Maserati MC20 GT2 Stradale Review; Toxic Brake Pads; Forum Drama; Q&A

Zack reviews Maserati's new street-legal track car, the MC20 GT2 Stradale; we talk about a new study on brake pads that seems to leave out a crucial piece of information; what's our favorite forum drama?; and we answer Patreon questions including: - Should I reprogram the software in my brand new M3? - Will auto shows ever become as big as CES? - If Honda has an all-electric turbo on a motorcycle, why not a car? - Rumored Porsche Turbo manual? - Porsche Cayenne GTS vs Audi RS6 vs XB7: what should I do? - Should I put a roll cage in my daily track car? - Why didn't Acura make a fast SUV? - Would a cheap, fun EV sway more people? - Times when our car hobby had to take a back seat - And more! Recorded February 18, 2025 Check out the full lineup and get 15 percent off your first order at https://www.truewerk.com/TIRE. New merch! Grab a shirt or hoodie and support us! https://thesmokingtireshop.com/ Want your question answered? To listen to the episode the day it's recorded? Want to watch the live stream, get ad-free podcasts, or exclusive podcasts? Join our Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/thesmokingtirepodcast Use Off The Record! and ALWAYS fight your tickets! Enter code TSTPOD for a 10% discount on your first case on the Off The Record app, or go to http://www.offtherecord.com/TST. #cars #comedy #podcast Tweet at us! https://www. Twitter.com/thesmokingtire https://www. Twitter.com/zackklapman Instagram: https://www. Instagram.com/thesmokingtire https://www. Instagram.com/therealzackklapman Click here for the most honest car reviews out there: https://www.youtube.com/thesmokingtire

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Matt Farah?

  What's up everybody, welcome to the Smoking Tire Podcast. As always, this episode is brought to you by Off the Record. We love Off the Record. And, uh, boy, do we have some news for you. Coming soon, uh, we're gonna be phasing out the code on the app. Now, it's still good for the next few months, but for the second half of 2025, it's gonna be offtherecord.com/tst only. But for now, if you wanna sign up for Off the Record, if you get a moving violation of any kind in any state, you wanna check with Off the Record before making any move. Off the Record's network of attorneys in almost every jurisdiction

• 0:44Matt Farah?

  in the US can help fight those tickets, right? Can help get points off your record, keep them off your record. And look, those points can cause all kinds of problems later in life. You don't want them. Get off the record now. All you have to do is send in a photo of that ticket, describe the incident in your words, and Off the Record's team goes to work. They got you covered. So, go to offtherecord.com/tst if you get a moving violation and they are here to help. We've got 10% off all legal services booked through Off the Record with our code at offtherecord.com/tst.

• 1:28Matt Farah?

  On this episode of the podcast, Zach has returned from Ascarri in Spain and gives us his review of the Maserati MC20 GT2 Stradale. While he was there, I was in Austin, driving a GR Corolla Automatic, scouting some of Texas's finest driving roads. And it was gonna go well, but it kinda didn't. Uh, we also talk about how brake pads and tires could potentially be worse for the environment than even gasoline or potentially diesel. And, uh, we have some phenomenal questions, so many questions from the Patreon. We got a lot to talk about today. Let's get to it on the Smoking Tire Podcast.

• 2:12Speaker 01

  It didn't work for a while.

• 2:13Matt Farah?

  Here's how you know your shit is gonna stop working. If you get a pop up that says latest update has been installed now with whatever it's called AI. You go, oh shit, they are now spying on me everywhere.

• 2:27Speaker 01

  Water with AI.

• 2:29Matt Farah?

  Fuck me. You know what I did today, Zach? I denied.

• 2:33Speaker 01

  There we go.

• 2:34Matt Farah?

  Advertising dollars, even in this fucking economy. I denied advertising dollars to an AI pendant. An AI assistant that you wear around your fucking neck like it's a fucking Abbott Kinney gemstone.

• 2:52Speaker 01

  Right.

• 2:52Matt Farah?

  Like it's a crystal. Like it's a Sedona crystal, except it listens to everything you fucking say and probably your heartbeat.

• 3:00Speaker 01

  Why do you want that?

• 3:01Matt Farah?

  I don't know.

• 3:02Speaker 01

  So it's a microphone?

• 3:03Matt Farah?

  I responded to our agency people who are very kind and, and you know, they're doing their job. And I said, new rule, blanket, anything that contains the letters AI is just, don't even include me in the email.

• 3:17Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's just in too many things.

• 3:19Matt Farah?

  Fuck.

• 3:19Speaker 01

  It's in Apples now. It's just, it can fix anything. But that's just a microphone with an app that probably piggybacks to Siri.

• 3:27Matt Farah?

  Yeah, it's just like, or, or it just piggybacks to some fucking dude in India typing shit into ChatGPT.

• 3:33Speaker 01

  Furiously Googling the things you're wondering about as you walk down the street.

• 3:37Matt Farah?

  Yeah.

• 3:37Speaker 01

  You're just like, wow, I wonder, I wonder where that built, how long that building's been there. And the guy's like, where, where are they? Oh my God, oh my God, I'm gonna get fired.

• 3:43Matt Farah?

  Yeah, so hard no there.

• 3:45Speaker 01

  Do you think they would listen to stoner conversations and also Google? Cause you know, if you're just like, do you, do you ever wonder like, are snakes jealous that they can't fly? And this person's like, how do I even, how do I even research this?

• 3:56Matt Farah?

  You just described what it's like to be Jamie.

• 4:03Matt Farah?

  Lovely guy.

• 4:04Speaker 01

  So true.

• 4:05Matt Farah?

  Far out of his element.

• 4:07Speaker 01

  Who could be in the helmet? No one's qualified. You need eight people to be in that helmet.

• 4:11Matt Farah?

  Yeah, yeah, and they all need to be on a Daniel Dale level.

• 4:15Speaker 01

  Who's Daniel Dale?

• 4:16Matt Farah?

  Oh, he was the guy who was such a good fact checker on Twitter that he became the real time fact checker on like CNN during the debates.

• 4:24Speaker 01

  Whoa.

• 4:25Matt Farah?

  Yeah.

• 4:25Speaker 01

  Wow.

• 4:25Matt Farah?

  So, I know like half the people in the audience like, "Yeah, CNN and fact check." It's like, "No, no, but this dude is like a historian." And would like real, real time fact check both candidates on television during debates. That is a talented individual.

• 4:40Speaker 01

  Yeah, so he's out of a job now, so he's unemployed.

• 4:43Matt Farah?

  Yeah, well, since facts don't mean anything anymore, yes, yeah. Anyone who made their living on facts is in some real deep shit.

• 4:50Speaker 01

  Right.

• 4:50Matt Farah?

  Yeah.

• 4:51Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 4:51Matt Farah?

  Uh, TST reading list, must read. It's by a former Republican, uh, Tom Nichols, called "The Death of Expertise." It's, he wrote it in like 2016 or 17.

• 5:03Speaker 01

  Oh.

• 5:03Matt Farah?

  But it's worth going back to, uh, read now.

• 5:06Speaker 01

  Is it fun? Is it like a lighthearted?

• 5:08Matt Farah?

  Real fun.

• 5:09Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 5:10Matt Farah?

  Makes you feel very confident about our society as a whole. But it's a, it's a fucking serious read, and it's not by one of those fucking commies that I like to read either. It's by, it's by a Republican.

• 5:22Speaker 01

  That is a good, yeah, that is a good qualifier.

• 5:24Matt Farah?

  Yeah, some people don't want to read anything I recommend because it's by some fucking leftist. But, this one's by a Republican.

• 5:34Speaker 01

  You gotta read books from Goebbels and be like, "Even he said that this is a problem."

• 5:38Matt Farah?

  Yeah. Fucking Mao was like Farah, chill it with the reading lists, yeah.

• 5:43Speaker 01

  Too far.

• 5:43Matt Farah?

  Um, okay, you just, you were gone all week. Cars, let's do cars.

• 5:47Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 5:47Matt Farah?

  You were gone all week. You went to Spain.

• 5:49Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 5:50Matt Farah?

  To Ascari.

• 5:51Speaker 01

  Indeed.

• 5:51Matt Farah?

  How great is Ascari?

• 5:53Speaker 01

  It's pretty awesome. It is stunning.

• 5:55Matt Farah?

  That would be a good home track.

• 5:56Speaker 01

  Hard to, uh, well, I had about six laps to try to quote memorize it. And all the walls are green, and all the grass is green, and all the trees are green, so you're...

• 6:07Matt Farah?

  It's the European version of Long Beach.

• 6:09Speaker 01

  Uh, I think Long Beach, you could at least go, "Okay, I'll turn right at that billboard."

• 6:13Matt Farah?

  No, no, when, when we do tracks in America like Long Beach... It's gray on gray, the Jersey barriers and stuff, you just can't see.

• 6:20Speaker 01

  That's true.

• 6:21Matt Farah?

  I tried to make a joke, it didn't work. Back to his.

• 6:23Speaker 01

  There's just not that many markers in Quick Read, but it's beautiful. I mean, what an amazing, amazing place. So I went to drive the new Maserati MC20 GT2 Stradale. Stradale means road-going in Italian.

• 6:36Matt Farah?

  In this photo you've got, which is sort of from the passenger side, looking front three-quarter, it looks very Pagani-ish, actually. It looks like they're doing a little bit of a Wirr thing here.

• 6:47Speaker 01

  A little, so you see, I mean, the front, everything's more strained than Pagani, for sure. This color was called Powder Nude, I think, and in dim, early morning light, it looks just kind of pinkish, but actually, as the sun came out, it looks pretty red. But I couldn't stop saying "power nude", so it just...

• 7:06Matt Farah?

  That'll be, someone will get that custom plate, you know. The Montana one will be taken instantly, but then California.

• 7:13Speaker 01

  You'll see it here.

• 7:14Matt Farah?

  Subsequently, yeah. I love the color. I'm 100% as you probably guessed.

• 7:18Speaker 01

  This makes sense.

• 7:19Matt Farah?

  This color has my name written all over it.

• 7:22Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 7:22Matt Farah?

  It goes from gold to pink, and it's sort of a rosé most of the time, right?

• 7:27Speaker 01

  Yeah, it is very much a rosé, wine rosé color. Do I have another picture? I don't know.

• 7:32Matt Farah?

  People in your comments asked if it was the same color as my car. It's much more gold.

• 7:36Speaker 01

  It is definitely more gold, with a hint more brown, also, I would say.

• 7:39Matt Farah?

  My car is only a tiny little bit gold, and only in the right light.

• 7:43Speaker 01

  Yeah, yours is definitely more pink.

• 7:44Matt Farah?

  Yeah.

• 7:45Speaker 01

  So, this car is the road version of their race car, which is, the race car's based on the road car of the MC20.

• 7:53Matt Farah?

  Yes, it's the road version of the race version of the road version.

• 7:56Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 7:56Matt Farah?

  Got that?

• 7:57Speaker 01

  100% precisely accurate. So, they do a lot of aero work to it. It's got more carbon fiber, it's got a carbon hood and carbon roof, a giant wing on it. Downforce is tripled, but not till 184 miles per hour, of course.

• 8:12Matt Farah?

  Yeah, but it's linear, so it's more all the time.

• 8:14Speaker 01

  It is, it is more all the time, and it's more efficient, there's better cooling for the brakes. The big thing... I was hoping the big thing would be that the brakes are improved. They're Brembo now, they're bigger and thicker, and they're, you know, carbon ceramic.

• 8:28Matt Farah?

  Brakes was the weak point of the street car.

• 8:30Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 8:31Matt Farah?

  And it's not weak on the street. It's weak when you start doing repeated hard stops on the track. That's where it was weak.

• 8:38Speaker 01

  Yeah, it was also kind of weak in the canyons, I think. I went back and I watched our video.

• 8:43Matt Farah?

  Yeah.

• 8:43Speaker 01

  And just the deceleration rate felt less than what we expected based on the parts and the cost of the car. Now, I think at the time when we reviewed the car, we thought it was 3,300 pounds because that's what they told us it was. Car and driver weighed it and it's 3,700. That's the regular MC20. So it also may have just been heavier than we thought. So it won't slow down as quickly as you think. So that's one of the things they said that they addressed on this car.

• 9:11Matt Farah?

  We also, if I recall correctly, made the mistake of driving a CT5 Blackwing to the MC20 launch, which is a car that has some of the best brakes of any car on sale at any price.

• 9:25Speaker 01

  True.

• 9:26Matt Farah?

  And if you want to drive a new supercar and really see if it's any good or not, drive there in a Blackwing. Because a Blackwing will do what almost any mid-tier supercar will do. You have to go pretty fast to beat a Blackwing.

• 9:42Speaker 01

  They make almost the same power, too. Because the regular MC20 was like 621 horsepower.

• 9:47Matt Farah?

  Yeah.

• 9:47Speaker 01

  Blackwing is...

• 9:48Matt Farah?

  668.

• 9:49Speaker 01

  So more.

• 9:49Matt Farah?

  Yeah.

• 9:50Speaker 01

  Well, they did turn the power up on this one by 10.

• 9:53Matt Farah?

  Yes.

• 9:54Speaker 01

  So 631. So ultimately, it's supposed to be like a more focused car. They tightened this, they changed the steering a little bit. The springs are only 9% stiffer, the dampers are the same. I already talked about aero, et cetera, et cetera. So the good news is that you didn't lose the really good ride that the street car had. Because I think the street car is fantastic.

• 10:17Matt Farah?

  Did have a very, did have a good ride.

• 10:18Speaker 01

  Right? Good ride, performed well enough, but comfortable, not overly sprung like a lot of cars today. And the steering is still very good as it was in the old car. The looks, at first when I saw it, I thought it was like two clash in design languages of Engels and Round, but it actually grew on me a lot throughout the day. I think it looks pretty awesome on the road. With very few exceptions to it.

• 10:40Matt Farah?

  Does look race car.

• 10:41Speaker 01

  Looks very race car.

• 10:42Matt Farah?

  Looks a lot race car.

• 10:44Speaker 01

  The shifts got a little bit better. When we drove the regular car in our video, the downshifts were a little bit, like, a little slow and they kind of upset the chassis. This doesn't do that. If you're like at full brake, downshifting in the right mode, it's pretty quick.

• 10:57Matt Farah?

  It isn't the Tremec, it's the Tremec DCT. That's why that was weird, because like in the Corvette, it didn't do that.

• 11:03Speaker 01

  Right.

• 11:03Matt Farah?

  I was like, why didn't, you know, in the GT500, it didn't do that.

• 11:06Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 11:07Matt Farah?

  Why is it doing it in this car?

• 11:08Speaker 01

  I don't know. And actually, in this car, it seems to change a lot depending on your speed, your steering input, your throttle and your mode. But it can all be, there were plenty of times on the track where I was like, it did not upset me at all.

• 11:21Matt Farah?

  Yeah.

• 11:21Speaker 01

  And there's like four new driving modes. If you get the Performance Plus Pack, you get Evo mode and then four submenus of Evo, which basically turn your traction control down.

• 11:31Matt Farah?

  Yes.

• 11:31Speaker 01

  But all the, but all the shifting and stuff is really good. The problem with this car is that the regular MC20 exists, because this actually didn't fix the brakes, in my opinion. It still feels like it slows down too slowly.

• 11:46Matt Farah?

  Jethro said the same thing.

• 11:48Speaker 01

  He was on, we were on the launch together, so we would get out of the car, from different cars, and he'd be like, "Hey, come over here for a second. I have a question." And so like, you know, on the track, they were having us lift before braking in some places, which was either, they're trying to protect themselves. I don't think the instructors knew the level of driver in my wave, and I'm not saying, I was definitely probably the least experienced person, because Jethro's there, Casey Caldwell's there, Chris Perkins is there, like, at least two of the people there, you know, all three of them have racing licenses.

