Pod Insights The Smoking Tire Corvette ZR1X; Roma Spider Review; New Ultralight; Q&A About this episode Reviewing the Ferrari Roma Spider; the Corvette ZR1X is unveiled; a hint at our drive in the Meyers Manx radial; why Lotus is struggling; a new ultra-light stunner; and we answer a WHOLE bunch of questions.
Funniest tire names
Replace my E30 track car with?
The stunning, ultra-light Shoreline coupe
What car would we co-own?
Who most needs a halo car?
A car book we disagree with
Best normal commuter
Brick & mortar vs media businesses
Why Lotus is struggling
The best BMW since the E39 M5?
3 cars or 1 awesome car?
The lamest warranty claim we've had
And more!
Recorded June 17, 2025
DeleteMe
Get 20% off your DeleteMe plan when you go to https://www.joindeleteme.com/TIRE and use promo code TIRE at checkout.
Car Gurus
Buy or sell your next car today with Car Gurus at https://www.cargurus.com. Go to https://www.cargurus.com to make sure your big deal is the best deal.
New merch! Grab a shirt or hoodie and support us! https://thesmokingtireshop.com/
Use Off The Record! and ALWAYS fight your tickets! For a 10% discount on your first case go to https://www.offtherecord.com/TST
Want your question answered? Want to watch the live stream, get ad-free podcasts, or exclusive podcasts? Join our Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/thesmokingtirepodcast
Instagram:
https://www. Instagram.com/thesmokingtire
https://www. Instagram.com/therealzackklapman
Transcript 19,075 words · 2 speakers
Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.
0:00 Matt Farah? What's up everybody, welcome to the Smoking Tire Podcast. This is Matt Farah and we are, as always, brought to you today by Off the Record. I love Off the Record because they are looking out for me and they are looking out for you. Every day when we are on the highway together, presumably, we might do one or two things that go slightly outside what's printed on the signs. And when that happens and you get caught, don't plead guilty because it's not just about paying that fine and moving on. These things follow you. Your insurance, potentially your employment, who knows what else. You don't want points on your record. That's why Off the Record is called what they're called.
0:45 Matt Farah? They send a qualified attorney to fight any moving violation you might get. And as a result, almost all of the time, Off the Record keeps those points from your record. All you have to do is go to offtherecord.com/tst and upload a photo or a scan of the ticket along with a brief description of what happened and where it happened. Off the Record will then connect you with a qualified attorney who will fight that ticket for you. You don't have to go back and go to court. In fact, you don't have to do anything. And in the best case of scenario, you just get a text or an email a couple of months later that say, hey, by the way, that thing that you've forgotten about, it's gone now.
1:30 Matt Farah? Occasionally, it's not quite that good, but usually, in my experience, the resulting text or follow-up email is good news. So, go to offtherecord.com/tst to get 10% off all legal services booked through Off the Record. That's offtherecord.com/tst. 10% off from everything at Off the Record. Now, let's get on with today's show. All right, folks, on this episode of the podcast, I experienced some road rage karma. We've got a new Corvette with a very boring name. We review the Ferrari Roma and give some hints as to what my Myers-Manske's drives like.
2:15 Matt Farah? And we have some incredibly thoughtful questions from our patrons. It's the Smoking Tire Podcast, me and Zach are in studio. Let's go.
2:25 Speaker 01 Right.
2:25 Matt Farah? So, hi, everybody. Podcast, just talking about nothing. Um, things are, things are happening, things are, things are going on. I'm about to leave on a a four day road trip with the roads and the tracks. Doing a little route scout. Zach didn't frame his fucking camera right before the show.
2:43 Speaker 01 How do I frame it from here?
2:45 Matt Farah? I don't know. Usually you do that before I sit down and, um. We got big news. This is zero, zero one, zero one X. Uh, just dropped, dropped like a fat fucking post burrito deuce right on us. Everyone seemed to know about it, creating.
3:01 Speaker 01 That's a heart attack grill creation.
3:02 Matt Farah? Not us. That is, that is some most fucking American shit ever. We can talk about that. Um, we can talk about, um, the, uh, the Alpine A one ten, which is basically the opposite of that and why that is awesome and makes me so fucking angry. Um, but first, uh, a couple of fun, uh, little anecdote anecdotes for you, Zach. I have some fun ones for you. I saw. I witnessed a road rage karma. Complete, a complete movie, a vignette of life in which a road rage karma was fucking whoop.
3:43 Matt Farah? Right in front of me. It was unbelievable and it's such a great thing if you ever get to witness one of these in person. Hannah and I on Sunday were driving up the P C H, which is now open. In the spider. And apparently I was like an hour or two ahead of you, who was about to do the same thing with your wife later in the Alpine. Um, and P C H is open, right? And, and pretty much fully open. But there's a, a really strict thirty five mile an hour speed limit on it right now in the, in the damage section. Which people are adhering to.
4:19 Speaker 01 Yeah.
4:19 Matt Farah? People, people in L A are, are pretty much like. Okay, we didn't have it, you know, now it's a privilege. We understand it's, you can see it's a fucking wasteland. It's a hazard like.
4:31 Speaker 01 And before the speed limit there was whatever and people regularly went fifteen to twenty over and like crashed and everything. And now people go like six.
4:39 Matt Farah? I wrote a whole column about that for road and track like. And so now the speed limit is like thirty five and people are doing like forty. Which is actually probably the speed they should be doing on that road anyway. But. And there's a lot of enforcement. There's heavy CHP on the, on the road. They're all fucking over. Particularly on a Sunday, right? Lots of surfers and there, but there's not much else. So even with the low speed limit, there's not much to stop for anymore. So, so it does actually move uh in, in almost, it takes you almost exactly the same amount of time as it would have before, even though you're, you're, you know, just, you're, you're not going, I guess, as fast. So anyway, I'm in a group of cars that's doing forty from, you know,
5:24 Matt Farah? light to light, but there are a few miles between lights. Um, and, and, and I can see in the rearview, there's a white, like work truck. Uh, it's, it's a pickup, a fifteen hundred, but with some kind of like scaffoldingy thing on the bed. Like, I can see them doing the, just wild, the wild impatient maneuver.
5:46 Speaker 01 Yeah.
5:47 Matt Farah? And, and, and I don't, I don't want to judge what's happening in that person's life. Maybe they really were like, late for work. And speeding in and of itself, in my opinion, is, is, is not necessarily a moral crime. But this dude then made a shoulder pass, like an, and I was like, whoa, look at that! And now he's behind us. Now,
6:09 Matt Farah? it's between lights and everyone's doing the forty, but, but we're spread out a little more. No one's really get going anywhere. And he really does a couple aggressive moves to get through the pack. And at the front of the pack is a cyclist. And so everyone's using kind of some caution to go around the cyclist, whatever. I don't know if the truck doesn't see the cyclist or doesn't give a fuck. But the final move is a dive bomb that goes on as the guy in the right lane is passing the cyclist.
6:40 Speaker 01 Sorry, dive bomb, like where, where is truck man going?
6:43 Matt Farah? He's going from left lane to right lane. Right as the car in the right lane is slowing and inching over to get by a cyclist.
6:53 Speaker 01 Got it, okay.
6:54 Matt Farah? So this guy does the dive bomb across to the right lane just as the cycle pass is happening. I'm like, what the fuck? And I'm car number two. So he had dive bombed. He's, he's in front of me, car one of, and dive bombs across. I realize it's very difficult to tell stories like this on audio. I hope you're following me, but this dude dive bombed on a cyclist in front of me and I was like, motherfucker, that's crazy. And then once he's through, he's ripping. He's gone.
7:24 Speaker 01 Yeah.
7:25 Matt Farah? And I'm like, God, that's just, alright, you know, that's, that's just like real dangerous and like, antisocial to like what's clearly going on around here. Two miles up the road, he's pulled over on the side of the road with a fucking CHP, getting himself a ticket.
7:43 Speaker 01 Mm-hmm.
7:43 Matt Farah? And God, did it feel nice to see that. Like, just did. Just, you know, this guy was being a fucking shitbag. Of course, what was he doing as the CHP was standing next to him? Filming the cop. So, I can't wait to see his side of the video on social media.
8:01 Speaker 01 Yeah, that's true. You could testify against him for, uh, I mean, it wasn't, you weren't there for that infraction that he got pulled over for, but as character.
8:09 Matt Farah? And the cop has to treat that person like a fucking human. I'm not saying the cops should drag the guy out of the car and beat the shit out of him, but like, it was fucking nice to see, fucking, a little bit of karma happened there. It was a good feeling.
8:22 Speaker 01 I saw the opposite of that, uh, the other day. I was going to Costco and I was in like, there's a lane, there's a lane where you go straight and there's a lane to the right that turns right.
8:29 Matt Farah? Wait, what's the opposite of that? Okay, a cop runs over a homeless guy in a wheelchair and then gets elected sheriff before speaking at CPAC, running for senator in Nevada while living in California and getting elected president.
8:45 Speaker 01 I guess, I guess it's not exactly the opposite of that, but, no, that was very good.
8:48 Matt Farah? Straight example.
8:49 Speaker 01 It was very, it was just somewhat, you, you saw someone doing something and then immediately like getting in trouble for the thing. And I watched someone make an illegal right. In front of a police officer that I was sitting next to and the person just continued on their way. And I was like, what's the situational awareness training that goes on here because?
9:09 Matt Farah? Yeah, no, the guy was playing words with friends.
9:12 Speaker 01 Probably. It was just, yeah, no one cares.
9:15 Matt Farah? Oh, man. And so the Road Rage Karma was awesome. And so that was fun. And then also Hannah and I went to Mumford and Sons, which is a very white thing to say, and it was a very white thing to see. Just to see of whites. But it was at the Hollywood Bowl, which if you're gonna see like British folk rock, it's a great place to see it. The sound is fantastic at that place. And at one point, they did like a microphones off thing and wow, like, people can sing there without microphones. Like, that's pretty cool. But even within that, I saw something so white
9:56 Matt Farah? that I felt uncomfortable. And there was a guy like five seats down from us and we're like, not that it matters, we're like halfway up, whatever. Right in one of their more like well-known songs.
10:12 Speaker 01 I'll Wait For You?
10:12 Matt Farah? I think it might have been I Will Wait, but it's whatever. They're about to go into a banjo solo, as happens with Mumford and Sons, and one would hope that they do go into many banjo solos. A guy gets up, I mean, we're standing, I think we're probably standing, but the guy,
10:31 Matt Farah? in a move that would be like appropriate at like, the action would be like at a Motorhead concert. The guy goes, "Banjo solo!" Like with that level of vigor and like devil horns.
10:45 Speaker 01 I love it.
10:45 Matt Farah? And I was like, Hannah, Hannah, Hannah, that was, did you see it? And she's like, I stopped. You just, I know that was the whitest thing that could happen on this planet.
10:53 Speaker 01 No, that's great. That guy, he's a banjo player or enthusiast. He was definitely...
11:00 Speaker 01 Couple beers, a couple IPAs deep.
11:01 Matt Farah? You can picture the guy going, "Remy is gone."
11:04 Speaker 01 Yeah.
11:04 Matt Farah? Screams banjo solo at Hollywood.
11:08 Speaker 01 There are deep nerds about everything, my friend. And, uh, you know, rock on with the banjo solo.
11:13 Matt Farah? Oh my God, I'm the funniest one.
11:16 Speaker 01 He's been waiting for that the whole time.
11:17 Matt Farah? Bro.
11:19 Speaker 01 He plays, I bet.
11:19 Matt Farah? Waiting. Oh, yeah, yeah.
11:21 Speaker 01 He plucks. He plucks.
11:23 Matt Farah? Shout out to their, their new banjo player. I don't know if you recall what happened to their original.
11:27 Speaker 01 I have zero idea.
11:28 Matt Farah? Their original banjo player, right at the peak of COVID, started posting like mad right wingy shit on Twitter. And they got like a lot of heat and self ejected, rip corded from the band.
11:40 Speaker 01 I mean, look, the Venn diagram between banjo.
11:43 Matt Farah? Didn't get kicked out. Uh, ejected himself.
11:45 Speaker 01 Oh.
11:46 Matt Farah? And now they have a, they have, there are now three instead of a four. And actually, I felt a little bad because the stage set that, you know, at the Hollywood Bowl, it was the three original members wearing like white linen shirts at the front of the band and then like, you know, the studio guys basically backing them, right? And there was like a studio drummer, this studio banjo person and some studio horns. And they're all in like all black. And like the banjo is really important to this band. But this, I felt bad for this guy who was stuck in the back in black.
12:19 Speaker 01 Not ready yet.
12:19 Matt Farah? He's not, but he ripped.
12:21 Speaker 01 Well, he's ready, but he, yeah.
12:23 Matt Farah? He could play a mean motherfucking banjo, I would argue better than ex banjo player Winston.
12:31 Speaker 01 Well, when Metallica found their new bassist, the guy from Suicidal Tendencies.
12:34 Matt Farah? Yeah.
12:35 Speaker 01 In between there, did they just have session bassists that were like, did like, did they tour at all?
12:41 Matt Farah? Rob, no, they did not tour in between Jason Newsted and Rob Trujillo.
12:45 Speaker 01 Okay.
12:45 Matt Farah? No. Rob Trujillo fucking rips.
12:47 Speaker 01 He's awesome.
12:48 Matt Farah? Yeah, yeah.
12:48 Speaker 01 He's so good.
12:49 Matt Farah? Yeah.
12:51 Matt Farah? But yeah, the guy...
12:53 Speaker 01 You know what's funny is, because I listened to Suicidal Tendencies in high school, and even then in my era of like, west coast punk, I was like, "This is aggressive and fast." And then when I watched that, like, Building the Monster or whatever, where they hire Rob for it, and I was like, "Oh wow, like, he's probably toning down his skills for Metallica." Like, Metallica's like this biggest heavy metal band...
13:15 Matt Farah? There's a clip that goes around Instagram all the time where it is... So what is supposedly his audition, he plays battery with his fingers.
13:21 Speaker 01 Yeah.
13:22 Matt Farah? Which is like, not a thing that people do.
