NEW Shelby GT350 with over 800 Horsepower! Doug and His Problem with Porsche?

Summary

Podcast Summary: THIS CAR POD! with Doug DeMuro & Friends! Episode: NEW Shelby GT350 with over 800 Horsepower! Doug and His Problem with Porsche? Release Date: January 31, 2025

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Introduction

In this engaging episode of THIS CAR POD!, host Doug DeMuro, alongside his co-hosts Ken and Filippo, delves into the latest automotive news, shares personal insights, and responds to audience questions. The trio navigates through high-powered muscle cars, classic Ferrari restorations, BMW's technological shifts, Bentley's foray into the electric SUV market, Mazda's anniversary editions, and Infiniti's strategic changes. Additionally, Doug opens up about his true automotive preferences, challenging listener assumptions.

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News Segment

1. The New Shelby GT350: A Powerhouse Redefined

[00:41] Doug introduces the latest Shelby GT350, a significant departure from its predecessors. Unlike the beloved previous models with flat-plane crank V8s, the new GT350 is equipped with a supercharged Coyote V8, boasting an impressive 810 horsepower.

[01:14] Ken highlights the drastic increase in horsepower compared to the old GT500's 760 horsepower and the former GT350's roughly 560 horsepower, indicating a leapfrogging in performance metrics.

[02:23] Filippo points out the exclusivity of the "R" version, limited to only 36 units, emphasizing the car's rarity and specialized appeal.

Notable Quote:

• Ken [02:35]: "The GT350 as we know it is gone. It has morphed from a 500 horsepower car that Ford sells at 60 grand to a Shelby built special project that's going to cost $130,000 and have 800 horsepower."

2. Revamping a 30-Year-Old Ferrari F40

[05:19] Doug discusses a Modified Ferrari F40 by a company referred to as Fiorenti. This restomod includes upgraded dampers (Ohlins TTX36), Brembo brakes, larger wheels (18-inch front, 19-inch rear), and Michelin or Pirelli high-performance tires.

[07:03] Ken connects this modification to his own efforts with the Carrera GT, emphasizing the importance of modernizing suspension and brakes to enhance handling without altering the car's classic essence.

Notable Quote:

• Ken [07:03]: "I think if you want to enjoy analog cars in the modern era, the way to keep these cars fresh is to do this kind of stuff... My Carrera GT handles like a pista. It truly does now because of those upgrades."

3. BMW Eliminates Gesture Control and iDrive Controller

[08:35] The hosts express disappointment over BMW's decision to remove gesture control and the iDrive controller from their vehicles. Ken reminisces about the original introduction of iDrive in the E65 7 Series, acknowledging its rocky start but eventual refinement.

[10:18] Filippo notes the absence of announcements regarding features like the self-healing grill in the refreshed BMW IX, which was a notable innovation earlier.

Notable Quote:

• Ken [10:34]: "After 20 years, BMW says, you know what, you people were right all along."

4. Bentley's Entry into the Luxury Electric Urban SUV Market

[12:35] Doug elaborates on Bentley's announcement of the world's first luxury urban electric SUV, distinct from the rugged Bentayga. This vehicle is designed for city driving, with silent operation and high-end performance tailored for urban environments.

[14:06] Ken appreciates the logical shift for luxury manufacturers towards electric vehicles, citing the benefits of silence and instant performance, though he remains curious about its execution.

Notable Quote:

• Ken [15:13]: "It's not like it's taking away some sports car that we're missing out on. No, I am. I am still curious about execution."

5. Mazda Miata 35th Anniversary Edition

[15:31] Filippo introduces the 35th Anniversary Miata, a limited edition in dark red, available only as a manual and soft-top. Unlike the previous 30th anniversary edition, which featured significant upgrades like Brembo brakes and BBS wheels, this edition offers minimal enhancements.

[17:17] Ken laments the reduced special features compared to past editions, suggesting a dial-back in enthusiasm for annual special editions.

Notable Quote:

• Filippo [17:03]: "I spent a little bit of time on the Miata forums and people are a little bit disappointed that this doesn't have anything special."

6. Infiniti Discontinues QX50 and QX55 Models

[18:21] The hosts discuss Infiniti's decision to discontinue the QX50 and QX55 models, speculating on the brand's struggles within the luxury SUV market and its inability to compete effectively against giants like BMW and Audi.

[19:07] Ken expresses a grim outlook on Infiniti's future, suggesting that the discontinuation signals deeper issues within the brand.

Notable Quote:

• Ken [19:12]: "It's over. Over. There's no way Accurate. And Infinity both survive. Especially when if you really, really look at the numbers, probably neither of them should survive."

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Talk Cars: Doug's Automotive Allegiances

Doug DeMuro: Not a Porsche Guy

In an unexpected revelation, Doug clarifies that despite owning two Porsches, he does not consider himself a "Porsche guy." He attributes this misconception to his brief stint working at Porsche and his genuine preference for Mercedes and Nissan vehicles.

[22:43] Doug explains his affinity for cars that offer daily driving enjoyment without sacrificing performance, positioning Porsches as exemplary in this balance.

Notable Quotes:

• Doug [23:40]: "I am actually secretly that no one accuses me of, but they should, is a Mercedes Benz guy."
• Ken [24:05]: "You do have the Courage GT but you also recommend Porsches a ton because honestly."

Emotional Connections to Cars

Doug shares his deep emotional attachment to his M5, explaining how it serves as a source of comfort and drives his connection to loved ones. He contrasts this with Ken's reservations about developing similar attachments.

[30:11] Doug emphasizes that his relationship with his cars is not merely rational but deeply sentimental, reinforcing his preferences.

Notable Quote:

• Doug [30:11]: "...it's the M5, but it says Ferrari on it."

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Listener Questions and Responses

1. Presidential Limos and Dictators' Car Tastes

Question: "Which country has the best presidential limo? Which dictators presidents had the best taste in cars?"
Respondents: Ken, Filippo, and Doug discuss various presidential vehicles, highlighting Malta's use of the 735i and other nations' preferences for luxury sedans like the Mercedes Pullman. They reflect on the symbolism and functionality of these limos.

Notable Quote:

• Ken [51:20]: "We're walking through and parked there in like the main, you know, employee forecourt... that's the car that brings the Maltese President around."

2. Fun Weekend Car with 18 Months of M5 Maintenance Costs

Question: "If you were given 18 months of Canon's M5 maintenance cost to buy a car, what fun weekend car would you buy?"
Respondents: Ken suggests a Cobra or a 94 Miata, Doug leans towards high-performance options like the CT5V Blackwing with the caveat of emotional ties to his M5, and Filippo recommends options like the WRX STI Hatch.

Notable Quote:

• Doug [32:55]: "I would buy a 575 stick. Definitely with the handling package."

3. Working on Own Cars: Biggest Jobs

Question: "Have you guys ever worked on your own cars? If so, what is the biggest job you've ever done?"
Respondents: Ken and Doug share experiences, including motor swaps and extensive suspension work on the M5. Filippo mentions refurbishing his QX5, emphasizing DIY car maintenance and the learning curve involved.

Notable Quote:

• Doug [56:13]: "I've done a lot of work on the M5. A lot of bruised knuckles, a lot of cold ones, and a lot of swearing."

4. BMW Driving Simulator from Linus Tech Tips

Question: "Are we going to get an update on the Car driving simulator you got from Linus Tech Tips?"
Respondents: Filippo clarifies the situation humorously, hinting at ongoing technical integrations with their website rather than addressing the simulator directly.

Notable Quote:

• Filippo [37:00]: "You can buy it using this Stable coin."

5. Doug's Kia Stinger

Question: "Doug, when you talk about your previous cars, you never mentioned your Kia Stinger. Why?"
Respondents: Doug praises his former Kia Stinger, lamenting its sale and reminiscing about its performance and handling. Ken shares humorous anecdotes about their adventures with the Stinger.

Notable Quote:

• Doug [61:38]: "I sold it to a doctor in Wisconsin. I hope he has done a lot of surgeries with it."

6. Considering a Panamera Over a Cayenne

Question: "You are shopping for a Cayenne and you prefer cars over SUVs in general. Why are you not considering a Panamera?"
Respondents: Doug explains his preference for the practicality of the Cayenne in handling San Diego's rough roads, while Ken humorously counters the practicality with Porsche alternatives like the Taycan Sport Turismo.

Notable Quote:

• Doug [63:26]: "Having the ground clearance... was so liberating to me as someone who's only owned sedans and sports cars my whole life."

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Conclusion

The episode wraps up with a lighthearted exchange between the hosts, reflecting on their diverse automotive journeys and the unique preferences that define their car choices. Doug's candid admission about not being a traditional Porsche enthusiast adds depth to the conversation, encouraging listeners to explore their own automotive affinities beyond popular stereotypes.

[65:50] Filippo humorously remarks on the podcast's unpredictable nature, while Ken expresses enthusiasm for future episodes.

Notable Quote:

• Ken [65:54]: "This is the best one podcast we've ever done. Goodbye, everyone."

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Key Takeaways

• The new Shelby GT350 signifies a bold shift towards extreme horsepower, emphasizing Shelby's specialized craftsmanship.
• Classic models like the Ferrari F40 continue to receive modern enhancements, balancing heritage with performance.
• BMW's removal of gesture-based controls reflects broader trends in automotive technology and user experience expectations.
• Luxury brands like Bentley are embracing electrification to cater to urban markets, signaling shifts in consumer preferences.
• Limited edition releases, such as Mazda's Miata anniversaries, reveal the delicate balance between exclusivity and enhanced features.
• Infiniti's discontinuation of key SUV models underscores challenges within the competitive luxury automotive landscape.
• Personal disclosures about car preferences highlight the deep emotional connections enthusiasts form with their vehicles.

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This comprehensive summary captures the essence of the episode, providing listeners—and those who haven't tuned in—with a thorough overview of the discussions, insights, and memorable moments shared by Doug DeMuro and his co-hosts.

Transcript

[Filippo]

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[Ken]

Hello and welcome to this car pod.

[Doug]

I'm Ken.

[Filippo]

I'm Filippo.

[Ken]

And let's get into the news, starting with the big one.

[Doug]

Oh yes. There's a new Mustang GT350. Now we love the previous generation GT350 and the R. Amazing car. Flat plane, crank, V8, manual transmission killer. This does not use that engine. This uses a supercharged version of the Coyote V8 and it makes 810 horsepower.

[Ken]

810 horsepower from the new GT 350.

[Doug]

That's a lot.

[Ken]

Are you aware that the old GT 500 had 760 horsepower? The old GT 350 didn't the old GT 350 have like 560 or something high?

[Filippo]

A number? Yeah, yeah.

[Ken]

So they've radically leapfrogged the horsepower count.

