ZR1 record; GV80 Review; a Tesla hits a House

Summary

The Smoking Tire Podcast – June 30, 2026

Hosts: Matt Farah, Zack Klapman
Episode Topics: Corvette ZR1's record-setting acceleration, Tesla FSD controversy & crash in Europe, Genesis GV80 SUV review, custom Mercedes swaps at Quick Classics, and listener questions.

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EPISODE OVERVIEW

Matt and Zack catch up after a busy week, diving into key developments in the automotive world. Highlights include a deep-dive into Matt's trip to Nashville for Mercedes projects, the blistering performance of the new Corvette ZR1, controversy over Tesla's FSD safety data and a major accident, and a thorough hands-on review of the Genesis GV80 luxury SUV. The episode ends with listener Q&A covering EV practicality, car culture trends, and car buying advice.

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KEY DISCUSSION POINTS & INSIGHTS

1. Matt’s Efficient Nashville Trip (& Vespa Adventure)

• [02:00–13:40]
• Matt describes a tightly planned Nashville trip involving a Vespa ride to the airport (noting the free parking advantage), quick transit and contrasts it with more typical travel headaches.
• Shares stories of riding with friend Vinnie, comparing the Vespa to a massive BMW bagger ("It's a fucking 900 pound Nazi sled bagger!" – Matt, 05:35).
• Reflects on the differences in family perceptions: "My mom burst out crying when she saw my old motorcycle. But she doesn't care about the Vespa. The mental borders people make are funny." – Matt, 09:04.
• Cautionary personal tales about motorcycle safety.

2. Matt’s Visit to Quick Classics: Mercedes Engine Swaps & One-off Builds

• [22:00–46:00]
• Matt visited Matt Quick at Quick Classics in Tennessee, giving listeners an inside look at custom Merc builds:
  • His own W124 Mercedes: Now halfway through a 5.5L AMG V8 swap, limited slip diff and custom exhaust. "Of the nine bays, eight were getting the 5.5L V8—it's the move for reliability, power, and weight." – Matt, 23:00.
  • 190E Rosso Edition: Factory-crazy 'psychedelic Tetris' interior, swapped with a 4.3L V8 and manual, creating "one of the best sleepers I’ve ever driven." – Matt, 34:05.
  • Manual-Swapped G55 G-Wagon: Perhaps the only modern manual G55, with all diff lockers working: "You just put the manual in and the lockers don’t care..." – Matt, 38:38.
  • W111 Coupe (220/280 SE) with 6.2L V8 + 6MT & air suspension: "If this had a brand name, it’d be a high-six, maybe seven-figure build—but it wasn’t." – Matt, 40:07.
• General praise for the sleeper quality, sorted mechanicals, and long-term reliability of these unique Mercs.

3. Corvette ZR1X: Fastest Car & Pikes Peak Records

• [47:00–49:15]
• Car and Driver timed the ZR1X at 0–60 mph in 1.8 seconds, ¼ mile at 8.9s @ 155mph—the quickest they’ve ever tested.
  • "ZR1X is now in the same conversation as Rimac Nevera. For a tenth the price, and it's a gas engine!" – Zack, 47:49.
• J.R. Hildebrand set a new production car record at Pikes Peak in the ZR1X.
• Discussion of Pikes Peak drama: significant crashes, rougher-than-ever course, and driver skill.

4. Tesla FSD: Cooked Data & Deadly Autopilot Crash

• [51:14–59:49]
• New Reuters investigation shows Tesla submitted misleading safety data to EU regulators—using comparative tricks (counting only airbag crashes, comparing to all US vehicles—not modern cars with ADAS).
• "Tesla claims it’s 7x safer, but their numbers crumble when you read the fine print." – Zack, 54:22.
• Recent UK story: Tesla on FSD/Autopilot crashes into a house, killing the inhabitant.
• Hosts criticize the ongoing regulatory loopholes, malfeasance, and public’s willingness to trust marketing over facts.
  • "People don’t care—it’s the classic 'that won’t happen to me' logic." – Matt, 56:38.
  • "Even my wife, who does research for a living, said she had to stop using [AI]—it was making her worse at it." – Matt, 57:15.
• Caution about cognitive offloading and over-trusting semi-autonomous systems.

5. Genesis GV80 Review

• [61:47–73:18]
• Matt and Zack test the long-roof, 375hp twin-turbo V6 variant.
• Positives:
  • Interior build: "Spa-like, quilted and aluminum, feels like a cloud." – Zack, 62:52.
  • High-quality materials, design touches simulating a Bentley-lite experience.
  • Comfortable, highly adjustable seats; seamless luxury ambiance for the price.
• Negatives:
  • Some ride quality issues on 22" wheels; high-speed impacts send "shudders into the cabin."
  • Rear seat space is less generous than competitors; key fob design is poor with tiny, indistinguishable buttons.
  • Value: Fully loaded price intrudes on German territory (Cayenne/Q7), at which point driving dynamics or badge may tip the scale.
• Best as: "Serene transportation. Not engaging, but very comfortable" – Zack, 63:17.
• Both would recommend getting the model with smaller wheels for better ride comfort.

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NOTABLE QUOTES & MEMORABLE MOMENTS

• "It's a fucking 900 pound, you Nazi sled bagger." – Matt (05:35), comparing his Vespa to a friend's colossal BMW.
• "My little cousin, may he rest in peace, died on a motorcycle..." – Matt (10:02), in a warning about two-wheel safety and mindset.
• On the ZR1X: "They’re in the same conversation as Rimac Nevera...for a tenth the price and on old tech." – Zack (47:49)
• On Tesla’s FSD data: "It’s just the same sleight of hand, here and in Europe. We’ve talked about it for years, and nothing happens. So they do it again." – Matt (55:58)
• On Genesis GV80: "If I wanted serene, comfy traffic crawling, I’d pick this. If I wanted driving pleasure, I’d pay more for German." – Matt (72:12)
• On car culture: "At a certain point, even the most extreme YouTuber builds became unrelatable, and now people want to see relatable, manageable projects again." – Matt (91:19)

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TIMESTAMPS FOR IMPORTANT SEGMENTS

| Time | Segment/Topic | | ------------ | ------------------------------------------------------------ | | 02:00–13:40 | Travel stories, Vespa vs. motorcycle, safety, family anecdotes | | 22:00–46:00 | Quick Classics visit, Mercedes swaps/one-offs, deep car nerd content | | 47:00–49:15 | ZR1X 0–60/¼ mile records, Pikes Peak recap | | 51:14–59:49 | Tesla FSD data controversy, UK crash analysis | | 61:47–73:18 | Genesis GV80 detailed review | | 73:18–End | Patreon Q&A: EV beaters, car culture trends, manual learning, etc. |

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ADDITIONAL LISTENER Q&A HIGHLIGHTS

• Is a cheap EV (like an old Leaf) worth it as a work commuter?
  • Not unless you do a lot of miles or get one very cheaply—insurance and limited use-case likely offset gas savings. A plug-in hybrid might be wiser for flexibility.
• Best car to learn manual under $15K with four seats?
  • Any 1995–2007 Japanese compact (Civic, Mazda 3/6, Accord, Golf, etc.)—light clutch, easy to drive.
• Is car culture moving back to period-correct/reliable builds over "engine swap mania"?
  • Yes, partly due to relatability and the dead-end escalation of builds. "The audience and creators are gravitating to managable, relatable projects now."
• New car features that feel like a step back?
  • App logins, intrusive screens, and overcomplicated interfaces vs. hard controls.
• Modern car features you 'can't live without'?
  • Adaptive (Radar) cruise control is a standout.
• Are jobs in automotive underpaid due to passion?
  • Yes, for some. Many accept less pay to be involved in the industry they love, especially at the entry or "cool brand" level.

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CLOSING RECAP

Another wide-ranging episode blending gearhead storytelling, hot takes on industry trends, technical deep-dives, and honest tester feedback. Matt and Zack’s banter, insight, and real-world experience keep it engaging for car lovers and casual listeners alike.

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SELECT QUOTES WITH TIMESTAMPS

• On Tesla’s data games:
  "Tesla claims it’s seven times safer, but the numbers crumble when you read the fine print." – Zack (54:22)
• On modern semi-autonomous tech:
  "The more cognitive shit you offload to a computer, the more dangerous it is when it finally fails." – Matt (57:31)
• On the GV80’s value:
  "It’s the TEMU version [of a Bentayga], you know, so it is cheaper...but the interior’s more intuitive and expensive looking than BMW or Mercedes." – Zack (68:25)
• Car culture’s shift:
  "Even Freddy, you know, he hit a wall...at a certain point even he couldn’t do bigger. People just want relatable builds again." – Matt (91:19)

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For more reviews and follow-up video content, check out The Smoking Tire’s YouTube channel.

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End of Summary

Transcript

[A]

What up, everybody? Welcome to the Smoking Tire Podcast. Today's episode is brought to you by off the Record. As always, we love off the Record and so do you. Not a week goes by, not a week that I hear from one of you kind folks out there saying, off the record absolutely saved my backside. Usually that comes up with full dismissal, but frequently the points are taken off the record because off the Record has qualified attorneys in nearly every jurisdiction in the US Fighting for you. If you get a moving violation, big or small, don't plead guilty, get off the record. They will represent you on your behalf. And you don't have to do much of anything besides submit the ticket. A little explanation about your version of events, and they go to work. And I love sitting back waiting for that text message that says, your case has been dismissed. Man, it's a good feeling. Go to offtherecord.com TST that's offtherecord.com Tst to you. Get 10% off all legal services from off the Record. Download that app, keep it in your pocket, and you are good to go. If you get that ticket, you don't have to sweat it. That's offtherecord.com TST all right, folks, on this episode of the podcast, the Corvette ZR1 is the quickest 0 to 60 ever tested by car and driver. Tesla crashes into a house and used cooked data to allow FSD to work in Europe. And Zach and I review the Genesis GV80 Luxury SUV. It's the smoking Tire podcast. Let's go, guys. The Smoking Tire is giving away a 992.1 Turbo S. In partnership with Dream Giveaways, we are giving away a $275,000 car with some slick choice mods. The proceeds benefit charity and you don't have to buy any merch. It's a straightforward entry process. So hit the link in the show not and get entered to win today. It's 9:30. No, it's 10:15 in the morning and I've been up for eight hours.

[B]

What?

[A]

I woke up at 4:00am in Nashville, which is 2:00am here to fly home. Zach Klopp.

[B]

I forgot you flew in this morning.

[A]

Yes, I've already had a work day this morning.

[B]

You get to have another one. Same day.

[A]

That's the good news. It's like, you know, they say if you do what you love, you'll never work a day in your life. Well, sometimes you get to work two

[B]

days your entire life, 16 hours in a day.

[A]

I'm not complaining. I've just Had a lot of coffee.

[B]

That's a really early start.

[A]

It is. That is a very early start. But fortunately I did like a pretty mature thing in Nashville. I went to see Matt Quick, who's working on the Mercedes, and I guess not if you're listening live, but anything but live. The last show is my interview with Matt Quick, but man, did I make. This trip was like incredibly efficient. First off road, the Vespa to the airport. It was a one nighter and everything fit in a backpack.

[B]

Awesome.

[A]

Vespa to the airport. Not only do you just park in the garage across the street from the terminal, you park there for free. Yeah, and you park right in the front. And so I just like hop off the bike. Helmet jacket stores in the cargo box of the bike and just 50ft to the terminal. Fabulous.

[B]

I would do that anytime you travel without the camera case. You should do that.

[A]

Well, I can't fit like a rollerboard on the Vespa.

[B]

But you travel with just backpack a lot? Not that often, no.

[A]

Well, no, because usually if I have back, I almost always have backpack. You have plus, but it's usually backpack and then camera case. Okay.

[B]

Tie the camera case to the Vespa. Do some, you know.

[A]

Well, if I, if I remove the cargo box, there is a luggage rack. The cargo box mounts to this luggage rack. So like, it isn't totally inconceivable that I could like bungee cord or like ratchet strap the camera case to the bike. Almost like most of the time we're traveling though, like someone else is eating that Uber bill.

[B]

True.

[A]

So, you know, whatever, Fine. But like this is the move. Like if you're traveling light, there's never been a better move.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

I mean, and coming home, land off, cross the street, helmet on. I mean, I think my feet, I think I left the jet bridge at like 8:46 and I was here at like 9:02.

[B]

Wow. Yeah, I landed last Sunday night and really late, so there was not a line for Uber cars, but I still had to wait like 13 minutes. And there were no cabs and all that stuff. Yeah, you told me it was. I was like, oh, it's probably really cheap to park a motorcycle. And you rode back free. Yeah, I was like, I should get the best money.