• 12:20Matt Farah?

  Yeah.

• 12:20Speaker 01

  Jethro's Jethro. The instructors were like grabbing the steering wheel at some point, but the biggest thing was like, why are we lifting when they have these new brakes? Should we be demonstrating, and it's not a hot day, should we be demonstrating that these brakes can uphold the thermal load? Because they talk to us about these new ducks and all this stuff. So that was a little weird. And then when the brakes, you had to go really deep into the pedal. I mean, they kind of have a long strip pedal anyway.

• 12:45Matt Farah?

  I remember that last time. They had, the regular car had a long pedal.

• 12:50Speaker 01

  Versus, I mean, McLaren and Porsche, I think, they kind of put the friction point as much higher, like.

• 12:55Matt Farah?

  McLaren's very unique. Their brake, Porsche and Ferrari have similar brakes, but McLaren has that, that. They want the brake to pedal to almost feel like it's not power assisted.

• 13:08Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 13:08Matt Farah?

  You have to hit it really hard.

• 13:10Speaker 01

  It's very stiff.

• 13:10Matt Farah?

  Yeah, it's meant for left foot. It's really good if you like left foot braking. It's the best brakes.

• 13:15Speaker 01

  True.

• 13:16Matt Farah?

  Ever.

• 13:16Speaker 01

  And I would say that the pedal doesn't have to travel that far.

• 13:19Matt Farah?

  Right.

• 13:19Speaker 01

  It's like one inch of travel, let's just for random math, is is three inches of caliper travel. I know they don't move that far. This is like the inverse, like three inches of pedal travel is one inch of caliper pressure.

• 13:31Matt Farah?

  Yeah.

• 13:31Speaker 01

  Of caliper pressure. And even when I got further and further into the pedal, I was like, I wish I was slowing down more than I am. And then a lot of the good sounds the other car had, the car, the street car, the regular car, had a lot of cool turbo stuff.

• 13:46Matt Farah?

  Yes.

• 13:47Speaker 01

  Waistgate stuff. This, that's mostly gone if the windows are up and all you hear is kind of a mechanical whir, which is really strange.

• 13:56Matt Farah?

  Hmm.

• 13:56Speaker 01

  I don't know how that changed, but a lot of the different, let's say the different instruments are gone.

• 14:02Matt Farah?

  You hear less turbo.

• 14:04Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 14:04Matt Farah?

  Why would you hear less turbo?

• 14:05Speaker 01

  I don't know. It could be, it could be new.

• 14:09Matt Farah?

  Is there like a different intake design? Like, do they change the air intake of the car? Does it use the same intakes as stock?

• 14:16Speaker 01

  I don't recall that being in the press release. I know they changed.

• 14:19Matt Farah?

  Cause usually that whooshing noise, you're hearing it almost like backwards.

• 14:23Speaker 01

  Right. You only heard that if you put the windows down, then those huge intakes, like then you hear some stuff. But with the windows up, it's like you went from having five instruments in your orchestra to one.

• 14:33Matt Farah?

  Weird.

• 14:34Speaker 01

  And it's just like mechanical spin. And then on the outside, it's real quiet. I mean, we're at the racetrack. People are going flat out where they can and just, I think the distance was probably 300 feet from where I was standing to the car at full clip, third gear. And I'm telling you, it was like Camry noise.

• 14:53Matt Farah?

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• 15:37Matt Farah?

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• 16:20Matt Farah?

  Truework helps you be your best when your best matters most. So, check out the full lineup and get 15% off your first order at truewerk.com/tire. That's 15% off at T-R-U-E-W-E-R-K.com/tire. And now, back to the show. Do you think... That they might, because when I was just at the GT3 launch, they made a very big deal about the new emissions and all these regulations for 20. Do you think Maserati maybe snuck some of that stuff into this model? Like, and just like didn't tell you?

• 17:05Speaker 01

  Well, I actually sat next to an engineer at dinner. Uh, when the, the day I got there, but someone else was leaving. So they had driven the car and they had the same complaint. Why is it so quiet? And yeah, the guy said it's basically it's emissions. It's noise regulations in the EU, which are really strict. Um, it's those things combined. And now they do offer a titanium track exhaust.

• 17:27Matt Farah?

  Sure.

• 17:27Speaker 01

  That's like, you know, track only, but.

• 17:29Matt Farah?

  And will the US cars have the same exhaust? Are they going to take out the, the, the DPFs?

• 17:35Speaker 01

  Uh, I actually didn't ask that question. Right. I guess they might have a different exhaust.

• 17:40Matt Farah?

  It might be a different US exhaust.

• 17:41Speaker 01

  Maybe it's different.

• 17:42Matt Farah?

  We had to press Porsche like, like for hours.

• 17:45Speaker 01

  To see if it was going to get a different one?

• 17:46Matt Farah?

  Yeah, to see if the ADAS stuff was going to come over and to see if there were the US exhaust was going to be different.

• 17:53Speaker 01

  I didn't ask that question. I should follow up with that. They did say like the titanium, well, this exhaust is titanium, but there's the better one. That should be louder because track car should be louder.

• 18:02Matt Farah?

  Of course it should be Italian track supercar.

• 18:04Speaker 01

  Yeah. And like.

• 18:06Matt Farah?

  Of course it should be loud.

• 18:07Speaker 01

  The bones of this thing are good. The chassis is super stiff. The ride is good. Uh, the handling feels neutral. The steering ratio is good. It feels really linear. There's not like a huge difference from comfort to track in terms of steering weight. They don't add a bunch of heavy shit. You know, they don't like fake it. Fake steering feel. But it just feels like they added all these pieces and you didn't actually get anything that's really much better than the street car. But you did add almost a hundred grand at the price.

• 18:36Matt Farah?

  That's like tuning a car in high school. It's like you do a bunch of mods to your high school car and it like just doesn't make it go any faster.

• 18:44Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 18:45Matt Farah?

  It probably does go faster. I bet at the Nürburgring or whatever.

• 18:48Speaker 01

  Well, on their test track, it's like five seconds. I mean, it's, it is way faster. I think the tires are stickier. So the result is good and their racing results are good. They won their season of, it's like Fanatec GT2 series. Um, but.

• 19:03Speaker 01

  I just found myself going, if I'm spending $300,000 on a road legal, track-oriented vehicle.

• 19:11Matt Farah?

  Yeah.

• 19:12Speaker 01

  The competition's really stiff. I mean, you can get a good McLaren, you can get an Artura, you can get a GT3.

• 19:18Matt Farah?

  Yeah.

• 19:19Speaker 01

  Like, that's, I mean, that's the one, right?

• 19:21Matt Farah?

  Yeah.

• 19:22Speaker 01

  And that doesn't have these little issues.

• 19:23Matt Farah?

  300 grand, you're knocking on the door of a 750S.

• 19:28Speaker 01

  Right.

• 19:28Matt Farah?

  Like, and that's not even, there's no question.

• 19:32Speaker 01

  And that has 120 more horsepower.

• 19:36Matt Farah?

  Forget the horsepower. It's a much crazier car.

• 19:41Speaker 01

  Well, I think you get a better visceral experience, because that's what this was kind of lacking, in terms of the sound wasn't there, the braking wasn't there, it feels big, it feels kind of heavy, so you're just, like, the bones of it are really good, but, I don't know, the execution of it is just, yeah.

• 19:55Matt Farah?

  That's such a bummer, because the regular one is actually a better street car than a lot of the other, like, supercars.

• 20:02Speaker 01

  Totally.

• 20:03Matt Farah?

  Like, I'd rather drive an MC20 around LA for a week than a 296.

• 20:08Speaker 01

  Yeah, or more than a, or GT3.

• 20:11Matt Farah?

  Yeah, or an Artura, yeah. Like, it's just a rad, street, supercar.

• 20:16Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 20:17Matt Farah?

  It's really good at that. And so I was hoping that, like, the track version would be that tight, you know, super-responsive, you know, fizzy version of it, and go show both sides of the same thing.

• 20:30Speaker 01

  Right, because this still has a lot of regular buttons inside, like, 296 is all capacitive.

• 20:34Matt Farah?

  Yeah.

• 20:35Speaker 01

  So this doesn't do that. But I think, I think it's hard when car companies go, "Let's make the racy version of the street car", because if you go too far, then people will say it's too, most people will say it's too stiff.

• 20:45Matt Farah?

  Mm-hmm.

• 20:45Speaker 01

  And if you don't go far enough, you have people like us who go, "Well, it's not exciting enough, it's too close to the road car", and I think that's what happened.

• 20:51Matt Farah?

  Yeah.

• 20:51Speaker 01

  But the brake thing, man, I don't know what's going on with that, it just doesn't feel like it slows down from, you know, 100, the way a Corvette does.

• 20:59Matt Farah?

  How do you not fix that? Every person who drove the car said the same thing.

• 21:04Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm.

• 21:04Matt Farah?

  Wasn't like...

• 21:05Speaker 01

  They did change the brakes, it just still feels like, and again, like, look, Maserati or Khan, if you're listening, like, if someone does objective testing, like, Car and Driver, and they go, "Hey, this thing does stop from 60 or 100 in the same time as, like, a Z06 or whatever", then I'll eat my hat. Like, I might be wrong, but from the driver's seat...

• 21:23Matt Farah?

  You've driven enough cars, like, you're qualified to talk about... You know.

• 21:28Speaker 01

  It does not feel like it slows down at the rate I would expect, given the price, the performance level.

• 21:32Matt Farah?

  Like, here's a compare, one direct comparison that you objectively have. You just did three days of racing school, full on, as fast as you could go in C8 Z51 Corvettes, stock. How are the brakes compared to a stock C8 Z51 Corvette?

• 21:49Speaker 01

  The C8 feels better.

• 21:50Matt Farah?

  Yeah.

• 21:50Speaker 01

  Yeah, it does. It just, it feels like a more.

• 21:54Matt Farah?

  Eighty thousand dollar car.

• 21:55Speaker 01

  It seems like the pedal stroke is tuned better. I mean, these might be brake by wire and they could adjust it or something, but it just feels like you have to go way too far toward the firewall. And I was like, wow, I'm really not slowing down as much as I thought I would from this.

• 22:09Matt Farah?

  If you're driving a $320,000 car on the street, sports car on the street, you should be able to out brake anybody, literally the top, 99.9% of the other cars on the street.

• 22:21Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 22:21Matt Farah?

  You should be able to out brake that car. It's not even a question. That's like a given with that type of car. That would be very annoying. I'd be frustrated with that.

• 22:30Speaker 01

  Yeah. I mean, because otherwise, like, the visibility is good. Again, the handling is good. They've gotten a lot of things right, and those are things that some companies get wrong. But at this price point, you kind of have to get everything right.

• 22:42Matt Farah?

  2025, 300 grand, carbon tub.

• 22:46Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 22:47Matt Farah?

  A carbon tub and bad brakes. Come on.

• 22:49Speaker 01

  It is so funny that they have a carbon tub and down the street Ferrari is like, let's fill it with the aluminum.

• 22:53Matt Farah?

  Yeah.

• 22:53Speaker 01

  You know?

• 22:54Matt Farah?

  And you must have bought the Purosangue if you want the one.

• 22:56Speaker 01

  Yeah, absolutely. So.

• 22:58Matt Farah?

  Yeah. Well, while you were in Spain doing that, and is it, did you post a video? Is it up?

• 23:03Speaker 01

  No, not yet.

• 23:03Matt Farah?

  Okay, the video is coming. Of course, the embargo lifts like while you're on the flight home, which is a totally reasonable thing for a car company to do. That's, it's like building a carbon tub and then not having good brakes. Kind of the same thing there. I was in Austin, Texas, general area, hill country, scouting the Rodent Track route with Hannah. We took a GR Corolla automatic. I wrote a story about it for Rodent Track, but here's a one.

• 23:33Matt Farah?

  Austin's nice. I like, I like Austin enough. Hotels we were at was very cute and rest of the food that we ate in Austin was exceptionally good. Their roads suck balls. Like, like.

• 23:47Speaker 01

  Everyone's gonna cancel their road to track.

• 23:50Matt Farah?

  No, no, no. I don't, I, I, not the, I, I'm talking about the roads in the city of Austin.

• 23:54Speaker 01

  Oh, okay.

• 23:54Matt Farah?

  The, the, the roads that are on the drive route, I'll tell you about them in a second. And they are a little unique, but um, it's what, it's what driving in that part of the country is like. It's representative of that part of the country and what driving is like. But in the city, god damn, is their tarmac straight trash.

• 24:15Speaker 01

  Wow.

• 24:16Matt Farah?

  Awful. And uh, there's holes everywhere. There's like, like crazy, like melty ruts. There's like a million surface changes. Just fucking awful.

• 24:27Speaker 01

  Wonder why? Do they have like little earthquakes there like we do?

• 24:30Matt Farah?

  I don't know. I think it's overbuilt city if I had to take a guess. I'd say there's a lot of big trucks running building supplies all over that fucking place.

• 24:38Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 24:38Matt Farah?

  On roads that were probably never designed for it, if I had to take a guess. Um, and also, the government should only be so small if you ask me. They need to like do things like fix the streets, but.

• 24:50Speaker 01

  I wonder, I don't know.

• 24:52Matt Farah?

  I don't know, but the streets in the city of Austin are awful.

• 24:54Speaker 01

  Is that what fucks up the roads in New York is because you have big trucks going everywhere just doing stuff?

• 24:58Matt Farah?

  Yeah, heavy ass trucks. And then you have weather, you know, water, it goes into holes. Freezes, turns into ice, expands, breaks the shit apart.

• 25:07Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 25:08Matt Farah?

  Yeah. When you get little cracks and they water and it freezes, that's when you're in deep shit.

• 25:12Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 25:12Matt Farah?

  Yeah. That's why the, the city's like, like when it's really cold, like Canada cold. And it stays like below freezing for a while, then you're usually okay. But when it's like Boston, New York where it's that wet slush and the water gets into shit.

• 25:28Speaker 01

  Yeah, then it expands and pushes the crack apart. Right.

• 25:31Matt Farah?

  That's when it gets nasty.

• 25:32Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 25:32Matt Farah?

  But yeah, Austin, get your shit together with your tarmac, seriously. Love the barbecue, but we need to work on this. Um, so you know, it's, it's, it's hill country, right? So people think of Texas as like straight and flat. And so we're going there to drive the windiest roads that they got. Which is uh, basically to the southwest, west and southwest of Austin.

• 25:53Matt Farah?

  And I got a GR Corolla automatic. Now, we had one briefly here, but we didn't get to film it because of that crazy windstorm. And so I got one so that Hannah could drive it also because it's an auto and because I was going to write a piece for Road and Track and I wanted to get some pictures and blah, blah, blah. So we're driving and I'm, you know, immediately like, the roads in Austin suck and we get outside and like, I'm like, God, kind of like all the road, I'm like, I start to think like, maybe I, you know, because you drove that GR Corolla, I only really drove it like one day when we had it.

• 26:32Speaker 01

  Yeah, I drove it for two.

• 26:33Matt Farah?

  You drove for two days and I drove for one day. And as I'm driving this one, I'm like, God, the ride is like, bad. Like, what did they do? And I started looking up like what changes they made and they did make some changes to improve the handling and improve the launch. I mean, and it's, they changed a few things here and there, springs and it's basically, they made it stiffer. And I'm, so we're driving it and I'm just going, God, they, they really messed this thing up. Like, the ride is just awful. Like my Focus RS, whereas I drove three of these things before and they didn't feel like that. And so I'm like, damn, that's a bummer. And you know, the gearbox, just like the three liter

• 27:16Matt Farah?

