New SIM; Kill Switch Law; Merc Project

Matt Farah describes his first BAD ride in a Waymo; he and Zack Klapman talk about the oddities for sale at Barrett-Jackson auctions; the truth about the "kill switch" law Congress passed; the Mercedes project begins; and Patreon questions include: Why has the Porsche 911 maintained a consistent look while others can't? Favorite tuner for engines with 4,6,8,10, and 12 cylinders? Do automakers still take risks? Has Porsche reliability gone down? Best and worst swag from a press launch? Why we think the C8 Corvette ZR1 will depreciate when the C7 didn't. What to get for someone who drives a Drakan? Will SIM racing cafes work? And more! Recorded January 29, 2026 Show Notes Hello Fresh Go to https://HelloFresh.com/smokingtire10fm to Get 10 free meals + a FREE Zwilling Knife (a $144.99 value) on your third box. Offer valid while supplies last. Free meals applied as discount on first box, new subscribers only, varies by plan. MudWtr Start your new morning ritual & get up to 43% off your @MUDWTR with code tire at https://mudwtr.com/tire #mudwtrpod DeleteMe Get 20% off your DeleteMe plan when you go to https://joindeleteme.com/TIRE and use promo code TIRE at checkout.

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

• 0:00Matt Farah?

  What up everybody? Matt Farah here with my boy Zach Clapman. Welcome to the Smoking Tire Podcast. And today's episode is, as always, brought to you by Off the Record. We love Off the Record because they're out there on the road looking out for you. Every week, not a week goes by that I don't get an email from somebody or DM on Instagram saying, "Man, Off the Record saved my bum." I was about to use them myself on this past road trip, but I got away with one. I thought I got nailed, but actually, the guy was just checking out the Corvette. But if you get nailed, don't plead guilty. That's for suckers. Go to offtherrecord.com/tst. That's offtherrecord.com/tst. They will connect you with a qualified attorney who will fight

• 0:44Matt Farah?

  that ticket in the jurisdiction in which you got it, right? They'll send the right person to do the job in the right place. And if you use offtherrecord.com/tst, you will get 10% off all legal services booked through Off the Record. If you get a ticket, big, small, or in between, don't plead guilty. Fight it with Off the Record at offtherrecord.com/tst. They've got your back. All right, folks, on this episode of the program, I spent some time at the Barrett-Jackson Auction in Scottsdale. I had a really weird Waymo ride, dropped off our new Project Mercedes

• 1:24Matt Farah?

  to get it going, and we tried a totally new type of racing simulator. It's the Smoking Tire Podcast. Let's go.

• 1:34Matt Farah?

  Should we begin in the beginning?

• 1:36Speaker 01

  Yeah, or we could go from the back to the front.

• 1:39Matt Farah?

  Ah, I prefer the front to the back.

• 1:41Speaker 01

  You wipe, back to front.

• 1:43Matt Farah?

  Back to front?

• 1:43Speaker 01

  Always, sure.

• 1:44Matt Farah?

  Really? Sometimes front to back. Switch it up.

• 1:47Speaker 01

  Always front to back.

• 1:48Matt Farah?

  Always front to back.

• 1:49Speaker 01

  That's the joke.

• 1:50Matt Farah?

  Always front to back. Hi, well, hi.

• 1:54Matt Farah?

  Um, man, it's been, I thought we might not have things to talk about, but boy, do we have things to talk about. There have been things that have happened, believe it or not. Uh, one more, much shorter shout out to Minneapolis. I got a bunch of nice emails from people that are fucking getting shit done out there. Um, and, and I really, it was nice to hear from those folks. Uh, stay warm, continue getting shit done. Uh, we, we appreciate you from fucking 1,500 miles away. Um, but, uh, in our world, some, some things happened.

• 2:33Matt Farah?

  Let's see, where do I start? Okay, let's start a week ago when I went to Barrett-Jackson. So like, if you're my age, or my age-ish, or maybe a little older, maybe a little younger, you know, Barrett-Jackson streaming on TV for a week straight, like, was like a staple of my car youth.

• 2:50Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 2:51Matt Farah?

  I would watch it like it was like horse racing. You know what I mean? You'd watch it like it was gambling almost. Wow, what do you think that's gonna do with? You know, their, their televised auctions have fucking, they changed the game. I mean, totally changed the game. And, uh, I hadn't been to Barrett-Jackson. I'd only been once before and it was a very long time ago and I wanted to go back. I was passing through Scottsdale while it was going on. Our pal Mike Musto was there. Finally met that dude, Supi, who's awesome, by the way. I expected Supi to be like an old Polish man. Not, he is not an old, he's like a young.

• 3:25Speaker 01

  Yeah, you didn't know, you never seen him before or anything?

• 3:28Matt Farah?

  Nope. No, no, no. So, yeah, it did not look like I expected someone named Supi to look, anyway. Uh, we walked around, we fucking saw all this stuff. The, the, car-wise, what we really, there's like, at the high end, there was like, dude, look, there's like, look, multiple SF, in the background of this shot, which I'll tell you why it's even, but there's like seven new gen 4GTs, all these SF90s, blah, blah, blah, right? Fine. You gotta go to the sold tent where the cars that sold on like Monday and Tuesday are sitting. Cause that's where the gold is. That's where the cheap cars are at, right?

• 4:04Speaker 01

  Cause they build more, it gets more expensive throughout the week, right?

• 4:07Matt Farah?

  More or less. I think it culminates on Saturday and then pairs off a little bit on Sunday, but like, it builds from Monday to Saturday in terms of like expected value of cars.

• 4:16Speaker 01

  Cause if you can get drunk and bid on a Tuesday, they're like, you can't buy that much car.

• 4:19Matt Farah?

  You cannot do that much damage on a Tuesday, right? But so, but the cars that sell on Monday and Tuesday then go into like side tents. Now, I didn't take any pictures of those, cause I just, I don't know. We were just talking about cars. I wasn't taking pictures, but like I was, I was seeking value. And let me tell you the value that I found. First off, if you're within like driving distance of Barrett Jackson, of Scottsdale, it's a fucking thing to see. It is absolutely one of the great American car spectacles that's worth seeing. Specifically the Scottsdale one. It's enormous. There's so many fucking cars. You can get so drunk. I, I didn't get a bidder's pass. I just bought a GA ticket, cause I was just like, whatever.

• 5:02Matt Farah?

  Apparently if you buy like even the basic level of bidder's pass, it comes with a shocking number of drink tickets. It's like something like 10 drinks a day or something, crazy number. You can get fucking schwasted and then you can buy.

• 5:18Speaker 01

  Right.

• 5:19Matt Farah?

  Not just cars. I'll show you in a second, some other things you can buy there, but like just the silliest stuff imaginable, right? And also it's like compared to like your, your car week auctions or your Amelia Island auctions, or any of your other like really prestigious auctions. This is like a fucking circus, this thing. I mean, there's, the, the cars in this are fucking all, I mean, there's great, there's unbelievable, and then there is straight up garbagio. I mean, and it's, it's just a crazy thing to see.

• 5:52Speaker 01

  What was the cheapest? Auction result you saw, do you know?

• 5:56Matt Farah?

  I saw a car that was one that went for $1,000.

• 6:00Speaker 01

  Wow.

• 6:00Matt Farah?

  Yeah.

• 6:01Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 6:01Matt Farah?

  It was like an Aries K, you know, like one of like a Plymouth Dodge Aries, like that terrible, you know, two box sedan.

• 6:09Speaker 01

  Yeah, made out of cardboard.

• 6:10Matt Farah?

  Yeah, something like that. And there was a couple of sub $5,000 like shit boxes.

• 6:14Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 6:15Matt Farah?

  Yeah, yeah. But like, there's a lot like, if Barrett Jackson, 25K goes a long way, a long way. 25K gets you into a pretty fabulous, non-numbers matching muscle car that is a set of new wheels away from being like a totally decent car that you could, like, the number of cars with like heinous 90s wheels that were otherwise fine, that were like $22,000, you just put the stock wheels back on and do a great detail and a great photo shoot, they're 35 on Bring a Trailer like a week later. Like, there's a, there's

• 6:56Matt Farah?

  a business in that. Cause this is, people are so lazy selling their cars there, or and/or they think their like wheel choices are good and they are not. Or they were good, you know, on trend 35 years ago.

• 7:08Speaker 01

  Well, some people still think mods add value. Like, those wheels cost four grand, four grand in 2002 and...

• 7:13Matt Farah?

  Yeah. So there was a lot of that. There's, so for you, I even texted you.

• 7:17Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 7:18Matt Farah?

  And I was like, Habibi, I know you love a late 60s Mustang. Like, there's a bunch of like almost turnkey shit here. Like, there's, there were so many of those.

• 7:27Speaker 01

  I should bring Sarah to this thing.

• 7:28Matt Farah?

  The number of like fucking, you know, you name it, uh, like just C3 Corvettes and, and, and just, you know, mid-year Mustangs and like some really nice stuff too, but like, you know, okay. But I, the value I really saw, it was like, 25K will get you a 1993 Corvette ZR1, black, black with under 30,000 miles.

• 7:53Speaker 01

  Wow.

• 7:53Matt Farah?

  Which for our, like, the performance bargain that that is, cause like, those things don't look like much, but they are really, really fast.

• 8:02Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 8:03Matt Farah?

  Like, that's like a 400 horsepower car with a four cam V8 and it's transaxle, it's light and they turn in like crazy. That car had the, um, when Car and Driver did, was doing the slalom, I think they still do the slalom test. Um, but that thing was the record holder in the slalom test for like a couple of years. So I saw three of those, three ZR1s for 25K or less.

• 8:31Matt Farah?

  I really liked, these aren't for everybody, but I really like the mid 90s two-door Tahos.

• 8:39Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 8:39Matt Farah?

  I think those are fucking pretty cool. Ron Baugh has the sick one. And who else? Someone else? Did Zach put an LT4 in one? Somebody put a LT4 in a two-door Tahoe, and it was pretty nuts.

• 8:52Speaker 01

  I think Zach Mertens did.

• 8:53Matt Farah?

  Was it Zach Mertens?

• 8:53Speaker 01

  It's insane. It's like 1800 horsepower. What, uh, so the ZR1 test in Car and Driver, it actually got beat by the 300ZX Turbo.

• 9:01Matt Farah?

  Oh.

• 9:02Speaker 01

  By 4.8 miles per hour in 1991.

• 9:05Matt Farah?

  Oh, so it had it before that? It had it in 89 to 91 then?

• 9:10Speaker 01

  Maybe it did that.

• 9:10Matt Farah?

  Yeah, or 90 to 91, okay.

• 9:12Speaker 01

  Yeah, because the Z has the super steering and all that stuff.

• 9:14Matt Farah?

  Oh, it had four-wheel steering, right?

• 9:16Speaker 01

  High-Cass.

• 9:17Matt Farah?

  High-Cass, yeah. Oh, how interesting. But anyway, those things drive, they drive awesome and they're cheap. You know, IROC's, Fox Bodies, uh, built Fox Bodies, like, went for big money.

• 9:32Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 9:33Matt Farah?

  Like, a turnkey, kind of OEM-plus looking with like a Coyote swap is like a $45,000 car.

• 9:42Speaker 01

  That makes sense. That's, with a Coyote swap, that's pretty rad.

• 9:45Matt Farah?

  Yeah, one, I saw one with a, uh, what was it? The, uh, with a Lightning swap, a 5.4 supercharged, yeah, like a Lightning swap.

• 9:55Speaker 01

  That's a GT500 before the GT500.

• 9:57Matt Farah?

  It was proper. Yeah, it was in a Fox Body, and that was a $50,000 car.

• 10:03Speaker 01

  Were these coupes or hatches?

• 10:05Matt Farah?

