← The Smoking Tire
The Smoking Tire
Used EV Experiment; Hoovie's Veyron; AI Matt?; Spyder update
01:38:42
Should Matt buy a used EV? ; Rivian's screen; We need more buttons; why are people after the Kei truck? Questions from Patreon members include: Trade the Countach for a Veyron? Why are people after the Kei truck? Do "worse" tires make a car better? Update on the Nilu 27 hypercar Should I trade my C5 Corvette for a BRZ/GR86? Is a used Maserati Ghibli Trofeo a good idea? Integra Type-S vs Chevy SS...for snow! Best $25,000 commuter Best blue collar watch Why Matt doesn't want a Mustang GT350 anymore? And more! Recorded December 18, 2024 Exclusive $35-off Carver Mat at https://www.AuraFrames.com. Use code TIRE at checkout to save! Go to https://www.NordVPN.com/tst and use code TST to get a 2-year plan plus 4 additional months with a huge discount. New merch! Grab a shirt or hoodie and support us! https://thesmokingtireshop.com/ Use Off The Record! and ALWAYS fight your tickets! Enter code TSTPOD for a 10% discount on your first case o...
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- [00:00]
Matt Farah
Up everybody. Welcome to the Smoking Tire Podcast. This episode, like all of them, brought to you by off the Record. We love off the Record. I got three more emails this week from people who used off the Record to save their little backsides in a court of law. Off the Record is a service that were you to get a moving violation, big or small, connects you with an attorney in the jurisdiction where you got that ticket. Then they go to work on your behalf and they do everything they can to get those points off your record or not on it in the first place. Really? Man, they cover almost all of the US and they have an unbelievable track record of getting people out of little sticky situations with their cars. Download the app and use code TSTPOD for 10% off all legal services with off the Record. And if you prefer the web, go to offtherecord.com TST. You'll get that same 10% off all legal services booked through off the Record Don't Plead Guilty. This in fact I swear. I've used off the Record a whole bunch of times. I swear it is easier, faster, more efficient and cheaper and with much better outcomes to use off the Record than just to plead guilty. Everything about getting a ticket is improved with off the record. Use code TSTpod on the app or offtherecord.com TST on the web. We love you off the Record. Thank you for sponsoring our little program here. And I are in the studio instead of off roading the Rivian because wind conditions canceled that and we'll have to do it another day. So we're talking about all kind of stuff. We're talking about why touchscreens and EVs are a turnoff to people that are into tactile machinery and goods. We're talking about a company that wants me to outsource myself to AI. What? We're talking about some new events I'm doing with Road and Track. We have an update on my Porsche Boxster and I am strongly considering a fun new experiment once the Bentley project ends. It's a cruise show. Welcome to the Smoking Tire Podcast. And I really do like my stone paper even though I can't use the fancy fountain pens on it anymore.
- [02:33]
Zach Klapman
How do you feel about spiral notebooks?
- [02:35]
Matt Farah
Nah, I don't like.
- [02:37]
Zach Klapman
I've seen these are just custom exterior.
- [02:39]
Matt Farah
I know people who love a spiral because they like to be able to tear a page out. I'm not much of a tear a page outer one and I really like the sort of semi luxury feeling of a leatherette type cover.
- [02:53]
Zach Klapman
Yeah, I get it.
- [02:54]
Matt Farah
The texture of the shit that's in my hands all the time. It could be a phone, a pen, a laptop, a steering wheel, a guitar, you know, a keyboard, a fucking tennis racket or a golf club or anything that's in my hands all the time. The way it feels in my hands is extremely important to me.
- [03:15]
Zach Klapman
Yeah, for sure.
- [03:16]
Matt Farah
Not so much other. I mean, other people, for sure. I mean, there's the mechanical keyboard freaks, you know, and there's, like, people who, you know, pay all kinds of money to have custom stuff made around their hands. You know, guns or fucking golf grips or whatever. But notebooks is an important one to me.
- [03:35]
Zach Klapman
Makes sense. But you use yours every day. All the time.
- [03:38]
Matt Farah
All day, every day.
- [03:39]
Zach Klapman
And I think. And also, like, you're very into tactile things like watches and cars. Like, you. That part of your brain is developed because of paying attention to those types of things.
- [03:49]
Matt Farah
Yeah.
- [03:49]
Zach Klapman
So I think you notice things other people might not, which I was having.
- [03:52]
Matt Farah
I had a thought the other day about, like. Because I went on Spike's podcast, and we spent a lot of it talking about EVs and Rivian and stuff like that, because Spike had the same red Rivian that we had right before, the day before we got it. And, you know, they asked what I thought, and I was a bit of a fucking Debbie downer about EV SUVs. And. And part. You know, the. The, you know, part of it was that I think things are getting too big and too heavy, and it's frustrating because there's a lot of things I really like about this Rivian. I don't like the size of it. I don't like the weight of it, and I don't like that everything else has to be so built up to handle the size and the weight of it. So I think this company, when we get to that R3 thing, that'll be a hell of a car. And we have a full review of the R1s coming. But I felt so down on EVs, on electric cars and touchscreens. And I was like, God, why? I was trying to think, is there something wrong with me? People seem to be excited about. About stuff like this. Like, are they. I mean, I don't. I don't know. Like, I think the general buying public is. The general buying public sees touchscreens as good.
- [05:07]
Zach Klapman
I don't know. I think. But there's that pushback in Europe. Like, they're starting to add regulations to remove. Add more buttons back in and remove touchscreens. Like, the Science is backing up what we think subjectively. And maybe I would be curious to talk to someone in the public who has bought back to back cars over, let's say five years that have touchscreens. Because I think when people initially see them, they get excited because we go, ooh, fancy. It's a screen. It's like my computer, the future. And then when they actually use it, do they actually like it more than having some buttons for things?
- [05:37]
Matt Farah
Yeah, I don't. And I really don't like all touch screen. And I was thinking about this because I was like, what is it about this that I don't like? It's not just that it's more distracting than buttons. And I was really thinking about the tactile feel of cars, watches, sailing machinery, ropes, pulleys, you know, gears, levers, and how much I enjoy all of that. And how the car being a digital device first and a tactile thing second is just such a disappointing thing from someone who loves tactile things. Right. That's, I think what's like what I want is an ineos, but that isn't that far into old school cosplaying. Like give me the buttons and the little screen that just does the basics. But like give me the, the, the, the ride quality of the Rivian in comfort mode. Just me just make it a fucking toggle. High, medium, low. Like the same suspension just controlled by a fucking lever. Like it could be done, it could totally be done. It would just cost more money, right?
- [06:53]
Zach Klapman
It would cost. Yeah, that's exactly it. Because they have, they have so much of the control is in the computer.
- [06:57]
Matt Farah
Yeah.
- [06:57]
Zach Klapman
And it's easier to control that with, you know, control the ride system. I think with a computer talking to it instead of having a switch do it. Or maybe it's more nuanced, I don't know.
- [07:07]
Matt Farah
Yeah. You know, we really need to fucking get rid of is computer controlled vents.
- [07:11]
Zach Klapman
That is super duper.
- [07:12]
Matt Farah
You have to use a touchscreen to adjust your vents.
- [07:14]
Zach Klapman
That is so stupid.
- [07:15]
Matt Farah
God, what an awful, awful.
- [07:17]
Zach Klapman
What a slow thing to do. And there's no way this is my assumption. The thing I said about the toggle switches, it's probably just as simple to do that, but adding a vent control by a motor. So now every vent has a motor versus the, I mean the plastic things break after 15 years.
- [07:36]
Matt Farah
Yeah.
- [07:37]
Zach Klapman
And that's very simple.
- [07:38]
Matt Farah
Yeah.
- [07:38]
Zach Klapman
How long are those motors going to last? And it's, it's not. And it's not providing, in my opinion a helpful thing that Is more complicated. Yes, but I like the effect or the result. Yeah, it's worse in every way.
- [07:51]
Matt Farah
So 100%. So there's this weird dichotomy happening in my head of missing tactile things missing, you know, hoping that maybe the industry will come back towards it being sort of upset at the fact that if you want tactile things, you have to now buy an ultra luxury car.
- [08:09]
Zach Klapman
Right.
- [08:11]
Matt Farah
You know, you really can't. You have to buy either like a real cheap car, like a fairly terrible car or a Pagani, you know, or something that's a million dollars. Or start maybe with a Bentley. You have to get Bentley 4, 3, $400,000 to get levers and real buttons for stuff.
- [08:30]
Zach Klapman
Yeah, I'm just, I'm thinking about how like an invention, something is invented and then over a long enough timeline, it goes from being rare and expensive to mass produced cheaper. And then there are people that long for the way it used to be built.
- [08:50]
Matt Farah
Record players. Record players, film cameras, whatever. Yeah.
- [08:53]
Zach Klapman
And so if you want, if you want the wood gun.
- [08:56]
Matt Farah
Yeah.
- [08:56]
Zach Klapman
You gotta spend more money to get that versus getting something that's made of plastic.
- [08:59]
Matt Farah
Dude. There are very few low income people shooting film. Right. Of course. Fucking. But. And, and you know, it's a, it's a luxury to shoot film using a mechanical camera. And, and, and that's kind of like. It's not a perfect analogy because, you know, for most people digital photography is actually better than film. But it's that analog process becoming the luxury that records, you know, same thing. Making coffee, everybody's got an espresso, you know, or everyone's got.
- [09:42]
Zach Klapman
They're not good.
- [09:43]
Matt Farah
But if you really care about coffee, you're doing the analog thing.
- [09:47]
Zach Klapman
Right.
- [09:47]
Matt Farah
You know, it's that kind of thing. But it's just, it's a bummer that it's one thing. It's like, all right, you want 1000 horsepower, it should be expensive. You want whale penis fucking, it should be expensive. But like it should, shouldn't be eight and nine figure incomes and net worths to get tactile feeling in your cars. That shouldn't be the way that the world goes.
- [10:14]
Zach Klapman
Now another question would be ask someone who's 16 or 22 if they are more into a car that has tactile feeling.
- [10:21]
Matt Farah
Habibi. I had shout out to him a conversation yesterday with my nephew Cole, who is 16 and now has a learner's permit. And Cole's parents are cool, nice, great family. You know them?
- [10:36]
Zach Klapman
Yep.
- [10:37]
Matt Farah
And Cole hits me up as One does with their cool uncle and says, I want a K truck. Tell me about them. So he is, you know, he's on his phone a lot. He's got an Apple watch and he, he plays video games. And he, he is a digital fucking youth. Right? Fully integrated digital youth. You know, we talk about Twitch and we talk about YouTube and we talk about all the different stuff that's going on in the online world much more than we talk about cars. But he wants a K truck. And I pretty much had to talk him out of it because I said, look, these things are fucking rad. Good for you for liking this. And I said, you know, when you and your dad. I said they're cheap enough that like get a regular car, you know, just to get some whatever car to use as a car. But like maybe you and your dad want to buy one as like a fuck around, you know, customize it or wrench on it because he expressed interest in wrenching. So granted, sample size of 1. But I just happened to have had this phone call yesterday and he had no interest. He wanted a tiny little efficient, cute Japanese truck that by the way, because he lives in Georgia, his state has explicitly banned.
- [12:04]
Zach Klapman
Have you banned them?
- [12:05]
Matt Farah
He lives in one of the states that has banned K trucks.
- [12:08]
Zach Klapman
Wow.
- [12:09]
Matt Farah
Fucking. Because they say they're unsafe on the highway.
- [12:12]
Zach Klapman
Yeah.