  Porsches, you have to put it in sport. It's unusable and normal. It's just bog, bog, bog and vibraty and awful. But, and the roads are like, the first couple of days, the roads are these sort of, this is called the Willow City Loop. It's sort of like a rural farm road, single lane. And it's not like it's, it's not like it's bad enough that like, you know, you have to crawl through it. You drive 40, 45 miles an hour on it, but you're not, you're not going like 70. And there's like, there's some things to avoid. There's some potholes and things like that and you kind of have to avoid them. But I'm like, this car is just, the ride is just killing me on this thing. And then

• 27:59Matt Farah?

  we do some other nice roads, like some really, really, probably some of the best roads. In Texas called the Twisted Sisters, which is very much sort of like a like Bouquet Canyon Road here in California. It's he's sort of even back forth, back forth with some over crests and undulations. And even then, the car's being like weird and dirty. And I'm like, what if, what did they do to this thing? Well, I told Toyota when I got it back and they're like, okay, you know, thank you for letting us know. And here's what's and they told me about the changes. But they they never actually said it made the car stiffer. And I figured, like, like with Maserati and this brakes thing, I figured like they were dancing around not wanting to say they just made it stiffer.

• 28:40Speaker 01

  Mm hmm.

• 28:41Matt Farah?

  So I, I get the list of changes and I, I text Joey Seeley, the motion engineering. And I go, hey, man, I just, I have like imposter syndrome here. I need you to help me. I just drove this new year version of this car with this updated suspension. Here's what they've done. I go, I've driven this car a bunch of times before. I swear the ride is totally different. They've really done something wrong here to mess it up. I go, would these changes make it just ride like garbage? And he's like, yeah, they definitely could. Okay, so I wrote this piece. I submit it to Road and Track. Next day, I get an email from Toyota. Hi, Matt, we've done a thorough inspection of the vehicle and I apologize,

• 29:24Matt Farah?

  but one of the shipping spreaders was left in one of the springs.

• 29:29Speaker 01

  So one corner.

• 29:30Matt Farah?

  One corner had a forced spreader that prevented its spring. So one, one corner had no travel.

• 29:37Speaker 01

  Wow.

• 29:38Matt Farah?

  Or like, you know.

• 29:39Speaker 01

  Or an inch and then it would hit this block.

• 29:41Matt Farah?

  Yeah, or whatever. 10% of available travel. One corner. So you think that might fuck the ride up a little bit?

• 29:48Speaker 01

  Yeah, it was locked off.

• 29:52Matt Farah?

  That's, isn't that crazy?

• 29:54Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's pretty wild.

• 29:55Matt Farah?

  So now it's like, well, what do I do with this story? Like, do I, you know, do I have to shit can this whole story? Or do I put a disclaimer that says, oh, by the way, there was a shipping spreader in the spring? Or?

• 30:07Speaker 01

  I think you have to throw the story away.

• 30:09Matt Farah?

  I think I kind of have to throw the whole story away.

• 30:12Speaker 01

  Because otherwise you're just doing a review on the stereo and the seats.

• 30:14Matt Farah?

  Yeah.

• 30:15Speaker 01

  So because it obviously wasn't a fair analysis of the ride or of the new suspension because it was not suspending.

• 30:22Matt Farah?

  Yeah.

• 30:23Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 30:23Matt Farah?

  It was definitely not suspending.

• 30:25Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 30:26Matt Farah?

  Sucks.

• 30:27Speaker 01

  Related note, my friend Avin, who you've met, he's got an Alpha Quad, which he loves. He's had it for like three years, no problems amazingly. But he took it in for a routine service like a year ago. And when they gave it back, they're like, by the way, we realized that some of the shipping spreaders were left in two of the springs, so we took those out for you. And he

• 30:45Matt Farah?

  For years.

• 30:46Speaker 01

  For years.

• 30:47Matt Farah?

  Yeah.

• 30:47Speaker 01

  And for years, he loved the car anyway. He probably just thought it was like race car suspension.

• 30:51Matt Farah?

  Did he say how it felt afterwards?

• 30:52Speaker 01

  Yeah, he said it was a lot better.

• 30:53Matt Farah?

  Yeah.

• 30:54Speaker 01

  Of course it was.

• 30:55Matt Farah?

  Yeah.

• 30:55Speaker 01

  I mean, when I, I helped Corey install suspension, our friend Corey. I helped him install coilovers on his Mazda 3, like eight years ago. And we get it all bolted in. And we like set it off the jacks and we're like, why is the nose so high? Like just like aimed it like trophy truck aimed at the sky. And we realized that these plastic things that we thought were like required spring perches were actually just protective something or other. But like it all fit, so we had to take them off again and take the things out.

• 31:22Matt Farah?

  So, uh, yeah, that was, uh, that's bad. But I will say, you know, that, that Willow City loop, it's, it's absolutely gorgeous. It is a little slow, but, and then the, the Twisted Sisters the next day is, is a fantastic day of driving. There's a couple fabulous roads down there outside of Leaky, Texas.

• 31:42Speaker 01

  They have some nice flowy roller coaster stuff. I was there with, for the Bronco launch. And I remember going, wow, this would be a fun sports car road.

• 31:50Matt Farah?

  Yeah. Well, I think, was it outside of Austin? So we passed a place that looked like some kind of farm or ranch that had 20 Broncos parked on it.

• 32:00Speaker 01

  That's the off rodeo.

• 32:01Matt Farah?

  Okay, yeah.

• 32:02Speaker 01

  So they have two of those in the country, I think is only two. One's in Moab, which I told you I stumbled upon. The other one is where the launch was, which is that place outside of Austin.

• 32:10Matt Farah?

  So you did drive on good sports car roads to get there.

• 32:13Speaker 01

  Yeah. And that's when I learned that you hit the brakes and the Bronco dove to the left, to the right.

• 32:17Matt Farah?

  Yeah. Uh, I, I will say that, um, You know, it's, driving in Texas is definitely different from driving in other parts of the country. But I think that's what makes it very interesting. I mean, it's not like it's, it's not like it's like gravel dirt rally stage. It's just like, some of the tarmac isn't up to quality snuff. Like in the city, you mean? In the city, but like, some of the rural roads are not, are not as good as I would want them to be. I mean, they're fine, they're not like, they're not bad, but I'm just like, I'm gonna be encouraging people to pretty much leave their car in comfort mode the whole time. Yeah. Um, cause you're just gonna want the suspens- And we had, we had a full track day at Cota to drive really fast, so. Um, it's a beautiful drive, the food is really good, the hotel we're staying at is sick.

• 33:02Matt Farah?

  Uh, the first hotel's really nice, the second hotel's very sick. Um, and, uh, it's, it's fun, uh, just, it, when you, it, when your car literally has a broken suspension, it's, it's not a good time. It's just shaking across the, the state. I just, it was just, it, it's so hard to ignore something like that, it just beats the shit out of you. Was it worse, which corner, do you know? You know what's funny? They didn't tell me, and I actually couldn't tell, I, I couldn't, in hindsight, I couldn't tell. Was it, it wasn't different on left turns versus right turns? No, not really, I mean, I, I, we were driving on the street. Right. So I'm not pushing the, I never ever pushed the handling.

• 33:42Matt Farah?

  I was, I was using the suspension to absorb bumps, not to, um, and like, the other thing that's unavoidable in Texas, by the way, is cattle guards. Yeah. They're everywhere. Wow. And like, even on good roads, like, even on like, the best road that I drove on there, I believe it's the 337, unbelievable, it's like Charahola Skyway, it's extraordinary. Cattle guards, like, they're everywhere, so like, this, this suspension was taking some, some big hits. Uh, cause, you know, I wasn't, i- if I was in a fucking McLaren, I'd probably slow down to a crawl, but in a pseudo rally car, you know, you hit them a little bit. Well, in some, some cattle guards, the transition is very minor, and you can just kinda keep going,

• 34:24Matt Farah?

  and then some of them can be like a two inch drop, and yeah, you gotta slow down. Yeah. But it was a fun time. It was definitely a fun time. And then I have an update on the Bentley. It's going live on Cars and Bids, March 6.

• 34:39Speaker 01

  Awesome.

• 34:40Matt Farah?

  There was a delay of game because Doug had to film other shit. And so I certainly understand how that goes. So he has filmed it and it's in post and it's going, our video. I made a video about how much it costs to run the Bentley for the year. And that video is going up the same day as the auction, which is March 6.

• 35:04Speaker 01

  Should we live podcast to Patreon as the auction goes? And just watch?

• 35:10Matt Farah?

  No, the end. We want to, the live podcast is the end.

• 35:13Speaker 01

  Right.

• 35:13Matt Farah?

  Yeah.

• 35:14Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 35:14Matt Farah?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. But not the beginning. Yeah, yeah. The video of the beginning and then the podcast at the end.

• 35:19Speaker 01

  How long is the auction? Is it a week?

• 35:20Matt Farah?

  It's, I believe it's a week. Yeah.

• 35:25Matt Farah?

  Yo, shout out to Fast and Furious Musical is coming back in New York.

• 35:31Speaker 01

  Nice.

• 35:32Matt Farah?

  So, New York people, you can go to, find them on Instagram, Fast and Furious Musical Parody. 100% worth your money.

• 35:40Speaker 01

  Absolutely.

• 35:41Matt Farah?

  One of the best theater experiences you'll have. It's in Brooklyn in May.

• 35:45Speaker 01

  You will laugh your ass off.

• 35:46Matt Farah?

  It's amazing. Get tickets.

• 35:48Speaker 01

  I'm stoked for them. That feels like they're climbing that ladder.

• 35:50Matt Farah?

  Yeah. Those guys are great.

• 35:53Speaker 01

  Dude, that's gonna be a Broadway show one day, I swear.

• 35:55Matt Farah?

  Yeah. And my friend Frankie, who plays Charlize Theron, is amazing, too.

• 36:00Speaker 01

  Yeah, she's really funny.

• 36:02Matt Farah?

  Yeah, they're awesome. But did you see a study? And it was on, they covered it on the drive. But I read the, I at least read the first couple non-science-y pages of the,

• 36:18Matt Farah?

  if that is a real Volvo, oh, it's fake, no. The thing about brake pad dust. There was a study that basically said that, you know, brake pad, I was on this morning, that copper...

• 36:33Matt Farah?

  Copper particles, that.

• 36:36Speaker 01

  Yeah, super carcinogenic.

• 36:38Matt Farah?

  Super carcinogenic. And we, you know, we knew brake dust and tire particles are really bad. But this study really, really seems to be convinced that switching the powertrain of our vehicles will not be an effective way to reduce much of the horrible shit in the atmosphere because brake pads, as the vehicles get heavier, and tire particles, as the vehicles get heavier from going EV, are potentially just as bad.

• 37:09Speaker 01

  Ooh, but...

• 37:10Matt Farah?

  I partially disagree because of regenerative braking.

• 37:12Speaker 01

  There you go, right. So much of the braking in EVs is done regenerative.

• 37:15Matt Farah?

  That's the thing. There's a couple of things in the study that don't quite add up. One is they refer to, they do, they make a comparison with diesel engines, but there is an enormous spread in what is called a diesel engine.

• 37:30Speaker 01

  Sure, of course. I mean, is it a Volkswagen or is it made by someone else?

• 37:33Matt Farah?

  And, yeah, and also, they, they kind of gloss over regenerative braking, which I think in an EV with a one pedal drive feature, you would drastically reduce how much you're actually using the brake pedal.

• 37:49Speaker 01

  Tens of percent.

• 37:50Matt Farah?

  Yeah.

• 37:50Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think so. Unless you're, unless you're driving really fast, you might, it'd be cool if we could get data from an OEM or if your car could tell you, hey, here's how much time was spent with regen and here's how much time was actually spent using Caliber.

• 38:05Matt Farah?

  I bet we could get somebody in some engineering department to tell us that. It's gonna be different.

• 38:11Speaker 01

  David Tuig, I know you're listening.

• 38:12Matt Farah?

  Yeah, he probably would know.

• 38:14Speaker 01

  I would know.

• 38:16Matt Farah?

  Dave, if you're out there, let us know. But, it's probably different in a car that has, well, maybe not, because the Taycan doesn't have one pedal drive, but when you hit the brake pedal, that is regen for the first half of brake. It's only when you really need to stop that it, because you can feel the transition. Most stopping is done on regen, but pedal activated, not, not one pedal drive activated.

• 38:44Speaker 01

  I think that's true of a lot of EVs, though, even if they have one pedal. When you touch the pedal, it's gonna use regen as much as possible until you need more clamping force, right?

• 38:54Matt Farah?

  I think so, but I, but what I, no.

• 38:56Speaker 01

  Because I was talking to somebody at the launch and they were on, I think it was Chris Perkins. They were on the road and track test you did, and so you can speak to this. When they noticed that when the battery was fully charged,

• 39:09Matt Farah?

  Yeah.

• 39:09Speaker 01

  regen was not effective for the first few laps because you need room.

• 39:13Matt Farah?

  If you charge to 100%.

• 39:14Speaker 01

  Right, there's nowhere for that electricity to go. That's pretty interesting.

• 39:17Matt Farah?

  So I noticed that, because I drive on one pedal drive on the Ford when I had it, right? So when I would charge at my house to 100%, I live at the top of a little hill. So I'd leave my driveway and I would start to go down the hill. And I would notice right away that one pedal drive wouldn't work because there was nowhere to regen that energy.

• 39:39Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 39:39Matt Farah?

  So a screen would pop up and it would say, "One pedal drive unavailable until battery discharges," whatever. And so, I mean, when the battery got to 99, it was enough that it would come back on. I mean, it was within the first half mile or so, or mile. But yeah, there was nowhere for it to go.

• 39:58Speaker 01

  That's interesting.

• 39:59Matt Farah?

  Yeah. Uh, very fun. So anyway, I just, I think what's important about this study is not, uh, A, to shoot holes in what kind of diesel engine or to talk about the ignoring of regenerative braking. But I just think that it's an important thing to think about how we could improve our air quality in other ways besides forcing the entire world to go EV. You could probably meaningfully, uh, reduce, uh, brake particles and tire particles, uh, which would drastically improve air quality all over the world.

• 40:41Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 40:42Matt Farah?

  Um, in, which in conjunction with a, with an efficient gas engine could net result be much cleaner than if you, um, you know, have an EV that's, uh, that's, I mean, it's an extreme example, but a Hummer EV or another, a very heavy EV, uh, that's going through tires and going through brake pads like crazy.

• 41:02Speaker 01

  I mean, hybrid too, like Series R4, it, whenever I hit the brakes, that little meter goes charging. It goes all the way to the top for, you know.

• 41:09Matt Farah?

  I wonder, uh... What the uh veracity would be of the Porsche surface coated brakes? The PSCBs, the white calipers? Those are supposed to be uh dust free. And I'm sure they're not dust free. But the point of that white caliper is to show that they don't collect dust. And they, I think they do make a lot less dust. I just don't know how expensive they are and if that's a worthwhile thing.

• 41:39Speaker 01

  But yeah, I mean, I know that this has been an ongoing discussion is this kind of uh carcinogenic properties of brake pads and people that live closer to highways. It's not just exhaust, it's also um brake dust in the air.

• 41:53Matt Farah?

  Yeah.

• 41:53Speaker 01

  Yeah. I don't know, maybe they'll start manufacturing them in a cleaner way if possible, but I'm sure they've already tried.

• 41:59Matt Farah?

  I mean, well, maybe they have tried and I'm sure somebody's trying. Yeah, someone, go down to the bottom of this story. Somebody makes a copper free. Uh go down to the very last thing. Oh yeah, several suppliers, including Akebuno, already sell a range of copper free and low copper brake pads.

• 42:19Speaker 01

  Oh, and there was a law passed in 2017 that to limit the copper content in brake pads to a maximum of 5% uh in 2021 and it's supposed to go down to a maximum of 0.5% in 2025.

• 42:33Matt Farah?

  Uh what do you, what do you bet?

• 42:34Speaker 01

  For every car sold in California, so that's not um nationwide.

