Lexus RZ550e Review; Days of Thunder v2; and More!

Lexus RZ550e Review; a fun book; Days of Thunder is coming; sauce contests; Countach update; and... Patreon questions include: This JDM car is not good for 16 year olds Fun cars for expecting parents How to hate big tech while taking Waymos? Non-German $50k road trip sedan? Small deal-breakers when buying a car Is a used S8 a good long-distance cruiser? Best manual Honda for $10k-20k? Powertrain for ground-up Lotus 7 build? How to do a cheap(er) 993 build Gridlife advice Do body kits add value? And more! Recorded 9/7/2026 Show Notes: Ethos Get your free quote at https://ETHOS.com/tire Factor Head to https://factormeals.com/tire50off and use code tire50off to get 50 percent off and 1 free breakfast item per box for 1 year, while supplies last until 10/31/2026. See website for more details. DeleteMe Get 20% off your DeleteMe plan when you go to www.joindeleteme.com/tire and use promo code TIRE at checkout. Want your question answered? To listen to the episode the day it's recorded? Want to watch the live stream, get ad-free podcasts, or exclusive podcasts? Join our Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/thesmokingtirepodcast Use Off The Record! and ALWAYS fight your tickets! For a 10% discount on your first case go to https://www.offtherecord.com/TST #cars #comedy #podcast Instagram: https://www. Instagram.com/thesmokingtire https://www. Instagram.com/therealzackklapman Click here for the most honest car reviews out there: https://www.youtube.com/thesmokingtire

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

• 0:00Matt Farah?

  Hello, everybody. Welcome to the Smoking Tire Podcast. That's my morning radio voice right there. Today's episode is brought to you, as always, by Off the Record. We love Off the Record here at the Smoking Tire. They have an active case going for me right now. And while I can't tell you the details of it specifically, I can tell you that I feel more than accurately represented. And I am just patiently waiting for that text to come in saying that my case has been fully dismissed. As many cases with Off the Record are. Off the Record is a service that connects you with qualified attorneys in the jurisdictions where you may or may not have done a fun thing in a car that got you in some trouble. And if you, if that sounds like you, don't plead guilty. Get off the record.

• 0:45Matt Farah?

  Go to offtherecord.com/tst. That's offtherecord.com/tst to get 10% off all legal services booked through Off the Record. We love these folks. They're out there looking out for you, looking out for me right this second. And you'll love them too. OfftheRecord.com/tst. All right, folks, on this episode, Zach and I review the Lexus RZ 550E. I talk about the Nerd Reich, which is the fascist takeover, of course, of Silicon Valley. But don't worry, because I failed the podium in a sauce contest. And days of thunder. It's the Smoking Tire Podcast. Let's go.

• 1:26Matt Farah?

  Whoever's out there, Labor Day. Today's Labor Day. We're recording on Labor Day. Labor Day is, is funny. I, Labor Day is when I do labor.

• 1:36Speaker 01

  I swear, we work every Labor Day. I swear to God.

• 1:39Matt Farah?

  Yeah, cuz it's the best time to fucking work. No one else is around.

• 1:43Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:43Matt Farah?

  If you wanna, if you're a get shit done kinda person, and I mean, let me just, for the record, WCCS is closed. My employees have off. You know what I mean? But like, if you're a get shit done kinda person, Labor Day is it.

• 1:57Speaker 01

  Focus a lot, yeah.

• 1:58Matt Farah?

  It's it. There's no, no religious observance. There's no, you know, I mean, yes, you're recognizing the value of labor and letting them off, but if you're, I don't know, part of the ownership class, it's sort of your duty to get out there and get shit done on Labor Day, isn't it?

• 2:16Speaker 01

  This is, this is the day the ownership class decides to labor. They're like, we should do this for vacation.

• 2:21Matt Farah?

  Nobody's around. I gotta, I gotta answer the phones in this bitch.

• 2:24Speaker 01

  I guess I'll work today.

• 2:25Matt Farah?

  Yeah. It's a, it's, it's a day without a Mexican in the movie, but in real life.

• 2:31Speaker 01

  It's take your boss to work day, cuz normally he just collects dividends.

• 2:35Matt Farah?

  Yeah. Normally, I just sit back, twiddle my thumbs, and watch my assets appreciate. My assets have a lot of maintenance. They don't.

• 2:44Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. This is not that kind of business.

• 2:47Matt Farah?

  This ain't that kind of fucking racket.

• 2:49Speaker 01

  Private equity.

• 2:50Matt Farah?

  No. It probably says something when people approach me and they're like, dude, this is great. I wanna like, start a franchise. And I go, okay, here's how it works. And then I never hear from them again.

• 3:01Speaker 01

  Yeah. They go, ooh, I should just buy a company and gut it.

• 3:04Matt Farah?

  Yeah. If you want, like, if you have enough money to build all this shit, you actually have enough money to not need to. And in fact, financial sound advice is that you, in, in the current market, which is different than the current econo, the current stock, you should, we should have just not done it even. Just not, just done just this. Literally, should have twiddled the thumbs instead of all this, would have made more money.

• 3:36Speaker 01

  Jesus.

• 3:36Matt Farah?

  Yeah. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Now I know how Trump did it. You know, like, he always talk about that.

• 3:43Speaker 01

  Well, you have Matt Coin.

• 3:44Matt Farah?

  Trump, well, no, I mean, outside the scams, I mean.

• 3:47Speaker 01

  That's where Ford secretly pays you for positive reviews.

• 3:50Matt Farah?

  Like, pre-politics, just shit, just dirtbag Trump in the eighties, when they were, cuz he inherited all this money. And like, yes, he did make some more money using his inherited money, but not as much as if he did nothing.

• 4:03Speaker 01

  Oh, right, yeah. If you just put it in the, yeah.

• 4:05Matt Farah?

  If he just didn't do shit.

• 4:06Speaker 01

  The market from, yeah, late eighties to now is like.

• 4:08Matt Farah?

  If he just sat there and shut the fuck up and didn't try and put his name on everything, he would have been richer by like, a lot. So would I.

• 4:18Speaker 01

  So would, so would almost everyone who trades their own stocks and doesn't just throw in index funds, like, those studies.

• 4:24Matt Farah?

  They do even worse, yeah. So anyway, that's what's happening. Businesses doing great, by the way. Uh, I'm talking about purely, if you're very rich, you should just do nothing and let your money make money. And, you know, that's it.

• 4:40Speaker 01

  But I think they get bored.

• 4:41Matt Farah?

  You, well.

• 4:42Speaker 01

  Apparently Alex Troy talked a lot about that on Scotto's podcast, is just being really bored.

• 4:47Matt Farah?

  Yeah. Well, you gotta do something.

• 4:49Speaker 01

  Right.

• 4:49Matt Farah?

  But that thing doesn't have to like, make money. You know, that's what most people, you could just donate your time to causes.

• 4:57Speaker 01

  Very, very true.

• 4:58Matt Farah?

  And whatever, like, you could like, if you're creative, like, you can come up with things to do. But like, it was raining on Sunday and like, it's amazing how much of this city and like, my own life is oriented towards like, being outside. You know, if we're not like, in the studio or I have to be in my office, like, we're outside, or at least outside adjacent.

• 5:20Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 5:20Matt Farah?

  And like, man, one day of rain and we're like, fuck, what the, what the fuck do I do, you know?

• 5:27Speaker 01

  We watched F1 and, uh, we watched the full race, not the chopped down 30-minute version. It was a good race, too. It was in, uh, in Italy.

• 5:34Matt Farah?

  Oh, do you usually watch the Cliff Notes?

• 5:36Speaker 01

  A lot of times, yeah. And a lot of times, that's the way to go because, because with the power and the way the batteries work this time, like, it becomes a parade.

• 5:44Matt Farah?

  Yeah.

• 5:44Speaker 01

  And the delta between each car is like, 20 seconds and you're just, that kinda sucks. But this is a pretty good race, so.

• 5:50Matt Farah?

  That stinks. They should just, they should, man, when the field grows and shrinks, you know, or the gap grows and shrinks, they should reduce the size of tracks accordingly. Like, if that's the gap, put these motherfuckers on that oval we raced with Cletus.

• 6:10Speaker 01

  That's a good, oh, that's a shitty idea.

• 6:12Matt Farah?

  Where they did the NASCARs.

• 6:13Speaker 01

  I mean, they don't, there's plenty of lapped traffic that occurs, but, uh, yeah. But shout out to Kimmy Antonelli. He, he went from 19th to first and won in Italy. He's Italian.

• 6:23Matt Farah?

  Hard charger.

• 6:24Speaker 01

  First time an Italian driver's won an F1, uh, F1 race, I think, in 50 years or more.

• 6:30Matt Farah?

  Really?

• 6:30Speaker 01

  Yeah. It's been a really long time.

• 6:32Matt Farah?

  Wow.

• 6:32Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 6:33Matt Farah?

  Oh, wow. I didn't know that stat. That's very good. Yeah. All that and Bernie Ecclestone got detained at the airport? What a fucking good time we're talking about. I like that.

• 6:45Speaker 01

  Let's see. Oh, John Carlo Ficello won in 2006. I mean, that's a long time ago.

• 6:50Matt Farah?

  20 years. 20 years is a while.

• 6:53Speaker 01

  Oh, wait, The Guardian says Antonelli ends Italy's 60-year wait for, oh, they wanted an Italian to win in Italy. It's been 60 years.

• 7:00Matt Farah?

  Okay, so it's 20 since an Italian won.

• 7:03Speaker 01

  20 since an Italian won. 60 years since an Italian won in Italy.

• 7:05Matt Farah?

  Sure, yeah. And 150 since an Italian won on a Tuesday in Italy. Um, yeah, good for them.

• 7:13Speaker 01

  The one of one purple, purple Patina Cuda for $4 million.

• 7:16Matt Farah?

  Right. Um, but yeah, man, and when it fucking, when it rains, man, there ain't, first off, no home in LA is prepared for a rainstorm. So the first thing that happens when it rains, you know, you live in a big building, so, you know, presumably, it's a little better sorted.

• 7:33Speaker 01

  On the third floor, it is.

• 7:34Matt Farah?

  On the third floor, yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, for us, it's, we gotta, we gotta go around and start checking shit. And we, you know, my house was built in 1964. I put gutters on it. Our house didn't have fucking rain gutters on it.

• 7:47Speaker 01

  The roof just sloped a little bit or just kinda go off wherever you want?

• 7:50Matt Farah?

  You don't really notice it much, but like, I would say 60 to 70% of, of single-family homes in Los Angeles don't have gutters. Doesn't, cuz historically, it doesn't rain here very much. But like, um, if you, you know, it becomes a thing. You gotta fuck, check all this shit, make sure, you know, things aren't in the path, cuz also, the water doesn't go underground here. The water moves on the surface. So like, your gutters drain to the surface and then you have like, Vs cut in stuff, so it goes around your house. It doesn't go into drains in the ground. So you gotta make sure the paths are all clear around the house. You know, it's a thing.

• 8:30Speaker 01

  So it gives you a project, gives you something to do.

• 8:31Matt Farah?

  It did. It was an hour of, uh, of something to do. Um, but I also, Sunday was a big day, cuz, uh, the saucy soiree.

• 8:40Speaker 01

  Oh, right.

• 8:41Matt Farah?

  Sunday. Our friend Movie Dave, who is my oldest friend in LA, um, every year for 11 years, has put on a sauce contest. And it gets pretty big. I mean, it was raining, so it was only probably like, 85 or 90 people instead of what could have been 150 people.

• 9:01Matt Farah?

  But there was twenty sauces submitted. I've seen as many as forty, which can get like aggressive. Like, how do you even keep track of all these? And it's normally a protein. You know, you're doing it for brisket, or you're doing it for chicken, or for salt, whatever. This time was a tortilla chip. So it was just chips.