13:24 Speaker 01 Yeah, but he did, because he grew up... Yeah, he's so good.
13:26 Matt Farah? Yeah, Rob rules. They were fucking amazing when I saw them last year. Uh, one more funny anecdote. I got an email from a guy, shout out to Rob, who listens to the show and is an engineer at Apple and works on the Mac Pro. And he loved my story about the life of my trashcan Mac. And said that there's some people at Apple who still... Who are still there, who worked on the trashcan Mac, and they heard the story about my ode to the trashcan Mac and said, "Mad respect. It is a workhorse, you're using it, you're using it properly." They said they got a big laugh when I told them I air-gunned out fucking glass out of the fans, and it still works. That's pretty awesome. Um, but yeah, they said that's... It's... They said, um...
14:10 Matt Farah? And he did have a suggestion. He said, "An old trashcan Mac can... Uh, is uniquely set up to run a big video wall." Like, he said you could run a 3x2 grid of giant 4K TVs natively out of that as one display.
14:28 Speaker 01 Whoa.
14:28 Matt Farah? So he said, "If you can think of any reason to do that, you could do that."
14:33 Speaker 01 Let's take a corner of the basement and just make it the simulator corner.
14:37 Matt Farah? Yeah. The funny thing is, it doesn't have like a very good video card, but just in terms of like, monitor out, he said it's capable of that.
14:44 Speaker 01 Oh, okay.
14:45 Matt Farah? I mean, it has a good video card for 2013, but like, it probably would like, you know, it's probably great for like, this, not for, you know, playing video games.
14:55 Speaker 01 Not for running it, okay.
14:57 Matt Farah? But, uh, thank you to those guys for designing such a nice product. Um, okay, so, uh, I drove the Ferrari Roma, we never talked about that on the show. We can talk about that, the video's up. The ZR1X is out, we can talk about that. Um, we could talk about the Alpine if you want.
15:16 Matt Farah? What do you think, Zach? Guys, we gotta take a quick break from the action because support today is incoming from Delete Me. I've been talking about Delete Me for months now. And they've actually, they have kept their word. Because Delete Me does all the hard work of getting your personal information from data broker websites, which is where most like spam, text, assaults, fake calls, marketing stuff, spam emails, phishing, a lot of that comes from data broker websites, right? And so what Delete Me does is, is you tell them what your data is, which I know does sound a little counterintuitive,
15:58 Matt Farah? but they go to work on every data broker website out there, finding and making automatic like deletion requests to take down your information. Because these sites do have to do that on request. And so Delete Me then, once a month or so, sends you personalized privacy reports showing what they found, where they found it, and what was removed. Alright, they did this with me. I gave them my old addresses, my old phone numbers and email addresses, the contact info for like my parents and my family members, places I used to work, things like that. And, and man, they send me, the first report was like huge. It was 1,500 things that were deleted.
16:42 Matt Farah? And the next report a month later was like 500, and the two after that have been like 300. So I guess that's the amount that comes up every month. But it's ongoing, it's not a one-time thing. Delete Me is working for me all the time, monitoring and removing the personal information that I don't want out there. You can do it too, it's very easy. Take control of your data and keep your private life private by signing up for Delete Me. Now, a special discount for our listeners. You can get 20% off your Delete Me plan when you go to joindelete.me/tire and then use promo code tire at checkout. The only way to get 20% off is to go to
17:25 Matt Farah? Join delete me.com slash tire and enter code tire at checkout. That's join delete me.com slash tire code tire. We are also brought to you today by car gurus and car gurus has one basic mission. Okay, making car buying decisions smarter, easier and more transparent. Right? Because buying a car is hard. You never know where to look. You never know what's real and what's fake. You have ads that seem like they're designed to make you second guess yourself. Is this the best price, the right choice? Where is it with car gurus? You don't have to wonder. They have the most inventory of new and used cars. So you can find the best deal.
18:10 Matt Farah? And with unbiased deal ratings, price drop alerts and in-depth vehicle reviews. You'll make a decision you can feel great about because a big deal should never feel like a big risk. The way it works is that car gurus connects you with trusted dealerships. When you're ready, ensuring a transparent and hassle-free buying process. They have over four million listings, meaning car gurus has more listings than any other major online automotive marketplace in the U.S. So you can find the best deal. Car gurus gives you the control to shop how you want to shop with the tools, information and data-driven deal ratings that you need. And it's no wonder that similar web estimated traffic data shows car gurus is the number one most visited car shopping site.
18:54 Matt Farah? So you can buy yourself your next car today with car gurus over at car gurus.com. That's right. Go to car gurus.com to make sure that your big deal is the best detail. That's C A R G U R U S dot com, car gurus.com. And now back to the show.
19:14 Speaker 01 That's a lot of stuff. Well, let's, let's do Roma first because that was, because that was there a week ago.
19:19 Matt Farah? Yeah.
19:20 Speaker 01 And then maybe we'll see if we save LP maybe for the next time. Cause there's also a story I want to talk about. I need to read more about it before Toyota is being sued by hydrogen people.
19:29 Matt Farah? Oh yeah, I saw that.
19:30 Speaker 01 Is something worth talking about.
19:31 Matt Farah? I saw that. Yeah. Maybe we have hydrogen Brian on to talk about it.
19:35 Speaker 01 Oh, that'd be interesting.
19:37 Matt Farah? He's got five hydrogen Toyotas.
19:39 Speaker 01 Yeah. And then we need, we need someone from the anti hydrogen, you know, side for it. Like, uh, like a Hindenburg family survivor member or something.
19:52 Matt Farah? Yeah, and on the other side of that, we've got Sarah Hindenburg. Uh, okay, the Ferrari Roma. We've got, uh, this, this thing. Okay, the Ferrari Roma takes the Miata formula to its conclusion. You have a, uh, a front mid-engine, uh, sports car. It's the, the last actual, uh, way. Uh, really, uh, actually, hm, second to last way because the GTC4 Luso does still technically exist. I think.
20:25 Speaker 01 They still sell it.
20:26 Matt Farah? Does it still exist? Now, that's a question I should have thought of before this. Does the Luso still exist in new car forms?
20:34 Speaker 01 Still on Ferrari's website.
20:35 Matt Farah? It is? Okay, cool. So, you could, it's really just this and the Luso with the, uh, with the 3.9-liter V8 engine, uh, which is a good engine, very, very nice. Um, and this car is really, um, interesting because unlike the Aston Vantage, um, unlike, uh, the Mercedes SL, it clearly wasn't designed to really be a convertible from the beginning. They sort of did that later, and I don't know why they didn't do them together. Um, or if they did, there's like a lot of stuff that went wrong.
21:09 Speaker 01 I imagine it's the latter because, you know, the product planners, when they're built, I mean nowadays, like, they're designing a Ferrari, it's a GT Ferrari. They know people want a top-down version. Like, I'm sure the sales numbers for that are pretty good. But I know what you're gonna get to in terms of these weird compromises that they made. And it does, it's funny, it's like either they didn't plan for it, or they said, eh, probably eh.
21:32 Matt Farah? Which is, okay, because here's what I mean. And I wrote, even wrote on Instagram, and I said in the video, "It's a great Ferrari." Uh, not in this post, in the other post, whatever. "It's a great Ferrari, but it's not a very good car." And what I mean by being a great Ferrari, I mean, it rides, handles, turns in, sounds, goes, stops beautifully. It's, fuck, it's so fast, but it actually, looking over the fenders... When you're sitting in it, it's got a lot of like what you get from a Miata. And I don't mean that in a bad way. It's that traditional front rear roadster. But with a mostly mid-engine neutral handling.
22:12 Speaker 01 And you're sitting real far back, kind of right near the rear axle.
22:15 Matt Farah? Yeah, you're sitting, everything is between the two axles. So it rotates really, really nicely around the driver in a way that very few front engine cars will do. And it does it without rear steer. You know, it does it without a lot of super fancy schmancy technology besides good weight distribution and geometries. Now it has Mag Ride, that's great, those are good shocks. And the difference between comfort and sport is like, right on, it's Ferrari. They could, they'll nail, I'm not concerned with Ferrari shock tuning really ever. But what, when I say it's a bad car, it, look at it, it looks like a GT car, right? More or less, like, so I need to be able to take this thing away on a weekend somewhere.
23:00 Matt Farah? And the fact that it has rear seats removes a lot of the usability of what could be a nice parcel shelf.
23:10 Matt Farah? And where the, if you, I don't have a photo of it handy, but in the video I certainly show it. The trunk is cut in half by where the top has to go. So you really can't fit anything in the trunk either.
23:23 Speaker 01 And it's, in that shot, it reminds me of the Portofino I drove in Italy and the California before that. I mean, the California had that very tall trunk. And here they may have just hidden it better, or they've found a way to just package it a little better. But basically you have a shelf, like if you open the trunk and look in it, it looks like there's a giant CD changer. Where the top goes and you can't put anything above there. And then you can only put things below it, which as you showed was only two fists tall.
23:49 Matt Farah? Yeah, like you couldn't, you can't fit a, one single rolling suitcase, which for, like, for some weird, super specialized mid-engine cars, like, okay, fine, I need the fitted luggage or I have to make some compromises. But like, this is supposed to be the normal one. Like, don't tell me that a 296 has like better usability and trunk space than this. If so, why would I buy this? Like, it's, it drives great, but like, it's not like roomier in the front.
24:23 Matt Farah? Uh, it's not faster than the mid-engine offering and the convertible mechanism is not as good as the convertible offering like, and this was $450,000. So it's not like it's so some value proposition versus a mid-engine car. I just, I
24:38 Speaker 01 I guess real quick, it does start a hundred grand cheaper.
24:42 Matt Farah? Than a 296?
24:43 Speaker 01 Or 50 grand cheaper than a 296.
24:45 Matt Farah? But with options, you can wash out, this car had $170,000 in options on it. Not that everybody's gonna get that, but with a Ferrari, 50 grand in difference in base price, it'd be washed out with one or two options. Um, and then it's hard, it's hard to see in this photo, but there's three-quarter windows, uh, in this car that don't go down all the way.
25:08 Speaker 01 Yeah.
25:08 Matt Farah? You can see there's a little bump there. And so with the top down, it looks like the windows aren't all the way down. Like, that is such a crazy oversight to me for a company that only, in theory, makes pretty cars. Like, that's crazy.
25:24 Speaker 01 Do you think, and, and I was gonna say, do you think it's to stop air from going around your neck or something?
25:31 Matt Farah? No.
25:31 Speaker 01 But it sticks up, it's so small. It's like an inch, an inch and a half. So, not that that can't affect your aerodynamics, but like, it does look like a packaging compromise that had to be made.
25:42 Matt Farah? It does. It looks like a
25:43 Speaker 01 You know, the window can only go so far into that wheel well area, and that's kind of what they have.
25:48 Matt Farah? I look old Ferraris all the time. My, one of the things, very few things I didn't like about my 328 was that the window didn't go all the way down. When I wanted to drive around my elbow on the window, there was like an inch of glass at the bottom. I was like, well, this sucks. But, you know, it's Ferrari, so whatever. But I, I did not think in 2025 that that would be a thing. That they would make a car where the, where the window doesn't go all the way down. A convertible where the window doesn't go all the way down. Like, that's wild.
26:16 Speaker 01 Yeah. It's the, it's the rear window, but it is very strange looking. Cause it, cause it upsets the smooth shape.
26:21 Matt Farah? Yeah.
26:21 Speaker 01 That's the thing. Go ahead.
26:23 Matt Farah? And so, you know, if you're really shopping for a front-engine, rear-drive, you know, car, the V8 Vantage, or it's not a V8 Vantage, it's just called the Vantage, I'm sorry. The Vantage Roadster has, is a better convertible, for sure.
26:46 Matt Farah? You know, a Ferrari engine and gearbox is an amazing draw. And with this engine at the front of the car and a long exhaust going at the back of the car, it's a very awesome and unique sound. The gearbox is amazing, the ride and handling is amazing, like it is a Ferrari. It's you, you're not gonna forget you're in a Ferrari. But it's like the Vantage Roadster, the top mechanism is better. That doesn't have that bustle, but it goes down in seven seconds. This is 14 seconds. They Aston doesn't even attempt a rear seat, which is a much better solution to this problem. It's it, it, it opens up space that can just be used in such better ways. You can fit luggage in the Aston better.
27:30 Matt Farah? I think the ride and handling is it's six and one half dozen of them. They both turn in fast, rotate great, they both have great brakes, they both have a great ride. The Aston is much, much more usable. The UI is so much better. Ferraris are misery to drive with. They're just, everything is stupid with them. The, the, the screen like froze up a couple of times, like it's just, that stinks.
27:55 Speaker 01 And then all the haptic stuff, of course, is still there.
27:58 Matt Farah? And to a certain extent, I will put up with some stuff to drive a Ferrari. But what I don't wanna do is put up with some stuff to drive the normal Ferrari that can't then do normal stuff.
28:08 Speaker 01 Yeah, it's, it's the weight of the compromises, you know, pros and cons.
28:12 Matt Farah? Yeah.
28:12 Speaker 01 On the, the teeter totter scale.
28:14 Matt Farah? Yeah.
28:14 Speaker 01 So like if you wanna deal with, if you wanna deal with the haptic stuff, capacitive stuff in a Ferrari, we'll do the 296, cuz then it looks like a supercar, feels like a supercar and does, you know, a lot of the things this does. It does it just as well.
28:28 Matt Farah? Yeah, like this, this, this is a well executed driving experience. It's great. And you're going, of course it is, it's a fucking Ferrari. How bad could it be? Like, I've driven bad ones, like they're, they're out there. It's, it's great to drive and it's great to drive with the top down. And it's actually pretty nice to drive with the top up also. Although I do think the top looks a little weird when it's up. It looks like it's sitting, the back part is sitting on top of the bodywork. It doesn't get tucked under the bodywork the way that some other cars do. But it's really weird to me that this is supposed to be the normal one and it doesn't do normal Ferrari things very well.
29:13 Speaker 01 Oh, I see what you mean. Here's a...