[Doug]

Yeah. I mean again, it's not na has a supercharger, so naturally.

[Ken]

But like, like the, the world. If this is the GT350, what will be the GT 500,000.

[Doug]

Got to be a thousand. You have to imagine a thousand.

[Ken]

I mean, in a Mustang, isn't it?

[Filippo]

What like the Corvette?

[Doug]

Crowds look out.

[Ken]

That's what they use to kill people in crowds. It is crazy. It's a crazy power number. I'm also surprised to see that this car is being built by Shelby and kind of marketed and specifically directed by Shelby.

[Filippo]

Can you explain that to me?

[Ken]

Ford is not announcing this. If you go on Ford's website, they still have the old GT350 showing on their site. I don't know, but it's. If you Google Ford Shelby GT350, like there's web pages that still have it up on Ford's website, but they're not talking about the new one. Shelby American is building this specifically and it's going to have the powertrain warranty from Ford. So it's done with their blessing. But it's obviously not like the old one was kind of more of a mass market. Ford Made it. Ford developed it. Car. This is purely a Shelby thing. Ford has the Dark Horse instead. But it makes you wonder if Ford is getting out of the Shelby Mustang game and focusing on Dark Horse and GTD right now.

[Doug]

I would imagine you'll be able to buy it still in Ford showrooms.

[Ken]

I imagine you will. But I bet it's going to be pricey and it probably will not have the same like, widespread, like appeal and sales numbers as the old one did.

[Doug]

It is pricey. Base is 109,995. Wow.

[Ken]

That's. No way.

[Doug]

Yes, that is. Yes. So they haven't. They are also doing an R version of this car, but they're only building 36 of those.

[Ken]

The GT500. The GT500 is like an $80,000 car.

[Filippo]

The Mustang dark horse with options is in the 80s too.

[Ken]

Right. Everything's got more expensive. That's crazy. So the GT350 as we know it is gone. It has morphed from a 500 horsepower car that Ford sells at 60 grand to a Shelby built like special kind of limited project that's going to cost $130,000 and have 800 horsepower.

[Filippo]

Here's the question.

[Ken]

Ford's out of this game.

[Filippo]

The last GT350 and GT350R impressed everybody with like that. The engine was special with flat plane crank, V8. The handling from your review was exceptional, which is not what you expected at the time from a Mustang. Do you think that this will live up to that? Do you think they went too big on power because the GT500 didn't get that same like handling Acclaim?

[Ken]

Well, G350 did.

[Doug]

It's not just power, obviously. They did a lot underneath to.

[Ken]

Yeah.

[Doug]

To make it handle the power. And this one I believe is also. It's available as a manual and an automatic, which last one.

[Ken]

I just don't view this in the same league as the other one. Like it's by name alone. It's kind of similar. But other than that, they've really messed with. I think Ford has clearly taken a step back from this Mustang sales haven't been strong. They don't want to invest a huge amount more in Mustang sports car, clearly. And so they let Shelby run with this and they're saying we're out. You know, Ford does this. The Shelby brand has kind of come and gone with the Mustang over the years. There have been entire generations that either didn't offer it or offered it in very small numbers. And then the last gen, they really blew it up. Again, Cobra was a big name that they used for years and have stopped using for a while. That maybe they're taking a little hiatus from this kind of thing. But this is a different GT350 than the one we know. It's not just a replacement. This is like a totally different world. Price, power, the way it's being distributed, this is a totally different thing.

[Filippo]

Remember the Hellcat came out and had 707 horsepower and we were all like, that's insane. No car will ever have more. And then we kind of accepted like EVs would have more power.

[Ken]

Yeah.

[Filippo]

And now this has 800. Whatever.

[Ken]

Well, to be clear, this car costs a lot more than the Hellcat. J when it came out, when you and me almost crashed. Street speed 717s distinctly remember. My God.

[Doug]

Can't believe you were in the car.

[Filippo]

In the car.

[Ken]

He was in the back seat too. He would have been the one to.

[Filippo]

I was on the other side of the truck.

[Ken]

You know what I mean?

[Doug]

Oh yeah, I see what you like.

[Ken]

You crash, the car's on fire. The the door people get out.

[Filippo]

Kim down. Two door coupes.

[Ken]

I'm not saying he wasn't expendable, but I'm saying it would have been hard to get him out. Yeah, it was crazy when that car came. And yes, now a lot of stuff has 800, 900, 1000 horsepower.

[Filippo]

But including gas cars.

[Ken]

Including gas EVs. Yep.

[Filippo]

Whole new world.

[Ken]

Whole new world indeed. Speaking of a whole new world, our next news story. Sort of 30 year old Ferrari. Yes. Let's the news.

[Doug]

The mighty F40 is always news. But this one is specific. So this car has been. This one, if you look closely, is not a stock F40.

[Ken]

It looks like the wheels are bigger.

[Doug]

This one has been played with a company called. Is it offician? Is that how it's pronounced? Fiorenti. So this car, the idea with this is very similar to what was done with your Courier gt keep the recipe largely the same. Make it visually basically identical, but make it usable. Give it. No, it's still red. Just look. Anyway, so this car has upgraded dampers as Olin's TTX36 dampers which give it a lot more. They have internal reservoirs and they're much more compact. Actually used in Formula 3 cars, which is a thing that you didn't know about. This car also critically has upgraded brakes. Brembo six piston front and four piston rear brakes.

[Ken]

That's why it's bigger wheels.

[Doug]

Hence the bigger wheels. Correct. That has 18 inch front and 19 inch rears which come on a choice of Michelin Pilot Sport Cup 2 or Pirelli P Zero tires if you still want to die. And this car also more than this though.

[Filippo]

Sponsored.

[Doug]

I don't like Pirellis but it has a hydraulic steering servo assist to make the steering faster so you can catch it more.

[Ken]

So what do you think this is like a good restomod? Like. Well, execut timing is something after the.

[Doug]

Two accident videos come out and then all of a sudden here's a car that you know, you know has been healed if you will from its.

[Ken]

You know, I'd like to just sit here and say thank you Canon for validating the decisions I've made on my Carrera gt as my Carrera GT is in fact exactly this. The car just improved. Interesting. Improved. Better suspension, better tires, the heated seats.

[Filippo]

I thought Ken was referring to when you send it back to Porsche to get.

[Ken]

The only reason I left. Let him leave. This news story in here is because I think at its core this news story is validating who I am.

[Filippo]

Does it have heated seats?

[Ken]

Does it have heated seats, Cannon?

[Doug]

No, actually, nothing.

[Ken]

I don't.

[Doug]

Your car has heated seats. This car, I don't think they didn't change anything. Like the engine is the same. They didn't mess around with.

[Ken]

They modernized it in a way. And this is to be honest, okay, supercar makers are not manufacturing cars that analog car enthusiasts are interested in anymore. The way to stay up with the way to keep these cars fresh is to do this kind of stuff and to do what I did with my Courier gt. There's people on Renlist who are like, you messed with the suspension. How could you do that? Well, the suspension is 20 years old. The technology is 20 years old. We can improve it. Same with the tires. I don't run the same crappy tires that it had when it was new. Right. We have new tires on there and that's how you do it. I think if you want to enjoy analog cars in the modern era. And I'll tell you something, my courage handles like a pista. It truly does now because of those upgrades. And I bet this is significantly improved too. And by the way, brakes is the number one thing an F40 could use.

[Doug]

Yeah. What. Which has always been something they did. I mean the F40LM headbreaking, that's a very common modification. To add the LM brakes to an F40, then you have to do the wheels too. At least these wheels look. They're a little large looking.

[Filippo]

No, they look fine.

[Doug]

But they look fine.

[Ken]

Wouldn't even consider it. I wouldn't even consider it. Look, it looks like. It looks like you're riding an F40 on docks. Look at that in there. That's ridiculous. That's ridic. Why don't you put. Why don't you put some of those two spoke bar across wheels?

[Filippo]

At least the design looks appropriate.

[Doug]

Hey, man, if you're going to actually use your F40 and you don't want to crash, as you know, two very recently have, you'll still. Maybe this is what you have to do.

[Ken]

Wait until the tires are warm, drive it responsibly. There are better ways to do it. However, the point is that you are validating the decisions I made with my career. Gt you are welcome. Yeah, I am welcome. Okay, next news story. And this is a, this is a tough one, folks. I'm sorry. People are going to turn off the pod right now because they're so distraught, angry. They're just.

[Filippo]

They're going to go and call BMW.

[Ken]

BMW. Ken, this is a BMW News threats. A big one.

[Doug]

I'm hanging on.

[Ken]

Gesture control is gone. Now for those of you who don't know what gesture control is, which is everyone who doesn't have a BMW and most people who do. Gesture control was this thing where you could like make hand motions and it would correspond to actual engagement with the radio, mostly the infotainment system. Now I rented an X7 2 three months ago. I'm driving along and I remember it's got gesture control. I want to change the song.

[Filippo]

Did it work?

[Ken]

Every time. And it's all I did. It's all I did. Want the volume to go up.

[Filippo]

No way.

[Ken]

I did not use gesture control. Now my front passenger was perplexed.

[Filippo]

Yeah.

[Ken]

Like we're driving along and I'm like.

[Doug]

And normally when a BMW driver does that, it's telling the person in front of them to move over, get out of the left lane.

[Ken]

It was. However, it works beautifully. And you know what it did? It saved me from the. The indignity of having to press a button like a steering wheel, like a plebeian. Right. I was able to instead do this.

[Filippo]

Yeah.

[Ken]

So anyway, it's gone. And do you have any.

[Filippo]

Did they give a reason why?

[Ken]

Yeah, it's obviously stupid. Now they're also getting rid. That was their primary reason. When interviewed, BMW's head of PR said, yes, this was obviously stupid and we should have done away with it years ago. Now they're also getting rid of. This is a big one. The iDrive controller.

[Doug]

What the knob is.

[Filippo]

Sorry. That current cars have both gesture control and the knob.

[Ken]

And they're a touchscreen and you can work it on the. But on the steering wheel. Now, when I was a child, a mere boy. 2002, the E65 comes out. This is Kenan's dream car.

[Filippo]

The 7 series.

[Doug]

It is not especially the 745.

[Ken]

The 745 Li, the 7 series. And they launched iDrive, which was actually terrible. Like it's actually kind of funny because people complained about how bad it was then. And you get in the car in retrospect and you're like, oh, they just weren't ready for technology. No, it was bad. Like BMW hadn't developed it well. Like it had been developed poorly.

[Filippo]

They fixed it quickly over the course.

[Ken]

Of five years and they fixed it and they refined it and they got to the point where the IX has a crystal Idrive knob. And now it's all gone. It's all gone.

[Filippo]

Can I talk about that?

[Ken]

After 20 years, BMW says, you know what, you people were right all along.