- [12:13]
Matt Farah
Which. But 25 years exempt. They're exempt from all the regulations. They've been singled out by politicians. I think this is sort of a new. I mean, here's possible conspiracy theory incoming. I think this is like a new sort of side sphere of the chicken tax that happened in the 80s. In the 80s we had this. The Japanese came out with these very fuel efficient pickup trucks. The original 4Runner and became the Tacoma and then the front, the hardware body. People wanted those. The Americans couldn't compete and so they changed the tax code to essentially favor those trucks. This is now the rule that is abused so that realtors can write off their fucking G wagons. Right. It's the over 6,000 pound gross vehicle weight. The sort of persecution of K trucks specifically. They're not saying all JDM imported vehicles. They're saying K trucks. Now, a K truck may be more dangerous to the driver because it doesn't have safety features, but it's certainly less dangerous in a liability perspective to whatever you hit than almost any other modern car on the road.
- [13:23]
Zach Klapman
Yeah, but I don't know if that's how they measured. I think because we looked up once who was behind the lobbying effort and one of the biggest donors Was like an insurance consortium. So it may be, and this would be my speculation, it may be that either the cost to repair them is like your Delica, where it's like this weird car. If it gets hit, it's going to explode. Not explode. It's going to be very damaged. And to repair it, this weird foreign car is going to be too expensive and the insurance companies don't want to deal with it. Or if someone's driving it, like Cole or someone else, if they get an accident, they could be very hurt versus another passenger vehicle. But it also may benefit, you know, domestic truck producers who make small pickup trucks and don't want money going to outside competitors.
- [14:06]
Matt Farah
Yeah, I mean, it's probably a small enough volume that it's not, you know, Ford doesn't give a shit. You know, the manufacturers don't care. You're talking about a thousand K trucks a year or something. The insurance thing, I don't think that necessarily tracks because the number of people that have been in crashes and. Or died in K trucks can't be that high. It just. It just can't.
- [14:33]
Zach Klapman
It's probably a very small number, but, I mean, I could find it. Again, I'm not.
- [14:39]
Matt Farah
There is an insurance.
- [14:40]
Zach Klapman
The primary donor for that lobbying effort was these insurance things. And so I wonder if it's maybe because we're enthusiasts. It smells like something else is going on.
- [14:50]
Matt Farah
Right. But even if it is an insurance issue, you could say, as an insurance company, we refuse to cover these.
- [14:57]
Zach Klapman
True.
- [14:59]
Matt Farah
That's fucking capitalism.
- [15:00]
Zach Klapman
Yeah.
- [15:01]
Matt Farah
You can choose how and who to offer your services to. You don't need to get the government to ban them, to not just ban them, but they were revoking people's registrations for existing owners.
- [15:13]
Zach Klapman
It does seem extreme.
- [15:14]
Matt Farah
It does. So originally when Cole called me, it was, I'm gonna get a K truck. How do I register it in Georgia? And I was like, well, your Uncle Matt has a fucking house in South Carolina. We could talk right across the border. Right. Come over for dinner.
- [15:26]
Zach Klapman
Everyone can register everything there.
- [15:30]
Matt Farah
But, yeah, I mean, it's. I. I think there are a lot. I mean, look, every racetrack, country club, I go to all of them. Monticello, the one in my concourse. Club in Miami, the Thermal Club. You know what? These guys have fleets of, like, Honda Actys and little K trucks and vans. They've got like a 10 pack of them that are just running all over the property doing, you know, basic utility work. Like, you know, I'm not saying that if you're a contractor or a fucking Farmer that you shouldn't use a pickup truck because that's the best tool for the job. But a lot of times these little K trucks have as close as makes no difference the same size bed as a half ton truck.
- [16:19]
Zach Klapman
Yeah.
- [16:20]
Matt Farah
Smaller footprint and they, you know, and they get you know, 50 miles a gallon and they last a thousand years and they don't weigh anything and they don't go through consumables. And so.
- [16:34]
Zach Klapman
This is insurance article from the drive from a few months ago.
- [16:38]
Matt Farah
But basically yeah, I remember looking at this.
- [16:40]
Zach Klapman
This is, here's the American association of Motor Vehicle Administrators is the organization behind the effort to get these banned sighting as you said. I mean their quote was like these. It was amazing. These vehicles pose an immediate threat to public safety.
- [16:57]
Matt Farah
They absolutely do not.
- [17:00]
Zach Klapman
Especially when you. Aaa, Accenture, Clear. Amazon.
- [17:05]
Matt Farah
Yeah.
- [17:05]
Zach Klapman
I mean Apple, there's a bunch of them but it's a bunch of insurance companies. Carvana. I mean it's a huge, a lot of donors.
- [17:13]
Matt Farah
I mean look, there's probably a bunch of people in this giant list of 100 something companies that are for one reason or another mildly annoyed by K trucks.
- [17:24]
Zach Klapman
Right.
- [17:25]
Matt Farah
AAA doesn't want to register them, blah blah blah. Doesn't want to insure them. Fucking whatever chain of body shops is on here doesn't want to repair them. And they, and you know, whatever OEM is on there is going. We don't really want people finding out that cheap.
- [17:41]
Zach Klapman
No OEMs donate.
- [17:42]
Matt Farah
Okay.
- [17:42]
Zach Klapman
So I was, I was wrong on that. All right. But you make a great point. Like why the big stink about it? It just, it seems like it's probably.
- [17:50]
Matt Farah
Not a big stink. It's probably a tiny little stink from five or six of these companies members. Someone writes a petition, they go hey everybody sign this. And they sign it, you know, and then.
- [18:00]
Zach Klapman
Unnecessary.
- [18:01]
Matt Farah
It's fucking stupid.
- [18:02]
Zach Klapman
Yeah.
- [18:03]
Matt Farah
Who was a K truck bothering? That's insane. It's a tiny little fucking thing.
- [18:07]
Zach Klapman
Especially I mean if you drive a 60s muscle car. Like you do not want to get an accident in that vehicle or any, any old cab over truck.
- [18:16]
Matt Farah
Sure.
- [18:16]
Zach Klapman
I mean you know, you're going, you might be going through that windshield. Like I don't know if they're less or more safe than that.
- [18:21]
Matt Farah
There are endless types of vehicles that are on the road that are much more dangerous to their drivers or operators and also to the general public outside of the. You know, I'm a firm believer that if what you're doing on the road is affecting others outside of your car, then now let's regulate it if it's what's happening inside your car. And I understand why seat belt laws are a thing. You don't want people dying. But like. But other than seatbelt law, which I don't buckle my seat because seatbelt because it's the law. I do it because the fucking thing chimes at me. And because it's the right thing to do. Because you might die. But, like, whatever's happening inside the car, if that doesn't bother anything outside the car, I think it should be pretty much fair game.
- [19:10]
Zach Klapman
I was away last weekend, as you know, and I was riding in a car with a bunch of friends. And one of our friends, I looked over and saw his seatbelt wasn't on in the backseat. And I was like, why aren't you wearing your seatbelt? And he's just like, if it's my time, it's my time. And I was like, absolutely not. And this was a, like, smart family guy, a really kind person. And I was like, bro, seat belts will literally save your life. That will determine the difference. And I was like, also, if we get hit and you fly into me, I'll be really upset.
- [19:45]
Matt Farah
You were a 200 pound projectile.
- [19:47]
Zach Klapman
He is a 210 pound projectile.
- [19:49]
Matt Farah
Yeah, that's not good. A girl I dated in high school. Guys, gotta take a quick break because today's episode is brought to you by NordVPN. Oh, boy, do I love NordVPN. And I'm so happy to have them back online. Privacy and security has never been more important. And the details of what you do on the Internet and where you're doing it from need to be yours alone. I wish there was a VPN for connected cars, actually, but at least we have one for our phones, our mobile digital devices and computers. You've gotta be on a VPN when using the Internet. And NORD is the best one. It's more than just the VPN itself. It's a complete system to keep your data on the Internet protected. NORD comes with features like Threat Protection Pro, which offers advanced protection from malware, phishing scams and other online threats. Are you downloading a file? Threat Protection Pro checks if it's malware clicking a link. Threat Protection Pro blocks websites that are fake malicious to use for phishing, fraud or scams. Annoyed by popups constantly flooding your screen, Threat Protection Pro blocks ads for a smooth browsing experience. Online shopping. You shop online. So do we all. Don't pretend you don't. Falling for a fake shopping scam designed to mimic legitimate outlets there's plenty of websites luring in the unwary with promises of discounts or rare items. But guess what? Regular VPNs don't protect you against fake web stores, but Threat Protection Pro does. In fact, NordVPN was ranked third in AV Comparatives fake shop detection test in 2024, beating many other premium cybersecurity tools. So go to HTTPs or hit the link in the description, but also HTTPs nordvpn.com TST that's nordvpn.com Tst and then use code TST to get a two year plan plus four additional months with a huge discount. It's risk free with Nord's 30 day money back guarantee. That's code TST@NordVPN.com TST 30 day money back guarantee. And thank you to NORDVPN for sponsoring today's episode. Let's get back to. It was incredibly smart. She went to the school in New York City called Stuyvesant that was like the school for geniuses. It was like that was that school. And she was a genius within that. She was like at that time, one of the smartest people I'd ever met. She wouldn't wear a seatbelt in the car. And I asked her why and it was because her father had gotten into a car accident. He didn't wear his seatbelt either. And in this one particular case got into an accident and had he been wearing his seatbelt, it could have trapped him.
- [22:48]
Zach Klapman
Was he fongio?
- [22:50]
Matt Farah
Yeah. I mean, basically, you know, kind of. Yeah. It didn't make any sense. But to her, that, I mean, and think about as humans, how many times a one anecdote, even if it goes well against the data will inform your behavior. Right. I mean, I use this argument all the time. People get mad. The data says, you know, if you keep a gun in your house, the likelihood of that gun killing somebody goes way up.
- [23:14]
Zach Klapman
True.
- [23:15]
Matt Farah
And there, yes. There are other potential trade offs of that. Right. If, if there is a home invasion, you don't have a gun. Versus you do. But if you live with somebody that maybe suffers from depression, that could go a. Or a child or what? That could go a whole other fucking number of ways in which someone winds up hurt or dead.
- [23:34]
Zach Klapman
Right.
- [23:34]
Matt Farah
That's what the math says will happen. Versus, oh well, my uncle's friend's cousin. There was a, there was a home invasion or. Yeah, wants a K truck. Yeah, exactly, exactly. My math on that K truck thing is deeply incomplete.
- [23:48]
Zach Klapman
No, but I. But look, this woman, young woman, Had a traumatic experience which was gonna lodge in her brain.
- [23:53]
Matt Farah
Right.
- [23:54]
Zach Klapman
And it worked out for her dad. And to get someone to change that kind of their mind about something like that is gonna be really hard.
- [24:01]
Matt Farah
Same thing with, like, you know, Covid vaccines. Like, yes, a couple of people, percentage wise, did have, like, adverse reactions to that and other vaccines. The math says your odds are much better against Covid with the vaccines. I'm playing the math on that one. I'm playing the math on not keeping a gun in my house. I'm playing the math on what I do in the car. So other people, I try to do it. And obviously, as a human, a traumatic or otherwise poignant experience, personal, could have informed my opinion about my behavior. But I try, I really try to let the math inform how I handle those types of things.
- [24:47]
Zach Klapman
Yeah, I think you're fortunate if you've never had a situation like she had where it's so poignant and so traumatic that you. I think that allows, you know, a person to, like, look at the data a little bit more objectively.
- [25:00]
Matt Farah
Yeah, I had, right after college, I had a friend die who wasn't wearing a seatbelt and was driving a 1992 Ford Thunderbird down the FDR Drive in New York City in the rain and hit a stopped car. And you talk about a 200 pound projectile. Yeah, if this dude was 310, that would be a compliment. I mean, he was in the. In the low threes and ended up about 80ft from his car.
