]

He's so tall too.

[Matt Farah]

Tim a says used versus used 991.2 GT3 touring and GT3Rs are priced similarly around 230 to 250. Which would you rather own with the current collection you have today?

[Zach]

Are you a cool person, Tim? Are you a fucking bitch? That's my question. Like are you a racing driver at heart and you need everyone to know about it or are you like a dentist out? Are you boring? Are you awesome? Got to be awesome, Tim. All the time. You got to valet your GT3Rs after driving around a city at slow speeds.

[Matt Farah]

Straight pipe it also straight. Definitely tug the paddles a bunch to put it in neutral.

[Zach]

V. Yeah.

[Matt Farah]

All the time. Yeah.

[Zach]

So bad.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah. Aich on speed diet.

[Zach]

Yeah. Touring all day and then give it to one of the shops that can put the ST suspension on oh, that's.

[Matt Farah]

No, that's 992. Yeah. Yeah. Touring this manual. 100%.

[Zach]

Yeah.

[Matt Farah]

Touring all day, every day.

[Zach]

I drove Misha Mansource. I was like, you keep this forever, right?

[Matt Farah]

Yeah.

[Zach]

Yep. Yeah, yeah.

[Matt Farah]

Granny shift. And not double clutching like you should. A car that's universally loved that you don't get and vice versa. A car that's universally hated that you secretly love. I don't secretly love cars. If I like a car, I will just tell you. I don't need to like, who's your down low car? Matt? I never told anybody this, but, like, I really like the Ford escort. Specifically the 94. No, I don't have a secret crush. You would know about it. But like, I was just talking to something about this. The. They were doing a car giveaway. It's not gonna start until January, but. But we're gonna start making the content for it soon, which is a good thing. Content will be done before contest starts. That's very important. But the company that we're working with said that one of the worst giveaways they've ever done was for a Mach E. And it made me think. I was like, I. One of the. One of the best cars I drove last year was the Mach E rally.

[Zach]

Yeah.

[Matt Farah]

And I to this day have not seen a single one on the street. Not fucking one.

[Zach]

Good point. And we are in EV land.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah. And that's really unfortunate. I will go to. I'll die on the hill that the Mach E rally is very good. To the point where if you gave me a gravel lot, I said this to the zinger, guys. If you gave me a gravel lot in a half hour, I'd rather have a Mach E rally than a Dakar. True. Stand by it.

[Zach]

I never drove it. Oh, you drove Dakar.

[Matt Farah]

I drove Dakar. It's fabulous. It's fabulous. It's great. Mach E rallies better on a gravel lot.

[Zach]

I think it was a tough sell. It was expensive. And if you're not into rally driving, you'd get no value from rides. Good. But you have to try to like pitch that to people.

[Matt Farah]

A car that's univers. Especially loved that. You just don't.

[Zach]

The old ass advantage. The, like the 80s ones, I think they look really weird most of the time. I look at them. We've had this discussion before.

[Matt Farah]

The ones that look kind of like Shelby's late 70s into it.

[Zach]

Looks like a better looking Mustang too.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah.

[Zach]

Yeah. Or. And. And there's a couple years in there that I'm like, Okay, I get it. But it was just like the design, the manufacturing, the what, what they could do at the time. And I think I love so many other generations of Vantage so much that for me I just go, this just looks weird. I'd rather just have a shot. Shelby.

[Matt Farah]

A car that's universally loved. That I really don't get. I, I, I get Rotaries. Mazda Rotaries also.

[Zach]

Yeah.

[Matt Farah]

But I've, I've been disappointed by almost every single one I've driven. Maybe there was, there was a one I did drove that was a red one. I think the dude's name was Armin who owned it. And it was really, it was really nice and that I kind of get. And I, I know Dom is nuts and he's doing these, these you know, 18 rotor motors and like, bless his heart, like, I love Rob. Dom. Have fun. But like, people generally think Rotaries are like awesome and I, I have been let down by them.