[A]

It was free. And so that was really amazing. I did 100, 100 miles over the weekend between, between Friday and today on the Vespa. So we, I worked, me and Vinnie, I rode up the Snake. I was like, I'm going to, I'm going to take this thing, it was fun. Yeah, it was totally. So for those who don't know, my buddy Vinnie Russo, he used to work for me here at the shop. He's. He's moved on, but been a friend for 25 years. He rides a BMW. It's like a B18, I think it's called.

[B]

It's called the Enormotron.

[A]

It's a fucking 900 pound, you Nazi sled bagger. And like it. I call it that because it just has. It's got little visual cues on it that are like real like graph zeppelin, you know. It's not, it's not, it's not like it's not maga coded. That's not what I mean. I mean in the truest, in the truest traditional sense of the word, it's huge.

[B]

It is a zeppelin. None of these pictures were showing, give it like there's no context clues here for size comparison. There's a giant motorcycle.

[A]

There's a reason they don't park this in the, in the press. So humans next to a human.

[B]

Yeah. It is enormous.

[A]

It's a huge bike. So me and him riding, you know, I'm on. I'm physically bigger than he is by some margin. And I'm on this Vespa and he's on this gigantic bagger. It's a very funny.

[B]

You're Nemo.

[A]

Following the turtle on my Instagram, there's a photo of my bike next to his bike. I posted it this morning there. It's. It's actually hysterical in, in that gallery. There's. So that's not a great one there. That's the top of the snake, his B18 and my little Vespa.

[B]

Jeez, it is so big. Yeah. And he has the bags on it.

[A]

Yeah, yeah.

[B]

Wow. Yeah.

[A]

So. So it was very agile, the Vespa. The power is great, you know, no break in. So I just wrote it straight up there. You can absolutely go up mountains, you know, accelerating like, you know, no problem. It was really, really fun. The highway photos guy on Mulholland got a photo of me which I didn't have time to buy before this show, but I will get it printed. I'll buy it for 20 bucks and put it on the Patreon leaning down. You could definitely smell that coating burning off the inside of the muffler a little bit. And you could definitely. I definitely got a little, a little heat in the brake PA going down the Snake. But it's all good. This is a good time. This is really, really fun. And they delivered it with like a half a tank of gas. So I don't know about the range, but I filled it up all the way on the way home. And the range on the dash says 150 miles. Wow.

[B]

Where does it get mpg? Do you know?

[A]

I don't know. I mean, they say. They say it's 60, but like it's a 1.8 gallon tank. That's not 150.

[B]

Yeah, it's not.

[A]

No, it's not. It almost certainly will not end up being that.

[B]

I wonder if it calculated because you went down. Cause I was going down probably.

[A]

Yeah. It actually. The temperature gauge is real. The temperature gauge fluctuated a bit as I was like, caning it up the hill versus coming down. And the. Yeah, the meters are real. So it does actually the miles per gallon one, it fluctuated around a whole bunch as I was riding. So. Fucking cool thing, though. I mean, it's. It's. I know you're. You don't do motorcycles anymore, but in a safe. Somewhere safe. You should just try it because it's very fun.

[B]

No, I'm. I'm jealous of your Vespa a lot. I rode a scooter in high school. I got to take classes at ucsc. And if you drove a car up there, parking was like $20 a day. And if you rode a motorcycle, it was $1.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

So I borrowed my friend's Honda. I can't remember what it was. And I wrote my. And my parents were okay with it, shockingly, because they were like that. Math is pretty good. You do ride a bicycle on the same road all the time.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And so I rode the scooter all the time for. For a whole semester.

[A]

My. When she first came to visit me after I moved to LA in the Redondo house, and she saw my motorcycle, my Suzuki, she broke down crying and begged me to sell it. She has absolutely no problem with me riding this scooter all over the place. The mental borders that she and others build around scooter versus motorcycle are very fun. It's just as dangerous every bit as

[B]

it is as dangerous for things hitting you.

[A]

Right.

[B]

But I think there's no culture of speed in the whole. It's a scooter community.

[A]

I think it says a lot about how people in my family think about me. No, there. I don't think people in my family are worried about me making a bad decision on a motorcycle. I think they are worried about something hitting me.

[B]

Well, I think if that was true, she wouldn't have cried about the Motorcycle.

[A]

Oh, no, you're probably right. Yeah, you're probably right.

[B]

That was like, you're gonna go too fast. And all the stories of them are bad.

[A]

My fucking little cousin, may rest in peace, died on a motorcycle.

[B]

Jeez.

[A]

Remember? I don't remember, like 20, 21 years old. My cousin Evan, purely. I mean, I hate to say this, he kind of never had a chance. He had a lot of problems growing up. He was going to be the person that if you gave him a motorcycle, he would die on it. I mean, he demonstrated years of making very bad decisions in cars. I mean, he made a million bad decisions in cars and then got a motorcycle. And he. A car in front of him on a two lane road in New Jersey was slowing down, slower than a pace he would like, and he went to go overtake the car on the double yellow. Well, why was the car slowing down? Because it was making a fucking left without a blinker. He didn't use his blinker. He was slowing down to make a left he didn't expect to get. And he fucking died.

[B]

Wow, that's really sad.

[A]

Yeah, but that's like. And I. It's a terrible thing that he died. This is probably, I guess about five, six years ago. It's a terrible thing that he died. But like, it was like a purely that motorcycle mindset, bad decision of. I'm small, I'm fast, I can fit anywhere. They'll never. He ran from the cops on the bike like twice before. I mean, literally, he is 21. Yeah, this was the person who was going to die on a motorcycle. It just, it, it was gonna happen. I can't believe that. Anyway, I don't want to get into family drama and fuck, but like, that's just. It was. Anyway, me, I'm not gonna be that person. I've said it over and over. Not on a bike anyway. Certainly not funny.

[B]

So I spent this weekend in Colorado with like, you know, a bunch of my good friends and meeting their kids. And I stayed at my friend's house. He's got two teenage daughters and, you know, like, my back's really messed up right now, so when I stand up, I'm all crooked. Like, they're like, you want to play four square? I was like, I'm not going to move. Yeah, I will. I'm just not going to move. So they could like dunk on the handicap, dude. Which is pretty funny. But they're like, oh, what happened? And I, you know, some of my problems are linked to my crash. And I was like, I was like girls never ever get on the back of a bike with a dude in college. Like, I didn't, I didn't crash with anybody on the bike, but I was just like this. I am the cautionary tale. Do not do that. Because they're approaching that age where some guy's going to be like, come on, it'll be fun.

[A]

Yeah, yeah, it's. Yeah, yeah. You really have to. If you're gonna ride motorcycles. You gotta fucking have restraint and get your skills up and fucking wear the gear and just be, be in the right mindset. Like, you can't, the consequences are so high, dude. You can't fuck around.

[B]

You know the gear. Like I've said, I was wearing all my gear. I have zero road rash. I had zero for my crash. My buddy Nick crashed on his road bicycle this weekend at 30. His arm, his whole leg were just shaved off, dude. And yeah, it was. Yeah. And I went 30 miles per hour. Yeah.

[A]

It doesn't seem like much, but when you're on the bicycle, certainly when you're on, if you're on a motorcycle going 25 or 30, that doesn't feel like anything, right? That feels like, oh, if I fell off, I could run this out, you

[B]

know, it does feel like that.

[A]

No, no, you will have no skin is what.

[B]

If you, if you don't land on your feet, you'll have no skin.

[A]

So I actually, I wore my motorcycle boots to go up in the, in the canyons. I figured, couldn't really, couldn't really hurt. Even though I was on a Vespa normally day to day, I kind of just sneakers it. But I'm just so stoked on this thing. LE is gonna buy one, it's gonna

[B]

be all kinds of nice.

[A]

I fucking wanna, I wanna ride it to Monterey. Yeah, I really do. And I absolutely could. I would need to do. I would need to either.

[B]

Support is coming in from Factor. Picture this. You are exhausted, but you're hungry. Maybe you just got back from work or the gym after work or off of a flight or a 16 hour workday and you've got healthy groceries in the pantry in the fridge and you know how to make healthy food, but you just don't have it in you. Happens to me all the time. Support is coming in from factor and they're going to solve that problem for me. Eating healthy is not a willpower problem. I've been eating healthy variety of foods since I was a kid. Really started focusing on it in college when I started working out a lot. But it can be a Setup problem. Sometimes I just don't set myself up for success or I don't have the time to cook something. I have an edit I have to finish. I've got a really early meeting I have to get to, or I just have to squeeze too many things in the day, and I don't have the hour to hour and a half it takes to prep, cook, and clean up the kitchen. Factor solved this problem for me. And they do it the right way. They've got chefs, they've got dieticians. They're like the X men of food. They combine their powers and the result is delivered right to your door. Healthy, delicious. You're gonna like it. So with Factor, I'm hitting my nutrition goals this season. Trying to lean out a little bit for summertime if we're honest. And I can do all that without planning, without grocery runs or without cooking or the resulting dishes to clean up. And Factor has meals built around your goals. I like to do lots of vegetables and double protein. Try to get a lot of lean protein to help build and maintain muscle mass. Of course, getting a little harder as I get into my 40s. So I kind of need all of the amino acids I can get for help. And they have choice just for that. But they also have meals built around your goals. Could be weight loss, could be General Nutrition, GLP1 support. Maybe you have allergies. They can attend to all of those needs and wants. And if you're looking for strength and workout recovery like I am, like Matt is, check out Factor's muscle pro collection. Every meal is crafted with functional ingredients. You've got lean proteins, colorful veggies, whole foods, and healthy fats. Factor has banned over 175 ingredients. There's no artificial colors, there's no artificial sweeteners, no high fructose corn syrup or refined seed oils. Just nutrient dense food. This stuff is fresh and never frozen. There are over 100 rotating weekly meals, including globally inspired flavors like Mediterranean and Asian. So there's always something new to look forward to. It definitely exposes me to new menu items, and I really love that variety. And perfect for a hot summer. They have newly launched ready to eat salads with vibrant ingredients like elote corn and miso edamame. Plus over 70 add ons to round out your nutrition, from green juices to peanut butter. Energy bites. I will take a barrel of those, please. Ready in two minutes. Factor shops, preps, cooks, and delivers straight to your door so you have more time for everything you love. This summer, head to factor meals.com tire50off and then use code tire50OFF to get 50% off. And free daily greens per box with new subscription only while supplies last until September 27, 2026. See website for details.

[A]

I would need to either buy a windshield and look like a dork for that trip, or I'd have to get on a rigorous core and ab routine for like six weeks and just do a fucking crazy amount of crunches. Cause up to about 60, it's beautiful. Above 60, you're. You gotta. You're really engaging your abs just to sit up straight.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

You know, and you know, I can do that for 20 or 30 minutes or even like an hour. If I had to.

[B]

I would put a windshield on it. Cause my bike was a street fighter. It had no windshield and it was breezy.

[A]

Yeah, no, no, yeah, exactly. And I would go back roads. If I rode to Monterey, I would not ride on the highway. But you'd want a windshield. The one. They have two height windshields. The normal one, my green Vespa came with one on it. The normal one's like this big. It's about a foot high.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Not that dorky. When you're my height, it bounces the wind directly into your chin and lifts the helmet up. Lifts your helmet. It was when I bought the bike and rode it home From Buena Park 30 miles on the highway. I thought my helmet was gonna like, parachute me off the bike onto a bike. It was crazy. I was like, I couldn't get this off. And then they have the helmet for tall people, right.

[B]

They have the chips helmet.

[A]

It makes you look like a English Bobby. It's like above my head.

[B]

It's so tall. Yeah. You need the old CHP helmet from 1992.

[A]

It's like half a phone booth in front of your shit. It's so tall. Yeah.

[B]

They took a snow saucer and they cut it and they put it in front of you. But I mean, if you're riding 370 miles to Monterey.

[A]

Oh, bro.

[B]

Especially if you could, like, take it off when you get there.

[A]

It is truly the gray New Balance 993. It is dorky as fuck, but it's luxurious when you're using it.

[B]

That is the highway. One ride would be awesome.

[A]

That's what I'm talking about.

[B]

Yeah. Well, there's a lot of ways to do it, so. But that would be the way to do it.

[A]

I would do, you know, avoid highways. I would go up Malibu. I would go. You have to do the 101 a little bit because you can't get through. You do the 101 to Santa Barbara, which is a good section. Get off at Santa Barbara, you go on the 150, whatever, 152 over Los Olivos, Los Alamos, up to that way, and then you cut down across 58. Maybe wherever the 33 meets at the top of it, you cut across and you can get sort of to PCH that way.

[B]

That's a two day ride, I think.

[A]

Oh, for sure. I wouldn't like. I would. Yeah, for sure.