[Filippo]

I have something that I'm a little bit worried about.

[Ken]

Yeah.

[Filippo]

So the IX just got a refresh is why I lost the knob. And there's a new grill. Oh, you may recall when the IX came out, the big news that the grill was self healing.

[Ken]

Self healing.

[Filippo]

I have not found a single piece of PR that says the new grill.

[Ken]

The new grill might not be self healing.

[Filippo]

Oh, that's a shame if it's not self healing. Do you want an ix?

[Ken]

Do you want an ix? Okay, now for those of you who don't know what Filippo was talking about is when the BMW IX first came out, it had. It had its giant front grille. They advertised that if you got a rock chip, it would in heat self heal.

[Filippo]

Correct.

[Ken]

This was obviously the stupidest thing ever to exist, aside from gesture control in the first place.

[Filippo]

But it was a really big grill and you need to do something.

[Ken]

You need to do something. It had to have some trick. And the trick was that it was self healing. And that's maybe gone. We don't know.

[Filippo]

It's a shame that I don't. I couldn't find out.

[Ken]

You agree that every time you see an Ix you think to yourself, self healing grill.

[Filippo]

I do.

[Ken]

Every time I see.

[Doug]

When I go, pretty good lease deal.

[Ken]

Pretty goodly steel. It's a cool car.

[Filippo]

The, the refresh one, don't worry, still has a giant grill.

[Doug]

Thanks.

[Ken]

Still giant grill, but no longer self.

[Filippo]

Maybe I don't Know why are they talking about this? They need to talk about.

[Ken]

They gotta talk about it. Ruining everything we hold dear. You can no longer do this. And now the grill doesn't self heal in heat. Like a gecko that loses an arm. This is what, what has happened.

[Filippo]

I want to be clear.

[Ken]

Maybe that's a good thing.

[Doug]

Their cars are beautiful. Oh, that's not right either.

[Ken]

Okay, move on to the next news story please.

[Doug]

Ah yes. So to talk about Bentley. So Bentley. Bentley has announced that they are making the world. I have to get read this to get it right. The world's first luxury urban suv. Not just a luxury suv, not an urbanist, just an urban familiar with the.

[Filippo]

Lexus ux which is the Urban Explorer.

[Doug]

I'm being completely honest with you. No, they are absolutely. Bentley is absolutely not familiar with. But it was recently spotted.

[Ken]

Neither is the buying public.

[Doug]

But it was recently spotted driving around and it's dressed up as a Porsche Cayenne with some ionic five tails. Well, the thing that gives us away that it's a Bentley is that definitely not how it looks. But it had British tags on it.

[Ken]

Right.

[Doug]

And the rear and this platform obviously is shared between Volkswagen and Bentley as they own Bentley. Yes, well, it's a Cayenne.

[Filippo]

Look, the window's not right.

[Ken]

No, it's not a Cayenne. But it's clearly intended to look like a Cayenne, which may be true in production, honestly, because this, this looks relatively far along. In fact, that mirror, well that's a Bentley ish mirror. It's kind of Porsche ish.

[Doug]

Bentley has said also this isn't replacing the Bentayga. It's going to become like its own line. So it's.

[Ken]

So what do we think? Luxury urbanism. Meaning it has no off road capabilities of any variety, I guess which you.

[Doug]

Know, so many people took the Bentag off road.

[Ken]

Are you kidding? Flipping. I went fox hunting. We went fox hunting at least. At least three hunts a year.

[Doug]

You shot a fox?

[Filippo]

No, no. The foxes help us.

[Ken]

Doesn't the fox.

[Doug]

No, no. You use hounds to hunt the fox. We're killing the fox.

[Ken]

We need to know about this.

[Filippo]

Yeah.

[Ken]

If we're gonna go again.

[Filippo]

We just went out there.

[Doug]

It was a successful hunt.

[Ken]

Boy, we just went out in a bit Taken. Because we wanted to look the part.

[Doug]

Or you wanted to play the bugle or whatever.

[Ken]

So this is fully electric.

[Doug]

Yes, I believe that is the thing. This is fully electric because I don't see a taily, I don't see tailpipes. And I think that is. That is the idea here.

[Ken]

I see a lot of rear end treatment that I'm not I' to but I don't see a tail light.

[Doug]

Which of course Bentley has been slow to evs. They've been and they've. I think the luxury manufacturers, Rolls Royce who admittedly makes an ev have been hesitant because it does inconvenience the people who own them. You have to plug it in and that is an inconvenience to have to wait.

[Filippo]

Rich people don't wait has an ev.

[Doug]

Yes, but. Yes, but they only recar. And they took a long time to do it because they really wanted the technology to be okay. And I think Bentley's done the same thing.

[Ken]

But it does make sense for these brands to make EVs though because it's quiet.

[Doug]

Silent. It's the best thing that EV manufacturer.

[Ken]

You know another way you can, you know this is a Bentley. I bet you those stupid square tail lights cover up the big oval that Bentley's trying to sell.

[Doug]

Yeah, but they did too.

[Ken]

But either way. So urban su. So they're. They're going to make this into a like a off. Like a urban luxury electric suv. Not a Bentega but like a very high end. You drive it around town. That's how everybody uses their Bentegas in London anyway.

[Doug]

Yeah.

[Ken]

For being honest.

[Doug]

Yeah.

[Ken]

So I don't think.

[Doug]

I don't think it's a bad thing. I think ev, like I was saying, makes sense for these luxury manufacturers because of the silence. Instant performance.

[Ken]

It's not like it's taking away some sports car that we're missing out on. No, I am. I am still curious about execution. We'll. We'll see how it changes too.

[Doug]

I'll bet you you really like it when it comes out. I have a hunch.

[Ken]

I do like a lot of these things. Yeah.

[Doug]

I suspect that is the case.

[Ken]

Okay, give us our next one.

[Filippo]

Oh, there is a new Miata. 35th anniversary.

[Ken]

35Th anniversary. The 30th was the orange one.

[Filippo]

The 30th was the orange one which had Brembo and BBS wheels and something else.

[Ken]

The 35th is this dark red situation.

[Filippo]

And that is it.

[Ken]

No, it's got a couple upgrades. I was reading. It's gotta get. It's manual only. It's soft top only. You can't get an rf and it's got a couple.

[Filippo]

So it's a regular Miata Grand Touring in a different color but with one additional thing. You know it is.

[Ken]

It comes with a non track day. I Read that in Car and Driver.

[Filippo]

It does come with an experience that they haven't announced what it is, but it's not a track day. But it comes with a color matched key.

[Ken]

Oh, and leather pouch. So take that, the keys.

[Filippo]

The leather pouches.

[Ken]

This color is distinctive. This was on CX90.

[Filippo]

Correct.

[Ken]

It wasn't attractive on that car.

[Filippo]

It is attract. I like the color. My wife's nails are often this color.

[Ken]

Soul red. Soul red is the color of God. Yeah. Soul red was given to us by God through Mazda. For some reason God chose Mazda.

[Filippo]

It really was. Yeah.

[Ken]

And he said, I will give you this color. And then Mazda, Mazda dispelled it upon the. The followers. Populist. Yes. And now that we have this instead.

[Filippo]

It is called artisan red. For the.

[Ken]

This is a distinctive wheel, don't you think?

[Doug]

I actually don't think it is.

[Ken]

So the, the ND, they're still going with the ND Mazda's always done these special edition three. Yeah, but we're still going with the ND this. So I, I've 10 years.

[Filippo]

I spent a little bit of time on the Miata forms and people are a little bit disappointed that this doesn't have anything special because the 30th anniversary was cool. It was that orange, had the wheels, had the Brembo brakes, had Olins if memory serves. So I had some suspension upgrades. This is a grand touring in a different color.

[Ken]

Yeah, but it's manual only. It's got a tan. Listen, what in Back in my day, kennel. In my day back in the na, the Mazda used to do a Miata special edition every year. And it was always like a color.

[Filippo]

Mica edition or whatever that was. It's very similar to that.

[Ken]

People have gotten too used to good things. We're gonna, we're gonna dial it back.

[Doug]

There is a great website that details every special edition and I've. We've used it a lot for car writing stuff and I reference it all the time. When you go through it is like that. Sometimes it's like wheels.

[Ken]

Some of them are special in a very special way. Let's just say. Yes. Yes. And those are the ones people brag about having. I got the. I got the NB or whatever and it's like, oh, oh, well, is it a Mazda speed? Well, right. To us it's like na, nb, nb Mazda Speed. Ncnd. And we're out.

[Filippo]

I, I will say the Mazda releases a new color or two every year for the. The max five. And the last two years have been like gray colors for their, like new color for the year. So it's nice that at least this is like a vibrant.

[Ken]

But you would get color.

[Filippo]

No, I'd get that.

[Ken]

You. You wouldn't get an orange one off the site? A used orange one?

[Filippo]

No, I would.

[Ken]

Yeah.

[Filippo]

Also, they're. They're only making 300 something of these. 300 cars in the U.S. you know.

[Ken]

It looks like that old Merlot edition.

[Doug]

That's what I was thinking. That. That's exactly what it looks like.

[Ken]

Okay, give us our last news story, which is the most important of all. Yep. Oh, look at that beautiful generic SUV.

[Filippo]

This is a QX50. There's also a QX55, which is a coupe version of this. They're both dead.

[Ken]

They're dead. They're gone. Folks, this is it. This is the end for the QX50, QX55. A lot of people out there saying, hey, they made those still. They made those at all. Y. No. You know who's mad about this enterprise? Because they could upsell you be like, oh, you get a luxury suv, sir, and then you show up and they give you an Infinity and you're like, wait a minute, this is the x5.

[Doug]

Or equivalent.

[Ken]

No, x3 or 4. This is equivalent.

[Filippo]

I want to be clear. X3 replacement.

[Ken]

Now, infinity says, which is also bad. Infinity says they're going to refresh the or redesign the QX60 and come out with a coupe version called the QX65.

[Filippo]

At least they're consistent.

[Ken]

I would like at this moment, January, whatever date this airs. What does it air for? 31st. 31st to start an Infinity death watch.

[Filippo]

Oh, oh, we're doing it. Our first death watch.

[Ken]

You gotta say, you got to admit, this is coming to an end.

[Filippo]

If you as a manufacturer are getting rid of your compact luxury suv, it's not looking good. It's not a good situation.

[Ken]

It's not like this is 80% the Tesla model Y, the best selling car in the world. Infiniti has their competitor. Like we weren't gonna actually exit the segment. You know, we just decided, why don't.

[Filippo]

They have an Infiniti Aria.

[Ken]

Infiniti doesn't have anything. My opinion, in my opinion, may be wrong, but in my opinion, they're down to the QX60 and the QX80.

[Filippo]

That's it. I.