[Zach]

I'm with you. I sat next to Dom at dinner once and he, he convinced me of the science. And I totally respect and appreciate the engineering of them, but I don't like the way they sound and I don't like the power they make in the stock configurations they were provided. Sure, if you're Rob or someone like you want to tune the thing up a ton, great. But they seem to be fragile a little bit and I just don't like their consumption.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah, they rip through fuel and they don't return the kind of power that should justify that type of fuel consumption. And yeah. Think they're that exciting. They're neat and weird, but like, they don't do it for me at all. I've never had an interest in owning a Rotary Montana LLC CEO. Yeah, buddy. I really put a Montana dig in my story about the Bentayga towing. Forget about a 3 car dream garage. What's the best 3 car nightmare garage you wouldn't wish on your worst enemy? Well, if you want to put somebody in the poor house, you give them an F50, a 959 and Phaeton. And a Phaeton.

[Zach]

Yeah.

[Matt Farah]

Best of luck to you, son.

[Zach]

Yeah. Enjoy your service providers. Yeah, that's a pretty good one. Yeah, I, but one thing, I hate the phrase, I would not wish this on my worst enemy. If I have a worst enemy. Like a real one. Sure, I wish them terrible things. Yeah.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah. But yeah, if you want to bankrupt somebody quickly, that's a good way to do it. Yeah. If you want to fucking tell if someone, if you meet someone who's like, if they're, like, rich or, like, rich rich. If you meet someone by chance, if you are fortunate enough to meet the owner of a Porsche 959 and they tell you that they've owned that car for, like, eight, nine, ten years or more. More. That person is unfathomably rich. Because I was informed last week of the annual service of a 959. And you could.

[Zach]

Annual. Not based on mileage. Just.

[Matt Farah]

No, no, that's not. I was informed by a client of mine of what he spent for the last two years maintaining his 9 5. He could have bought a Ferrari, driven it for 12 months, lit it on fire, no insurance, grab another one, do it again the next year.

[Zach]

Whoa.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah. Yeah. Wow. Yeah. Horrifying. And Jeff Zwart said something similar. Jeff zwart bought a 959 in, like, the 90s when it was a lot of money, but not like it is now, and sold it in, like, you know, 2012, 2013. Something. Jeff will probably text me in 25 minutes and tell him and correct me. Whatever it was, it was during the big bump, and it went from 300 grand to a mil. Something. And he says he doesn't think he actually made a profit on the car. Yeah. Wow. Yeah, he said that. He said. Jeff was like, you know, so he said it in some poetic way, like, the measure of a man is how long he can afford to keep a 95 9.

[Zach]

That's funny.

[Matt Farah]

Which is like, no, thank you, good night, and good luck.

[Zach]

Yeah, yeah. Zuckerberg bought Hawaii, but he's like, I don't 95 9. I don't think so.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah. No break. Paddington Bear says It appears that LC 500 and auto automatic Vantage S examples are approaching similar monetary value. The Lexus will more likely be more reliable in the long term. No. Is the Aston any more of a rewarding experience, or does it offer anything more substantive as a GT car that I may be overlooking? Objectively, no. It's not faster. It's not better at anything. And presumably we're talking about, like, 2013-15, 16 vantages. Right? Probably the old ones. But saying you're driving around in an Aston Martin, and as pretty as the LC500 is, I think the Aston's still prettier. And if you get a nice one, the interior will be beautifully made, the materials would be great, and those are very reliable cars. I mean, LC 500 is gonna have a warranty like it's a fucking Lexus. Like, that's the top of the top. But there are not. Not Nightmare horror stories about late gen vantages. Like there just aren't like they're actually pretty decent cars out. Yeah.

[Zach]

Is it, are they lighter and smaller than the LC500?

[Matt Farah]

Yeah.

[Zach]

So it might be a little bit.

[Matt Farah]

Could be a little more agile maybe. LC 500 drives great. I don't have any complaints about the LC. I have, well, one or two and I wrote them in my review, but nothing that would keep anybody from buying one.

[Zach]

They're both awesome cars. They're both stunning cars. There's just that thing of if someone says, what do you drive? You say, ask them. Aston. All of the Astons with the exception of the signet, get eyebrows. Eyebrows. And if you say Lexus, the eyebrows go down until you go no, no, no, no. It's a cool one because most of their cars are humdrum appliance cars.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah. But I, I, I don't know. I think Vance, those vantages are. If they are depreciating, if they're depreciating it at all, then they are depreciating very slowly. Wow. I just got like really weirdly lightheaded.