  They were hatches. I did not see a notch. Yeah, no notches. I actually, I was surprised at how few Fox Bodies there were. There, I really only saw maybe four. Granted, there could have been some in like the other, because there was a whole other, I was like four hours, there's a whole other room of cars that like were gonna sell, like we wanted to see, because when it sells, they put the price on the window. So we wanted to see what shit was selling for. It was the equivalent of looking through the results tab with the sold thing, you know, that's what we wanted to see. So, um, the nots, we didn't even really bother so much with the not yet sold. And there was some cool stuff, we walked briefly through it, and some really wild, like shit, so many cars where Musta

• 10:48Matt Farah?

  was like, "I saw that at SEMA five years ago. I saw that at SEMA six years ago. I remember that from SEMA." Like, yeah, you know, it was, it was, uh, but, my favorite part of Barrett-Jackson is not the cars, it's the sideshow tent. It's the like, sort of, ah, it's like, it's like a craft fair, but for like, blue collar ballers. So, like, if you want a pontoon boat, or a hot tub, or a massage chair, or like, some item of like, blue collar luxuriousness, like, this is your mall. Like, every, like, all of the, like, nothing will

• 11:32Matt Farah?

  make you feel less cool wearing a steel Rolex than seeing the jewelers in there with a case with like, 500 steel Rolexes. Every single one you can imagine, like, they've got it right there, and some dude that's like eight jacks in is like, yup.

• 11:47Speaker 01

  So is that the place to, because if you go into a Rolex store, they'll make you buy five other watches first?

• 11:51Matt Farah?

  Well, these are secondhand.

• 11:52Speaker 01

  Right, I know, but so these are secondhand, but is this the place to go to get a watch? Like, unless you want to buy one online?

• 11:59Matt Farah?

  I mean-

• 12:01Speaker 01

  Like, are there watch auction events that are similar? I'm sure there are.

• 12:04Matt Farah?

  There are watch auctions, but not, not for like, submariners and shit. There's watch auctions for like, important watches, and vintage watches and stuff. And like, you can get some affordable things, but, you know, you'll see stuff that, like cars, where watches are millions of dollars.

• 12:18Speaker 01

  But if you just want a Kermit, would you go to Barrett-Jackson for it? Pick up a Kermit in like a-

• 12:23Matt Farah?

  I, I, so these- These like jewelers that are in this thing, they're, they're, I've not, I've not verified these people. They're all dressed like these guys on Instagram that go to like the wholesale and they're like haggling. You know what I mean? They're wearing essentially a suit without a jacket or a tie. Just a suit shirt and the suit pants and shoes, right? Watch on each wrist, right? Couple rings and you know, very clean skin. And they're all like, you know, thin and, and, and fucking, you know, there's a big counter, like a big counter that's like our, you know, the size of our table.

• 13:04Matt Farah?

  But like, it's like that and an L. So it's imagine that, but then there's like eight people behind the counter.

• 13:11Speaker 01

  Oh wow. Okay. So it's kind of aggressive. That seems.

• 13:15Matt Farah?

  It's like, it's like a, like a bullpen. It's like Wall Street or something over there. So like, are the watches they're selling real and genuine? And I don't know. I, I, would I, would I buy a watch from them?

• 13:30Matt Farah?

  Spidey Sense says probably not. And I'm not like, I'm not trying to single out any individual. Like I don't even remember the names of them. I, they're just, they're just, they could be, it could be a website. Like it's the same as like, you know, not Bob's, but like any number of places on the internet that sell secondhand watches. So like, I would say like, if you're capable of, of immediately identifying whether something is genuine and you're comfortable buying like that, but like,

• 13:58Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 13:59Matt Farah?

  Anyway, there are watches. There's also cowboy boots and fucking knives. So, so anyway, so that's where I ended up taking pictures of stuff. Cause you know, very rarely does a car stop me in my tracks. So go back to the first picture. The first picture, this is in, this is hilarious because folks taking a quick break for HelloFresh supporting us today. I love HelloFresh. You know what? Nobody tells you about weeknight dinner. It's the thing that never goes away. Every day around 5pm, there it is again. HelloFresh doesn't make you a better cook. It just gives you your nights back. What are they talking about? It's not about being good at cooking. It's about the mental load of figuring out every single night. What are we gonna have? What are we gonna eat? No, no, no.

• 14:44Matt Farah?

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• 15:27Matt Farah?

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• 16:11Matt Farah?

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• 16:53Matt Farah?

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• 19:06Matt Farah?

  You know, one of the things they do are these charity auctions, which always raise so much money. And on the surface of it, I am not against a charity auction of any kind. It's fine. So here's a Mercedes gullwing was donated to a charity auction. Can you see the beneficiary of the auction there, Zach?

• 19:23Speaker 01

  Yeah, the CHP 1199 Foud Nation.

• 19:26Matt Farah?

  First off, it's the CHP 1199 Foud Nation.

• 19:32Speaker 01

  They misspelled foundation on their very large poster that is about the size, I mean, as tall as the car.

• 19:39Matt Farah?

  It's as tall as the car, yeah, pretty much. So that's the one thing. And the other thing is, the CHP 1199, this is like where you, where everyone knows you donate money if you want to get out of, if you want to not get tickets.

• 19:51Speaker 01

  How many tickets do you need to be getting a year where you have to donate a 300 SL to get, you know, just get out of them for the next 10 years?

• 19:58Matt Farah?

  When we saw this, I was like, okay, so if you, you know, if you go to their website, if you buy, you know, you donate 50 bucks, you get like a sticker. If you donate like, you know, 2,000 bucks, and I'm making up the numbers, but they're not far off, you donate something in the thousands, you get that license plate frame. And that's what everybody wants. Everybody wants that 1199 license plate frame. That's the immediate identifier in California. If you gave, get pulled over of, I've donated money. Do you have the prices handy, Zach?

• 20:29Speaker 01

  No, I was looking at the budget increases for the CHP year over year, but.

• 20:33Matt Farah?

  So, and then, you know, you can, there's, you can like get a badge if you give enough money. I mean, if you give them like 20 grand or something, it's like you get like a badge. It's crazy. And it's just, I've never heard of anyone donating money for any other reason than what bit of shiny jewelry that says 1199 on it, do you get to show a cop if you get pulled over? My theory is if you, if you buy this car, you actually get issued a California driver's license with the name Bruce Meyer on it. I think that's pretty funny.

• 21:10Speaker 01

  I think they give you a cop car, a uniform, they give you a gun with no firing pin. I mean, you get the whole thing.

• 21:15Matt Farah?

  You actually get.

• 21:16Speaker 01

  For this car.

• 21:17Matt Farah?

  Full credentials. Oh, we have it?

• 21:18Speaker 01

  Yeah, here's the two.

• 21:19Matt Farah?

  Oh, yeah, here we go. Classic level. Three Gs, you get a glass plaque, one license plate frame, leather wallet and brass and ID card, and a plastic ID card. That's three Gs. Five Gs gets you a crystal star award, a laptop backpack, two license plate frames, leather registration holder, leather registration holder, leather wallet and brass ID card.

• 21:50Speaker 01

  And a plastic ID card.

• 21:51Matt Farah?

  And then a ten Gs, you get a jacket with an 1199 logo.

• 21:57Speaker 01

  A toiletry bag.

• 21:58Matt Farah?

  A dop kit.

• 21:59Speaker 01

  Mugs.

• 22:00Matt Farah?

  Coffee mugs, the logo cap, a hat, yeah. You get fucking full-on cosplay.

• 22:06Speaker 01

  Well, you get, you get more and more things so that no matter what you grab in your house, you'll, you'll have something that'll say 1199. You just get more stuff. There's more tiers.

• 22:14Matt Farah?

  Well, oh my God, there's so many more. Wait, go back up. But also, like, also, you, with the jacket and the hat, well, that's because you really have more than two cars. And you only get two frames. So you need to have something that identifies you at that, that level.

• 22:28Speaker 01

  True.

• 22:29Matt Farah?

  When you're in another car.

• 22:30Speaker 01

  Now, do you think the dop kit is so that if you hire a sex worker and they come over and it's a sting, and then as they're about to put the cuffs on you, they see that and they go, we'll let it slide?

• 22:40Matt Farah?

  Yeah.

• 22:40Speaker 01

  I know CHP doesn't do vice. Maybe they do. I don't even know.

• 22:43Matt Farah?

  All right, wait, I thought that was the highest. I didn't realize that was only silver. Gold, 25K.

• 22:48Speaker 01

  Oh, my God.

• 22:49Matt Farah?

  You get the jacket, you get the backpack, the duffel, two coffee tumblers, the cap, two license plate frames. I have to say, I don't, I don't think you get a whole lot more for 25K, to be honest with you. It doesn't seem like you do. At 100K, the platinum level, you get a personalized platinum award, a platinum level watch. God, I want to know what the platinum level watches.

• 23:16Speaker 01

  You get invites to events where you get to schmooze. That's probably worth something.

• 23:21Matt Farah?

  That's a big one. The platinum level jacket with the 1199 logo, that's a big one.

• 23:26Speaker 01

  This is the entry level politician level.

• 23:29Matt Farah?

  Yeah, dude.

• 23:30Speaker 01

  You need to rub elbows with these people and get their, you know, the union behind you.

• 23:33Matt Farah?

  250, the list gets shorter again. Private events with CHP, top brass, an 1199 CEO, recognition in perpetuity at the museum.

• 23:45Matt Farah?

  Hosted travel and tour of the Academy exclusive ads. Name displayed at the headquarters in the annual report. Okay, this is about putting your name in other things that they broadcast out to other people. Diamond license plate frames, black with chrome lettering at the diamond level. Wow.

• 24:05Speaker 01

  And then here's the watch.

• 24:06Matt Farah?

  Let's see the watch. Oh, it's a Cromwell. $100,000 for this fucking thing. Oh my God. Look at that. Dare I say, absolute piece of shit looking watch. That's fucking crazy.

• 24:25Speaker 01

  All this watch, this is just, this is one step behind having a police badge. I mean, it's got, it has for people listening, it has a CHP star like in the middle of the watch. So it's just so that on your left hand, when the police officer walks up, they see that.

• 24:39Matt Farah?

  Let me just check the time. Oh, that's crazy. So anyway, this is what you're getting by giving money to this organization in case you're wondering. So, um, anyway, I thought that was very funny. You think for all that money, they could spell the sign right?

• 24:57Speaker 01

  Fowden Nation. Fowden Nation.

• 25:00Matt Farah?

  What if that's, what if the sign is right and it's a fucking fake?

• 25:03Speaker 01

  That's what I was thinking. Yeah.

• 25:05Matt Farah?

  You think the sign is accurate and you're donating to a mimicking organization with a different but similar looking name?

• 25:12Speaker 01

  Imagine the balls to make a fake police organization and then try to get away with that crime. Like, they'll all be after you.

• 25:18Matt Farah?

  I mean, look, I had someone who worked for the police steal a digital tracking device from my car for purposes of using it for digital tracking.

• 25:28Speaker 01

  What?

• 25:29Matt Farah?

  When I got arrested for street racing back in New York and my car was impounded. A cop stole my EZ Pass out of my car and was commuting with it. That's the level of thinking we're at here. Uh, let's see the next photo. The next photo is what you'd call good conservative art.

• 25:48Matt Farah?

  You know how they always, conservatives always talk about how like art's too woke? Like, whatever? This is, this is like Americana threw up all over. This is like you're decorating a low-level ski lodge in 2002. Basically.

• 26:06Speaker 01

  Is the Wells Fargo, uh, carriage, which is a real full-size one, by the way, was that, is this an area sponsored by Wells Fargo?

• 26:14Matt Farah?

  No, this is a place selling this artwork. This, this, it's big eagles.

• 26:20Speaker 01

  Huge eagles.

• 26:20Matt Farah?

  And like literal Indian heads.

• 26:23Speaker 01

  Lot of wood carvings of eagles that, I mean, some of these look six feet tall.

• 26:28Matt Farah?

  Yeah, huge.