- [25:31]
Zach Klapman
Yeah, that's. That's the thing. Like, terrible.
- [25:34]
Matt Farah
It was absolutely terrible.
- [25:35]
Zach Klapman
I mean, if you want to go online, you can watch like a crash, crash test dummy footage because you think people will be like, well, I'm strong, I can hold myself in or just hit the wheel. It's like. No, no. Like, I was shocked the first time I watched it on YouTube. And the way that like, granted, it's a dummy, but like the person. The dummy just folded. Yeah, it's path of least resistance. You are water going down the creek and around the rocks. And it's like over the wheel, through the dashboard and out. Javelin. Yeah, out. Yeah, I did have a fun perspective on that same trip. I got to ride with myself and hear myself talk.
- [26:06]
Matt Farah
Wait, I'm sorry.
- [26:07]
Zach Klapman
Exactly. You'll get it in a second. So my. My buddy. My buddy Michelle was borrowing his friends 3:30.
- [26:12]
Matt Farah
You have a ghost car?
- [26:14]
Zach Klapman
No, he's borrowing his friends. 335. And he's very excited about it. He wanted to take me for a ride and show me this, you know, turbocharged car that's tuned up great. So we hop in the car to go pick up dinner and we're driving and I see check engine lights turn on. And I'm like, michelle, like, what's up with these check engine lights? And he was like, it's nothing. And he started just saying excuses and he's like, and look, it still feels fine. And then another thing turned, another light turned on. And I was like, dude, now we have a transmission light. He's like, yeah, but it's fine. It's because of the tune. And I'm sitting there going, I'm watching myself justify BMW ownership. I mean, I know I've seen other friends do it, but I was in the car watching it happen in real time. I felt like Sarah, like, this is what she gets to listen to.
- [26:52]
Matt Farah
That's really funny. I want to talk about seeing yourself, but real quick, just an update. I talked last cruise show about my gear indicator in the Porsche being funky. A couple of very helpful fans DMed me. There's apparently a gear position sensor plugs into the car. Apparently it can get some gunk and shit in there, whatever, unplug it, clean the contacts, replug it, good to go. Nothing else.
- [27:20]
Zach Klapman
No other notes do you have to do? Take it to the shop. They do that.
- [27:24]
Matt Farah
A shop. Probably you have to put the car on a lift to do it. But like, yeah, yeah, but it's like A, it hasn't come back. It just did it the one time. And B, if it does, that's the solve.
- [27:33]
Zach Klapman
Great.
- [27:33]
Matt Farah
But you were talking about seeing yourself. I got an email which I forwarded to you. This creeps me the fuck out, dude. Now I get a lot of trash emails from random, random, like Chinese companies and shit. And I mean, not there's anything specifically bad about Chinese companies, but like, just bad English translations of, you know, xiaoming company would love to work with you on integration. And so I get a dozen of these garbage ones a day. So when one is like written by a regular person, I usually read. Read it. So this email came in, it says, USC founder looking for Matt's advice. It's a real email and I'm not going to say what the company. Should I say what the company is? I'm not going to say what the company is. My name is blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Founder and CEO of Blah blah blah blah blah. AI. Okay? The company, it's something. AI. I followed you and I'm a fan. Blank, blank, blank. AI is expanding rapidly and we're now working with heads of state, Nobel laureates and Fortune 500 companies. Given how much you inspired this journey, which thank you for the compliment. If that's true, I'd be incredibly grateful if you could spare a few minutes to chat. Now, here's what they do. We create. And my blood turned to ice when I read this. We create AI digital twins of thought leaders, allowing people to engage directly with their ideas. 24. Seven current partners range from multinationals to legends like Richard Dawkins and Robin Sharma. I don't know who Robin Sharma is, but I know who Richard Dawkins is. We lead the industry, and I think you'd be very interested in our work. Let me know if you have time to talk. This, sir sounds horrible. Imagine something that people thought they were engaging with you, but it was really like a bad chatbot version of you. And oh, by the way, I have to what, like, let you scrape every bit of content we've ever made? Like, I've said so many, like, wrong things on the show, and when in the scraping, they're not gonna find the correction that happened the next episode and apply that to the wrong thing I fucking said.
- [30:08]
Zach Klapman
Right?
- [30:08]
Matt Farah
Like someone did I say. Did I tell you the other day? I think I did. I was talking about AI Maybe when it was Doug, when Doug was here, that I said, someone put into AI what system does the smoking tire use for podcasting? And they put it into, like, chatgpt. Like, they wanted to find out, like, literally what our gear was.
- [30:26]
Zach Klapman
Okay.
- [30:27]
Matt Farah
And they got the answer. It was a very detailed paragraph explaining the gear that we used to make this show. Confidently detailed, explaining 100% wrong. All of it was wrong. None of it was right. The cameras were wrong. The software was wrong. All of it was wrong.
- [30:48]
Zach Klapman
That's why I was shocked when I went in Thanksgiving, the number of my cousins. Well, one, one of them specifically used chat beat chatgpt to answer lots of things. They were treating it like Google.
- [30:58]
Matt Farah
Yeah.
- [30:58]
Zach Klapman
And just trusting it. I know we've talked about this before.
- [31:01]
Matt Farah
But, like, rather, they've integrated it into Google Search.
- [31:04]
Zach Klapman
I hate that I just scroll past it. But they were just sending it in, asking and just going with it. And I mean, this is such a simple thing because we have described on this show numerous times exactly what the word.
- [31:15]
Matt Farah
For the record, it's switcher. It's called Switcher.
- [31:18]
Zach Klapman
Switcher Cast Switcher Studio. We use iPhones. You can see them in some of the shots. Like, seems real simple. Yeah. But for whatever reason, it just got it super wrong. Yeah, yeah.
- [31:26]
Matt Farah
So, like, I don't want someone doing that in my fucking name.
- [31:31]
Zach Klapman
Well, also, if it chatbot or if it starts to, like, make your face or something, I mean, that's. This is all just gonna be so bad.
- [31:36]
Matt Farah
That's just gonna be so bad.
- [31:38]
Zach Klapman
Yeah.
- [31:38]
Matt Farah
Imagine like, setting up, like a cameo, but, like, it's not you.
- [31:43]
Zach Klapman
I don't know if it's like an eight. Like, maybe if I was. If I was 12, I might get excited to talk to fake Mr. T. But, like, that's crazy. You know, if they go, oh, you can pretend you're talking to a thought leader, like, but it's not the person.
- [31:56]
Matt Farah
Yeah.
- [31:56]
Zach Klapman
It's not their brain.
- [31:57]
Matt Farah
Yeah.
- [31:58]
Zach Klapman
It won't feel special. Like, if you're a huge Neil DeGrasse Tyson fan. Right. Or, like, which I am, or Jon Stewart. To sit and talk to those people would be one of the greatest moments of my life.
- [32:08]
Matt Farah
To sit and talk to a Jon Stewart chatbot is so. Not that.
- [32:13]
Zach Klapman
That's worse than just watching the show, which I like and I know is authentic. Watching a fraudulent version.
- [32:18]
Matt Farah
Yeah. You're getting a jumbled version of thoughts collected from him throughout 30 years of television that aren't, like, put together in a coherent way.
- [32:31]
Zach Klapman
That seems very strange.
- [32:32]
Matt Farah
That seems extremely suspect.
- [32:34]
Zach Klapman
You're turning each person into Google of their brain, trying to get the answers to whatever your questions are. Yeah.
- [32:42]
Matt Farah
So, okay, one other thing. Someone who didn't want to be identified but is someone who works in the automotive industry for a big OEM and who is a patron and regularly sends me sort of DMs on sort of deep engineering type stuff related to whatever we're talking about that week and asks to not be named, but is willing to share some insights. And so this person said, be careful. We were talking in reference to Kyle's appearance last episode and being very impressed with the Xiaomi, the very fast Chinese EV that sort of looks vaguely Taycan, like it's apparently actually built, manufactured by another company under the Xiaomi brand.
- [33:35]
Zach Klapman
That makes sense.
- [33:37]
Matt Farah
And he said, actually, you want to be quite careful because although the Chinese technology, like their batteries, their charging, some of their software stuff is really, really good. He said, in his experience, they will, like, literally just say anything about the car. Like, they'll just like, say it has like 1500 horsepower and maybe it's got 800 so it feels fast, but like, 8 ain't 15. And like those brakes, like, he was like, that is not uncommon. You know that they'll put something that looks Like a big brake. But, like, no one in China is actually gonna figure that out because they're just sitting in traffic or whatever.
- [34:15]
Zach Klapman
You know, it'd be interesting, like, to go jumped, let's say 10 years ahead, maybe even just five years ahead. Like, God forbid there is a situation where there's, like, a big recall is needed, you know, because they're selling a lot of BYD cars in Mexico, and this is total speculation. Not trying to offend byd, but let's just say a new Chinese automaker builds cars that have a flaw based on something like this. You know, the brakes are overrepresented and causes a lot of accidents. I wonder what the repercussions legally can be because China is notoriously hard to sue for copyright infringement.
- [34:47]
Matt Farah
Yeah, you'd have to sue their North American immigrants importer or some shit. But, yeah, they probably wouldn't. You wouldn't be able to collect much.
- [34:55]
Zach Klapman
My guess, I'm not a lawyer, but that's just something I randomly thought about.
- [34:58]
Matt Farah
But anyway, he basically says, you know, he basically said, and again, this is a person who in the past has proved very. Has demonstrated some very detailed information about working inside the industry. But he said he was in the cell phone industry before being in the car industry, and he saw it with specifically Xiaomi phones, because that's what they were making, that they would just, like, say these phones were gonna do stuff.
- [35:23]
Zach Klapman
Oh, he wouldn't.
- [35:24]
Matt Farah
They just wouldn't do. Oh, wow. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, like, okay, so he's like, you know, you should, you know, be excited about certain aspects of what they're selling over there, but also be, like, pretty skeptical about any direct claims that they make. Guys, we gotta take one more quick break for aura frames. These things are so cool. Everybody in your family is not a technophile, like, genius. You who listens to the Smoking Tire podcast, Like, let's just. Your parents, right? Your uncle, they're older. They don't necessarily know how, you know, Dropbox works per se, or things like that. Complicated file sharing systems. Here's what you do. You get the aura frame, you send it to a person you love, and then you can upload unlimited photos and videos directly from your phone to that aura frame, right? So you got kids, you want to send those photos to the grandparents, the uncles, et cetera. Aura frames, is it. You just send them the frame, they set it up in their living room, and then photos of the kids just start coming in because you're dropping them in there. These are great holiday gifts. They make it Easy to bring people closer together and keep up with the old ones, keep up with the young ones, keep up with the pets. We should do like a Patreon. We should do an Aura Frames Patreon.
- [36:46]
Zach Klapman
We can do that. Make the dog photos account.
- [36:48]
Matt Farah
We should talk to Aura Frames and see if people buy, if patrons at a level get their own tst. Aura Frames. It's like a fully private Instagram, but like in your house and not on Instagram and.
- [37:04]
Zach Klapman
Oh, we upload the photos.
- [37:05]
Matt Farah
Yeah, like we put photos like BTS photos in this. Yeah, that's actually a pretty good idea. We should talk to Aura Frames about this. Save on the perfect gift by visiting auraframes.com and get 35 bucks off Aura's best selling Carver matte frames by using promo code tire at checkout. That's a U R A frames.com promo code tire. This deal is exclusive to listeners, so get yours now in time for the holidays. Terms and conditions apply. And now back to the show.
- [37:38]
Zach Klapman
Don't trust verify.
- [37:40]
Matt Farah
Well, he said, he said when they bring these cars to America and people like us drive them, we go, oh my God, look at what you're getting for so little money. They're so far ahead of us over there. But they're not, they're not like letting you know they're not bringing it to Lightning Lap and they're not letting Fenske go. You know, he would be able to.