• 9:21Speaker 01

  So make a salsa, or any dip, I guess.

• 9:23Matt Farah?

  Yeah, and, and, and it has to be, it's gonna be served at room temperature, which,

• 9:31Matt Farah?

  frankly, you know, he lives up where it's like pretty hot, like up in like Thousand Oaks. And so, could go either way. So what I really wanted to make was a sour cream based thing, but I was like, man, if it's a hundred degrees, and this shit's sitting outside, that could be no bueno. Even though, truth be told, if I had taken it out of the fridge, and kept it in the cooler until I handed it to them, it would have been totally fine for like two hours. That's what I should have done. It's not to say I didn't make an excellent sauce. I was like, I'm gonna make a sauce that's basically a gazpacho, like it tastes

• 10:10Matt Farah?

  like gazpacho, like the soup gazpacho. But it's, but it's a dip, it's a smooth blend, and it's gonna be a little thicker, so it's got a little grip to it on the chips. It's not like a soup. It's a little thicker than a soup, and it's a little spicier.

• 10:26Speaker 01

  Which is called salsa.

• 10:28Matt Farah?

  I mean, yeah. But I had, I had like a couple different kinds of tomatoes, and, and I had some pineapple. This dude sent me some pineapple from Hawaii, and it was, the pineapple tasted like fucking candy. It was the most amazing pineapple I think I've ever had. You could never go back from pineapple once you've had this shit. So I put some of that in there. I finished P5 out of nineteen. I, I made, my problem, I made a fabulous sauce. It was a beautifully complex flavor. I'll put the recipe on the Patreon. It's, is a beautifully complex flavor that, that was made only of vegetables and spices, nothing

• 11:06Matt Farah?

  else. And, and it, it, it started tasting like a gazpacho, and then you got the fruit, and then you got a slow burn tail. Like, it was delightfully complex. In fact, two people called, which, it's a blind test, so two people were like, I know which one you made, and I hadn't said anything, and they got it, which is amazing. That they guessed my sauce by flavor. Give that guy a job. Shout out to Lloyd. But I finished P5. And the problem is, when you're, when you're, when people are tasting a bunch of fucking sauces, you need to, you need to be like, really a kind of outside the box. You can't

• 11:50Matt Farah?

  just make, oh, that's a delicious sauce that I'd like to have in my home and use on recipes. You know, like, it kind of explode people's heads. And so, like, one of the top three was like a cinnamon churro, like, it was almost like frosting, which...

• 12:06Speaker 01

  But it was so different.

• 12:07Matt Farah?

  I thought it was fucking super gross. I was like, this is nasty. Like, this is not delicious. It's, I mean, I guess in like a certain kind of way.

• 12:16Speaker 01

  I wouldn't want it on chips, maybe on something else, but...

• 12:19Matt Farah?

  Right. I would dip a, a madeleine cookie in it, or something. I would use it as a frosting or something.

• 12:26Speaker 01

  Do you think they did that strategically? Because they go, alright, these are chips. So most people are gonna make traditional stuff. Your palate's gonna get exhausted. So how do you stand out? You go curveball.

• 12:35Matt Farah?

  It was, yeah, and, and I, and I think it was a bit of a, no offense, but a little bit of intellectual laziness, because two years ago, soft pretzels was the thing, and the winner did like a cinnamon frosting, and, and won with that. And so I think this, and this person was there. And so I think they were like, okay, let's go, let's go with the frosting angle, but make it like churro. And then, so anyway, and then, like, the, the winner was a very heavy, heavily spiked, like, I didn't think it tasted that good. It was like, somewhere between an avocado cilantro thing and a, like a pesto, almost,

• 13:19Matt Farah?

  which I, I didn't really like, but it was very different from, you know, all the takes on salsa. But anyway, I bring it up, uh, because it's an awesome thing to be doing with your Sunday, even if it's fucking raining.

• 13:33Speaker 01

  You guys have done that for a long time, right?

• 13:35Matt Farah?

  Eleven years. And I won the first one, and I've never even podiumed since.

• 13:40Speaker 01

  I thought you got third at some point.

• 13:43Matt Farah?

  Oh, maybe I got third, but I've never won again. Yeah. I, I won the first one, which was brisket, and I made a Guinness barbecue sauce that was extremely fire, that we kept around the house in Playa and used for years. We kept making it. Shit was really good. And then my next best was that awesome tzatziki that was for chicken tenders, which he told me chicken tenders, when we got there, it turns out he had bought fifteen hundred McDonald's chicken nuggets, which is not the same thing. And of course, the winner was a sauce that tasted just like McDonald's could have made it. Like, it wasn't McDonald's sauce, but it was like, someone did an impression of

• 14:26Matt Farah?

  a McDonald's sauce, and it won. And I made this like, beautiful, like explosively flavorful tzatziki sauce, that it was good on everything else I put it on, except McDonald's chicken tenders.

• 14:40Speaker 01

  Oh, you tasted it there, and you went, oop, that didn't work?

• 14:42Matt Farah?

  I tasted it at home. I cooked on it, with a grilled chicken. I put it on, I put it on a couple things. I was like, fuck, this sauce is amazing. And then on a McDonald's tender, it was awful. Not awful, but just like, not the right thing. Anyway, we drove up there, and all weekend, in the fabulous Lexus RZ550. Folks taking a break today for Delete Me. You know about Delete Me. I've been talking about Delete Me forever, but it's time to take action, as every day, there's a new, uh, news of some more powerful AI model, right? And what other malicious people are using, uh, large language models and

• 15:24Matt Farah?

  machine learning for, is to scam you, to steal your information, to buy your information en masse, and to use it to target you, either with ads, or with scams, or stalkers, hackers, whatever, right? But you can, in a big way, exit that system with Delete Me. Because all you gotta do is go to www.joindelete.me.com/tire, and enter code tire, and you can get twenty percent off with Delete Me. I use Delete Me, and it actually did help me reduce the number of scammy, spammy phone calls that I was getting. Because I've had my phone number for a while, and it, you know, I use it for shopping and other things, and things

• 16:04Matt Farah?

  accumulate, right? All the sites I've signed up for, all the pornography I've purchased using my real information. I'm just kidding. But you know what I mean, right? Your, your information's out there, which you have put out there in the name of convenience, and now you gotta do the other thing, and you gotta get rid of it. So you sign up for Delete Me, it goes to work, finding you all over the internet, uh, these data broker websites, and removing that information. And it's not just a one-time thing, it's an ongoing service, as long as you keep your account active. They're gonna find and delete and report every month. So you can take control of your data, and keep your private life private

• 16:47Matt Farah?

  by signing up for Delete Me. Now at a special discount for our listeners, get twenty percent off your Delete Me plan, when you go to joindelete.me.com/tire, and use promo code tire at checkout. That's the only way to get twenty percent off. Go to joindelete.me.com/tire, and then enter code tire at checkout. That's www joiningdelete.me.com/tire, code tire. Also, uh, support coming in today from Factor. Factor is the jam, making chef crafted, dietitian designed, ready to eat meals, so you don't have to choose between food and convenience. And

• 17:25Matt Farah?

  that is my problem. Honestly, I will very, very frequently forget to plan myself, uh, lunch. It's always lunch. I make time for dinner. Maybe you don't. Maybe you have lunch, because that's your, your scheduled break from work, but it's, it's taking care of yourself after work that's really the problem. For me, it's taking care of myself during lunch. Your mileage may vary, but either way, if you're busy, and you don't like thinking about food, you don't like shopping for food, you don't like cleaning up too much after meals, and you're just trying to make sure that you eat something that's, that's good for you, and, and you're making sure to make good choices at a time you need to be eating,

• 18:07Matt Farah?

  that's what Factor is for, right? So every Factor meal is designed around what supports a healthier lifestyle, and nothing that doesn't. Uh, Factor meals are ready in two minutes, and require no prep and no cleanup. So even on the days your schedule is completely out of control, eating well is still achievable. Every week, you'll find over a hundred nutrient dense menu items to choose from. New options like salmon burgers, shredded pork, collard greens, and more. Plus, add-ons you'll crave like pumpkin flavored cheesecakes and protein shakes. Ninety-seven percent of users agree that Factor meals help them live a healthier life, so you can feel confident that you're doing something good for yourself with every meal. I have had Factor, uh, for lunch, many, many times. I've got some in the fridge right

• 18:49Matt Farah?

  now, and it does actually help me make the right choices before I get too hungry and start making the wrong ones. So let's eat real. Head to factormeals.com/tire50off, and then use code tire50off to get fifty percent off, and one free breakfast item per box for one year, while supplies last until Halloween of 2026. That's code tire50off at factormeals.com. Tire50off at factormeals.com. See website for more details. E, RZ550E. We can, uh, let's talk about cars. Cars, cars, cars.

• 19:30Matt Farah?

  Um, you probably don't even know this is a car. Zach, did you even know that the Lexus RZ is a, is a car?

• 19:38Speaker 01

  It looks like that Subaru.

• 19:40Matt Farah?

  Right.

• 19:41Speaker 01

  It's called something else. And this also looks like the Toyota called like the BZ forty-nine. Yeah.

• 19:46Matt Farah?

  So it's the Lexus version, yes, of that. Okay. So the thing about this is, so this is, I drove the, the F Sport, right? So this is the, the fastest version of this that they make. And it's all-wheel drive. It's, uh, four hundred horsepower. Um, it does zero to sixty in four point one seconds, though not in the wet, where it has a serious traction limitation.

• 20:12Speaker 01

  Ooh.

• 20:13Matt Farah?

  And the traction control comes, kicks in a lot when you try to apply power.

• 20:16Speaker 01

  Oh, is it on super efficient tires?

• 20:18Matt Farah?

  It's on super efficient tires. It's on tires where I, for a second, was like, Jesus Christ, is this, did they not, like, they need to replace these tires? These things are like on the wear bars. Oh, no, it's not. They're just like super low tread, rolling resistance tires. Um, so it's a, it's a five-seat crossover. It basically is the, the Lexus version of the Toyota BZ. Um, and here's the thing.

• 20:44Matt Farah?

  In many ways, it's a totally nice car. It has actually a, a very nice ride. It has a reasonably small footprint. Hold that photo, I'll come back to it. It has a, it has a reasonably small footprint, but like quite a lot of room inside, as you might expect for an EV, right? There's no engine or gearbox. So, front seat, backseat, trunk, like, you know, if I, if I go full lounge, you're not fitting an adult comfortably behind me, but I could still sit some reasonably comfortably if I have to put a full-size adult behind me. Uh, charges with, uh, NACS. Uh, it worked with my adapter just fine. The F Sport, uh, supposedly is two hundred and thirty miles of range and four hundred horsepower. And

• 21:29Matt Farah?

  it costs fifty-eight thousand dollars. Um, this thing, the, the base one, the RZ three fifty, like, base, is like two hundred and twenty horsepower, which even for an EV is not much. And has like three hundred and fifty miles of range, but is like forty-seven thousand dollars. This is like fifty-eight thousand dollars. The problem is, and, and is it nice? Yes. But like, what makes a Lexus a Lexus is premium materials, um, you know, premium stereo.

• 22:08Speaker 01

  Great seats usually.

• 22:09Matt Farah?

  Good seats. And then just a fucking unkillable Toyota powertrain. Like, that's what, that's what we want out of a Lexus, right? And now that this is an EV, now you don't have that thing anymore. It's just an EV, like every other fucking EV. It's an appliance. Johnny would give, no, Johnny probably wouldn't get mad about me calling this an appliance. Um, it was funny to see how mad he got about me calling the Rivian R2 an appliance, though. He did not. He took that. For someone who should be.