[B]

That'd be awesome.

[A]

You want to enjoy it? Yeah, Like, I physically could do it in a day just to prove that the Vespa is a real motorcycle. But, like, why torture yourself?

[B]

Oh. Someone in chat says, pro tip from someone who rides a sport bike everywhere. If you pack enough stuff behind you, you can use it as a backrest for 100%.

[A]

Also, I would have some kind of duffel bag behind me, strapped to the cargo box or to the seat or something. Yeah, that's 100% pro tip. Love it.

[B]

Yeah, that's a fun idea. You should do that.

[A]

I think I will do it.

[B]

I'm gonna see if I can get to your Monterey.

[A]

I don't even have to do it for car week. It would be cool next week. Next year. Like, for instance, if. Assuming the Lamborghini is done, if we want to go back to car week, you. We could get a press vehicle. You could drive to Monterey with our trailer and tow the. And tow my car.

[B]

I could also drive.

[A]

Drive the Kutash.

[B]

That's what I thought you were headed.

[A]

A vessel caravan.

[B]

Sure.

[A]

That's interesting. Except we'd have to ship a lot of stuff.

[B]

Well, if the passenger seat, which we don't want to put things on, is just soft duffel bags under the floor. Is there any trunk in that car?

[A]

Oh, yeah. Behind the engine in the back, you can actually do a set of golf clubs. Oh, but, like, you can't do car week luggage. Car week luggage is the most luggage I carry.

[B]

That's a good point.

[A]

I've got, like, 75 fucking outfits for car week.

[B]

We'll trailer it. That's fine. We can. It's your car. I'm not gonna tell you where. You know what to do. Your recently refurbished Lamborghini.

[A]

If I die and Hannah dies, it's your car.

[B]

Oh, is that in the book?

[A]

Mm, it's in the binder.

[B]

Okay.

[A]

If both of us die, that becomes your car.

[B]

This is a very macabre opening.

[A]

I probably shouldn't have told you that, but just Let the record show that if I die of mysterious causes there was a financial motive.

[B]

Let's think about how dumb that kill you and Hannah so that I can inherit a somewhat reliable, extremely expensive to maintain vehicle that I can't flip and move.

[A]

It's a real short sighted investment strategy.

[B]

I mean I am a short sighted person often but even I know this is a bad idea.

[A]

Oh my God, that's so funny.

[B]

I'm not good at crime.

[A]

All right, enough about about Vespas because that was all to say I wrote it to the airport to go to Nashville. I had interviewed Matt Quick from Quick Classics in Tennessee last week. But, but I also. You want to grab those photos I sent you. We didn't really talk about the cool shit that he had there because I got to drive a couple things while I was there and I want to give you a couple quickies.

[B]

So what do you want to start?

[A]

I'm just going to go through whatever. Just the beginning of the game. There we go. So here we have a photo of the current state of my Mercedes. And as you can see the engine is installed so it fits. No modification to the firewall. Now there was 1, 2, 3, 4. This is an eight or nine bay shop. Okay. It's a good size, it's not huge. Everything is clean. It's organized. Of the nine bays in the shop, eight of them were five and a half liter powertrain swaps. This is now like this dude's business. This I think is if you're gonna go. Cause my car, he's expecting 150 hours of labor. He's done 74 hours of labor on my car. So half done these swaps it's about 150 hours. And basically if you're going to invest the money into the labor, the 5 1/2 liter naturally aspirated V8 is the best balance of power, weight, usability and reliability. So everyone just kind of goes for that. He can do a 6:2. It's a lot more expensive. We talk about it in the show. But eight of nine projects this guy has going on right now are this exact thing. About half of them are manuals, half are automatic. So the engine's in, the gearbox is in. There was a delay of about three weeks because the shop that makes the headers was backed up. He finally has the headers. I saw my beautiful one off. Super Sprint exhaust from Italy looks fucking great. And actually he had another car over there that had the same engine and exhaust set up. It sounds meaty cool. It's not loud. It's like it was a little loud because it was parked backed against a wall in an inside garage. So when he fired it up cold, it had a bark. But I think outside when it's just idling, it will just have a nice sort of baritone.

[B]

That's what I would want from this kind of car. You want like the deep rumble that the older Mercedes had, not the new amg.

[A]

Interestingly, Matt said later it's incredibly easy to fuck up the sound of an AMG motor by using poorly tuned or low quality aftermarket exhausts. So like he's like a lot of times the way to do it is to use the real AMG mufflers which give it the correct sound. But if you put like the wrong kind of mufflers on, put cherry bomb on it sound like a truck. Like it'll sound like a bad, badly tuned truck. So with the Super Sprint, it keeps, keeps it with this motor like pretty tight. And it's a dual exhaust, but it runs like it's one, but it's two. It's two parallel things that run together. So it looks like a single exhaust, but it is a true dual exhaust, which is kind of neat. So that's going now here on the inside you can see it looks almost original. Like you'd have to look and be like, well, what's changed? Other than the knob. But the entire mechanism is from the 2002. We're looking at the shift shifter plate and you can see the plus and minus there.

[B]

Yeah, yeah.

[A]

So you do have, you know, it's not amazing, but you have some kind of manual control over your gears, which is cool.

[B]

Yeah. What's the W and S? Is that winter and summer?

[A]

Yeah, winter and sport, I guess maybe winter.

[B]

Summer.

[A]

There's only two, it's not three. So you got to choose one or the other. We do not have traction control, which is fine.

[B]

It wouldn't be good in this car anyway.

[A]

No, it wouldn't. And we're actually getting rid of the Burlwood. The Burlwood's going and it's going to become. It's going to be aluminum.

[B]

That doesn't look great.

[A]

Yeah, no it's not. So here's differential.

[B]

Yeah, yeah.

[A]

So we are getting is a limited slip differential.

[B]

Cool.

[A]

Which is good. Car did not come with one as I learned in the previous show. Only I think Matt said only two or three Mercedes in history came from the factory with a limited slip differential.

[B]

And we know it wasn't the SLR.

[A]

No, it's the 6.9. Oh, fuck. Well, he says it in the last show and for the life of me, I can't remember now, but the 6.9 was.

[B]

Did you see Quick Tangent? You know, big time. The guys that split off from. I think Donut. I think. I mean, they do great stuff. We met him at. Or I met him at the Willow Springs track Day Jeremiah. They made an LSD by just using JB Weld and just like full on glomming it into the whole case. No way. Instead of like welding this stuff together.

[A]

It's not LSD though. It's a locked.

[B]

It's a locked. Yeah, it's like a lock. Just imagine. Toothpaste.

[A]

I wonder how long that'll hold.

[B]

I don't know. But I was like, what is amazing?

[A]

That's pretty fucking wild. Okay, so garage full of projects. Every car in here was getting a five and a half liter engine, even the old one. Actually, that's not true. The Black Wagon is Matt's personal car that has a 6:2 and a manual. And it is a nasty thing.

[B]

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[A]

He's actually looking to sell it. He built it for himself. So if anybody wants to spend 100k on a fully. And the interior is money. Black. Black. It's fucking great. Manual, 6.2 liter, 500 horsepower, TE wagon.

[B]

Wow.

[A]

It's hot, boy. Shit for sure. Super sleeper.

[B]

See if it has pictures in there.

[A]

Yeah, there's a million pictures. So there's an SL, an 80s SL. You can see the engine cover there. That SL, that's the 6.2. Actually, that silver engine cover is the 6.2 engine.

[B]

That engine's so much bigger than yours.

[A]

It is. He has to modify the hood a little bit. And to put a 6.2in mine. Or even to use the 6.2 engine cover, which is prettier than the 5.5 engine cover. He has to modify the firewall. Yeah. So keep going. Otherwise, wherever. What happened here? Oh, so this. So I drove. This is Matt's daily driver. This is a 190E narrow body car, not a Cosworth. And it's some special Rosso edition. This color is a limited edition color, which.

[B]

Like a wine.

[A]

Yeah, he didn't really care. It's really the interior. It comes with like an insane factory interior.

[B]

All this cloth is factory.

[A]

This cloth is factory. So he said he spent years looking for one just for the cloth.

[B]

I mean, this is.

[A]

Which I completely understand.

[B]

It looks like Tetris. Like psychedelic Tetris being played like door cards.

[A]

Tetris is very good. That really does look like Tetris. The car's super dirty because he took it on the Overcrest Rally this past weekend. So this is a 190E with the 430v8 from like a CLK430 and a six speed manual and like a really nice dialed in set of like KWS and go back. The wheels that are on it are from the CLK230. He says, and I have not done the research. These are the lightest factory wheels that Mercedes has like ever made. They're like £13 of 15. They're forged. I think there's 16s. I think there's 16s and they're forged. So they're super light. And the thing was on like Vredestein, you know, all seasons, bro, I had a go in this car. That's a fucking. That is the absolute titty. This car is like 3,000 pounds. Perfect weight distribution dialed in cruiser plus suspension with a good bit of travel and just the right amount of lean into corners. And a 300 horsepower, 300 pound of torque V8 with great gear ratios. The clutch was a little fox body Mustangy. There's a little, a little, the clutch was a little 90s muscle car.

[B]

Okay.

[A]

Outside a little heavy considering it's a small light Mercedes. And he said that was a choice. He put in the I'm gonna do burnouts clutch and not the. I want this to feel totally stock clutch. He said there is another option that he could do with this exact swap that has a lighter clutch pedal but it's. But it has a lazier flywheel and it's not as like durable or sporty.

[B]

I support his choice.

[A]

No, it wasn't, it was fine, but it was just like almost all of it. And the shifter, which it has like a short shift kit. The shifter feel and the clutch pedal feel was a little fox body Mustang, which I don't hate. But the rest of it was fucking ace. All the gauges worked. You can't tell. It's like it's just a nothing looking car from the outside.

[B]

That's a little of the eighth.

[A]

That's cool.

[B]

It's a 310.

[A]

Yeah. Remember the Alfa Romeo Montreal?

[B]

Yep. Remember how that, how that sounded? Sounded great.

[A]

Small bore V8 with like just tonal,

[B]

like just one of the best sounding cars.

[A]

I think this, I drove this. I was like, this sounds like the fucking Alpha Montreal.

[B]

Cool.

[A]

He fucking mishmashed an exhaust with like whatever was laying around and it just like sounds really nice. And like I was like, yeah, dude, 2,000 miles in. This makes a shitload of sense. He drove this from Tennessee to Wisconsin, did a rally and drove it back and got in the night before. I met up with him. Wow.

[B]

Amazing. I mean, testament to reliability also. But, yes, apparently he puts lots of

[A]

miles on these cars. Everything he talked about was, I've put 10,000 miles on that. I've put this. He basically said, if we had. If we had the wheels and tires for my car, even, like, ugly and unfinished as it is, he'll be able to just get in it and drive it to California rather than ship it. And I was like, don't do that.

[B]

We'll ship it. Wow.

[A]

But so this is. This was like. This little 190 is one of the finest sleepers I've really ever seen. Not. And actually, not because it is, like, so fast, but because it's just, like, it's easy to drive it fast. And it's like he kind of stopped at the. Right at the sweet spot. Like, it doesn't have 500 horsepower.

[B]

Right.

[A]

You know that it's got, like, the rear tires, like, two 15s.

[B]

Those are really narrow. Yeah.

[A]

You would not be doing yourself any favors with more power than this.

[B]

No. And the color, the stance of it, all of it looks executive grandpa. A bit from the period. Like, it doesn't look like it's gonna be a performance thing at all. And then if they turn it on, you're like, huh.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And then they shift, you go, huh, yeah. That's cool.

[A]

It rips. It drove beautifully. It was really, really. I was like. I almost was like, you want out of this? Like, you know, it's one of those. This is the kind of car that you should have this. You would love this sucker.

[B]

I bet I would. It seems like Sedan M3ish. Well.

[A]

Cause it's the same steering as the Cosweet.

[B]

Oh, yeah.

[A]

That's all. It's the same weight distribution as the Cosworth. Like, the things that people like about the Cosworth are mostly present in the regular 190.

[B]

And I don't like the one I drove. I never drove a real Cosworth. I drove a 190 that had been modified as close to one as possible. And it was. Steering and balance was fantastic, but the

[A]

engine was slow as dog.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Yeah, they're slow as dog. Apparently the Eurosp and spec ones are, like, a little less restricted and slightly better, but nevertheless the same shit, but with a fucking small V8 in there. Yes, please.

[B]

Yeah, definitely.

[A]

All day.

[B]

Cool.

[A]

I was like, bro, actually just take. Pull this entire powertrain out and put it in a 190Cosworth, and you have, like, the perfect 80s resto.