29:15 Matt Farah? See, if you can get a photo of it with the top up.
29:17 Speaker 01 Yeah, there's one...
29:21 Speaker 01 Right there.
29:22 Matt Farah? So, right there, is there another one where maybe it's looking from the rear a little more?
29:26 Speaker 01 Uh, maybe, but I think...
29:27 Matt Farah? Those Pentastar wheels look cool on this one.
29:29 Speaker 01 Right here, I see you mean like the back of the soft top.
29:32 Matt Farah? Yeah.
29:33 Speaker 01 Almost like a gap, like a half inch gap between that and the bodywork.
29:36 Matt Farah? So, yeah, so in that gap is actually the third brake light. So, it's weird, it's like it was sort of intentionally designed that way.
29:44 Speaker 01 Oh, it's right here.
29:45 Matt Farah? But the result isn't that good. It just sits on top of it. The Aston, it tucks underneath and it's a much tighter, cleaner look, I think.
29:53 Speaker 01 You know, it'd be... So, in this picture, it's from Motortrend, but the top is black, the third brake light housing is black, and then the car is like this, I don't know, aqua, metallic, whatever. So, that's why it makes it look like a weird gap between the two body panels. Maybe if the top was tan.
30:08 Matt Farah? Dude, in the one that... No, the one that I had, it was the paint was this gorgeous metallic matte bronzy green thing, and the top was a dark colored top. So, it wasn't exactly the same, but it wasn't a hyper contrast either, and it looks weird.
30:22 Speaker 01 No, no, I'm wondering if the top was like a tan or red.
30:24 Matt Farah? Oh.
30:25 Speaker 01 Would it be better? Because it would be more obvious that it's a brake light housing and not...
30:29 Matt Farah? Yeah, maybe.
30:30 Speaker 01 The top.
30:31 Matt Farah? It's not, it's not great. It's just, that kind of bothers me. So, um, look, I did love driving this thing. It drives, it drives awesome. You're gonna have, you're gonna have a real nice day on the mountain if you got one of these things. It's fast and it is, it is a very, very pleasant motoring experience, but, man, I'd really like to be able to carry a few more things. It's the kind of thing you want to hop in with your significant other and go away for a weekend in.
31:00 Speaker 01 Totally.
31:00 Matt Farah? And it, it really doesn't... There's, there's so many cars that are less annoying to do that with. So, um, the video's up and you can see how fast it is in the video and now how great it sounds. Um, and there's a whole lot more, but yeah, um, it's, it's probably not the Ferrari I would want. If I was go, if I wanted a convertible roadster, the cream of the crop right now is, is the Vantage roadster. That thing is fucking titties, titties. Or, you know, it's less interesting, but, but unquestionably effective would be, you know, a 911 turbo convertible, but.
31:36 Speaker 01 And you know, I just looked up the length, the, the Roma's actually longer by six inches than the, uh, the Vantage. Like, so the packaging of the Vantage is just clever.
31:45 Matt Farah? Seat, the backseat wastes all this space.
31:49 Speaker 01 Yeah.
31:49 Matt Farah? It's all, you get rid of that, it solves so many problems. You can put the roof there, you could put a parcel shelf there, you can get a little more legroom, because believe it or not, I'm like an inch, inch short.
32:00 Speaker 01 We should ask Ferrari, how many of their customers actually say they use the backseat for humans versus backpacks?
32:06 Matt Farah? I think there's some kind of tax or something implications with a four-seat, insurance with a four-seat car. But if you want a four-seat Ferrari, get a loose, if they're still making a Lusso, get that. That's, that's the four-seat Ferrari to have. Got a hatchback, you got real rear seats.
32:22 Speaker 01 Yeah.
32:22 Matt Farah? Them's the jam.
32:26 Matt Farah? Zer-1X?
32:27 Speaker 01 Zer- Xerx.
32:28 Matt Farah? Zer-1X.
32:29 Speaker 01 Try, ask your doctor about Xerx.
32:30 Matt Farah? Ask your doctor, we should make another fake, uh.
32:33 Speaker 01 We should, that was fun.
32:34 Matt Farah? Fake, uh, medicine commercial, that was good. Um, yeah, just saw it this morning, uh, they, I, I, Corvette, uh, GM continues, or specifically Chevrolet continues to come up with thoroughly uninspiring names for their stuff. They can't, they can't help themselves. The only thing Mopar does well is naming shit. Fun names. They had one going, this was gonna be Zorov for like how many years? And that would've been nice.
33:05 Speaker 01 It would've been great, and it would've attached to something in their history. Which, that's what, what every car company does to some degree is attach. A new product or thing to history and sometimes the connection is so thin.
33:16 Matt Farah? Yeah.
33:17 Speaker 01 That you could see through it, but this would have been a good one.
33:18 Matt Farah? Would have been a good one.
33:19 Speaker 01 Zora Dunk Talk.
33:20 Matt Farah? They had a bunch of other, they had Blue Devil, they were, they were kicking that around for a while.
33:24 Speaker 01 Look how much runway they've gotten with the Jake Skull thing.
33:28 Matt Farah? Yeah.
33:28 Speaker 01 It's everywhere and people think it's cool and tough.
33:30 Matt Farah? Yeah.
33:31 Speaker 01 Why not, Zora would have been good.
33:32 Matt Farah? Yeah, ZR1X stinks. Using X as an all-wheel drive, not the car.
33:39 Speaker 01 Yeah.
33:40 Matt Farah? Car looks pretty insane.
33:41 Speaker 01 I'm sure it's good.
33:42 Matt Farah? I'm just saying, they, GM, their whole history has been weird nomenclature stuff that doesn't sound cool.
33:49 Speaker 01 Well, this is very BMW, it's, it's the ZR1X, so it's, you know, X drive.
33:54 Matt Farah? Yeah.
33:55 Speaker 01 All-wheel drive, extreme, whatever.
33:57 Matt Farah? Using X for all-wheel drive is tired, it's tired, honestly.
34:02 Speaker 01 I just say it's BMW's game, so.
34:04 Matt Farah? It's a lot of people's game.
34:05 Speaker 01 Let it be their game.
34:06 Matt Farah? Yeah, it's a lot of people's game, but it is mostly identified as BMW thing, but having said that, we did expect this car. The E-Ray front axle, it's now been updated a little bit, but it's the E-Ray front axle compared with the ZR1 back half. 1,250 horsepower, you know, they, they, they, they came, first they came for the supercars and I didn't say anything because I didn't have a supercar. And then they came for the hypercars, I didn't say anything because I had a hypercar, then they came for the hypercars.
34:37 Speaker 01 And there was no one to speak for me.
34:39 Matt Farah? What is Manny Cospin gonna do other than say, "Not guilty, your honor."
34:44 Speaker 01 Oh, I just started seeing that on.
34:45 Matt Farah? You see that on Baller Busters?
34:46 Speaker 01 I've just started following it.
34:47 Matt Farah? Oh, God, Manny Cospin.
34:49 Speaker 01 If someone on YouTube is selling you a course and telling you that they're rich from something else, they might not be. Because why would they need to sell you the course, out of the goodness of their heart, no, they just want to make more money.
35:00 Matt Farah? Yeah.
35:00 Speaker 01 Be very cautious.
35:01 Matt Farah? You know, this is going to be a psycho death missile, obviously. The speed at which the car will have exited the road, your honor, will be extraordinary.
35:11 Speaker 01 It looks cool, man, I like this, this, this front hood, trunk thing with like, the pass-through, the radiator is rad. I like the little winglets on the back rear fenders.
35:21 Matt Farah? Yeah.
35:21 Speaker 01 They look cool.
35:22 Matt Farah? Yep, I like the top, the top mount intakes there, those are a good time. Um, no, all of this seems like a very good time. You know what got me really thinking about though? ZO6s are about to get cheap.
35:36 Speaker 01 Good point. And they're amazing. That's a fantastic car.
35:40 Matt Farah? You could already get a very low mile ZO6 for like a hundo. You, the ZO6s, especially because now with ZR1 and this, all these guys, fucking...
35:53 Speaker 01 Speaking of usable drop-top Ferraris.
35:56 Matt Farah? Hmm.
35:56 Speaker 01 The ZO6, which sounds like a Ferrari, feels like a Ferrari, has a bigger trunk and costs nothing. Doesn't look like one, of course, but...
36:03 Matt Farah? Does a ZR1 go no trunk? Does it eliminate frunk? It seems like it might eliminate frunk.
36:08 Speaker 01 It looks like it eliminates frunk.
36:09 Matt Farah? But it looks like it has some rear.
36:11 Speaker 01 Probably.
36:12 Matt Farah? Yeah, it's got a rear trunk.
36:13 Speaker 01 Let me see if there's a difference.
36:14 Matt Farah? Yeah, look, I mean, it looks like they, it looks like it's probably the same as a ZR1 at the rear.
36:18 Speaker 01 Yeah, I'd imagine so.
36:20 Matt Farah? There is some trunk there in ZR1, yeah.
36:22 Speaker 01 Yeah, but it's got a pass-through radiator in the front, like 4GT.
36:25 Matt Farah? Like GT3RS and 4GT, yeah. Dude, it looks awesome. I mean, I don't know about you, but I think the meaner they... Some cars look better, like cleaner.
36:35 Speaker 01 Sure.
36:35 Matt Farah? Right? Like, you could argue that like the original, like Huracan was a cleaner design, or the original Aventador was a cleaner design. Yeah, right? But I actually think the C8 looks better when they start tacking more shit on it. I think it goes the other way.
36:51 Speaker 01 I, because it seems like it was always designed to do that, and it seems like they tamed it down for the first one.
36:56 Matt Farah? Right.
36:57 Speaker 01 And it's, but it's so angular and, and big in some places that when they start widening the fenders and adding wings, it actually balances out that stuff.
37:04 Matt Farah? Yeah, and like those top-mount scoops fill in and otherwise like empty bane of body, you know, and, uh, and the more and more aggressive like side scoops make it sort of more Lamborghini and McLaren-like.
37:18 Speaker 01 It all, in stock form, the Z51 kinda looks like a Manseried, uh, like 488, so you might as well just go all the way with it, you know? Like, they took a smooth shape and made it real sharky and aggressive.
37:30 Matt Farah? Yeah. But I mean, I, I'm pretty stoked. Uh, while what it's not to be stoked about, uh, it's some, it's insanely fucking powerful and says zero to 60 in like two seconds and, uh, you know, it's probably 250 miles an hour or something.
37:47 Speaker 01 Quarter miles in like nines.
37:48 Matt Farah? Yeah. I don't know who's going to be able to use that, but alright, here we go.
37:55 Speaker 01 I mean, that's never been important for selling cars, though.
37:57 Matt Farah? No, it is not.
37:58 Speaker 01 It'll be very cool to test how the front, uh, front-wheel drive like balances out. Like, does it do what the NSX did, where it really tames it, makes, gives you perfect steering, all that stuff?
38:09 Matt Farah? Well, as you can see, and we happen to have stopped on this, this thing here. Uh, this graph of the front motor, it's one motor.
38:16 Speaker 01 True, sure.
38:16 Matt Farah? The NSX was two motors.
38:18 Speaker 01 That is definitely more.
38:19 Matt Farah? And there is a huge difference in between the, let's call it magic-ness of the front end of an NSX or a 918 Spyder and the E-Ray. The E-Ray, it's not as good at the front. Like, it's better than not having anything, but it's, it's limited into what it can do in terms of the torque vectoring. And you have to change how you drive to make it effective more so than you do with the NSX.
38:52 Speaker 01 But is the E-Ray, is there like clutch-activated, like, ELSD system up there that distributes power? It still won't be as precise as two motors.
39:01 Matt Farah? Like, yes, there is, but it's, it's not, it can't, it, no, it can't break, it can't under-drive one and over-drive the other one.
39:11 Speaker 01 Right.
39:11 Matt Farah? Yeah.
39:11 Speaker 01 Yeah.
39:12 Matt Farah? It can't do it, it, it has one power output with a, with an actual differential, and then it has brake vectoring. So it doesn't, it doesn't do true.
39:23 Speaker 01 Right, it gets close, but it's not as good, like, the reason that the Lucid is so good is because of the motor control, or most electric cars, actually.
39:30 Matt Farah? Even, um, when I went on the launch for the E-Ray, they were much more about, uh, it was very,
39:40 Matt Farah? it was, it was a choice, and it was, I can think, the more probably typically American choice. They were more concerned with getting the power down off the line on a launch, as well as, um, confidence in bad-weather driving.
39:54 Speaker 01 Makes sense.
39:54 Matt Farah? They were much, there was much more of that than it was, "We want to create magical steering."
39:59 Speaker 01 Right.
40:00 Matt Farah? Um, and so, that's a choice, that's fine, and so that's, and so actually, you know, above...
40:07 Matt Farah? A relatively low number. The e-motor is doing almost nothing.
40:11 Speaker 01 I was just about to ask that question.
40:12 Matt Farah? It was really, it helps you pull out of hairpins, it helps you get off the line. And it does do a bit of torque filling in the gear changes. But above like regular highway speeds, it's doing almost nothing.
40:23 Speaker 01 Yeah, so for a track work or something, it, once you're out of that corner.
40:27 Matt Farah? Yeah, if you're, if you're cornering at above 60 or 70 miles an hour, which is like any medium or high-speed bend and anything but a hairpin, the e-motor's not really doing anything.
40:37 Speaker 01 And at that point, it should feel very similar to a ZR1. Because those are real drive only, same engine, etc., etc., a little different weight, okay.
40:45 Matt Farah? Yeah, I mean, the e-ray, when you're, you know, pulling it above a certain speed, I don't want to say it's not doing anything, I think that's not fair. I think it's not doing much handling-wise at higher speeds. Because I think the e-ray does, if you were to do a 60 to 120 acceleration versus a Stingray, the e-ray is noticeably quicker. So it is doing something.
41:11 Matt Farah? It's just not doing the magic steering.
41:13 Speaker 01 Right.
41:14 Matt Farah? But, but it is there. It's, this thing is gonna be pretty wild. But yeah, at above 70 or 80 miles an hour, it'll probably feel more like a ZR1. Yeah. Uh, which we haven't had to try yet. Gotten to try yet, I said, had one to try yet.