- [37:58]
Zach Klapman
To determine the actual horsepower number.
- [38:00]
Matt Farah
And Kyle and Doug, like they're smart people. It's not like they're, it's not like they're fucking rubes. They're smart guys, but they're not, they're not doing deep dives into what's behind the curtain with those type of vehicles.
- [38:12]
Zach Klapman
Yeah, so.
- [38:13]
Matt Farah
And yeah, so that was one thing. But I have to say after, after our conversation with Kyle, I started looking at used Taycans because the question is, you know these things all. You probably don't want a 20 or a 21. Yeah. But a 22, still under factory warranty, eligible for the long extended warranty. So I could buy one of these things massively depreciated and have most of a decade of warranty coverage left. And so the cheapest Cross Turismo in the country is around 66,000 bucks.
- [38:54]
Zach Klapman
What website was that on?
- [38:55]
Matt Farah
I found it on Autotemp. It was the cheapest, was around 66 grand. The cheapest. The cheapest 20, 22 Taycan I found, which was a, which were like rear, rear drive. Short range cars are like 54. Now, a rear drive short range car driven conservatively can still get 250 miles on a charge.
- [39:25]
Zach Klapman
Which is not bad.
- [39:26]
Matt Farah
Which is not bad. But there's like a $5,000 premium on the long range cars. And there's very few rear wheel drive long range cars. Most people that wanted the longer range just bumped up to the 4s which has the longer range rather than getting a rear drive long range. So there's very few rear drive, drive long ranges. So you can, I mean there's some of these, some of these. So some of these are in like the, the regular Taycan. Rear drives are in the, the high 40s or low 50s. But like you're talking silver white. Yeah, you know, stuff like that. And with a bunch of miles, I found one and we don't, I don't want to say which one it was. I found one in a color that I liked with, with pretty low miles. He did the one I sent you and it had like, I think it was like 14,000 miles on it. And it was a base, rear wheel drive, small motor base in a color I liked. And it was listed for 60 grand, certified pre owned. Now this would have had a, it would, it had an original msrp of about 106 grand. So it's depreciated 40% in 14,000 miles. Will it continue to go down? Yes, absolutely. It most certainly will go down. But it's warranty. So unlike the Bentley where it was like, well, let's see what breaks and what it costs to fix this is, let's see how many days it spends in the shop if it breaks. And let's see what two years of depreciation looks like. That's the experiment.
- [41:09]
Zach Klapman
I'm excited. I like this idea because, because we've talked a lot about this and you have theorized that the floor of EVs, used EVs could just be zero.
- [41:16]
Matt Farah
It potentially is zero.
- [41:17]
Zach Klapman
And I think it's an interesting experiment to see if it really is because, you know, there's plenty of cars out there that we will think are bad when they're new and then they have 150,000 miles and you're like, wow, who would buy this? Someone needs a car, you know, and if the Taycan actually turns out to be fairly reliable, you are getting a really nice car. Like the thing. There's plenty of people, I'm one of them, who buys used German cars or used luxury cars, thinking, well, we're getting all the benefits for half the price we have to pay for maintenance. But because electric cars have fewer systems, at least in terms of the motor. If that ends up being reliable and then the screens end up being a little less, it might actually there's a.
- [41:58]
Matt Farah
Lot of other electrical shit.
- [42:00]
Zach Klapman
There's a lot in those cars for sure. I'm just, I think it's a good experiment to see how reliable are complicated luxury cars over 10 years specifically.
- [42:11]
Matt Farah
Well, yeah. And it's like these Tay cons are so depreciated in part because people don't trust them. Right. People don't trust a used ev, both because the depreciation could be zero and because out of warranty reliability scares them. But like, and truth be told, it's weird because if you want to do an experiment and you want to do something that viewers might engage with, typically that's going to be something that's miserable for the person doing it. The better TV is the car breaks all the time. Right. Top Gear is better when the hosts are miserable than when they're happy, etc. But I don't actually want to be miserable doing this. Like I actually do want a car that like my wife regular ass person can drive around. Now if it breaks, we have other cars, fine.
- [43:06]
Zach Klapman
But like, but the goal of this is to get away from something like the Bentley. You have a lot of very interesting cars but if none of them are trusted to just hop and go.
- [43:16]
Matt Farah
So I actually want the car to work. I want to do this, I want to get, get a car like this and go. Actually a two year old Taycan at half price is a fantastic bargain. That, wouldn't that be nice? And then other people can go, oh shit, that actually is. But like Kyle said, Taycan content doesn't do that good on them. So like what is a car that would be nice to drive around every day and does well enough content wise that it's worth trying this with EV specifically. I mean ideally I'd like, I would like to have a daily ev. Is it, is it buying a Hummer? Oh God. Oh, that's how you end up being miserable.
- [43:59]
Zach Klapman
That's true.
- [43:59]
Matt Farah
Right?
- [44:00]
Zach Klapman
It's so loud on the highway.
- [44:01]
Matt Farah
Yeah.
- [44:04]
Zach Klapman
Well, I don't, I mean our audience has responded well to Taycan content out of all the EVs.
- [44:09]
Matt Farah
Yeah.
- [44:09]
Zach Klapman
I mean granted Porsche also made the most variant. Like Hyundai hasn't made 15 different versions of Ionic 5 yet. I think our audience likes that car.
- [44:19]
Matt Farah
And more than would probably respond well and would respond to Taycan for sure.
- [44:23]
Zach Klapman
We get, I mean half of our questions are always about used cars and what people should get. So I think it's a good experiment.
- [44:29]
Matt Farah
Are there a solid number of people watching live right now? Probably not very many because there's a decent number. Yeah. If you're in the YouTube live, throw in a comment. Do you want to see used content? Used Taycan content? Is that the kind of thing you'd find interesting to find out whether a half price Taycan is a good buy.
- [44:50]
Zach Klapman
Even if you're watching after this is posted, because this goes up tomorrow. Let us know in the comments if you're interested in that kind of thing. Oh, and if you're interested in buying used EVs at all, like, that's another thing I'm curious about because the leasing deals are so good, but they're still not really as cheap, you know, Fiat 500 in Colorado aside as getting a used car.
- [45:10]
Matt Farah
Yeah, but like Taycans are really nice and you know, it, it, even a base Taycan does feel like a six figure driving experience.
- [45:20]
Zach Klapman
Yeah.
- [45:21]
Matt Farah
Can, can you get that for less money?
- [45:23]
Zach Klapman
Yeah, my time I drove that Taycan gts, the new one in Georgia and there probably won't be a video. Such a short drive, but what a fantastic, impressive thing. Yeah, it's such a great car, but.
- [45:33]
Matt Farah
You can, you can get 90% of that in the base rear wheel drive car. And actually I think the base rear wheel drive car has the best steering because when you unburden it from power, the steering gets light and very direct. It's a really, really nice thing.
- [45:47]
Zach Klapman
Yeah, I can unburden it from power.
- [45:50]
Matt Farah
Well, like, you know, you, when you have torque going to the front tires, you know that affects rear wheel drive.
- [45:56]
Zach Klapman
Versus all wheel drive.
- [45:57]
Matt Farah
Yeah. That affects, you know, what happens in the steering wheel. So yeah, the same with the Mach E. Remember my rear drive car steered better than all the other ones. Yeah, same shit.
- [46:05]
Zach Klapman
It's a good point.
- [46:06]
Matt Farah
Yeah, that car had really good steering.
- [46:08]
Zach Klapman
It's interesting because this is like the same price as a Mach E rally.
- [46:11]
Matt Farah
Yeah.
- [46:12]
Zach Klapman
So. But I think this is a more interesting experiment.
- [46:16]
Matt Farah
The Mach E rally has, you know, a great party trick, but I think this is probably more. A more interesting experiment.
- [46:24]
Zach Klapman
Well, yeah, because ultimately the Machi Rally is the car you had, but with a better ride.
- [46:28]
Matt Farah
Yeah.
- [46:28]
Zach Klapman
And how often are you, are you going to take your daily to the dirt? Never very. So that's like one, one story. But this thing will be ongoing and people will be paying attention every month wondering what's happening. Just like the Bentley. It's the Bentley formula, but with an EV that has A warranty.
- [46:44]
Matt Farah
Yeah, Yeah. I think I'm willing to roll the dice on depreciation if I also don't have to pay if it breaks. You know what I mean?
- [46:56]
Zach Klapman
A lot of people support this.
- [46:57]
Matt Farah
A lot of people support this.
- [46:58]
Zach Klapman
A lot of people support this.
- [46:59]
Matt Farah
Okay. Support users.
- [47:01]
Zach Klapman
We had one vote for Maki rally and then there's like, like six for Taycan.
- [47:05]
Matt Farah
Yeah.
- [47:06]
Zach Klapman
Or in use EV content in general. Okay. Someone said the most entertaining thing would be a Tesla with full self driving. That's true.
- [47:13]
Matt Farah
I mean that's true. And I did think about that. I did think about like well maybe I just can get a Tesla or get. Just to see what it. What, you know. But my, I would draw. I would, I would happily spend a week with any Tesla if they want to lend me a press car. Happily, objectively, I'll fucking do everything I can to be even handed in reviewing it. But I'm also a consumer and I'm not giving that fucking guy a dime.
- [47:45]
Zach Klapman
Right. There's a difference.
- [47:47]
Matt Farah
I'm. I'm voting with my wallet. Um, so yeah, not doing it. Uh, anything else on my list? Oh yeah, we got some R and T events I want to promote. You want to come drive with me? We got a few spots left for Texas Hill country in April. Texas Hill country is going to be awesome. It includes track time at cota, Circuit of the Americas. It's got some great hotels, we got some great food, we got some great drinking opportunities. I have made the route and I will be personally leading it and I will be giving ride alongs at Cota, ideally in a McLaren 750 because they're based in Texas and I'm going to try to get a car from them. So yeah, that's the beyond city limits. April 7th to 10th. You do not need a special car. I mean you don't, you should have a special car, but you don't need a exotic car. You can show up in a Corvette or a Miata or a BMW sports car. We've had GTIs, you know. And the itinerary of that event is well detailed with a lot of specifics@experiences.roadandtrack.com and so sign up for that now. Come drive with me. It's a lot of fun. Everyone who does it has a great time. And also I can now through Westside we can ship cars. So if you don't want to drive your car all the way down there, we can ship cars round trip to and from the event if you want to do that. And Then I've worked on two more events. For 2025, we have our new. I don't actually think it's on the website yet because it's so new. We've got the Colorado climb. I'm actually not doing that one. That was my idea to do it. But then I can't go. So the other editors are gonna be doing that one. But that one is Pikes Peak Vail, Colorado mountain passes. It's Pikes Peak, both the International Raceway and driving up the mountain.
- [49:58]
Zach Klapman
Sick.
- [49:58]
Matt Farah
It'll be really cool. And then also for 20, 2025, we've come up with two other new ones. New route Divine. Northern California. It's going to be Sonoma Raceway to Lake Tahoe the fun way. It's basically. It's a horseshoe.
- [50:13]
Zach Klapman
I did that trip with road and track like eight, six years ago.
- [50:16]
Matt Farah
It's so good. It's like Sonoma to Mendocino across the top.
- [50:22]
Zach Klapman
Yeah.