• 26:29Speaker 01

  On giant pedestals.

• 26:31Matt Farah?

  Huge horses and eagles and Americana shit.

• 26:38Speaker 01

  Yeah. Oh, and you've got like the, the Stock Exchange Bowl right here.

• 26:41Matt Farah?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 26:42Speaker 01

  That you can put somewhere. You need to have such a big house to just...

• 26:46Matt Farah?

  Yeah, big, but imagine like how awful your house would be decorated.

• 26:50Speaker 01

  This eagle statue, it's two eagles like dancing or whatever, is literally twice the size of these grown men standing right next to it.

• 26:58Matt Farah?

  I think that one probably goes outside.

• 27:00Speaker 01

  That is like 12 feet tall.

• 27:01Matt Farah?

  Yeah, so let's, so keep going, we've got, we've got more. Would you like, so Zach flew in the Pivotal, uh, uh, man, what do you, what do they call it? I forget what they call this thing.

• 27:12Speaker 01

  I forget too.

• 27:13Matt Farah?

  It's like ultra...

• 27:14Speaker 01

  The helix.

• 27:14Matt Farah?

  Uh, he, yeah, helix, but no, it's what style of vehicle is it? It's like a drone you fly in.

• 27:19Speaker 01

  Oh, um, yeah, electric, uh, vertical takeoff landing.

• 27:21Matt Farah?

  EV toll, excuse me. So you flew in that and that, and how do you feel looking at this particular EV toll about whether or not it would be safe?

• 27:34Speaker 01

  I honestly, the honest thing to say is I don't know because all of, like, there's the hardware side of these things and then there's the software side of these things. The only reason I trusted Pivotal... Is because I have friends that work at Boeing and other drone companies. And I said, have you heard of these people? And they said, yes. Otherwise, I wouldn't have gotten in there. And no disrespect to Pivotal. So with these guys that have built this, you just, and I've seen a lot of like clips of these different machines being sold or being like promoted to be for sale. A lot of this personalized electric vertical takeoff stuff. And how long's the ride? It's so easy. You hop in, you just control it with a joystick. I mean, there's so much that needs to go into the training for these things.

• 28:15Matt Farah?

  Yeah. So anyway, they were selling these.

• 28:18Speaker 01

  This is an eight, this is eight rotor. So it's, this is a lot like, it's a big DJI thing. You know, you've got two rotors at each corner and they probably spin like opposing directions. I mean, I don't know. This stuff excites me. It seems fun, but I wouldn't want to get in them for like another five years.

• 28:37Matt Farah?

  Yeah. It seems, it seems, I don't know. I don't want to, I don't want to pass judgment on this thing if it's been tested and whatever. But like, it just looks shady. I just, just looking at it, it looks kind of shady. I don't know.

• 28:51Speaker 01

  I don't think, I mean, the one I was in like looked cool because it was all carbon and you could see that, but it had to be a certain weight, right? It had to be very light. So if it fell out of the sky, if I had done something wrong, the carbon's not protecting me very much. Like it's, the ground is going through it. So this looks more exposed, I think, which might make you feel a little bit unnerved. What I will say, this would be way easier to take off and land because it doesn't tilt up or down.

• 29:15Matt Farah?

  This has a traditional helicopter configuration with like skids and a traditional helicopter seating position.

• 29:21Speaker 01

  Visibility is much better.

• 29:23Matt Farah?

  Yeah. So I don't know. It's just, this was being sold right next to that artwork and a bunch of Rolex's and cowboy boots and you know, trips to go on quail hunts.

• 29:35Speaker 01

  There's something amazing that this was across the aisle from like eagle sculptures, like a hundred years, 20 years ago, like the eagle, you know, was the thing that flew.

• 29:43Matt Farah?

  Yeah.

• 29:44Speaker 01

  And now we've got this for sale in a mall.

• 29:46Matt Farah?

  Yeah. Okay, keep going. So, so this is, you have the millionaire gallery here, which, guys, one more quick break because Mud Water is coming in hot. Now, here's the thing about Mud Water. It's a coffee alternative that's made with. Cow chai, turmeric, and functional mushrooms like lion's mane and reishi, okay? You get this sort of warm focus boost without a wired buzz or a crash that usually tags along with coffee or other caffeinated products, right? And I've had problems with caffeine in the past. I've had literal panic attacks as a result of being overly caffeinated. And so, when you want to get your morning together, a little less chaos, less jittery

• 30:30Matt Farah?

  energy, and more of that kind of locked-in feeling that gets you going, but when I don't, I can't have that kind of caffeine in the morning, that's where the Mudwater comes in, right? And if you're still craving that taste of coffee, which, you know, you're in luck, I like it, they just launched a low caffeine coffee made with organic arabica, Swiss water decaf, L-theanine, and the same functional mushrooms you get in the other blends. It's rich, smooth, and only 45mg of caffeine, so you can get the flavor you love without the jitters, crash, or spiraling thoughts. Spiraling thoughts is usually where you would find me in the peak of being overly caffeinated, so I don't want any of them. So whether you're mixing up the original blend, or easing into something gentler than your

• 31:15Matt Farah?

  usual brew, Mudwater makes it ridiculously easy to start the day feeling good. Now you can grab it at Target and Sprouts nationwide, making better mornings easier than ever. Every ingredient in Mudwater does serve a purpose, right? With organic ingredients for a clean, natural boost, Mudwater's smooth, earthy flavors provide a delicious and natural source of energy. Their OG blend contains cacao and chai for a hint of caffeine and a hot chocolate-like flavor, lion's mane for focus, cordyceps to promote natural energy, and both chaga and reishi to support a healthy immune system. Ready to make the switch to cleaner energy?

• 31:55Matt Farah?

  Head over to mudwtr.com, that's M-U-D-W-T-R dot com, and grab your starter kit today. Right now, our listeners get an exclusive deal, up to 43% off your entire order, plus free shipping and a free rechargeable frother when you use code Tire at checkout. That's right. Up to 43% off with code tire at M U D W T R dot com. After your purchase, they'll ask how you found them. Please show your support and let them know it was us. M U D W T R and use code tire at checkout. And now, back to the show.

• 32:35Matt Farah?

  Which has a bunch of these sort of composite things where it's photos of famous people alongside their signatures. It's like shadow boxes.

• 32:46Speaker 01

  Got it. Okay.

• 32:47Matt Farah?

  And then there's the weird one of fucking Trump maybe getting shot at the top corner.

• 32:52Speaker 01

  There's like a Marlboro F1 one.

• 32:53Matt Farah?

  Well, that's a senile.

• 32:54Speaker 01

  Carol Shelby, clearly.

• 32:55Matt Farah?

  Yeah. So, that kind of stuff, like this sort of Americana, the millionaire, this sort of like, this sort of worship of these, of successful people.

• 33:07Speaker 01

  It's totally an altar for a person. It's like, we got their signature when we cornered them outside a bathroom, but then we took pictures from the internet and printed them and all that stuff. That's pretty funny.

• 33:18Matt Farah?

  So go to the next one, because there was around the back was really creepy Trump fantasy art. So we have Trump, Captain Trump Sparrow.

• 33:27Speaker 01

  Dude, I mean, for people listening, like, even regardless of your politics, this is hilarious. It was Trump's face in Captain Jack Sparrow garb, like head to toe.

• 33:37Matt Farah?

  In front of a Navy destroyer with like a, like a, it's not a real signature. It's like an imagery of his signature on like a name tag there. And then on top, it says like, a whole bunch of like, quote, accomplishments of his that most of which are not actually real, like stopped eight wars and things like that.

• 34:03Speaker 01

  No, you know what it says? It says where he was born, where he went to college.

• 34:08Matt Farah?

  Oh, okay. The other one.

• 34:09Speaker 01

  It says he produced The Apprentice, and then he appointed three Supreme Court justices, and... Yeah, that's what that says.

• 34:16Matt Farah?

  Okay, that one, that one actually at least has some truth to it. There was another one. I saw this one I thought was the funniest imagery, but there was one of him as like a fucking atlas picking up the world. There's like, there was one that was him as like a, like an Aristotle, you know, and the one, the Aristotle, I think it was the Aristotle one that was like the world peace.

• 34:38Speaker 01

  This is proof that it's not just AI making bad art that just jams things together.

• 34:42Matt Farah?

  This was probably made by AI.

• 34:43Speaker 01

  That was, but like, was it a sculpture, Alice, or him just holding something like?

• 34:47Matt Farah?

  No, it was like these. It was like a painting. It was from this particular dealer.

• 34:50Speaker 01

  This is definitely AI.

• 34:52Matt Farah?

  And there was, yeah, so then we have the Venezia gallery here. This is like gigantic bronze sculptures, but of also mostly Americana, like big wildlife stuff, horses bucking and eagles and deers and fucking lions and shit.

• 35:10Speaker 01

  You have an estate and you need something on that lawn, right? I mean, this, these are humongous.

• 35:15Matt Farah?

  But also like, not very like, they're, they're the kind of things that decorate a certain mid-tier level of hotel. You don't see this in like, the really nicely designed homes.

• 35:31Speaker 01

  I guess. I mean, I don't, I don't have that much exposure to those places, but I think if you have a giant hotel that's out in the middle of like Montana and you just go, we need something in this room.

• 35:42Matt Farah?

  Yeah, that's what I'm saying.

• 35:43Speaker 01

  And you just, you shove a giant horse in it, or like an elk, because it's.

• 35:46Matt Farah?

  That's exactly what I'm saying. It's the kind of stuff you'd put in a mid-tier hunting lodge.

• 35:50Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think that's just how hotels work. They gotta remind you of the thing you're already doing.

• 35:54Matt Farah?

  Yeah. Continue. Then we had all sorts of weird Trumpy iconography. This place sold pianos. And yet they had a Trump mannequin playing the most femme-looking Liberace-ass piano imaginable.

• 36:08Speaker 01

  Well, I think you're missing, the, the big detail with these pianos, and don't sue me, this is a joke, is that these pianos are all probably under 18 years old. So that's why they're geared towards him to play them.

• 36:17Matt Farah?

  That's why he's tickling them. Uh, yeah. That's, so there was this weird.

• 36:22Speaker 01

  We're gonna get demonetized for that.

• 36:23Matt Farah?

  All kinds of weird Trumpy stuff. Going on, uh, continue. And then this was actually my favorite thing. And I have two photos of it. This is the up close, but the next photo is the zoom out. This is a full-size uh, coffee table, or it could be like a kitchen island table. And it's an Etch A Sketch with you have two knobs. And go back to the other photo, the two knobs drag around this little digger that just moves dirt. And it's just a joyous little thing. It was $2,500 and I almost bought it.

• 36:53Speaker 01

  It's pretty cool. That's uh, this is um, like artisanal, uh, like RC car.

• 37:00Matt Farah?

  Even, yeah.

• 37:01Speaker 01

  What was the word I'm looking for? Um. Mechanical? Yeah, it's just mechanical. So the ball, you move the ball and the ball pushes the little thing?

• 37:09Matt Farah?

  The digger drags behind the ball.

• 37:11Speaker 01

  Oh, it's attached to?

• 37:12Matt Farah?

  It's attached to the ball. And, and so when you move the ball, it, it sort of toes the digger like a trailer. But the digger then pushes dirt around.

• 37:20Speaker 01

  Dude, that's very meditative.

• 37:21Matt Farah?

  It's like a Zen garden, but for like, you know, yeah, buddies.

• 37:25Speaker 01

  You know, but if you, uh, trade Carhartt.

• 37:27Matt Farah?

  I really, I, me and, me and Musto sat there playing with this for 15 minutes. We really liked this.

• 37:32Speaker 01

  If you had known, you needed a room that this needed to live in and then you'd have bought it. Like, it, I think.

• 37:37Matt Farah?

  Yeah, I don't, uh, I don't have this. I don't think it would work in my house.

• 37:41Speaker 01

  Right.