41:33 Matt Farah? But like, this is, Corvette's gonna Corvette, that's what they do. They take the, they take the, the top thing. And they basically match it in, you know, performance numbers for, you know, a third or quarter of the price, right?
41:47 Speaker 01 Yeah.
41:47 Matt Farah? So if this is gonna be, you know, 270 or 300 grand and it's competing against a KoenigZig or something, like, alright.
41:57 Speaker 01 It's competing against things that have two commas.
41:59 Matt Farah? Yeah.
41:59 Speaker 01 Like, that's, right, that's it.
42:00 Matt Farah? Pretty much.
42:01 Speaker 01 The only competition with this power. And because Corvette is Corvette and they have a racing background, like the dynamics and everything, will also be.
42:08 Matt Farah? Maybe they would say SF90. There's an argument that SF90 and that's, you know, that's probably accurate.
42:16 Speaker 01 Yeah.
42:16 Matt Farah? I bet this will destroy SF90s in any possible racing competition.
42:22 Speaker 01 What is it, I wanna, what does SF90 weigh? I haven't.
42:25 Matt Farah? Oh, it's heavy. They're like 3,800 pounds. That's a heavy car.
42:32 Speaker 01 Typically ranges to 39, 37.
42:34 Matt Farah? Yeah. They is a heavy car.
42:36 Speaker 01 Wow.
42:38 Matt Farah? So yeah, that's sort of what's happening in our little world.
42:44 Speaker 01 Alright, well, we do have a lot of questions from folks. We can save the A10?
42:49 Matt Farah? Yeah, we should save that until, because the video's next week, right? Let's, yeah.
42:54 Speaker 01 I think it's two weeks, because you said it's July with the sponsor.
42:56 Matt Farah? Maybe we'll give them a thing, but, no, it's June 25th. It's when it has to go up.
43:01 Speaker 01 Alright.
43:02 Matt Farah? It has to go up June 25th. There was something else in July.
43:07 Matt Farah? No? Did I not put that on the calendar? I think I did.
43:10 Speaker 01 Nope, you did.
43:10 Matt Farah? I did? You just read it wrong!
43:15 Speaker 01 Look, man, yesterday you were like, "Never mind, it's July." Oh, that was a different thing.
43:18 Matt Farah? No, that was yesterday, that was me. Yeah, yeah. I thought I had a shoot this morning, but it was next month.
43:25 Speaker 01 Happens to me all the time.
43:28 Matt Farah? I'm, it's gonna be a fun one, but honestly, I was glad I didn't have to go up there again today. Two days in a row is a long couple of mornings.
43:37 Speaker 01 Anyone who was waiting for us to talk about a manual swapped SL, because I did put that in the description, that's next month.
43:43 Matt Farah? You're gonna be waiting until July, sorry.
43:46 Speaker 01 Yeah.
43:48 Matt Farah? Patrons, they, we're gonna take it to the Patreon. Of course,
43:54 Matt Farah? if you're watching live, it's now open for the Patreon pre-sale for the Green Notice Canyon. By the time this goes up on Thursday, that watch will be available to the public. We have sold approximately half of the sellable units to the patrons. So there's still plenty of green watches to buy. If you are not a patron, don't worry, you'll probably be able to get one if you go on the first day, for sure. But very excited to have this one out in the world. It's very beautiful. The forest green, Notice Canyon. There's only gonna be one left after this, and that's gonna be the Tahitian Black Pearl, and there will only be fifty.
44:37 Matt Farah? And twelve of them have been called, have been allocated to my friends. They want, they want, my friends who have seen me wearing the prototype are like, that, that's the one, I, I want that one.
44:50 Speaker 01 They get allocations that because they bought smaller versions before?
44:54 Matt Farah? We have, no, we have seven or eight allocations for people who want all five.
45:00 Speaker 01 Yeah.
45:00 Matt Farah? And who have been, if you, if you are buying all five, you will get all five. And then the rest of them are my friends who have seen it and have none of them yet, but are like, they, but yeah. But if you know me in person, you have certain privileges.
45:14 Matt Farah? Hellcat, of course, sorry, if you want to ask questions for the show, if you want to get the live stream, if you want to get the show before everybody else, even if it's not live, if you want to get exclusive early access to things like the Notice Canyon and other collabs, patreon.com/the-smoking-tire-podcast. Also, an extra podcast every month. Hellcat Brown Eye says, "What are your favorite ridiculously named cheapo tires?" Uh, my favorite is the Hangover Mudder Trucker. I didn't know before, right now, before this moment, that ridiculously named cheapo tires was a thing. I mean, we've seen some like weird Chinese shit at SEMA.
45:57 Speaker 01 I reckon that's what they're talking about, and we, and it's always called like the super performance, whatever the hell.
46:04 Matt Farah? Yeah, I've never, I've never remembered one of the tires. I just, you go around and you go, "These guys seem to have a surprisingly large amount of money to not hire one native English speaker to come up with their written materials." That's all that I remember from seeing the Chinese tire section at SEMA.
46:24 Speaker 01 Well, a very, very quick Google, uh, there's, there's names like Triangle Tire Company, seems like a rolling issue. Uh, Double Coin, Linglong Tire, we know about that one, and those are like the big main fact, Triangle Tire Company.
46:38 Matt Farah? You shouldn't be calling shit Triangle. And if you have to know why, Google Triangle Shirtwaist Factory.
46:45 Matt Farah? And that will tell you everything you need to know. Um, and that is that what you were thinking or were you thinking you shouldn't call something that's round to try?
46:52 Speaker 01 That's what I was thinking.
46:53 Matt Farah? I was thinking about, um, people burning alive in a factory.
46:56 Speaker 01 I am not aware of that story.
46:57 Matt Farah? Oh, Triangle Shirtwaist Factory is the, one of the main incidents that inspired like workplace safety regulations and what led to like OSHA. Because the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory-
47:09 Speaker 01 Oh, you mean like clamping down on small business? Is that what you mean?
47:12 Matt Farah? Not letting them, not letting them earn.
47:14 Speaker 01 Not letting these mom and pop businesses?
47:15 Matt Farah? So at the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory, they were concerned about workers stealing shirts. And so they-
47:25 Speaker 01 Shirts are delicious, to be fair.
47:26 Matt Farah? Yes, they're so tasty. And so in order to prevent workers from stealing shirts, they locked all the fire exits.
47:33 Speaker 01 What?
47:33 Matt Farah? You won't believe, Zach, what happened next. Well, there was a fire and everybody died. And so now that's a crime to do that.
47:44 Speaker 01 I'm aghast. For people listening, I am literally staring aghast.
47:47 Matt Farah? Yeah. So when people are like, deregulate, like that's why we have regulations.
47:53 Speaker 01 I saw a great-
47:54 Matt Farah? Because so many fucking people died.
47:55 Speaker 01 A great response on Reddit was like, every, every OSHA law is like written in blood.
48:00 Matt Farah? Written in blood, yeah. I took the OSHA say, I am OSHA certified. So many OSHA regulations are literally written in blood.
48:08 Speaker 01 And yet all of the doorknobs here are covered in razor blades, Matt. Why?
48:14 Matt Farah? Uh, SlowCarSlow wants to, uh, wants to put in a request for a carbon fiber or meteorite dial notice canyon. You know, uh, we have a lot of requests for alternative dials. Uh, we did think about meteorite. Carbon doesn't look right. You can Google photos of watches that have carbon fiber dials. There's a reason that like no good watch company does that. Meteorite dials are really expensive, but if you don't, I actually have a watch with a meteorite dial and, and it's pretty cool. But if you're not that much, if you're not a super space nerd, it doesn't mean much. I think the Black Pearl, um, means more to me and it being a, um-
49:00 Matt Farah? Yeah, I don't know. It's a good, it's a good suggestion. We're probably not gonna do it. But thanks for the enthusiasm. Alright. Lot of words incoming, but I think we need them all. TrueTwerk says, "I've been driving a lightly modded E30 for the last five years. Weekend drives plus occasional time trials. I'm passing it to my son." Huh, good dad. "I've never owned a Porsche or mid-engine car, and I'm looking at Caymans. Uh, number one, I'm used to the cost of keeping an old BMW running. Is the Porsche tax that much worse? Two, how big is the difference between, in steering feel, between the early cars and the ePass in the newer ones? I'm more interested in feel than outright speed."
49:43 Matt Farah? So, two questions, uh, two answers for you. One, the Porsche tax in terms of the cost of parts and stuff is not that much worse than an old BMW. What you're gonna find if you're maintaining it yourself is accessing shit without having, without, with home tools and a home lift or jack stands is gonna be very challenging in a Cayman. Shit's hard to get to.
50:06 Speaker 01 Yeah.
50:07 Matt Farah? They drop the engine for like a lot.
50:09 Speaker 01 Yeah, cuz all you really have access to from the top are the ports for like oil and coolant, right?
50:15 Matt Farah? Yeah, and I, uh, you could, I think you can do plugs and wires and stuff without dropping the engine, but like, I'm, but I think you have to take off a lot of stuff.
50:23 Speaker 01 Probably whatever undertrays there, but that's alright, that's not too bad.
50:26 Matt Farah? And, um, I just, I, that's what I, what I've heard. I don't wrench on these, but I, I don't think the parts are that more expensive. I don't think the consumables are that more expensive, but I think getting the stuff can take a lot of time and energy.
50:42 Speaker 01 The only story I have is my friend Derek's GT4, the wiring got eaten by mice, and they had to take the engine out to replace all the engine wiring because a lot of the wiring's on the top of the engine, so. Um, I would definitely do, TrueTwerk, great name, I would do your homework on what you might need to, what might break uh, using it for autocross and how easy it is to access those things.
51:02 Matt Farah? Yeah, and with the steering and the, the hydraulic steering and the ePass, I-
51:10 Matt Farah? I am not a hydraulic steering purist. And I think there's some great systems that are hydraulic and some great systems that are electric. And I don't really give a shit as long as it feels nice. And I don't think that the newer steering in Boxsters and Caymans is worse than the old steering. I think Cayman's steering has gotten progressively better regardless of what's running the pump. Right?
51:34 Speaker 01 I've only driven the modern Caymans and I think their ePass is great. So I'm not sure how it would compare to the old system.
51:40 Matt Farah? I mean, look, an old Cayman, it steers great, but it... I wouldn't seek out that steering versus buying the new car.
51:49 Speaker 01 Sure.
51:49 Matt Farah? If you're gonna go buy one, I would buy the newest, nicest one you can afford. I wouldn't go, nah, I'm gonna get an O2 instead of an O9 because the steering was better in O2. I'm making up those years, but whatever.
52:02 Speaker 01 I would also look at the ratios because ePass systems, sometimes they're much quicker than the old hydraulic systems. I'm sure there's exceptions. But if you're doing autocross, continuing to do that, the quick rack will be so helpful.
52:13 Matt Farah? Well, he says, "I'm more interested in feel than outright speed." But I just, I don't think the feel, I think the feel is great in a modern, in a newer Cayman. I don't think you should avoid that ePass system. There's some that are like bad, but Porsches are not bad. Mini Finney, thoughts? What is that? Thoughts on the new Shoreline LM Coupe? What are you?
52:38 Speaker 01 So real quick, BMW motorcycle, inline 6, revs to 10, makes 250 horsepower. And it weighs 1,400 pounds, costs 500 grand.
52:46 Matt Farah? And I'm out.
52:46 Speaker 01 It looks awesome.
52:48 Matt Farah? Oh, god damn, look at that. That looks like a Ferrari P3.
52:52 Speaker 01 Yeah, kinda Alfa Tippo.
52:54 Matt Farah? Alfa 33 Stradale.
52:56 Speaker 01 I think it looks better than the Alfa. The Alfa's very bunched up.
52:59 Matt Farah? God damn.
53:00 Speaker 01 This looks awesome.
53:01 Matt Farah? Oh, can we see more photos or more angles of it? This looks, yeah, this looks like a LeMans racer from the 60s. I see some elements of Porsche 908 in there as well. It looks fabulous.
53:15 Speaker 01 It's stunning.
53:17 Matt Farah? Okay. Uh, this interior looks like a low back bu- it looks like if you cut the shoulder bits off of Gunther Works's seats.
53:26 Speaker 01 Um, yeah.
53:27 Matt Farah? I see, and I see a lot of exposed sort of aluminum milled metal. I, I kinda like where they're going with this. I hope it works in practice. Uh, it looks like a tubular frame construction with some sort of carbon back structure, maybe? Um. Well, I can see why they're charging so much. I would love to have a go in one. And, uh, that, I have been saying for years now that I'd love to see a lightweight sports car with that BMW inline six in it.
53:59 Speaker 01 In this graphic without the body, it looks like a Sierra car. And it's got a motorcycle engine and then you know, the body goes across it and it's just a really gorgeous car.
54:06 Matt Farah? Yeah, good for them. Where are they based? Do we, do we have?
54:11 Matt Farah? That looks good. The engine looks good.
54:13 Speaker 01 Oh, you can hear the engine.
54:14 Matt Farah? Oh, yeah, okay.
54:17 Matt Farah? I mean, I've always thought this engine would be great for a Miata swap or a Lotus swap.
54:23 Matt Farah? Oh, yeah.
54:24 Speaker 01 That sounds rad.
54:26 Matt Farah? It sounds like half of an old Formula One V12.
54:30 Speaker 01 Yeah.
54:31 Matt Farah? Yeah, it sounds rad.
54:33 Speaker 01 Uh, yeah, it's great.
54:35 Matt Farah? I, I'm on board. Where, where do you, where do you work?
54:38 Speaker 01 Do, do, do.
54:39 Matt Farah? Can you go up to the top? Is there a about us or what's the contact us? Where the fuck are they?
54:43 Speaker 01 Probably contact.
54:45 Matt Farah? Where, where are you?
54:48 Matt Farah? Where are you? We don't know.
54:50 Speaker 01 Santa Monica, California, well, that's their copyright. But that's a Cali plate, right?