[Zach]

You eat food today?

[Matt Farah]

Yeah, but I just got right there. Just a blast of lightheadedness out of, out of absolutely nowhere.

[Zach]

Okay.

[Matt Farah]

Hmm.

[Zach]

Still there.

[Matt Farah]

It was. Boom. And that. It's trickling down now. Wow, that was really strange. Usually the last time that happened, it was actually an earthquake. Earthquake that I had felt. Oh, you know what I mean? I thought it was me, but it was the world.

[Zach]

The world was actually lighter.

[Matt Farah]

That's why I was just looking out the window to see if the cables were moving. But they're not. Wow, that was really strange that that just happened.

[Zach]

You had your sodium levels probably fine.

[Matt Farah]

I ate, I mean I had, I did have a little bit of caffeine, but. Wow, that was, that was just like a, I just got a blast off like a nitrous balloon. Weird. Really, really weird that that just happened. Wow. Okay, back to work. We'll be monitoring that Jeremy Clarkson spoke in class today.

[Zach]

That's so good.

[Matt Farah]

Very, very good. Being like fucking wow. My glasses look like a police fingerprint. That can't hurt. How bad of an idea is a pro touring build? Like my Fox body on a Mercour XR4TI. I can't about it.

[Zach]

It's a great way to use up money. But I mean they, it could be fast. I mean it could be a really cool fun car. But no, very few people will care about it later.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah. And who the fuck knows? Like, are you like, if You're a wrench, you know, and you're going to fab everything up and all that and see what fits and really experiment then. Okay, that's a great idea. But like a Mustang is a pretty. Everything in the Mustang that I did was like a solved problem, pretty much. That's what's great about Mustangs is like someone's already done this before.

[Zach]

There are supermarkets full of Mustang parts essentially. Does that exist for the Merkor?

[Matt Farah]

So it doesn't. And it's not the same as the Escort or the Sierra. So there isn't a one to one for anything. It doesn't mean it can't be done. It doesn't mean it shouldn't be done. I love the idea of doing it, but fucking uncharted waters a little bit.

[Zach]

I mean, I'm here for it and if you go whole hog, I hope to see that thing at Pikes Peak and SEMA and stuff like that. So it's your money and I'm happy to spend it.

[Matt Farah]

Oh, okay, wait. Oh, Chewhound. We already kind of talked about Leno's law, but let's wait. Can you read the rest of the question? Can you scroll down and get cut off on the page? Here in Maryland they changed the requirements for historic tag, which is no emissions and no inspection, from a rolling 20 years to only cars built last second. And of course California recently rejected Leno's law. I share most of your lefty views, but I don't think we can make common sense with anti common cause. Common cause with anti car liberals and lefties. They don't care. Okay? So I don't think this bill was killed by lefties. Lefties didn't kill this bill.

[Zach]

I have no idea. I don't know who lobbied against it or for it really.

[Matt Farah]

I don't think lefties killed this bill and I don't think lefties would kill this bill. This seems like a pret common sense thing. If it was lefties, they wouldn't have cut out the work trucks first. You know what I mean? They wouldn't have said it's only historic vehicles. They would have said it's if it really was like real lefties. I think the reason that Maryland may have gone from a rolling 20 to only cars built in the 20th century is because anything built after 2000, after 1996 in fact, is going to have an OBD port. And so I think that what they're trying to do is go, well, if any of these old cars, it's all these different procedures for Emissions testing them. And so they're really not, it's not about throwing anybody a bone. It's really about simplifying the emissions testing process and probably saving a bunch of money. This is my logical, it's a logical test. My guess is if they eliminate all forms of emissions, emissions testing other than plugging in the OBD2 then they emissions becomes cheaper and more streamlined. Yeah, that's my guess.

[Zach]

I don't know. Tunehound, let us know if you know why, if that's why it happened or somebody else in the comments.