• 37:42Matt Farah?

  Uh, but it, it, it's fun.

• 37:44Speaker 01

  If you had a hunting lodge. See? I'm serious.

• 37:48Matt Farah?

  It's, it's very, very fun though. I do, I really liked this a lot. Yeah. We, we, we played with this for a solid. Cause see, see the fucking laps around the rocks? That's us.

• 37:57Speaker 01

  Yeah. That's pretty cool. That's Musto's foot.

• 38:01Matt Farah?

  Yeah, that's Musto's giant foot. Uh, that's all I took pictures of. There was also this guy who made these Rube Goldberg devices. Like where the ball, you know, the.

• 38:09Speaker 01

  Rad.

• 38:09Matt Farah?

  Is it Rube Goldberg?

• 38:11Speaker 01

  Well, that Rube Goldberg is like a complicated mechanical device to complete.

• 38:15Matt Farah?

  What's the thing where like the ball, a ball travels like a real crazy route? Like up, up a thing and da, da, da.

• 38:22Speaker 01

  I don't know if that has a specific name. It sure does. But I know what you mean.

• 38:25Matt Farah?

  Version of a Rube Goldberg device. But there were, there were these amazing machines where it was like a roller coaster for, you know, pinballs essentially.

• 38:33Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 38:35Matt Farah?

  These beautifully animated machines, they were like five to 10 grand, but they fucking rocked. But I got out of there, I did not spend any money except on the tickets. So that was good. It was, it was, it was a wild, wild thing to see and, and from the cars to all of this crazy shit. It's a, it's a thing that if you can make it a destination in your, in your car life, it's worth it at least.

• 39:03Speaker 01

  Yeah, I'll go.

• 39:04Matt Farah?

  And if you can afford, you know, you don't, you don't need a huge budget, but if you can go and get a bidder's pass and be prepared to like, throw some bids in on something you might like, like it's a pretty fun thing to do. Obviously you have to have some money to do that.

• 39:19Speaker 01

  Yeah, and like the knowledge of what to ask about what you're buying. Does everybody have printed detailed sheets on like, yeah, you gotta do that homework.

• 39:27Matt Farah?

  Sure, I'm sure you get.

• 39:28Speaker 01

  Upkeep maintenance, all that stuff.

• 39:30Matt Farah?

  Yeah, um, so that was, that was fun.

• 39:34Matt Farah?

  Got the Manx, uh, over to Phillips to get studded tires put in. I saw my, we got, we were using a BFG winter tire that comes with pilot holes.

• 39:45Speaker 01

  Dillits, yeah, or divots.

• 39:46Matt Farah?

  Is that what they're called, divots?

• 39:47Speaker 01

  I don't know, I'm calling them.

• 39:49Matt Farah?

  Pilot, whatever, yeah. But they got like 20 tires over there, this poor, this poor dude Carlos has gotta put so many fucking studs in. But get this, uh, on the way back from dropping it off, I took a Waymo. And I had the first bad Waymo ride I've like ever had. Like I've, I've, I've probably taken 50 to 60 Waymo rides at this point. And they, all the cars have driven the same, as if they're the same car. This is the first one I've ever been in that drove badly, like literally drove badly.

• 40:26Speaker 01

  Whoa.

• 40:27Matt Farah?

  So, the first thing that happened is, and I sent you photos of me wearing my, keep going, me wearing my, uh, my silly jacket, there. So here's, so, so I sit in the front in a Waymo, uh, cause you can just recline the seat, more leg room. So, I'm exiting, uh, a, a, a small side street, heading south, and trying to turn left onto Olympic Boulevard here, in order to turn right onto that traffic light that's like a hundred yards away, Sepulveda. So, a human driver, I don't think would try to do this. But, so what this Waymo is trying to do here, is cross

• 41:10Matt Farah?

  six lanes of traffic, and then get to a turn lane to make a, I'm sorry, make a left across six lanes of traffic, to then make a right a hundred yards later.

• 41:22Speaker 01

  I mean, I've seen people do this, but they are the worst people.

• 41:25Matt Farah?

  Yes. Uh, and, uh, a, a good driver would, and this is a grid, mind you, a good driver would have just made a right and then turned left at the next light and cut back over at some later.

• 41:35Speaker 01

  Yeah, double back, cut them off at the pass.

• 41:37Matt Farah?

  Right. And so, especially cause Zach, we're talking about Sepulveda and Sawtelle, they run parallel. So, so anyway, it tries to do this, and I've taken a picture because there isn't room. The light doesn't change. So now I am sitting broadside as a fucking gardening truck is driving straight at my door.

• 41:56Speaker 01

  It really is like a straight ninety degrees.

• 41:58Matt Farah?

  It's driving right at my door. And so I'm now sitting there, and fortunately, this gardening truck, you know, understands that it's a driverless car. So there's like, no one to like honk at. But I'm sitting there like, you know, what do, like I'm an asshole, what do I, I'm just sitting here, and, and... That's when I first took the photo. I then sent you a video and I'm not sure how good the video is. And I don't think you need to play it with sound.

• 42:27Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 42:27Matt Farah?

  But I think I just show what is going on because now traffic is just going and I'm just sitting here just about to get keyed up by this fucking van that's now stuck here. Look at this. Look at the traffic. My Waymo is just calling.

• 42:43Speaker 01

  You've blocked two lanes now out of three. So a human, a human driver would pull into that left only lane.

• 42:49Matt Farah?

  Yeah, like figure it out from there.

• 42:51Speaker 01

  Yeah, and just get out of the way. Like there's, there is an opening if you made a harder left. It's like a left turn lane instead of you want to go right, but you'd be out of the way. But right now you're blocking yeah, two out of three lanes of traffic. You got a big utility van who's mad.

• 43:06Matt Farah?

  So it's doing that. So that's what happens first, right? And after eventually blocking traffic, it does start to, to move. Now, that could have been hugely problematic, obviously. But, uh, so that was the first one. Then I pull up to a red light and look, it stops uh, two and a half car lengths back from the red light from, for some reason, does not move up to the front row.

• 43:28Speaker 01

  That's weird.

• 43:29Matt Farah?

  Which is not a huge problem in and of itself, but after what it just did, I felt it necessary to take this picture because I thought that was odd. And then go to the, go to the next one. So here I'm zoomed in, zooming in on the blinkers start to go fucking batshit. So I filmed this, so play this in, in real time and look at the pace of the blinker. Look what's, this blinker is going

• 43:58Matt Farah?

  See it doing like, like a weird, it's, it's just doing like going haywire.

• 44:03Speaker 01

  It's like, you know what it's doing? It's Morse code and it's trying to talk to other cars. We're all about to be in big trouble. This is how it happens.

• 44:11Matt Farah?

  So meanwhile, it, it did this while being like kind of bad at picking lane placements for where it wanted to be. Um, so I was really, really. I mean, look, nothing terrible happened. I didn't like run over a child like just fucking happened. Uh, that's not, I don't want to accuse run over. A Waymo hit a kid.

• 44:34Speaker 01

  Really?

• 44:34Matt Farah?

  Yesterday, yeah.

• 44:35Speaker 01

  Oh, I did not know that.

• 44:36Matt Farah?

  It was one of those situations where it was like a kid ran out into the street and the Waymo, you know, did try to stop. It just couldn't stop quick enough. I don't think it was necessarily, I don't want to, I don't want to jump to conclusions, but I don't think it was necessarily like a hundred percent of the Waymo's fault. Like an unexpected thing happened that it just couldn't avoid, I think. But either way, on the same day that happened, this ride happened.

• 45:05Speaker 01

  Well, Well, Waymo says the kid ran into the street from behind a double parked SUV. So, uh, yeah.

• 45:12Matt Farah?

  I mean, uh, can we believe them? I'm not a hundred percent sure.

• 45:15Speaker 01

  Yeah, I'm reading the news on KTLA five, so that's what they said, but we, I'm sure there'll be footage and whatever, yeah.

• 45:20Matt Farah?

  Yeah.

• 45:21Speaker 01

  Uh, the kid was okay, it should be said. The kid stood up and went to the sidewalk.

• 45:24Matt Farah?

  Okay, well, that's good. So anyway, on the same day that that happened, coincidentally, uh, my, the Waymo I was in was acting fucking weird as hell. And I had never, never, uh, I've never been in one that drove like this. So I don't know, maybe there was a software update, maybe this one was like bugging out for some reason. And I realized there, there was not a way for me to accurately describe to somebody using the Waymo app. And they're like, customer service, like, had a problem, blah, blah, blah. Using their like decision tree thing, there was not a way to accurately describe what was happening.

• 46:00Speaker 01

  There's no notes section?

• 46:01Matt Farah?

  Not really.

• 46:02Speaker 01

  Wow, okay.

• 46:03Matt Farah?

  Yeah.

• 46:05Matt Farah?

  So anyway, that was.

• 46:06Speaker 01

  That's weird.

• 46:07Matt Farah?

  That was a thing. But.

• 46:08Speaker 01

  We're all part of the beta.

• 46:10Matt Farah?

  We're getting studded ass tires. It's, which is very exciting.

• 46:13Speaker 01

  The pre-drilled tires are called studdable.

• 46:15Matt Farah?

  That makes sense. That makes sense. That's also like, that's like me. I'm studdable, but I'm not there yet. Just have potential.

• 46:24Speaker 01

  Yeah, exactly.

• 46:24Matt Farah?

  Yeah.

• 46:27Matt Farah?

  I had to get weighed and granted, different scale. Like normally I weigh myself at Santo's scale, but I went to my physical and I was on their scale. So, one could expect a small difference in-

• 46:38Speaker 01

  The Dino article.

• 46:39Matt Farah?

  The Dino article, like small difference. And I weighed two pounds over what I weighed like a month ago. And I was like, went into a deep depression. Number should go down.

• 46:47Speaker 01

  Yeah, but-

• 46:48Matt Farah?

  I know. And Hannah was like, Hannah was like, you know that 247 is the same as 245, right?

• 46:54Speaker 01

  Also, water, salt.

• 46:56Matt Farah?

  I know.

• 46:57Speaker 01

  What time of day did you get weighed at this physical?

• 46:59Matt Farah?

  In the morning. It was morning.

• 47:01Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 47:01Matt Farah?

  Yeah. And I fasted too. It was optimal. Optimal conditions.

• 47:04Speaker 01

  I mean, we talked about December. We both ate more snackies.

• 47:07Matt Farah?

  In January. December, I did good over the holidays. January was where I had my, I had my holidays in January when I went to South Carolina and then I went to Miami. That was my holidays in January.

• 47:20Speaker 01

  Dude, when I saw my parents, my parents always have lots of healthy bad food around. And, and I went, oh, a tub of biscotti? Well, I don't have these very often at home.

• 47:30Matt Farah?

  Yeah.

• 47:30Speaker 01

  So I'll eat three per day.

• 47:32Matt Farah?

  Yeah. It's, in South Carolina, it's those peanut butter filled pretzel nuggets. Them, if I, if I die of a heart attack, it's because somebody left a kilogram of those around in my house.

• 47:44Speaker 01

  Washed up in the ocean.

• 47:46Matt Farah?

  There's gonna, there'll be like, like that would be the perfect crime. Like if you wanted to like assassinate me, all you had to do is leave the giant, you remember like the buckets of popcorn?

• 47:56Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 47:57Matt Farah?

  That peanut butter pretzel, just send it to me for Christmas. I'll be dead by Valentine's Day.

• 48:01Speaker 01

  It's like a very Kramer type of assassination. They're desiccates.

• 48:05Matt Farah?

  Doesn't seem to was foul play. You got an awful lot of treats this year. I don't-

• 48:08Speaker 01

  It seems.

• 48:09Matt Farah?

  Uh, should we talk about the SIM?

• 48:11Speaker 01

  Uh, yeah.

• 48:13Matt Farah?

  Is that interesting to talk about?

• 48:14Speaker 01

  I think so.