[Ken]

This is it. It's a. It's a death watch.

[Filippo]

They still sell the Q50, but the Q50, the QX50 and the Q55 are the only other.

[Ken]

Wait, they sell the Q50.

[Filippo]

No, according to their website, they sell the Q50.

[Ken]

They're just used versions of the existing ones.

[Filippo]

The X3. BMW is best selling car. The Q5, Audi's bestselling car probably. How do you get rid of your small.

[Ken]

BMW has nine. SUV's.

[Filippo]

10 some number. That's insane.

[Ken]

They have two products, right? Infiniti is over. You're hearing here first. And if they actually do this Honda merger.

[Filippo]

It's over.

[Ken]

It's over. Over. There's no way Accurate. And Infinity both survive. Especially when if you really, really look at the numbers, probably neither of them should survive.

[Filippo]

Also, Infinity's got to be a US only brand.

[Ken]

Well, they tried, remember they tried in Europe and it was. It was the worst failure in the entire history of failures. It was worse than Hindenburg. And that blew up.

[Filippo]

Wow. It burned. I want to be clear because Hindenburg apologists do exist. They didn't blow up.

[Ken]

Right. It burned. It burned and then cascaded to the.

[Doug]

Ground, killing people do exist.

[Ken]

Killing people. And the Infinity launch in Europe was similarly because it also included them trying to buy into Formula one. Do you remember this?

[Doug]

Oh, absolutely. Well, they sponsored cars. They didn't actually. They were actually involved with the cars.

[Ken]

They didn't have a team. I thought there was an Infinity Red Bull team.

[Doug]

They sponsored Red Bull.

[Ken]

They did.

[Doug]

No, they were not involved with the engineering of the car.

[Ken]

But wasn't the team called Infinity Red Bull?

[Doug]

They like. Do you think Petronas is there wrenching on Mercedes cars? Mercedes, amg, Patronus. It's the same thing. It was a sponsor. It was.

[Ken]

But nonetheless, I mean it was the name of the team.

[Doug]

Yes, they gave a lot of money.

[Ken]

It couldn't have been cheap.

[Doug]

No, I'm sure it was.

[Ken]

And they launched all these cars in Europe and it lasted like two years. And Europeans were like, yeah, actually we're good. These are trash. And you got to admit, watches is on. Infiniti cannot last. This has to be coming.

[Filippo]

There was a new QX80. You reviewed it, you liked it?

[Ken]

Yeah, it was good.

[Filippo]

Unfortunately, the Armada also exists.

[Ken]

There's a Nissan version.

[Filippo]

The QX60 is a great.

[Ken]

It was when it, when the QX60 came out in 2012, when I was in middle school. It was a great car. I love, by the way, at that time it was called the JX35.

[Filippo]

Yeah, I love how actually there's a.

[Ken]

Redesigned one because they redesigned it based on the Pathfinder a couple years ago.

[Filippo]

Yeah, but no one knows cuz.

[Ken]

No one cares.

[Filippo]

Looks great.

[Ken]

But okay. It's time to move on to the talk cars segment. Talk cars. Talk cars. This segment is sponsored by the career GT, a V10 developed for Formula 1.

[Filippo]

Not true.

[Ken]

Have a cool car you're looking to sell. Sell it on cars and bids. It is absolutely free. Free. That's right, free. It's free to sell your car on cars and bids and you get the entirety of the final sale price. No hidden fees. It just takes a few minutes to submit your car. And our expert auction specialist team will build your listing and get it live on cars and bids in as little as three days. Cars and Bids has over 750,000 registered users. And our content brings more eyeballs to your auction than our competitors. Get started today. Go to carsandbids.com and hit the sell car button. I can't wait to write your Doug's take. Okay, speaking of the current gt, our top cars segment lead story today is that I am not a Porsche guy.

[Filippo]

Please try to justify this.

[Ken]

Okay. All right.

[Doug]

Worked for Porsche.

[Ken]

Yeah, okay. You know, work for Porsche. I did work for Porsche years ago. That's the number one thing people use to say that I'm a Porsche guy. Let me tell you something. If you worked there, if you spent any time working there, I'm going to try to be diplomatic here. That wouldn't make you more of a Porsche guy. Let's just put it that way. Let's just make it make. Make it really clear here. My time at Porsche, when I went in, very excited and I left, less excited, it certainly didn't make me thrilled to be in the Porsche sphere, if you know what I'm saying. Good luck to all my friends who are still there. Going great, I bet. Okay. So anyway, I did work there, and believe it or not, that experience did not take it out of me completely. But most people now say because I have the courage gt, you know, that's only the second portion I've ever had. And I went and looked at all the cars.

[Filippo]

Look at all the ones that you had.

[Ken]

Well, I had some company cars, but I crashed most of them. I went and looked and you know what? I am actually secretly that no one accuses me of, but they should, is a Mercedes Benz guy. I've had only two Porsches. I've had seven Mercedes Benz. I have two Mercedes Benz right now. What's your other.

[Doug]

I've always accused you.

[Ken]

I had a 9 in 6 turbo years ago for like 6 months with.

[Doug]

With bumperettes. I've always accused you of being a Mercedes guy because you've Only you've owned one BMW, an E36 M3 sedan, which got totaled or something. Not where you were driving, but later on.

[Ken]

Later.

[Doug]

But you've owned a ton of Mercedes Benz.

[Ken]

I've had seven Mercedes Benz. I've had five or something. E class.

[Filippo]

You currently own two Mercedes Benz products.

[Ken]

And for some reason people like, oh, he's a Porsche guy. I'm not a Porsche guy on so many levels. I don't care about the options. I don't know any of the colors. People like, oh, is that Miami blue? I don't have any clue at all what the colors are. You know, literally not.

[Doug]

You don't wear a watch.

[Ken]

I'm not into the watch thing. I'm not into the stitching thing. I don't give up. And I hate the 356. And I think that that is the number one.

[Doug]

Yeah.

[Ken]

Thing that is. Clearly.

[Filippo]

You agree though that you're slowly becoming a Porsche guy as Porsche becomes the enthusiast.

[Ken]

I'm not interested in more Porsches though.

[Filippo]

You want to three.

[Ken]

Well, okay. But I also want a super turbo. Am I a Toyota guy? And the answer is yes, because I've had. I've had four Toyotas. Four.

[Filippo]

How many were Land Cruisers?

[Ken]

A two Land Cruisers, a Sequoia and a first gen Prius. Did you have a first gen Prius? First gen Prius. By the way, I've had three Nissan.

[Filippo]

A second gen Prius.

[Ken]

For the record, that is a second gen Prius. The first gen was Japan only. Not too many people know that. I've had three Nissans. I've had more Nissans than Porsche. You want to call me a Nissan guy? Fine, I'll wear it. Dude, Infinity. Oh, I hope you survive. I hope you make it.

[Filippo]

You had a Cube.

[Ken]

Cube. I had a Skyline GTR and I had. What else there was? Oh, the escargot boom.

[Filippo]

Counts less than your Porsche corporate cars. I drove that cargo more than you drove.

[Ken]

Oh, my God. I loved the escar. You kidding? It was a snail.

[Filippo]

Yeah, that's pretty cool.

[Doug]

It was a snail and a pun.

[Ken]

It was everything we used to drive. It was a snail and a pun. We used to drive that around in Philly. People would freak and I was like driving the Countach. Swear to God.

[Doug]

I mean, yeah. That's one thing that Philadelphians would actually be happy to see. They wouldn't want to destroy.

[Ken]

That's true. Anyway, so I'm not a Porsche guy. Okay. I want to set the record on this.

[Doug]

All right, you've set the record. You're not a Porsche guy, you're a Mercedes guy.

[Ken]

I don't want to know. I'm an objective observer of the automotive industry and I think if you're an objective observer of the automotive industry, you end up buying a bunch of Mercedes because they make really nice.

[Filippo]

Are you familiar with the C300?

[Ken]

Yeah, the C300. They had a stick.

[Filippo]

No, no current one.

[Ken]

Well, you can shift gears.

[Doug]

Maybe people feel that way because you do have the courage ET but you also recommend Porsches a ton because honestly.

[Ken]

They'Re generally speaking they're like the, the reason that Porsches are so well recommended by me and so many car reviewers is they do a lot of stuff well even though I've only had two Porsches and I'm not really interested more and I don't really like the community. They are the best examples of cars that give daily driving enjoyment and have like fun. Ferraris go way too far on the fun scale. You know, a lot like my AMG Mercedes go too far on the daily driving enjoyment. They're not really that enjoyable to toss around. Porsche uniquely does that well. And you don't have to be a Porsche guy to understand that. You just have to be a car enthusiast, which is why most car enthusiasts end up getting Porsches. But I'm more of a Nissan guy by the way. I've had four Land Rovers and two Fords. I've had the same number of Fords and a. I had an Explorer Sport. Really? Oh one zero one buddy. That's the, that was the third gen Explorer Sport that didn't have a four door version except the truck. So the third gen Explorer Sport there was the two door and the truck but the four door got a different body.

[Filippo]

Sport track.

[Ken]

We're going deep into this, the sport track.

[Filippo]

Okay, deep into that. I will say then your point is spot on. Like and I will also note not the entire portrait. People that buy McCanns don't know about the decision.

[Ken]

Yeah.

[Filippo]

So you can be a part of that.

[Ken]

I will say anyone who knows me I wouldn't think would say I'm a Porsche person. Especially because of some of the way that I talk about some of those folks when the cameras are off.

[Doug]

I fit, yeah, I, I fit in that category of Porsche person more because I'm pedantic and I like really you.

[Ken]

Need to get a portion. And on that subject we have to have a call back to an incident we had last week on the show. Yes.

[Doug]

Now last week somebody asked a question and they asked that for me. There's three questions. But the one to me was would I for no cost take a 993 Turbo S? I don't. It doesn't cost me a dime. But I can never drive. I can never. Let me finish. Stop speaking. But I can never drive in experience or own another E39.5 again for the rest of my life. And my knee jerk reaction was one I needed to think about. And so I said no. And so I thought about it a lot. I spent hours thinking about this this week.

[Ken]

Damn.

[Doug]

And there are some things I need to. I have to apologize to the 993 community. For starters. One is that unlike like I have actually driven a 993 Turbo S. They're very rare, very expensive, very few people have driven them. You've driven a Turbo S?

[Ken]

Only I've never driven the holy one.

[Doug]

Only the I've driven sundry one I've driven. God, it's amazing. It does 060 in 3.7 seconds. Six speed manual transmission. Yeah, it's fast. The beauty of that car is that the Turbo is excellent. But the Turbo S combines true modern day performance with analog feel. You know, the door closes with that and all the gauges are beautiful. And it smells like an old car but.

[Ken]

But it's in the fenders. It's the only difference. It's worth triple because it has holes in the fenders.