[Matt Farah]

But by the way, I also part of like a thing that I talk about all the time is trying to work with what you were calling lefties and I'm calling urbanists to, to, to, to divorce car enthusiasm from car dependency. Car enthusiasts can be lefties, can be urbanists and, and, and all want, can want all of those things that's different from car dependency. Car dependency is like how we set up our whole cities and it makes it fucking worse for everybody, even for the people that actually want to drive. Right, can you scroll down to please that.

[Zach]

And like, I would add that the places where they were trying to ban the K TR year was that last year, earlier this year they're trying to do the K truck ban. We found out that that was mostly a MOT motivated and funded by a bunch of like insurance agencies and a consortium of that. Yeah, so it wasn't, it did not seem like it was anti car leftist necessarily. It was like there are businesses that will benefit from banning these cool enthusiast, useful things.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah, it's not. And, and yes there are like there are anti cars are leftists but, but they're not. Some of them are misguided. And those are the people I'm trying to talk to. And they're, they're, they're, they're writing about car enthusiasm rather than car dependency. I'm trying to correct them. I'm also trying to correct the other people that are car enthusiasts but are championing car dependency points into saying, hey, I realize you like your car. You don't want the left to come take your car away. No one's coming to fucking take your car away. The left wants to have some parts of cities be walkable. Some parts, not all parts. Some because for people that can't afford a car, people who want to live their life without a car, people who, who enjoy walking to shit and not having to get into a car. And so the left advocates for certain parts of cities to be walkable and have some restrictions on cars going in there, whether that's speed, whether that's congestion fees, whether that's areas that are totally blocked off and turn into pedestrian malls. Almost everywhere they've turned a place into a pedestrian mall. It really hasn't negatively affected traffic. Once the equilibrium happens after a month or so and people realize what's going on. Look at Times Square, look at Union Square. Look at fucking any of these places in small town America. I was just in Grass Valley in Northern California. That's a pretty red place. And they shut their main street down to cars and now it's beautiful outdoor dining street mar. You know farmers markets and all this great stuff and people shopping in the businesses on foot. It's great. And if you want a car you can have a car. You just there's a couple less places to park it and or the parking has changed like so I think both car enthusiasts have to not be so shitty to the leftists thinking their cars are going to get taken away because that's not what we want. And leftists have to not be so shitty to the car enthusiasts because a lot of them agree with with them and they're trying to educate about car dependent infrastructure and urban design and not it's not about taking people's fucking cars away. So anyway it's always the left. Paul says when Singer sells a new car to somebody it has the vin of the 964 that it's built off. Correct. What is the mileage when it's sold? Is it the current mileage on the VIN or does it get a tmu since it's a new odometer it gets a TMU and the odometer is set to zero. And anyone buying a Singer is okay with that. Nobody gives a shit about the donor car that's under there. It's all about what it says on the odometer of this. Most singers are bought and sold with like three digit mileage on them. You know what I mean? But yeah, the title itself would say tmu it just. Or something like that or whatever the equivalent is. Yeah. Myers Skanks opinions on using a sim racing setup at the track to get familiar with the track before hpde? Yeah. Yes. I mean if you. This says using sim. I I, I don't. This is using sim racing setup at the track. I assume you mean driving the track on a sim and not physically using the sim when you're at the track. Right?

[Zach]

I hope so. I think having a sim at the track doesn't make sense. It's much better to just do like, slow lead, follow and more efficient and everything, but physically at the track, that's what they say. But if you can just. If you can drive this track on a sim before you go to the track, that is very helpful.

[Matt Farah]

Yes. Basically, what the sim will do. If you're an amateur, what the sim will do is it'll speed up your learning curve. It'll make those first five or ten laps where you might otherwise be like, where does this turn go? Where does this turn go? Where does this turn go? It gets you past that point. So on lap two, once you've done your first reality check lap and you go, oh, this does match the sim. Lap two, you're off and running. It speeds that up. But if you're going to an HPDE and you are already at the track and you're concerned with knowing the layout, jump into the slowest run group and do a Lead follow for 4, 5, 6, 7, 10, 50, however many laps you feel comfortable.