• 22:37Speaker 01

  He owns one. He owns an R1.

• 22:38Matt Farah?

  He owns an R1. But for someone who, you know, should be not so invested in the terminology I use about another car.

• 22:45Speaker 01

  He's not known for being an opinionated person, so I'm surprised that he lashed out.

• 22:49Matt Farah?

  So anyway, you know, um, so, so, so for, for an appliance, um, it, it, it does have, uh, some premium materials, though some of its competitors do too.

• 23:00Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 23:02Matt Farah?

  For that forty, that mid for, high forties to sixty thousand dollar range, like, that's a competitive segment. You've got your high option Ioniq fives and Kias. You've got your Mach, dude, Mach E GT is in there. Um, and you're, it's at the lower end of the, the Genesis GV sixty. It's like, there's a lot, even the American stuff, the, um, the, the Blazer, uh, the, the electric Blazer, the electric.

• 23:29Speaker 01

  The Equinox, right?

• 23:30Matt Farah?

  Like, excuse me, the Equinox is the better one. Uh, the, um, there's like, uh, there's a, there's a lot to choose from in that segment. And this isn't super competitive on range, on performance, in any one. It's kind of like a row of sevens. Um, it's an objectively nice thing, but at the price point, you get more range, you get more power, you get more advanced features, and you get a better multimedia system from a lot of its competitors. Um, and then, and that's, then, now we can start getting, now, let's say some nice things. It rides very nicely. Um, it, four hundred horsepower, uh, I thought,

• 24:13Matt Farah?

  I drove it and then I started looking up information on it. I drove it first. I would have thought, told you it was four fifty, based on the acceleration. It, it, when you put your foot down, motherfucker scoots. Um, it does feel like more than four hundred horsepower. Um, it's as fast as, I mean, look at this thing, is absolutely the pinnacle is as fast as you'd ever want an egg like this to go. Okay?

• 24:38Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 24:39Matt Farah?

  We don't need our eggs going this fast, but this one does. Um, I happen to think it, it, it, the belt line of this thing is really high.

• 24:50Speaker 01

  There, yeah.

• 24:51Matt Farah?

  It's super fucking high. Come, if you, if you go, if you look at a picture of like a two thousand and three Lexus RX three hundred, which I have extensive, extensive experience with. My family owned these cars for, for decades. It is approximately the same length, approximately the same width, approximately the same height, but the belt line is so much lower that it's way easier to see out of. Like, a car like this shouldn't need a fucking digital rearview mirror. You should just be able to see out of it. Right? And so Hannah, this is why it's nice having a short wife. Hannah, who is five foot two,

• 25:34Matt Farah?

  has to move the seat up so high to drive it that she hits her head on the A pillar getting out of it and has to use the comfort access to lower the seat away from the A pillar. She literally, like, sits in the car and then is raised up to the steering wheel in order to drive it. Otherwise, she can't get out without hitting her head.

• 25:58Speaker 01

  I found a photo to highlight what you're talking about, because just for people who listen, when you look at, we're looking at the side profile of this car, and you look at above the belt line, you can't see the dashboard, really. It almost looks like the dash and the belt line are even with each other, right?

• 26:12Matt Farah?

  That's very accurate.

• 26:13Speaker 01

  Would you say that's true, Mr. Ferrer?

• 26:14Matt Farah?

  I would say that's very true. You see the top couple inches of steering wheel, and that's it.

• 26:18Speaker 01

  So to highlight, come on, what are you doing? Um, the difference between the RX is if we look at the side and shot of the RX, like, look, look how much.

• 26:30Matt Farah?

  You see the whole dash?

• 26:31Speaker 01

  You see the, we can see almost the entire steering wheel.

• 26:33Matt Farah?

  Yeah.

• 26:34Speaker 01

  So this is almost like half of, whatever, half of the car is door, half is greenhouse. And on the other one, it's more like the two-thirds rule, like Aston.

• 26:43Matt Farah?

  Yeah.

• 26:43Speaker 01

  But that means that this egg has the ingress egress of like an Aston vanquish or something like that.

• 26:48Matt Farah?

  Well, yeah, and if you go back to the other, to the photo of the Lexus, it's got, it's, it's really got a sedan's, you know, what, what we liked about SUVs and crossovers was you got a bigger greenhouse.

• 27:01Speaker 01

  Right.

• 27:01Matt Farah?

  They're now making the greenhouse, like, that's like a fucking Altima's roofline, like, the glass of this is like an Altima, just up, like, higher.

• 27:13Speaker 01

  What if we made the SUV a car, is where we're at?

• 27:16Matt Farah?

  Well, that's.

• 27:16Speaker 01

  Because they did it with the wagon. It circled back with the wagon.

• 27:18Matt Farah?

  Yeah.

• 27:19Speaker 01

  But now they're doing it with sedan. Yeah, that's really, I mean, and the back here is so pinched. I mean, this is the rearview you get on like a, like a Revalto.

• 27:26Matt Farah?

  Okay, so it's, so Hannah has to, has, uses the comfort access to lower her away from the A pillar to get in and out of it. Okay? I find it to be comfortable to drive. But still, that, that high belt line, I do, I do notice it. Also, go, pull up the picture that's that over the shoulder of Hannah. Okay. Guys, taking one more break because support is coming in from Ethos, new advertiser coming in hot. Ethos is trying to help you get life insurance. And listen, this is an important thing. If you've got kids, if you've got a family, if you've got a partner or a spouse that you might want to insure is financially secure, if you're not there, this is what

• 28:11Matt Farah?

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• 28:53Matt Farah?

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• 29:37Matt Farah?

  hundred reviews. Take ten minutes to get covered today with life insurance through Ethos. Get your free quote at ethos.com/tire. That's E-T-H-O-S dot com slash tire. Application times may vary, rates may vary, and the TrustPilot rating is as of August first of this year.

• 29:59Matt Farah?

  Notice, we're showing a picture of, from the center, between the driver's seats, looking forward at the dashboard. And Hannah's making a right turn between two major roads. It's actually right outside here, in front of the shop. See, the cameras have come on?

• 30:15Speaker 01

  Yeah, why is there so much, so much information happening on this? The center screen has, what is it, overhead camera and all, two overhead cameras?

• 30:24Matt Farah?

  It's got, yeah, well, one, yeah, it's got the quote "video game view camera", where it's at the top of the windshield looking forward. And then it's got the overhead 360 parking camera. Every time you come to a stop, this comes up.

• 30:41Speaker 01

  Every time?

• 30:42Matt Farah?

  Every time. I have spent a total of probably 45 minutes digging through every menu in this car. I, you can't turn it off. You can't, every time it comes, do you see what the camera's showing? Nothing. There's no people. It's not like you've pulled up close to something and it goes, "You're parking now, let me show you." There, when there's stuff around, when there's nothing around, when there's, all the time. You come to a stop, them fucking cameras come on.

• 31:09Speaker 01

  And for reference, my wife's RAV4, made by the same company, it's only two years old. Only turns these cameras on when you're near things, or like shift from drive to reverse.

• 31:19Matt Farah?

  So, and then, so that's-

• 31:21Speaker 01

  That's really dumb.

• 31:22Matt Farah?

  I can't figure out why. I have an email into Lexus, I haven't heard back yet to tell me if this is like, broken? But like, but there isn't a setting to make this go away. And speaking of settings, this car selectively remembers a setting. So Hannah, when she got in for the first time, spent like 25 minutes setting all her serious favorites. Because for her, she likes to flick through on the steering wheel. So it's, wherever, whenever we get a press car, she does this. To see, does it have the, what she really wants is a way to select it so that the steering wheel control is a natural scroll, and not favorites only. Almost nobody does it.

• 32:04Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 32:05Matt Farah?

  Um, I just drove a very, uh, GM does it. Porsche does it, you can, you can do it with, you can do all channels with the steering wheel. Um, but, but there's not a lot. Most don't.

• 32:16Speaker 01

  Most do favorites, yeah.

• 32:17Matt Farah?

  Most do favorites. Did I say GM does it? GM, Porsche, and, and a couple others. Maybe Audi, I think, can do it, but most don't. So she was setting that up, she sets it all up, the next time she drives it, they're all wiped.

• 32:30Speaker 01

  No.

• 32:31Matt Farah?

  So, the next time she does it again, and then it's, then it's not wiped. Then they stay. But then, her comfort access settings are wiped. Like, various settings just don't, aren't remembered. ADAS comes on every time you restart the car, no way around that. So like, either this car's having like crazy hiccups, but, but not in a way that's throwing warnings. Or, this is a no-go.

• 33:02Matt Farah?

  This camera thing, this camera thing is a, is a, is a flag on the, I just was watching Carl do a fucking food review and he threw a flag on the play.

• 33:12Speaker 01

  Oh, that's awesome.

• 33:12Matt Farah?

  And that, that's like, that's one of the craziest flags on the play I've ever seen. That's terrible.

• 33:18Speaker 01

  Very distracting. It's, it's like, it's like the Hyundai, you know, the, the screens that pop up for when you turn your blinker on? But this is in the center stack, where it, I'm just so distracted.

• 33:28Matt Farah?

  And you lose your, you lose your GPS map, you can't do, you have to X, you know, you X this out, but every-

• 33:33Speaker 01

  Well, when you start, when you speed up, does it go away at 15 miles per hour?

• 33:37Matt Farah?

  Yes.

• 33:37Speaker 01

  Okay, yeah.

• 33:38Matt Farah?

  But like-

• 33:39Speaker 01

  I think it's very dumb to turn it on. Yeah, I'm not defending it, I'm like, I'm glad it goes away on its own at least.

• 33:44Matt Farah?

  It does go away.

• 33:45Speaker 01

  But, uh, that's a weird default.

• 33:48Matt Farah?

  The fact that it goes away is what leads me to think it's not actually broken, but it's doing that for some reason intentionally.

• 33:54Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, I, I figure Lexus has, maybe they got feedback from their customers that's like, and I'm gonna, the impression of the customer that probably asked for this was like, "How come the camera doesn't turn on?" You know, they, they're maneuvering near things and they wish that they had that more often. Like, we, you know, in the RAV4, you can hit a button on the left, it's a camera icon, and it will turn the overhead camera on if, so if, sometimes it doesn't turn on when I want it to and I do that.

• 34:19Matt Farah?

  Oh, this has the button for that, too.

• 34:20Speaker 01

  Yeah, but maybe people were missing that button and then Lexus is like, "Instead of dealing with complaints, let's just have it pop up all the time", which is stupid.

• 34:27Matt Farah?

  Which is crazy.

• 34:27Speaker 01

  Very crazy.

• 34:28Matt Farah?

  And is it, because I think this is a similar MMI to the, to the RAV4s, I, I, it seems to be. There isn't a quote "home" screen. You have your four, your five major functions on the left, where it'll be like, that, in this photo, it's only showing the camera, the camera views, but it would say like, you know, CarPlay, music, phone, whatever, charging menu, blah, blah, blah, blah. And so you can go between those and that bar is always there, but there isn't a home view where you've got a third of the screen is your, is a, is your CarPlay or your, your, whatever music is playing. A third of the screen shows this, and it, you know, like, all, pretty much all other cars

• 35:11Matt Farah?

  that I drive that have a screen that's like, whatever this is, 12, 13 inches across, like, big screen. Usually there's a home view. So with this, it's, you need to pick what view you want up, and then that's just up.

• 35:24Speaker 01

  I'd have to look at, because we use CarPlay all the time, which then has its own home version, but these icons do look different than what is on hers.

• 35:32Matt Farah?

  Well, those are the cameras, that's, when the cameras are, because you see, you have to hit that X at the top to get the cameras to go away. So, that's, when that comes up, all you can do is either toggle camera views or X it out. Also, keep flicking through those photos, by the way, because there's one more. When you turn off, uh, the ADAS, um, we've backed to the R1, there's another interior photo.