[Doug]

Absolutely not true. But I did a whole video on it. You can go and watch it. I talk about all the differences, but it's one of the greats. But when I was filming it, there was a guy there who was like the curator of the car. And anytime I would like get a fingerprint on it, he would come over and you spray details, right. And he just loved the car. For him, it ignited like a passion and an excitement in him because he loved the car, which is great. I really liked the Turbo S. I don't love it. And what you're asking me to do is to give up a car I really love for a variety of reasons. It fits in my life. I'm sentimental about it. It's a wonderful car to drive. And you're asking me to give up something I burn for for a car that I don't now. There are cars that I would give up the M5 experience for. Acura, Ferrari 550. Yeah. Like, yeah. McLaren F1.

[Filippo]

Do it for a 550.

[Ken]

You do it for 550. You would take. You would forever give up an Ethereum 5 forever. Never be able to touch one again. Not even Touch, don't even lick for a Ferrari 550?

[Doug]

Yeah, I think it would, because I really love the 550. The point.

[Ken]

We talk in barchetta or are we talking regular?

[Doug]

I can have other cars, right?

[Ken]

Yeah, yeah, you can have a cure Barchetta.

[Doug]

I chop those, you know, those scroll hoops right off.

[Filippo]

Fascinating.

[Doug]

But the thing with it is, I.

[Ken]

Take a 993 Turbo S over a 550.

[Doug]

The thing about it is, is that, like, although I'm not married to the Porsche guy. That's right. Although I'm not married to the idea of having the M5 forever, it has done so much for me and how I feel. My grandfather recently died at the beginning of the year, and it made me really think a lot about, like, how I feel and relate to things in the subject of time, because time is really finite, and for me, I want to experience that with the people that I like and the objects that I like. And the M5 for me is one of those objects. Anytime I'm in the car, when I was dealing with grief or feeling bad, I close that door and I go and I feel those ITBs sucking in air, and it, to me, just takes me to another place.

[Ken]

Don't you think I'm playing devil's advocate here? Because, honestly, at this point, I, you know, you can. It doesn't. I, I. This doesn't affect me, but I'm playing devil's advocate. Don't you think I want to run.

[Filippo]

With a 993 Turbo S?

[Ken]

Don't you think that you could have that same, like, at some point you grow out of, like, Filippo. Okay, Filippo in his blankie. Right. We're not supposed to talk about on air, but we're gonna. Today. Filippo has a blank. He's always had his blankie. He brings it to the set. You know, it's sitting under the table right now.

[Doug]

It's blue.

[Ken]

For those who are wondering, don't you write it's blue? Blue. I mean, it was blue, and that's faded. But anyway, don't you think at some point you grow out of the thing and move on to the other, the next thing.

[Doug]

This is another point that you bring up. So I'm very fortunate. I've driven hundreds of really cool cars. I have a list for those who don't know that on my phone of every single car I've ever driven in my entire life, the date I drove it, whose it was, what year it was, what trim it was for even normal cars. And I've Driven everything from a Chevy Malibu Max right up to like a. To like a SA app a Ferrari to 458 SA AP. I've Dr. From cool to cool. That's right. But I have seldom gotten out of any other car and thought that, man, I was just happy to get.

[Ken]

But my point is like, that happened over time with your M5. Don't you think it could happen?

[Doug]

That's not true. It happened like the second I rode in my friend Ryan's before he could even drive. He bought his parents, bought him this car. I was in love with the car immediately.

[Ken]

There's some childhood stuff here.

[Filippo]

Don't you think that if you had a CT5V Blackwing you would eventually develop that same feeling?

[Doug]

I love that you bring up that question. So I had driven a CT5V Blackwing and immediately drove my M5 right after. Back to back comparison. There are things I really love about the Black Wing is a badass car. It's so cool. You experience actual range anxiety in a gasoline car, which is wild. But there are things that like I got back in the M5. What I liked about it more is it's the right power figure. The. The 5e black means a ton of power.

[Filippo]

A CT5V, not black.

[Ken]

I don't know.

[Filippo]

There's a lot where I feel like you could develop a similar rapport with.

[Doug]

But I don't have to.

[Ken]

But it's got a childhood love. It's. It's like, it's like when you, when you first that played catch with your dad. You know what I'm talking about?

[Filippo]

Never happen in my life.

[Doug]

Well, admittedly, like the reason that car. They didn't do that in Italy. Threw a meatball at him. But the thing with it is it's like. And I have. Although I don't like a lot of normal cars, admittedly, I specialize with the European exotic car. That's what I love. If somebody loved their Toyota Echo as much as I love my E39 M5, I. I absolutely respect the holiday. I think that's phenomenal. But the thing with it is that's what's important about these cars. They're not rational.

[Ken]

So why is it that a 550 would be enough to send you away?

[Doug]

Because when I drove that car, we had that gray one in the office. I drove it a ton because I had to take it up for service and brought it back and stuff. And it just. It is the M5, but it says Ferrari on it.

[Ken]

So there's a way to get you out of the M5 with a certain car and a certain thing. It's just not the 993 twin disc.

[Doug]

And of course, in a world where I'm being given one for free, it's. It's, you know, it's a world that doesn't exist unless someone out there wants to give me a 550 for free for this.

[Ken]

For some reason, which is fascinating, but so there are. He's got the childhood love and the passion and the love and the love, and time is finite. Unless you're showing up at his door with the keys to a 550.

[Filippo]

What about, like a five stick swapped?

[Doug]

So, again, the point is, like, I. Well, don't forget, I loved Ferrari long before the M5. I've been a die hard for our fan my entire life, so. Or my entire conscious life. And so again, it's. It's all hypothetical. I plan to have an M5 and a 550.

[Ken]

But hypothetically, what about a 575 stick swap?

[Doug]

I. I would buy a 5. 7 5.

[Ken]

No, no, same question. But 5, 7, 5 stick swap. OE stick. OE stick, yes.

[Filippo]

Oh, wow.

[Doug]

O stick. Definitely with the handling package and.

[Ken]

But sticks. Oh, but no handling package. No. Bye bye, M5. You got to have FHP my uncle. We're getting real granular here. Are there any Acuras?

[Doug]

Okay, that's my. My thought process. I know it's an insane statement to say, but again, love is not rational, and it's not rational for these cars. And although I'm not saying that the M5 is a better car than the 9 and 3 turbos, although it's better at certain things than the Turbo s. The Turbos is better at a lot of things than the M5 is for my personal preference. Because you're moving cost from the whole thing here. Or price is what the question removes. It's how you feel emotionally. And for me, like, I just emotionally am more attached to my M5 than I would be.

[Filippo]

For the record, the question would have allowed you to sell that 993 Turbo S and buy five 550s.

[Doug]

He only focuses on money. He only focuses on.

[Filippo]

No, I think. My point here is that.

[Ken]

I think so too, but I generally. That's not the spirit I generally agree with. I generally understand your point, although I vastly disagree with it. Okay, I appreciate that.

[Doug]

Again, I'm really sentimental and emotional about cars. Specifically, you're not emotionally attached to your cars like I am. I think you.

[Ken]

You.

[Doug]

The Courage GT was a car you had to own. And it means a lot to you to achieve. But when you told me you're buying it, you said there shouldn't be celebrated. Just a rich guy buying a car.

[Ken]

It is a rich guy buying something. I agree with that.

[Doug]

But I celebrated. It's like you accomplished such a dream. You should be proud of that.

[Ken]

Yeah, I know. But at some point, it's just obnoxious. Look at my French car. Okay. Which is why we haven't made a video about it since. No, I made a couple. Oh, I gotta make a recall video. We got to talk about what happened. The recall. The car was recalled. Dang it. Okay, final talk cars thing here, Philippo.

[Filippo]

Yeah. We are in the middle of a fun integration with our friends at Coinbase. So we are selling a 1986 Toyota pickup, which I'm looking at right now. It's so cool that we sourced out in the bay. It's a California car from new with one family from new till. You know, we bought it. It's very, very cool. It's also really exciting because we partnered with Coinbase to sell it for usdc, which is a crypto stable coin that's pegged one to one to US dollar. It's also a really legitimately great way to pay for a car because it's instant. You don't have to worry about when the bank is open. You can do it really safely and seamlessly. So 2am 2am Whenever you want underwear. Sure.

[Doug]

Wow.

[Filippo]

You certainly don't need to go to the bank, which is nice. And you can't do that in your underwear.

[Ken]

Just like generally, I can't go to the bank.

[Doug]

In my case, it's my pajamas with lapels on.

[Filippo]

In your case, it is the show pajama. It doesn't matter.

[Doug]

Yes, yes. That's the whole thing doesn't matter.

[Filippo]

But I would encourage everybody to kind of go check out my video on the Car the Bits channel, which comes out today. Doug's review of the pickup or cars and bits.com usdc to learn a little bit more because it is legitimately.

[Ken]

So I want to. I want to get clear on this. Yeah, you can buy the truck. You have to buy the truck using this Stable coin. Correct.

[Filippo]

So this specific truck we're selling, the payment needs to be in usdc, but we're then going to open it up in the next month or so to all sellers and buyers to.

[Ken]

So people can be selling. Buying USDC vehicles on the site.

[Filippo]

If you use cards and bids, SafePay, which is our paying platform through our friends At Key savvy, you can already pay in usdc, which is really exciting.

[Ken]

Interesting.

[Filippo]

It's also generally I am like the operations business nerd here at Cars and Bids.

[Doug]

That's your title.

[Filippo]

It is, yeah. And it's very exciting because it's a legitimately a good option for people and it's kind of fun to be like the forefront of this. But it's cutting edge. This is a good use.

[Ken]

We're at the cutting edge. We're at the cutting edge. Done it with a 40 year old pickup truck that is carbureted.

[Doug]

Take that.

[Filippo]

It's carbureted. You drove that truck?

[Ken]

Yeah.

[Filippo]

It was so wonderful.

[Ken]

I drove it around and all I was thinking to myself the whole time was when this truck was made 40 years ago and it doesn't have a computer in it, they weren't thinking that someday would be bought using a stable coin. Here we are, usdc. It wasn't on their minds.

[Doug]

It's a fascinating dichotomy.

[Ken]

It is. It's kind of a new and old situation. Okay, next up we're going to talk about. It's time for the market report where we talk about the car market. Now, the market report is sponsored by the Cars and bids app.

[Filippo]

Yep.

[Ken]

You can download it somewhere and then use it somehow on the Apple app store.

[Filippo]

You can use it on your iPhone.

[Ken]

Can use it on iPad.

[Filippo]

You can. It's not optimized for iPad, but you can use it.

[Ken]

Can I download it on my computer and use it?

[Filippo]

No.

[Ken]

Oh, well, that's some bs.