[Zach]

If you're at the track, there may be markers you can use for breaking zones, turning zones that may not be in the game.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah, that's what happened to me in Vegas. In Vegas, I got to learn the track in the sim. I did like two hours, just round and round and round and round and round in the sim. But the track hadn't been built yet, so the actual. And it was at night, so the visual cues of where to turn were so different because they just had like, default Emirates, whatever ads. And they did a pretty good job, all things considered. But when you're going that fast at night and you're close to the walls, all you can see is turn in at the green, break at the blue. But duh, duh. When this changes from red to white, like that's. And when those colors didn't match the sim, that's a very different proposition. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Into the void. Opinions on the Mitsubishi 3000 GT.

[Zach]

I thought they were the coolest. When I was fourth grade, our teacher, Ms. Cardo, drove one. Not a turbo regular. She also had a red 911. And I was like, this is the coolest lady I've ever seen in my life.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah, if an adult had one, it was cool.

[Zach]

They look like spaceships. It was one of the only cars my dad I remember ever mentioning. He was like, that's cool.

[Matt Farah]

My girlfriend in high school's dad drove one. And it was a final year, which I guess was maybe 97 or 98. It had that big hoop wing and it was that pearl white. It was A really like loaded up one. And he was a, he was a doctor. This was. And he drove it for the entire time I dated this girl. He was a fucking hairy chested, gold chain piece of shit, this guy. So I will forever associate this.

[Zach]

We're run a couple of blood tests. I'm gonna see what's going on. I don't know what he sounds like.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah, close enough.

[Zach]

That's so funny.

[Matt Farah]

I've driven a couple of them. They're. They're, they're neat, but not that impressive.

[Zach]

Are they extremely heavy?

[Matt Farah]

The turbo all wheel drives, they're very heavy. And it's a transverse front wheel drive platform, so there's really only so much you can do with them. I drove one that was modified like pretty tastefully. And I remember it driving like nice. But I think whatever it took him to get there, it wasn't great.

[Zach]

Dude in 92, a VR4 weighed 3,800 pounds. I mean, basically they were 3,800 pounds through their entire life.

[Matt Farah]

And then the spider got even heavier.

[Zach]

Spider was over £4,000. And then, I mean, in the 90s, like nowadays we go, sure, but think of the 90s with what we had with suspension, traction control and tire technology.

[Matt Farah]

It had, it was like sort of GT R. Ish. You could change stuff. I think you could change the torque split or something with it. You could change some stuff. It was, it was a cool thing. And if you had like a mint one today, you know, you. You could win a trophy at Radwood if you had a real nice one.

[Zach]

They look awesome.

[Matt Farah]

You certainly don't see them. I liked the Stealth.

[Zach]

Oh, the Dodge. Dodge Stealth. Yeah.

[Matt Farah]

I thought the Dodge. Yeah. I couldn't believe how much that the change of wing really changed how that car looked. It made it look like a completely different car. Yeah. Look at that. The blue on the top right?

[Zach]

Huh. 2025 Dodge Stealth.

[Matt Farah]

Oh, that's just some fucking AI slop.

[Zach]

That is terrible.

[Matt Farah]

Oh. Promises to be a new three row SUV that looks like a Durango. Yeah. This, see, this is the jam. I think that is a fabulous looking car.

[Zach]

Yeah.

[Matt Farah]

And that, man, that little wing, it really changes the whole shape of it, doesn't it?

[Zach]

It was very cool.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah. Neat cars. Yeah. I would. If you had one, I would smile and give you a thumbs up.

[Zach]

Up. Yeah.

[Matt Farah]

Let's see. Kurt said, I don't actually have. I have any experience. I have no experience with small trucks. I'm sorry. With towing in small trucks. All wheel drive bias says, why is it that wear or Patina on a watch doesn't decrease a watch's value. But the opposite applies for another high value item, cars. Well, that's not entirely true. All wheel drive bias. There's an entire category of car at pebble beach for unrestored cars.

[Zach]

Okay, but what about like if a Rolex is, let's say it's 20 years old. Yeah, 30 years old.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah.

[Zach]

If it has patina on it, how much does the, how much has the value gone down? Because if you have a car that's only 30 years old and it has patina on it and stuff, value is definitely gone down there.