54:56 Matt Farah? That is a California plate?
54:57 Speaker 01 They're here somewhere. You'll find them on Instagram.
54:59 Matt Farah? Get at me, bro.
55:01 Speaker 01 Oh, here we go, here we go, here we go.
55:02 Matt Farah? Okay, cool.
55:03 Speaker 01 Or LinkedIn.
55:04 Matt Farah? Instagram, whatever. Cool, wow, alright. What do we think about this? Looks promising. Would, 10 out of 10, would have a go. In Santa Monica? Fucking, these guys are in our backyard? Ever seen this shit before?
55:16 Speaker 01 No.
55:17 Matt Farah? What are we doing? Do we follow?
55:18 Speaker 01 I, I'm guessing they have one and it's gonna get debuted at Monterey, so they probably aren't driving it around much, or they are very carefully.
55:25 Matt Farah? What if, what if, what a coincidence, cuz I have something that'll be debuted at Monterey also.
55:30 Speaker 01 This is, look how, look how tiny it is next to human beings. Wow, it is waist height.
55:36 Matt Farah? Yeah.
55:37 Speaker 01 That's super cool.
55:38 Matt Farah? Okay, I'm in the game. You know what we forgot to talk about is the, you drove the radial Mans.
55:44 Speaker 01 Oh, we did forget to talk about that.
55:46 Matt Farah? You want to save it?
55:47 Speaker 01 Yeah. We should, well, we're already at an hour. So I think we should save it.
55:52 Matt Farah? Okay, we'll save it.
55:52 Speaker 01 We'll do Alpine and Mans next time.
55:55 Matt Farah? Two lightweight, ultralight day.
55:57 Speaker 01 Yeah.
55:58 Matt Farah? Yeah. Radio Mans, very good. I have some, we have some, yeah.
56:04 Matt Farah? I have been thinking about that paint. About my, the paint for that Mans, all fucking week, man. God damn, is it so pretty.
56:13 Speaker 01 The A7 footage did, showed it. The texture underneath the other, the gel.
56:17 Matt Farah? That's so fucking nice. I can't wait to drive that thing. It's such a good time. I'm gonna keep, I'm making Hannah a poncho. I'm getting basically a Pendleton wool blanket. And I'm having like a head hole cut in it. So she just can just drape it over herself and sit in a little poncho.
56:36 Speaker 01 Great. Oh, when it's chilly and foggy in Santa Monica, in Monterey. Yeah, great. That's a good idea.
56:42 Matt Farah? Enrico Palazzo, what would be the most likely car for the two of you to plan Z? Company car?
56:49 Speaker 01 Well, on one, on the one end of the spectrum, it would be drift car. The other end would be like, you want a 550 Maranelle? We talk about them a lot.
56:57 Matt Farah? Yeah, I think we'd probably, it would probably be some type of motorsport focused car. I don't, I don't think either of us wants to like split.
57:08 Speaker 01 No.
57:09 Matt Farah? Like, I don't need another car that bad. And I don't think you want another car that you, that isn't like fully yours, right?
57:17 Speaker 01 Well, I also think that we attend to cars differently. And if we get a, if we get a race car, we're treating it the same.
57:24 Matt Farah? Yeah, yeah.
57:25 Speaker 01 But if we get a really expensive fancy car, I think it's a little different.
57:29 Matt Farah? I think that's true. I think that's true, yeah. We are, I mean, we're, we're gonna have a car together for a minute soon. Because we are doing another car giveaway.
57:37 Speaker 01 Oh, that's right.
57:38 Matt Farah? The car's being built. I was emailed this morning. Should we talk about it yet or not until the car's here?
57:44 Speaker 01 It's gonna be, we could hint at it. It's very fast.
57:48 Matt Farah? It's a 911 Turbo S.
57:51 Matt Farah? So we're gonna be giving away a 911 Turbo S that we're gonna have it for a couple of months and we're gonna modify it in ways that we like before giving it away and make some content with it. So we will get to play with the 911 Turbo S, like do some things with it.
58:08 Matt Farah? But yeah, so we're gonna have that and then you're gonna get to win it. So yay. Uh, Franz says, "What car brand could use a halo car like the Audi R8?" Cadillac?
58:19 Speaker 01 Audi.
58:22 Matt Farah? True.
58:23 Speaker 01 But Cadillac, yeah.
58:26 Matt Farah? I would say Genesis, but I don't think anybody would buy it.
58:29 Speaker 01 No, they don't have the performance. I mean Cadillac, you know, LeMans and they're doing good things and they're racing. I mean, their halo car kind of is the CT5 because it takes what they were known for back in the day of like big sedan and then adds the performance element. I don't know if a mid-engine thing would have to be... They would have to learn how to make true luxury cars, I think, to do a $250,000-plus.
58:52 Matt Farah? We'll see if anyone... We gotta get one of those Celestiques. I gotta book that. How do I do that?
59:00 Matt Farah? First, I do it by writing it on my list. Celestique Press Card with my Lamy Safari fountain pen. That's how we do it. "Matt Loves Pearl Jam." I mean, true, but like, uh...
59:16 Speaker 01 I think they're underselling it.
59:17 Matt Farah? Maybe a little more zhuzh?
59:21 Speaker 01 Need more Os. It might be a character limit, but if you did, "Matt Loves Pearl Jam."
59:26 Matt Farah? Okay, thank you. Uh, "Matt Loves Pearl Jam" was recently in a Barnes & Noble and saw a magazine called "The 25 Greatest Supercars of All Time" from earlier this year. The top 10 are as follows.
59:41 Matt Farah? Miura, Ferrari Dino, 911 Turbo, Bugatti Veyron, McLaren P1, BMW M3 Competition, Ford GT, Aston Martin Vantage, BMW M1, Ferrari 296 GTB. That is a random ass list of cars. And I would really like to know how this person came up with this? And why the BMW M3 Competition is the greatest supercar? Who wrote that?
1:00:15 Speaker 01 I mean, this is the top 10 and like, why, why is McLaren P1 there, but McLaren F1's not there?
1:00:21 Matt Farah? That's very, very-
1:00:22 Speaker 01 Unless they're like, that was the-
1:00:24 Matt Farah? Scroll down, here's a link to the publication.
1:00:26 Speaker 01 Yeah, I can pull the whole thing.
1:00:27 Matt Farah? This is some weird ass-
1:00:30 Speaker 01 We'd have to, we'd have to read their justification.
1:00:31 Matt Farah? This is some advertorial garbage, or I don't know, I don't know what this is. This can't possibly be something that's, is it some weird virus you've just clicked this into?
1:00:39 Speaker 01 I don't know, maybe a PDF.
1:00:41 Matt Farah? This looks like- It's a book. Who wrote it? Scroll down.
1:00:44 Speaker 01 P1 on the cover.
1:00:45 Matt Farah? The name and shame. It's just a ma- it's a-
1:00:48 Speaker 01 Ultimate showdown.
1:00:50 Matt Farah? It's just some fucking bullshit, like advertorial, like free. Yeah, it's all stupid.
1:00:56 Speaker 01 It's, there's diamond, oh, here you go.
1:00:58 Matt Farah? Oh, here we go. Uh, never heard of you guys. I don't know who this is.
1:01:05 Matt Farah? Who, who are any of these people? Yeah, I don't know who any of these people are, sorry. But that's all, I don't know, that's stupid. Don't buy that. That's fucking dumb. That, that, that doesn't make any sense. Um, I think their list is stupid and their magazine's stupid. Nice Cam says-
1:01:25 Matt Farah? Nice Cam says, "What are your plans with the Myers-Manks? Is it gonna be a putter around town car, or do crazy shit like take it off-road or on a beach?"
1:01:34 Speaker 01 Running Le Mans in it.
1:01:35 Matt Farah? Yeah, dude, obviously. Uh, I'm gonna fucking drive it off a fucking cliff into the ocean.
1:01:41 Speaker 01 On purpose?
1:01:41 Matt Farah? Red Bull Flugdog.
1:01:42 Speaker 01 When it all falls apart and you give up?
1:01:44 Matt Farah? No, Red Bull Flugdog. That's what it's for. We're gonna put wings on it. No, it's my, it's a car. I want a car to like, I want, I want a car that I don't have to like- Drive to the canyons to enjoy like like you know I like my cars I like to fill little niches right with the cars and so the Porsche it fucking sucks for like running errands in just like not fun for that but it's amazing to go to the canyons in so okay it's for that and like the NSX is is like it's okay to run errands in but that's not really what I want to spend my time doing in like a super low mile NSX like that's that's for a different thing and um you know Hannah's got like her her little weird cars like
1:02:30 Matt Farah? but I don't really enjoy driving either of those and when I saw the Manx I was like I was like this is a car that I can like enjoy at like around town like bullshit speeds more than I would enjoy the other cars because it's fun at you know and we can talk about it a little bit now but like it's fun at fifty miles an hour and it's fun at ten miles an hour.
1:02:52 Speaker 01 It was funnest below fifty I would say it felt very much like a like a friendly motorcycle or a slow Caterham or something like that very approachable and friendly.
1:03:02 Matt Farah? Yeah, I mean and and and it it looks great it looks the mind and they all look really cool but I think mine in particular looks really amazing um it sounds weird and looks weird and makes people go what the fuck is that? Uh it's not slow I mean at least from zero to seventy or so uh it's you know it's what it's a ninety horsepower and a hundred and fifteen pound feet at the tires and it weighs fifteen hundred and thirty pounds.
1:03:32 Speaker 01 Yeah, it's a hundred and twenty horsepower it's ten to one actually power weight is very similar to Alpine.
1:03:36 Matt Farah? Yeah um and no nice tight four speed easy clutch easy rack and pinion steering like decent brakes good shocks uh like it's just it's the kind of thing where like if you're gonna go drive three or four miles you know across LA it's just that's more fun than a real sports car.
1:03:56 Speaker 01 Yeah.
1:03:58 Speaker 01 It's playful, not in the sense of like you slide it around and the driving is playful. Like it as itself is a playful thing. People look at you and kind of smile. It looks non-threatening. What did I say when we were driving?
1:04:10 Matt Farah? You said it was like a Shelby Cobra that was non-threatening.
1:04:12 Speaker 01 It's a non-threatening, non-tactical Cobra thing.
1:04:14 Matt Farah? Yeah.
1:04:15 Speaker 01 It pulls out some of the machismo and people just go, "Oh, that's cool."
1:04:18 Matt Farah? Yeah. It's just where, you know, it's like the Vespa. Like I say when I'm riding my Vespa, wherever I'm going, I'm like a little bit on vacation and this is like that. Like whatever you're doing with it, you're going to the grocery store, whatever, going out to dinner, you know, maybe going to the beach, maybe going to the office. Like I'm a little bit on vacation with that.
1:04:42 Speaker 01 It's a good way to put it.
1:04:43 Matt Farah? Fucking cool, man. If you, if you're, if you can make yourself feel a little bit on vacation when you're driving around in Los Angeles with traffic and lights, it's like, it's not fun driving in the city. So I'm trying to make that fun. Hopefully we can. And also like taking it up to Pebble and like ripping it around during car week, like that's gonna be a good time.
1:05:05 Speaker 01 Yeah.
1:05:06 Matt Farah? Yeah.
1:05:07 Speaker 01 It's, it's excellent for everything Pebble, I think, except if you get stuck in a long traffic jam.
1:05:13 Matt Farah? I mean, I don't think it'll be, I don't think it'll be, the car won't overheat or anything.
1:05:17 Speaker 01 No, no, no. I think it gets loud and if you're sitting still, it could get hot. But I mean, you'll have the top up, so.
1:05:22 Matt Farah? Uh, yeah, we have the Bimini.
1:05:23 Speaker 01 Yeah.
1:05:23 Matt Farah? So hopefully it won't get too, too cooked. But you're, yeah, I mean, it could get a little, little toasty in there.
1:05:28 Speaker 01 Look, it's the only demerit it has, I mean, there's, you know, there's no locking trunk and it will be loud sitting in traffic, like sitting still. But, but it's fucking fun, man. It's cool.
1:05:39 Matt Farah? We were talking with Eric Kendricks the other day and he said something like, "Yeah, like everyone at the shop said to like, 'You have to do this thing.'" And it made me think of when we were down there with the exhaust. And I was like, "Should I do this, uh, this louder exhaust?" And every single person in the shop looks like, "Shit."
1:05:54 Speaker 01 I told Sarah that story. I've never seen six men working, they're all actively working, one's doing electrical, one's moving a car. Everyone stopped and turned as if you'd fired a gun in the air and they all shook their head, "No, do not get the louder exhaust." Because the one we were in was plenty loud, dude. I think, I bet you quiet it down after six months. I bet you, you look for an even quieter solution.
1:06:17 Matt Farah? It wasn't that loud. It wasn't loud enough that it really bothered me. And if I was gonna go for a longer drive, I'd probably wear earplugs anyway. But, um...
1:06:25 Speaker 01 Or that.
1:06:26 Matt Farah? Yeah.
1:06:29 Matt Farah? But, uh, fuck, man, that car is, it's, it's very, very stupid. I mean, it's exceptionally stupid. It's not, there's, there's no rationale whatsoever for spending that kind of money on that kind of car.
1:06:42 Speaker 01 But so many good cars are stupid.
1:06:43 Matt Farah? I just like, God, it's just way too awesome to not fucking have. And like, let's go.
1:06:51 Speaker 01 I think the dumber, the dumber the decision, the stronger the emotional reaction usually.
1:06:55 Matt Farah? Yeah.
1:06:55 Speaker 01 So I think that's, there you go.
1:06:56 Matt Farah? Yeah. Uh, and plus, the process of build, of doing it, like, I, I think, I truly think that the actual process of building this car really strongly resembles the process of building a Pagani or a Koenigsegg or something with those people in the room. You basically get treated like that. And then the end result is this car, like, you're, you're accessing that level of bespoke, this was made for you, that normally you have to be at a very, very high level of car building to, to get.
1:07:35 Speaker 01 Mm-hmm.