• 48:15Matt Farah?

  So our buddy, our two friends, and two friends and one of my storage clients here at WCCS, which is continuing to pay off in interesting ways. My, our friend Mike Harley, who's a former car journalist, our friend Justin Bell, who's a racing commentator and a race car driver, um, and my friend Charlie, XP1, not XR1.

• 48:36Speaker 01

  Is it XP1?

• 48:37Matt Farah?

  It's XP1. Uh, have come up with, uh, not come up with, I guess there's a person who's come up with the tech, but they've shown us this new-

• 48:47Matt Farah?

  Simulator program, racing simulator program called XP1 that launches in like a week, that uses an entirely new force feedback and physics engine compared to any other racing simulator that is on the market today or before. And the idea is to deliver a vastly more realistic driving experience compared to other racing simulators, which in my opinion do not deliver realistic driving experience.

• 49:21Speaker 01

  Yeah, I agree.

• 49:22Matt Farah?

  Which is why I hate them. So it apparently works with any PC-based racing simulator, right? Basically any PC-based.

• 49:31Speaker 01

  It works with basically any PC and any wheel, I think.

• 49:35Matt Farah?

  Right.

• 49:36Speaker 01

  That's what they're saying.

• 49:37Matt Farah?

  Yeah, they're like, it's not a new type of drive wheel.

• 49:39Speaker 01

  Right, it's not.

• 49:40Matt Farah?

  Not a new type of pedals. You can use basically any pedals. It's software. And it's sort of, it's, okay, how did he describe it? He described it as all other racing sim software in the past uses tables to deliver driving sensations based on what they think a car would happen at this particular amount of force or load or speed or heat, right? And this one doesn't do that.

• 50:16Matt Farah?

  It learns based on how people are driving on it in order to deliver a much more car-like experience?

• 50:27Speaker 01

  The, I mean, I'll say, like, the pitch was quick. We went there today and they talked fast and then we hopped in the driver's seat. So, like, the methods behind how the game works, like, I don't want to comment on too much because I don't understand enough of how existing games work. Like what I took away from it is that the driving instantly feels way more realistic because you know their cockpit like moves while you're driving as if your head was moving and they modeled it. They said, you know, we they modeled it after like a 13 pound head with a helmet on. So when you hit the brakes, when you turn left, right, accelerate, your field of view changes very slightly, but it is so accurate, I think, to how your head

• 51:11Speaker 01

  would move. There's no latency. Like you hit the brakes, then the plane thing moves, you turn left, then the head moves, you know, that would that would be like bad VR. This felt so natural. I thought it communicated speed and G-load really, really well. And then when you couple that with the force feedback, I think felt really accurate. I felt I could feel the back stepping out and loss of grip, I think, better than any other force feedback thing I've driven. And this was without this didn't have a four motion seat. This didn't have any of the like electronic actuator stuff that was moving that around. This was a fixed seat, fixed pedals and a wheel. But that was my takeaway.

• 51:47Matt Farah?

  My takeaway was that the steering feel was like way, way, way better. And if you got like oversteer in iRacing or Assetto, it's like unrecoverable in a lot of ways, and it was much more recoverable in this. I thought the weight transfer was a lot better and more natural feeling in this.

• 52:10Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 52:11Matt Farah?

  So the thing with this game is it's called XP1, is right now there is only one track and there is only one car. And

• 52:21Speaker 01

  And as we said, that's because they like they built the whole like the physics engine behind it themselves, and then they built the car themselves also. So they didn't download a car from, you know, I don't know, other games or other sources that supply games. They were like, let's make this thing as a proof of concept.

• 52:38Matt Farah?

  Yeah, well, and the limiting factor is you if you're spending money and resources licensing cars, you're not spending money on the actual accuracy of the driver to video game engagement. And also, they said they basically had to build

• 52:58Matt Farah?

  They had to do everything totally from scratch in order to make this system work. Like you couldn't import physics models from different OEMs.

• 53:09Speaker 01

  Right, like Michael told us, you know, if you hit curbs too hard in the car they built, like it will start to bend the wheels, or it will start to bend control arms and like that will come back in how the car performs. But existing models didn't have that kind of stuff. Like they have, I haven't played enough recent Sims, like I've played ones where there's damage, but it will just show like, flat tire, engine damage, wing damage. So you've lost your aero, the engine's weaker, or like it pulls it one direction or another. So I don't know how detailed some of the other games get, but I was just really impressed with how it felt. And this is, this is like an alpha launch. So, like, I know you don't play video games, but nowadays, like, you can download a game before it's quote "done", and you can pay for it, and it's called beta, and sometimes the game is amazing, and you, and it could by all means seem like it's finished game,

• 53:54Speaker 01

  but they will keep developing it, but they can get the money earlier to fund the development. So this is like, they made one track, they made one car. Their early investment seems like it's pretty small, and then, you know, they're gonna launch it for free, you download it, you can play it for an hour, and then you can decide if you want to pay for it or not, and they can take that money and put it into development, licensing cars, et cetera, et cetera.

• 54:15Matt Farah?

  It was, I mean, I, I feel that if I really wanted, I mean, unfortunately, they don't have like every track, and they don't, even if, even with it was just this car, you know, with this one track, you can tell that the physics engine is much, much, much more realistic to an actual car. And like Harley said, like, like you can be good at racing sims and like not be good at driving cars. Like, it does apply, like if you are good at racing sims, it will help you be good at driving cars, but it's not a given. They are different things. Like, you could be good at like Guitar Hero and Guitar, but being good at one will not make you good at the other.

• 54:59Matt Farah?

  I thought I would be good at Guitar Hero, because I knew how to play guitar, and I was like, oh, this is like not actually playing guitar. It's like vaguely similar, but it's not. And it's like the same kind of thing. This is an actual game that, in my fucking 20 minutes, by the way, is

• 55:17Matt Farah?

  will definitely reward you if you're good at driving in real life. It'll it's much more like driving in real life.

• 55:24Speaker 01

  It really is.

• 55:24Matt Farah?

  Yeah, so the car they made is like a mid-engine GT3 style car with a Ferrari-esque 500 horsepower V8 and it weighs like 2,700 pounds and you know, double wishbones and this and that and very natural driving dynamics, I would say for 20 minutes, easy, easy to get used to.

• 55:46Matt Farah?

  And the track is nice and it's not that hard to learn. And and it does have, you know, all different types of corners, so that's good. It'll be interesting to see as they add tracks and add add stuff, but I just for me, it was like, oh, this is, this is actually the kind of give and take I'm looking for for a video game that replicates driving. It actually replicates like driving.

• 56:12Speaker 01

  You were genuinely curious after driving it, like I've never seen you get out of a sim and go. So what are these costs like?

• 56:19Matt Farah?

  Yeah.

• 56:19Speaker 01

  How do where could you put this thing like you, you had a good time driving it because I think it like you said, it felt it helped you represent better how you can actually drive because it actually talks to you a little bit more.

• 56:29Matt Farah?

  Because like my problem with racing sim, like when I'm trying to use racing sims to like learn a track. I like we talked about a couple of months ago, I will have crashes that will never happen in a car. Like, why, like, why would that like? It's because the game and the car aren't the same like there's like it took me two hours to get to the time I wanted in a racing sim, even a nice one. Versus six laps around the actual track in an actual car like that's a pretty big discrepancy. Maybe it's just because I don't play enough racing sims, I'm not good enough at them, but like if I drive this much, like, why should this not reflect a decent amount of skill in that, like, why should I be so terrible at that? So anyway,

• 57:13Matt Farah?

  this is much more like if you can drive a car well, you can get in this and you're like, why? Why am I crashing here? Like you're you're not actually you're you're so that's good. And they're doing a drift thing, which is gonna be really fun.

• 57:26Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 57:26Matt Farah?

  Because drifting in, drifting in video games is not good. This could be, this could potentially be like actually good drifting.

• 57:33Speaker 01

  I just think with Sims, you have to like relearn how to interpret the visual data to tell your hands and feet what to do. So even if, you know, if you start sliding in, in a drift car or in like a seto and it's set up like at Cory, our friend Cory's house. If the controllers are set up well and all the parameters are set up well, the things you would do in a normal car will work in the Sim and vice versa. But it's the data that you're getting to your eyes telling you what to do, when to do it.

• 57:59Matt Farah?

  Yeah.

• 57:59Speaker 01

  That can be like clunky and you have to learn, almost how like Reed Braille. You have to learn how to read what the screen is showing you and what that means for the car. Like you might not think you have a lot of angle on the car, but you actually have, you know, 72 degrees already of yaw. And I don't know, this just seemed like it talked to me more like CX's trophy truck thing, which was this giant cage mounted on this huge electronic act.

• 58:24Matt Farah?

  They just sold one on British Trailer.

• 58:26Speaker 01

  I know.

• 58:26Matt Farah?

  What did it go for?

• 58:27Speaker 01

  I don't know, but we should find out right now.

• 58:28Matt Farah?

  They were building one to put on a cruise ship and they built another one. That was, that was the dopest driving simulator I've ever been in.

• 58:36Speaker 01

  I mean, the thing would move up and down like two feet, front and back, left and right.

• 58:40Matt Farah?

  It was, it was rad.

• 58:42Speaker 01

  This, the way this, your head moved in there, I thought it got you a good part of the way over. You know, it didn't give you all the movement that was very exciting, but in terms of telling me, because the big thing with the trophy truck was knowing it's sliding, right? You're on a dirt track. You need to know that it's pitching forward when you brake and then that it's sliding. And it made it really easy to drift and catch. And I think this stuff.

• 59:05Matt Farah?

  It made jumping feel, it pretty accurately recreated jumping too, which was pretty sweet.

• 59:12Speaker 01

  If I had all the money, I'd have one of those in my house for sure.

• 59:14Matt Farah?

  Dude, I can't believe that thing.

• 59:16Speaker 01

  It's so, no.

• 59:19Speaker 01

  It was bid two. I think it's a no sale. It was bid to 60 grand.

• 59:23Matt Farah?

  Yeah.

• 59:23Speaker 01

  You know how much this thing?

• 59:24Matt Farah?

  I think it was a million. I think it was a million dollars.

• 59:28Matt Farah?

  Holy depreciation, Batman. Make offer.

• 59:31Speaker 01

  No kidding. Oh, my God. Oh, wow. There's a lot of CXC Sims on Bringtr. I had no idea.

• 59:38Matt Farah?

  There are? Oh, cool. What do they? Do they sell for? Do you have some sold prices?

• 59:42Speaker 01

  Yeah, I'll pull it up. These are bargain.

• 59:45Matt Farah?

  They depreciate like crazy?

• 59:46Speaker 01

  I mean, like at my block.

• 59:48Matt Farah?

  Oh, wow. Okay. Sold for 24K. Motion Pro 2 sim in back in June, 23, 20. Okay, so they sell for 20 to 25K used. Oh, wow. That one sold for 45K earlier this year.

• 1:00:04Speaker 01

  Wow.

• 1:00:05Matt Farah?

  Oh, wow. All right. Well, they, I mean, you can get one. They're like, you know, half to three quarter price.

• 1:00:10Speaker 01

  Yeah. These things are rad, but.

• 1:00:13Matt Farah?

  That's pretty cool.

• 1:00:14Speaker 01

  A lot of money.

• 1:00:14Matt Farah?

  I guess it matters maybe what year you get, but.

• 1:00:16Speaker 01

  Maybe.

• 1:00:17Matt Farah?

  Oh, the cart sim is interesting. Look at that. 23K.

• 1:00:23Speaker 01

  No suspension. Oh, it's got a little.

• 1:00:26Matt Farah?

  They just have fans that just blow you in the face? Is that what that is?

• 1:00:29Speaker 01

  Yeah, I guess. So you get used to it? Is that? I mean, I've gotten sweaty playing these things at CXC before.

• 1:00:34Matt Farah?