• 35:57Matt Farah?

  It is actually pretty roomy in the back. In this photo, my, the driver's seat is set for me. And the passenger seat is set to someone who's maybe four or five inches shorter than me. So, you could definitely get an adult behind me for a short drive, um, or I'd have to give up a couple of inches. So interestingly, look at the door, the door card, you see how it's that like smooth Alcantara-ish material? At night, when the lights come on, it, it projects this sort of twinkly crystal thing onto the, onto the, onto the door card.

• 36:36Speaker 01

  From behind it? Or where's the light source?

• 36:39Matt Farah?

  The light source is down in the corner at the front of the armrest. And it, yeah, and it points up and at the thing.

• 36:49Speaker 01

  Oh, weird.

• 36:49Matt Farah?

  And it, it's, it creates the, like, previous generations of Lexus actually had a texture made into the door card. Now they're like projecting a texture onto the door card.

• 37:02Speaker 01

  That's cheaper than making a texture.

• 37:03Matt Farah?

  I mean, probably, and it's also, you know, because it's like slightly animated and twinkly, they can call it an upgrade while maybe it being a downgrade.

• 37:14Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 37:15Matt Farah?

  And also, okay, can you zoom in on the door handle? This is one of the strangest, so the door handles for this vehicle, on the inside, to exit the vehicle.

• 37:30Matt Farah?

  You can either push it like a button, or just pull it a little bit like a hook, like a-

• 37:38Speaker 01

  You hook your finger in the front of it?

• 37:39Matt Farah?

  And just pull it open, and it opens the door. So it's the electrical and the mechanical are, so, what's weird to me is, it's not any more effort to open the door with the mechanical release than it is to open it with the button. It's in the same position, your hand's already there, the effort isn't very high at all.

• 38:00Speaker 01

  Oh, you just, can you do it with your thumb? Or do you have to use like an index finger?

• 38:04Matt Farah?

  No, you can do it with your thumb.

• 38:05Speaker 01

  Okay. It's like, if you're just pushing, it's like, you know, you just, one motion, versus like the pull with this, push with the heel of your hand.

• 38:13Matt Farah?

  Sure, I suppose.

• 38:14Speaker 01

  If you're a kid or older, like, that might be more difficult.

• 38:17Matt Farah?

  I suppose.

• 38:18Speaker 01

  Not everyone's big, strong, Matt Farah.

• 38:19Matt Farah?

  Not everybody's a big man like me.

• 38:21Speaker 01

  Right.

• 38:22Matt Farah?

  Point taken, but like, the complexity of having two systems there.

• 38:27Speaker 01

  Which are in seeming opposition of each other. One is a pull and a push, but they do the same thing. I mean, a sensor is a sensor, but-

• 38:33Matt Farah?

  If you've already got the manual release, it's there, it's already, like, why do you need to have the electric release too?

• 38:41Speaker 01

  Probably because their competition has it, to make it seem fancy? I don't know.

• 38:46Matt Farah?

  It seems redundant, seems, but redundant to me. They were, they, and also, you know, the electric one doesn't work unless the car's in park.

• 38:56Speaker 01

  Oh, right.

• 38:57Matt Farah?

  Yeah. So like, you want to drop off a passenger, like, "Sorry, can't get out", you know, but like, the mechanical one does.

• 39:04Speaker 01

  So if it's in drive with your foot on the brake, the mechanical one will open the door?

• 39:07Matt Farah?

  Yes.

• 39:07Speaker 01

  Interesting.

• 39:08Matt Farah?

  Yeah. So, I don't know. Um, objectively, you know, in many ways, it is a totally decent car.

• 39:17Speaker 01

  This is the home screen that, on the RAV4 Prime. So it does have-

• 39:22Matt Farah?

  I, we don't have a, the, the Lexus does not have home.

• 39:27Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 39:29Matt Farah?

  Instead of home, it has, I think, the charging menu, the energy menu.

• 39:34Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 39:34Matt Farah?

  But it doesn't have a home screen.

• 39:36Speaker 01

  I wonder if you can-

• 39:36Matt Farah?

  There might be one you can set a preference. I don't know, I've been so, the systems aren't exactly the same on the two, they're very similar, but they're not exactly the same. And then if you go, it's got this weird wing, which I'm sure does something. Um, and then if you turn off the ADAS, these menus just stay up the whole time. Until, unless you click them away, which I thought was mildly annoying.

• 40:04Matt Farah?

  It's too bad that the annoying bits of this car are so annoying because it did drive pretty nice. Like

• 40:12Speaker 01

  Pretty quiet, I assume. I think they come with like double pane glass. They're a little bit quieter.

• 40:16Matt Farah?

  They are, and there's a fake engine sound and fake gears. That's not great. It's not why anybody's buying this. I wouldn't, I wouldn't mess with that too much. I turned it on for 10 seconds and went, no. But I really liked, they have some synthetic material that isn't leather. It's a fake leather of some kind on the steering wheel. And I think it will hold up pretty well because this car, if you saw that last shot, had 6,800 miles on it. And the steering wheel looked like mint. Um, it feels very nice, the touch, somewhere between a leather and like a wet suit neoprene almost. It was, it's definitely, I don't have a good, I didn't take a good picture of it. I mean, it just, it just looks like leather.

• 40:58Matt Farah?

  It doesn't look, it doesn't look like anything, but it has, it has a texture of something that is not leather. Grippy, um, but very pleasant to hold, actually.

• 41:08Speaker 01

  I mean, it's the same thing as Sarah's car, like she's got 30,000 miles on the thing and it looks brand new. Whatever that texture is.

• 41:15Matt Farah?

  It's not the same as RAV4. It's different. Uh, but, um, but it's the, the, the weird stuff about this car, they need to, they need to resolve that. That camera thing is like, that's a hard no.

• 41:28Speaker 01

  I mean, it's something they could fix with an OTA if they, if they decide to. I'm, I'm very curious to learn what their justification is.

• 41:36Matt Farah?

  Yeah, very weird, but uh, thanks to Lexus for letting me borrow that.

• 41:41Speaker 01

  A funny, a quick funny Lexus thing. My brother's shopping for a car and he's looking at the Lexus NX, which is literally Lexus's RAV4. Like hybrid everything. Same, so I bring up same exact powertrain as the RAV4, uh, prime. And he calls me and he goes, hey, do you know why Lexus says it requires 91 octane? But the RAV4 prime says 87? And I was like, ooh, I was like, I'm sure it's marketing or something. So I text David Tracy, you know, friend Autopian, former engineer at Jeep. And he, he looks at the numbers and he goes, the Lexus makes very slightly more torque. But in the manual, it does say it will accept 87. So it's just a clever thing. They're like, oh, no, no, no.

• 42:24Speaker 01

  The premium brand needs to use premium fuel and that's how they get a slightly better performance number. Yeah. Than the car it is like literally, you know, almost a twin of.

• 42:34Matt Farah?

  Very believable. A hundred percent believable. Yeah, yeah. Is it, what motor is it?

• 42:40Speaker 01

  Whatever.

• 42:40Matt Farah?

  Is it a turbo four?

• 42:42Speaker 01

  Turbo four hybrid system, I think, yeah.

• 42:44Matt Farah?

  Yeah. So it's just, it's probably like, it may not even be a different like tune, like remember when we put, we, we did the test where we ran, um, with the Fiesta ST. We ran the 91 octane tune, but put 100 octane gas in it. And we got halfway to what we got with the 100 octane tune, just from the gas.

• 43:11Speaker 01

  Well, because the ECUs know how to compensate. I mean, not all, every gas station has slightly, you know, maybe a slightly different mixture. So they have to compensate for these different octane levels and qualities of gas. Yeah. And so that's why when Gabe called me, I was like, the computer will figure this out. And they both have a, it's a four, it's a regular NA four cylinder with a battery pack and all that crap. So.

• 43:32Matt Farah?

  The real question is if you put the better gas in the RAV4, do you get the Lexus numbers?

• 43:37Speaker 01

  Let's go to the dyno test.

• 43:38Matt Farah?

  You know what I mean? Because they have to sell it with like the OE equipment or what, right? But like, and they don't want to make it, but I bet you it does. I bet you it just makes that power from the gas.

• 43:49Speaker 01

  We could do a dyno comparison that no one would watch.

• 43:51Matt Farah?

  Yeah. It would take forever because you'd have to drive.

• 43:55Speaker 01

  We'd need two.

• 43:56Matt Farah?

  You'd have to drive 500 miles in between.

• 43:59Speaker 01

  Two plug-in hybrids.

• 44:00Matt Farah?

  To drive off the gas from two plug-in hybrids. The world's most boring comparison test.

• 44:07Matt Farah?

  Uh, let's see, what else? Oh, you know what else we did? Uh, if I hadn't talked about it yet, TST Book Club, add it to your list. Uh, The Nerd Reich by Gil Duran, just finished it. It's not, uh, it's not a happy book.

• 44:22Speaker 01

  It doesn't sound like it.

• 44:23Matt Farah?

  It's not a happy book.

• 44:23Speaker 01

  Not with that title.

• 44:24Matt Farah?

  Uh, it's not a happy book, but uh, it is wildly illuminating. Um, and it's, what's amazing about the book is just how much of the, of the story. It basically is a book about, you know, the, the, the seriously fascist and uh, turn that, that, that sort of the Silicon Valley right wing has taken.

• 44:50Speaker 01

  Curtis Yarvin showed up.

• 44:51Matt Farah?

  The, I mean, yeah, I mean Curtis Yarvin is heavily involved, but it's all, it's really Peter Thiel and company. You know, it's, and, and, but a lot of other people, uh, you know, they used to be called libertarians. But they were only libertarians and against the government because they weren't running the government. Once Peter Thiel got JD in, and once these Silicon Valley guys got Trump to go, go into crypto and re, and figured out he could be bribed and bought and all this. The confluence of Peter Thiel and his friends effectively not wanting to have laws. Not, they, they think they shouldn't have laws.

• 45:34Speaker 01

  Right.

• 45:35Matt Farah?

  And they want to start and have tried to start these sort of like techno feudal city-states. Um, and they're actively trying to do this. Uh, but, but now that they're in the government, ingratiated with, or in the case of JD Vance, very much in the government. Now they're super pro-government all of a sudden, you know, to use it for their own ends. And so this is a very well researched book that is, um, that uses heavily, heavily um, these people's own words to explain over the last many years, extremely clearly exactly what it is they want.

• 46:16Matt Farah?

  Um, they're not making it a secret. They don't go on fucking Fox News and say it. They go, they go into rooms of like-minded people in Silicon Valley and say this shit. But it's recorded and it's out there and this, you know, you, it's like, it's on YouTube. And if you know, you know, you know where to look deep enough, it's, you know, who's looking up what Peter Thiel said at fucking Stanford in 2005? You know, or whatever, but it's there and it's heavily quoted. Um, and these fucking people have way too much power.

• 46:48Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 46:48Matt Farah?

  Like where there's no.

• 46:50Speaker 01

  Well, I got really nervous when at the beginning of the AI stuff, like, I don't know, a year ago, they were lobbying to have, you know, be exempt from regulation for 20 years or longer over any type of oversight over AI. And it was like, hold the fuck on, like, we don't know what this is going to do. Like, yeah, yeah, but we want to be exempt from any kind of trouble, no matter what happens for two decades. And like, because they just want to have all the power and have no oversight about it and have no accountability.

• 47:18Matt Farah?

  Yeah. All I need is long enough to become crucial infrastructure.

• 47:22Speaker 01

  Right.

• 47:24Matt Farah?

  You know what I mean?