[B]

Because I would want. I mean, If I was just making this in my imagination, like a slightly more aggressive aesthetically would be cool. Maybe the wing or like tiny flares. But in this spec it's just very sleepy.

[A]

He's going for sleeper here. And it's a great contrast to the interior being all crazy, you know, but really fucking cool. And if he, if you like, you know, the best, the best BMW I ever Drove is a E30 with a S54 in it. This is like kind of like the Mercedes version of that and made me very excited to drive mine because mine has 100 more horsepower than this. I mean, it's a little heavier, it's got, you know, it's an automatic, but like it's going to be very fast.

[B]

Yeah, it's gonna be a really cool car, dude. Yeah.

[A]

And then keep punching through the photos real quick. Cause there's one more thing I want to show you that I drove. Oh, what just happened?

[B]

I lost the tap.

[A]

Oh, there we go. Yeah. So that's the 4.3. The engine bay is very tidy in this little 190. I mean, just a fabulous fucking sleeper.

[B]

Yeah, really cool. Yeah.

[A]

Factory engine cover. It's got ac. Yeah. All the cars have like ac. It all works. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Keep going. This is parked outside. This is Matt's girlfriend's daily driver. See anything fun happening here? Can you identify what's going on in this photo?

[B]

I mean, the shifter is suspicious.

[A]

What kind of Mercedes is this, Zach?

[B]

Oh, wait, does it have three windshield wipers?

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Oh, is this a G wagon?

[A]

This is a manual G wagon.

[B]

Whoa. Yeah, there's a locker.

[A]

As far as Matt knows, this is the only Modern Manual G WA. G55. This is an 03 G55 with a six speed manual. All the lockers work still. Everything works.

[B]

So he manual swapped it. Yeah, but then they kept everything else

[A]

working because all the lockers, according to him, are downstream of the gearbox. So you just put the fucking manual in and just. You need a different drive shaft and just connect it up. The lockers don't care and the lockers don't care.

[B]

Cool.

[A]

He said you have to modify the firewall a whole bunch to make the clutch pedal work. Because back in the day there were manual and automatic G wagons. At a certain point when they updated to this version, whatever the one they were selling in the, I guess late 90s to early 2000s, there were no more manuals. So they got rid of the mounting point for the clutch and blah. So putting a physical clutch pedal in this was a huge Pain in the ass. But actually the rest of it he says was kind of not. He just like put the manual in and got a drive shaft and it sort of worked, which is pretty awesome.

[B]

That's pretty cool.

[A]

Yeah. He said he might be looking to sell this one. So if anybody out there is interested in a 03 fairly medium scruffy G wagon, but a working manual one.

[B]

I like the floor mat. Looks like a Turkish rug sort of whatever it is.

[A]

This was not presented for me to photograph. As a journalist, I just happened to. I had a go in it. I did drive it. It does work. This is a fucking 280 SE. Or it might have been a 220, I don't know. But it's a coupe. This has the 6.2 liter swap with a six speed manual.

[B]

Dude, that's awesome.

[A]

Extremely legit. Wow. It's on air ride. And he told me how much this cost and I was shocked at how small the number was. If this had a brand name on it, it this would be a seven figure build probably or high, high six figures. And it was not that. Wow. It was not that at all.

[B]

Dude, these are so nice. But they need a little go. Like there's the guy, he has a green sedan that goes to the car stuff here. It's got like an LS swap with a manual and it looks pretty good. There's some things that don't work perfectly but it's like such a cool idea.

[A]

Remember Marcus's down at Heritage?

[B]

Oh yeah. That. I mean that was. That's this. It's basically this. Yeah. That was a six figure build.

[A]

That one really was.

[B]

But it's a very nice idea. Yeah.

[A]

So this is pretty cool. That's a fun project. There's my donor car.

[B]

Wow.

[A]

This is the sad E55 that my powertrain came out of.

[B]

What's the tape about? To keep the door closed or anything. Yeah.

[A]

Cause it got sideswiped so the doors wouldn't stay closed. It was actually almost the perfect car to get a powertrain from because like it did run and drive when it was taken apart it was just sideswiped. And we had to, you know, Matt had. He tore down the engine to a point and fully serviced it. Did all the major items and he did not find any real problems. So that's good. There's I guess some coolant o rings and little hoses that over time swell. And when they go oil gets into the coolant or coolant gets into the oil, one or the other. I forget which it's not good. Mine. If he drove another 5 or 6,000 miles, that might have happened, but it didn't happen.

[B]

Then you get the milkshake.

[A]

He showed me one where that did happen and it was a mess. It wasn't great. So, yeah, the interior. The interior of the 190.

[B]

Really cool.

[A]

Is really cool.

[B]

I can't believe that's stock.

[A]

Yeah. Is that all the photos I sent you?

[B]

No, no, no.

[A]

There might have been one more. This is the interior of his wagon. So this is a minty fresh, you know, 92 or 93 wagon.

[B]

The wood's still good condition.

[A]

He's got that Lotus exige shift knob. The metal one on there. I thought it was S2000 at first, but it's Lotus.

[B]

Yep.

[A]

The S2001 is not as round.

[B]

Prototypo also.

[A]

That is a Momo proto tipo, dude.

[B]

Yeah. What a good car.

[A]

Yeah. With these early cars, the 91s, 92s, you definitely want to either disable or take out the airbags. They're Gen 1 airbags. You don't even want to have those in a crash. So mine is a 95, so I'm going to leave the airbag. The second gen airbags are actually safe, but if you have an earlier car, you could take out the airbag. But yeah, I started this one up. This is a fucking bad motherfucker. Yeah. And he's got this cool module that converts the key signal to the digital Signal for the 6:2. So you still use the blade key. You don't need to use the stupid modern, irreplaceable, chunky thing. Yeah, yeah. You use the. And all the gauges still. It's fucking cool stuff.

[B]

It's really nice.

[A]

Yeah. So shout out to Matt Quick down at Quick Classics in Tennessee.

[B]

That's the same wagon, right?

[A]

Yeah, that's the wagon. Yeah.

[B]

Yeah, man. That will sell quickly.

[A]

It will. I told him, I said, look, if you, you know, he wants real money for it, but it's a fully sorted. I mean, he built it for himself. That thing is sorted. I said, if you want. Want real, real money for that car, you send it to Sean and have him put an AMG kit on it and like, make it look like a million bucks to match what's already been done. Because it's. Sleepers are great, but, like, people don't pay huge money for a sleeper. And I think if he invested 20k into bodywork on that car, it would return 30 or 40 on the resale.

[B]

That's probably true.

[A]

You know what I Mean, but I

[B]

think it'll still sell quickly because it looks. It's still. It's still a good looking wagon. And I think the longer roof shape actually helps with the narrower fenders. Whereas the sedan, I don't know, maybe I'd want, like, a little bit more flair. Yeah, I think it will sell really well.

[A]

But, like, you know Sean's red one that I tried to buy and he won't sell me, I'd say make it look like that.

[B]

That does look awesome.

[A]

It looks amazing.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Yeah. Like, I've. I asked him once a year if I can buy it, and he says, no, it's his wife's car. I said, I know. I want it to be my wife's car.

[B]

Does Hannah want it to be her car?

[A]

Oh, no, she saw it. She was like that. Yeah, we would be. If we were starting from zero, we would be doing a wagon. But Aunt Liz's car must remain family.

[B]

Plus, you like convertibles, so.

[A]

Yeah, a convertible cruiser is fucking cool, man. And Nashville is all right. Dude, I stayed. First time I've ever stayed in a hotel. Shout out to the Russell Hotel in Nashville. It's a. A counterless hotel. You check in like an Airbnb. There's a code to get in the hotel, there's a code to get in your room, but there's like, no people, which was weird, but it was actually nice. And according to them, the money they saved by not having that staff they support, it's like for every hundred dollars you spend at the hotel, like 50 of it goes to getting beds for unhoused people and showers and stuff. It's a former church. Very cool. And I tried mead. I went to a mead bar.

[B]

Never had it before.

[A]

I've never had it before. Oh, yeah, it was interesting.

[B]

I think it's delicious.

[A]

It was very.

[B]

Dude, the hangovers will be legendary. Well, I only had.

[A]

I had two. I was like. I was like. Cause it's so sugary. I was like, this would be a problem.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

But shout out to Bad Luck Burgers and whatever the fucking meadery is that Bad Luck Burgers is in. Delicious. Smash burger. Walking distance from my hotel. And I had some meat, and it was quite nice.

[B]

Really tasty. So many different flavors of it and they can do different things.

[A]

They had like a hundred varieties. I was like, just start me at the basic and then give me the one upgrade from the basic. And it was very good. Yeah, it's like halfway between beer and wine.

[B]

Yeah. I think it usually has, like, it's a little Thicker tasting.

[A]

So, yeah, they said a lot of mead you get is very syrupy. And this place brews their own and really tries to make it not syrupy. The first one was sort of like on the level of like a dessert wine in terms of sweetness. And then I tried one that was like lighter and sparkling. And that one I really liked.

[B]

Sparkling mead. Wow.

[A]

Yeah, it was good. It was like a champagne Y kind of vibe.

[B]

The last time I had mead, which was nine years ago, was like Ren Faire, where they give you the cup, but then they make you chug it while they pour more mead in. And it's like, you know, some buxom woman who's like yelling at you. And that's just how the business works.

[A]

Oh, and you've just had like a hundred ounces of fucking blood.

[B]

Yes, it was. That hangover lasted 30 hours. It truly did.

[A]

I bet. I mean, dude, I was so tired after yesterday. I was like. This was like 7pm it was like burger, two meads. And I was asleep at like 8:30 because I had to be up at 4 to be on the flight back. But while I was gone, Car and driver did a 1.8 second 0 to 60 run in the ZR1X. That's the quickest accelerating car they've ever tested, actually, which is pretty cool.

[B]

And then J.R. hildebrand set a new record in ZR1 at Pikes Peak for a production car, I think.

[A]

And the ZR1X, which is pretty cool. So good. Good on them, good on Chevrolet.

[B]

Yeah, for.

[A]

For having the quickest fucking 0 to 16, 1.8 quarter mile at 8.9. At 155. Nevera is still quicker. Rimac's still quicker in the quarter.

[B]

But the fact that they're having. They're in the same conversation.

[A]

Oh, it's crazy.

[B]

Really amaz a tenth of the price of the. And it's, you know, old tech. It's like this is a gas engine. You know, electricity seems to win all the drag races. But this is so close. Still want to drive 10 to 60 and 1.8. Yeah. Rear wheel drive. Well, actually, this is a little front. Dash of front. A dash of front.

[A]

So that's crazy. This is the first. This is the. Oh, I don't know. Well, maybe Car and driver never tested a Nevera, but there were definitely sub nine nevera quarter mile numbers. Yeah, but crazy, right? I mean, just. Just super fucking crazy. So shout out to them.

[B]

Did you see any of the Pikes Peak coverage this weekend?

[A]

No, I saw Amelia was The is the fastest woman ever up Pikes peak in her ZR1 or AZR1, which I'm very proud of her.

[B]

That's awesome. And what a crazy vehicle. That's such a fast vehicle because last year she did it in the GT4 club or whatever.

[A]

A lot faster.

[B]

Three times the horsepower. Holy moly.

[A]

Shout out to her. But GT4 or up pikes Peak is gonna feel like a slow car.

[B]

Sure.

[A]

It just is.

[B]

And the ZR1 will feel like. It'll feel like a 600 horsepower car here as you climb.

[A]

It's still very fast.

[B]

A big step.

[A]

Yeah. Yeah.

[B]

So that's amazing. Rob Holland had a really. A lot of people had big crashes. The bumpy section, I guess, is bumpier than ever. I mean, there's. Larry Chen had a photo of a gtr, like, all four wheels off, getting air in the bumpy section. And then it crashed. Like, moments later, it did. So a couple people hit, had big issues in those bumps.

[A]

I saw Rob Holland's crash. That was nasty.

[B]

The aftermath of that car is like wheels ripped off. Yeah.

[A]

It's like crashing into a cheese grater, isn't it? I mean, it's just big boulders that just rip things off, you know?

[B]

Yeah. Luckily, him and other people went into the mountain, not off the mountain.

[A]

Right. Was there an outside shot of that? I only saw the. The in car of Rob's crash.

[B]

Oh, yeah, there's an outside. Yeah. There's a video that. That I think Larry put up.

[A]

I only. Yeah, the fucking. The in car was gnarly, but the cage did its job, huh?

[B]

Well, I should say. I don't know if there's a shot of the crash happening. There's a shot of the car.

[A]

No, no.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

No, I meant a shot of the crash happening. I mean, there's the car and it's just shredded.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

I would describe that car as shredded.