1:07:36 Matt Farah? You don't, maybe, most people are not sitting down with Horatio Pagani to build their car. Or maybe they are, I don't know, but if they are, they're spending a fucking ton of money to do it. So anyway, Winona's Bug Brown BMW. Any Primus reference is a good Primus reference. Uh, what is the best normal commuter car with low wind noise, ride quality, and miles per gallon that isn't a Tesla or German? The new Prius.
1:08:03 Speaker 01 Yeah.
1:08:03 Matt Farah? A hundred percent the new Prius.
1:08:05 Speaker 01 Yep.
1:08:07 Matt Farah? There's, the, end of question, not even a discussion. Um, get the plug in, don't get the plug in, whatever works for your lifestyle. But if all I had to do was fucking highway miles to working back, I'm in a new Prius and I'm looking back.
1:08:21 Speaker 01 Mm-hmm.
1:08:22 Matt Farah? Yo, I had lunch with our homie, uh, Dave F., who works in the movie industry. Remember our old friend?
1:08:27 Speaker 01 Yeah, yeah.
1:08:28 Matt Farah? Uh, had, had dinner with him the other night with Hannah. He got, he was so proud of this. He got an Acura ZDX.
1:08:36 Speaker 01 Whoa.
1:08:37 Matt Farah? The new one.
1:08:38 Speaker 01 Oh, okay, yeah, the.
1:08:39 Matt Farah? The electric one.
1:08:40 Speaker 01 Yeah.
1:08:40 Matt Farah? It's on the GM architecture.
1:08:42 Speaker 01 Yeah, I drove it to the Hoosier launch.
1:08:43 Matt Farah? Yeah, he got, he got a ZDX, 24-month lease.
1:08:47 Speaker 01 For nothing.
1:08:48 Matt Farah? 12,000 miles a year. 2,500 down, 279 a month. The sticker on the car was 71K.
1:08:56 Speaker 01 271.
1:08:58 Matt Farah? 279 a month with 2,500 down. For a brand new ZDX.
1:09:04 Speaker 01 That's like.
1:09:05 Matt Farah? That's like a cellphone.
1:09:07 Speaker 01 That really is. If you're commuting right now, do your math on how much you spend on gas.
1:09:11 Matt Farah? Yeah.
1:09:12 Speaker 01 Whoa.
1:09:13 Matt Farah? Yeah, that's what he said. He said, he's like, I actually, he's like, I never would have bought an electric car. But this deal was amazing and I, and I, I realized I would actually be saving a ton of money. He's like, I didn't realize when you get an EV, you can switch your home EV. Your home electric plan to an iDrive and EV plan, which I forgot we did a long time ago. And you're in a different meter cycle and it's cheaper to charge your EV. And he's like, dude, now that I'm, he's like, I've been on this for two months. He's like, I'm, he's like, I realize I'm never using more than a third of the battery in a day. And so like, what was I worried about? And it's cost me nothing.
1:09:51 Speaker 01 That car is really good, hands-free driving too. It's, yeah, it's a good comfy thing.
1:09:55 Matt Farah? Yeah. So that's cool.
1:09:56 Speaker 01 Nice.
1:09:57 Matt Farah? Uh, Gin and Tonics, Gin and Teconic State Parkway. Love it. After watching the Romo review, it got me thinking about weight distribution. Can you talk about the different driving characteristics or dynamics of the front or mid-engine car versus rear or mid-engine car? If they have similar weight distributions, for example, the AMG GTC is 4753. And a Ferrari 488 is 4159. Do those few percentage points make that much of a difference? Yes, they do. And actually, I think they make more of a difference if you go the other way. Meaning if, uh, an AMG GTC is a front mid, so it's 47 front, 53 rear.
1:10:40 Matt Farah? That's like really good for a front mid car that you want to be a little bit tail happy. Like if, if, if a car has a rear weight distribution, a little, a few percentage points like that 4753, car is going to be real nice to slide.
1:10:56 Speaker 01 Sure.
1:10:56 Matt Farah? It's going to be pretty balanced, but a little rear biased. You're going to be able to rotate it on the entry. So if you have that rear bias, if you stand on the brakes and shift the nose forward, you can get a little more pendulum and an easier rotation on the entry. If you have an opposite of that where it's 53 front, 47 rear, it's going to have the tendency to want to continue straight, which will make it more of a relaxed highway car, but it won't turn in as hard. And you're going to have to work at it harder to get that no, the rear loose to, to get some oversteer.
1:11:31 Speaker 01 Uh, well, I think the more weight distribution to the front, then the more it plants on the nose and, and rotates around it to slide. But it's less inclined to turn in because of the weight that the momentum still wants to go forward.
1:11:42 Matt Farah? Yeah.
1:11:42 Speaker 01 And if the front wheels don't have to handle, deal with that weight, it will change the direction of that front end much quicker.
1:11:47 Matt Farah? Yeah. And also it'll change, like the less, the lower the number is on the front, the lighter your steering will probably be.
1:11:54 Speaker 01 Yeah.
1:11:57 Matt Farah? It, uh, it does make a difference though in how a front mid and a rear mid car will behave. They, they will behave differently.
1:12:06 Speaker 01 Yeah. My, my biggest lesson was when I did the spring mountain school, like being able to be in the middle of a corner and just hit the gas hard and you feel it squat to the back, it jams that engine weight into the rear tires and would just shoot forward. Whereas if you did that with the front mid car, like the GTC or something else, you would be at risk of losing the back end because there's just not enough weight on those back tires to do that kind of move.
1:12:28 Matt Farah? Yeah. Yeah. Uh, very good question though. Verso with no door handles. What are the best, worst, best and worst parts of being a small brick and mortar business owner? And how do you compare that to the best and worst parts of being a content creator? Oh, that's very interesting. Um, what's the key to running multiple businesses and managing an online presence with fan interactions? Uh, be comfortable with panic attacks. I would say start there. They're very different, right? But what got you got me used to running a seven day a week brick and mortar business is that the internet is sort of seven days a week. I mean, it doesn't really stop, right? So even if you're just posting content on a weekday, you're still doing businessy
1:13:12 Matt Farah? things throughout the weekend and the day of the week didn't really matter so much ever. So it was kind of, it set me up for a business that's open all the time. Brick and mortar is much, much harder. In terms of like moving pieces, like just the amount of paperwork and, you know, insurance and the different taxes and the different, everything needs this and the buildings need maintaining and, you know, the HR stuff and all of that. I think that's harder, maybe because I wasn't trained for it. The content creation stuff, it's hard because it truly is the gig economy. Like whatever you made before, like, doesn't really matter so much.
1:13:57 Matt Farah? It's just like, what's the next thing? What's the next thing? What's the next thing? What's the next thing? And that never like stops, like never. Like if it, when, when pretty well-known like content creators like take a break for like a long period of time, six months or a year, like they're gone, like they vanish. And it used to seem in the earlier days, like if you made enough content, that you'd have this sort of income stream that would kind of go on forever with your residual stuff. But if you're not putting out new content, YouTube won't like show your residual stuff. And so
1:14:38 Matt Farah? that, the, the stresses of, of being a content creator are pretty straightforward. Where's my next bit of content going to come from? And where's my next dollar going to come from? Those are hard questions, but they're pretty simple ones. When you're running a brick and mortar business, even a fairly simple ones, things will happen that you can't like possibly imagine would happen. And at times you don't expect them to happen and probably possibly the worst times. Um, and uh, with content creation, like Zach and I don't really like owe anybody anything. Like there's never a case ever where someone's like, "We paid you all this money, now deliver."
1:15:21 Matt Farah? Like we sell ads and we deliver the thing that we're offered, but those are all on an individual level, like very low stakes. And so, but like with this parking business, it's incredibly high stakes. You're dealing with my $2 million in cars. Like that's pretty high stakes compared to it. So, but they complement each other. The, the content business, it brings in a lot of brick and mortar business. Like tho- those do really, they, they're good. Like the fact that I have a pretty good team here and I can go off and make content and not be sitting here twiddling my thumbs or parking cars or trying to figure out how to get anybody to hear about who we are. Like that's hugely beneficial. I have a enormous leg up over anyone else doing this in LA because of all of you people.
1:16:06 Matt Farah? Most of the time, they puzzle together quite nicely. Every once in a while though, they do not.
1:16:16 Matt Farah? Uh, Islander says, "Why did offshore cigarette boats become extinct? They're gorgeous." I don't think that's true.
1:16:24 Speaker 01 The racing still happens. Pastrana participates in it. Um, I don't know. I think maybe they just aren't as folk, the public isn't as excited about them as they were when they first came out in the seventies, eighties.
1:16:34 Matt Farah? Yeah, I mean, uh, most offshore powerboat racing is done with catamarans now because they're faster. I mean, it's just like, just like most, you know, a lot of the professional sailing is done on boats that don't look like the boats that we're fucking sailing. They have carbon wings and they fly out of the water. Like they're just faster and we're talking about racing. Um, if, if you're talking about the brand cigarette, cause that is a, that is a brand of boat and that's- Also a casually referred to genre of of offshore mono-hull boating. Um, the brand is still around. They they exist.
1:17:08 Speaker 01 There are four races in 2025. There's one in Michigan City, Chicago, Clearwater, Florida, and Key West. So the organization is alive.
1:17:16 Matt Farah? Yeah, for offshore powerboat racing.
1:17:18 Speaker 01 That's Race World Offshore 2025 schedule.
1:17:21 Matt Farah? I mean, if you ever get to watch that shit, please do, because it's insane. It's certainly insane if you ever catch it on TV. Uh, Streets Closed Pizza Boy lives close to the Lotus factory in Hethel. And they've had another round of layoffs, six in three years. Why are they struggling this bad despite making objectively good cars? And is there still space for these smaller sports car companies? Well, look, part of it is US tariffs. First off, it took whatever the fuck happened with the two-liter Amira and the US certification. And they had a year and a half of people who wanted cars, put in deposits, couldn't get their cars, and then moved on to other cars.
1:18:01 Speaker 01 Yep.
1:18:01 Matt Farah? I mean, they, we were there in summer of 23.
1:18:05 Speaker 01 Yeah.
1:18:06 Matt Farah? Fucking they had thousands of cars sitting out there going nowhere, building them and parking them in a field.
1:18:12 Speaker 01 Well, I think they had an EPA issue. Then they had the Panama Canal blocked issue. There were three things that happened in that year that basically delayed their cars.
1:18:20 Matt Farah? And then COVID.
1:18:21 Speaker 01 It was COVID. Oh, well, that
1:18:23 Matt Farah? There's the EPA thing. Yeah, and COVID, and then the Panama Canal and whatever shipping. And then now, and then they have this big pivot to electrification with their SUV and their sedan. But they're coming from China. And guess fucking what? At the same time, the EV market takes a huge dump in the US, particularly particularly the luxury EV market. You now have a 100% or whatever tariff, whatever Trump's feeling like today. The tariff is from China, and nobody was gonna buy $150,000 Lotus electric EV. But now certainly no one's gonna buy a $300,000 Lotus EV. And so if you can't get the sports cars to the very few people that are excited to buy the sports cars,
1:19:07 Matt Farah? and you've got all this in resources invested in EVs that you're not gonna be able to sell in America, you're in deep shit.
1:19:13 Speaker 01 Yep.
1:19:13 Matt Farah? That's why they're doing, they just said they were gonna engineer some other car for somebody?
1:19:17 Speaker 01 Oh, uh, I didn't see that, but that they're very good at that.
1:19:20 Matt Farah? They just, there was just some announcement that they're gonna engineer. Something for somebody, I'm blanking on what it was, because I have too much information coming into my brain every day.
1:19:33 Matt Farah? But yeah. I, I would love to see Lotus take over the production of the Alpine and somehow sell that product in the US.
1:19:44 Speaker 01 That would be very cool. It would directly compete with the Amira, of course, but it would be cool.
1:19:48 Matt Farah? They're already selling some fucking wonky ass named shit over in China because they forgot to get the trademark for Lotus.
1:19:55 Speaker 01 Oh, really?
1:19:56 Matt Farah? Neo Lotus?
1:19:57 Speaker 01 Oh, yeah, because of the name.
1:19:58 Matt Farah? Neo Lotuses?
1:20:01 Matt Farah? Angle of the dangle. What's a car that people think would be great on a racetrack but actually isn't? Great question, and why is the answer not Alfa 4C?
1:20:11 Speaker 01 I would, that's the first one that came to mind.
1:20:14 Matt Farah? McLaren 570S is another one. Fucking sketchy at the back.
1:20:18 Speaker 01 Really? I don't know if I ever drove one of those things.
1:20:20 Matt Farah? Once they added the wing, big difference.
1:20:22 Speaker 01 Oh, you need the wing?
1:20:23 Matt Farah? You need the wing.
1:20:23 Speaker 01 I mean Audi TT, of course.
1:20:24 Matt Farah? Very shady from high, high speed braking, is the 570S.
1:20:27 Speaker 01 I mean, the C6, 06?
1:20:30 Matt Farah? Mm-hmm.
1:20:31 Speaker 01 Right?
1:20:31 Matt Farah? C6 06, overheating issues.
1:20:33 Speaker 01 And that?
1:20:33 Matt Farah? First gen Civic Type R also had overheating issues. Not first gen, excuse me, the, the whatever FK.
1:20:40 Speaker 01 8.
1:20:41 Matt Farah? Whatever it was, the, the 2020 joint.
1:20:43 Speaker 01 The shredder one.
1:20:44 Matt Farah? The shredder one, yeah.
1:20:52 Matt Farah? Oh, there's a, I mean, hmm.
1:20:57 Matt Farah? What, what have I had, what have we had at P Cody that was really bad? I mean, no one thinks those are gonna be great on the track.
1:21:08 Matt Farah? Yeah. I mean, mo, you know, these days, like, most things are, like, pretty decent on a track, like, I was definitely disappointed with the Supra when I took that on a track, that wasn't so great.
1:21:20 Speaker 01 The first one, but then when they revised it with, uh, whatever, the one we drove, the blue one.
1:21:25 Matt Farah? The manual one was better.
1:21:26 Speaker 01 Yeah.