- [50:23]
Matt Farah
Sick. And then the other one we're gonna do is so sick. The new Smokey 600 road. Atlanta, north Georgia mountains. Charahola Skyway. Tale of the Dragon. Atlanta, Knoxville, Nashville. New Smoky Mountains is gonna be. It's every day has the banger roads. Like day one, Racetrack day two. Charahola Skyway day three, Tale of the Dragon, day four. Like other super banger smoky roads. It's all super banger roads. Roads. So very excited for that one. Those are going to be coming up and I've. I haven't made the final routes because we don't. Haven't booked the hotels yet. But those. That's the idea. Let's go to the Patreon. The fucking people. Let's talk to them. Of course. Patreon.com the Smoking Tire podcast is how you get in that game. You can ask us and our guests questions. You can watch the stream live. You can get the show ahead of everybody else. You have an ad for watching and listening experience and a whole lot more. Zach says we have some new usernames. That is really nice. Waybads Rad. Waybads Rad. Yeah. Waybads Rad. Yeah, that's you. I've been seeing ads for PPF on watches, paint protection, film on watches. Is there any downside to doing this? Yes, you would be a huge pussy. Don't. Don't do this. I understand why people would want to do this. And I also see folks who wear watches and they leave the delivery plastic still on there.
- [52:03]
Zach Klapman
That seems uncomfortable.
- [52:04]
Matt Farah
The only one that I think is like mildly is acceptable is if you've got what they call a deployant clasp on a steel bracelet. They'll put a piece of PPF or film on the clasp. Cause if you're typing, it gets knocked around and scratched to shit on your key. I don't. Cause I'm not. And I don't worry about wear and tear on my watches and neither should you. But every once in a while I see these businesses pop up and they're doing PPF on the watches and it's. It's not a good look. Wear your watches or.
- [52:38]
Zach Klapman
Well, and also like one of my watches, I looked at it the other day and the marks that were on it from wearing it were tiny. But they're not on the face, they're on.
- [52:46]
Matt Farah
Yeah, like bezel. Yeah, they're on the metal. Well, the crystal is should in most watches. The crystal satisfies.
- [52:52]
Zach Klapman
So are people ppfing the crystal or are they ppfing the whole watch?
- [52:56]
Matt Farah
I've seen both. I've seen a PPF on the crystal. I've seen BPF on the sides of the cases and the case back. I've seen PPF on bracelets and on deployant clasps.
- [53:08]
Zach Klapman
But not on the face bezel part. That seems.
- [53:12]
Matt Farah
I've seen on the bezel.
- [53:12]
Zach Klapman
Yeah, that just seems like it would. Hard to stick, wouldn't look as good. I don't know.
- [53:17]
Matt Farah
It's one of those things. It's the same thing as if you buy a car. Ppfing a car is different because literally rocks are hurling at the car at 80 miles an hour. But like it's the equivalent of buying a car and well, it's not the same as buying a car. I'm sorry, that's wrong. Because ppfing a car is like. Because of the paint. It's like the wear on your watch. It's part of the watch's story, you.
- [53:47]
Zach Klapman
Know, and it's probably just people worried about resale, right?
- [53:51]
Matt Farah
Pretty much. It's that much of a difference once it's used. Unless it's like brand new in the box with papers. If it's used, it's in used condition. So just like eh. And oh, by the way, if you buy the right watch, you can get scratches all over it and you won't lose very much money. I mean, you know, see, I don't do it. Buy a watch if that's. If you, if you think you need to ppf your watch, buy a Daily Beater. If you're. If you're, you know, if you're doing that much damage. To your watch.
- [54:22]
Zach Klapman
That's why I love this thing, this G shock. I wear it every day instead of the Weiss watch.
- [54:26]
Matt Farah
The only. I'm not a pussy. I'll bang my watch then stuff. I have one watch that's gold, and gold is much softer than steel. And I. I don't wear that in situations where I'm gonna bang it on stuff. Stuff. It's not PPF'd.
- [54:42]
Zach Klapman
Yeah, no, I get it, dude, because my, my gold wedding ring got nicked up real quick.
- [54:46]
Matt Farah
Yeah.
- [54:46]
Zach Klapman
Like, shockingly, you've been married a month. I know. After the first week I looked at it, I was like, oh, my God, it's very soft.
- [54:52]
Matt Farah
Yeah.
- [54:53]
Zach Klapman
But as the photographer assistant, my wedding pointed out, your gold watch is fake.
- [54:57]
Matt Farah
My gold watch is fake.
- [55:00]
Zach Klapman
Remember you were wearing that. And he was like, yeah. The question though is, is it real? And you were like, yeah, bro, it's totally fake. And then he thought it.
- [55:06]
Matt Farah
It was fake. That's pretty funny.
- [55:09]
Zach Klapman
Yeah.
- [55:09]
Matt Farah
Habibi. Nice cams, says Zach. In your carbon M4 video, you mentioned the car has sport cup twos, but the video shows it has Cup 2 Rs, which are very different tires. Would that make a difference if the car was on the less aggressive tires from a ride fun standpoint?
- [55:27]
Zach Klapman
Well, I think, as I said in the video, and apologies for getting those two things wrong, is that the ride would be better with a less aggressive tire like a PS4. And sure, you'd lose some grip. I don't think you'd lose that much fun. You know, you lose a little bit of cornering, sure. But for what I want from that car, PS4s would be totally fine. Now, as you experience with your new tires on your Spider, you might experience traction control kicking on more because the carbon M4, you know, it's got 700 whatever horsepower. So PS4s are less grippy. But I think the trade off, I think having a super high powered grand tour were that rides the way that car did. A lot of it because of the tire is more problematic than losing a little bit of maximum grip.
- [56:09]
Matt Farah
I would agree with you there. Sagesolash. At just above 40k, the GR Corolla and 18 base Caymans make for fun small displacement dailies. Is that. Did you post that? I was going to be talking about a new daily or something. Where did that come from?
- [56:25]
Zach Klapman
No, they said like, which would you get? And people responded. I mean, they're such different colors cars. They're like, it was a between. It was more of like, what would you get for 40 grand.
- [56:33]
Matt Farah
Oh, oh, oh, oh. Yeah. Well, if you need a back seat, the Cayman won't do.
- [56:37]
Zach Klapman
Also base Cayman I probably wouldn't buy. Go for S or above Auto.
- [56:44]
Matt Farah
Bon Jovi.
- [56:45]
Zach Klapman
Is that a good name?
- [56:46]
Matt Farah
I keep seeing Rivian at the bottom of list showing the reliability of current car manufacturers. Could this be attributed to the young age of the company and their first models bringing down the scores? Do you see them getting better as time passes? I mean, yes, to both. Both. They're a new company, their vehicle is incredibly complex. EVs are always less reliable than gas cars, pretty much. Even though sometimes those problems are as simple as a over the air update or whatever. But they also have very advanced suspensions and they have multiple electric motors, whereas other cars may only have one electric motor. And there's a lot going on in a Rivian.
- [57:27]
Zach Klapman
Yeah.
- [57:27]
Matt Farah
And yeah, I think, I think reliability is an issue for those cars and nor I haven't heard about a lot of people being stranded. Totally. But yeah, I've heard a break in them cars but I, I would hope that it's funny.
- [57:48]
Zach Klapman
Like Kyle explained his cybertruck got her new motor. You know, to his surprise, like I'm saying to piggyback on your point, like these crazy powerful, complicated electric vehicles and modern vehicles that have a lot of different modern features just have a lot of small or big problems that arise.
- [58:06]
Matt Farah
Yeah. Levi says. I saw you were recently hanging out with Sasha Solipanov and Johnny. Yeah, we dude, me, Sasha, Ben Shaffer from Unplugged Performance and my buddy Hydrogen Brian. We drank a lot. We fucking had a pseudo industry whiskey tasting night and all of these guys, except me and Sasha, the other three of them are like heavy collectors and so they each brought out like a case. So we tasted 19 whiskeys and bourbons in about three hours.
- [58:49]
Zach Klapman
Could you taste the 15th by the time you got there, dude.
- [58:54]
Matt Farah
And I was, I mean we were, I was really doing tiny little sips and I felt so ill by the end of it. Not. I was not like really like drunk actually. But I just from so much and you know they don't put ice in it, they don't water it down. All this stuff was like 140 proof.
- [59:15]
Zach Klapman
Acid reflux, just nasty.
- [59:18]
Matt Farah
I mean some of it was amazing. Thousands of dollars a bottle and very rare, very old. Johnn some shit that was from like fucking prohibition. I mean it was, it was. And everybody brought out the heavies so it was fun. But once we got to like 13 or 14, I was like ready, really ready to tap out and the other guys were like, no, we're tasting all of them. And so I felt awful afterwards. But it was a very.
- [59:47]
Zach Klapman
The line of bottles was very long.
- [59:49]
Matt Farah
Did you see the post?
- [59:50]
Zach Klapman
I saw the picture, yeah. Yeah, the line of bottles, it stretched across the whole island. And this kitchen island was big. It was a nice house.
- [59:57]
Matt Farah
It was so crazy.
- [59:58]
Zach Klapman
Yeah.
- [60:00]
Matt Farah
And so anyway, Levi's question was, wants an Update on the Nilou 27, which is Sasha's car. Sasha was on the show. He was the principal designer of the Lamborghini Huracan and Bugatti Chiron started his own company. I don't have a real update. I mean, Sasha. Russia's working on it. I mean, they apparently have an engine that runs.
- [60:26]
Zach Klapman
Yeah, I saw some promo photos going on earlier.
- [60:28]
Matt Farah
Yeah, it's built by a company.
- [60:30]
Zach Klapman
Fuck.
- [60:31]
Matt Farah
What's the name of the company? It starts with an H. I think it's from the uk. Hartley. That sound right? Something. It's got some fucking monster racing engine in it. What happened? We were in the wrong camera, attacked the wrong thing. But I don't have a lot of other updates about the car and actually we spent most of our time talking about drinking and not talking about the car. But he's working on it and he was very stressed out because it seems very hard to build a car. That seems like a tough thing. But I love Sasha. He's very solid.
- [61:12]
Zach Klapman
Yeah, I can't find it.
- [61:13]
Matt Farah
And the other half of that question, Levi, maybe Zach knows this and says, and the story behind but we're morons. From some recent social posts. Is that me?
- [61:24]
Zach Klapman
I think that was the whiskey thing. I think Johnny put up a post from your whiskey tasting that said something like, we had fun, but we're morons or something. I think that was exactly.
- [61:34]
Matt Farah
Probably because we drank 19 fucking whiskeys in one night.
- [61:37]
Zach Klapman
I think that's what that caption was.
- [61:39]
Matt Farah
It must be. I don't remember saying that, but if that's what Johnny said, it's because we drank 19 whiskeys in one night. It was a fucking lot of whiskey. Even tiny bits at a time. Chris P. Bacon. That's a fucking good one too, isn't it? Would I be making a mistake trading in a C5 Corvette towards a new GR86 or BRZ? The Corvette feels like too much car and I would like to have something smaller and slower. I mean, I think you have correctly identified the problem and the solution.
- [62:08]
Zach Klapman
Yeah, I think you're getting cars that are nicer inside than the C5 by a huge margin.
- [62:14]
Matt Farah
Yeah.
- [62:15]
Zach Klapman
Road noise is probably comparable. The cars are gonna feel light, flickable, more usable space. And it takes away the power problem.
- [62:23]
Matt Farah
Yeah, I mean, and the dynamics of the car will be similar, just lower. So it should be a somewhat familiar experience. Front engine, rear drive kind of thing. But yeah, definitely, that's a good call. Way to self analyze and pull the rip cord on that Corvette. Bad gardener says. What mechan changes is Zach going to or has done to the M3? Lots of cosmetic updates. Last thing I heard you say was that you spent like 2k on a bolt in your rear subframe. That can't be.
- [62:59]
Zach Klapman
That wasn't.
- [63:00]
Matt Farah
No, that was the subframe reinforcement.