[B]

Yep. That's a salvage.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Yeah. A lot of crazy stuff happening. And then Rob Dom had his. Like. That guy is so happy. Go lucky. Yeah, he's like, oh, my power steering line, like, popped off on corner seven and just sprayed his whole windshield. But he still drove the whole way. And the. Like, at the start line, you can see like you can with your normal eyes. And then once it popped off, it was like everything had been blurred by 70%.

[A]

Holy shit.

[B]

Truly looking through the same camera, it was a great comparison. You're basically driving. You're like, if I stay on black stuff, I'm alive. If I hit blue or brown stuff, meaning sky or blue.

[A]

Is he still going fast or just kind of getting there?

[B]

He's kind of getting after it.

[A]

Wow.

[B]

He didn't know where he was but like shout out to that guy for continuing on with all those. I mean he couldn't see anything.

[A]

That was like Randy two years ago with the fogged up windscreen.

[B]

Yep.

[A]

Fucking couldn't see anything. That's crazy. No, I didn't, I didn't catch Pike's Peak outside of that, but does seem quite gnarly. Do you want to, Zach, talk about the Genesis GV80 right now?

[B]

Yeah, sure.

[A]

Or do you want to? Well, yeah, we could talk about the Tesla's faked data in Europe. Bullshit data.

[B]

We started it with Johnny.

[A]

Yeah, we did a little bit. That story was paywalled and then it became unpaywalled. But bottom line is they used a bunch of incredibly misleading data to get FSD past legislators and. Which leads to things sort of like the story from the UK that about three dozen people fucking sent me of the supposedly using FSD Tesla that crashed into the woman's house and killed her.

[B]

Yeah, yeah, I think they said it was on autopilot, which I guess is different than fsd, but nonetheless the video, that car was going to fast and it went into, it looked like a cul de sac, basically it looked like it just went into a cul de sac at 40 and just continued into a house. So that was really alarming. So anyway, there's that weird shit happening.

[A]

Yeah, but I mean that is the story really. It's basically like we were talking about here in the U.S. tesla's data that claims that their software is, is safer than a human driver is, based on cherry picked data that includes not factoring it against other cars that have ADAs, but where it's not hands free ADAs, it's compared to all cars on the road in the us, Some of which are very, very old, some of which are very dangerous. And it included things like comparing it to trucks and motorcycles as well, which is just like. It just is crazy. If you actually compare the FSD and autopilot data versus a good driver, a detentive driver using the latest adas in a modern car of similar age that even the oldest Tesla could be. If you just factor that in, you get rid of motorcycles and you get rid of teenage, it's actually not any safer and in some cases it's less safe. So that's the gist of the story from Reuters. There you go, the second paragraph. The Reuters investigation published June 15, 2026 found that Tesla submitted self produced FSD safety figures to regulators in Sweden and the Netherlands seeking European approval. Those numbers relied on the same methyl methodological sleight of hand. Sleight of hand that independent experts had been flagging for months. It's also the same sleight of hand that Ed Niedermeyer and I talked about like two years ago here on the podcast. There was this study that's called like the NOAA something study because it was a researcher named Noah that debunked Tesla's original claim. Yeah, there we go.

[B]

So Tesla claims it's seven times safer, but the numbers crumble when you read the fine print. So one thing they did is Tesla counts only severe airbag deployment crashes in its own fleet, but then compares that figure against broader U.S. crash rate, which includes minor fender benders. Reuters calculated this comparison alone inflates the claimed safety advantage by roughly 3x. Yeah, not 3% 3x.

[A]

Right. Fleet age bias. Yeah. Average US vehicle is 12.8 years old, but the average Tesla is 4.1 years old. Newer cars crash less often regardless of what software runs on them. And the 32,000 lives saved figure assumes every US vehicle, freight trucks, motorcycles, and your neighbor's aging sedan is replaced by an FSD equipped Tesla researchers told Reuters. This transforms empirical data into speculative marketing. So yeah, I mean, basically like that's so in case people are like, and they are.

[B]

Get over it. What are you elon hating?

[A]

Like, just shut up about it already. I'm riding my motorcycle on these roads, dude. I'm, I'm, I have not consented to be a part of this.

[B]

Well, and they continue to do things with malfeasance. So it's not like, you know the story. It's not like the things you're referencing happened in the past five years ago and you're still hanging on to that. This was written two days ago. Yeah, yesterday.

[A]

But like it is all. It's just them doing the thing they did in America five years ago again.

[B]

Right?

[A]

It's just this, like we said it, we said it over and over. We said it over to anyone who listened and like nothing fucking happened. And so they're just doing it again. Like that's why we say it. Like just so that somebody might hear it and fucking do something. Nothing will happen here. They'll fucking approve it here anyway. But like I basically just read a whole article that's like why people don't care that other people are dying using this stuff. And it's basically just it Boiled down to a, they're stupid. And that won't happen to me.

[B]

Sure. As if that's everybody's thought. Yeah, that's the cigarettes.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

When it was known to cause cancer, I was like, ah, that one happened to me. Or my grandfather smoked every day and lived to be 90 or whatever. Sure. Motorcyclists. Yeah.

[A]

But you just, you don't notice, like, it's like using ChatGPT all the time. You don't notice that it's like degrading your ability to analytically think. It's degrading your ability to research on your own. Even my own wife, who does research for a living, like three days ago was like, I gotta stop using this. Like, it's making me worse at this.

[B]

Wow.

[A]

And Alex Wright, Roy, who uses these systems all the time, admits to me very much. He's like, this is making me a worse driver. I'm relying on it. I'm less attentive. I am becoming a worse driver because of this.

[B]

Because he's just letting the system handle it.

[A]

Yeah. The more cognitive shit that you offload to a computer. And it's having a system that's mostly really good, that appears to be perfect right up until it fails when you're not expecting it to fail. That's more dangerous actually, and we've been saying this for years, than having a system that's just really bad all the time. Like early FSD was really bad all the time. Now you have a system where people like Johnny and Camisa are doing poll posts about, oh, now it's fixed. Oh, now it's amazing. Meanwhile, just drove through someone's fucking house.

[B]

Right.

[A]

And meanwhile this like Johnny was here three days ago or whatever talking about, no, no, it's amazing. No, it's amazing. And they're fucking lying to regulators about their software at the same time these are happening. And then one's crashing through a fucking house like you guys.

[B]

No, it's a good. Because Johnny was admitting he's like, my statement is anecdotal. It's like, okay, but then we have the anecdote of this. Driving through a house. So do they cancel each other out?

[A]

That's like meeting in the middle. We meet in the middle between Johnny had a good time and this lady's dead. What's the halfway point there?

[B]

Zero.

[A]

You know what I mean? Like that's this false, like, you know, the independent voter or the fucking. It's this meet in the middle thing that sets up a false middle. Like the in between of two people had or people are having a good time and someone died isn't like right in the middle. It's actually like we have to like.

[B]

Oh, so you're saying it depends on how you weight things, right? Yeah. So if you put too much weight on the positive anecdote, but not on the negative anecdote.

[A]

Correct.

[B]

Or vice versa.

[A]

And like, the positive is like, people are having a good time. People are checking their fucking phone while they're thing. It seems like the car's driving itself most of the time. People don't like driving in traffic anyway and they're going around saying it's safer. So most people are not gonna question it, they're just gonna believe that it's safer. And it certainly looks like it's driving okay. But like, that's not the same. The equal and opposite side of 14 people have died.

[B]

Did you watch Clarkson's Farm yet, the new Season?

[A]

No.

[B]

So there's an autonomous element to it, which is really. Basically he gets like a couple of autonomous farm vehicles and he loves them, but he makes a great statement. He's like, autonomous cars, in his opinion, are silly because if you still have to be present and ready to take the wheel or steer it, then just drive the car because it's. But with the autonomous farm equipment, like, one thing is planting seeds that he used to have to tow with a tractor. It does it. He can do other things.

[A]

Right.

[B]

So, you know, until the autonomous cars are so good you can sit there and actually work on a laptop.

[A]

Well, that's what the levels are. That's the. That's what the levels are.

[B]

So right now we're not there. So it's like, it's a thing we don't really need. That doesn't actually give you that much benefit.

[A]

Right. Like. Like the Tesla is level two straight fucking up. Now their robo taxi, I believe, has to be level four.

[B]

I guess I saw one the other day in town, but I couldn't see if there was a person in it or not.

[A]

I guess the robo taxi would have to be level four by design because there isn't a person.

[B]

Driver seems to like a Waymo. Right?

[A]

A Waymo is a level for. Because it is autonomous with a remote backup available in an emergency, but geo fenced to a particular area. I suppose a Tesla robo taxi would be the same. Yeah, I guess the levels don't define it as lidar and radar or whatever. It's what is the level of control a human has to have. But. Yeah, I suppose. But certainly the fucking cars that people have AVR level two. I mean, just that they. Anytime they're faced with legal exposure like in court or to the DMV or a Senate hearing, they say something different than they say to the customers. Pretty much.

[B]

Anyway.

[A]

GV80.

[B]

GV80.

[A]

The Genesis GV80. So after I drove the GV60 electric one, I was like, this thing actually approximates Bentley in a pretty good way. Let's get the one that really looks like a Bentayga and see if it is pretty. If it's close to the Bentayga. In some ways it kind of is. But in some other crucial ways it is not. Zach, what do you think? You drove it for just as long as I did.

[B]

Very stylish. I like that. Very comfortable seats. The inside of ours was white, which we talked about, I think like the day before. Like, why do press car. Why are companies giving us press cars with white seats? They do wear out poorly, but man, they do look nice.

[A]

They photograph well.

[B]

They photograph well. But also like you open this thing and everything is like quilted and aluminum and it feels like a spa. It feels upscale because of the white leather. Like when you go into a spa or something, that's usually going to be white because it's like clean and pristine. It's like a cloud.

[A]

A little bit like a nail salon.

[B]

It is, but it's nicer looking. High end Nail sales salon.

[A]

This, we should say this is the full long roof one. They have a GV80 coupe now, which I don't. I'm not really that into.

[B]

I don't like SUVs.

[A]

I don't. I don't care. But interestingly, this one that we drove, the full roof has the 375 horsepower, twin turbo V6. Right. So it's a fine engine. I wouldn't call it special, but it's fine.

[B]

But it serves the purpose and for this car, I don't care, I really don't. If it turn it on and it sound like a V8, I might be like, oh, that's cool one. But this thing to me is serene transportation. That should be comfortable and kind of smooth. Inside, outside, whatever.

[A]

More isolating than engaging.

[B]

Exactly.

[A]

I agree. Interestingly, the coupe has a unique engine. You know that the coupe has an available twin charged V6. So it's twin turbo with an electric supercharger on it.

[B]

It's cool.

[A]

It's like 30 more horsepower. 34 more horsepower and about the more torque.

[B]

Less lag, maybe less lag.

[A]

I don't really give a shit. But okay. Points for trying. I'm kind of with you. I think the interior is quite lovely. The seats, the steering wheel, the doors, they do a pretty good approximation of budget Bentley.

[B]

Yes, absolutely.

[A]

The materials aren't as rich as you get with Bentley, but the quilting is very nice. The shape and contour of the seats is really nice.

[B]

Really good. Really adjustable. Yeah.

[A]

Vac controls do a pretty good Bentley impression, actually. And some of the aluminum does too. I think the dash is laid out nicely. I like the big scrolly knob.

[B]

I do too. But I kept hitting it. It's like an MMI knob. For people who are more familiar with BMW. Right in front of the shifter.

[A]

Right.

[B]

And I did, even after two days. And I'm sure I get used to it. But like, they're what, 2 inches apart? The diameter is almost exactly the same. And I think I just found myself using the touchscreen more than that.

[A]

Yeah. Interesting. I think if they made that scroll knob half an inch smaller in diameter, you'd probably not run into that issue.

[B]

Right. You wouldn't get confused. A quick complaint about the scroll knob. So it had this huge screen, all these menus you can move across, like entertainment settings and everything. But a weird aspect of it was because it's such a long screen and let me go back to it.

[A]

Yeah. It's a 24 inch sort of square screen. So it's basically the same as the ionic and the EV6 and stuff like that.

[B]

Yeah. Giant, long, narrow rectangle. So this is the perfect example. So you've got all these menus. Right. And for people listening, there's six different home screen, home screen blocks, like iPhone sized icons. And there's a couple of pages of this. So if I wanted to touch the one on the far right, I had to like lean forward to touch it. So if I use the scroll knob, I can get over there, but if I click over one thing too far, a whole new six set of icons move over so you don't. It doesn't sense. Make. Move them off the page one at a time. It goes six at a time. And that's just like a little UI thing I would want them to fix.

[A]

Makes it a page swipe and not a continuous scroll.