• 42:39Matt Farah?

  So you think there's gonna be 49 state brake pads, 50 state? Think they're gonna include it on your annual inspection? Check for your carb brake pads?

• 42:48Speaker 01

  Isn't that the case with catalytic converters and there's like California cats?

• 42:52Matt Farah?

  Yeah, you can't necessarily get, yeah, you have to get, yeah, for sure. Um I think if you, I would say, can you click on this, that the range of the Akebuno brake pads? I would say this, consumer advice, if you must buy brake pads uh for your car, particularly like a regular car, not a, not a supercar, but just your regular car, ask for copper free brake pads.

• 43:15Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm.

• 43:15Matt Farah?

  If you can. You, you will probably, your car will stop exactly the same. So I think, oh, there we go, they have the different leaves. Different leaves on your brake pads. So there's a little icon. It's got three leaves on it and they're outlines. And if one leaf is filled in with color, it means the brake pad contains no asbestos. That or heavy metals. That should be your baseline. Level B is two leaves. The brake pads meet level A requirements and contain less than 5%. That's that 2021 standard. And then level N is three filled in leaves.

• 43:55Matt Farah?

  And that means they meet the new requirements and contain less than 0.5% requirements.

• 44:02Speaker 01

  And it does say that going forward, all Akabono brake pads will meet two-leaf level B requirements. With more of them going for three-leaf. So it's gonna be hard to get the level A thankfully.

• 44:15Matt Farah?

  Yeah. Well, no asbestos. They did that like that's 30 years ago at least, right? So just something to think about. And by the way, the lighter your car is,

• 44:28Matt Farah?

  no matter what powers it, the lighter your car is, the less brake dust and tire dust and all of that. By the way, because the less, the less dust means your consumable is lasting longer.

• 44:41Speaker 01

  Right. Once again, the answer is always Miata.

• 44:43Matt Farah?

  Yeah. Well, light. The answer is any fucking light car, really. I mean.

• 44:48Matt Farah?

  Oh, there we go. By the way, someone commented on the story. Page 13 describes the diesel engine. It was a 12.6 liter inline six on a test bench. So it was basically a semi truck.

• 45:02Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 45:02Matt Farah?

  It ran at 1,200 RPM. So it was basically mimicking a semi truck engine cruising at highway speeds. Okay, well, so Euro 3 standard compliant. So it's a, it's a modern semi truck engine. I think this study could have been focused on trucks more so than actual cars. But, okay. But it's a modern engine is the point. Not, not a 40-year-old engine. So I stand corrected on the not knowing what kind of engine it is.

• 45:39Matt Farah?

  Anyway, we have so many questions, you guys, so many questions. I could talk a little bit about the Revuelto, but we're gonna do that a whole other show.

• 45:48Speaker 01

  Well, let's do it, because I'll drive it tomorrow. Sorry, let's talk about it later, because I'm gonna drive it tomorrow.

• 45:52Matt Farah?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 45:53Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 45:54Matt Farah?

  It is, it's, um, $682,000. $682,000. But I'll tell you what, it's, uh, it's, you, uh...

• 46:10Speaker 01

  You feel the value?

• 46:11Matt Farah?

  You actually, it's hard to say something is, quote, "worth it," but it's in, in, in, you can, you can see where the money's gone. You definitely understand where the money's gone, for sure. And well, you'll, I think you'll see that when you drive it, too. Because for that amount of money, you should have everything. There should be nothing

• 46:32Speaker 01

  Right.

• 46:32Matt Farah?

  that that car isn't great at.

• 46:34Speaker 01

  I agree.

• 46:35Matt Farah?

  And we'll get to all those things on our next show, I'm sure. Of course, if you want to talk to us through the internet, the best way to do it is to pay us. Patreon.

• 46:46Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 46:46Matt Farah?

  To support us, to support the show, because ads ain't gonna run this bitch forever, let me tell you, especially when our fucking billionaire overlords get what they want and shut it down, when we're all wearing AI pendants

• 46:59Speaker 01

  Right.

• 46:59Matt Farah?

  to ask permission if we could piss. Who the hell is...

• 47:05Matt Farah?

  Yeah, Patreon, that's where we're at. Support the show directly at patreon.com/the-smoking-tire-podcast. You can also catch the live stream. You can also get the show before everybody else. You can also get the show without advertising, and you can ask us questions about cars and other things that we will answer on the air. So let's get to that. Silence of the Lambo. That is like what happens when I start a Revuelto in my driveway in the morning in EV mode. And Silencio away. It's so nice. You can not only not have to wake your spouse and your pets, you can choose whose spouse and pets to wake. You can hit that

• 47:48Matt Farah?

  Button anywhere on your block and just unleash the fucking fury.

• 47:53Speaker 01

  I like that because you can go three doors down. I don't like.

• 47:56Matt Farah?

  And you go, you know what? This guy was kind of a dickbag. Let me just fire a V12 at him. It's 6:40 a.m.

• 48:02Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 48:02Matt Farah?

  And I feel good about it. But Silence of the Lambo says, what are your favorite OG online car forum drama? That's a fucking good one. Do you remember? Do you have any online car?

• 48:16Speaker 01

  I know that the Ferrari chat is usually full of drama. You'd have some stories from that.

• 48:21Matt Farah?

  Oh, yeah.

• 48:22Speaker 01

  But Subaru forums, I don't recall having drama. It was just.

• 48:26Matt Farah?

  They're all like, ah, bro, it's good. There's no, no drama.

• 48:30Speaker 01

  It was usually people blowing up transmissions and then blaming the car for what they did. Now, the five speed was one thing, but the only, this isn't really drama, but there was a guy who posted a video and the video is titled like, what happened to my car? And he had a brand new black and gold STI. And it's a video of him clutch drop launching five times in a row. And I mean like

• 48:52Speaker 01

  and the sixth time you hear and the car stops and he's like, what the fuck happened? And everyone's like, you happened. You did this. What do you, what do you think? So that's not really drama. It was just, it was a good pile on.

• 49:03Matt Farah?

  Sure. I mean, the, the, the, the case study of online forum drama is of course John Hennessy. Getting involved in the forums when people are calling him a thief.

• 49:15Speaker 01

  Right.

• 49:15Matt Farah?

  And really not helping himself.

• 49:19Speaker 01

  That's true.

• 49:19Matt Farah?

  Yeah, that's, that's the most memorable online forum drama that I can recall. In terms of a specific incident or thread that really got just beyond out of hand. But dude, Ferrari chat in 2008 and seven.

• 49:41Matt Farah?

  It was so crazy. It was so weird, cuz I'd meet these people in person. These were like, rich. Rich, rich, like, Wall Street guys with like, families. And they're all rolling these expensive ass cars. And then you'd read the forum and you'd, you'd think you were talking to like, middle school people. These are the biggest fucking loser wieners. Where it's like, don't you have jobs and families? Like, what are any of you doing? You're just like, bitching at each other over, not even related to the cars. It had nothing to do with the cars. But like, before, you know, a lot of like, the modern social media tools, like, the northeast, like, in, within Ferrari Chat.

• 50:24Matt Farah?

  There's like, you know, model-specific stuff, like, you know, people who are wrenching on their own cars and tech questions and your regular forum stuff.

• 50:32Speaker 01

  Now, if you own a 360, are you allowed to post comments in the F12 area, or is it, are you barred cuz you're not?

• 50:39Matt Farah?

  I don't know, cuz I never had a Ferrari at that point. And, and, and, what you, but what you had on Ferrari Chat was you had the model stuff, and I never even went in there. But then you had the regional. And so, I don't know what was going on in any other region, but I can tell you the New York Northeast tri-state was a complete shitshow of these people. And, but, and like, some of people didn't own Ferraris, some people did, like, that was just the local forum. It just happened to exist on Ferrari Chat. But like, all of it was.

• 51:13Speaker 01

  That should've been an indicator of where we were headed in general, like, the internet was gonna get as angry as it is now.

• 51:18Matt Farah?

  Yeah, it was crazy.

• 51:21Matt Farah?

  Uh, Andrew Wu says, "I just pulled the pig, pulled, pulled, pulled the trigger on a G80X drive." That's a Genesis. Is, oh, wait. No, it's a BMW. That's a BMW M3, sorry. Uh, do you think there's anything I need to get as an upgrade out of the box? Uh, if I'm doing spirited, long drives in this car, like brake lines or pads? No.

• 51:46Speaker 01

  Usually I would say fluid. Usually the, if you're gonna drive it hard, like the brake fluid is probably the first thing that would overheat.

• 51:52Matt Farah?

  Wait till you, wait till you do it. It's an M3.

• 51:55Speaker 01

  It should be graded every, good enough at everything.

• 51:58Matt Farah?

  It's not like getting in a WRX and going, I'm gonna do a track day in that. An M3 should be at a pretty high standard out of the box. You should be able to drive it and enjoy for a little bit.

• 52:08Speaker 01

  And then he says, I'm looking at flashing the suspension and transmission from the M3CS. I don't know. We haven't driven that back to back, have we?

• 52:14Matt Farah?

  I, I haven't, but I mean, if it really is the OEM stuff, it probably won't make it worse.

• 52:20Speaker 01

  Right.

• 52:21Matt Farah?

  You know, if you're really getting the OEM stuff. It's that real good shit. It's that brand name shit. Not that Alibaba.

• 52:30Speaker 01

  Yeah, if you're getting the actual software. Yeah.

• 52:33Matt Farah?

  How do you know if it's the actual software?

• 52:35Speaker 01

  I don't know. Depends on who's installing it.

• 52:37Matt Farah?

  I guess, from trustworthy motherfucker. Cause what are you gonna do? You gotta take their word for it. You know? I don't mean, how do you know anything when someone gets in your fucking ECU? Should have to assume they know what they're doing.

• 52:48Speaker 01

  And then you have to sheepishly go back to the dealership and be like, will you set my car back to stock?

• 52:51Matt Farah?

  Yeah. Elderly woman behind the wheel in a small car.

• 52:55Speaker 01

  Good. There's some really good names today.

• 52:57Matt Farah?

  You guys are really coming through with the usernames. That's superb. Um, about, oh wait, uh, our auto show is gonna be a thing of the past. Will they move to modern conventions like CES like Honda? The thing about auto shows is they're mo, they're mainly held on by regional, put on by regional dealer associations. That's who provides the cars. The manufacturers don't really actually support it all that much.

• 53:24Speaker 01

  Really?

• 53:24Matt Farah?

  Yeah.

• 53:24Speaker 01

  I mean, I know the dealers usually bring the cars. I figure that the OEM supplied some money too. Okay.

• 53:29Matt Farah?

  Yeah. And like, but I think the manufacturers force the dealers to do it.

• 53:35Matt Farah?

  But I think, you know, attendance is down across the board, but it's still like where people go to like sit in cars with their families and like try them out, I think.

• 53:45Speaker 01

  I think, but I wonder if that market. Now it's just car people that do that, whereas before it was like that was everyone's access to sit in a car and Carvana and other people have proved that like some people don't give a shit, they just want to click order or they'll just go in and pick one. So I just think it's, I think the way people buy cars is splintering a bit.

• 54:03Matt Farah?

  Yeah, but no, I don't think they'll move to big conventions like CES unless there is some kind of specific tech feature.

• 54:13Speaker 01

  Right.

• 54:14Matt Farah?

  You know, that they're trying to do, because they can, if they want to have media cover their shit, they'll just have a fully controlled press launch.

• 54:22Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 54:23Matt Farah?

  Which is way cheaper and easier than a public facing auto show.

• 54:26Speaker 01

  Or they can glom onto SEMA.

• 54:28Matt Farah?

  Yeah.

• 54:29Speaker 01

  In one way or another and not have to set up an entire convention just for new cars.

• 54:33Matt Farah?

  Um, I don't, do you know what bad gardener, oh wait, sorry, Butt Hardness? Okay, about last episode's electric turbo spooling on the new 911 GTS, Honda has teased a motorcycle that's a V3 with an electric turbo that does not use exhaust pressure. I don't know how they plan to generate the wattage to power such a thing, it would have to be.

• 54:58Speaker 01

  Oh, I remember, so last episode, I think Butt Hardness asked, why doesn't Porsche use electricity to power the turbo entirely and not use exhaust gas?

• 55:06Matt Farah?

  Yeah, so, I mean, the, the reason I think is that beyond a certain RPM, the exhaust gas is just there.

• 55:15Speaker 01

  Right.

• 55:16Matt Farah?

  And it's more efficient, and also, and also they need the turbo to generate energy, not just, the turbo is now a two-way energy device, it's not just a one-way energy device. That's sort of the difference with this new e-motor turbo.

• 55:33Speaker 01

  This is the Moto.

• 55:35Matt Farah?

  So Honda, let's see.

• 55:37Speaker 01

  Cicletta.

• 55:38Matt Farah?

  Okay, wait, hang on, V3 motorcycle with an electrical compressor.

• 55:43Matt Farah?

  It's a water cooled for largest place motorcycles. First electrical which is labeled to control compression of the intake air irrespective engine RPM, meaning high response torque can be delivered at lower RPM.

• 55:59Matt Farah?

  Okay, it does not require any form of intercooler. That's cool. How does it? Let's see, uh, can you scroll down? It doesn't have a, oh, it doesn't say. Can you click on that electrical compressor image? Can we make it bigger? No?

• 56:13Speaker 01

  Oh, wow.

• 56:14Matt Farah?

  Well, I mean, it looks like a turbo that just blow, blow straight into what looks like an intake manifold of some kind. Uh, that's pretty cool. I, I don't know how it generates the energy to do that, but I, I like the idea. I mean, for a big like torquey bike, that would be sick for a cruiser.

• 56:35Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 56:36Matt Farah?

  Like that's a hundred percent going on a Goldwing and not a fucking Fireblade. Or whatever their modern superbike is.

• 56:45Speaker 01

  I wonder if, I guess we'll see. It all depends on the tuning, right? So if they, if they use it mostly to get off the line at low RPM, but then as you get higher in the RPM, it just hands it over to the engine.

• 56:56Matt Farah?

  That could be, yeah.

• 56:58Speaker 01

  It's all speculation.

• 56:58Matt Farah?

  That could be, and then while it's running on engine, it could, it could, you know.

• 57:03Speaker 01

  Then it's charging some lithium battery.

• 57:05Matt Farah?

  It could do both ways. Yeah, yeah. How interesting. It's a, that's a good one, but I think in the Porsches, it, it makes sense that the exhaust would take over because it's there. Bad Gardner, new M3, 1300 horsepower. What do you know about this? I've, I don't know anything about that. Do you know anything about this? Never heard of it. Sorry, Bad Gardner. Canceled.

• 57:29Speaker 01

  I see CarWow did a walk around, so BMW VDX concept that has 1300 horsepower. Uh, it's electric.

• 57:35Matt Farah?

  It's electric.

• 57:36Speaker 01

  Oh, that's why.

• 57:36Matt Farah?

  That's why. Uh, Tim A, when you went to the GT3 launch, did Porsche give hints about a manual transmission turbo model? They did not. Uh, Tim says it's looking likely with a wide bottle body turbo touring.

• 57:53Matt Farah?

  Bless you. Driving around Germany, essentially a mass-market 911 sport classic. I called this, I called this, uh, six months ago, eight months ago. Um, so I wouldn't be surprised if they do it, if they make the regular turbo, a mass-market sport classic, maybe even rear drive, and the, uh, and the Turbo S, the, the big daddy hybrid, PDK all-wheel drive, and I think that would be excelente.

• 58:18Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm.

• 58:18Matt Farah?

  Yeah. Uh, Jeremiah, Jeremiah Dicklesworth III wants a new fun daily road trip car that will carry the dogs. Cayenne GTS or Turbo Alpina XB7 RS6 Avant. Current garage is a 911, TTS Amira Truck, Pajero, and a couple old muscle cars.