- [63:02]
Zach Klapman
Yeah, but that was a long ago, and that was also cheaper than that. The last thing I spent, quote, a lot of Money on was 500 plus dollars to get a window regulator replaced. The only mechanical thing I'll do in 2020 is I'll probably do the rod bearings. I think they were. If they were done a long time ago, that's too long. And if they weren't done, then, you know, borrowed time. But otherwise I really. You know what? I really want an intake so bad. Carbon intake sounds so good on this car. Yeah, but you got to tune for the thing and you got to just the smog and like, is it worth the headache in California? Probably not.
- [63:38]
Matt Farah
Probably not. Yeah.
- [63:39]
Zach Klapman
I don't know. I can just install. Because that's the thing. I can install it and remove it, no problem, once every two years for smog. But it's like getting the tune done for it to make it work correctly. So anyway.
- [63:51]
Matt Farah
Does carbon. Do they do E46?
- [63:55]
Zach Klapman
Well, they did my E46, but it was like a. They'll do that, but I don't think they make intake parts for it. Yeah, the market's too small.
- [64:05]
Matt Farah
Joey, bag of donuts update on a chef's watch. Yeah, I mean, that's. That's something I threw out there. I don't think it's. I mean, it is possible, but it's certainly not cost effective. I have to say. We got a couple colors left that we'd like to release for the notice canyon. I think the next. I think we're gonna do another watch, but I think I want to go down in price. I think I want to do like a $500, $600 watch so more people can afford it and we can get there without cutting too much out of the watch. Meaning, like, we could probably cut a couple hundred dollars out of the price of the watch by going from a Swiss Movement to a Seiko movement. And the user of the watch would really not know the difference when you're selling it.
- [64:57]
Zach Klapman
Right.
- [64:58]
Matt Farah
But I think having a cheaper option next for more people to get in the game would be fun. So we'll see if we can do that. Okay. Huh. Do you want that one? No, we kind of covered that one. All right. Randy. I don't. I don't know the. Wow. Okay. All right. Randy has three questions, and I'm going to answer the third one. What do you think of trading a Countach for a Veyron? Is that what Tyler did? Is that how he got his Veyron? He just bought, like, the shittiest Veyron. Did somebody trade a Countach for a Veyron?
- [65:39]
Zach Klapman
I'll look up Tyler's thing.
- [65:41]
Matt Farah
I wouldn't trade a Countach for a Veyron. There's. With respect to the Veyron and respect to those who own them and desire them, to me, they're not that interesting compared to a Countach. So I'd rather have a Countach.
- [65:56]
Zach Klapman
Looks like. Correct. Tyler did.
- [65:58]
Matt Farah
He traded his Countach for the. For the Veyron. Yeah, that sounds right. And he's still got a Diablo. He's still in the V12 Lambo Club. If I owned Tyler's Countach because his was an anniversary. I think if I owned Tyler's Countach and Tyler's Diablo, I would probably be more likely to trade that Countach for a Veyron.
- [66:19]
Zach Klapman
Yeah. Because you're still getting enough Lambeau flavor.
- [66:22]
Matt Farah
Yeah.
- [66:22]
Zach Klapman
The anniversary looks so bad in my opinion.
- [66:24]
Matt Farah
It's not for me. And I know he got a great deal on it. And if that deal landed on my doorstep, I'd have bought that car, too. But that's not a forever car to me. An anniversary car. Prashan, what do I think of Mayen watches? M A E N. They're fine. Micro brand. I've never personally put one on, but I know from some other people that they make a typically high quality product. But yeah, I don't know much else about them beyond, like, you know, what I've seen on the Internet. They seem fine. Matt's oversized dinghy. I don't have a dinghy. I have a Matt's over. Do I have something that's. I don't really have so many things that I understand the joke.
- [67:16]
Zach Klapman
But you don't have a boat.
- [67:17]
Matt Farah
I don't have a boat. Could have had a boat. Don't know about. At what price point does a used Maserati GHIBLI Trofeo make you give it a second look. They're approaching 60, 60K now. And I have to think they're going to continue to drop, drop and drop. The floor of a running Maserati is $10,000.
- [67:36]
Zach Klapman
Yeah. Yeah.
- [67:37]
Matt Farah
So any Maserati that runs, with the exception of the. What do you call it? The one that was The Enzo.
- [67:44]
Zach Klapman
Oh, MC12.
- [67:45]
Matt Farah
The MC12. With the exception of that, every other Maserati will eventually land at $10,000.
- [67:50]
Zach Klapman
Yeah. Brian from Regular Cars. He's doing these very funny, like Instagram. Instagram Ranty post.
- [67:54]
Matt Farah
Yeah. Does he just sit there doing laundry and rant into camera?
- [67:58]
Zach Klapman
He kind of like does his same context historical comedy telling of a car. But he's on camera now. But basically his thing on the Maserati was it's what poor people think millionaires and billionaires drive. And that's not what millionaires and billionaires drive.
- [68:13]
Matt Farah
No, it is definitely not. It's what sugar babies fucking and side pieces drive. A Maserati sedan is the official car of an la side piece.
- [68:24]
Zach Klapman
It's. I don't know, man. And we've driven like Levante. Handled good. That had a good engine. They can be entertaining, but the depreciation is aggressive.
- [68:35]
Matt Farah
I liked the little crossover.
- [68:37]
Zach Klapman
Yeah, we forgot the name of it.
- [68:39]
Matt Farah
Grecale. I liked the Grecale a lot. I thought it was very impressive actually. I don't know what the deals are like on those, but that was pretty cool. Eric B. Looking for a fun manual transmission dad car to fit two rear car seats in Michigan and replace my Magnum SRT 60K budget Integra type S seems to be the answer. Not afraid to swap tires every season. I mean, that's a great answer. You could also, I mean, depending on how old of a car you want, you know, like a 2015 Chevy SS with mag ride and a stick. That would be so. Yeah, I mean manual transmission sedans. Very few of those out there. You've got your Civic Type R, your Integra Type S. You've got your BMW M3, but at 60k. You're talking about used M3s.
- [69:29]
Zach Klapman
Yeah. Or like a stripped out base model. I think the base starts like 65.
- [69:33]
Matt Farah
Yeah. But I mean what other stick shift sedans are left? The WRX will not do it.
- [69:42]
Zach Klapman
I think for me a used Chevy ss. There's probably a lot of them in Michigan. Rear wheel drive in the snow with good tires would be awesome. You basically have an M5 but with an LS engine.
- [69:52]
Matt Farah
Yeah.
- [69:52]
Zach Klapman
The Integra Type S, though, is a phenomenal car and a more luxurious experience for sure.
- [69:57]
Matt Farah
Yeah. I say Pork Roll just passed his FAA exams and is now a certified airframe mechanic. Congratulations.
- [70:05]
Zach Klapman
Cool.
- [70:06]
Matt Farah
That's good. Do you have a favorite type of aircraft or fun experience flying on? Anything in particular? Have you ever been on a fun aircraft?
- [70:15]
Zach Klapman
Yeah, one. Well, you know, the carbon fiber thing. I flew.
- [70:19]
Matt Farah
Oh, yeah. The pivotal. Yeah.
- [70:21]
Zach Klapman
But otherwise I am not. I don't have any experience in aircraft really outside of airlines. And for those. As long as it's comfortable, I don't care.
- [70:28]
Matt Farah
Yeah. Let's see. I flew on the Goodyear blimp. The old Goodyear blimp. That was very cool.
- [70:33]
Zach Klapman
That's super cool.
- [70:34]
Matt Farah
I flew in like a biplane once, which was cool. I did. You know, I did the wing walking thing for the. For the. Back in the day.
- [70:42]
Zach Klapman
You did?
- [70:43]
Matt Farah
Yeah, for the fake reality show.
- [70:45]
Zach Klapman
For a Ford thing.
- [70:46]
Matt Farah
Yeah.
- [70:47]
Zach Klapman
I didn't see that episode. That's crazy.
- [70:49]
Matt Farah
Yeah.
- [70:49]
Zach Klapman
You do the thing where you climb up on the thing. What?
- [70:51]
Matt Farah
Yeah.
- [70:52]
Zach Klapman
Is there a clip of this?
- [70:52]
Matt Farah
Britney did it on camera, but they let the other one. Other people do it off camera.
- [70:56]
Zach Klapman
Holy.
- [70:56]
Matt Farah
Yeah, and what. I mean, I've been privileged enough to fly in a few private jets. Those are fun in their own way, but not. But not, you know, in like. Yeah, I guess that's fun.
- [71:14]
Zach Klapman
I mean, I flew in Mica Muzio's helicopter. That was. That was really fun.
- [71:18]
Matt Farah
I mean, flying. I really like when we went to Tahiti, flying in that. That flight from Papayete to, you know, where we flew over Bora Bora. And seeing that from the air, stuff I've seen from the air is pretty cool.
- [71:32]
Zach Klapman
Yeah. The inter island flights, anywhere like Hawaii or something. Cool. Because you get to see the. See it from aerial view.
- [71:39]
Matt Farah
The Jaguar F type press launch. We flew in a C plane. We drove the cars south from Seattle to the Ridge Motorsports park and then to this lake where we had lunch and got on a seaplane and they flew us back to Seattle on the.
- [71:56]
Zach Klapman
Seaplane you guys are throwing. You flew on that DHL plane?
- [71:59]
Matt Farah
Oh, yeah, I did. I flew on a cargo plane. Cargo jet, yeah.
- [72:02]
Zach Klapman
Uncomfortable but cool.
- [72:03]
Matt Farah
It wasn't uncomfortable. It just thought I was getting a disease. Yeah. Okay, wait a minute. There's a lot. That's all right. Maybe we can. I'll go to the next one, but maybe you can sort of break that down into its parts. Chris N. Said Mark and Jack at Savage Geese love the CT5 Blackwing, but their biggest issue with the car is fake. Engine noise pumped through the speakers. Did you notice the same thing? Not fucking at all. You know, there are people. Kamisa is one of them. Kamisa is probably the biggest one. But definitely Mark and Jack are other ones that are very, very sensitive to augmented sound and also very, very against it. I didn't notice it in the black wing. I didn't. I. I don't really notice it in other cars. My granted I don't have the, the best like ear even for like great car stereos. Like beyond a certain point it doesn't matter anymore to me. But like I didn't really hear it. If I did, I didn't really notice it.
- [73:16]
Zach Klapman
Car's also loud.
- [73:17]
Matt Farah
Car's really loud. The car's really loud outside the car.
- [73:19]
Zach Klapman
Outside the car.
- [73:19]
Matt Farah
It's not like it's not making fucking sounds.
- [73:21]
Zach Klapman
Yeah. So I guess I haven't driven that car yet. Yeah, I don't know if it pairs perfectly or not.
- [73:26]
Matt Farah
No, I did not. I didn't notice it. I'm not surprised they did. They find something to hate about everything. Okay. DDubs now. Abbreviated question. Budget 25k, maybe stretch to 30 daily. Driver 50 minute round. 50 mile round trip commute, four doors, adequate backseat space for running errands with older kids. I want a fun car. Okay, wait. Twisty back roads we have in a typical Midwest Metro. Wife prefers a small suv.
- [73:58]
Zach Klapman
Said it's possible but not required. So we could go sedan.
- [74:02]
Matt Farah
I mean let's see.
- [74:06]
Zach Klapman
The Acura Integra, a spec I drove was slow but decently fun. And inside was really nice.
- [74:16]
Matt Farah
The problem with a small SUV that's 25 to 30k is if you want a fun one of those, you're talking about like a six year old German.
- [74:25]
Zach Klapman
Or a Mazda CX3. Yeah, but I don't know if those are even 20 start at.
- [74:30]
Matt Farah
Yeah, well you could find a CX3.
- [74:37]
Zach Klapman
Starts at 22 grand.