[B]

Yeah. Because if I could continue a scroll, I could bring those things closer and touch them with my hand if I want to, but they just go away.

[A]

Right.

[B]

It's a very simple gripe, but I found the screen really clear and easy to use. Steering wheel controls are still really good. I mean, just, I wish the lucid rode like this, the lucid gravity we drove.

[A]

So you liked this ride better than the lucid?

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Interesting. I found this ride to be a little strange, so I found that the low speed damping, the general body motions and how it sort of goes over rolling contours of pavement were good. It was soft and supple, not sporty, but luxurious. But it had the 22 inch wheels. The high speed damping, the impacts, the hard edges on asphalt really sent shudders into the cabin. And because it's, you know, it doesn't have the structure and it's. Maybe it's unfair to actually compare it to a Bentayga. Like, that's. Yeah, that's unfair.

[B]

This is 60 grand.

[A]

No, this one was like 85. It was pretty loaded. But, but, but it may be unfair, but one thing I get from a car like that and other luxury SUVs, you don't. You get a real sense of solidness. And when the wheel would hit an impact, it would send this sort of shudder through the car. That was, it wasn't horrible, but it was unrefined. Now maybe you just need to get the 20 inch wheels instead of the 22.

[B]

Definitely a good idea.

[A]

Good idea. Idea. Maybe these wheels are kind of cheap and really heavy and they don't retune the dampers for it. But I've actually found if you put the dampers in sport, it did help a little bit. They were like too soft in soft. And so anytime I would hit a little pothole or a little edge in the 405, the expansion joints, it would send a little shudder through the car in a way that was unrefined. When I got in the car, like if I went to a Genesis dealer and I got in this car, I'd be like, hell, this is dope. Everything's comfy and fresh and not nicely laid out. And really beautiful design and luxurious looking. The more I drive it, the less of a luxury car it became to me.

[B]

I mean, I thought because it does start at 59 grand for like the weak engine, Bentega starts at 2, 200.

[A]

So maybe it's unfair, but they're clearly going for Bentayga.

[B]

Sure. But it's the TEMU version, you know, so it is cheaper. And I, I'm sure I'd hope that there's different engineering in the Bentayga. Like in the, the unibody, the bushings, like all that stuff. If it's heavier, more refined or smarter or whatever. Like it all works to isolate that cabin. Because the Bentley ride, you Know, it does remove the driver from as much of life's imperfections as well possible.

[A]

There also, there wasn't as much rear seat room as I would have liked.

[B]

True, it's a little bit tight.

[A]

I just rented. When I was in Nashville for a day, I rented a new Nissan Pathfinder, which has its own issues, but actually had a lot of rear seat room. And it was a three row. So I was impressed actually, with just compared to the Genesis, the rear seat room of the new Pathfinder, of all things. And then also it has a big key fob. Like the key fob itself is kind of big. And then it's. And it has little tiny buttons on the side of it.

[B]

So you and I talked about that

[A]

are hard to read.

[B]

Very small.

[A]

Like, I have to put my glasses on to see if I'm gonna press lock or unlock.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And there's this whole other flush side of the key that there's no buttons on.

[B]

Well, there's buttons on each side of the key. Like, if you lay the key on the ground, then it's on the left and the right side. There's like three buttons on each side. They're all tiny. I mean, truly, like quarter inch by a quarter inch maybe, maybe. But the top and bottom of the key have nothing. And you're right, like we talked about this, the key fob is very thick. The only thing I could think of is maybe they've had to add more computing power into it for proximity stuff or other functions. That's the only excuse. Because it was like, it was pretty chunky.

[A]

It's pretty chunky. And when you're looking at the fob, lock and unlock are right next to each other. And the only difference on the tiny little icons is like. Like that 1 millimeter gap where it shows the lock is like open. Like, I know my eyes are like, not great up close or small things anymore, but like, that's crazy.

[B]

It was way. It was hard to see. Like, it was just, you know, maybe you get used to it. You go, the top one is lock or the middle one. But I feel like that could have especially because they've clearly put an amazing amount of work into, like, the interior. You know, how it's laid out, how it feels, how it. It looks. And then this fob looks cheap, but also takes up a ton of space in a bad impression of a Bentley key, because I think Bentley keys also tend to be kind of big, but

[A]

they're big and heavy and made of metal. Where are the buttons? They're on the fucking normal side. They're not on the sides. And funny enough, that Nissan Pathfinder, the buttons were on the right place, but it was so cheap that they were all just like. It was like a black fob with black buttons and black. You couldn't read any of them.

[B]

Oh.

[A]

Like it wasn't even like they're etched black. Yeah, black and black. Like they didn't even like print it in white or anything. I was like, wow, they'd give it up on fobs. The one complaint about the ride on the Genesis I don't think would be a deal breaker if I was in the market for this type of vehicle.

[B]

Yeah, I just came away like, I think for the money. I like the interior better than new BMWs. I think it's far more intuitive. I think it looks better. It looks more expensive. Yeah. Mercedes really depends on the model. You know, the whole, like their screens have gotten too massive, so I don't miss that at all. So I think they're punching above their weight class as they have been for a while pretty successfully. But you do make good points, especially backseat room. You know, third row back seat room is. Yeah.

[A]

But if, and if, you know, if I was at the very high end of one of these, if I was thinking about getting one fully loaded, you're. You're crossing over into Cayenne territory.

[B]

That's true audi territory.

[A]

Audi Q7 territory. And so at that point, if I cared more about driving dynamics, I'd probably lean towards something German. If I cared more about a serene experience while sitting in traffic, I'd probably go with it.

[B]

And I think that's what I was looking for most of the time with SUVs and I just felt like it rewarded that or met that expectation. Met that expectation.

[A]

I'd like to have a quick go and one with the twenties and see if that, if this thing, if this whole package was just tuned for the 20s and then someone's like, we need to bling this motherfucker up and put some heavy ass wheels on it. And it probably. And it just made it real.

[B]

Yeah. If the shocks are the same between the two and they don't re engineer for those wheels. That's a good point.

[A]

But I do like this tan. I would definitely. The green exterior with the tan interior is very dope.

[B]

Diamond stitched seats. The seats were really good.

[A]

They are, yeah. They did a great job. And it's. They don't have massage, but they have that sort of active rolly thing.

[B]

That's right. Yeah. The lucid's massage seats were pretty impressive.

[A]

Those are good.

[B]

Those helped me a lot.

[A]

Yeah, I use massage seats all the time when they're in cars that come with the stereo was very good in the Genesis. I liked it a lot. I just, I wished it didn't have that one quality from the ride, but maybe it's different. Anyway, let's go to the people. Patreon.com thespokentyrepodcast is where you ask us questions for the little program here. It's where you get the show live. Get the show early. It's where you get extra show, which by the way, pro drivers and champs. We're recording that show tomorrow. What? Probably, probably tomorrow, Wednesday if you want to catch it live. It's also where you get access to exclusive collaboration and things that we are doing with brands that we like. We're very, very close to having our next product out. We were just sent a video of the sizing samples because yeah, this one comes in different sizes, but it's gonna be really fucking cool. And let's see what people have to say. Zach's underdrive police says my complex, meaning my apartment complex, I guess, offers free EV charging. Is it worth it getting a $5,000 early Nissan Leaf as a beater just for a work commute, which is 30 miles round trip? Well, question is getting an extra car for $5,000 just so you don't have to pay for gas a good idea? Because how long would it take you to spend $5,000 in your own car on gas? Meanwhile, you still have to insure and maintain that other car. I might argue that if you have a 30 mile round trip that opens, you might be able to get rather than a Leaf. I mean you could get a plug in hybrid and almost never commute in using gas and then have gas for any other use case you need.

[B]

Need.

[A]

You could also probably. I mean, I don't. Maybe you get a full, a good EV and just have that as your car. If you have free EV charging at home, how often are you driving more than 250 miles in a day? Probably not that often.

[B]

Probably not very often. I think I'm assuming they brought the Leaf because it's so cheap. It's like that's in their budget of either they don't have a lot of money for a second car or it's just kind of like throw away money. But still, you make a great point. This person has to do the math on what are you spending on gas per year? You know, I think average is like a Thousand bucks across the country.

[A]

I'm shocked.

[B]

But five grand plus insurance, you have to drive this thing for six years maybe to make up that difference.

[A]

Yeah, I'm surprised at how little I spend on gas a year as compares to buying another car just to save money on gas, you know what I mean? And it's just me, like I said, your mileage may vary, but like 30 miles round trip every day. If you had a very fuel, like if you got a Prius, that's like five bucks in gas. Right? So I mean, I don't know. Something tells me it doesn't make sense to me buy a really cheap EV that has very limited use case just for this task. Right. Maybe if you could find for 7,000 or $8,000 or $9,000 like a Fiat 500e that still has like 100 miles of range in it instead of this Leaf that might have like 50.

[B]

That's true. That'll get real tight. And that only assumes if all the battery life is there. Quick thing. According to one, one thing, average American uses 575 gallons of gas a year multiplied by four right now, which is like average price, that's 2300 bucks a year on gas. So. But this also asks the question like, does this person drive their other car a lot on the weekend? So if it's only these 30 miles, like I think your savings drop because you're not going to be using this EV for 100% of your trips, right? So it's actually not going to save you 2300 a year. It might save you 1100 a year. So you have to drive it for many, many years, years to make up the money.

[A]

I feel like you'd be better off getting a slightly nicer used because like getting something that's like if you can afford it. I realize we're talking about real money, but like say an early Model S or something for like $12,000. That's probably like the floor for that for a working model S, you know what I mean? So you could probably drive it for like flat ish money, you know, if you don't break it. You know what I mean?

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Good math though. But do the whole math out.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Duffel Shuffle Retirement club. Of all the vehicles you've ever owned, which one would you like to see turned into a Lego kit or hot wheels

[B]

Safari 911 Safari Crown Vic? Yeah, the lifted one.

[A]

I did Delta Integrale, H Foley. That's funny. What car's existence did you learn about most recently? Oh, that's interesting. Interesting. I did just learn about something new and now I'm struggling to remember.

[B]

Well, you learned about the Alpena sedan concept that doesn't exist. Right.

[A]

Did I see a car that. Well, I mean that Matt Quick's Mercedes, that 190E Rosso Edition with that crazy interior. I did not know that was a thing. I'd never seen that before. So that's.

[B]

Oh yeah, the crazy stock interior.

[A]

Yeah. I didn't know Mercedes had a Harlequin.

[B]

I never really had that much whimsy in the building.

[A]

Yeah, never. So that's certainly a new one. I did also just learn from Steve Rimmer that there was a Lancia 037 from in period that was made to be all wheel drive. There was like a prototype of one that they canceled Group B, so they never actually made it. But like there was one, at least one somewhere.

[B]

Well, they saw the writing on the wall, you know, they barely won that championship with rear wheel drive and then after that it was all wheel drive or nothing.

[A]

So that's cool. Hey, Mercedes says have you learned about a new car recently with carbon ceramics being standard on the E Ray? Do you see that affecting the valve negatively? Trying to sell to potential second or third owners who may not be willing to pony up for the much more expensive service compared to say a Z06 with steel brakes? Ceramic brakes are supposed to be like lifetime. If you're street driving a car, which, let's be honest, 99% of E rays are going to be street driven cars if you're street driving an E Ray, not to mention you've got fucking regenerative braking so you're already using your actual brakes like half as much. Right. Because you've got regen. That should genuinely be a lifetime service. Unless you're talking about cars with 100,000 miles on them and that have been driven really hard, they shouldn't need brakes.

[B]

Yeah, I mean, you know, the cost to replace them according to A quick Google is 20 grand, but they're also supposed to last at least a hundred thousand miles. So yeah, it's like one of those things like, oh, should I worry about this? Probably not.

[A]

Yeah, I mean I certainly, I don't think the ceramic brakes will affect values negatively any more than a hybrid system will.

[B]

Yeah, and usually, usually the really informed buyer might shy away from the carbon cars. Most people that will shop for the most expensive car they can afford, if they're going to get a secondhand E Ray or a third hand E Ray, they're going to buy the one that has the most specs. The same way the person who bought it brand new, they're going to go, oh, I can reach for the carbons because they think they're a race car driver. I think you're still going to have plenty of market. Yeah.

[A]

If someone was really attractive rat for some reason and really care. If you're really a track rat and somehow ended up choosing the E ray and you really cared, you. You buy a set of APs, you throw them on, you put your carbon ceramic brakes in the box, put them back on when you go to sell the car.

[B]

Right.

[A]

And that's what a lot of people, people GT3 RSS do this all the time. Take off the ceramic brakes and put steel racing brakes on. And then.

[B]

So funny.

[A]

It's crazy.

[B]

So weird.