• 47:25Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 47:25Matt Farah?

  How, how are you going to make fucking laws over Google? Like, you're not. They're infrastructure now. You know what I mean? So like, anyway, it's, it's a fucking terrible story, but everyone should know it. Um, and it's very well-written and well-researched and it's called The Nerd Reich uh, by Gil Duran and uh, crucial reading, TST Book Club.

• 47:50Matt Farah?

  Good thing? How about two good things? One, kind of stoked for Days of Thunder 2.

• 47:56Speaker 01

  I, yeah, I bet it'll be really fun and I think they'll probably do it justice.

• 48:01Matt Farah?

  You think it'll be, I think it'll be like Maverick without the imperialism.

• 48:05Speaker 01

  Uh, well, because they'll be able to show the enemy's face in this because the rival driver will just be a person.

• 48:10Matt Farah?

  Yeah, you wouldn't have to come up with a fake.

• 48:12Speaker 01

  Which country is this that they're fighting that we can't see?

• 48:14Matt Farah?

  It's cold, but they're brown.

• 48:17Speaker 01

  That was politically very clever of, yeah.

• 48:21Matt Farah?

  So like that, but without that. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 48:24Speaker 01

  It has been funny to watch action movies slowly get painted into a smaller corner of who they can select as the bad guy. Because it used to be like brown people in the Middle East and Eastern Europeans. And it just seems like they're like, well, who can we choose now that we haven't pissed off enough?

• 48:39Matt Farah?

  I mean billionaires.

• 48:41Speaker 01

  Uh, that's true.

• 48:41Matt Farah?

  We can all, we can always use them.

• 48:43Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 48:43Matt Farah?

  Um, but yeah, no, the action movies of any given decade reflect the political, you know, sort of.

• 48:53Speaker 01

  You know what I just realized is so funny? Terminal List, which is Chris Pratt's show on Amazon, the bad guy was the other white guys in the government. And like, like we've painted ourselves into such a small corner, like I guess we just fight each other now because we can't piss off other countries if we want them to watch these shows.

• 49:09Matt Farah?

  That's so funny. That's like.

• 49:10Speaker 01

  But anyway, Days of Thunder.

• 49:11Matt Farah?

  No, no, I'm like, I'm stoked to see, Days of Thunder was a great, was a great movie, actually. Like it was really, really well-done film and uh, F1 ripped it off every fucking which way possible.

• 49:26Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 49:27Matt Farah?

  So if they're going to do that, then just fucking make Days of Thunder again.

• 49:31Speaker 01

  And I think if they do a lot of practical effects, I mean, they saw the success of Ford versus Ferrari, which was a mix of practical and, and digital, which I think was done really well. So if they do that, instead of handing it all to CGI, AI bullshit, that would make for a great, you know, great action movie.

• 49:47Matt Farah?

  F, when you, you said Ford versus Ferrari, you mean F1 or Ford versus Ferrari?

• 49:51Speaker 01

  No, I meant Ford versus.

• 49:51Matt Farah?

  Oh, yeah. F1 was mostly practical effects as well.

• 49:54Speaker 01

  Yeah, they had like the car on the trailer or whatever it was. They did a mix and they did it so seamlessly that you felt like it was just real cars doing real things. I bring up Ford versus Ferrari because they had that famous shot of, you know, the Ferrari got like shot on the cannon and like flew through the air. And that was a real, like they did a practical effect for that.

• 50:11Matt Farah?

  Yeah.

• 50:11Speaker 01

  So that was really rad.

• 50:12Matt Farah?

  That's a fun one on YouTube where they fucking launch a, was it a, like a steam cannon they used to launch the thing?

• 50:19Speaker 01

  Impressed air cannon?

• 50:20Matt Farah?

  Yeah. That's a good time.

• 50:21Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 50:22Matt Farah?

  Love, that's when, we got to call up, you know who. We got to call them up. And find out when they're filming some crazy ass crash scene for Days of Thunder 2. And get out there and go watch that.

• 50:37Speaker 01

  That'd be amazing.

• 50:38Matt Farah?

  We could figure out how to make that work.

• 50:39Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 50:40Matt Farah?

  We know some people.

• 50:41Speaker 01

  We'll call Tom.

• 50:41Matt Farah?

  We could call, yeah, that's you, that's you know who.

• 50:44Speaker 01

  TC. TC.

• 50:46Matt Farah?

  It's actually Surrey.

• 50:49Matt Farah?

  Zach's fucking, no. Um, the, uh.

• 50:52Speaker 01

  What? Wait, who's Surrey?

• 50:54Matt Farah?

  Tom Cruise's daughter.

• 50:55Speaker 01

  Yeah, that still feels creepy because.

• 50:57Matt Farah?

  I know it feels creepy, but she is an adult.

• 50:59Speaker 01

  By, by how much?

• 51:01Matt Farah?

  I mean, look, enough that I can make an off-handed joke about someone you're definitely not fucking.

• 51:07Speaker 01

  Make it about yourself.

• 51:08Matt Farah?

  Problematic.

• 51:09Speaker 01

  Let's see, I just want to. 20.

• 51:13Matt Farah?

  Yeah, see? Woo, in my hair.

• 51:16Speaker 01

  Nope, no, you, you get in by a hair.

• 51:18Matt Farah?

  I'm not trying nothing, just saying, it's not inherently, nevermind.

• 51:25Speaker 01

  Right.

• 51:28Speaker 01

  She could become Elon's 12th wife legally is what you're saying.

• 51:31Matt Farah?

  Right.

• 51:32Speaker 01

  Right.

• 51:32Matt Farah?

  Yeah.

• 51:32Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 51:33Matt Farah?

  Shout out, speaking of which, shout out to the plastic surgeon who bought the prototype Notice Canyon for charity yesterday on Instagram.

• 51:41Speaker 01

  Oh, cool.

• 51:41Matt Farah?

  I decided, it was raining yesterday, so I did a little cleaning out my closet and sold some watches. I didn't, I didn't.

• 51:49Speaker 01

  You posted about it?

• 51:50Matt Farah?

  Yeah, I did. And that dude, it was, they were gone, gone quick, but buried in the post. Cause I, I, I put it, I put it down at the very end, uh, the bonus round. And if you scroll to the, the last photo in the, in the carousel there, the very last one is that, which is the prototype from 2023.

• 52:11Speaker 01

  Wow.

• 52:12Matt Farah?

  Of the, the pink canyon, which we didn't make like that. With the, the, the pink we ended up doing is richer and more like.

• 52:19Speaker 01

  More sparkle.

• 52:20Matt Farah?

  Well, this one, they tried to recreate the color of my car. And for the actual ones, we just bought the car paint. We just used the actual.

• 52:29Speaker 01

  That's why it looks so much closer. Yeah.

• 52:31Matt Farah?

  I was like, why are we trying to fucking make this?

• 52:33Speaker 01

  This honestly looks like makeup foundation. Like it's a much gentler color.

• 52:36Matt Farah?

  No, there's, yeah, there's, there's a reason we didn't make it like that. Uh, we, I, I much prefer the one that we actually made, but, um, it was sitting around and I saw an opportunity to raise some money for Peter Zippy.

• 52:49Speaker 01

  Cool.

• 52:50Matt Farah?

  Which is the animal shelter that we support. And, uh, so I thought I would ask for three Gs. I'm not keeping any of it. It's going to the, going to the animal shelter. And, uh, a gentleman who is a, uh, plastic surgeon, he said, he'll, I, my clients will love the pink and, uh, bought it and is excited to, uh, to get that watch.

• 53:11Speaker 01

  Nice.

• 53:12Matt Farah?

  Money for charity. Yay.

• 53:13Speaker 01

  Shout out. What are you gonna do with, uh, the money you made on the other ones?

• 53:16Matt Farah?

  I'm gonna put it in my pocket. Give it to, I'm gonna give it to Damian at Franco's European Sports Cars.

• 53:21Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Someone asked if there was an update. So that's a good transition.

• 53:25Matt Farah?

  The other, the other ones I, I, I paid money for.

• 53:29Speaker 01

  Well, I didn't know if you were consolidating to a different watch you'd seen.

• 53:31Matt Farah?

  No, no, no. This is, this is, this is about, um, having, having too many watches and having to, uh, clear out the, the, I clear out mental space by clearing out physical space. You know what I mean?

• 53:46Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm.

• 53:46Matt Farah?

  Like, that's actually my, my, my worst, uh, habit as well as my best is like, or sort of, a sort of neat, neat and orderliness and like crossing things off the list and getting rid of them. But occasionally I'll get ahead of myself and get rid of something I shouldn't have got rid of yet. Like before I, ah, I needed that and now it's gone. That hap, once in a while I get bit in the ass. Um, ooh. I think Eric's car is, I think the auction ends right now. Can you go to, can you go to bat and see what Eric got for his car and if it's sold? He had kind of a high reserve on it. And I don't want to say what it is. Just that S2000, see what he got. Eric's S2000 we were talking about

• 54:30Matt Farah?

  is the auction. Oh, how long's it ended? Bid to 42. No. Sold for 51. Yeah, motherfucker. His reserve was 47. He didn't think he was gonna get it. I was like, bro, I think you're getting it.

• 54:44Speaker 01

  Nice.

• 54:44Matt Farah?

  51 Gs.

• 54:45Speaker 01

  It is super clean.

• 54:47Matt Farah?

  A great car.

• 54:48Speaker 01

  Well modded and cared for by someone who throws all the money at maintaining their car.

• 54:54Matt Farah?

  And then doesn't.

• 54:55Speaker 01

  Doesn't drive it.

• 54:56Matt Farah?

  Yeah.

• 54:56Speaker 01

  But maintains it again after not driving it. It's, yeah.

• 54:59Matt Farah?

  Yeah. I'm glad he got the money for it. Good.

• 55:02Speaker 01

  This is gonna be so fun.

• 55:03Matt Farah?

  I, did you drive it?

• 55:04Speaker 01

  No.

• 55:05Matt Farah?

  It rips.

• 55:06Speaker 01

  I bet. Supercharged. It seems perfect.

• 55:07Matt Farah?

  It's like 400, a little, I think it's 341 at the wheels. So.

• 55:12Speaker 01

  That's pretty good.

• 55:13Matt Farah?

  In an S2000?

• 55:14Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 55:15Matt Farah?

  Fuck.

• 55:15Speaker 01

  That's 400 plus crank for sure.

• 55:17Matt Farah?

  It's a, it's, you know, I think calling it 400 at the crank is a fair number. And it, it pulls like a vet. I mean, it fucking rips. Yeah, it's really neat.

• 55:25Speaker 01

  Got a hardtop too, right?

• 55:26Matt Farah?

  Yeah.

• 55:27Speaker 01

  Damn, yeah.

• 55:28Matt Farah?

  Factory hardtop.

• 55:29Speaker 01

  So sick. He only brought it here once and I was like, ah.

• 55:32Matt Farah?

  It's downstairs right now. You wanna joyride it before it goes?

• 55:34Speaker 01

  Yeah, that seems like a good idea.

• 55:37Matt Farah?

  Good car. Congrats, Eric.

• 55:39Speaker 01

  Nice.

• 55:39Matt Farah?

  If you wanna sell your car, uh, and you're in LA and you want the help of WCCS to get maximum, uh, dollar at auction, we had, remember that caddy limo?

• 55:48Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm.

• 55:49Matt Farah?

  That fucker got 55,000 bucks. We thought we were getting a number starting with a three. We got 55 grand for that thing.

• 55:57Speaker 01

  That's nuts.

• 55:58Matt Farah?

  Hell, yeah.

• 55:58Speaker 01

  And wasn't the comp for it like 27?

• 56:00Matt Farah?

  The comps were in the twenties.