- [74:39]
Matt Farah
You could find a BMW 328D wagon. The diesel four cylinder. Diesel. Diesel. You know, 40 miles a gallon. Good chassis.
- [74:50]
Zach Klapman
True.
- [74:51]
Matt Farah
Decent backseat space. You know, SUV like cargo compartment, good chassis. There's an X drive one for four seasons. Still pretty sporty. Still pretty fun. Vinnie had that wagon. I really like that.
- [75:06]
Zach Klapman
Yeah, that thing.
- [75:07]
Matt Farah
He bought that thing for 30k five years ago. Yeah, so you find. Find the nicest one in the world is 30k today.
- [75:14]
Zach Klapman
And that had all the handling you want from a BMW.
- [75:16]
Matt Farah
But that was way better. That was F80,328D wagon. M Sport. So with The M spec suspension and wheels and stuff. That was nice.
- [75:28]
Zach Klapman
That was a great car.
- [75:29]
Matt Farah
I'd look for one of them and get an extended warranty. Stew dog watch. Question. Blue collar job outdoors, indoors, rain, shine, hot, cold. I get it, you're a mailman. I sweat in the summer. Past 10 years I've worn a G shock to work. But I want something a bit nicer and more sophisticated. What do you recommend? $1200 budget. The notice Canyon Dark Blue 1200. You're looking at a Hamilton khaki field. You're looking at a higher end Seiko diver or Seiko sort of presage. You're looking at, oh man. I mean 1200. It gets you a bunch of stuff. You're looking at like sort of entry level Longines Tissot. I mean if it's me for all that kind of. For an everyday, you're looking at a tool watch. Right. A steel sports watch would be a step up from that. And there is plenty of stuff in the Seiko Orient diver family, the Hamilton family. You could get a 1200. Won't get you into a weiss, but you could definitely buy a notice. You could buy a notice Canyon if you wanted one on the jubilee bracelet. And then if you want, you know, bands, those are easy. You could buy a watch that comes on a steel bracelet. And you can get leather strap, rubber strap, nylon strap, you know, different steel band. All the different kinds of stuff is out there. Let's see here for Matt's cats. You've said before that there's a substantial discount to be had for going right hand drive on an impact. What other search advice can you offer for enthusiasts on a budget? I think basically I was talking about like Supras and stuff. The JDM version is usually cheaper because a lot of people don't want to drive right inside.
- [77:21]
Zach Klapman
Or an NA Supra would be very, a lot cheaper.
- [77:24]
Matt Farah
Right. I mean the other search advice to save money is get a convertible. You want a 911, a Corvette, I mean almost any car. You could take a 10% discount for buying a convertible.
- [77:38]
Zach Klapman
Convertible, yeah, definitely. Or even more with M3s. They're always parked facing the camera on the, the cell page because they don't want you to know it's a vert.
- [77:46]
Matt Farah
Oh, that's funny. So yeah, I mean, you know there are, there are some downsides to going to a, to going to a convertible from the rigidity portion and, and all that particularly with front engine, rear drive cars. But like you could save a lot of money. Buying the convertible version of a car.
- [78:01]
Zach Klapman
Yeah. Also if you go mid tier, I mean, Radwood's really opened it up for, like the definition of enthusiast, I think has expanded.
- [78:09]
Matt Farah
Yeah.
- [78:10]
Zach Klapman
And people are more appreciating of cars across the spectrum, both in terms of price and performance. But, you know, if the Civic, like the Integra Type R is the best one, well, you could get like an S, you could get a gsr, you could get a Civic SI instead of Type R. Yeah. Or the next one down. Like, there's ways to have fun without spending all the money and getting the absolute best thing that was made.
- [78:31]
Matt Farah
Zuckerman, you know who's got a collection valued in the millions, if not 10 million. Just posted on Instagram, like two days ago, he bought like a 525 BMW and he was like, you don't need to buy the big engine to have a fun vintage experience. So, you know, manual transmission. The car that would have been a mid tier commuter in the early 1980s, you know, that's an enthusiast car. Joe McDonough. The Mustang GT350 is selling for under 50k now on cars and bids. I remember you wanted one back in 2017 and they were selling way over MSRP. Would you consider one today if you were in the market? No, those. At the time I wanted that car, it was 2015. It was the new hot thing. I saw that the. And it was an R, specifically, It was a GT350R that I wanted and I knew they were special and I was right. Had I bought a GG350R AT sticker at the time, I would have enjoyed it, driven it, done stuff with it and probably sold it at a profit. Today, that's a different story. Those cars are out of warranty. I wanted to use one as my car. I didn't want. I didn't want it as like a fucking fourth car. It was literally just gonna be my car. But, you know, I. My taste has moved on since then. But they are special cars.
- [79:59]
Zach Klapman
Yeah, they're rad.
- [80:01]
Matt Farah
The engine is epic and particularly the Rs are very fun to drive. But that was of a time and place and not looking to move back there. Don't rob me. Talk about Honda and Nissan merging. I think we probably have to do some more homework work. I don't. I mean, the story came out this morning that they might merge, but, like, I don't. I haven't read anything beyond a headline. I don't know what the deal is.
- [80:34]
Zach Klapman
Right. Right now we'd Just be speculating on what would be good or bad and who knows how divided they'll remain. Who's going to make what parts for who, what's going to be shared. Like there's no details about that yet.
- [80:45]
Matt Farah
Yeah. So I genuinely don't know. I'm sure we'll be able to talk about about it at some point. Okay. Jesus. Sam England. Where could I get audio samples of a newer 911 I could chop up and add to some footage I shot of myself driving through the Alps. Where could he audio samples of a 911?
- [81:13]
Zach Klapman
I mean, it depends on the. You could try to find a review on online and grab that. Go to Porsche's YouTube channel. Yeah, they might put their B roll up, right? I don't think they put it there. You might actually, you might be able. I can't be able to find it but they don't put it on YouTube. They might put some promo things on YouTube. You can look there but look in other places. Porsche might have B roll around.
- [81:40]
Matt Farah
Okay. Michael Cosgrove. Was the smoking tire merch ever stored at Matt's house? I noticed a few cat hairs on my new ordered. No, definitely not. I hope that cat enjoyed its nap on your hoodie. Thank you for supporting us@thesmogentireshop.com but I'm sorry to say those cat hairs do not belong to Finn, Nicky, Cricket or Monty.
- [82:05]
Zach Klapman
If they did, the value of that sweatshirt would go up very high.
- [82:07]
Matt Farah
Original Monty bed hair here from Matt's cats. Looking to put aftermarket wheels on my red G70. Genesis G70 to square the stance and lo weight. I have no sense of style and I'm panicking over colors. How do I choose? Can you look up what that color is? I mean, if it's just like the middle of the red. Middle Red. Yeah, it's the red.
- [82:34]
Zach Klapman
Yeah, it's the red G70.
- [82:35]
Matt Farah
Yeah. So I mean colors, your color choice is really two silver or black?
- [82:43]
Zach Klapman
Pretty much don't get black wheels.
- [82:44]
Matt Farah
I would not. I think the black happens to look awful in this one.
- [82:47]
Zach Klapman
I think it looks awful on basically every car. I am anti black wheels. So this is a very subjective question for this person, but I just spent, I spent a long time selecting wheels for my car because Apex makes so many different kinds. And what I did, this method is just for me is, you know, the G70 I think is a good looking car and it has very like smooth, organic, roundish shapes. I would not go with a wheel that has very geometric shapes to it, like hard edges. Anything that looks, looks like, you know, zigzaggy stuff. Like really busy designs like BBS basket weave. I don't think that would look good on this for example. But other wheels, that's just me. I think you have a clash of design language. If you have like a very, you know, same way if you put like the phone dial wheels from your car or the Mini Cooper used on a car that was very angular, I think that might look weird. But that's just me. Otherwise it's like you got to figure out what you like.
- [83:44]
Matt Farah
Yeah, I mean I would, you know, I lose weight. Okay. So losing weight is a good place to start. Right. So you go, okay, well what is the stock wheel weigh and what wheels are out there that lose weight that are lighter. And then from there, I mean like HRE has like a visualizer sort of tool where you could see what their wheels look like on your car. Maybe other wheel manufacturers have that too. Or just like do me a favor Zach, just type in Genesis G70 aftermarket wheels. Let's just see what goofy Google images. Let's see what their AI thinks.
- [84:16]
Zach Klapman
Yeah, let's ask Chad GPT.
- [84:18]
Matt Farah
Okay, let's just go to images. Let's see what, let's see what looks good on the Genesis G70.
- [84:24]
Zach Klapman
I will also say depending on what wheels company you're looking at, hopefully they have a deep gallery of your car. Like Apex's site is great because you can choose from a bunch of car companies and they have user galleries up there.
- [84:37]
Matt Farah
That top left photo of the blue car. Car looks pretty. That looks.
- [84:40]
Zach Klapman
That's a nice blue on bronze.
- [84:42]
Matt Farah
The blue on bronze is good but you get a different color and I just looking at that sort of. It's a general. It's a split fork design with five star but with a split fork.
- [84:52]
Zach Klapman
Yeah, I like that.
- [84:53]
Matt Farah
Looks pretty good. You get those in the right color, that would look nice. You could do the bronze could work on red actually, but also gray. Gray and silver works on it.
- [85:03]
Zach Klapman
Yeah, it's really good.
- [85:04]
Matt Farah
Yeah. Scroll down in the gallery on the left. Let's see if anything else jumps out out at us. I had a lot of people doing this black.
- [85:10]
Zach Klapman
I would not do that.
- [85:11]
Matt Farah
I wouldn't either but. But split fork again.
- [85:16]
Zach Klapman
Silver like those.
- [85:18]
Matt Farah
Look like kind of like HRE designs. It's like a two piece but it's.
- [85:23]
Zach Klapman
Like a ten spoke but they're separated wider. But that's like to me this is like a roundish. It's got a lot of curve in the wheel which I Think matches the shape of the car.
- [85:31]
Matt Farah
Those look similar to what I have in my Porsche. Honestly, those look like they could be the HRE R101 one family versus like oh, this one's got the Voss in like an 18 spoke maybe or 16 spoke.
- [85:43]
Zach Klapman
Yeah.
- [85:44]
Matt Farah
Terrible. But not for me. Yeah, I like that first one the best. Yeah, that top, that blue with the, with the split fork. That looks really nice. Sorry if you heard my phone ringing there, but Genesis G70 underrated car. If you, if you wanted just like.
- [86:03]
Zach Klapman
Thad just called you and now he's calling me.
- [86:04]
Matt Farah
Oh, if you just wanted like a nice, like a car, like a nice commute car, that's a good car. Jag, you were thoughts on Mazda's current lineup? I mean Mazda's always been pretty underrated. I mean there's not a lot of people that think about Mazdas and buy Mazdas and they're often among the more dynamically better cars in their class. They're usually underpowered.
- [86:34]
Zach Klapman
They. But I think they also do a good job like Hyundai does, of giving you a more luxurious experience inside in terms of like design than the price would. Would make you think you're going to get. The reliability tends to be pretty good too.
- [86:53]
Matt Farah
Matt and Zach's excellent adventure. Do you think a paint to sample GT3 in carbon steel gray PTL. Yes. And special wishes GTI tartan interior would be something people would appreciate. Thinking of it as kind of a Mark VI GTI tribute build. I'm not sure if it would be tacky or singery. I personally love the idea. Let me break this down. One, don't get a car that you think people quote people would appreciate. Yeah, get a car that you, if you want your car to have elements that go back to your first car, I think that's cool.
- [87:35]
Zach Klapman
Yes, I agree.