  You just put on VR goggles and have fans just blast you in the face?

• 1:00:38Speaker 01

  Want to get used to it. You can dodge a wrench. You can dodge a ball. That's what this feels like.

• 1:00:42Matt Farah?

  It's kind of a good time.

• 1:00:43Speaker 01

  You think if you're training like, you know, with your dad and he throws sand in it in case someone goes off in front of you, just so you're ready?

• 1:00:49Matt Farah?

  He like hurls a tire at you?

• 1:00:51Speaker 01

  Yeah. All right. I'm gonna throw a child at you now, just in case.

• 1:00:54Matt Farah?

  That's pretty cool. All right.

• 1:00:55Speaker 01

  Cool.

• 1:00:57Matt Farah?

  Big news. I, therefore we, are now members of the singer club at Willow Springs.

• 1:01:06Speaker 01

  Let's go.

• 1:01:07Matt Farah?

  We have a racetrack membership, Zach. What are we gonna do with it?

• 1:01:12Speaker 01

  Everything.

• 1:01:13Matt Farah?

  But aren't we going to do with it?

• 1:01:14Speaker 01

  Yeah, we're gonna film there. We're gonna practice there. We're gonna go drifting there.

• 1:01:18Matt Farah?

  It is time.

• 1:01:18Speaker 01

  Drift again there.

• 1:01:20Matt Farah?

  Yes. It is time that we possibly consider a Dorifto Mobile. Yeah. The best, yeah.

• 1:01:28Speaker 01

  Who do we know in Palmdale we could just store a car?

• 1:01:32Matt Farah?

  We're about to get a trailer. We're gonna get a trailer for average. It'll be all right.

• 1:01:37Speaker 01

  I'll buy the missile car. If you buy the race. Someone's, you see that text I sent you?

• 1:01:40Matt Farah?

  If I buy the truck, you buy the fucking drift car? Sure.

• 1:01:42Speaker 01

  We need to talk budget. We need to talk budget.

• 1:01:45Matt Farah?

  Yeah.

• 1:01:46Speaker 01

  Do you see the race car I sent you that?

• 1:01:50Matt Farah?

  Oh yeah, but that's like a, that's like a spec racer. That's like, I'm not that interested personally in a race car. Like, I don't, I'm, I like racing. I like renting seats and ra- I don't want to own a race car. But a drift car seems like, cause, cause with a race car, like, we, we're gonna get press cars. So we'll get to like, go to the track in press cars. We'll get to try different stuff, like.

• 1:02:16Speaker 01

  Well, this was inspired by, a fan sent this, but it was inspired by you're talking about the Sierra cars. You know, we can get something that's not street legal.

• 1:02:22Matt Farah?

  Yeah.

• 1:02:22Speaker 01

  Like this. But if you've come full circle to drift car, I have so many flat brim hats to share with you.

• 1:02:28Matt Farah?

  Well, but it's, cause a Sierra car you could use, like, on dirt, you can use it. There's a lot of different things you could do with that.

• 1:02:34Speaker 01

  True.

• 1:02:35Matt Farah?

  Like, different tires is a different, entirely different experience.

• 1:02:39Speaker 01

  Sierra car, one of you could complete the hill climb, like, up in the back of Willow? Like, they have a trail.

• 1:02:43Matt Farah?

  Oh, probably.

• 1:02:44Speaker 01

  Fast.

• 1:02:45Matt Farah?

  You probably, well, they're building, you know, they're building trails. They're building like rally slash off-roady trails back there.

• 1:02:52Speaker 01

  Sierra car, could be cool for that.

• 1:02:55Matt Farah?

  Mm-hmm. So, but that's, that's fun. That'll be, that'll be superb.

• 1:02:59Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:03:00Matt Farah?

  I mean, that's like, I literally signed the contract and shit, like, let's fucking go.

• 1:03:04Speaker 01

  Wow.

• 1:03:04Matt Farah?

  Yeah. And speaking of let's fucking go, wait, the, the other photos, the Benzito is a go. This is, I would, I just walked here, I didn't, he dropped me off. I was gonna walk. I don't even know why I said that. He was, I was gonna walk. But, uh, it's not far. It's right around the corner. And I dropped off the E320 with Sean. And we have a plan. So, to convert this car to an E500, it's not really gonna be a 500 exactly, because we're not gonna do the 4-CAM engine. It doesn't get us anything. That's like a high revy.

• 1:03:39Speaker 01

  It doesn't get you that much more power, right? When I did that story for, or the video for cars and bids, like the four cam versus a built two cam.

• 1:03:45Matt Farah?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:03:46Speaker 01

  It's really close.

• 1:03:47Matt Farah?

  So instead, what you do is you get the 1999 to 2002 E55 engine. The 5.5 liter, single cam, 350 horsepower, five-speed automatic. So we have to buy a donor car, which he says we can do, they're around, full powertrain swap. Um, he said you leave the E320's rear end because you want the highway gears. You don't want the, uh, the E55's gears. For some reason, you want the gears that are in this. Um, we then get, uh, the, the, the E500 suspension setup, which is Bilstein damper and an H&R shock. Um, the, the, our control arms and stuff are the same. We do SL600 brakes.

• 1:04:32Matt Farah?

  Um, we do, uh, the E500 front and rear bumpers are OEM parts. We have to make E500 front and rear fenders, but Sean says like absolutely no problem at all. The rocker panel, um, we don't use the OEM E500. We use, uh, it's not, it's one of the, it's not Schnitzer, but it's like one of the Euro. One of the Euro tuner ones has a panel for the convertible that makes it look like the sedan on the 500. Cause otherwise you have to cut the sedan one and like, it doesn't look right. And then we get rid of the chrome. We swap all the trim to the 500 trim.

• 1:05:17Matt Farah?

  Um, we're going to do those Recaro Euro front seats, those cool Recaro ones that everybody uses. Crazy fabric, uh, on leather, but also with the crazy fabric. We're going to, uh, delete all the wood and make it all brushed aluminum. Uh, we get HVAC, we had air conditioning and cruise control from the E55, full, a full wiring harness swap. Uh, the headlights and taillights are the same, we can restore those. And we, the dash is actually really good. Um, the steering wheel, we're gonna keep, but we're gonna recover.

• 1:05:53Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:05:54Matt Farah?

  Uh, the top actually is in great shape, we're gonna service the hydraulics, but the, we're gonna keep the top fabric.

• 1:06:00Speaker 01

  That's fantastic.

• 1:06:01Matt Farah?

  It's not that old, it's only like five years old. The top fabric, the top glass is good, the side glass is good.

• 1:06:08Speaker 01

  Um, I'm just noticing the number of check engine lights you have on the dash.

• 1:06:11Matt Farah?

  There's only two, one is check engine and one is low washer fluid.

• 1:06:14Speaker 01

  Two out of how many possible, do you know, okay.

• 1:06:16Matt Farah?

  I, but I drove it from South Bay to him today, it's like, fine. I mean, it like, it burned a little oil, like a little oil.

• 1:06:23Speaker 01

  Whatever.

• 1:06:23Matt Farah?

  We're taking the engine out, who gives a shit, it made it, like, it was, it's, and Sean was like, this, is this, is this only 60,000 miles? I was like, yeah, he's like, I cannot, like, he could not believe his luck. He looked all over it, no rust, he's like, this is the most perfect, and it's already red.

• 1:06:42Speaker 01

  Cool.

• 1:06:42Matt Farah?

  Uh, the red, we're gonna repaint the whole thing red, but it's the right red. Um, I gotta, I, I really need to look really hard in figuring out what our interior trim for the doors, the set, like, like your car, the door cards, the seat centers, um, I'm gonna do the A pillar probably, cause it's only the A pillar.

• 1:07:03Speaker 01

  What are you gonna do the A pillar in?

• 1:07:05Matt Farah?

  I don't know.

• 1:07:06Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 1:07:06Matt Farah?

  In a, in a maybe a cool pattern.

• 1:07:08Speaker 01

  Oh, I thought, based on your smile, I thought you had a special idea.

• 1:07:11Matt Farah?

  No, no, no, no, I mean, it'll be whatever, you know, we gotta find a cool, a cool cloth. Um, HRE is gonna make us the wheels that, um, look like the mono block wheels.

• 1:07:21Speaker 01

  Cool.

• 1:07:22Matt Farah?

  But they're HREs, this is gonna be a cool cruiser.

• 1:07:24Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:07:25Matt Farah?

  So this is gonna be nice. There's like, the, the, it's really actually funny, like, the things that we need to keep are like, really good. And the things we're throwing away are old and tired. We have to do bushings, because all the bushings are shit, but like, whatever, while we're in there, fucking, all the, do it all.

• 1:07:42Speaker 01

  Of course, you're taking the whole drivetrain out, like, yeah, do all the bushings.

• 1:07:46Matt Farah?

  He's so excited.

• 1:07:47Speaker 01

  It's cool, it's like what you learn from the Bentley project, like, what's good about cruising and what do you want? And this is like, tailor-made for that.

• 1:07:54Matt Farah?

  It's gonna be a really nice balance between like, you know, quick, you know, 350 horsepower, not nothing, good torque, with a 5-speed auto, and a convertible top, and like...

• 1:08:05Speaker 01

  And exhaust dumps, like, electronically actuated?

• 1:08:08Matt Farah?

  Yeah.

• 1:08:09Speaker 01

  You know, nice stealthy sound.

• 1:08:11Matt Farah?

  The only thing I don't like about the E500 is a single-exit exhaust, which is not my favorite, but, but the dual look, I want a stock look.

• 1:08:20Speaker 01

  Well, what's it, what do you have?

• 1:08:23Matt Farah?

  It's a, it's an ugly single exhaust now, but the stock E500 is the dual ovals.

• 1:08:28Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:08:28Matt Farah?

  But, it's just a dual, it's not two-twos, it's just that, yeah.

• 1:08:31Speaker 01

  I think that'll look good.

• 1:08:33Matt Farah?

  It looks fine.

• 1:08:35Speaker 01

  What do you, what, what would you do if you had a dream?

• 1:08:37Matt Farah?

  Do it like a dual, like, one on each.

• 1:08:39Speaker 01

  You want a proper dual?

• 1:08:40Matt Farah?

  Yeah, but, you know, whatever. Oh, we have to have, um, headers made. Like, we have to have exhaust manifolds made.

• 1:08:50Speaker 01

  Oh, for fitment?

• 1:08:51Matt Farah?

  To, to, to fit the V8 into their, yeah, their ass, so, I don't know, whatever. For every single thing, it's like, no problem, I got a guy.

• 1:08:58Speaker 01

  You could probably route a dual exhaust, like...

• 1:09:01Matt Farah?

  I don't want, I don't want it to look like a tuner car, I want it to look exactly like an E500 on the outside, like, just li, it should look like Mercedes built it, like, we're on the same page with that one. Other than the crazy fabric and HRE's not, not stock OEM Mercedes wheels, it's gonna look exactly like a, like an E500 that Mercedes built.

• 1:09:22Speaker 01

  Okay. I'm looking...

• 1:09:24Matt Farah?

  I'm super stoked on this as a project for this year. This is gonna be fucking awesome to roll around.

• 1:09:29Speaker 01

  This is an angry, it's like the angry Minx project, oh, here we go, okay.

• 1:09:32Matt Farah?

  Well, it's just gonna be such a cool cruiser.

• 1:09:36Matt Farah?

  Kind of have to have some matched luggage made for it, right? Like, some fitted ass, cool luggage?

• 1:09:44Speaker 01

  I mean, maybe some, like, I would say, because it has such a big trunk, I mean, do whatever you want, it's your money, but, you could have, you could have a cool attache case that lives on the backseat.

• 1:09:54Matt Farah?

  True. That's the E500 exhaust, it's just a single boy, yeah. It is what it is.

• 1:10:01Speaker 01

  Yeah, they switched to dual in 2000. It does look better, but a while.

• 1:10:05Matt Farah?