[Matt Farah]

You know, there's a curve right where it goes down and then it goes back up once it becomes like collectible like 25 years later. So it's not that it has patina. Having patina isn't the thing. The thing is that it's never been polished. That's what's important. So if it's never been polished and it's in fucking mint, mint shape, that's the top. Down from that is certain types of patina and never been polished. And then down from that is looks great, has been polished. And then down from that is has been polished a bunch. And the hard edges are all rounded off, especially with gold. Gold is really soft. So you polish it more than like twice and the edges start to go. So in watches you want unpolished. Now ideally you want great condition and unpolished. Second to that you want original, unrestored, unpolished. And then if you talk about patina you really are looking for in a watch, tropical, which is where the black of the dial starts to turn orange, brown, mocha yellow. And it's random how that happens, but more often than not it creates a sort of sunbursty pattern that is also very visually appealing and tells a unique story. Also like if you buy a watch and it's a new Rolex and you are a professional scuba diver and you dive with it every day for 30 years, it'll develop evidence of that. And the value is in the story of this watch later, same thing with cars. A car is a beat up used car car. But if it's with one family for 50 years and it did the Targa Florio and it did this and it did that and this, this scratch is here because Sterling Moss dinged it, now it's worth a fortune, you know, and it's never been touched.

[Zach]

Well that, but that would need partly the famous owner. Whereas a Rolex, I mean a Rolex value would go up with the famous owner for anything.

[Matt Farah]

I mean, not, you know, not every, not every watch can do this. Not every watch, not every watch is made more valuable by the appropriate amount of patina. Some watches are just old and used in junk. But if it starts out as something desirable and then there's a story to create the patina. But the watch is still mechanically good, but has the cosmetic signs of having lived a life that is very valuable. Like, that's why I like my. I'll never polish my green Rolex because it's like, fuck, it's so beat up. But like, it's original. It's like, tells the story. So that's, that's important to people. Two more and then we're calling the game Elon's Cadillac Coupe Devil. Okay, I see what you're, what you're doing. Coup. I like coup de evil. Coupe Devil is good.

[Zach]

That's a good badge to put on a really fast Coupe DeVille.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah, or like a SEMA build that's like, that's like a, that's a SEMA build number. Best Reverse depreciation special. Wait, wait, wait. Reverse depreciation special. You hit the Powerball and you don't want your neighbors to know. You go and buy something that looks like it costs a lot less than it actually did, but is actually a good example. That's where you buy little Alfa Romeos and Lancias from like the 60s. They just look like little lightweight sports cars. If you saw like a Lancia Aurelius, you know, it probably looks like it costs 100 grand and it's really like a mill five or like an alcoholic's car.

[Zach]

Yeah, you could be like, oh, I had, you know, we modified it and did the interior a little bit. But people don't know what's really been done.

[Matt Farah]

I mean, I think the best example actually now I think about it, is the Singer Turbo in a dark color, which is what these people are buying them for. These, the people who buy Maz told me that the people that are buying Singer Turbos do not want to be single seen driving around in a high end exotic car like a Ferrari or a Lambo or anything like that. That's known to be that. But to the untrained eye, a black or silver or whatever, it just sort of looks like an old 911. They don't know what they're looking at. And, and you're, you're rolling around in a mill five. And. And most people are not understanding what that is.

[Zach]

Yeah.

[Matt Farah]

Remember the guy, Remember he drove the HP Golf R. Yeah. And the guy was like the foreman on a construction site and didn't want anyone to know that he was like rolling and it had a 750 horsepower and ran fucking nines. That thing was awesome.

[Zach]

Yeah. That's a lot of money shoved into that. Yeah.

[Matt Farah]

You build sleepers? You just build all these sleepers? Yeah. Zach Clap my ass.

[Zach]

Oh, my ass, man.

[Matt Farah]

I like Zach Clan. Like Zach Klansman.

[Zach]

Like the black.

[Matt Farah]

Funny. Complete my transition to rear wheel drive. Is that my leatherman? He's. It's What I'm trans F2R.

[Zach]

F2R.

[Matt Farah]

I. My birth. My birth certificate says F, but I.

[Zach]

Identify as R. Sounds like my Fiesta ST from Forza. Like, well, it started as front wheel.