[Filippo]

You can go to collecting it. Com, the browser.

[Doug]

The Android people are more upset than you.

[Ken]

Yeah. Why can't I use it on my Kyocera2830J? Okay, I have no idea what any of that is. A brand that makes stuff, they make phones. Yeah, I guessed. I assumed it was microwaves. How would I know about Kyocera? I have no idea.

[Doug]

You have some friend with a green bubble who shows up in your text messages.

[Filippo]

Yeah, they don't have a kyocer.

[Ken]

You know, he was that way for a long time.

[Doug]

Anyways, I'm not surprised.

[Ken]

Let's talk market report. There's a lot of market related things to cover and I want to start with my Rolls Royce question. Oh, okay. When I was a child, a wee lad. Rolls Royce, Bentley, English car.

[Doug]

He's learning.

[Ken]

Rolls Royce and Bentley were the same. Okay. The cars they made were basically indistinguishable. Bentley was the driver's version and Rolls Royce was the chauffeur. Version. But like they were the same, I think. Like they may have been some suspension differences, but that may have also just been marketing. Now they're different and. And one of them is owned by Volkswagen and the other one is inexplicably owned by BMW. And Rolls Royces don't lose value. And Bentley's lose value to an unbelievable level.

[Filippo]

Don't lose value is a very.

[Ken]

Okay, I'm going to give you. I'm going to give you an example. I'm going to give you an example. The Phantom. Sure.

[Filippo]

I'm familiar.

[Ken]

A 2000 and. Yeah. What's the lowest we've sold a Phantom for? What do Phantoms go for? All right, the cheapest oldest Phantoms, right. Still selling for 65. This is a 150 car new, right? No, it was 300. It was 300.

[Filippo]

300.

[Ken]

300. Okay. But it's still. It's still worth 20% of its original value. A Continental GT from the same year was a 180 car new. It is now worth zero dollars because we sell nice ones. I want to be clear about this. I want to be really clear about this. You can go on Craigslist and find a ratty Continental GT for two.

[Filippo]

That's three times the price for fundamentally a competitor.

[Ken]

It's not just the Phantom versus Continental too. Like compare arnage, which was the Phantom equivalent. Like it was the flagship full size. And the more Mulsanne. The Arnaz and the Mulsanne have gone. But Phantom and Ghost. Ghost is retaining its value. I went on autotrader yesterday. Autotrader.com I don't know if I'm allowed to talk about it. And I went on Autotrader today to look for Ghosts. You know what cheap used Ghost costs? They have 90,000 miles. They're 15 years old and they're $84,000. Why is that? Why is that?

[Filippo]

You know the real reason Rolls Royces look cool.

[Doug]

I know there's something.

[Ken]

You get my point. It's weird.

[Doug]

I think it's because when Rolls Royce owned Bentley, they specifically went out of their way to make sure Bentley's were less good and the Rolls Royce had a better car. And so. And that brand prestige has carried them now.

[Ken]

Now they don't own Bentley. Own Bentley. But Bentley's are still less good. Not by trying or anything. It's just the way it works.

[Doug]

That W12 was one of the finest.

[Ken]

It is. And so what is the deal with that? You could drive around in a Phantom or you could drive around in a W12, the greatest powertrain of all time and you can purchase it for the cost of a used road sign on ebay. Wow.

[Filippo]

What road sign goes for that?

[Ken]

You would know any railroad crossing or 05 Continental GT.

[Filippo]

I do think there's something to the the styling of them. Rolls Royce went for such like an in your face styling like look, look at the front of the.

[Ken]

You think it's the way it looks.

[Filippo]

I think that the presence that it has does impact the current value.

[Ken]

Okay, let me ask you this then. And I'm not trying to stir any.

[Filippo]

Potential true of the Colon Bontega, I'm.

[Ken]

Not trying to store any pots. But let me ask you this. If it's about styling and presence, why has the Nissan Murano Cross Cabriolet depreciated that car has excessive presence?

[Filippo]

Are you familiar with Murano Cross Cavillary pricing compared to regular Murano is four times the price.

[Ken]

It's four times price is still nine grand. I am familiar with the pricing. I'm also familiar with the fact that the pricing determines greatly on whether the top is working and it isn't.

[Doug]

I also want to make it plain. If you search God's chariot on cars and it's not an Ethereum item 5 that comes up, it is the Cross Cabriolet which is very fair.

[Filippo]

One other note on Bentley Rolls Royce.

[Ken]

This is weird. What do you think the weirdest part about it is? Ghost. Because Ghost and Continental GT are roughly equivalent. And Ghost, I'm telling you a 10 Ghost is an 85 car at the cheapest and a 10 Continental Continental Flying Spur is like a 40 car.

[Filippo]

Yeah. What it's also like in more recent years I feel like Rolls Royce has stayed further up market than Bentley has. Bentley's kind of coming down a little.

[Ken]

Bit because there's more of them. That could be the answer right there.

[Filippo]

How much is the new colon?

[Ken]

400.

[Filippo]

What's the new Bentega? Three?

[Ken]

285.

[Filippo]

Right. So now going forward I think that that kind of brings the.

[Ken]

But colleagues are holding their value like cray.

[Filippo]

Right.

[Ken]

And Bentegas are not not. They're not as bad as other.

[Filippo]

They're in a different league now. That's a 50% price difference.

[Doug]

I think the status of. Yeah, I think there's the part of.

[Ken]

It is the original price tag but ghosts have held their value better even in spite of that. Like if you look Ghosts are still 30% of their original MSRP. The cheapest ones.

[Filippo]

Yeah.

[Ken]

Whereas Bentley's are struggling to get to 1520.

[Filippo]

Yeah. I agree.

[Ken]

I think I was hoping I could get a cheap Ghost by now. I deserve a Ghost.

[Filippo]

Why do you not want a cheap flying spur?

[Ken]

Oh, interesting.

[Doug]

Oh, interesting. Yeah, you're right.

[Ken]

I prefer a Ghost.

[Doug]

Nice shot.

[Ken]

The market would prefer a Ghost.

[Doug]

Is it, Doug?

[Filippo]

Is the market and the dog reliability.

[Doug]

Factor into it a little bit? I mean, Bentleys aren't most reliable cars, but maybe.

[Ken]

I mean, I presume that the fears about Bentley reliability are. Have the same. Are the. Are people in the used market have the same fears about reliability? I will say this as just as just a single data point. One time I rented a used Continental GT in Atlanta. I primarily rent two cars, Cayenne base models and Continental GTs when I'm Monturo. Okay. Rented a used Continental GT in Atlanta because I love the Continental GT. Drive it every time I can. And. And I got in and the fella said to me, he said, listen, he said there's some warning lights. And I said okay. And so I drove the car and 10 minutes into the drive, a warning light comes on and it says, warning, you have no tire pressure in any tire. But it doesn't just say that. It goes beep for like a minute. And that happened every 30 minutes.

[Filippo]

Oh.

[Ken]

And so, you know, maybe there's some.

[Doug]

Issues with Bentleys disturb the serenity of your Bentley as you waffle. You know, the other thing I think is that coming back to looks. Rolls Royces, they don't like this. This is a Phantom Series 7, right. It looks this pretty much the same as the 8. Like it's hard. They were such tiny incremental changes from 04 to the present day.

[Filippo]

Counterpoint the Continental GT.

[Ken]

Well, yes, but this is more than Q5 or the Q5. New Q5 looks like the 09 Q5. But 09 Q5 costs.

[Doug]

But there's an entire generation of people. Well, maybe it does apply to Bentley, but there's a tired, generous people. They think Rolls Royce, that's the. That's what they picture in their mind. That's. That's it. And it ends up in more. It just has a. More of a pop culture reference point. I think.

[Ken]

I think that's true. I think there is there. I think it's three things now that we've discussed it. Desirability of styling and like the appearance of the car. The name brand. You said, why don't you like it? Why don't you want a Bentley Wise. And probably production numbers plays a role too. The cars are simply less common and a lot of these swam let's be honest.

[Doug]

They do swim. They swim, but, yeah, backstory.

[Filippo]

They get exported to other countries.

[Ken]

They get exported to other countries where. Where a bad Carfax, maybe. You know, it's a good car all of a sudden.

[Doug]

You know, it goes through countries stuff.

[Ken]

You ever try to use Carfax in Europe? They don't like you. Yeah, yeah. That's the real key. You export these things to Hungary and it's like, oh, oh, let me check the Carfax. Oh, I can't.

[Filippo]

Yep.

[Ken]

You gotta use a VPN to find out how many times it's been rolled over.

[Doug]

You've driven how many Phantoms you've driven? Oh, lots, right?

[Ken]

A few.

[Doug]

I. I drove this one, the Series 8, and I've driven the other ones in or a car. God damn it. It's so good.

[Ken]

It's just like, man, no, Phantom's not.

[Doug]

No, no, Phantom's not the set. It just like. There's nothing like it, like the serenity you experience in a car that large. And I have to say, I was. I was sitting there, back to the pop culture thing. Someone walked across the street, like, and got out the camera phone. I was, like, taking pictures of the car. They were that, like.

[Ken]

I guess they're race.

[Doug]

They're that excited about, like, you know.

[Ken]

What I just rolls is cool.

[Doug]

They're like a nice pair of shoes. Like, people don't understand why they're so expensive. They travel on.

[Ken]

It's like, oh, I do agree with that. I've always. People are like, is it really worth three times what an S class is worth? And I want to be like, the guy who owns this car has had 5s classes, and that those little differences are worth a lot to the person, like that.

[Doug]

I totally agree with that.

[Ken]

Let's talk V12 Ferrari, Ken. And pull it up, pull it up, pull it up.

[Doug]

Which one was the.

[Ken]

How many V12 Ferraris we got? Just type in Ferrari. The one that's live. Look at that.

[Doug]

Super America. So, yes, we currently have on the site. I can't believe we have one, but we have a Grigio Silverstone 575 Super America. Now, you and I agree, this is one of the most underrated special Ferraris that exist. The 550 barchetta sells for a ton of money. There are a lot of cars that sell for. A lot of. These aren't as beloved, and I don't really get one.

[Ken]

They're bargs. They're total.

[Doug]

Most of them were F1s, although the car was offered with a six speed manual from the factory. Nicholas Cage had one. Oh, there's only like 10, but yeah, I think they're. I think it's 17, but yeah, they're. They're crazy rare, but these cars.

[Ken]

This one is nice, man. This interior looks. How many miles are on this?

[Doug]

5,300.

[Ken]

Looks like zero. Go to the seats. My God.

[Filippo]

Looks incredible.

[Doug]

Look at that.

[Ken]

Filippo would never be able to keep a car like this. You gave Filippo a car in an afternoon. It would look worse than this even if he didn't drive it. That's so true. Just by being his.