1:21:26 Matt Farah? In fact, the first gen one wasn't great. Um, GTRs. I mean, GTRs set a great lap time, but they just bore me to tears.
1:21:34 Speaker 01 The 400, the Z.
1:21:36 Matt Farah? Oh, yeah.
1:21:37 Speaker 01 The Nismo one was good, but the other one was not for that.
1:21:42 Matt Farah? The Rainbow Chic Shroom Guy.
1:21:44 Speaker 01 It's a good one.
1:21:44 Matt Farah? That's a good one. Uh, Matt, my 10-year-old son and I were at Good Vibes a couple of weeks ago when you had the Roma. Oh, thank you for taking the time to chat with my son. You are welcome. Shout out to him. Oh, my question. Everyone complains about the GT3 Touring having the same suspension as the wing car. Has anyone modified a Touring to be softer? Yes, they have.
1:22:04 Speaker 01 Yeah, so I kept Tim's response because Litchfield Tuners in UK made a video about it. They have like five or six different software maps.
1:22:13 Matt Farah? Yeah.
1:22:13 Speaker 01 And they can load any of, they can load the ST suspension tune on any GT3.
1:22:17 Matt Farah? Yes, they can, and you should just do that. Yeah. Uh, can you scroll down a piece? Tom says, what is the best car that BMW has made since the E39-5 series? And why is it the Rolls-Royce Phantom? Not wrong. BMW, I don't know if they've made it. They, they supply the engine and, and the UI and electronics for that car. But I don't, they don't make that. That car's built in England.
1:22:45 Speaker 01 The best one since?
1:22:47 Matt Farah? Since the E39-5 series.
1:22:50 Speaker 01 It's a long time ago.
1:22:51 Matt Farah? It is, but.
1:22:51 Speaker 01 It depends on.
1:22:52 Matt Farah? But talk to me about the bangers since then.
1:22:55 Speaker 01 F80 M3, I think. I think that's the best one, if I had to choose. And actually, I would add that the, like, Vinnie's 328 diesel, you know, before diesel went out of focus.
1:23:05 Matt Farah? 328 Touring.
1:23:07 Speaker 01 Very good, solid car. Someone else in the comments that they've put 60,000 miles on theirs.
1:23:13 Speaker 01 Depends on what you want from a car.
1:23:16 Speaker 01 M2 was really good. That's a good car. I mean, that's good for us. Like, we like performance driving. So my, my brain's going to what's their best performance car since 39?
1:23:24 Matt Farah? The M2, the, the last M2, I think, the M2CS possibly could have been there, particularly with the manual gearbox.
1:23:35 Matt Farah? Technically, they kept making the Z8 after, I mean, the first, dude, the first X1 that you could get with the N55.
1:23:44 Speaker 01 That was a nutty car.
1:23:45 Matt Farah? That was a little sleeper. That kid was running like 10 second quarter miles in that fucking thing.
1:23:49 Speaker 01 Yeah.
1:23:50 Matt Farah? That was pretty nasty.
1:23:53 Matt Farah? The 1M, I mean, just the original 1M, I think, counts, yeah. They're no- nothing in the last 10 years, my friend. Gravel Trap Hero says, uh, I'm an assistant school superintendent in a conservative district. I want a new car to me. 50K. Fun manual transmission. Can't be German or too loud and flashy. 20 miles each way. Twisty country roads commute. Any suggestions?
1:24:23 Speaker 01 Integra Type S.
1:24:25 Matt Farah? Oh, yeah, that would be fabulous. Get it in a dark color.
1:24:29 Speaker 01 Yep.
1:24:29 Matt Farah? No one will really look at it.
1:24:30 Speaker 01 No one will.
1:24:31 Matt Farah? De-badge if you're that concerned.
1:24:32 Speaker 01 Sure. Good seats, good stereo.
1:24:34 Matt Farah? Also, a GR Corolla in a dark color.
1:24:37 Speaker 01 Yeah.
1:24:37 Matt Farah? You know, it won't immediately draw attention. You're an enthusiast, but it's a Corolla, you know? That'll do it.
1:24:46 Matt Farah? Can't be German or too.
1:24:47 Speaker 01 Get a reading rainbow livery, though. Like a whole car. Do that.
1:24:55 Matt Farah? Can't be German or too loud or flashy.
1:24:57 Speaker 01 He says a stock N A Miata is considered an exotic sports car there.
1:25:02 Matt Farah? Yeah, I mean, look, you're gonna have to, you're gonna have to figure out that you need, if you're gonna have a nicer car, someone eventually will ask about your car, but... And if you want an American fun car for this type of budget, it's gonna be somewhat flashy. It's gonna be a Mustang or a Camaro or a Corvette, right? What other choices do you have?
1:25:25 Speaker 01 Chevy SS, but even, but in this area, they'll, people will know what that is. They'll know that's cool and flashy.
1:25:30 Matt Farah? That's not what you want for a twisty country road.
1:25:32 Speaker 01 Chevy SS? The fun one?
1:25:34 Matt Farah? Oh, the sedan. Oh, I was thinking, I was thinking a different one, sorry. Uh, shit. Well.
1:25:40 Speaker 01 Can't do a Cadillac.
1:25:41 Matt Farah? Okay, I mean, how about a used, but in great condition with low miles, Focus RS, not in blue?
1:25:51 Speaker 01 Yeah.
1:25:52 Matt Farah? I think you could drive a black or white Focus RS and no one's looking at it.
1:25:56 Speaker 01 White for sure.
1:25:56 Matt Farah? No one's looking at it.
1:25:57 Speaker 01 Yeah. White because it's a fleet color.
1:26:00 Matt Farah? That would be a great one. 20 miles, twisty country roads.
1:26:03 Speaker 01 Make sure you like the seats.
1:26:04 Matt Farah? American car, assembled in Germany, no one has to know that. And they're a good time if you've got good roads. They're a lot of fun.
1:26:11 Speaker 01 It's too bad you can't get them. If you could get a Mach 1 and no one would get mad at you, but they'd be like, "All the money going to our school, look at the da-da-da."
1:26:18 Matt Farah? How about a Mach E rally?
1:26:21 Speaker 01 That, well, I mean, EV might not be the way to go.
1:26:26 Matt Farah? I'll tell you what, if you can charge your car at home, that you're a perfect commuter for an EV. You could buy a good handling EV and just mob on that drive each way and have plenty of juice. Charge it all night.
1:26:41 Speaker 01 I mean, I hate to say this, but if this person wants to keep being voted in as superintendent in a conservative district, an EV is not the way to go.
1:26:47 Matt Farah? With a Tesla Model 3 Performance with a fucking Punisher logo on the back.
1:26:51 Speaker 01 Do they like Tesla now or do they not because of the breakup? I don't know. I'm not sure. Is Tesla still cool?
1:26:59 Matt Farah? Okay. All right. Tim A. says, "New versus used question. A well-equipped M5 will run about 140K. For that price, you can create a used three-car garage with an EV, a sports sedan, and a dedicated sports car. Would you rather have a new M5 over the three you would choose?"
1:27:21 Speaker 01 No, I'd rather have the three.
1:27:23 Matt Farah? I mean, in order to do this question, though, you have to accept the fact that it takes more effort, possibly more money and more energy to deal with three cars, not to mention you need somewhere to keep them, than one car.
1:27:35 Speaker 01 Sure.
1:27:36 Matt Farah? For a lot of people, only having all of these things in one car is good.
1:27:41 Speaker 01 Yeah, I can't have three cars. I don't have the parking space for it at my apartment. But I'm assuming this person, if they're asking, let's just assume that they have a two-car garage in a driveway.
1:27:51 Matt Farah? Yeah.
1:27:51 Speaker 01 Or they live in a neighborhood where parking's easy. Three cars all day.
1:27:55 Matt Farah? Sure. I would, I do, that's what I have and what I do.
1:27:58 Speaker 01 Yeah.
1:27:58 Matt Farah? I would not get a very fast, hybrid, luxury sedan.
1:28:03 Speaker 01 Yes.
1:28:03 Matt Farah? I would have a nice, but not fancy, EV commuter. I would have some kind of SUV.
1:28:11 Matt Farah? With four-wheel drive for the UK and a bunch of cargo space for when I needed that. And then I would have a dedicated sports car.
1:28:18 Speaker 01 Yep.
1:28:19 Matt Farah? And that covers all possible bases.
1:28:20 Speaker 01 Yep.
1:28:21 Matt Farah? Yeah, for sure. And I've seen the new M5s out and about. I want to drive one as a journalist, but as a person who buys cars, could not be less interested in that particular thing.
1:28:37 Matt Farah? What do I think about single-brand or single-color car collections? Don't like it. Don't want it.
1:28:43 Speaker 01 If you had to, gun to your head, you have to do single car, single-brand or single-color?
1:28:48 Matt Farah? I mean, obviously, you do single color versus single-brand because one is much more restricting than the other, but but I just, I don't like when people do single color. I'll give an exception. Shout out to him, my friend Todd Blue. If your name is Blue, you get a pass. If your name is a color-
1:29:09 Speaker 01 I disagree.
1:29:10 Matt Farah? If your name is a color-
1:29:11 Speaker 01 No offense, Todd.
1:29:12 Matt Farah? And you get a pass, especially if you are of the wealth level to where they will make up new versions of Blue for you, which they do.
1:29:21 Speaker 01 I still think that that's even worse because you're like, they're like, "Oh, your name's Blue and all your cars are Blue." Sure. It's just, it's two on the nose. I go the other way.
1:29:32 Matt Farah? Alright, I'll give my friend Todd Blue a pass because he is a man of taste.
1:29:36 Speaker 01 Okay. I don't doubt it.
1:29:38 Matt Farah? Not everybody has to, that's okay. But I don't like restricting a car collection. Imagine fucking pigeonholing yourself like that. Ugh. No.
1:29:49 Speaker 01 I agree.
1:29:49 Matt Farah? No. Buy the good shit. My collection isn't, here's the theme of my collection, "Buy the good shit." Good theme. We should put that on a shirt. Pugs and Porsches 997.2S versus 991.1S for a daily. Same price, mileage, and condition. 997.
1:30:10 Speaker 01 Yeah, it's the right size.
1:30:12 Matt Farah? Yeah.
1:30:16 Matt Farah? Okay.
1:30:18 Matt Farah? Christian says, "I read your road and track article on the screens and I agree with you. My question is, luxury electric cars are all screen, non-luxury cars are all screen as well. The driving experience of a BMW i4 versus an Ioniq 6, for example, will be similar. Will the only difference be exterior design? The gap feels closer than it's ever been." I have been saying something like this, you're right, is I think EV drastically benefits the bottom more than it benefits the top or the mid-range, certainly the mid-range. I mean, if you've been a company that's known for building good engines, like Porsche or Bentley or BMW, and now everything is EV, boy, are you in deep shit.
1:31:02 Matt Farah? Because legitimately, a car that never would have been considered a real competitor five years ago is now a real competitor. And will feel largely the same to drive. I mean, we did Performance EV of the Year, and the BMW offering did not crack the top four in terms of performance or dynamics or anything. And to drive it on the street, it was nicely appointed, but it wasn't mind-blowing. Like BMW's not winning the interior game right now, they're not winning the styling game right now.
1:31:38 Matt Farah? Whereas the Korean companies are producing increasing quality products that will, when you level out the powertrain by doing EV, will absolutely compete with BMW. Like, I was, you know, we bought a used Porsche, but like, that mid-to-high-end EV, like, I wouldn't spend money on that ever. Because like, the mid-level shit is so refined and nice, it's only incrementally better until you get to like, the top.
1:32:12 Speaker 01 Yeah.
1:32:14 Matt Farah? But you have ride quality, things like that, UI, usability, things you do every day, that's gonna differentiate, but yeah, man, there's... When it's all just software and electric motors, like, why are you buying a fancy German car? Like, what's that getting you? Like, not much.
1:32:33 Matt Farah? Oh, we talked about that. Oh, Tim McLaren says, "What is the sweet spot for the C8?"
1:32:41 Matt Farah? Couple ways to go there. The ZO6 without the ZO7 package is a super, super fast car that feels super, super exotic and could be used as an everyday car.
1:32:52 Speaker 01 Yeah.
1:32:53 Matt Farah? That's where I'm at.
1:32:54 Speaker 01 Takes all the good things of the Z51, but makes the engine note, the engine special. And that's, there you go.
1:33:02 Matt Farah? Holy shit, look at this. Blurple says, "I got my car back from the shop after being parked for 492 days. 350 miles into the engine break-in, it threw a code for a thermostat being stuck open. What's the lamest reason you've ever had to return a car to the shop for warranty work?" 492 days? That's a lemon law claim to me. I'm not making it past two or three months without getting the car back.
1:33:28 Speaker 01 Yeah, for sure. I mean, they must have rebuilt the engine. They didn't even get a new engine. They rebuilt it.
1:33:33 Matt Farah? That's fucking nuts. Uh, the lamest reason, I mean, I have a friend who lemon-lawed a Rivian because they were unable, unable to align the rear wheels.
1:33:46 Speaker 01 Oh, that's right. Yeah.
1:33:47 Matt Farah? Brad's truck.
1:33:47 Speaker 01 Yeah, yeah. Yeah. And it was eating through tires, right?
1:33:51 Matt Farah? Yeah. It was eating through the right tire and he had a blowout actually in one. And they said, "Oh, the rear alignment was out because it's a rear steer vehicle." And they were unable to fix it and then lemon-lawed the car. Yeah.
1:34:04 Speaker 01 So something that structurally was like manufactured incorrectly.
1:34:08 Matt Farah? I mean, my Focus RS, to go back to it, had to go back because it had a Lincoln head gasket in it.
1:34:13 Speaker 01 Oh, that's right.
1:34:14 Matt Farah? Lincoln MKC head gasket in mine. Yeah. That's pretty lame. Roth V says, "Is a used F-Type V6 still one of the best luxury sports cars you can get for under 50K?" I have to say, yes, it is. Ain't nothing wrong with a V6S F-Type. That's a fucking, that's a fine, especially if I'm one with a manual.