• 58:41Speaker 01

  Cool.

• 58:42Matt Farah?

  Okay, a fun, see, alright, I, I'm gonna say the XB7 is a nice luxury car, but not fun.

• 58:50Speaker 01

  Yes, it's, it's too soft.

• 58:52Matt Farah?

  The RS6 Avant seems like it would be fun, but after a few days, it's not that fun. It's fast when you're in it.

• 59:02Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm.

• 59:02Matt Farah?

  But it's not that fun. The Cayenne GTS is pretty aggressive.

• 59:07Speaker 01

  Sounds good.

• 59:08Matt Farah?

  It sounds good. It's more fun than the RS6, for sure.

• 59:12Speaker 01

  And I think it's, it's firmer and more sporty than the XB7.

• 59:15Matt Farah?

  Mm-hmm.

• 59:16Speaker 01

  But, you know, still very comfortable, still feels special.

• 59:18Matt Farah?

  Yeah. Uh, Cayenne Turbo is faster than a Cayenne GTS, but not, I guess it's a turbo hybrid now. The hybrid is nice if you also wanna ru- roll on electric for short trips around town. And it's nicer on the highway than the GTS. It's more relaxed on the highway, but it's less fun.

• 59:41Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think you just have to test drive those two cars. The GTS feels, depends on the roads near you. Like, it feels a little stiff on the wrong, you know, bad tarmac.

• 59:48Matt Farah?

  Mm-hmm.

• 59:49Speaker 01

  But, uh, but it is fun, and it sounds good, and it's kind of like an exciting thing to drive all the time.

• 59:54Matt Farah?

  Let's see, other things that could be fun. The Audi RS Q8, which is the same price as the Cayenne GTS, and is basically an Urus Lite, and a total sleeper.

• 1:00:06Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:00:07Matt Farah?

  Those are classy and, uh, very nice.

• 1:00:10Speaker 01

  Well, Jeremiah says, most of the driving will be long distance and rallies.

• 1:00:13Matt Farah?

  Yeah.

• 1:00:14Speaker 01

  Uh, okay.

• 1:00:16Matt Farah?

  The RS6 is comfortable enough to use as a grand tourer. The problem with it is for the amount of money you're spending, it's just not that fun. That would bum me out. I'd rather a C63 or a lightly used, or not a C63, excuse me, an E63 wagon.

• 1:00:34Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:00:34Matt Farah?

  Or a lightly used Panamera Turbo S wagon. I'd much rather either of those for fast wagons.

• 1:00:42Speaker 01

  I agree, and I think the next step from Panamera to me is GTS, especially if you're a Tail of the Dragon, the roads around there are very smooth, twisty, you'll be happy. Like, that's good.

• 1:00:51Matt Farah?

  I agree. Randomly grilled Tail of the Dragon. Wants to go to the track more regularly and aggressively this year. Looking to install a roll cage and harnesses in my daily GT500 for safety and because race car. What mods do you later view in life as stupid or not worth the inconvenience, such as a potentially unnecessary roll cage? Racing harnesses. Harnesses, taking out, not just having harnesses, but replacing factory seatbelts entirely.

• 1:01:25Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:01:26Matt Farah?

  So dumb. So fucking dumb.

• 1:01:29Speaker 01

  I mean, because you need some of that forward movement to hit the airbag. Crashing with a harness on can be very dangerous.

• 1:01:35Matt Farah?

  If you don't have a HANS.

• 1:01:36Speaker 01

  If you don't have a HANS, right, if you don't have a HANS on, because your neck's going to stretch.

• 1:01:39Matt Farah?

  Yeah. Also, crashing with a cage is, can be very deadly at low speed.

• 1:01:44Speaker 01

  In a street car with no helmet, yes.

• 1:01:45Matt Farah?

  So, if you're talking about track, like, if you're talking about doing a rear harness bar and then also a high back bucket seat.

• 1:01:54Speaker 01

  I think that's fine, if you can keep the three-point.

• 1:01:59Matt Farah?

  That's pretty, that's safe for the street.

• 1:02:01Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:02:02Matt Farah?

  But I wouldn't do anything with a halo bar or a door bar on a street car.

• 1:02:07Speaker 01

  I agree.

• 1:02:08Matt Farah?

  Absolutely not. You could die in a very low-speed crash like that.

• 1:02:11Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:02:12Matt Farah?

  But other mods, like, I ran like a straight pipe for a while in my Corvette, like, that's real stupid. Just beyond, when the, when the car is like loud beyond where it makes, stops making more power, taking out cats is stupid, running catless, that's dumb.

• 1:02:32Matt Farah?

  Street glow?

• 1:02:34Speaker 01

  I do, I was gonna bring it up, yeah.

• 1:02:38Matt Farah?

  Uh, fuck, marry, kill. Steering feel, suspension feel, or engine power?

• 1:02:46Matt Farah?

  Fuck engine power, kill steering feel. No, kill engine power. Uh, fuck chassis feel, fe- uh, marry steering feel.

• 1:02:59Speaker 01

  Ooh, that's...

• 1:03:03Speaker 01

  I think I'd marry suspension chassis. And then...

• 1:03:11Speaker 01

  Man, that's really tough. That's like, what's the most important thing?

• 1:03:16Speaker 01

  I think you, I think you'd fuck power, and then you can kill, I can even kill steering feel.

• 1:03:21Matt Farah?

  Okay. Uh, blurple, has cars been parked for a year with a, uh, blown head gasket? What would be the first thing you would do after getting your favorite car back after a year of repairs? Road trip, dude. Road trip. Weekend, not too much commitment. Light schedule.

• 1:03:39Speaker 01

  Right, yeah, I was gonna say, if it's a new, if it's a fresh build, do a short trip.

• 1:03:44Matt Farah?

  Yeah.

• 1:03:44Speaker 01

  And then do a long trip.

• 1:03:46Matt Farah?

  Yeah.

• 1:03:46Speaker 01

  To reconnect with the vehicle that you like. Cause you obviously like it, cause you've had it for a year.

• 1:03:50Matt Farah?

  Uh, ma ma mi miata. There we go. Given how successful sporty crossovers have gotten, would it make sense for Acura to do an RDX Type S using the Integra Type S engine, or the Turbo V6 out of the other Type S models? I think so.

• 1:04:08Speaker 01

  Uh, yeah, I mean, I'd go Turbo V6. I think the Integra engine would be a little weak for a... An RDX manual?

• 1:04:15Matt Farah?

  Uh, no. I want, I want one to exist, but I don't wanna own it.

• 1:04:18Speaker 01

  Right, so we should just skip that.

• 1:04:19Matt Farah?

  Yeah.

• 1:04:19Speaker 01

  We should just have, but I'd go, you know, bigger power with a, um, SUV, sure.

• 1:04:24Matt Farah?

  Sure.

• 1:04:24Speaker 01

  I think they'd sell four.

• 1:04:26Matt Farah?

  Yeah. Uh, all-wheel-drive bias, first year having two cars and, uh, fortunate enough to keep my fun car in the garage most of the winter. Um, what sort of processes and preventative measures do we use at WCCS to prevent deterioration deterioration of vehicles while they sit for so long? Um, so we, uh, we keep the cars on battery tenders. If they're going to be stored and not driven for a long time, we fill the, uh, we fill the gas tanks. Um, and we put in a bottle of fuel stabilizer. Um, we start the cars up, all of them, and warm them up to operating temperature once a month. Um, and while we're doing that, we shuffle them around so they're not sitting on the same part of the tires.

• 1:05:10Matt Farah?

  We don't use those weird tire pillow things. People keep trying to sell us those weird tire pillows. Where like, you literally drive your car up onto a pillow. And instead of-

• 1:05:21Speaker 01

  To keep it round?

• 1:05:22Matt Farah?

  To keep your tire round.

• 1:05:23Speaker 01

  Oh, interesting.

• 1:05:24Matt Farah?

  If your car, I mean, I suppose if your car is like literally gonna sit for like years-

• 1:05:29Speaker 01

  If you're gonna do that, just put it on jack stands.

• 1:05:31Matt Farah?

  For sure.

• 1:05:31Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:05:32Matt Farah?

  For sure. But like, I don't know, uh, maybe there's a market out there for these things, but we move the cars around, so. Um, let's see, um.

• 1:05:45Matt Farah?

  I don't, well, I'm not-

• 1:05:48Speaker 01

  We haven't watched the video.

• 1:05:48Matt Farah?

  I have, Alex is ref- Alex Hay is referencing a video that I haven't watched, so I'm gonna pass on this one, sorry. Um, Alex says, uh, "You're not asking me, but I think the way we drive will change more than how the cars will change."

• 1:06:03Speaker 01

  I think that's a response to Alex Hay.

• 1:06:04Matt Farah?

  Alright. Um, yeah, I mean, look, I think even, if you look, if you're worried about a, an administrative state with driving, even Switzerland, the, the most, the strictest speeding state ever, on the fucking good roads, you can still have fun. It's only on the highways. You can still have fun in the good, the place, the places that are in the middle of nowhere. Everywhere, wherever you go in the world, the best roads, in the middle of nowhere, there, there's no enforcement-

• 1:06:31Speaker 01

  The least convenient way-

• 1:06:32Matt Farah?

  Yeah.

• 1:06:33Speaker 01

  -to get somewhere.

• 1:06:33Matt Farah?

  That's where you go to have fun with a car, yes. Um, let's see, uh-

• 1:06:41Matt Farah?

  Max Lial in Australia, MG are selling an electric vehicle for under 20K US with a 10-year warranty and 350 kilometers of range. Is there anything close to this in America? And if there isn't, would a deal like this change the market at all? I mean, I think so, but the

• 1:07:04Matt Farah?

  a lot of people that have

• 1:07:08Matt Farah?

  that are at the very low end of the car market, live in apartments that don't have handy charging. They're not living in like, single-family homes. Right? I mean, yes, I, yes, a more affordable electric car would actually change the market.

• 1:07:24Speaker 01

  Yeah, short answer, having, if we had an electric car here that was $20,000 and something that's more usable than the 500E, because that's a pretty damn cheap car.

• 1:07:33Matt Farah?

  Yeah.

• 1:07:34Speaker 01

  But it's so small, I think that keeps a lot of people away. So if you had a simple four-door for 20,000 bucks, for sure.

• 1:07:40Matt Farah?

  Yeah, basically if the Nissan Leaf could do, you know, 200 miles of range. That's pretty much.

• 1:07:47Speaker 01

  If the Verso was an EV.

• 1:07:48Matt Farah?

  Yeah.

• 1:07:48Speaker 01

  That would get a lot of people in the door.

• 1:07:50Matt Farah?

  I, I, I think it would change the market. I think people would buy it. I mean, most people who buy Model 3s don't do so because it's like amazing. It's because it's like the cheapest electric car.

• 1:07:59Speaker 01

  Yeah, with a good supporting charging network. Yeah, they're everywhere here. I mean, they're frequently used as taxis, Ubers, lifts because of that. I think you would see more of that if they were cheap enough. But to buy them for most people, it's cost prohibitive.

• 1:08:10Matt Farah?

  Yeah. Jay Fritz, have you ever had to make a choice where your car hobby came second or was sacrificed in some way? I mean, my car hobby has been all part of my work for, since I was 25 years old. So, I mean, I had to, when I, you know, when I lost my free car storage and had to fire sale like four cars.

• 1:08:34Speaker 01

  Someone put that in a comment.

• 1:08:35Matt Farah?

  Didn't have anywhere to keep them.

• 1:08:36Speaker 01

  Someone had a reply, yeah.

• 1:08:37Matt Farah?

  Yeah, I mean, but I, I, I'm the, I'm the exception. Most people in the real world have to at some point sacrifice something in their car hobby.

• 1:08:45Speaker 01

  Well, when I moved here, I was driving the STI I was financing and I quickly realized that the economics weren't going to work out. And I had to sell it within three months of being here. And I bought a $3,000 Honda Civic that had a broken speedometer and odometer.

• 1:09:00Speaker 01

  And so that was a sacrifice for sure. Yeah.

• 1:09:03Matt Farah?

  Yeah.

• 1:09:06Matt Farah?

  Old Rusty Bimmer, what the hell is this? And then puts a link about the apparent, apparent story that Jeep is sending pop-up ads through their U-Connect UI system. If that's actually true, I don't want, I was nervous about fully repeating this without somebody at Stellantis having a statement.

• 1:09:31Matt Farah?

  But that's pretty crazy.

• 1:09:33Speaker 01

  According to tech story.

• 1:09:35Matt Farah?

  Uh, wait, wait. Hold on, go back, go back to the previous page.

• 1:09:39Speaker 01

  What in the hell website is this?

• 1:09:42Matt Farah?

  I mean, that's, that's real terrible. Uh, for, it's ads for extended warranty that come up every time the vehicle comes to a stop, that's crazy.

• 1:09:51Speaker 01

  Oh, here, so that's a screen grab.

• 1:09:52Matt Farah?

  Yeah.

• 1:09:53Speaker 01

  A photo of it. Again, this website's terrible.

• 1:09:56Matt Farah?

  Me, it says a website with an enormous amount of pop-ups. The irony of doing a story on pop-ups.

• 1:10:02Speaker 01

  Yes, and then I can't close, there we go. Uh, yeah, so the pop-up from Stellantis, it says, "Purchase Peach's mind, Flex Care Extended Premium Plans, Our Factory Warranty, blah, blah, blah." So it's basically saying, "Hey, do you want to call and extend your warranty right now?"

• 1:10:17Matt Farah?

  Uh, these ads are, are part, uh, go up, these ads are part of the contractual agreement with Sirius XM. So is this, is this an ad to, to renew your Sirius subscription?

• 1:10:29Speaker 01

  I don't think they'd call it Flex Care Extended Car Care Premium Plan if it was part of that.

• 1:10:34Matt Farah?

  That's crazy.

• 1:10:35Speaker 01

  But, if it's, if it's contractual agreement with Sirius, then maybe Sirius gets a cut by like, Sirius owns the real estate or something?

• 1:10:46Matt Farah?

  Maybe.

• 1:10:46Speaker 01

  That's weird.

• 1:10:47Matt Farah?

  Yeah, that's pretty shitty.

• 1:10:49Speaker 01

  Like, like if you're listening to Sirius, but this pop-up shows up.

• 1:10:52Matt Farah?

  Yeah.

• 1:10:53Speaker 01

  Maybe that's what Sirius gets a little bit of the kickback on.

• 1:10:55Matt Farah?

  Probably, yeah.

• 1:10:56Speaker 01

  That is very annoying.

• 1:10:57Matt Farah?

  It's so shitty.

• 1:10:58Speaker 01

  Very annoying.

• 1:10:59Matt Farah?

  Yo, fuck it, we're all like, I mean, we're already so fucked with our, with our connected cars, they're just telling everybody about us. But like, yeah, that's, I mean, that right there is a fantastic example of surveillance capitalism. I mean, your car is watching you. And knows when you do a thing and then tries to sell you something because of it. That's that's literally what surveillance capitalism is.

• 1:11:28Speaker 01

  It's just annoying. You had to screen and all this stuff and now you come to stop and you just have this pop up that's like, hey, you wanna buy the warranty?

• 1:11:33Matt Farah?

  It's not hard to see where this goes. Where this goes is because we're so used to following fucking ways and shit around. That when you particularly when we eventually do get to an autonomous car. Somebody's going to pay to have an AV route you past their shit.

• 1:11:54Speaker 01

  Yeah, for sure.

• 1:11:55Matt Farah?

  A hundred percent, hundred percent.

• 1:11:57Speaker 01

  Well, because we we know.

• 1:11:58Matt Farah?

  They're gonna hear you talking about wanting a fucking burger. And Applebee's has keyword burger on your AI pendant. And it's gonna route your fucking shit past whatever you were just talking about.