[Matt Farah]

Drive and now it's all not to make fun of the trans community. That shit is legit. But transition to rear wheel drive is a funny term. I had a Fiesta st, now I have a GR Corolla and now I'm looking to get a new proper rear drive performance car. Daily driver, southeast Michigan, 60,000 bucks looking at a CT4 Blackwing. It's a great choice.

[Zach]

Great choice.

[Matt Farah]

That is a great choice. I really do like that. It's funny that the GR Corolla can move the power to the back, so you're actually seamlessly transitioning through the equipment gradient through the all wheel drive. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Zach]

I would also. I always throw this out, but Chevy ss just because it's a great car and it sounds better than the CT4 Blackwing. If you need a new car though, I guess.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah. Daily driver. Yeah, Daily driver in Michigan. I mean, you could get a Camaro ZL1 also and. And have a little better engine sound and that same mag ride, same kind of steering feel on track. Same same. Same vibe. On track. Really is a black wing.

[Zach]

Yeah. M2. But while the new one's gonna be more expensive. New one, right?

[Matt Farah]

A new one. A new one would be in the 70s. Yeah.

[Zach]

Yeah.

[Matt Farah]

I mean, I like your thought though. CT4 Blackwing is a good place to.

[Zach]

Be a good car.

[Matt Farah]

And you're in southeast Michigan and they're gonna. Your neighbors are gonna like you. Also that rolling Merca, last one and then we're out of here. Four cylinders is enough, Zach. Your car spontaneously combusts tomorrow. What are you replacing it with? A 1995 E320.

[Zach]

Well, yeah. What's funny is, you know, my insurance would probably give me eight grand because that's. It's an old BMW, right? Truly. Yeah.

[Matt Farah]

That's the problem with regular insurance.

[Zach]

That is the problem with regular insurance. So if I got that, you know, pull money out of my savings. Oh, I would get. I'd buy a Terminator.

[Matt Farah]

Oh, yeah, we talked about that the other day.

[Zach]

I'd buy a Terminator. I've always wanted one. And I would have that for like a year and do some parts.

[Matt Farah]

Must make wine.

[Zach]

I would do that.

[Matt Farah]

I make wine.

[Zach]

That is.

[Matt Farah]

That'd be a good license plate. I make wine. Yeah, good one. I tell you officially, I got radial. I got centered black plate, yellow. The license plate, radial. Can't believe it was available.

[Zach]

I'm not surprised.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah, it's.

[Zach]

You and a helicopter tech somewhere.

[Matt Farah]

Yeah, yeah, I figured. I figured, like, some vintage air aircraft person in this state would have had it.

[Zach]

Some older gentleman's gonna see you one day and be like, you're the one who got it.

[Matt Farah]

I was at the. At a. At the Manx Cars and Coffee a couple weeks ago, and there's a kid named Cooper who bought. Just bought a Manx off Facebook marketplace for like 12,000 bucks, which is a fucking great life hack. He did the thing that I did at a smaller scale. I bought my Manx to get into the fucking Pagani club on the cheap, and he bought this cheap fucking shitter Manx to get in the Manx club on the cheap. And he parked his shit right next to me, right? And then Hannah was like, what's this cable hanging down from your front axle? He was like, I gotta look at that.

[Zach]

Yeah, it'll be fine. It's just a power steering.

[Matt Farah]

The reason I brought it up is he got the license plate mnx, which was available just straight up. Pretty good, pretty cool. Shout out to all you Dodge Stealth owners out there. We dedicate this episode. Do you. If you're a patron who owns a Dodge Stealth, hit me up. I got a sticker for you. I need to give away some more swag. I have a lot of pebble beach swag, I think.

[Zach]

Yeah, me too.

[Matt Farah]

I think maybe next episode I'm going to do a Pebble beach swag giveaway. We just have to figure out what. Who's going to get it. It's a lot of fucking swag.

[Zach]

Okay.

[Matt Farah]

Someone's going to. Someone's going to be able to convince their close family members. Like, someone will be able to literally gaslight their wife. Like, no, we really, really were there.

[Zach]

Yeah, we went.

[Matt Farah]

You forgot. Wow. The fuck?

[Zach]

Or they could tell everyone that they won the lottery and they worked.

[Matt Farah]

They lived beach Gaslight Prize Package America. All right, bye. You guys talk soon.