[Filippo]

Blankie gets things dirty.

[Doug]

But these cars are so cool. For those of you who are unfamiliar, it replaced the 550 Baretta. But unlike the 550 Baretta, it kind of sort of had a roof. And the roof would. Had these electric motors that would roll it forward, forward. It lays on the trunk lid and you roll it forward and then it covers the car. And then it was tintable. It had an electromagnetic control I think in it that you would. You turn the switch and it would adjust how dark light it was to.

[Filippo]

Keep the sun off in 2005.

[Ken]

Yes. Yeah. It was a big deal in 05 pre Venza, because Venza's got it now. But here's how the roof would work. I'm going to demonstrate for you.

[Doug]

Even if you're just listening to audio, that that's it. You get what he's talking about.

[Ken]

Cool as hell. This car is, in my opinion, super undervalued and, and deserves more love in the Ferrari community. I love these cars.

[Doug]

Look at that.

[Ken]

When I see a 575, I'm like, holy crap. When I see one of these, I call Ken and I'm like, Ken and get up here. Yeah. There was a guy who drove around one in Newport like regularly and we would see it fairly commonly. One time I was shooting at the Aston dealer and he pulled up the Javier right next to the Aston dealer and the whole Aston dealer, every salesperson and staff member walked outside side to check out the Super America. It's cool as hell.

[Doug]

It's so cool. I haven't seen one in ages. Last I saw was like in Napa just driving around, which was so cool.

[Ken]

That's where you. That's. That's where he plays. It's like a connoisseurs car. They made 559 of them, right? Yes. And Filippo will never encounter one.

[Filippo]

No.

[Ken]

You know how many marketas they made?

[Filippo]

No.

[Ken]

448. And they're all ruthless.

[Doug]

Big hoops.

[Ken]

Big hoops.

[Filippo]

And we saw a photo.

[Ken]

We agree though, that 448 was. That's the last car that the production number was correct. And so this car, we don't know how many they made.

[Doug]

No, I think this one was correct too, but because that was the only H they could sell.

[Ken]

But they didn't individually number these.

[Doug]

No, they didn't.

[Ken]

The Baretta was the last individually numbered for.

[Doug]

And the SA apparel, the 599 SA pair to which replaced this car they built 75 of. Allegedly.

[Ken]

Okay, next up, it is time for questions, questions, questions. Remember, you too can ask us questions. Not you too. Although if Bono had a question for.

[Filippo]

Us that answer you could 100% ask questions.

[Ken]

Yeah, he had a quad. He had a qu 45 like Nick this Wow.

[Doug]

Or Smash Mouse taking us anyway.

[Ken]

Smash Mouth had one of those.

[Doug]

No, they love. They like, they're fans of you and they can ask us.

[Ken]

Oh yeah, that's true, that's true. Okay, anyway, you can ask questions. Go to carsandbits.com, click on community@ the top. And then this thing comes up and you ask your question and we'll answer it. We speak to you. We speak to the hue to the you. Anyway, okay, go to the questions and the first question. Pop back to the slide really quick. The first question is which country has the best president? This is from Montana plated Range Rover. Which country has the best presidential limo? And in general, which dictators presidents had the best taste in cars? Canon. I thought of you when I got this question. I'm in Malta, 2015. 10 years ago.

[Doug]

Look, it looks like a press.

[Ken]

Weird. Well, every car in Malta is a trashy little hatchback except the president. You can't see it on this image, but if you look there, you could see the presidential seal of the Maltese President. We're walking through. We took a tour of the Maltese Presidential palace and we're walking through and parked there in like the main, you know, employee forecourt. Is the presidential car an E38? Did they get the V12? No, they got the 735i on base wheels. And that's the car that brings the Maltese President around. Or at least it was 10 years ago.

[Doug]

I guess it wouldn't need it, but I'm surprised. It's not a protection.

[Ken]

It's in. It's Malta. The country goes to bed at 7:30.

[Doug]

Right.

[Filippo]

Could you name any of these cars? And I'll give you extra credit if you can name the red one on the far right that you Know what it is?

[Ken]

I think I do.

[Filippo]

I think I do too.

[Doug]

No, fully for this.

[Ken]

Well, we know what this is. Can you name this?

[Filippo]

Oh, Canon.

[Doug]

It's a Golf.

[Ken]

Yeah, that's a Golf.

[Filippo]

Yeah.

[Ken]

And I can do a couple of these. The thing about Malta, that's important to remember and you're wondering why there are so many Japanese cars in, in Europe. Because Malta's right hand drive.

[Filippo]

So many. There's a Yaris.

[Ken]

No, there's. There's two Yarises. These are Yarises. That's a Toyota based product. That is Citron C3.

[Doug]

That's it.

[Filippo]

No part of what you said is correct.

[Ken]

These are Mazdas. That's a Mazda. Malta's right hand drive. And one of the most interesting things about Malta, when I was there, every car was deregistered in Japan. It's one of those, it's like New Zealand. It's one of those where they fail the shaken and they have to leave Japan and so they go to New Zealand. Apparently they go to Malta. Every car in Malta had Japanese like writing on the, you know, and had been kicked out of Japan. And in Malta they're like, bring it. Our Prime Minister is driving around in a 10 year old base model 7 series. We can, we don't, we don't care. If you bring in an old 323.

[Filippo]

I will give you credit. That's a 106 which was shared with the two at IGO.

[Ken]

The Igo. That is an Igo and that's a Mazda 323.

[Filippo]

It's almost certainly a Hyundai.

[Ken]

I think so too. I think so too. These are all Japanese cars. Everyone except the Peugeot.

[Filippo]

I thought well, that's a trend.

[Ken]

Oh, there's a two pictures. No, that's it.

[Filippo]

I go the Citron on the blue and the Citronic.

[Ken]

What did they call it? That is a one, two.

[Doug]

One was a Switchman. So no, the answer to your question is no.

[Ken]

306, 206. This might be a 206. It's hard to tell.

[Filippo]

Fine, I'll forgive you.

[Ken]

Okay, that's my answer. Except the real answer of course is Brunei.

[Doug]

Yeah, yeah, it's always Brunei. Answer any question.

[Ken]

There have been some dictators that have had some legit cars.

[Doug]

Yeah, I mean, I mean, well, the Mercedes, like the 600, the Pullman.

[Ken]

The Pullman.

[Doug]

I mean every bad dictator had one of those and they probably have any dictatorship. You can almost guarantee you seeing one of those in the parking lot.

[Ken]

Right.

[Doug]

So it's kind of refreshing to see a BMW, I guess.

[Ken]

Right? Nicely.38.

[Doug]

Yeah, I like an IC38.

[Ken]

Filippo, you got any Presidential?

[Filippo]

This is not Presidential, but though the Pope had a Mercedes ML.

[Ken]

That's right. He had an ML on Maybach wheels. Remember that?

[Filippo]

Do that. Something to consider.

[Doug]

What?

[Ken]

Throwing. Throwing my box on an ML, having.

[Filippo]

A ML or a. My Presidential Lima.

[Ken]

Okay, next question. And this is a great question. This is a question for me and Filippo from T. Barrett. If you were given 18 months of Canon's M5 maintenance cost to buy a car, what fun weekend car would you buy? What is 18 months? It's like 20 grand, right?

[Doug]

It was 15 last year.

[Ken]

Well, last year, but add another six months, so. So, yeah, 20. 22. 22, right. Yeah, 20. What fun. We pull up the site. What fun weekend car would we buy?

[Filippo]

Chose?

[Ken]

Oh, you've already got an answer.

[Filippo]

Well, no, but previously in Life, we bought a C6 for a challenge where we were buying $20,000. Cool cars.

[Doug]

Yeah, C6.

[Filippo]

But it's.

[Ken]

But I. I bought a kind. It's not a. We can car now. All right, what do we got?

[Filippo]

I have a real answer.

[Ken]

Could I buy a. Could I buy a Cobra? Yeah, keep going. This only sold for 16. 5. That. Oh, my God. That's 22. And it's a convertible.

[Filippo]

Yeah, yeah.

[Ken]

God.

[Filippo]

I think my answer goes to an ND. To Miata.

[Ken]

I wouldn't get an ND. It's just not enough power. For 22. I can buy a V8, M3.

[Filippo]

Oh, for 22, you can. You can get a decent 9, 9, 6, 9, 11.

[Ken]

You know what you can't get? RCF Track Edition. Did you see that? Sold for 83. Wow. Really? Yes. That's what they go for. It's insane money.

[Doug]

When do those come down?

[Ken]

They don't. They never will. ISF's never really came down either, for the record. Oh, S2000. Probably get a ratty S2000.

[Doug]

Yeah. You get it?

[Ken]

No, you can solve power. Done. Yeah. But S2000 got enough power for me.

[Filippo]

I wrote WRX, STI hatch.

[Ken]

There's a lot of good stuff that is also appealing, to be honest. An S52 shoe coupe.

[Doug]

Yeah.

[Ken]

SDI hatch is cool. That's a cool car.

[Filippo]

Is it just for weekend driving?

[Ken]

Yeah.

[Doug]

Well, it's a fun car.

[Ken]

So, yes, there's a lot of good stuff. Boxsters. Boxsters. I'm a Porsche guy, so.

[Doug]

Fleet would buy food, would buy this. You. You. Now, if you get an MB and you'd pocket the rest of the money.

[Filippo]

That'S what you do, if that's an option.

[Ken]

There's a lot of good stuff.

[Filippo]

Massively.

[Ken]

There's a lot of good stuff here. Can I get a996?

[Filippo]

Yeah.

[Ken]

Oh, I would. I would think about a first gen sh.

[Filippo]

You can buy for them. You can get. You can get a nine.

[Ken]

I wouldn't buy four of them. I'd buy. I'd buy three of them. And. And an S5. That's an S5. Is that a stick? That's a stick. S5 for eight grand, everything. The answer is everything.

[Doug]

Wow. Really?

[Ken]

You know what? You could buy another E39 M5. Yep.

[Doug]

Easily.

[Ken]

You know what? Maybe that should be Ken and Strat. Instead of putting 18 grand on his car every two years, just buy new ones all the time.

[Doug]

It doesn't need it. There are years that I've, like, spent legitimately $500 on maintenance. That has happened many times.

[Ken]

You know that also I was looking at my courage service records and that also happened my career GT previous owner. But then one year it was $140,000. So, like, it didn't really even out.

[Doug]

I mean, different scales, but yeah, yeah, it still does. I'm not saying it evens out, but I am saying not every year. Cost me arm a leg. You know, the other foot right here.

[Ken]

Okay, Next question from JRAD 1600 question for the group. Have you guys ever worked on your own cars? If so, what is the biggest job you've ever done? Ken and I have done some motor swaps, and we also did a. We put a Tesla drivetrain into a Honda Passport.