• 1:12:09Speaker 01

  Yeah. When you zoom in on Google for restaurant, the first pop ups are paid ads from big companies. And then you start seeing the mom and pop stuff.

• 1:12:17Matt Farah?

  Yeah. Uh, Murray says, uh, the coffee kicked in on, um, okay, wait. Oh, okay, where? The question is, is there a car where you unintentionally tested its driving dynamics? Due to coffee or Taco Bell mistakes, meaning you had to deuce.

• 1:12:37Speaker 01

  You had an unexpected bathroom necessity.

• 1:12:40Matt Farah?

  Yeah.

• 1:12:41Speaker 01

  And you had to drive very quickly to remedy that.

• 1:12:44Matt Farah?

  Uh.

• 1:12:45Speaker 01

  Probably, but nothing horrific that is seared into my memory, thankfully.

• 1:12:51Matt Farah?

  Yeah, I mean, I probably would have known if I if I hadn't made it. If I if I had actually deuced in the car as a result of not making it, it would probably be very memorable. But I think I've always made it and therefore it's gone, it's gone pretty quickly. I mean, I definitely, you know, when the when my cat Conrad died and I tried to race him to the vet to save him in the Mach-E and I broke. I must have broken a hundred traffic laws between my house and the vet, but it's not a great story. He died. He wasn't gonna come back.

• 1:13:27Speaker 01

  But how was the turn in? That's the question, Matt.

• 1:13:29Matt Farah?

  Well, it was really the, "I'm never using my phone as a key again," because it wouldn't, the car wouldn't unlock.

• 1:13:35Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:13:35Matt Farah?

  Because I didn't have my fucking phone. Uh, I hope Matt likes my username. I do, buddy. Um, "My dad sold his first car with an ad in Auto Trader magazine." Uh, "My grandma recalls that his Buick was on the cover of the magazine. I'd love to find a copy and gift it to my dad." "Google searches have not worked." Uh, "Have you, how do you find old issues of Auto Trader magazine?" Uh, I mean, "Have you tried going to autotrader.com and contacting their staff about specific back issues of the magazine?"

• 1:14:09Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's a good idea.

• 1:14:09Matt Farah?

  I mean, that's what you would do for any magazine.

• 1:14:12Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:14:12Matt Farah?

  I will say that for Road and Track, you can buy back issues on Amazon,

• 1:14:16Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:14:17Matt Farah?

  which I hate to advertise Amazon for anything, but like, I literally was like, "Road and Track 2004, blah, blah, blah," and I was able to buy a brand-new copy of that.

• 1:14:26Speaker 01

  eBay can also be a decent resource. I think Auto Trader, didn't they make one a week?

• 1:14:31Matt Farah?

  Yeah, Auto Trader was a weekly.

• 1:14:32Speaker 01

  It's printed weekly, right? So, the, the problem is that the volume of magazines they put out, like, someone would have to store 52 magazines a year versus 12.

• 1:14:41Matt Farah?

  Auto Trader may also be regional.

• 1:14:44Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:14:45Matt Farah?

  Meaning you'd have to get the office for your region.

• 1:14:48Speaker 01

  Surely is.

• 1:14:48Matt Farah?

  So, I mean-

• 1:14:49Speaker 01

  I would contact their head office.

• 1:14:50Matt Farah?

  The first thing I would do is go to autotrader.com and go to contact us and try to, they, someone, you're not the first person to ever try to do this.

• 1:14:58Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:14:58Matt Farah?

  Somebody will have an answer.

• 1:15:00Speaker 01

  And eBay hoarders might help you out. Someone has a stack of those magazines in Orange County.

• 1:15:05Matt Farah?

  Yeah. Uh, uh, again, from Bad Gardner, uh, with the Revuelto partially in mind, "Are there any cars with four-digit horsepower that you actually have interest in owning?" Good question.

• 1:15:17Speaker 01

  Yeah, sure. Uh, Bugatti, Chiron.

• 1:15:21Matt Farah?

  A Chiron?

• 1:15:21Speaker 01

  I would buy, sure. If I was super rich. I think it looks amazing inside and out. It goes like, "Motherfucker."

• 1:15:27Matt Farah?

  Yeah.

• 1:15:27Speaker 01

  Yeah. Konigsegg, sure.

• 1:15:29Matt Farah?

  Yeah, I, I mean, if, uh, all the money in the world, yeah, I'd have a Konigsegg. I, I, I, I think that would be exceptional.

• 1:15:36Speaker 01

  Um, I would also own a 1,000 horsepower Mark IV Supra.

• 1:15:39Matt Farah?

  Yeah.

• 1:15:40Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:15:42Matt Farah?

  I mean, look, if money is real, which it is, and like, if I, you know, the, the choice was to own one of these insane cars and nothing else, like really stretch the budget as far as it would go, and then be really irresponsible on top of that. Then maybe one? No.

• 1:16:05Speaker 01

  I agree. If I have to stretch for that purcha- like the news, the R1.

• 1:16:10Matt Farah?

  Yeah.

• 1:16:10Speaker 01

  I don't know if I would stretch my budget to 200 grand to buy that specific car, because I can get so many different other things for 200,000 dollars. Just to have that thousand horsepower, I don't think I would. But if money is no object, I like the cars enough where I would want to have them.

• 1:16:25Matt Farah?

  Yeah. There's, there's, there's plenty of cars at 500 horsepower where you go, ah, this is all I ever need. And you're right, it is. But there's other cars that are 500 horsepower where it doesn't necessarily feel like all of those are getting to the ground. And that's where you start to go, maybe a little more would do it here.

• 1:16:44Matt Farah?

  Let's see, of the, uh...

• 1:16:48Matt Farah?

  Oh, this is a callback to my mom. If my mom bought, what? Okay. So this, this calls back to a story where I tried to get my mom in 1997 to buy a Tahoe.

• 1:16:59Speaker 01

  Right, right.

• 1:17:00Matt Farah?

  Instead, she bought a Lexus RX 300, and she was right and I was wrong. The question is, of all the terrible cars being manufactured right now, what would you be most disappointed in if your mom bought it instead of a Tahoe?

• 1:17:15Speaker 01

  I mean, instead of a Chrysler 200?

• 1:17:18Matt Farah?

  If my mom bought an electric Hummer right now, I'd be more, more disappointed in her than if she bought a regular Tahoe.

• 1:17:23Speaker 01

  Shocked and so entertained. I'd have so many questions for Vivian. Oh, my God.

• 1:17:28Matt Farah?

  Were you here when my dad found out how much he had been scammed by buying an Escalade? So you know he had that Escalade?

• 1:17:36Speaker 01

  When?

• 1:17:37Matt Farah?

  He, so it was, he had, he had a driver for a while when he was at um Tory Burch. And he, but he had to supply the car. So he, he wanted a car. So he's tall. Escalade, durable New York City car.

• 1:17:52Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:17:53Matt Farah?

  And it turned out it was like a huge shit box. Like it was so bad. Everything was broken on it all the time. It was junk. And he got, he got 20K on the hood to buy it and it was still junk. Like that's how bad this thing was. This was uh not this current gen, but one back.

• 1:18:10Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 1:18:10Matt Farah?

  Um but uh he came out to LA with my parents, my mom to visit. And they rented a car while they're here and they rented a Tahoe. And it was the base, the base Tahoe, like the Hertz.

• 1:18:25Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:18:26Matt Farah?

  And he's driving it around and he goes, this is exactly the same as the car that I have.

• 1:18:31Speaker 01

  Same fucking car and he paid way more money.

• 1:18:33Matt Farah?

  And he's like, how much is one of these new? And I was like, you know, forty two thousand dollars. And he's like, he's like, I paid fucking eighty grand for one. He's like, this is the same thing. He's like, what a fucking bitch.

• 1:18:43Speaker 01

  With just a badge on the front of it. Yeah. And like slightly nicer buttons. Oh man, that's funny. You can never look behind the curtain, ever. Yeah. That is a rare opportunity one has. Like the same thing, I think of that when I see like GMC trucks.

• 1:18:56Matt Farah?

  Yeah.

• 1:18:57Speaker 01

  And AT4s and stuff and they look cool and they have a good hardware, but I'm like, the same thing is down the street.

• 1:19:02Matt Farah?

  Well, remember back in the day when Maserati first came out with the, with the Ghibli, the newer Ghibli, which was like, what, 2012 or 13 maybe? And we drove it on the press launch and we're like, the buttons are the same as in a Dodge Charger. And the guy with a straight fucking face said, the people shopping for this car will have never driven a Dodge Charger. And I was like, you're gonna, you're gonna die on that hill?

• 1:19:27Speaker 01

  That's a bet. That's a bet.

• 1:19:28Matt Farah?

  Crazy.

• 1:19:28Speaker 01

  That's an aggressive bet. Because I would actually counter that the people that aggressively finance Dodge Chargers, once they make a little money, will aggressively finance into a Maserati.

• 1:19:37Matt Farah?

  If they've got a Hellcat, the side piece drives a Ghibli.

• 1:19:40Speaker 01

  That's a Maserati heart they have. They're just driving a Charger today.

• 1:19:44Matt Farah?

  You know the house around the corner from my house where the guy's got like 15 Turo cars?

• 1:19:48Speaker 01

  No.

• 1:19:49Matt Farah?

  There's a dude around the corner from my house who's got a Turo spread and they're all on the fucking street. It's not my street, so I don't care, but like, he's got like two Sprinters, a Hellcat. He's got, he's got two Polaris slingshots. And just like, you know, it's, it's nothing, nothing like special, but like stuff that'll, they'll hit on Turo. Like, he's clearly running it, but, but he got a Ghibli and it's, it's wrapped matte orange.

• 1:20:21Matt Farah?

  It's like, holy shit, find him on Turo.

• 1:20:24Speaker 01

  That's a terrible car in every way.

• 1:20:26Matt Farah?

  It's not good.

• 1:20:27Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:20:29Matt Farah?

  What would I be the most disappointed if my mom bought instead of a Tahoe?

• 1:20:32Speaker 01

  Electric Hummer is strong. Oh, of course.

• 1:20:35Matt Farah?

  A Cybertruck. There's, there is no more embarrassing vehicle you can buy in the year of our fucking Lord 2025. It's the single most embarrassing vehicle you can buy today.

• 1:20:46Speaker 01

  Yeah. The Hummer H1 looks great.

• 1:20:49Matt Farah?

  Great, fabulous.

• 1:20:50Speaker 01

  And actually, it isn't that big.

• 1:20:53Matt Farah?

  Yeah, in terms of, in terms of like, yeah, age like milk, the Hummer H1 is not that big.

• 1:20:58Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's not.

• 1:21:01Matt Farah?

  Enrico Palazzo, what's the ideal working man's generation in spec 911? Use case, normal dude that just always wanted a 911 and was smart enough with his money to have a moderately priced toy. Uh, 997. Your 997 Carrera, absolutely the sweet spot of 911 ownership, I think. Save yourself $40,000 to $50,000. Keep 10 on the side for maintenance.

• 1:21:28Speaker 01

  Yeah, and they look good, they look classic.

• 1:21:30Matt Farah?

  Yeah.

• 1:21:31Speaker 01

  Even when they were new, it's got a decent interior for sure.

• 1:21:34Matt Farah?

  Yeah. So granny shifting, not double clutching like you should. Was impressed that I was able to ascertain that the Gunther Works power button was not accurately delivering the levels. It's commonly asserted that in the car community BMW and Porsche underrate the power levels on their car. And you've said before that the Mustang seems to, he wrote under deliver, but I wrote, I think I've said over deliver. How true or false do you think the claim is about BMW and Porsche? I think, I think the Germans, all of them, tend to measure their power outputs in sort of worst-case scenarios. Right.

• 1:22:16Matt Farah?

  You could be on any dyno, in any climate, and it'll put down the number. And so if you then proceed to test it in ideal conditions, it will exceed the numbers. Well, isn't the thing that Porsche does, they test, the 060 time is done with like gross vehicle weight and max, like full cargo, full people, and that's why when you empty it out, it beats like every time they beat their time. I don't know if that's true, but maybe. I mean, I know they, I know that they test their cars under pretty serious conditions. But. And like the dynos, we've seen this with Audi for a long time. Audi. When you put it on the dyno, it's making 100 more at the wheel than it is at the crank allegedly. Remember the, was it the S8? The S8 was like underrated by like 100 horsepower. Yeah.

• 1:23:01Matt Farah?

  Yeah. It's been happening for a long time. So I don't know if they just, they overbuild the engine and they know that they can trickle out these power increases for the life of the engine for 10 years. But when you actually put it on the dyno, you're kind of getting the real number. I'm not sure. And with Mustangs, it's like, I actually feel, I feel like I can feel the drivetrain losses. That's, it doesn't feel like the engine doesn't make the power. It feels like it gets away from you before it gets to the wheels. I think, I think the GT500 felt pretty honest. Different driveline. That's a Tremec, it's a carbon driveshaft. Yeah, but it's still a Mustang. GT-based cars, I just, they're different. Like you put, you know, you put, you put a Whipple on a GT versus the GT500, those are completely different

• 1:23:45Matt Farah?

  speeds of vehicle. Yeah. Even though they make the same advertised. It's like all the bushings in between engine and tire are just a little too squishy. 100%. Michael Cosgrove, favorite European country to drive in? God, is that tough because they're all fun. I, I think I'd have to go.

• 1:24:05Speaker 01

  Germany, only because the autobahn does exist, but you also like.

• 1:24:08Matt Farah?

  You have some mountains.

• 1:24:09Speaker 01

  There's some mountains which are good and twisty, and the tarmac's really good. And then you can go over like the high mountains if you want to and get really twisty stuff. Spain is also excellent.

• 1:24:18Matt Farah?

  Spain is fabulous, isn't it? Spain is fabulous, but I have to say Switzerland. I mean, there's just... Actually, oh, European. I would say New Zealand, but that's obviously not European, but, uh...

• 1:24:29Speaker 01

  New Zealand was so slow, though, in so many places.

• 1:24:31Matt Farah?

  It was, but it was gorgeous, and I think in the right car... I think we did it in the wrong car. We were in a minivan.

• 1:24:36Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 1:24:36Matt Farah?

  If you do it in a fun car, I bet it would be great.

• 1:24:38Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:24:40Matt Farah?

  But, yeah, man, there's nothing like Switzerland. It's just extraordinary. Uh, John Lynch, strangest and most useless option or added extra you've ever encountered on a car?

• 1:24:52Matt Farah?

  Oh, yeah, the open, and throws out the openometer. There was a gauge in the Mini Cooper that recorded the percentage of time spent with the roof down.

• 1:25:01Speaker 01

  That's adorable.

• 1:25:01Matt Farah?

  Which is crazy.

• 1:25:02Speaker 01

  That is very silly.

• 1:25:03Matt Farah?

  Um, I mean, the obvious is the Volkswagen New Beetle, the flower vase. That's very dumb.

• 1:25:09Speaker 01

  Is that an option?

• 1:25:10Matt Farah?

  Yeah, uh, it might have been standard, honestly.

• 1:25:13Matt Farah?

  Uh, let's see.

• 1:25:14Speaker 01

  I just had a thought, um...

• 1:25:18Matt Farah?

  I mean, back in the day, like, you could get a coffee maker in the dash of a Volkswagen Beetle, like a full-on coffee maker. That seems dangerous.

• 1:25:27Speaker 01

  Now you can just buy them at like a Buc-E's.

• 1:25:29Matt Farah?

  Yeah. FDR, uh, president, his car, had a car, had a machine that dispensed lit cigarettes, which I love.

• 1:25:36Speaker 01

  I used to think that the tent on the back of the Aztec was dumb, but now I car camp more and I kind of get it.

• 1:25:40Matt Farah?

  Yeah.

• 1:25:41Speaker 01

  And, you know, you can sell those to people that own Broncos and 4Runners all day long.