  Yeah, yeah, you know. Still, it's gonna be hard as fuck, though. It's gonna look so rad. I'm stoked. That's gonna be, I don't know, I wonder if he can have it done in time for Dream Cruise. If he does, maybe we take our trailer, fucking take that shit to Dream Cruise.

• 1:10:21Speaker 01

  Take it to Detroit.

• 1:10:22Matt Farah?

  It only takes four days to drive to Detroit.

• 1:10:25Speaker 01

  Four days to trailer a Mercedes to Detroit, that...

• 1:10:27Matt Farah?

  What a waste of time that would be.

• 1:10:29Speaker 01

  That's funny.

• 1:10:30Matt Farah?

  No, we would ship it to Papa Nino's.

• 1:10:32Speaker 01

  They might not like it there, I don't know.

• 1:10:34Matt Farah?

  I think they would. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. No, they, it's not just American cars. I mean, it's a lot of American cars at Dream Cruise, but it's not just American cars. I sell some really awesome stuff rolling around. Yeah, yeah. Do you want to talk about Kill Switch before we go to the people?

• 1:10:49Speaker 01

  We can do it, because it's quick. Like, this is not a big thing.

• 1:10:52Matt Farah?

  We also don't have to do full-length questions today. We can kick questions the next one. It's okay.

• 1:10:57Speaker 01

  So, you know, the big story, I guess this is actually like two days old, but the Kill Switch bill went forward through Congress. And this had everybody stirred up, still does, because everyone thinks that the government's gonna be able to turn off your car at any moment. And so Kelly Blue Book did a good article, kind of calming everybody down. And the basic thing is that Congress wants car companies to use existing systems, or develop a new kind of system, to basically monitor drivers and determine when they are inebriated. And in that case, the car needs to do something like turn off. The reason that KBB is trying to say, "Everybody calm down," is because

• 1:11:41Speaker 01

  the way the bill is written, it wants a passively detect blood alcohol level equal to and exceeding the limit. So that means, passive means they can't install a breathalyzer. So Congress is saying, hey, NHTSA has to write the regulation.

• 1:11:56Matt Farah?

  The same as the coffee cup that comes up and says, "You seem tired, pull over."

• 1:12:00Speaker 01

  It's like that. It'll be something like that, but Congress basically made the bill.

• 1:12:04Matt Farah?

  You seem wasted.

• 1:12:05Speaker 01

  And then NHTSA needs to write the, like, requirements, and then hand those requirements. To automakers. There's a lot of steps left. Their goal is to use existing tech in there to like monitor and determine someone's inebriated. I'm sure they can. I also bet this will be very clunky for a long time.

• 1:12:23Matt Farah?

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:12:23Speaker 01

  If someone, imagine if you're just driving and like, you know, you lean on on your windowsill for too long and you're awake and looking. So I mean, is it going to track your body movement, your eyes, both?

• 1:12:35Matt Farah?

  Yeah.

• 1:12:36Speaker 01

  Which one's gonna be the best?

• 1:12:37Matt Farah?

  I've had the pop-up window come up that says you look tired.

• 1:12:41Speaker 01

  You've been driving 20 minutes.

• 1:12:42Matt Farah?

  Yeah, like whatever, like, bro, fuck out of here.

• 1:12:45Speaker 01

  So they're gonna have to be, you know, super buttoned up with this kind of stuff because if people's, especially if if the kill switch term goes forward, or that's what they want, where the car would turn itself off, or like pull over to the side of the road. I mean, you can't have that just happening when someone's driving to work because their body position's different, or they're staring, you know, straight ahead for too long, but not moving their eyes because they're zoned out. I don't know. These are all the things. I mean, it's silly.

• 1:13:10Matt Farah?

  Yeah.

• 1:13:10Speaker 01

  But these are all the things that the car companies and NHTSA have to figure out how to account for. This goes to like the autonomous car thing. Can you plan for every single variable while trying to complete one objective, you know, despite all those variables?

• 1:13:24Matt Farah?

  Yeah.

• 1:13:24Speaker 01

  So there's gonna be a lot of time between now and when this might get rolled out, but that is what it's going to be. But.

• 1:13:34Matt Farah?

  Okay, so the law, the law creates a kill switch with the, let a car deactivate itself if the system determined that the driver was likely impaired. It does not create a kill switch that anyone outside of the vehicle could control. Some privacy advocates worry that any shutdown technology could eventually allow remote control. As today's cars increasingly communicate with external servers as they drive, to date, those servers belong to the automakers.

• 1:14:05Matt Farah?

  Yeah, I think that's gonna be clunky and shitty.

• 1:14:09Matt Farah?

  But I think there are probably, there's, I mean, I, maybe not if you've had, if you're wasted, I bet people move their eyes and/or their heads in somewhat predictable ways.

• 1:14:26Speaker 01

  Very possible, yeah.

• 1:14:27Matt Farah?

  You know?

• 1:14:27Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:14:28Matt Farah?

  Um, will that shit hold up in court or anything like that? Like, you know, what happens, right? If you, like, will it, like, say, you know, you have 30 seconds to pull over and the vehicle is going to shut down? Will it say that, you know, well, it couldn't be watching you long enough if you just start it and try to drive. It couldn't be like, oh, hold on, right? So it'd have to be watching you drive and then make some determination that actually you can't be driving.

• 1:14:57Speaker 01

  Yeah, and if you're wandering in the lane a lot, uh, that's probably the easiest thing for it to notice, you know, if it has to keep pinging you back like bumper bowling.

• 1:15:06Matt Farah?

  Yeah.

• 1:15:07Speaker 01

  Um, but then what will it do? But it's the more nuanced stuff if people are, you know, there's so many different ways someone could drunk drive. And, and like, I've seen people that have driven at night in Los Angeles or in the daytime, honestly, like where their speed and the way they're driving their car and the proximity they get to other cars, you go, that person's either mad, 22 years old, or wasted or something. And sometimes they're one of those things. But how will it be able to determine this person A is drunk versus person A is an idiot, person A is late for work, all those things?

• 1:15:37Matt Farah?

  For sure.

• 1:15:38Speaker 01

  Lot of, uh, I don't know, they have a lot of work to do.

• 1:15:41Matt Farah?

  Sure. All right, let's go to the people.

• 1:15:44Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 1:15:45Matt Farah?

  And we'll start with, of course, over at patreon.com slash the smoke and tire podcast, but let's start off with Zach's broke ass hair transplant surgeon.

• 1:15:55Speaker 01

  He's not broke, he's quite rich.

• 1:15:58Matt Farah?

  Why don't more manufacturers see the long-term value in protecting the lineage of a car? It's design DNA, it's identity, the way Porsche has with the 911. Well, the 911's like engine being in the wrong place defines its shape and its lineage. Like, you could argue, like, a lot of people, I mean, Corvettes effectively did that until they had to make a change, going from front to mid-engine.

• 1:16:27Speaker 01

  They've probably protected it, I think they've done the best job out of any front engine car.

• 1:16:36Speaker 01

  I mean BMW maybe, but because this person's point was some companies will like bring back the Supra, kill the Supra, bring it back, it looks totally different and kill it. Whereas the 911 seems more, I think the fact that they've been building it consistently means the design, the changes are much more subtle. Whereas if you take a, I don't know, a six-year break from a car and then bring it back, well, suddenly manufacturing technologies changed, design trends have changed a lot. So it seems like it makes a big leap.

• 1:17:06Matt Farah?

  What always helped, though, is that 911s have always been competitive. They've always been like less power than the other cars they were competing against, but like less weight and less, and equally competitive, if not more competitive. Like that whole time, even when they were building like old cars in like the 80s, like the C4 Corvette versus like the 1985 911, the 911's like ancient, but it's still competitive. The 964, like old, still competitive. Like that, I don't know if you can just like do that with any other car.

• 1:17:49Matt Farah?

  I would say certainly the Mustang, you know, beginning and yet in like 2005, the sort of modern era of Mustang where it looks like the Mustangs of the late 60s looked, they've learned, you know, they probably, maybe, arguably should have been doing that the whole time, even though I like the Fox bodies and stuff, you know. But you kind of need your product to be good enough that it needs successive generations without breaking it up. If you break it up, then you're like, eh, well, that car's dead, but like later I'm doing a new car and it's vaguely the same and we already own that name, people remember it, we could get some hype out of launching this thing, you know.

• 1:18:33Speaker 01

  I wonder if there's also merit that Porsche was a private company until, what, a year ago, two years ago? So maybe if they had more control over their designs, whereas, you know, I don't know, other companies were publicly traded and they just, if something wasn't going well, they bring in new committee, new board and they go, well, let's change the design because that's what's not working. And Porsche could go, no, like here's how we're doing it, just tweak it a little bit. I don't know.

• 1:18:56Matt Farah?

  Uh, this one's fun. I blow horns. Favorite tuner engine for the standard cylinder counts. So your favorite four cylinder, six cylinder, eight, 10 and 12 from tuners. Kind of interesting. So favorite four cylinder was that, that Honda engine that was built by that dude on the east side of LA. I think his name was Emmanuel. That was like a Honda engine that N A that revved to like 9,000 with like crazy high compression, big power engine. That was a sick Honda engine.

• 1:19:33Speaker 01

  High revving Honda like that, that makes power is rad.

• 1:19:36Matt Farah?

  Six cylinder, favorite six cylinder engine? My, I mean, my demand engine is pretty fucking spicy. I dare you to find a better six cylinder engine than that.

• 1:19:47Speaker 01

  Yeah, I'll agree with that because yours has like big engine sound, but then it's got a more, it's different. It's not a six, something really meaty. Yeah, I'd go with that.

• 1:19:55Matt Farah?

  Yeah. Uh, eight, favorite eight cylinder.

• 1:19:58Speaker 01

  Judd. Well.

• 1:19:59Matt Farah?

  Judds are usually the 10. The Judd V10 is really where it's at. Favorite V8, how about the Dynan 4.6 liter stroker? Uh, S62, the, the E90 M3 stroker engine.

• 1:20:16Speaker 01

  Well, you drove that in like an M1 or 1M, right?

• 1:20:19Matt Farah?

  Yeah.

• 1:20:20Speaker 01

  Okay. I wasn't there that day. I would think I probably would choose that though.

• 1:20:23Matt Farah?

  That was mental.

• 1:20:24Speaker 01

  Small, high revving V8s are very good. Um, but shout out to the Audi 4.2 with a supercharger on it. However, I'm going to save that for the 10 because I think throwing the, um, the VF supercharger on like a Lambo V10 is rad.

• 1:20:37Matt Farah?

  That's pretty, that's where it's at. For, for a 10.

• 1:20:41Speaker 01

  You're going to go Viper with a twin turbo.

• 1:20:44Matt Farah?

  Oh, the Calvo Viper, yeah. 2,000 horsepower, Calvo Viper. Yeah, that's, uh, that's scary. We'll take that.

• 1:20:52Matt Farah?

  12 cylinder tuner 12 cylinders.

• 1:20:57Matt Farah?

  Brabus Rocket.

• 1:20:59Speaker 01

  Yep, I can still see the video in my head. That was one of the coolest things in the world.

• 1:21:03Matt Farah?

  12 cylinder in an E-Class.

• 1:21:05Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:21:06Matt Farah?

  I should have asked Sean if my car will fit the V12.

• 1:21:09Speaker 01

  No, just go V8. You get the sound.

• 1:21:12Matt Farah?

  Yeah, that's true. Uh, that's a fun one.

• 1:21:14Speaker 01

  Isn't the V12 like far more complicated, less reliable? All those things?

• 1:21:20Matt Farah?

  Yeah.

• 1:21:21Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:21:22Matt Farah?

  Keel and toe. Do you think automakers aren't taking risks with new products anymore? Fun projects like the SSR, the Prowler, the Viper, BMW Z8 and Z1 don't seem as common anymore? Well.