• 56:01Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 56:02Matt Farah?

  Yeah, yeah. So I was, I was stoked for that one. Stoked for Eric. That's nice. That's a money, money move. Um, should we go to the people?

• 56:10Speaker 01

  Yah, yah.

• 56:11Matt Farah?

  Before we do, if you want to, uh, come drive with me in October, end of October, uh, experiences dot road and track dot com. You can learn about the Hudson Quattro Cento, October 27th to 30th. It's, uh, in New York and Connecticut's most gorgeous driving roads in the Hudson Valley, uh, track day at Lime Rock Park and, uh, some really fucking cool hotels. I, the hotels on this one are super, super cool. Uh, tons of character and history, lots of fun. Um, I will be there. I'm driving the Ford Mustang Dark Horse SC, supercharged Dark Horse, um, with, uh, that's basically the new GT500. And, uh, it's gonna be a great

• 56:56Matt Farah?

  time. Got a few spots left. And then of course, uh, if you are on the west coast and don't wanna go all the way to New York, we got February 23rd to 26th, uh, the Road and Track Palm Canyon Run. It's Palm Springs. It's a track day in the desert at one of the two, uh, desert courses as yet indetermined. But then, uh, some of the California's best roads and going to Temecula Wine Country. It's going to be friggin' sweet. And, uh, if you wanna ship your car out to that one, you can ship it to West Side Collector Car Storage and then come collect it from me directly. And we can, uh, road trip together

• 57:37Matt Farah?

  to the start of this, uh, event. So yeah, experiences dot road and track dot com. If you would like to come drive with me on the east coast this fall or on the west coast this, uh, mid winter slash spring. Yeah. Let's go to the people over at Patreon, uh, patreon.com slash the smoking tire podcast. Love Patreon so much. Uh, it is where you guys can ask questions for the show. It's where you can get the live stream. It's where you get the show early. It's where you get extra show. It's where you get access to exclusive content. Um, it's where you get access to special collabs and things that Zach and

• 58:18Matt Farah?

  I do and a whole lot more. Patreon.com slash the smoking tire podcast. Get over there. And those folks have a lot to say. I ate ass and I got an STI.

• 58:30Speaker 01

  Such a good name.

• 58:31Matt Farah?

  Bravo. Bravo. Would a Delica be a reasonable vehicle for a 16-year-old new driver while still serving as a fun and quirky fourth car? Uh, use case would be mostly short trips around town, but also some light off-roading around the farm and potentially unhurried trips around 200 to 300 miles. I don't wanna rain on your parade, but I'm going to say no. And the main reason is just crash safety. I mean.

• 59:03Speaker 01

  There's no crumple zone.

• 59:04Matt Farah?

  Yeah, like you hit, you, you, a 16-year-old is more likely than almost anybody to just crash into something.

• 59:12Speaker 01

  Yeah. And, and even if, if your, whatever, uh, child doesn't run into someone rear end them, they could turn left at the wrong time and get hit head on. Like the odds of them having an interaction with the front of the car are not zero.

• 59:25Matt Farah?

  Yeah.

• 59:26Speaker 01

  And there, again, there's like no crumple zone other than their leg.

• 59:29Matt Farah?

  And in my opinion, as somebody with no kids, but as somebody who was a kid with a van once, you don't want your kid to have a van. High school kid should not have a van. You can get into a lot of trouble if you can fit 80-year homies up in that bitch.

• 59:49Speaker 01

  That is very true.

• 59:50Matt Farah?

  You know what I mean?

• 59:51Speaker 01

  A strategic move for parents can be getting them like a two-seat car.

• 59:55Matt Farah?

  Like a van is also an apartment and you don't necessarily want your kid to have an apartment. Like, trust me, cause I had an apartment.

• 1:00:05Speaker 01

  You have to really trust your, your kid and really trust their friends. Cause their friends will be the, they'll bring alcohol. They'll bring weed.

• 1:00:12Matt Farah?

  Yeah.

• 1:00:12Speaker 01

  They'll, you know, uh, yeah, that could go south.

• 1:00:15Matt Farah?

  I, I hate to say it, but I'm gonna, I'm gonna say no.

• 1:00:17Speaker 01

  There's so many seats that can hold contraband in a van.

• 1:00:21Matt Farah?

  Yeah. Yeah. Florida man 97, found out my wife is expecting, congratulations, and decided to sell my C5 Corvette to help upgrade her car to something newer with more safety features. Now that's a man. You don't see Florida people doing that very often. What cars do you recommend for under 80,000 that could be fun, but good to haul a baby around? Oh man, so many choices. Look, you're already in the game here.

• 1:00:48Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:00:48Matt Farah?

  Looking at RSQ8, Panameras, E63 wagons. I mean, dude, you're there. Uh, if you don't need a wagon and can go sedan, your Lexus GSF is a lovely car that most people don't think about. Um.

• 1:01:04Matt Farah?

  You've also got your...

• 1:01:07Speaker 01

  I assume you could go use LS if you want more space for a kid, if you want to sit in. I would, personally, I would test drive a Panamera versus the E63. Those would be my top choices.

• 1:01:19Matt Farah?

  I mean, 80K is so much.

• 1:01:21Speaker 01

  It's a lot.

• 1:01:22Matt Farah?

  Yeah, all the Macans, any lightly-used Macan GTS.

• 1:01:27Speaker 01

  That's a good one to get because the kid is gonna be small for a while. And you have at least six years, and then by then, the Macan's warranty will have expired. And then you'll want to move on to something else.

• 1:01:37Matt Farah?

  But like, 80K, it's like, dude, pick your, you know, three- or four-year-old car that was 150.

• 1:01:46Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 1:01:47Matt Farah?

  All day.

• 1:01:47Speaker 01

  Get a CPO.

• 1:01:48Matt Farah?

  I mean, can you fuck with a Taycan? If so, like, 80K gets you a Sport Turismo GTS right now. Like, that would rip.

• 1:01:56Speaker 01

  And the roads in Florida are very smooth.

• 1:01:58Matt Farah?

  Yeah.

• 1:01:59Speaker 01

  That would be pretty nice.

• 1:02:00Matt Farah?

  World is your oyster, if that's how we're living. Frankly, I think she could have had a nice car at 60K, and he could have kept his fucking C5, bro. But, you know, I get it, I'm not gonna judge. TST giving Christian James handjobs. "How do you reconcile negative feelings towards AI and big tech while taking Waymos and Ubers around? If you could have it your way, would you revive the old taxi model?" Fair point.

• 1:02:30Matt Farah?

  And I'm not 100% anti-all tech.

• 1:02:34Matt Farah?

  What I'm anti is what we were recently talking about Cory Doctorow writes about and talks about is the reverse Centaur model, where tech enables a person to do things that they are not normally able to do. It makes them superhuman. Like, a car can make you go really fast, or a computer can help you find information or complete tasks that you can't do in your head or with a pencil and paper. But then, it goes the other way, where you become a cog in their machine after a while. So, how do I reconcile it with taking... well...

• 1:03:14Matt Farah?

  First off, from LAX, coming home, I take regular cabs.

• 1:03:19Speaker 01

  Because you have to.

• 1:03:20Matt Farah?

  No, it's a better system.

• 1:03:21Speaker 01

  Well, it's the best system there, for sure.

• 1:03:23Matt Farah?

  It's the best system there.

• 1:03:24Speaker 01

  It's better than Lyft, it's better than Uber, it's faster than all of those things.

• 1:03:27Matt Farah?

  Yeah, you just walk up, and a cab is there, and you just get in it and go. Like, so...

• 1:03:33Speaker 01

  If Waymo could go to the airport, and I hope they never can for so many security reasons, would you take a Waymo from the airport to go home?

• 1:03:45Speaker 01

  Because the one thing Waymo erases is, because you and I live close to here, is that conversation where you have to preemptively say to the person, "I know I live close, that's annoying." These guys wait, these people wait in line for like, two hours sometimes to get a fare. We tip more than the top percentage to kind of make up for that.

• 1:04:02Matt Farah?

  Yes.

• 1:04:02Speaker 01

  So this would get rid of that awkward conversation.

• 1:04:05Matt Farah?

  Yeah, I mean, that is a tough thing. Like, when I take Waymos, I appreciate the pleasantness that does not, means I'm not awkwardly sort of sharing a space with another person. You know what I mean?

• 1:04:19Speaker 01

  Is that why, like, when you take a Waymo from here to your house, is that why you choose Waymo versus other rideshare companies?

• 1:04:28Matt Farah?

  Sort of. That's part of it. I don't want to say that's not part of it. That is definitely part of it. The other part of it is, for me, it's because of this job, and I want to see how they behave. I want to see if they change their behaviors over time. I mean, in theory, if I'm taking the same two-mile ride multiple times a week, I mean, literally the same ride, it should either be, like, pretty close to identical, or, you know, someone has told the cars to do something else. And so, I'm trying to...

• 1:05:03Speaker 01

  And you would therefore notice the changes.

• 1:05:04Matt Farah?

  Yeah, so I'm sort of trying to see what happens. I think there's a value in someone like me using Waymos and talking about their experiences, positive and negative.

• 1:05:16Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think that's valid.

• 1:05:18Matt Farah?

  And I'm not against, like, machine, like, AI is like, it's become a catch-all term. Like, I'm not against machine learning. There's so many different kinds of machine learning that are like, good, and smart, and useful, and everything. It's really, I'm against surveillance capitalism. I'm against the dumbing of people with AI.

• 1:05:43Speaker 01

  The meme going around is like, AI lets people who are not creative appear to be creative.

• 1:05:48Matt Farah?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:05:51Matt Farah?

  Appear to be creative, appear to be smart. I mean, you know, Hannah and other people I know that work in office environments have started talking about people that are just, you know, they turn in like, full, you know, AI-generated work, whether it's a PowerPoint or a, you know, whatever. And, you know, there's...

• 1:06:17Speaker 01

  Errors sometimes.

• 1:06:18Matt Farah?

  Well, it's not just errors. It's like, you can tell, if you look at this stuff enough, like, you can tell. You can just tell that a person didn't decide to put that like that because they're trying to emphasize this point over this one. It's just like, some fucking thing just made it because the average of the internet said, "This is how a page on a PowerPoint is supposed to look."

• 1:06:45Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:06:46Matt Farah?

  You know, Hannah, when she makes these big presentations, because a big part of her job is to organize research, organize a focus group, organize a study, and then interpret those results and present those results to a team of either engineers, or executives, or shareholders of the company, or whatever, a group of people, in a way that will engage them with that material. So, you need to give them the takeaway first. "Here's what we learned, and here's how we learned it." And she does this amazing job of doing those types of presentations.

• 1:07:27Matt Farah?

  And I'm not like, I'm just saying, when she works with other teams, and they're trying to prepare materials for her to use, and she's like, "I can fucking tell." Like, I could tell that it was just like, they typed the thing, like, "Uh-uh", and then it made a thing, and then they went, "Here." You know, and I've heard this, like, you know, across...

• 1:07:51Speaker 01

  I mean, some of the more egregious examples recently, there was a book getting passed out to schools, I can't remember which district, but somewhere in middle America, and it was just straight-up wrong. The geography was straight-up wrong, some of the names were made up. The parents were like, "Where the fuck did you get this, like, 30-page textbook?" And then there was a presentation that was done, I think for part of the UN, and like, the countries of Africa were all wrong, because it was just an AI deck that was created.

• 1:08:17Matt Farah?

  To go back to the original question, if you could have it your way, what would you have? If I could have it my way, for real, I would have Ubers. Like, I would have the Uber-Lift interface app.

• 1:08:34Matt Farah?