• 1:25:45Matt Farah?

  Um, the, the gauge in old BMWs that just moves back and forth and shows your miles per gallon.

• 1:25:51Speaker 01

  Oh, BMWs have that, too, yeah.

• 1:25:52Matt Farah?

  No, I'm saying, I'm saying BMWs.

• 1:25:54Speaker 01

  Oh, I think they do.

• 1:25:54Matt Farah?

  It's really just a throttle position sensor. That's very stupid.

• 1:25:58Speaker 01

  I think, I forget who first had it, but like, a touch button that opens the glove box.

• 1:26:03Matt Farah?

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:26:04Speaker 01

  And even worse is a glove box that's open through a screen. That is very silly.

• 1:26:08Matt Farah?

  Yeah. Those aren't really the questions, optional extras. It's like, I haven't, I mean, you really had a, you really had a very good one with the openometer. That is supremely stupid. I used to think the passenger screens were really stupid until I found this one use for the one with the Taycan. And now I think it's a little less stupid.

• 1:26:35Matt Farah?

  But that, they're kinda dumb.

• 1:26:37Speaker 01

  This isn't an option, but the Lotus Eletre, the cup holders in the, in the center console could be hidden. Meaning like you could depress it, it'd be a flat space. And then you press down on this velvet covered thing and it just descends it like a, like a nuclear missile silo. And now your cup holder's there. And then you press again and it rises back up to fill the gap.

• 1:27:00Matt Farah?

  I mean, it's a beautiful piece of design.

• 1:27:02Speaker 01

  It didn't work nice, but it was like, it was like, whoo.

• 1:27:04Matt Farah?

  Seems like a strange, yeah. Yeah, it seems like a lot. I don't know if I've seen any other.

• 1:27:11Speaker 01

  Useless options.

• 1:27:14Matt Farah?

  I don't know.

• 1:27:14Speaker 01

  I mean, wings on really slow cars.

• 1:27:16Matt Farah?

  Yeah.

• 1:27:19Matt Farah?

  Yeah, I don't know. I don't have, I don't have another one, uh, past that. That's useless options or.

• 1:27:30Matt Farah?

  I mean, if I think of another one, I'll come back. Dicky Tickets, uh, has an 08 RS4. Good choice. Considering swapping to a GR Corolla, interested in some track days and more fun weekend drives. I mean, thoughts related to fun and driving dynamics. I mean, the, the Corolla's gonna be much sharper.

• 1:27:48Matt Farah?

  Uh, you're gonna wanna beat on it more. The RS4 is a road trip car. It's good for open sweepers.

• 1:27:52Speaker 01

  It's a GT car.

• 1:27:53Matt Farah?

  It is. Um, if you're on a track day, you're gonna have more fun in the Corolla, uh, for sure.

• 1:28:00Matt Farah?

  Um, it may feel like a step back in refinement. It doesn't have lumbar support, things like that.

• 1:28:05Speaker 01

  It won't look as special when you get inside it, in my opinion. But I think dynamically, I, I feel like it feels more even. You go around a corner, you feel like the weight is being pulled from the front and rear 50, 50%. Whereas in the RS4, it's very nose heavy. I think that will reveal itself pretty well and it's probably gonna feel a lot lighter.

• 1:28:21Matt Farah?

  Yeah, like it's really hard to make an RS4 oversteer, but it's not so hard to do that in a GR Corolla. Engine Nerd wants my head shaving routine. I use the Brio Beardscape to buzz my whole head and face. And then in the shower, I do full head shaving cream. I let it mellow for like a minute and a half. It's gotta sit. And then I shave the top first, because that's the thinnest, wispiest bit of hair. And then I shave the sides, and then I shave the lower bits. And I work my way from top to bottom. And I have one mirror in the shower. I do not need a rear mirror.

• 1:28:58Speaker 01

  Now, why do you do wispy first? Because my brain thinks you'd want to use the sharp blade, fresh blade.

• 1:29:03Matt Farah?

  I use a fresh blade every time I shave.

• 1:29:05Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 1:29:05Matt Farah?

  And the reason is, I want the shaving cream to penetrate that thicker hair a little more.

• 1:29:11Speaker 01

  That makes sense.

• 1:29:12Matt Farah?

  There's not much resistance up top. Lot of resistance in this area. So I want an extra minute or two of shaving cream penetration. And with a new blade every time, that's sharp enough to get the job done.

• 1:29:24Speaker 01

  True.

• 1:29:24Matt Farah?

  Yeah. And then I use Keels aftershave, oil-free. Real nice. It's real good. I recommend it. It's very aerodynamic up there. Once you have a shaved head, it's really a delight.

• 1:29:38Speaker 01

  You gain two tenths when you do that.

• 1:29:41Matt Farah?

  My name is Lane, but I identify as Street. That's funny. I learned how to drive in a 1982 Volkswagen Transporter. That was double cab, that was used by the US military in Europe. What non-exotic or historically significant car would you bring to a car show to get the most attention? That's a fun one. Fire trucks would be a good one. A Sherp? I'd roll up in a Sherp, dirty, just park on somebody's roof.

• 1:30:10Speaker 01

  They had those in, I just watched the new Aliens movie.

• 1:30:13Matt Farah?

  They had Sherps?

• 1:30:14Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 1:30:14Matt Farah?

  Yeah. You roll up to a Cars and Coffee in a Sherp.

• 1:30:17Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's very unique.

• 1:30:18Matt Farah?

  You're gonna have some friends by the end of the day.

• 1:30:20Speaker 01

  I feel like the ramp truck used to get attention, but it's seen too frequently now.

• 1:30:26Matt Farah?

  I mean, you, I mean, wait, I'm gonna be rolling up in a, in an aircraft engine Myers Manks in a couple's months, you know, things, things with airplane engines are good. Uh, Zach's high centered STI, is there a populate, wait, do you think there's a chance that the popularity of station wagons in America will ever increase? If not, do you think if Volkswagen brought the Golf R wagon to the States, would that help?

• 1:30:51Speaker 01

  No, and no.

• 1:30:52Matt Farah?

  No and no. The Golf R wagon stinks. I'm gonna say it. It stinks. The proportions are not good.

• 1:31:00Speaker 01

  Not as good as the, yeah, yeah.

• 1:31:02Matt Farah?

  It's not a good looking vehicle. Just.

• 1:31:05Speaker 01

  I agree with you. The hatch is perfectly fine.

• 1:31:08Matt Farah?

  Uh, Christian Larson, just watched To Live and Die in LA, great movie, great car chase, and made me wonder, what are your favorite movies where LA is central to the film like a second character? Uh, there's a bunch, there's so many.

• 1:31:22Speaker 01

  Heat is very good. Fast and Furious kinda works.

• 1:31:24Matt Farah?

  Fast and Furious totally works.

• 1:31:26Speaker 01

  Um, what's the movie with Steve Martin in LA? The LA Story?

• 1:31:30Matt Farah?

  Uh huh.

• 1:31:31Speaker 01

  Like, that's very funny, there's a lot of good funny jokes in there.

• 1:31:33Matt Farah?

  Falling Down?

• 1:31:34Speaker 01

  That's true.

• 1:31:35Matt Farah?

  Falling Down is fabulous.

• 1:31:36Speaker 01

  I wanna rewatch that.

• 1:31:37Matt Farah?

  Uh, yeah, we should rewatch it. Um, I mean, Demolition Man, uh, the San Angeles Metroplex, although it was filmed in Irvine.

• 1:31:45Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:31:46Matt Farah?

  Um, let's see, uh, Pulp Fiction.

• 1:31:50Speaker 01

  Oh, that's true.

• 1:31:51Matt Farah?

  A hundred percent, Pulp Fiction, um.

• 1:31:53Speaker 01

  Oh, uh, nah, it doesn't really matter. I'm realizing there's a lot of action movies. Oh, Speed.

• 1:32:05Matt Farah?

  Yeah.

• 1:32:06Speaker 01

  Like, they jump the highway that was under construction and get on the, uh, the air runway.

• 1:32:10Matt Farah?

  The Lincoln Lawyer? Yeah, speed, dude, the entire, um, you know, Speed was just like, they had this highway, they had finished the 105, and it's like, well, what would you do if you had 20 miles of highway that hadn't opened yet? Like Hollywood? Like, let's fucking go, baby.

• 1:32:27Speaker 01

  There's gotta be a liaison one way or another, that's like, this thing's under construction.

• 1:32:31Matt Farah?

  Yeah.

• 1:32:32Speaker 01

  Or this building's falling down, what do you wanna do with it?

• 1:32:33Matt Farah?

  Yeah.

• 1:32:34Speaker 01

  Do with it, you know, demo it or something, yeah.

• 1:32:36Matt Farah?

  Beverly Hills Cop, one, two, and three.

• 1:32:39Speaker 01

  That's true. Yeah, a lot of rodeo stuff.

• 1:32:41Matt Farah?

  True Beverly Hills, it's fucking DL car guy movie.

• 1:32:45Speaker 01

  Die Hard was shot in LA, but it's just one building, so it's not as like LA centered.

• 1:32:49Matt Farah?

  Uh, Airheads.

• 1:32:50Speaker 01

  I forgot, that was LA. Insano Man.

• 1:32:54Matt Farah?

  Dude, Bill and Ted's. He loves San Dimas.

• 1:33:01Matt Farah?

  Ellen is very central to Bill and Ted's, for sure. Any Pauly Shore movie? In Sinoman, basically?

• 1:33:08Speaker 01

  Uh, Hollywoodland? What was it called?

• 1:33:11Matt Farah?

  Once Upon a Time in Hollywood?

• 1:33:12Speaker 01

  That's what I'm thinking of.

• 1:33:13Matt Farah?

  Yeah. Yeah, like all Quentin Tarantino movies?

• 1:33:16Speaker 01

  Good point.

• 1:33:16Matt Farah?

  Um, good question, though. Throw some D's on it. Top three race car liveries and what would you put on your personal?

• 1:33:23Speaker 01

  I reduced the number from 10 D's. Cause it was a little long.

• 1:33:26Matt Farah?

  Top 10.

• 1:33:27Speaker 01

  Top 10. You know what I really like right now is, uh, it's like AO Racing. They have the green, like Godzilla, it's a green dinosaur, um, livery on their 911 GT3 car.

• 1:33:37Matt Farah?

  That's fun.

• 1:33:37Speaker 01

  It looks very cool. Big teeth in the front and they're doing, they're pretty fast. Um, I like the old Apple computer one from the 80's.

• 1:33:44Matt Farah?

  Um, I like the dark Interscope, uh, one also from the 80's. Both of these are Porsche 935's. I like the, uh, Pink Pig Butcher.

• 1:33:54Speaker 01

  That was a good one.

• 1:33:54Matt Farah?

  I like the Porsche Psychedelic, uh, the long tail. The one, we have a model in the lounge.

• 1:34:00Speaker 01

  Yeah, that one's also very cool.

• 1:34:01Matt Farah?

  Uh, that one is one of my favorites. I would put Psychedelic Long Tail on my own, on my own car. I think that would be a pretty fun.

• 1:34:08Speaker 01

  The BMW, like streaking colors race livery.

• 1:34:11Matt Farah?

  Oh, that's, uh, is it Frank Stella?

• 1:34:15Matt Farah?

  I think that might be Frank Stella's art car and it is incredibly sick. Whatever, uh, the BMW M1 Pro car that, that raced at Le Mans, that was the art car? I think it was the Warhol car?

• 1:34:30Speaker 01

  The, not the M stripe colors.

• 1:34:32Matt Farah?

  No.

• 1:34:32Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 1:34:34Matt Farah?

  Did you find, was it Frank Stella BMW art car? Um.

• 1:34:40Matt Farah?

  John Player Special is great.

• 1:34:42Speaker 01

  Frank Stella did a couple of them.

• 1:34:44Matt Farah?

  Uh, the Liechtenstein is great.

• 1:34:48Matt Farah?

  Dude, there's so many fucking

• 1:34:48Speaker 01

  There's so many.

• 1:34:49Matt Farah?

  So many good race liveries. What race livery would you not want on your car?

• 1:34:54Speaker 01

  Golf?

• 1:34:55Matt Farah?

  Yeah, it's corny.

• 1:34:56Speaker 01

  It's just, it's a good, it's a, it's like putting, it's a gas company, right? So that's all it really is. It's just representing the company. And I think the cars did well. But when I see it on other cars that are not race cars, I go, it just doesn't look that good to me, so.

• 1:35:11Matt Farah?

  You know, we got at, we got in storage is a, a Calsonic Skyline.

• 1:35:19Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:35:19Matt Farah?

  And it's fucking, it's so

• 1:35:21Speaker 01

  That's a very simple livery. It's not like a pretty livery, but that car is awesome.

• 1:35:24Matt Farah?

  And the livery doesn't mean anything. It's just what the car represents. It's so important.

• 1:35:28Speaker 01

  You know what I don't like? When BMW brought back the art car livery like five years ago?

• 1:35:32Matt Farah?

  Yeah.

• 1:35:33Speaker 01

  And remember it was white and had like a dot on one side and a number and

• 1:35:36Matt Farah?

  Yeah, it was lame.

• 1:35:37Speaker 01

  There was a huge falloff.

• 1:35:38Matt Farah?

  But in general, that, I'm so supportive of art car livery.

• 1:35:41Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:35:42Matt Farah?

  Everybody should do it. Ex Patrick is driving in the US too easy, leading to more distracted drivers. I moved to Germany 11 months ago and between the smaller roads and ever-changing speed limits, I find myself more engaged. Well, the US is so big, dude. The US is huge. What does driving in the US mean? If it means driving on an eight-lane freeway in the suburb of Houston? Or does it mean driving in a windy back road in Greenwich, Connecticut? Does it mean driving a beautiful two-lane in Vermont? You know, it's like driving in the US, you know? Interestingly, when I went on the same, that, that launch I talk about all the time, we drove the same car in Germany and then in America.

• 1:36:27Matt Farah?

  And when we drove it across Germany, like, yes, driving in Germany was objectively better. The speed, the variable speed limits were there. The tarmac was great. Like, fucking trucks, trucks stayed to the right. Like, that was great. But what was interesting was, compared to driving in America, where I just drove like I would normally drive, but like, it's rather than being like 100K for 30 minutes, when I was changing my, varying my speed Ever so slightly, when I was sort of slowly moving through traffic as I normally do. You know, I usually drive just like a little faster than the speed of normal traffic and I'll slowly make my way through.

• 1:37:10Matt Farah?

  Which is not something I did in Europe. I found myself at the end of like a three hour drive, more engaged.

• 1:37:15Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 1:37:16Matt Farah?

  And, and I was sleepier in Europe, having to hold a hundred K for that amount of time. Even though I will totally admit, it was objectively better for everybody and probably safer to do it the way they were doing it in Europe.

• 1:37:31Speaker 01

  I think, I bet you'd find if you lived there that that would diminish over time because I know like when I go to Europe, I'm like Spain. You drive on the right side of the road, it's basically the same, but I'm very focused because I'm in a different environment. And things are slightly different, so I'm paying much more attention to everything.

• 1:37:47Matt Farah?

  Sure.

• 1:37:47Speaker 01

  So even if I just cruise on the highway, I'm still a little, remember when we were in England and we're, and we were driving the Lotus? And you and I both like were listening to music, it was like day three. And I got like, started to get a little comfortable and sing along with the song and I missed a turn right away. I was like, oh, I turned off 5% of my brain and I fucked something up.

• 1:38:06Matt Farah?

  Right.

• 1:38:07Speaker 01

  So I think, I think it's more engaging if it's, if, like he said, there's more variation. So if the speed limit's changing, if the, if the terrain is changing, whereas in America, you can drive across Texas for two straight days at 80 miles per hour. And it's like you barely turn the steering wheel ever. So there's just less to do sometimes.