1:34:34 Speaker 01 Yeah. Looks expensive. Looks good. Classic. Classic.
1:34:38 Matt Farah? Versatile. Good for a variety of, uh, types of driving. I don't know if they've done a CarPlay update yet. If you can get CarPlay in the, uh, in the UI. When you can do that, that'll be a game changer because that is, it's got some OG fucking UI. They have a CarPlay module now?
1:34:55 Speaker 01 Yeah.
1:34:56 Matt Farah? Great. There you go. Cat Trick Swayze, pretty good, pretty good. What took the all-time biggest shit from one generation to the next? Porsche 993 to 996, C2 to C3 Corvette, Mazda RX-7 to RX-8, top their list.
1:35:15 Speaker 01 Oh.
1:35:16 Matt Farah? That's, okay, the biggest shit from, RX-7 to RX-8 is a pretty good one.
1:35:22 Speaker 01 It's pretty good, but the handling of RX-8 was great, the engine was bad. The C3, once you got into like the meaty years where you had oil crisis, then it was a big shit.
1:35:32 Matt Farah? I would say, if we're talking Corvettes, it's just early C3 to late C3 is the biggest shit. It's really the biggest shit.
1:35:39 Speaker 01 That's where the changes really happen.
1:35:41 Matt Farah? Yeah. Um, oh dude, Mustang, the 71 Mustang to the 73 Mustang is a big fucking yikes.
1:35:49 Speaker 01 The Mustang 2 is bad.
1:35:50 Matt Farah? That's no good, yeah.
1:35:52 Speaker 01 Bronco to Bronco 2, we got all tiny.
1:35:54 Matt Farah? Yeah.
1:35:57 Matt Farah? Uh, those are, those are pretty bad. The, oof, okay.
1:36:03 Speaker 01 There's the little...
1:36:05 Matt Farah? The Mercury Cougar from the 60s to the 80s got really sad. Uh...
1:36:12 Speaker 01 Lincolns from 70s to 80s, I mean...
1:36:15 Matt Farah? The Thunderbird from first to second generation.
1:36:20 Matt Farah? All Lincolns from the 80s into the 90s.
1:36:23 Speaker 01 Yeah, they got terrible.
1:36:24 Matt Farah? Yeah. Good question. Vins Diesel, I've had my 335D for five years and 60K miles, alright. Uh, what other, oh wait, hang on. Oh, he's done all these adventures in his car. What adventures would you have someone do with their car? Um, you could put a rooftop tent on it and camp out of it. You could drive it to like Alaska, you could do like Dalton Highway.
1:36:52 Speaker 01 Okay, I was gonna say you could do a rally thing with it, but that's really risky, so maybe that's a bad idea.
1:37:00 Speaker 01 Go to Pike's Peak.
1:37:01 Matt Farah? Pike's Peak is fun.
1:37:02 Speaker 01 Put the rooftop tents on it and then go attend Pike's Peak hill climb and sleep on top of your car. And then drive to the top of it before or after the event.
1:37:10 Matt Farah? I like this. You could, how about go on vacation with your car, meaning like ship it to another country.
1:37:17 Speaker 01 Ooh, that's a good one.
1:37:19 Matt Farah? I would say ship it somewhere that you've always wanted to drive and then, and then go there and drive it.
1:37:24 Speaker 01 Yeah.
1:37:25 Matt Farah? Like Europe, like you want to go to the Swiss Alps, something like that, like that's what I would probably.
1:37:29 Speaker 01 Oh, you could drive it back to BMW factory.
1:37:31 Matt Farah? Mm-hmm. So here you go. I brought this for you.
1:37:34 Speaker 01 I'm in here for a service appointment. Only four questions left.
1:37:37 Matt Farah? Okay, we'll get through them. Felicity Ace, oh, there you go. Can you explain the different trim levels with 911? And it seems that only certain options can be had with certain trims and it's confusing for people not. Well, I don't know how deep I'm supposed to get into this.
1:37:52 Speaker 01 Right, this is a deep hole.
1:37:53 Matt Farah? Yeah, like, okay, so you have your base 911. That's base. It's 3.0 liter twin turbo, PDK only, non-limited slip differential, non-pasm, right? Then you have the T, which is the base engine, but unlocks a whole bunch of options, including manual gearbox, limited diff, sports suspension, better wheels, rear steer, better brakes, because I don't think you even can get like ceramics on a base car. And other performance options, bucket seats, things like that. So that's the base motor with enthusiast options. Then you can get the S. The S is the next most powerful motor and it is, I don't know.
1:38:39 Matt Farah? It's a lot more. It's like 75 or 80 more horsepower. You get the diff and you can get all those other options from the T, but no manual gearbox. And you can get the S in rear wheel drive or all wheel drive and in coupe or convertible. Then you have the GTS, which is the new hybrid. And that's even more powerful. It has a special engine with hybrid turbo and all this other funky stuff. And you can get that in all coupe convertible, all automatic, or Targa, which is the retractable one. Then you have the Turbo and Turbo S. They're basically the same, but the S is more. It's just more handling, more brakes, lighter wheels, better aero, more advanced things.
1:39:21 Matt Farah? Which is like just insane. And then you have the GT family, which is the track-focused motorsport stuff. Naturally aspirated stick or PDK, all the other performance goodies and like extremely customizable.
1:39:36 Speaker 01 Pretty good. I think.
1:39:38 Matt Farah? Right?
1:39:38 Speaker 01 Yeah.
1:39:39 Matt Farah? Yeah.
1:39:40 Speaker 01 Yeah.
1:39:40 Matt Farah? And then you have the GG3RS, which is the big wings. And then you have the ST, which is the GG3RS engine, but manual gearbox.
1:39:46 Speaker 01 Wings or no wings, basically.
1:39:47 Matt Farah? Lightweight things, yeah. And there's a lot of other sub options, like magnesium wheels you can only get on certain cars and certain bits you can only get on certain cars, but.
1:39:57 Speaker 01 And then the minutia, I'm sure there's like interior choices. Oh, these seats are only on this thing, but that's where you have to get the S and that's for the configurator.
1:40:05 Matt Farah? Yeah. But if you're trying to configure a car, make sure that once you do your build, you actually call at someone at a dealer and you go through and you make sure you know what each of those options really means. Cause it's like, you might think something means something, but it really doesn't mean that. Like I learned with my climate control.
1:40:30 Matt Farah? Good question says, for a one to two week car theme trip, would you prefer driving from Washington to Monterey plus Car Week? Or a week-long Scotland driving trip in a Morgan plus four? They'll cost probably the same. Debating both for my 40th, haven't been to Car Week or Scotland, currently leaning in the latter. I would rather drive around Scotland in a Morgan than drive from Washington to Car Week and then do Car Week.
1:40:58 Speaker 01 Now, I have not been to Scotland, you have. Are there, cause he said car themed. So it seems like the car themed part of the Scotland trip is just the driving of the Morgan.
1:41:08 Matt Farah? Well, that'll be plenty.
1:41:10 Speaker 01 Right, whereas the the west coast car trip, it's like you're going to a car.
1:41:13 Matt Farah? To a car thing.
1:41:14 Speaker 01 So I think that's the question is, do you want to experience it? Like for me, when I drove the Morgan, we had the plus four here a couple of weeks, a couple of years ago. Covid 2020. Super fun to drive, but the handling characteristics in the canyons were fucking weird.
1:41:28 Matt Farah? Yeah.
1:41:29 Speaker 01 It was not a fun thing, like it didn't.
1:41:33 Matt Farah? This would be the new one.
1:41:34 Speaker 01 Okay, so hopefully they fixed some of the.
1:41:35 Matt Farah? The new one has been re-engineered.
1:41:37 Speaker 01 Dynamics.
1:41:38 Matt Farah? But, um, or probably would be the new one. I don't know. I mean, I think, I think like Car Week will be there. And, and, and so if you have the chance to do an international trip in a cool car, I think that's a more unique experience and you can use that as a backdrop for doing other stuff like whiskey tastings or, you know, whatever it is you're gonna, you also want to be doing in Scotland.
1:42:03 Speaker 01 Sure.
1:42:04 Matt Farah? Not directly car related.
1:42:07 Speaker 01 You also, while you're on your Scotland trip, you can look at Instagram and see Monterey Car Week where you won't. The inverse is not true.
1:42:14 Matt Farah? Uh, yeah. Car Week's really fun. It is really fun. If you get tickets to the things you want to go to and you get a fun car, you bring it down. It is, it is fun.
1:42:25 Matt Farah? But I think, I think having been to Car Week, I'd probably rather drive around Scotland than Morgan. That would be a particularly well paired up thing. Make sure you go to the Fife Arms if you're going to Scotland. It is the hotel of hotels. It's the fucking best. Donald Dump says, uh, wait, what the fuck?
1:42:45 Speaker 01 Uh, this is like a, I'll highlight the question.
1:42:48 Matt Farah? Oh.
1:42:48 Speaker 01 It's like a joke setup, but then the question is, uh, basically, if the president heard our podcast and got mad at us and then just decreed that all speed limits everywhere, all cars are limited to 80 miles per hour for across the country, to punish us specifically, then how would we still have fun below 80 miles per hour?
1:43:09 Matt Farah? Oh.
1:43:10 Speaker 01 The answer is Miata.
1:43:11 Matt Farah? The answer is Miata's or Alpine A110s. I mean, that's pretty much it. Yeah.
1:43:15 Speaker 01 Light and slow.
1:43:16 Matt Farah? Uh, Groms, little, little miniature motorcycles, Sierra cars. I don't think I've ever gone over Sierra, over 80 in a Sierra car and it was a goddamn great time.
1:43:28 Speaker 01 Yeah, it's terrifying.
1:43:30 Matt Farah? Yeah.
1:43:30 Speaker 01 Like in a good way.
1:43:31 Matt Farah? Yeah. In the desert.
1:43:34 Speaker 01 We're talking land speed or wheel speed? Because if it's land speed, then drifting is often below 80 miles per hour.
1:43:39 Matt Farah? Yeah, good point. Bush did 997. "I regularly see a brand-new Cayenne on Montana tags parked on Gramercy Park in New York City. What's the most egregious use of Montana tags you've encountered?" I mean, you have to define egregious. Have you cheated the highest number in taxes? Or is it egregious in terms of like getting a Montana tag for your like whatever daily? Is that the most egregious? I think that's probably more egregious. What's more egregious? Because it's a slippery slope. Once you have one, once you have a sketchy LLC for one car, you might as well just register all your cars. That's probably what that person with the Cayenne is doing.
1:44:23 Speaker 01 I think, I never thought of this because I've seen plenty of supercars with it, and that makes me mad for the tax reasons. But I think seeing the $200,000 Range Rover daily is probably more egregious because I don't think, I don't think there's a Range Rover dealership in Montana. Like, you know it wasn't bought there. And granted, this is all based on assumptions. But I'm assuming when I see it going to like Century City to a, to a ad dealership or advertiser like, or an agency, they live here. They're commuting to work and they dodge the taxes anyway.
1:44:54 Matt Farah? Yes. Yeah, I mean, I don't know. I personally think, I think it's more egregious to commit millions of dollars in tax fraud by having like a dozen Pagani's registered in Montana than to have one Cayenne. But still, it is, it actually takes like more work. Like, someone had to do more work to evade taxes with, whereas with the Montana thing, you know, there might just be a guy who does that, like.
1:45:27 Speaker 01 What do you mean?
1:45:28 Matt Farah? Like with the, with, you have a fleet of supercars. You might as, if your fucking guy does it. But if you've just got a Range Rover, you've made a whole LLC just to cheat those taxes for this one car, instead of just paying the fucking taxes.
1:45:40 Speaker 01 Yeah, it's lame on both sides.
1:45:41 Matt Farah? Yeah. That's our program today, kids. Uh, I, by the time you hear this, uh, will be, uh, on driving. I'll be driving. I'll be driving across Northern California. You know why? Because, pull it up real quick, Zach. The Seaside to Sierra event is now up at experiences.rodentrack.com. They, uh, this one's gonna be great, and I'm driving the route, uh, this week to make sure it's great. We're gonna start at the Montage Healdsburg, which is a sick hotel. It's ridiculously dope. Uh, and then we're gonna have a full track day at Sonoma Raceway.
1:46:24 Matt Farah? We're gonna stay at the Lodge at the Presidio in the shadow of the Golden Gate Bridge. We're then going to drive back across wine country, uh, through Yountville to Grass Valley, where we're going to have, uh, we're gonna go to Scott Pruitt, the racing driver's of Vineyard. He's got a vineyard and a winery, so we're gonna drink Scott Pruitt's wine. He's gonna be there at Sonoma to give hot laps also. Uh, so you'll have one of the fastest shoes in the fucking west, uh, and me, also, giving hot laps. We'll stay in Grass Valley, and then we are going to drive the very, very pretty way to Lake Tahoe, where we'll have a, uh, a sunset boat tour of the lake,
1:47:07 Matt Farah? and we're gonna stay at the fucking Ritz Carlton in Tahoe. Um, it's gonna be real mass, Clark. Um, we are gonna be, it's gonna be an amazing drive. I, I'm super stoked for this one. The food is gonna be awesome, the wine is gonna be awesome, and we have, uh, four great hotels. Uh, three of the four are like exceptionally good. The fourth one I have, uh, I haven't been to yet, so I'll tell you about how it goes next week. Um, I'll be writing a story about it for Road and Track, driving a Lexus LC5 Hyundai. That'll be real nice as well. Get to say farewell before they get rid of the N A V8 with a little, uh, 1,100 mile lap of California.
1:47:47 Speaker 01 Sick.
1:47:48 Matt Farah? That'll be super fun, so that's what I've been doing for the next four days. And, uh, and then I'll see you guys next week with more podcasting, and we haven't forgotten about you pro drivers. Your Pro Driver Show will be next week as well. Um, thanks, everybody. See you later. Bye.
Previous Eric Kendricks (NFL Linebacker, Top Notch Car Enthusiast) Next LC500 for 1100 miles; Hydrogen Lawsuit; Kitten rescue Page updated November 3, 2026 · transcript and summary are machine-generated