- [87:36]
Matt Farah
I'm 100% pro that. But like if that's what you want and if someone goes, hey, nice tartan and you go, thanks. It's from the gti. They go, oh, neat. And they go about their life but. And maybe it's just in the way this is written but like don't do anything that quote people would appreciate because.
- [87:56]
Zach Klapman
There will always be people that won't like it or won't care. So if you're basing your excitement around this car on the response of the general public at a cars and coffee to always say good job, then that's just not a good way to go.
- [88:10]
Matt Farah
I agree. And also it's just me talking. I am not spending $12,000 on fucking gray.
- [88:18]
Zach Klapman
I didn't want to say it. I've said it too many times on this show.
- [88:21]
Matt Farah
There's no way black. There's no black, silver, gray or white that I would spend $12,000 on. And thirdly, I do like, while a tartan interior is something that a lot of people do on their GT cars and like, great, cool, love it. But how many people would see that and automatically make the association to the gti? I think very few. If I was going to do a GTI throwback, I'd get a golf ball shot shift knob. Yeah, that would be fun. You could. There's other things from the GTI that you could do that would be more GTI ish.
- [88:59]
Zach Klapman
And because, I mean, tartan is a popular inlay and it's like, yeah, yeah, in a lot of cars. I'm gonna get one on my B pillar. But I think that's a cool idea. I just, just don't rely on other people to go, yeah, this is special because It's a gray GT3 and it's.
- [89:13]
Matt Farah
A lot of them tacky Norse. There's nothing about a gray GT3 with tartan that's singery. There's nothing related to Singer there at all.
- [89:21]
Zach Klapman
Yeah, you're ordering pepperoni pizza and going, are people going to be okay with this?
- [89:26]
Matt Farah
Yeah, yeah. It's a cool car. Buy it. You like it, Great. Good for you. Do it for yourself. Nathan Reynolds always wanted an E90 M3. It's a bit too big and heavy to be a dedicated sports car or track toy, but at the same time two maintenance intensive and finicky to be a daily driver, commuter. Am I crazy?
- [89:46]
Zach Klapman
Well, Bernou, our friend Alex Bernstein, really good photographer. He has built an E90 track car that is awesome and based on his post like has been very reliable once he built it to that spec and it shreds and it's a good, it's a visceral experience. It's an NA motor, It revs high like it's a cool formula. It is a big, ish, heavy, ish car, but compared to modern shit, not so I think you have to define what you think is light and maintenance. Yeah, that is the thing.
- [90:16]
Matt Farah
Yeah. I mean alternatively you could buy a sedan with a manual transmission and it's a friend and kid friendly second car.
- [90:29]
Zach Klapman
That is an M3 sedan or other sedan.
- [90:32]
Matt Farah
No, an M3 sedan. If you buy an E90 M3 sedan, right suspension, right wheels, couple choice mods here and there and you've got a pretty fun Weekend car that you could take to a track day or you could do. You know, it's an M3. The thing about an M3 is that it's 7.5s across the board.
- [90:54]
Zach Klapman
Right.
- [90:55]
Matt Farah
So you can. Then once you buy it, you can pull this lever up and this one goes down a little bit. Pull this one and you, and you. You can send the focus of the car off into any direction you want.
- [91:06]
Zach Klapman
I agree.
- [91:06]
Matt Farah
That's what's good about an mtv.
- [91:08]
Zach Klapman
I think Nathan needs to tell us what he wants because he's going, this can't be a full track car and it's not a super commuter. Those are very different objectives for a car.
- [91:17]
Matt Farah
Yeah, yeah. Last one Shoonhound wants wants to know if I would ever dress as John Davis at a party or at Radwood.
- [91:29]
Zach Klapman
Do it on only. Only fans.
- [91:30]
Matt Farah
I mean, how do you dress as John Davis specifically? I mean, I can picture John Davis just wearing like, you know, fucking. He dresses like a history professor at a Northeastern university, basically. There's no. There isn't like a John Davis Motor Week. Yeah. I mean, yeah.
- [91:56]
Zach Klapman
Khakis in a blue jacket.
- [91:57]
Matt Farah
Khakis in a blue jacket. I think if I did that, I'd have to explain to people what I was doing. And a good costume is not having.
- [92:07]
Zach Klapman
And a good joke.
- [92:08]
Matt Farah
Yeah, A joke you have to explain to everybody is not a great joke. I see where your head is at, but, like, this is a case of bald bias.
- [92:18]
Zach Klapman
That's what they're doing.
- [92:19]
Matt Farah
Yeah, but there's no dress like him. He just dresses like a fucking boomer. He dresses. Pick your boomer. Fucking take his head off that photo and put my father's head on that.
- [92:30]
Zach Klapman
And it looks exactly the same, honestly. Yeah.
- [92:35]
Matt Farah
Photoshop Big Raj into any of those photos and nothing else changes.
- [92:39]
Zach Klapman
Yeah, it's true.
- [92:43]
Matt Farah
All right, well, we were gonna go off roading this morning, but Zach was smart enough to look at the winds and saw that it was like blowing 60 up there.
- [92:51]
Zach Klapman
I checked the weather and it was gonna be the same conditions that CANC canceled our Mustang and Corolla review.
- [92:58]
Matt Farah
So Rivian was happy that we didn't take the truck to get gravel machine gunned on the mountain. We're going to go Friday. We are still off roading the Rivian. I am ready for it. I do. You know, as much as I don't like all of the trappings that EVs bring on the road with the touchscreens and everything, I do love me an EV off road. That is just great.
- [93:22]
Zach Klapman
And that thing is a really nice daily driver. Once I figured out to set the suspension correctly.
- [93:26]
Matt Farah
Right. Yeah. You can't have the suspension in comfort mode at the same time the ride, the height of it is at low.
- [93:34]
Zach Klapman
Right. It was in conserve height and it was just like very sports car. Like.
- [93:38]
Matt Farah
Well, it rides like it's on cut springs.
- [93:39]
Zach Klapman
Yep.
- [93:40]
Matt Farah
Which it basically is.
- [93:41]
Zach Klapman
Yeah, that's true. It is, basically. So it was a lot better.
- [93:44]
Matt Farah
But, yeah, well, they did change that because, like, when we drove the truck two years ago, I was annoyed that you couldn't have it on standard ride height in conserve mode because conserve mode is still like 500 horsepower. And for all daily driving needs, you're in conserve mode. But it set the height to low for aerodynamic reasons, which makes sense. But when you're driving around the city, the aero makes no difference and it rides like shit.
- [94:11]
Zach Klapman
I wish it had a setting and they could program this in and update maybe where it just sees what your average speed is for a certain amount of time and goes, okay, you don't need to be in low. You can stay at normal riding height and be in conservative. I mean, now you can set it manually.
- [94:25]
Matt Farah
Yeah, yeah.
- [94:26]
Zach Klapman
But it just seems like a strange programming to, you know, assuming 70 miles an hour.
- [94:29]
Matt Farah
Yeah. I wouldn't be surprised if there's something with efficiency and EPA testing and whatever that would prevent the car from just choosing the appropriate mode.
- [94:41]
Zach Klapman
Good point.
- [94:41]
Matt Farah
And I bet if you put it into conserve, then it default goes to the lowest mode and you then have to click it twice to go back up. But yeah, in super soft, normal height mode, it does ride quite well. It's not. It's not a Range Rover, but it's close. All right, that's our. That's our show, folks. And just as a reminder, as we approach the holiday season, we are taking the month of January off podcasting. We have never taken a break more than one week in ten years doing this goddamn show. And I have a lot of travel and Zach has travel, and so we're going to take that opportunity to recharge our brains and not freak out about creating content on, like, the one day a week I'm in Los Angeles.
- [95:30]
Zach Klapman
It would have been nuts.
- [95:31]
Matt Farah
Yeah, it would have been horrible. So, you guys, we appreciate you. We're still going to do it. We're still going to do the extra pro driver show for the Patreon. They're going to get their money's worth that month, and I guess, kind of. We appreciate the support. We hope you understand. And that you're not going to cancel, cancel your Patreon subscription because we're doing that. Other independent creators that I support on Substack and other places and like, look, they take breaks.
- [96:00]
Zach Klapman
Something we do that a lot of podcasts I follow don't do anymore is we haven't siloed our back catalog. A lot of shows, Jon Stewart, Marc Maron, a lot of these folks, all of their back catalog is like subscription only. And our stuff, like, if you miss us for a month and you haven't listened to the first 980 shows, this is nine. But if you haven't listened to like the first hundred. When we were, you know, in the house and it was a little untethered, like there's some really funny, good guests in there, but there's a lot. There's a deep catalog for you to pull from.
- [96:29]
Matt Farah
Yeah, I saw Scotto at the Porsche, the Pec. I also saw Vinynatra. I saw a bunch of people down there. It was a big event. And Scotto said, and this was a funny idea. Scotto and Vinnie said that for the thousandth episode, we should do like a 12 hour podcast, but it's tag team, so we invite our favorite people to come over.
- [96:57]
Zach Klapman
Sure, I like that idea.
- [96:58]
Matt Farah
And just tap in, tap out. You know, we'll have four mics going and it's just all day throughout the day, like 8 to 8 or 9 to 9. And we'll just fucking have people come by, tag in, do 90 minutes, do two hours and just fucking send it with like a, like 10 people.
- [97:16]
Zach Klapman
Are we on for 12 hours and the guests rotate in or are we letting people take over?
- [97:20]
Matt Farah
Well, I mean, obviously we have to get up and piss and whatever. So like. But.
- [97:25]
Zach Klapman
But I like this idea.
- [97:26]
Matt Farah
That was an interesting idea.
- [97:27]
Zach Klapman
And if we broadcast it live on YouTube. YouTube maybe as a thousandth celebration. That's also very good. We could do that.
- [97:35]
Matt Farah
Right, Meaning broadcast it publicly. Publicly. Not to. Not to Patreon.
- [97:40]
Zach Klapman
We could try that.
- [97:41]
Matt Farah
Can we broadcast. Can we broadcast to two YouTube channels at once?
- [97:44]
Zach Klapman
No.
- [97:45]
Matt Farah
Okay, so we'd have to do it to the main channel.
- [97:47]
Zach Klapman
We have to do at the main channel.
- [97:48]
Matt Farah
Would we do it on the main channel or do it on the.
- [97:51]
Zach Klapman
Sorry, I think we do it on the podcast.
- [97:52]
Matt Farah
The podcast channel. The public podcast channel.
- [97:55]
Zach Klapman
Thousand celebration. I like that idea. That would be.
- [97:57]
Matt Farah
That's a good idea.
- [97:57]
Zach Klapman
And that's better than when we did the 200th or something. We had 12 people, but they were all in the room at the same time.
- [98:02]
Matt Farah
Oh, yeah, it was too much.
- [98:03]
Zach Klapman
We need a scheduling system, like a.
- [98:06]
Matt Farah
There would have to be some kind of scheduling.
- [98:07]
Zach Klapman
I'm like a Google Calendar thing that. That people have to have slots.
- [98:10]
Matt Farah
Yeah.
- [98:10]
Zach Klapman
I like this idea.
- [98:11]
Matt Farah
Yeah.
- [98:11]
Zach Klapman
Yeah.
- [98:12]
Matt Farah
Well, in our month off podcasting, one of the things we will work on is the scheduling of what happens at this thousandth show.
- [98:19]
Zach Klapman
Cool.
- [98:19]
Matt Farah
Could. Could turn into a total.
- [98:22]
Zach Klapman
Now we have to tell Scotto that he can only sit for two hours. He can't do five.
- [98:27]
Matt Farah
Yeah. He could do go for the record within. Within the show. Yeah. Personal record. And then, you know, so we'll have to get everybody on the same page to come through. All right, that's our show for today. Thank you, everybody. Special thanks to our patrons, and we'll see all of you next time. Bye.