[A]

Yeah, it's crazy, but it's that not a super concern. And you can check. I mean, you get a PPI done on the car, they go, well, there's this many millimeters of pad left and we bless you and we expect that to last this much. I think the crazier one, much crazier is recent late model AMGs with steel brakes and they're 30, 40,000 miles and those pads are going. Them shits are like 15 for steels.

[B]

For rotors.

[A]

For rotors and pads on an AMG car. It's so expensive. So expensive. And people are absolutely shocked by the replacement cost. Carjenta says of the current and upcoming EVs, which are mildly off road capable, which would be best for comfort on the road. Adding a rooftop tent and must have a sunroof. Unfortunately not available in the Mach E rally. I mean, I haven't driven the new Cayenne electric, but that's probably good.

[B]

Can I ask a question? If you have a rooftop tent on top of your car, why do you want a sunroof?

[A]

Maybe they want a sunroof. When the rooftop tent. Okay, can you.

[B]

Because they wrote A plus B plus C, I'm like, can you go up

[A]

through the sunroof into the rooftop tent?

[B]

I don't think so. I think the floor is important. All right, we'll. What comes with a sunroof? That's an ev.

[A]

A lot of these cars come with a full glass roof, you know, rather than a sunroof. I mean, what are the. What EVs are. Well, hang on a second. You've got your Rivian, right? You've got your. I don't know about a Rivian sunroof. I don't think, I don't think Rivians have sunroofs, but you've got the electric G wagon. Oh, dude, the electric G Wagon. That's your shit right there. That definitely has a sunroof. It's the same body structure as the other G wagon. That's gonna have a sunroof.

[B]

Yeah. The Rivian has a electrochromic roof, so no sunroof.

[A]

Yeah, dude, Electric G wagon is where you're at. Or possibly Cayenne. I don't know. This is a hard one because we don't research what cars have sunroofs. But my immediate guess is gonna be G Wagon. But man, imagine your fucking range of an electric G wagon with a rooftop tent 12 miles. So bad.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Grind my gears. Said. Do you think careers in automotive suffer from lower wages and salary because so many people are enthusiastic and passionate about it? Do you think people accept less to be there doing the thing in your career? Have you accepted less than was appropriate because you got a chance to be a part of it? Well, I certainly have.

[B]

Totally. There's been fun jobs. Yeah.

[A]

I've done things that were full on work for $0 just so I could have 20 minutes of seat time in a car or say I was there or something.

[B]

Yeah, that happens. I won't name the oem, but there's an OEM that, from what I've heard, pays its employees less than some of its competitors because people are so excited about the brand. They're like, we're this cool, but we're going to pay you less than the people we compete with.

[A]

Yeah. I mean, I don't. Careers in automotive is a huge umbrella.

[B]

Sure.

[A]

So do I think a guy who's a fucking tech at a Honda dealer fixing Odysseys is there for the passion of it? Not necessarily. Would someone take a lower wage to go work at a race shop or to be a part of something big? Yeah, probably. And if they do well there, the next step is they become a master. And maybe they open their own shop and they make a bunch of money. Or maybe they develop a skill set that is invaluable and they could charge a fuck ton of money for it down the road. I mean, guys like Marco, guys like Charlie Agapu, them guys. As far as I know, both Marco and Charlie Agapu pay their employees very well. Well, but there are certainly people that are willing to go work at places like that for less to get in the door.

[B]

Yeah. Because they're excited about being there.

[A]

And certainly the early parts of whatever you'd call automotive journalism or influencing or whatever. Like, yeah, people do all fucking. I ran side gigs just to support the smoking tire for like three years. I went out and got freelanced jobs and just dumped it into this. Like.

[B]

We made no money for a really long time.

[A]

Yeah, we. We podcasted for two years before selling a ad. We made videos on YouTube for at least a year and a half before selling a single ad.

[B]

And we, and we made content for like seven years before making decent money. Yeah, but I mean, I had a. I had a real, real job with, with it for 11 years. Yeah. So yeah, I mean, but the action is the juice, as they say.

[A]

I'm fortunate enough that I was able to like turn myself into a personality. And that's a better way to make money than being a fucking cameraman, you know what I mean? If you're a cinematographer, a photographer in automotive, like, yeah, dude, you're gonna do a lot of free gigs in the beginning. Carbon monocoque and ball torture. Best sandwich to eat while drinking, driving a stick. Well, it's gotta be clean and tidy.

[B]

Yeah. Nothing with sprouts, nothing with a sauce.

[A]

But also it can't be greasy because you're touching the steering wheel afterwards.

[B]

Right? Very true. It's gotta be kind of a simple meat cheese.

[A]

Honestly, I would say a grilled cheese sandwich, if I got a grilled cheese sandwich will hold its structure.

[B]

Kind of greasy though.

[A]

A little bit.

[B]

Yeah. Because it's supposed to be toasted in butter.

[A]

Hot dog. I mean just a hot dog that isn't too overly condimented. That'd be very easy.

[B]

Bun is dry. Yeah, yeah.

[A]

Or like a non, A non messy burger. Like it won't be a great burger. A great burger is going to be a little messy, but I would go

[B]

with like a like turkey, lettuce, probably beets. No to no pickles because tomato can drip all over the place and then it's simple cheese. Something with everything has to have structure across the entire sandwich.

[A]

Yeah. It has to stay together is the most important thing. I, man, other day I had a fucking great sandwich. I went to a Jewish deli. Hannah and I went to Highland Park. We were trying to explore new areas of la. We don't really go to. Went to Highland park. Went to a Jewish deli. Pretty solid. Pretty fucking solid. Honestly, the sandwich was. My tuna melt was excellent. But classic error. They did not shred the lettuce. They just laid a sheet of iceberg. Two sheets of iceberg. Well, that's like a slip and slide.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

You know what I mean? That shit Is creating a problem. Carl taught me this. It makes so much sense. A shredded lettuce, it creates a lot of friction. So when you squinch down, it holds

[B]

everything on the edges of the lettuce.

[A]

Dude, it holds. It's a lot of surface area, it's a lot of tension. It holds everything together really nicely. The sheet of lettuce, it slip and slide.

[B]

It's like if you're driving on a slab of granite, but if you turn the granite into gravel, right? And if they're. If both are wet, the gravel is much better.

[A]

100%. Yeah. That's total dude. Carl's sandwich constructing. When he. When we go get a burger and he'd be like, you see how this is wrapped so the steam comes out the side. He's like, this is the fucking genie. Like so anyway, that's what you want. Shredded lettuce, Okay, I feel. Okay, I feel that also. I feel there's been a mass movement of content creators backing away from unique builds and engine swaps in favor of period correctness and out of the box performance is the world of engine swaps and over the top tooling, tuning, falling back into niche for the majority of enthusiasts. Why? Yeah, dude. Relatability and money. For the last 10 years, guys like Freddie and Matt Armstrong and all of the build people, you know them, they did what people do, they escalated. They. I don't want to say fell into the trap, but like, it just. That was what the culture of that type of programming was. The next thing and the next thing and the next, they had to keep one upping each other. And at a certain point, even they couldn't do. I mean, at a certain point, even Freddie, you know, bless his heart, you know, guy's extremely talented. He kind of hit a wall. I mean, at a certain point you go, I don't know if I can. If I or anybody can build a McLaren P1, if I or anybody can rebuild a Porsche 918, but that's the end of that road. Where do you go from that? So I think other people like James Pumphrey and Scotto, maybe Vin and Ron to a certain degree, although they've moved up higher end a little bit with their Porsches and Ferraris. But at a certain point I think they go, well, let me get back to basics. Let me. Let me do something that's a little more manageable. And the audience decided right away that maybe there was something to be learned and appreciated from that.

[B]

Yeah, I agree. I think when they're doing these crazy swaps especially when the Internet requires you to do more than an ls because everyone does an LS and they go, do something different. Do something different. Hoonigan ended up doing the Godzilla swap and the crazy 632 Camaro thing they did. You have to just keep raising the bar of difficulty, price, engine size. And if you don't have the resources of that kind of company or if you don't have the skill of like soupy, you go, oh, I now have a Frankenstein that's really hard to work on and get running. I mean, VIN had a couple of things. Like Z36 was. TR was troublesome. Like you can just paint yourself in a corner and eventually you want to return to something that works and is much more simple. And also the audience will get bored of a certain genre of content and eventually they'll just, they'll move on also.

[A]

Yeah, I think the audience has moved on in a lot of ways from these sort of vicarious living in the supercars and shit. I think they're kind of like they don't give a shit anymore.

[B]

Definitely. Yeah.

[A]

Tim, A. What current model car feature feels like the biggest step back from 10 years ago. Step back from 10 years ago. I mean, I mean, cars, you have to log into like a car, like new Porsches. If you don't like log in with your Porsche Connect account, they will fucking pop up windows at you like forever.

[B]

Wait, is this. Cars that are 10 years old and they had a new feature that now feels like a step back or new

[A]

features that feel like versus 10 years ago. What new feature feels like a step backwards? I mean, obviously like surveillance capitalism and the app thing is to step backwards, technologically speaking. But like, it definitely makes cars suckier.

[B]

I mean, it's not a new thing. The over screen, I think, I think Mercedes, like the Genesis is a good example of how you can have screen here, hard buttons below. Looks nice, looks modern, also looks classy. Mercedes is doing the opposite. Tablet, you know, it's like a giant T of screen and I just think that's too much. Yeah.

[A]

Conversely, Idiocracy is actually a documentary says. What is a modern car feature that you feel you can't live without?

[B]

Radar cruise.

[A]

Yeah, Radar Cruise is the.

[B]

I would take that. I mean, backup cameras are really. This is what they mentioned are incredibly helpful for parking and safety. But I, I drive my. My car doesn't have either of those things. And I miss Radar Cruise when I'm on the highway far more than I miss backup cameras.

[A]

I agree. Going on a road Trip without radar. Cruise now kind of sucks. Yeah, it's fucking nice. I'm happy to steer. I'm gonna pay attention. I'm looking at the road, I'm gonna steer the car. But when you're in the car for seven, eight hours, being able to like relax your feet, stretch your legs a bit, that shit is money. Yeah.

[B]

And not just be focused on clicking your cruise up and then down. Like trying to adjust to the cars around you is really annoying.

[A]

Yeah. Some systems are better than others, but a really good one is.

[B]

Ford's is very good.

[A]

Ford's is great. GM's is really good too. Carbs legal Bakery says a new study conducted by the New York Times found that the increase in average vehicle hood height has led to thousands of pedestrian deaths. Yes, we talked about this a lot with David Zipper. David Zipper, who is a fellow at MIT and a friend of mine and very much an advocate for pedestrian safety, urbanism, stuff like that, did a big piece on this. And yeah, yeah, definitely the increase in the hood height, not just because of the damage that it will do to a person's body when it hits them, but also the restriction in visibility from the driver's seat when you have a modern truck or SUV with. Wow. 47.

[B]

Because this is an interesting comparison. Because the hood heights got taller. Because with the gold was pedestrian safety. Right. Part of it was not in trucks. No. But in cars. Because I'll go back to the focus for the escape part of it was having more distance between the hood and the engine, so that would crumple and you wouldn't hit something super hard when you fall onto it. Also, then you wouldn't, you know, if the car hits you in the ankles, you don't fall three feet till you hit something.

[A]

Right.

[B]

But now with trucks where it's, you know, six inches taller than the car, like you're just getting hit higher up on your body. And that's a different problem.

[A]

It's just hitting your torso. Like instead of sweeping the leg, you know, it's actually just smashing into your Torso.

[B]

Yeah, I mean, 47 inch hood height on this Chevy Silverado. That's gotta be my shoulder, right? It's hitting rib cage or whatever. Ouch.

[A]

That's high. And so, yes. I mean, this isn't actually new. It's just that the mainstream media, the New York Times, this was in sort of wonky urbanism circles for the last two years. But please go back and listen to the Smoking Tire podcast episode with David Zipper, who we talked a lot about this. Yeah.

[B]

Cool.

[A]

Yeah, cars being huge is bad, but cars being tall is actually like the worst for pedestrians. Yeah. Keelan to says with the recent release of the audi Nuvolari and $700,000 price pricing, is there also a shrinking market for 100k to 200k cars? Yep, yep, yep. That's the K shaped economy. Yeah, the K shaped economy is all products and services will gradually point towards billionaires. And it's like, it's not even like just like the quote middle class, like the former upper middle class is basically gonna to not have anything targeted to them either.

[B]

Yeah, I mean we're seeing, I think the average price of 911 press cars we got has crept towards 200 even with 911 T or S's. I mean Corvette still has cars that are immediately in between 100,000 and 200, but there's far fewer cars there and there's way more. 2, 3, 4, $500,000.