• 1:21:40Speaker 01

  Well, original Viper, I think there's enough original sports cars still coming out. Z8 and Z1 are, I agree, because they're just making fewer coupes. We know that. Like the, we've talked about, the 90s, there were dozens of coupes. It kind of peaked like late 90s and 2000s. The Z8 was like this amazing just design exercise. Oh my God, they're stunning.

• 1:21:59Matt Farah?

  I mean BMW does still make, they make the Z4 still. I mean, it's, they, I don't think there was room for BMW to make two Roadsters at the same time, you know, doing the Z3 and the Z8 at the same time. I don't think there's room for that.

• 1:22:13Speaker 01

  I agree.

• 1:22:14Matt Farah?

  But, um, I mean, look, the SSR, the Prowler, the, this is like Bob Lutz shit. Like this is like the 90s. That's like when cars were like cartoons.

• 1:22:24Speaker 01

  Well, and that was also looking at, looking at the market then, it was kind of boomers now. And they have money, they grew up around hot rods. How do we make hot rods new again? You make it. Now those people are kind of aging out. So they ought to make what our generation wants to make and they're making rally cars and they're making stuff, you know. I think the GR Corolla, I mean, granted it's to kind of reflect their rally program, but that's a pretty exciting thing.

• 1:22:49Matt Farah?

  I mean, some, some automakers are taking risks. I mean, Porsche doing the Dakar as a production car, that's a risk. Lamborghini selling the Storato.

• 1:22:58Speaker 01

  That's a bigger risk, I think, yeah.

• 1:22:59Matt Farah?

  That's a risk. You know, I suppose an Escalade V is a silly thing that probably shouldn't have really sold well.

• 1:23:08Speaker 01

  I think the difference with those, though, is they're all based on existing product, whereas like the Prowler was crazy and weird. And I think car companies now are taking more risks with the high-dollar cars because they know they can sell them as collectibles. And so there's, there's less really wild stuff out there for, you know, people buying forty to sixty thousand dollar cars.

• 1:23:26Matt Farah?

  That's true. They don't need to build a wild sixty thousand dollar car because they can build something that's three million dollars and sell fifty of them. And, and that's how they, and then it's not a risk. Then they can show the model and the renderings to people and they'll go, yes, I'll take that. And, you know, they get them locked up and then they build them later, they know they're sold. So, that's, I mean, that is a good reason that income inequality is hurting car culture because automakers are not taking risks on mass market products because they can do it. Write that down. Thank you very much for that. No risk on that.

• 1:24:08Matt Farah?

  Uh huh. High end. Okay. Thank you for that one. That Black Scooterya says, oh. I saw some, I don't, well, I don't want to even talk about that, I saw. Let's just go to the question. In your opinion, has the build quality of Porsche been going up or down in recent years?

• 1:24:42Speaker 01

  I, I honestly don't know because I don't have much exposure to them after they are more than two thousand miles old.

• 1:24:49Matt Farah?

  I have not seen a change in what I perceive as quality in Porsche in the last.

• 1:24:58Matt Farah?

  Ten years, since like the 991, like a 991 and a 992 are built to approximately the same same standard of quality, in my opinion. Literal build, how tight things fit, the materials, that's the same in those cars, to me.

• 1:25:14Speaker 01

  Marco, if you're listening, text me.

• 1:25:19Matt Farah?

  David Hasselhoff Meister, kink shame.

• 1:25:21Speaker 01

  That's a great name.

• 1:25:22Matt Farah?

  Absolutely exceptional. Best and worst piece of swag you've ever gotten from a press launch. The worst piece of swag is just a magazine about the car you've just driven.

• 1:25:34Speaker 01

  And it's really like a sales brochure.

• 1:25:38Matt Farah?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, I've gotten stuff that was so expensive, I gave it back. Like, I've gotten iPads. Someone gave me an iPad and I was like, that's ridiculous, absolutely not. We've gotten helmets.

• 1:25:51Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah, I got a helmet from the Hoosiers.

• 1:25:54Matt Farah?

  Helmet, jackets, sometimes.

• 1:25:57Speaker 01

  I got offered a jacket and it wasn't, hey, wear this, it's very cold where you're going. It was like...

• 1:26:03Matt Farah?

  Wear this somewhere else.

• 1:26:04Speaker 01

  Yeah, like here as a parting gift and I gave it back to them.

• 1:26:07Matt Farah?

  Yeah. No, I will sometimes, I'll turn down a lot of swag. I got a nice pair of headphones once. But usually if it's like really, if it's something very expensive, I will definitely not keep it. Maxima Decimus Meridius says, why do you think the new ZR1 will depreciate? Didn't the previous generation go up in value? The C7 ZR1 is the last front-engined Corvette, is the last manual transmission Corvette, and up until the current ZR1 was the highest horsepower Corvette ever.

• 1:26:52Matt Farah?

  That's why. It's, the curve of the new ZR1 will mimic the current Z06. It will not mimic the old ZR1. The week, I called that from the fucking press launch. I said, this car is terrifyingly fast, you cannot see anything out of it because the fucking hood comes up so high, it wants to rip its own fucking rims out of the tires. It's scary as shit and it fucking makes...

• 1:27:20Speaker 01

  What's the last of something?

• 1:27:21Matt Farah?

  And it's the last manual... Manual Corvette. I said, this is an instant buy and hold.

• 1:27:27Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:27:27Matt Farah?

  Instant. All the signs were there from the press launch.

• 1:27:32Speaker 01

  And I think obviously the difference here is the ZR1 is amazing right now, but right now it's the first ZR1 of the first mid-engine Corvette packaging. So where will we go from here? Faster, better, et cetera, more.

• 1:27:43Matt Farah?

  They've already put out a faster one.

• 1:27:45Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:27:46Matt Farah?

  The ZR1X is already one year later.

• 1:27:48Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:27:48Matt Farah?

  The car, the ZR1 we drove for Pete Cody has the old interior in it.

• 1:27:54Speaker 01

  Oh wow, it has the wall still.

• 1:27:55Matt Farah?

  Yeah, it's a 25, not a 26. So like, why would this current ZR1 not fucking depreciate? It has none of the elements that the C7 ZR1 had that specifically put it in the buy and hold category. Right along a Viper ACR. Viper ACR, same, same exact thing. If you had had an allocation for ACR, as a matter of fact, any final year or final two-year Viper, a TA or an ACR would have been a fabulous buy and hold because that was it. So. Um, but the Z, that C7 was fucking obvious from day one. Uh, Acura NSFX, are we going to Air Water? Where's Air Water this year?

• 1:28:41Matt Farah?

  I don't even know where it is.

• 1:28:46Matt Farah?

  Let's see, can you, while you're looking, can you scroll down a little?

• 1:28:48Speaker 01

  Yeah, it comes back to Costa Mesa in April.

• 1:28:51Matt Farah?

  Oh yeah, I'm sure I will go. I don't have something new to put on display, but I'm, uh, maybe the Manx, actually. If there's a Manx display, there might, then they'll probably end up putting the Manx there. I imagine they'll want to display it.

• 1:29:06Speaker 01

  I guess it would be a Porsche-powered Manx, right?

• 1:29:09Matt Farah?

  I don't know. I think last year there was one, there was Philip's Manx, but I think they also had a regular, another Manx. I don't know. Uh, Puff the Magic Draken, this guy owns a Draken, actually. Uh, looking for a sports car more daily drivable than the Draken. I drove a 2016 GT3 RS and I loved it.

• 1:29:35Matt Farah?

  I would have pulled the trigger, but I actually like a convertible. I rode in a Spyder RS and hated the sound. Boxer GTS 4.0 was fine. Should the Z06 convertible be a contender? Will I miss it not being a Porsche? Okay, interesting. I think, two things. One, you could get a 911 GTS or turbo Cabriolet. And that would be really fucking nice. Or a Targa GTS, which would be really fucking nice. So, those are, those are good. Uh, Z06 convertible is fabulous. Will you miss it not being a Porsche?

• 1:30:19Matt Farah?

  I think it provides an excellent driving experience that doesn't need to be a Porsche in order to be an excellent driving experience.

• 1:30:25Speaker 01

  Yeah, is this the car he's driving around right now? Like a Draken Spyder?

• 1:30:28Matt Farah?

  Yeah.

• 1:30:28Speaker 01

  So I think the Corvette will still feel like a huge step up in luxury quality, etc.

• 1:30:32Matt Farah?

  Yeah.

• 1:30:33Speaker 01

  Um, I, I think the Corvette is great fitment and whatever. So I think they're really nice cars and the driving experience is fantastic from the Z06. They sound amazing.

• 1:30:41Matt Farah?

  Yeah.

• 1:30:41Speaker 01

  They sound incredible.

• 1:30:42Matt Farah?

  And you don't actually need the convertible because the coupes are also convertibles. Like, don't forget that.

• 1:30:47Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 1:30:47Matt Farah?

  The, the roofs come off the fucking hardtop ones and go in the trunk. So, you know, if you, I, I think the convertibles are cool. I like the power top in those. I like the, um, the head buttress things. Like, I think it looks nice. But like, you can say, you, you don't necessarily have to get the convertible.

• 1:31:03Speaker 01

  But the answer, should it be a contender? Yes. You should definitely go try one.

• 1:31:11Matt Farah?

  Uh, I think we just, uh, sometimes you're JD Vance and sometimes you're the couch. Thoughts on sim racing cafes? Do you think the growing availability of sim racing cafes have anything to do with the increase in racetrack closures as you can get 70% of the experience for fractions of the price?

• 1:31:33Speaker 01

  Eh, I'd say 70%.

• 1:31:35Matt Farah?

  I wouldn't, I would disagree with that. I've never been to a sim racing cafe.

• 1:31:41Speaker 01

  My wife went to one with a, for a work thing. It was more like a Dave and Buster's, but only with F1 Sims. I think what we're seeing is just the, like, video game cafe market moving to where people are. So sim racing's popular, and they go, I mean, it used to be first-person shooter stuff. It's, it used to, I don't know, Dave and Buster's with all those games. So they go, okay, if people like sim racing, why not just try and make it a social thing?

• 1:32:05Matt Farah?

  Yeah.

• 1:32:06Speaker 01

  There was the one next to CXC. I don't know if it's still there, but it was exactly what it was. It was a bunch of, it was like 12 of their simulators. They had some bar food and drinks and stuff, and the idea was you'd go down there with your friends and hang out, and you'd race each other. So.

• 1:32:18Matt Farah?

  Yeah, I, I think racing is very expensive. I think developers can make more money using land for other things than, than some racetracks in rural areas and secondary markets. I don't think there is a substitute for the real thing, although I do think this technology that they just showed us is promising, though it remains unclear how this technology could be applied to a more, like, video game-like sim where you are driving in traditional cars from real model makers and traditional tracks and things like that. I'm not, it remains unclear how it translates, but like, the physics engine is there, I think, or closer.

• 1:32:58Matt Farah?

  And I don't think it's one-to-one. I don't think it's one-to-one. I would, I'd hang out with my friends at a sim racing cafe, but like, I'm never gonna be the one who's like, "Hey, guys, let's like, go down to the sim racing cafe."

• 1:33:11Speaker 01

  I think it really depends on where it's located, like, how hard is it to get there? Because one of the benefits of sim stuff is you can do it from your house. But now, like, you gotta get in the car and drive to this thing and, you know, go see your friends, when you could just hop online and talk to them. So that really depends on geolocation.

• 1:33:25Matt Farah?

  Yeah. Alright, guys, we're gonna save these last questions for the next show, cuz Zach has to go to a very important appointment in just a minute. But thank you, everyone, for listening. As always, we appreciate our patrons for such good questions. Get in on the action at patreon.com/thesmokingtirepodcast. You can get the show early, you can get the show live, you can ask questions for the show, you can get extra show, get the show ad-free, all of that good stuff, and support your favorite podcast while you're at it. We will see all y'alls next week. Bye.