  And I would have those people driving those cars be employees of that company that are paid a living wage. Right now, that system, as Cory Doctorow describes in his other book, the Reverse Centaur book, it's surveillance capitalism and surveillance wage theft, wage suppression, at the same time, happening independently for each other. So, Uber drivers, they're pushed to accept the lowest possible wage that they will for a ride, and the algorithm that knows their history of accepting or rejecting rides will offer them what they... And that while simultaneously charging the customer more and pocketing the difference,

• 1:09:16Matt Farah?

  not negotiating a better rate for the driver. So, I would have the drivers get paid a living wage, and I would have the cars covered under commercial TNLC insurance, which they're currently not. If you take a regular, non-black Uber. If you take an Uber Black, then that is supposed to be a livery car. Typically, there'll be TNLC numbers, you know, on the side of that car, because it's supposed to be, that person will have a livery license and commercial insurance.

• 1:09:46Speaker 01

  So do cabs, I believe.

• 1:09:47Matt Farah?

  So do cabs. Yeah, yeah, yeah, so do cabs. And it's not that cab drivers aren't also getting fucked by the cab companies, but it is typically a little bit of a better arrangement. So, yeah, what do I want? I want this useful technology that allows me to hail a car and shows me where it is on the way, and then allows me to type in where I'm going, so that the driver isn't mad at me by surprising him with this not-so-far ride. That's what I would like, and I would like those drivers to earn a living wage. And I'm not against self-driving cars either, when they're covered by, when it's clear

• 1:10:31Matt Farah?

  that the person who wrote the fucking software and is operating the car has commercial liability insurance. That's what I really, that's like, the big difference for me between a Waymo and someone using FSD in a Tesla. Someone using FSD in a Tesla, it's all on their personal insurance policy. Whereas a Waymo, fucking Googles underwriting that.

• 1:10:57Speaker 01

  Waymo ensures its robotaxis as a group under commercial fleet policies.

• 1:11:01Matt Farah?

  Yeah, of course. Are you fucking calling Uber X, dude? There's no commercial insurance on that. You're fucking hosed, bro. So, anyway, that's what I would like. Is it 100% morally in line ever? Like, no, probably not, because I'm a human. But, I don't know. I want people to be able to make a living, and not have, like, our lives be fully fucking surveilled and exploited. That's all.

• 1:11:28Matt Farah?

  Yeah.

• 1:11:29Speaker 01

  Do you think, would you, uh, if, if the drivers of delivery cars had livable wages and whatnot, would you then be fine if Waymo just disappeared? Like, the self-driving taxi movement was just gone?

• 1:11:40Matt Farah?

  Yeah.

• 1:11:41Speaker 01

  Cause it definitely, it doesn't seem like something that's necessary unless you want to make way more money by not paying drivers.

• 1:11:46Matt Farah?

  Yeah, no, it's not. It's like, it's, it, the, the safety argument falls apart in fucking two seconds. The slightest hint of scrutiny, because all you have to do is look at all of the other things we are not willing to do to improve safety. And then it's just like, it just fizzles to nothing.

• 1:12:04Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:12:04Matt Farah?

  So, yeah, fuck off. Waymos are interesting to me, if, as part of this job, and as a person who lives in this society, and particularly as someone who works right across the street from their depot. And so, we're probably proportionally more exposed to Waymo than the average person.

• 1:12:23Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:12:24Matt Farah?

  You know, cause they're all coming and going from, that photo I showed of fucking Hannah driving the Lexus earlier, that's like where all the Waymos come from, right there. So, um, I find it interesting. But if they, if I could gone tomorrow, good riddance. It's alright, it's not, you know.

• 1:12:45Matt Farah?

  Schrodinger's Senator.

• 1:12:49Matt Farah?

  Looking for a fun, reasonably small, four-door, non-SUV. Fun, reasonably small, four-door, non-SUV, comfortable for road trips, fifty thousand dollars, Integra Type S is your car.

• 1:13:02Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's a very good car.

• 1:13:04Matt Farah?

  I'm thinking about GT, this, this, the thing about these questions is, is they're getting like, they're getting kind of easy to answer, because there's fewer and fewer cars that fit these fucking categories.

• 1:13:14Speaker 01

  If they wanted a crossover, it'd be much more difficult to answer this, especially with no Germans.

• 1:13:18Matt Farah?

  The Elantra N and the GR Corolla seem too rough inside. Um, if you're, if you're talking about road trips, you're not entirely wrong. The, the Elantra N isn't rough inside, but it's definitely not as refined as the Integra.

• 1:13:32Speaker 01

  No, it's not, it's not as nice.

• 1:13:34Matt Farah?

  It's rowdier than the Integra.

• 1:13:35Speaker 01

  It's also twenty thousand dollars cheaper, fifteen thousand dollars cheaper. The, the Acura feels like a premium product, like the seats, the shape, materials, the way everything looks. And the Elantra feels like, look, it gives you performance, but all the plastic is the same, kind of, just on the side of gray, black plastic.

• 1:13:54Matt Farah?

  How about this? Lexus IS500.

• 1:13:59Speaker 01

  Sure. That's a fun one.

• 1:14:01Matt Farah?

  Four doors, on the softer side, handles decent, but not, you know, not at the expense of ride quality.

• 1:14:08Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 1:14:09Matt Farah?

  Great engine.

• 1:14:13Matt Farah?

  Pretty good styling.

• 1:14:15Speaker 01

  You'll get twenty-five mile per gallon highway, which is, you know.

• 1:14:19Matt Farah?

  Decent, for a V8.

• 1:14:23Speaker 01

  I mean, you know, actually, what does Golf R get? They say Golf R.

• 1:14:26Matt Farah?

  Golf R is probably better than that. It's gotta be thirty, twenty-eight?

• 1:14:30Speaker 01

  Thirty-one highway, so slightly better.

• 1:14:32Matt Farah?

  Hmm.

• 1:14:33Speaker 01

  Which is a nice car.

• 1:14:35Matt Farah?

  You could, hmm, it's very funny that, that, there's no Audis, but a Golf R is in there. Cause like an S3.

• 1:14:42Speaker 01

  Sure, same car.

• 1:14:43Matt Farah?

  Is pretty much the same car.

• 1:14:45Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:14:46Matt Farah?

  Um, but that's okay, you don't have to have, I, I think the IS500 would be lovely.

• 1:14:53Matt Farah?

  I also think the Golf R would be lovely.

• 1:14:58Speaker 01

  Um, and just for reference, the, the Type S also gets twenty-eight highway. So, road trip, the same as the Golf R, but only three miles per gallon better than the optimal IS500. So, over time, you could do the math on how much more that will cost you. A five, IS500, or you could do IS350, I mean.

• 1:15:15Matt Farah?

  You do a 350 F Sport also.

• 1:15:17Speaker 01

  Right, good-looking, comfortable car.

• 1:15:19Matt Farah?

  Sure.

• 1:15:20Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:15:21Matt Farah?

  Man, I, I gotta say, if you're, if you're okay with a manual, the Type S is where it's at. Yeah, cause you can't get a Golf R with a manual anymore.

• 1:15:30Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 1:15:30Matt Farah?

  So, the Golf R is nice, though. We should get a new Golf R. When was, when was the last time? I drove one for P. Cody, like, three years ago, maybe? I'll write down, get a new Golf R. Try that. New Golf R. Okay. Um, cashmere if you can, decent. I know you're pretty, oh, Matt, I know you're pretty good at naming things. Oh, this may, this may be hard.

• 1:15:58Matt Farah?

  Oh, this person wants to hire me to help name, help brainstorm a clever name for a bookstore. Ooh.

• 1:16:06Speaker 01

  A books, bookmarks store. Etsy store that makes custom bookmarks.

• 1:16:10Matt Farah?

  Bookmarks. Oh, that's interesting. Hmm.

• 1:16:15Matt Farah?

  I suppose I could be hired for that. Yeah. Send me, send me like a DM on Instagram or something. Uh, I'm sure we could work something out. Why not? I'll try naming bookmark stores.

• 1:16:27Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 1:16:28Matt Farah?

  Name, name fucking anything. I am pretty good at naming stuff. Okay, is that it?

• 1:16:33Speaker 01

  No.

• 1:16:33Matt Farah?

  Oh, okay, keep going.

• 1:16:35Speaker 01

  Anymore.

• 1:16:35Matt Farah?

  Given to Flywheel, fucking great. That's excellent. Progress on the Countach. Um, the Countach is stalled because of four locking collars, excuse me, six locking collars on the top of the shocks that we don't have.

• 1:16:56Matt Farah?

  The only way to get them, Damien can't get them, can't find them.

• 1:17:00Speaker 01

  Oh, shit.

• 1:17:00Matt Farah?

  The only way to get them is for the guys at Curated to disassemble a shock from a project, that's already installed on a project car. Disassemble it, send us the part for us to copy and make six of, have them made.

• 1:17:24Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:17:25Matt Farah?

  And then send it back. That's what we're waiting, and I asked the guys at Curated for this, the week before Car Week. So, they had their whole Car Week, everything they were doing for, you know, they're making money during Car Week, they're not trying to do my bullshit. And then they had like a supercar, a vintage supercar rally, like immediately after Car Week. So, they're trying to do me a favor, and they are trying. But it's like, they gotta clear the shop out to get this car in, to get this, and, and we're just, I'm just waiting. It's like, although we have all of the big componentry, like, you can get.

• 1:18:10Speaker 01

  Effectively, this is, this is for like the Gallardo and whatnot, but I wanted to see.

• 1:18:15Matt Farah?

  Effectively, it's a fucking locking collar nut.

• 1:18:18Speaker 01

  A locking nut for the top of the shock, okay.

• 1:18:21Matt Farah?

  Yeah. So.

• 1:18:23Speaker 01

  And what's wild is, these are, I mean, I don't know if this is the right, Scootery of parts, they have them for newer Lambos, and they're only two dollars fifty cents.

• 1:18:30Matt Farah?

  Sure. No, it's not even that they're expensive, it's that they don't exist.

• 1:18:34Speaker 01

  Annoying, so you have to have it like milled, right?

• 1:18:36Matt Farah?

  Yeah, basically, I have to have them made. Uh, on the Mercedes, the Mercedes was stalled because we were waiting for the shocks, which were custom-made, and they were coming from Koni in Germany.

• 1:18:53Matt Farah?

  And Koni, not Koni, um, whoever, uh, is shipping them, DHL or whatever, refuses to ship gas pressurized shocks airfreight. So, they had to come on a boat. So, they, they took like a month.

• 1:19:12Speaker 01

  They going through Hormuz?

• 1:19:14Matt Farah?

  Fully, yeah, yeah, probably. Uh, so, I actually got to check in with Matt quick this week. He was do, he was doing some wiring and stuff while he was waiting for the shocks, but he was kind of stalled on the last bits of getting the powertrain really going until he has those shocks. So, you know, at least, at least, in both of these cases, I'm not paying rent on the fucking space the car is keeping, you know? It's like, if they're not working, I'm not paying. So, it's time, and that sucks. Be fucking dead by the time this Countach is done.

• 1:19:59Matt Farah?

  But, um, you know, another, another month, I don't have to write a check for seven thousand dollars or some shit. High-functioning car enthusiast, what's the dumbest, smallest, dumbest deal breaker you've ever found when buying a car? Deal breaker.

• 1:20:15Speaker 01

  I, this one wasn't dumb, well, it was dumb in one way, but I was, when I was shopping for 240 SXs years ago, before I bought my car,

• 1:20:23Speaker 01

  in the engine compartment shot, the overflow canister for the radiator was just a used Monster Energy can.

• 1:20:30Matt Farah?

  Yeah, buddy.

• 1:20:32Speaker 01

  And it, and like, I looked at that, and I sent the photo to Musto, and he goes, also, what's up with the wiring? And there were just like wires hanging draped everywhere, but that was dumb on, uh, the seller's side, I think.