[A]

Yeah. However many new Volares they're going to meld at 700, they found that that is a better business model than building 10 times that many at 70k. That's what everybody is learning. I just sent you the article about watches. Same thing. The watch industry, the volume is down, the profits in many cases are up because the average transaction price for some of these watch companies companies is so high and that's where all the margin is like Rolex, they don't publish specific reports. But yeah, it's the lower end, they're selling less volume and at the higher end there's more diamonds, more fucking custom shop, more off catalog, more super special everything where someone might pay 70, $100,000 for a special watch versus them making more watches to make them available for people who can afford them. We're going to see a real hollowing out of the middle of all markets. People who make things that are even sort of luxurious are going to find ways to move up market and target the people that are not affected by a down down economy. Oh, cat question. Trike Berenson says I have a feral cat I'm trying to befriend at home. We've been giving her food, treats and letting her inside to scope out the house. This has been going on for a couple weeks. She's still super skittish and on edge when coming around. She's around three years old. I should add that when I let her inside, we open the door and keep it open so she can leave when she wants. She never stays more than a few few minutes. Feral cats are tough if it really is a feral cat, it may never be able to be, like, domesticated. I mean, it's nice of you to feed it. It's nice of you to give it treats. It's nice of you to let it inside. If it becomes more comfortable and indicates it wants to stay. If it eventually lays down on your couch and goes to sleep, that's a little different than if it just, like, scopes and then dips. If this is a cat that once had a home and was abandoned, you have a better shot if it was. If it was born wild and you're trying to domesticate it at three years old, like, that's gonna be up to the cat. It may not go well for you. If, If. If she will take treats from you, like, from your hands, hand, then you. She's. You've got a chance if, if she won't come near you. But we'll take food. It's probably just a feral cat that is happy that someone's giving it food.

[B]

And I'd add that I've seen some videos about, like, person rescues puppy. And puppy is shaking and terrified for months.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Because of what it had before.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

It can take a really long time.

[A]

You know, a couple weeks is not that.

[B]

Not that long.

[A]

Yeah, it's not that long, but it's. I think you're actually doing the right thing. I just don't know where it'll end up and how. Because feral is, like, a specific term to describe a wild cat, and you can't unless you find one when it's like a kitten. You can't always domesticate a wild cat, even if they like food that you're giving them. Like the cats down at South Bay store. I can't. They're fucking junkyard cats. Like, I can feed them. I can. You know, if I see one injured or something, I could do something, but, like, I can't take them home or anything. Ferrari Luchador 15K. What's the best used car to buy? To learn a manual? Must have four seats, dude. Anything Japanese from 1995 to 2007 Civic.

[B]

Mazda 3, Mazda 6.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Accord. I mean, any of those things.

[A]

Or a Golf or, you know, a Golf or, like, yeah, the world is

[B]

your oyster, but we need more specificity on, like, what are you using it for? What's your interest? What is your life like, you know, what do you. What do you need? But yeah, get something in Japanese.

[A]

Yeah, but there isn't, like, there isn't the best. You're talking about learning manual. Like, you you know, something that's been taken care of and you know, is

[B]

something with a four banger. The clutch will be lighter. That's easier. Yeah.

[A]

Don't AMG whiz on the electric fence. I just had an 07G 500 in the shop with big off road tires. Is it douchey to drive a G wagon if you're actually using it for off roading?

[B]

No, no, I think you'll get respect. Yeah, they do. I mean, they're good at that.

[A]

I've done off roading in a G wagon. It's great. Two in the ruby, one in the star. How long ago does a minor carfax incident need to have taken place before it starts impacting resale value? Less. Does it change based on the starting car value? You. Let's assume no pictures of the damage, but the repair was done. Well, I mean, the answer is forever. Like a car that was damaged and repaired. Someone's gonna ask questions about that. So, like, what can you do? You say the repair was done. Well, you gotta get as much documentation as you can to show that the repair was done. Well, maybe you can go back and find the original invoice from the shop that it was done. Maybe you could find photos from, from the, from the crash. Maybe you have to like take the wheel off and like get some better like photos of whatever the fuck to show that it's good now. Like there's only so much you can do.

[B]

Yeah, the only, the only other thing that helps is if the popularity of that used car goes up a lot.

[A]

Sure.

[B]

People will start caring less.

[A]

Sure. Yeah. Or if you have a car that is like, I assume you're not talking about this, but if you have a car that is so rare, you know that.

[B]

Yeah. If it was in the bottom of the ocean, but it's a Bugatti and they're like, oh, no, no, no. It's a patina. It's restoration spec.

[A]

All wheel drive biased. How would a Mach E Rally be as a replacement for a Forester xt?

[B]

So good. Assuming this person wants to take it on ski trips. Assuming the skiing is either within the range of your battery or there's charging on the way there. I mean, I spent the weekend in one and we'll talk more about it on the next show. But like, they ride great. The blue blue cruise is fantastic. Seats are so comfortable and you know, we've driven it in the dirt. Yeah, it's fun as hell. It's the way they program the diffs, traction control and everything is Going to be more fun and better than your Subaru with traction off. Like it is such a good car for that kind of stuff. So I think it'd be a fantastic snow vehicle as long as, as the range works for your life.

[A]

Yeah, I mean we've never done some winter range tests so you're going to have to get an answer to that question. Go to people that have probably Kyle Connor. It could be Kyle Connor or it could be real world reports on some forum somewhere that you got to do some searching for. But there's obviously going to be battery performance issues in winter. You can minimize that by preconditioning the battery before you leave the, the house. You know, if you rent, if you go on a ski trip, maybe you're renting a house, maybe that house has a charger. I mean you, you can, you can precondition your battery on a 110 charger.

[B]

You don't, you don't need bring an extension cord whenever you travel.

[A]

Yeah, you don't even need the, the 220 to, to do that. So you can set, you get your climate control going and you can get your battery condition just on a 110, you know, so you can, it, it might take a little extra effort on your part, but you could certainly mitigate a lot of the negative effects and plan. I mean ski resorts want people coming who have electric cars. So most ski areas have an Electrify America or a fucking. You can charge these on Tesla chargers. Now there's places to charge.

[B]

What I would do do before you buy this car is is pick a ski, pick a Saturday and just go on Google Maps or like the Electrify app and just look at how busy those are and try to figure out like is there a line for the Tesla chargers that's 50 cars deep all day? And then so that you might. Because you don't want to go, oh yes, there are chargers. You want to say how busy are they? How saturated is the market there? Because that might really impact your day.

[A]

Yeah, but I think, yeah, I think most people can have the ski trips without it being too much of a problem. Now Chubba Redbarchetta says people seem to love the Focus RS now. Do you think they've forgotten about the rock hard suspension or if they accepted it with respect? That's a very trumpy. People are saying who and what and where. I mean I have seen no stories about the greatness of the Focus rs. I mean like any car, when they stop making it, the values stabilize and people can get a little more for used cars. But I have seen absolutely nothing about some greater trend of people love the Focus RS now. Have you?

[B]

No, I agree. There's always going to be someone who's a fan of it and they'll do an article because they need content or a video and be like, oh, we're gonna miss these. But it doesn't mean. It doesn't mean you have to. This person has to forget about the suspension or the seats.

[A]

Yeah, I don't miss my Focus rs. It doesn't mean I don't smile a little bit if I see someone like ripping one somewhere like they were fast. And Ford doesn't make hatchbacks anymore. So I'm a little bit nostalgic about a time when they did.

[B]

But plus when people bought them when they were new, including you, they overlooked some of these things because they were excited about the car. They're doing that again even though the car is old. Like that doesn't change.

[A]

Again, same pts. Kinderscheisse says, why do W210E55s get more love than W211s? I don't know. Do they? I mean these are real forumy questions that are intended to, to sort of drive debate among zealots, I guess. But like what is the evidence that the 210 gets more love than the 211?

[B]

It's probably just getting. My guess would be as people age into nostalgia land, they start to celebrate the car they loved. The people that love 210s are slightly older than the people who love 211s. And so that's the wave we're seeing. I agree the 211 is way better looking car.

[A]

That's the supercharged one and the 210 is the one like I got right.

[B]

Yeah. And also the 210 is the one. I'll pull up a picture.

[A]

The 210 is the.

[B]

The nose just looks flat and like

[A]

the first One is the 210.

[B]

Exactly, it's the first one.

[A]

First off, I would seriously dispute that the 210 gets, quote, more love than the 211.

[B]

I'm just asking questions.

[A]

I would dispute that. And I dispute that the people are saying premise of this. And the second question I've answered three times and I'll answer it again. Why did we use the 210 powertrain instead of the 211 supercharged powertrain? The answer is I don't need the extra power the supercharger provides and the generational difference in powertrains fucking opens an entirely Insane rabbit hole of needs. The engine gets taller because of the blower. The electronic architecture of the system is completely different. Basically. Basically there's no benefit to the power, there's no benefit to the usability, there's no benefit to the dependability and it costs about 20k more. That's why Pooh Brown Wagon Wagon I've read on forums people are saying. Every question is a. People are saying AMG GT parts are pretty slim outside of the dealers, but values are down and they seem to be a good alternative to something, something like a 911. Do you think aftermarket support for them will grow?

[B]

Well, it depends on the parts they need. If you need suspension, sure, aftermarket could support that. But if you need a fan blower motor or some sort of coolant temp sensor, and assuming it wasn't crossed over from other cars, it could be hard to find that stuff. Those are the things like you've talked about the nsx, the shit that goes wrong that the aftermarket's never going to make. That only came from Acura or only came from Mercedes. It depends on if Mercedes is supporting the longevity of these cars.

[A]

Right. Ferrari Duquet thoughts of the BMW. We talked about that in a previous show. Two in the frozen berry, one in the mahogany metallic. As someone who also worked at Foot Locker in high school, certain shoes stood out to me. What shoes stood out to you? Well, I had all of the tuned Airs. I had like eight colors of the Nike tuned Airs. I had the first Foamposites. I bought a lot of shoes when I was back when I was working there because I had a discount. The first Foamposites I had in two or three colors. I had the 96 Jordans with the zebra stripes. Those were dope. I had had the very first Jumpman. When they came out with the Jumpman, I was working there. Then I had the first Air Max 95s. I was working at Foot Locker in 95 and got the Air Max 95. When it first came out, it was not an immediate success. The way when you first saw that shoe, you would not guess that they'd still be making it in 30 years.

[B]

Wow.

[A]

Don't rob me. Watch strap recommendations for a trip to Cancun Watch comes with a leather which is not good for water. No shit. Should I switch to a steel bracelet, NATO nylon or other recommendation? Well, your two choices really for. I don't like NATO's. They don't do it for me. But my choices for summer water sports are going to be the steel Bracelet or like the under the cuff. FKM rubber. The rubber with the deployant. That's my jam. So, yeah, I like the rubber straps. FKM or silicone with a deployant.

[B]

The Kill Mary rubber strap.

[A]

Yes. Last one, then we're going to call.

[B]

These are the last two.

[A]

Last two. Okay. Christian says, growing up, well, I'll take the second part first. Go buy a C4ZR1. Did I watch the Indy car race at Road America this past weekend? No. Christian says, growing up, I hated cars. Cars with tan or brown interior. I hated wagons and hatchbacks. And now that I'm 30, I love these things. What has changed in your taste since aging? The same shit that always does. You don't need a race car for the street. Like, thinking you need a race car to drive on the street is like the most juvenile shit ever.

[B]

And I think in my, like, tan. I always saw tan interiors on old Mercedes diesels or driven by older people. So to me, it was the interior choice for the older, boring person.

[A]

That's interesting.

[B]

And it was like, oh, black is. Sports cars are usually shown with black interiors. And so that's probably where I landed.

[A]

My first, like four cars had gray interiors.

[B]

Interesting.

[A]

All had gray. Yeah.

[B]

Subaru has a gray cloth.

[A]

Subaru has the gray cloth. My Mustang was gray. The Nautica Villager was gray with the weird Nautica things on it. The Corvette was the first car I got with a black interior.

[B]

Wow. My Jetta was black. Pontiac was white vinyl. Ooh. Low back seats.

[A]

White vinyl.

[B]

Summertime. So sticky.

[A]

White vinyl.

[B]

Yeah, that's it, folks.

[A]

Thanks very much. Pro driver show tomorrow. We'll talk about all the things I can't talk about in public. You know what I'm saying? No, I'm saying the secrets. Thank you to the patrons for asking such good questions. Questions. Thank you to Matt Quick again for his hospitality down there in Nashville. Can't wait to get my car back. If you want to get a manual swapped or full powertrain swapped, late model Mercedes, that's your guy right there. And go check out that show if you haven't yet. And thanks everyone else for listening. We'll see you later.