• 1:38:25Matt Farah?

  Yeah. Keel and To, how does the Gunther Turbo compare to the Roof CTR anniversary?

• 1:38:31Speaker 01

  Oh.

• 1:38:33Matt Farah?

  They're diff, they're different experiences, they really are.

• 1:38:36Speaker 01

  The roof steering is lighter.

• 1:38:38Matt Farah?

  Yeah.

• 1:38:38Speaker 01

  It's just, it feels like a more.

• 1:38:40Matt Farah?

  Much narrower front tires.

• 1:38:42Speaker 01

  It's a narrower car overall.

• 1:38:43Matt Farah?

  Well, the roof they narrow, they cut down the, you know, as Freeman talked about, right? You know, they widen sort of from the center.

• 1:38:50Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:38:51Matt Farah?

  Whereas the roof, they keep the 993 cockpit and they just widen the axles out.

• 1:38:57Speaker 01

  You mean with the Gunther, right.

• 1:38:59Matt Farah?

  I'm sorry, excuse me, the Gunther.

• 1:39:00Speaker 01

  The Gunther, yes. The Gunther is all fender.

• 1:39:02Matt Farah?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:39:02Speaker 01

  And the roof is roof.

• 1:39:04Matt Farah?

  Yeah.

• 1:39:04Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:39:05Matt Farah?

  So, um, the roof to me feels lighter and the engine feels more like a, like a 996 engine. Like it's a water-cooled engine, right? So it feels like snappier in the way that the, um, the water-cooled engines feel. It feel, the roof was a little more playful. The Gunther was, the Gunther is just extremely hardcore.

• 1:39:30Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:39:31Matt Farah?

  Like, it's just so hardcore.

• 1:39:33Speaker 01

  Right. The Gunther feels more like race car for street.

• 1:39:36Matt Farah?

  Yeah.

• 1:39:36Speaker 01

  And I feel like the roof feels more like street car that's had a lot of power added to it in performance.

• 1:39:41Matt Farah?

  Yeah. It's, um, the Gunther is more of a workout for sure.

• 1:39:50Matt Farah?

  And I'm not sure I'd have felt comfortable like sliding it. The way that I was able to like after five minutes be like, let's just.

• 1:39:58Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's true. I mean, we're in a, we're in a closed location with the roof.

• 1:40:02Matt Farah?

  But still, I don't think I would have done that in the, in the Gunther. I don't think I would have even tried.

• 1:40:08Speaker 01

  I would have tried, but I wanted to be safe. I think, but I think I would road trip the roof. I don't think I'd road trip the Gunther because like we said in the video, it's so loud in there.

• 1:40:15Matt Farah?

  Yeah.

• 1:40:15Speaker 01

  I mean, it's really tiring.

• 1:40:17Matt Farah?

  Yeah, you could use the roof as a pretty regular car.

• 1:40:19Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:40:20Matt Farah?

  That would be tough to do in the Gunther.

• 1:40:21Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:40:22Matt Farah?

  It's a lot. It's very overwhelming all the time. Whereas you could probably cruise around pretty low-key in the roof if you wanted to. Yeah. There, but they're so different.

• 1:40:33Speaker 01

  Very.

• 1:40:33Matt Farah?

  They're just like, it's, it's cool that you're, that you can sort of choose that sub-adventure within the world of these sort of resto-modded Porsches. Even though the CTR is a carbon tub and not a resto.

• 1:40:47Speaker 01

  I know this will work, but maybe you'll understand. I feel like the roof is like going to see Muse and the Gunther is like you're going to see System of a Down. Or like something just a little, little harder, a lot louder.

• 1:40:58Matt Farah?

  Sure.

• 1:41:00Matt Farah?

  Timbo says, "Thoughts on the new EV Dodge Charger?" I went out to a thing where Dodge invited some journalists to dinner, like a week and a half ago at Father's Office. And Vin was there, Glucker was there, some other people were there. And the CEO of Dodge was there, Matt something, Matt Mick something. He was very nice.

• 1:41:31Speaker 01

  Matt McAllaire.

• 1:41:32Matt Farah?

  Yes, thank you. He was very cool. And he's like, pretty young dude.

• 1:41:36Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 1:41:36Matt Farah?

  Yeah. And I get what they're doing.

• 1:41:42Matt Farah?

  I really do want to try an electric Charger. And actually, I got to follow up with them to drive one. But I'm not sure who wants big two-door electric GTs right now. I'm not really sure who the customer is for that.

• 1:41:58Speaker 01

  Yeah, valid.

• 1:41:59Matt Farah?

  And they did the little fake exhaust noise for me. It sounds exactly like the Ioniq 5 N's.

• 1:42:05Speaker 01

  Really?

• 1:42:05Matt Farah?

  Engine, yeah. I can't believe nobody has said this in a review yet, at least. It's the same sound the Ioniq 5 N makes.

• 1:42:14Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 1:42:14Matt Farah?

  It's really funny. Like, it doesn't sound like a muscle car at all.

• 1:42:18Speaker 01

  It's that more like, it sounds like a cat. I remember the Ioniq 5 N was like, "Raaawww."

• 1:42:22Matt Farah?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's like a cat. Yeah, yeah. It's not like a cat. It's like a voiceover actor's impression of a cat. Through Auto2.

• 1:42:32Speaker 01

  They bought the sound from Thundercats. And then they just like piped that in because it was like a dollar to buy.

• 1:42:36Matt Farah?

  Yeah, yeah. Dildo. There's a space in there. "What non-car-related job did you have in the past that you enjoyed?"

• 1:42:47Matt Farah?

  I had the best job in the world, and I gave it up to do this one. Scuba diving instructor in the Caribbean. This is the best, best job.

• 1:42:54Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's like what Monty does now.

• 1:42:55Matt Farah?

  No stress, no money, but no fucking stress.

• 1:42:58Speaker 01

  No stress, though? You gotta be worried about people dying?

• 1:43:00Matt Farah?

  Nah.

• 1:43:01Speaker 01

  It was always fine?

• 1:43:02Matt Farah?

  It was fine.

• 1:43:03Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 1:43:03Matt Farah?

  It's always fine. I had to rescue a couple of people, though.

• 1:43:05Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:43:05Matt Farah?

  But like, but then I did. It was fine.

• 1:43:07Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 1:43:08Matt Farah?

  Yeah.

• 1:43:08Speaker 01

  It's on occasion stressful.

• 1:43:09Matt Farah?

  I mean, it's like mildly dangerous. It's not as dangerous as racetracks. Or, you know, half the other shit we do. And it was like, just girls in bikinis and fucking tropical fish. What's not to love?

• 1:43:20Speaker 01

  It's like a job that, I think if the job is something you do once you retire, it's probably a pretty cool job. Like, that's something you could do after.

• 1:43:26Matt Farah?

  Right, exactly, yeah.

• 1:43:28Speaker 01

  I would not go back to waiting tables.

• 1:43:29Matt Farah?

  Yeah, me and Monty are gonna be like fucking Morgan Freeman and Tim Robbins at the end of Shawshank. He's gonna be.

• 1:43:35Speaker 01

  He's gonna nail.

• 1:43:36Matt Farah?

  He's gonna be chiseling some boat and be like, "Hey!"

• 1:43:38Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:43:39Matt Farah?

  "I'm here with the money."

• 1:43:40Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, exactly.

• 1:43:43Matt Farah?

  Chris N., recommendations for attending a NASCAR event. Looking to go with a few friends to Talladega for a bachelor party. Do not go to any race in which you care about seeing the race. But that doesn't mean it won't be a good time. Get an RV, get in the infield.

• 1:43:59Speaker 01

  I think that's the move, right?

• 1:44:00Matt Farah?

  You need a home base.

• 1:44:01Speaker 01

  Yeah, otherwise you're gonna have to spend a lot of money to get like a box seat or something. Having the ability to go inside, especially when the race is six hours long.

• 1:44:09Matt Farah?

  Yeah.

• 1:44:09Speaker 01

  And you're sitting in the bleachers in the sun, you're just gonna get cooked.

• 1:44:12Matt Farah?

  Yeah.

• 1:44:12Speaker 01

  Being able to go inside, and then you're part of the nighttime party, which I'm sure is a thing.

• 1:44:15Matt Farah?

  That's exactly right. Uh... T-Bone Mendez, looking for a sporty GT coupe to go along with my Range Rover as a nice, nice weather daily. 50K budget, reasonable maintenance intervals, sound being the most important factor. Front runners, F-Type AMG GT, GT350, E63 M6 coupe. Missing any good candidates? Can you get an LC500?

• 1:44:49Speaker 01

  Can you?

• 1:44:50Matt Farah?

  I don't know.

• 1:44:50Speaker 01

  For 50?

• 1:44:51Matt Farah?

  If you can get an LC500 in that range, it should be right up there with the F-Type and the AMG GT.

• 1:44:58Speaker 01

  And it would, it will probably retain its value better than everything on that list except for the GT350.

• 1:45:04Matt Farah?

  Probably. They have a floor.

• 1:45:06Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:45:07Matt Farah?

  A high floor.

• 1:45:07Speaker 01

  People like them.

• 1:45:08Matt Farah?

  Yeah, and they didn't make enough.

• 1:45:09Speaker 01

  And they don't break.

• 1:45:11Matt Farah?

  Yeah. So, AMG GT, I wouldn't get a base GT. I'd look if, you're not going to get into a C. The one you really want is the C.

• 1:45:19Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:45:20Matt Farah?

  You're not going to get into a C. You might be able to get into an S. But there is a difference.

• 1:45:24Speaker 01

  They just did an article on Intercooler about that. The S's are pretty cheap.

• 1:45:28Matt Farah?

  Are they?

• 1:45:29Speaker 01

  I mean, they're cheap over there. They're probably cheap here, too.

• 1:45:30Matt Farah?

  Yeah.

• 1:45:31Speaker 01

  So, yeah.

• 1:45:31Matt Farah?

  If you can get into an S, it's worth your money. The F-types? The move is the V6S manual coupe. That's the best one. The V8s are really stiff. They're loud, but they're stiff.

• 1:45:44Speaker 01

  Yeah, they sound good, but I also don't think the interior on the F-Type is aged the way, like, the AMG GT interior still looks good and new to me.

• 1:45:51Matt Farah?

  Yeah, true.

• 1:45:52Speaker 01

  And then GT350 is just special. Yeah, totally.

• 1:45:55Matt Farah?

  True. Aiden Squires says, "Two more. Aiden and Nathan, and then we're going to call it. We'll save the rest for the next show." Uh, this isn't the fault of car reviewers, but it seems like most car reviews nowadays are only for top-trim models where the MSRP can be 40K, but the price is tested as 85K. Obviously, carmakers want to show off their top models, but it feels like you can make reviews biased without experience in the base model. Sometimes it's important to know what you don't get in a car versus the range-topping model. I totally understand your point, and if you had, uh, you know, a big, a big outlet and a bunch of people and the juice to ask, you know, Ford to send you

• 1:46:39Matt Farah?

  three versions of the same car so you could really experience it, I mean, that would be great.

• 1:46:47Matt Farah?

  You gotta see the manufacturer's side of why they would want to send journalists the top trims. I mean, not only is it the nicest version of the car, but it has options that you can then go describe how they work and what they do.

• 1:47:03Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:47:04Matt Farah?

  We do occasionally get base model cars. I mean, the 991.2 Turbo S I drove had a fucking price of like $102,000. The only fucking option on it was sporting sauce. It had no other options. That was pretty cool. We drove the 991.2 Carrera T. Had like very few options on it. So I totally understand what you're saying. And oftentimes, unless there is a very specific feature, for instance with Taycan or Panamera, if we wanted to test the hydraulic suspension, or test a car that has the rear steer, we could say, specifically,

• 1:47:49Matt Farah?

  can I get one with this? Or specifically, can I get one that's a manual or an automatic? Or specifically, can I get one that's not white or black for the center card photo? But it's very rare that we can say, I want an AMG GT, but I want a stripper one with no options, because they often won't really exist.

• 1:48:09Speaker 01

  Yeah. Yeah. Sometimes magazines get those, but it's also pretty rare to have those press cars around.

• 1:48:14Matt Farah?

  If there's ever one with no options, it's usually because it's going to like Motor Trend and they're going to weigh it. It's going to be like, yes, there is one variant of this car that's under 3,000 pounds, but it's 400 grand and won't have air conditioning. Okay, this is a long one, but we're going to end on it. One of the strangest criticisms levied against EVs, this is from Nathan Reynolds, is that it's all artificial induced demand predicated on government incentives and then pushing it on the consumers. For decades, the government has essentially subsidized the production of trucks and SUVs via various taxes, lenient safety and emission standards for light trucks and tax incentives

• 1:48:59Matt Farah?

  and write-offs. I agree, yet customers fall for it under the guise of the perceived advantage of them, safety, utility, space, etc. Why do you think this is? Why are we so quick to call out the artificial demand but so accepting of trucks and SUVs, despite the latter having a larger environmental and societal impact?

• 1:49:17Speaker 01

  Well, talking points get put forward and get injected, I'm not trying to be like a conspiracy theorist, but like if the story starts somewhere, either an article or a news story or something, that stuff oftentimes has, the genesis of that is a PR campaign. And if they want to campaign against EVs or against the administration that is supporting EVs, they will look at what stories might get people's attention. And, you know, calling out, quote, "artificial demand" and subsidies is a way to demonize your opposition. And they're not gonna, if a news story comes out saying people are really pissed off about subsidizing these EV companies, they're not gonna mention in the same story. By the way, we also do that for trucks and other things.

• 1:50:02Matt Farah?

  Well, and the way they subsidize them is incredibly subtle.

• 1:50:06Speaker 01

  Very true.

• 1:50:07Matt Farah?

  It's very subtle.

• 1:50:08Speaker 01

  There's no check.

• 1:50:09Matt Farah?

  Yeah, it's not a tax, a 7,500 tax credit, you know, on the hood to come buy one of these things. And also, it's, there's, yes, there's section 179 and there's all this other, all these other stuff. But I think it's a little too late for trucks and SUVs now, meaning in the beginning, it was, you're, you're gonna be rugged and you're a utility, and then it was, we made them drive like cars, and now they're, they're all so fast. And, and now, and also, it was like, you're higher, so you can see over cars, but then everyone got the same one, so now it's like even bigger, and we're in sort of escalating size war and height war and all that kind of stuff, capability, horsepower, etc.

• 1:50:57Matt Farah?

  There's so much profit in trucks and SUVs versus small cars and sedans and particularly versus EVs. EVs lose OEMs money right now.

• 1:51:09Speaker 01

  True.

• 1:51:10Matt Farah?

  And SUVs and trucks make them a huge amount of profit. So it is to their benefit to maximally demonize EVs so they don't have to make them and maximally market trucks, which is where their highest profit margin is. So all of the, you know, you're showing a family going camping in their Volkswagen Tiguan, even though like no one's really going camping in it, they're really just driving it around the same thing they're doing in the other car.

• 1:51:40Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:51:41Matt Farah?

  And so there's a, there's the American ruggedness, there's the I want a utility car, but that also does drives a car and it handles well enough and has good enough fuel economy. You're not thinking about the fact that that extra weight is going to be 10% worse and thing you hit and whatever. But the manufacturers and their representative lobbies or so, they want to force the or push the American people, incentivize them to buy the thing that is most profitable.

• 1:52:11Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:52:11Matt Farah?

  And to demonize the thing that is the least profitable.

• 1:52:13Speaker 01

  The root of the answer is always who benefits from the story that's out there.

• 1:52:18Matt Farah?

  Yeah.

• 1:52:19Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:52:20Matt Farah?

  Good question though, Nathan. Thank you, thank you very much. Thank you to everybody, our patrons particularly, of course, if you want to get your question in there, patreon.com/the smoking tire podcast is how you do it and we will see all of you next week.