[Filippo]

Rich Rebuild's bit cooler because it's not a passport.

[Ken]

Right. First gen. I want to be clear. It was second gen. It was a 98.

[Doug]

Yeah. I've done. I did a huge suspension refresh on my M5 myself. Replaced the struts and shocks and ball joints, which. Anybody who's done that on an M5 knows with the. If you have the correct tool, it makes it a lot easier. I've done camshaft sensors. No. And it sucked. It was a really difficult job, but I made it work. Camshaft position sensors on that car. For those, I have to take the plenum. I have to take the entire intake manifold off, and then they're on the back of the engine and it's. It's. You have to take the valve covers off and it's the whole thing. I've done a lot of work on the M5. A lot of bruised knuckles, a lot of cold ones, and a lot of swearing. So but you know, then, you know it's done, right?

[Ken]

Flippo. And I am also. We replaced turbo in his 500 bars. That was a long weekend.

[Filippo]

That car's gonna domain this thing.

[Doug]

Doug does not work on his car.

[Ken]

I put a tail light on a Range Rover once.

[Doug]

I once had to help him take off a license plate. And he did not know that righty tighty lefty Lucy was the thing. He turned it the wrong.

[Ken]

It was severely rusted. And I felt that a better way to do it would just be to sell the car, which I did.

[Doug]

It was really hard. It was a great picture of me laying on the ground.

[Ken]

The fellow who bought the car, I hope he got the license played off. I have never worked on my cars, and it makes me really sad, actually, for a long time. Listen, a lot of people who work on their cars don't understand just how important it would be, what it was for them to have grown up at a house where people did this. In my house, there was none of this. And there was no car interest at all. None. Zero. There was no working on stuff. There was none of that. And I never really got the ability to. Like, nobody ever showed me how to work on a car. No, there was never any of that. And over the years, what has evolved is that I have gotten incredibly busy, and now even if I could work on my own cars, I just wouldn't. And that's. That's happened to a lot of my friends, too. However, it's one of the things that I think I would like to do in a future scenario is start learning how to work on the cars and start doing it.

[Doug]

I mean, to be clear, my dad is a brilliant woodworker, but he wasn't into cars, so I didn't have that either. But I started with an oil change, and Ryan and I learned together. That's actually why we started. Like, the YouTube channel Ethereum source was. We didn't know how to do this stuff, but we read through great written articles, but no video. So we would learn that and then we'd make the video and put it on there. And Ryan's going that into a real business. And so, yeah, you start with small, little things.

[Ken]

And by the time it hit me that I should do that, I. I truly couldn't. Now, like, I. I don't even have time to talk to Filippo.

[Filippo]

Thank God.

[Ken]

Thank God.

[Doug]

But imagine one day, Doug works his way up, and he's in there listening to the radio with a couple of cold bottles of water, rebuilding an engine.

[Filippo]

Wow.

[Ken]

Doing a Motor swap.

[Filippo]

Say, don't forget one time we fixed a throttle cable on the side of the road on your Defender.

[Ken]

I will say we've done mechanical. I will say I am not above. I have done some. Some shade trees like BS stuff. I am not above and I have a pretty good working knowledge of how these things operate and can generally diagnose stuff. Okay. I just have no interest or understanding of how. But yeah, a throttle cable came off of my Defender and we put it onto the keyring and we're great. And then. And this was the greatest experience of our lives. You remember what happened next? I. We then went to check the key ring to make sure it was still holding and I pulled the engine cape, the engine release, the hood release and it snapped.

[Filippo]

Yep.

[Ken]

Then I sold my Defender.

[Doug]

Maybe more Defender experience.

[Ken]

So we drove around all week with no idea like whether our keyring was working. And you know what? It was working better than oe.

[Filippo]

I will say to answer the question in. In the. There was a time when we lived in North Carolina and I knew that I would have time, which was rare. I bought an E53X5 purposely to like be able to work on it because it's a great engine bay, the engines. It's very well documented.

[Ken]

Yes.

[Filippo]

And it was easy to do something.

[Doug]

I sent you many things.

[Filippo]

You were very helpful.

[Doug]

I loved helping other.

[Filippo]

But I was a bunch of like maintenance related things that are easy to do in that car.

[Doug]

I will. Yes, totally. I will say it's easier to learn when you're younger and admittedly if you want to learn how to do this, buy. Buy a car that has a great amount of support and just start with small things and learn your way through any Miata. Yeah, any Miata is a good one. And you know that you'll learn. You'll learn a lot along the way. I mean and you'll have to. It's great when you're young because I remember I changed drive shaft once on Jack Stands. That's not a good. Taking off an exhaust and trying to do that in a confined space. Awful. But when you're young you put up with that.

[Filippo]

Right.

[Doug]

But I, I think it's a great exercise and people should do even small things on your cars.

[Ken]

Next question. I'm going to cherry pick a couple of. Really? Because we got a couple of really good ones, but they're a little lower. I'm gonna cherry pick them this week. Next question from Wolfman 6276. Are we going to get an update on the Car driving simulator you got from Linus Tech tips. Linus stole this from us. He's Canadian and he thought we wouldn't come after him. And he's right. You know, he's gonna say, I'm not going to Vancouver.

[Filippo]

You know that literally on its way here.

[Ken]

Yeah, it's coming. It's in the. It's in the mail. Okay, Next question.

[Doug]

Oh, sorry. Don't get you attracted.

[Ken]

Next right. Next question from M.M. inillo. Doug, when you talk about your previous cars, you never mentioned your Kia Stinger. Why? Was it that bad? On the contrary. Flippo and kind of know about this. It's hard for me to explain how much I liked my Kia Stinger. I sold it to a doctor in Wisconsin. I hope he has done a lot of surgeries with it. I hope it's taken him to the hospital and. Because I want it back. I loved that car.

[Filippo]

No part of that.

[Ken]

Said I hope that it, like, served the community. Do you know what I'm saying? Like, it's basically an ambulance as far as I'm concerned.

[Filippo]

Wow.

[Ken]

And you could fill down those seats and put, like, people in back. Dead or alive.

[Doug]

You once put a lot of plants. Remember that? Yeah.

[Ken]

I love that car. I love that car so much. One of the great powertrains of all time. I'm. I'm only slightly exaggerating that. Twin turbo V stick. I'm telling you, it was so good. I love the steering. I love the handling. I generally like the looks. I think it has to be red.

[Doug]

I agree. For the tail light thing.

[Ken]

For the tail light thing. I loved that car. And I sold it to get a new Defender, which I never really fell in love with. And I still think about how I wish I had that Kia Stinger back.

[Doug]

I really like that car. That was a good.

[Ken]

And it was faster than Canon's M5.

[Doug]

He says that identical. 0 to 60. 60 times identical.

[Ken]

Not when I'm driving or not. And you're driving yours.

[Doug]

I drive my M5 pretty hard. I. I'd still do that.

[Ken]

I love. It's. I'm serious. I loved that car. I loved my Stinger. I had a GT2. That's what they called it. I'm serious. And I loved it. It was so.

[Doug]

I have a brochure that breaks down exactly what's in each.

[Ken]

Yeah. You didn't want.

[Doug]

Nobody knows GT1.

[Ken]

GT in Porsche world. You really want the GT1 one. Not Kia world. I really loved that car. I thought it was just a great handling, great steering, attractive. I also just Love the fact that, like, I could be so holier than that because I had a Kia. People be, you know, Ken's out of his BMW. Felipe's out here with Mercedes. I'd be like, I got a Kia. I. I don't need your luxury items. Right.

[Doug]

And then he got in his Lamborghini Countach and drove away.

[Ken]

I got, yeah, I got a couple old cars. I don't know. I got a Kia. Okay, next question from Rally Art Wagon, which was a great car, excellent car for Canon. You are shopping for a Cayenne, and you have said you prefer cars over SUVs in general. Why are you not considering a Panamera?

[Doug]

So a great question. So I really, what I realized driving the Cayenne Turbo around was that I like having the SUV practicality, being able to just drive through dips and not care. San Diego, despite being in a nice place, has awful roads, and a lot of them have dips that are. That allow rain to run through these channels in the streets. Because they. For a variety of reasons, but rain mostly. Yeah. The few, the six days a year it rains here. But like, driving through, Flippo says, good. The point, having the. Having.

[Filippo]

Yeah.

[Doug]

Having the ground clearance. Just being able to drive through and not care was so liberating to me as someone who's only owned sedans and sports cars my whole life.

[Ken]

So, like, may I make a counterpoint.

[Doug]

Kind of like this?

[Ken]

May I make a counterpoint going along with what rally at Reagan said you don't want to scrape. What if you bought a Panamera that was so cheap that you scraped it and didn't care? Huh?

[Doug]

We can just get a Kayan Terbsky.

[Ken]

Are we going to talk about this?

[Filippo]

Why doesn't a Panamera All Terrain exist?

[Ken]

There should be a Panama alternate. Oh, wait, there was. It's called the Taycan Sport Turismo. What's it called? Cross Turismo.

[Doug]

Proof that he's not a Porsche person.

[Ken]

Right there.

[Doug]

You would have known that cold.

[Ken]

No, not only would I know it cold, they'd be like, it's the 947 Taycan, actually. I mean, it's finished in Rebel silver.

[Doug]

He says that, But I said 958 when he went, It's 920.

[Ken]

A 928.

[Filippo]

See, what is the latest in the 928?

[Doug]

The hunt continues. I've made offers on a couple of them. I decided to expand it to GTSs and turbos like I talked about. But, yeah, I think I'm close. I think there's a turbo.

[Ken]

And by the way, to the person on autotrader.com who has listed a V6 Cayenne automatic as a manual, I'm a come for you. Imma get you.

[Doug]

I hate that dealers make.

[Ken]

You're bad. You should feel bad.

[Doug]

Every dealer that does that should feel bad.

[Ken]

But especially in this case, because I got my hopes up and I sent it to Kenneth, I sent it to Kenny, because I trusted you.

[Filippo]

You have to trust them.

[Ken]

There were three and I was like, well, if there's only three, they're all manuals, because there's only three. And there were zero actually. But I'm really especially pissed. Two of them. One of them didn't have any pictures.

[Filippo]

So maybe it is.

[Ken]

One of them was black, so I didn't like it anyway. The other one was the perfect spec, low option car.

[Filippo]

That's what you want.

[Ken]

The manual Minaj super, super Base. I sent it to Ken.

[Doug]

Need to know where you go.

[Ken]

All right, all right, that's the end of our questions. It's the end of our podcast, I think. And Flippo, you got any parting thoughts? Yeah.

[Filippo]

This is the most off the rails podcast yet.

[Ken]

This is the best one podcast we've ever done. Goodbye, everyone.

[Doug]

Goodbye.