• 1:20:44Matt Farah?

  I mean, smallest, dumbest deal breaker? Like, I don't,

• 1:20:50Matt Farah?

  I don't think I've ever gone to look at a car, like, I've never gotten far enough into that process to find a dumb deal breaker. I mean, I've.

• 1:21:01Speaker 01

  Well, what about online, when you're looking at things and you go, oh, I'm not gonna go look at this, cause this, you know, look at these wheels, or this repair choice, or something like that.

• 1:21:13Matt Farah?

  I don't know. I don't think, I think it's a tough que- I don't know. I don't buy cars the way other people do. Cars either, I either have them built, or they just kinda like come to me. No, I don't, I mean like the NSX, like, right? Like-

• 1:21:28Speaker 01

  I know what you mean, but it's just-

• 1:21:30Matt Farah?

  It sounds dickish. I don't know how it sounds, but like, when they just appear, you know? Like-

• 1:21:37Speaker 01

  I think you have to explain what that means.

• 1:21:40Matt Farah?

  Well, like this Mercedes, the whole project started because my wife's aunt and uncle were like, "You want a Mercedes?" You know, and we're like, "Oh, as a matter of fact, sure." And my Lamborghini Countach. I wasn't like hunting for a Countach. Like, the one Countach I was acquainted with, the guy wanted out. And I saw it as an opportunity to buy a car I knew.

• 1:22:06Speaker 01

  I think we filmed it. It was just a car in the city that we knew about.

• 1:22:09Matt Farah?

  Yeah.

• 1:22:12Speaker 01

  What was the NSX? Was it a customer here?

• 1:22:14Matt Farah?

  Yeah, the NSX was in storage here. And, and it was such a nice car. And the owner was a spare no expense kinda guy. And he, he just hadn't driven it. And, and he wanted me to help him sell it. And I said, "Or, how about I just give you this money for it right now?" You know, deal. And so, it's not like, free cars just always fall in my lap. But like, it's, I, I, I don't go, "I'd like to buy a bleu. Now let me start hunting for one. And these are the colors I'd like. And this is this." It just, it's been so long since that's happened. Either the car just like, either it's like, "Oh, I gotta get that." And I order the Spyder or whatever.

• 1:22:58Matt Farah?

  Or, "Holy shit, look at this." And the Manx. Or, it's like, "Hey, here's the thing." There's never that much more thought put into it than that.

• 1:23:09Speaker 01

  Kind of right place, right time.

• 1:23:11Matt Farah?

  Yeah, I just, you know, when you live and breathe cars all the time, you're not looking for cars in the traditional way. And when I bought the Taycan, which was the la- the only real time recently I've done that, because I was looking for a, it was, what's the cheapest cross teresmo in America? And I have two days before the end of the year to spend this money before I have to make it taxes, you know, so.

• 1:23:40Matt Farah?

  Yeah, the deal breaker that, that would keep me from buying a used car is a weird smell in the interior. If I, if I saw a car that was what I, that was what I wanted, and then I got there, and there's a smell in the interior, because there is only so much you can do.

• 1:23:58Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:23:59Matt Farah?

  You cannot, you're never getting it out permanently.

• 1:24:02Speaker 01

  And the seller might go, "Oh, it just needs a detail," but they may have done that, and they know they can't get it out.

• 1:24:08Matt Farah?

  It almost never just needs a detail. It just, sometimes if someone's owned a car for many years, and that's a smelly person, or a person with a smelly habit, it seeps into everything. You can't detail it out.

• 1:24:25Matt Farah?

  Possibly username of the year. Cayman's, and this is spelled, C-A-Y-M-A-N-C-I-D-E-R. Cayman Cider says, "Thoughts on a 2022 Audi S8 for 70,000 bucks? Going back and forth between Tucson and Nashville. I found one locally." Those are very nice cars.

• 1:24:48Speaker 01

  When it, when they work-

• 1:24:49Matt Farah?

  Yeah.

• 1:24:50Speaker 01

  That will be one of the best road trip cars, period.

• 1:24:52Matt Farah?

  They're super fast.

• 1:24:53Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:24:54Matt Farah?

  Um, they're very comfortable. Um, yeah, CPO, get a warranty. I, I would be afraid of what it costs to maintain one of those out of warranty, but they are-

• 1:25:05Speaker 01

  Oh my god. The backseat, like, oh, travel with friends just so you can also sit in the backseat.

• 1:25:10Matt Farah?

  And I remember, I forget who did it, one of the magazines did it, but at the time, when that came out,

• 1:25:18Matt Farah?

  not, it was, 22 is sort of the end run of that era. I think that car might've come out in 17 or something. The Alpina, they did the Alpina B7 and the S8. And the S8 beat the Alpina to 60 by like a second and a half. And beat it in the quarter mile by like two seconds. These things were fucking quick. They're great. Uh, Panda Express, 2500 LT, "I wanna buy a used Honda to learn stick and have a fun weekend car. I could spend 10 to 20,000 bucks." I mean, what is the My Little Pony first manual Honda?

• 1:25:53Speaker 01

  Oh, Honda Fit.

• 1:25:54Matt Farah?

  A Fit would be fabulous.

• 1:25:55Speaker 01

  Honda Fit, 100%.

• 1:25:57Matt Farah?

  Do all Honda Fits have tacks? Or is there a base model Fit with no tack? For a while, there was a base model Civic with no tack. But I think, I think that after like 2005, they might've got rid of that.

• 1:26:14Matt Farah?

  But yeah, dude, uh, 10 to 20,000 bucks gets you all the Honda Fit you'll ever need.

• 1:26:19Speaker 01

  Really fun, really good.

• 1:26:21Matt Farah?

  And then if you like really like it, and you wanna go fast, you could do a K24 swap, and the thing will fucking fly.

• 1:26:28Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:26:30Matt Farah?

  Yeah, just that. Just find, get a Fit. The best thing about Hondas, all of them have good shifters.

• 1:26:36Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm. That one has good steering, too.

• 1:26:38Matt Farah?

  Yeah. I'd rather a Fit than a Civic.

• 1:26:41Speaker 01

  Oh, I'd rather have a Fit than a newer, like a Civic, a new Civic SI is a better car overall, but it's a huge car compared to a Fit. It's not nearly as fun to drive.

• 1:26:50Matt Farah?

  But for 10 to 20 grand, I want a, a nice second gen Fit.

• 1:26:54Speaker 01

  Yeah, spend 12 and get a good second gen Fit, and then save eight.

• 1:26:58Matt Farah?

  Yeah. You also, by the way, could find a Fiesta ST for that.

• 1:27:04Speaker 01

  Oh, definitely.

• 1:27:05Matt Farah?

  So like, I would maybe also consider a Fiesta ST, which will be even more fun to drive.

• 1:27:10Speaker 01

  More fun. It will be less reliable.

• 1:27:12Matt Farah?

  Yeah. Randy, thoughts on the new Grand Tour? Haven't seen it yet. Did you watch it?

• 1:27:18Speaker 01

  I watched the first episode.

• 1:27:19Matt Farah?

  Okay.

• 1:27:19Speaker 01

  And, uh, I've heard it gets progressively better. Not to say the first is, is bad. People say like, the first episode felt like a test show.

• 1:27:28Matt Farah?

  It probably was.

• 1:27:29Speaker 01

  A little bit, might've been. Um, but we, we should talk more about it on a, a separate episode.

• 1:27:34Matt Farah?

  Yeah, we should probably do that. And I, I, I might just like skip ahead to episode five or something.

• 1:27:41Speaker 01

  I think I'll watch two tonight, maybe.

• 1:27:43Matt Farah?

  Maybe we'll do that on the pro, should, should the pro show be our review of the Grand Tour?

• 1:27:48Speaker 01

  I mean, I don't, I think we could do it publicly.

• 1:27:49Matt Farah?

  I support them generally, but I, I haven't watched it yet.

• 1:27:53Speaker 01

  I think they did a pretty damn good job in the episode I watched. Like, yeah.

• 1:27:57Matt Farah?

  Federal Investigator, "Building a Lotus 7 from the ground up. What powertrain and steering rack would you Frankenstein together for a Lotus 7 of your own? I'm currently thinking about using a bike engine, considering the fantastic power to weight ratio."

• 1:28:15Speaker 01

  Is the steering rack in the Lotus 7 not amazing?

• 1:28:17Matt Farah?

  I would use the Lotus 7 steering rack if I-

• 1:28:20Speaker 01

  Right? I think that's fine.

• 1:28:22Matt Farah?

  I don't like Lotus 7s. I think the front half of the car and the back half of the car feel like completely different cars. They do. The front end and the back half are doing completely different things most of the time in that kinda car.

• 1:28:34Speaker 01

  Whoa.

• 1:28:37Speaker 01

  I've never driven one, no.

• 1:28:39Matt Farah?

  And I don't, a bike engine, every time I've driven a car with a bike engine, you have to like, they have like no torque. So you have to like slip the fuck out of the clutch from like 5,000 RPM, the Legends cars.

• 1:28:54Speaker 01

  Well, and, and I, when I watch videos of car powered by bike engine, I go, "Oh, awesome." I romanticize the hell out of it. But when you do the math, you're like, this engine was designed to move something that weighs 500 pounds at the most. I mean, 400 pounds of bike weight, 200 pound rider. And now you're putting in a car, even with the Lotus, that weighs three times that?

• 1:29:13Matt Farah?

  Yeah.

• 1:29:13Speaker 01

  And with, like you said, no torque, horsepower, yes, but like you're just revving it and waiting and waiting and going. I would, I would do something else.

• 1:29:21Matt Farah?

  I would do a, what was the-

• 1:29:23Speaker 01

  Do a hot K swap. I mean, I don't know what would fit in there.

• 1:29:26Matt Farah?

  K24. Will K24 fit?

• 1:29:28Speaker 01

  I don't know, but like any built inline four banger that's meant for a car.

• 1:29:32Matt Farah?

  Yeah.

• 1:29:32Speaker 01

  And I would go supercharged instead of turbocharged personally, because I think like with the Ariel Atom I drove, that was way more fun. I've driven two, one supercharged, one turbo. Preferred supercharged for sure. I would do that.

• 1:29:44Matt Farah?

  Yeah, a hot four cylinder. I would do like a 2ZZ, or a K20, or a K24, or, what was the Integra type, or a B, B18, something, something, or whatever the fuck it was.

• 1:29:58Matt Farah?

  Yeah, it would be a hot car engine. I wouldn't, I probably would. The only bike engine I would think about, if it fits, and it probably doesn't, is the BMW 1600, which is the, a 1.6 liter inline six motorcycle engine. Now, that would be a wild thing, and it would sound like a fucking F1 car, probably. I don't know if it'll fit. It probably won't. But like, if I was gonna go bike engine, I think six cylinder bike engine is what I would wanna do.

• 1:30:32Speaker 01

  What's the engine called? Is it called the K1600?

• 1:30:34Matt Farah?

  Yeah, BMW K1600.

• 1:30:42Speaker 01

  It makes 130 pound-feet of torque.

• 1:30:45Matt Farah?

  Yeah.

• 1:30:45Speaker 01

  That's pretty good.

• 1:30:46Matt Farah?

  It's pretty good.

• 1:30:46Speaker 01

  That's kind of what you'd, that's what you'd get from any kind of spicy car engine also. So, but it would just sound different and be different.

• 1:30:53Matt Farah?

  I think a K, dude, like a K-series with ITBs on it would be real nasty.

• 1:30:57Speaker 01

  That'd be cool.

• 1:30:58Matt Farah?

  Yeah, that would be a good time, yeah. Rev limit, is anyone doing a RestoMod 993 in the 500,000 range? That you would recommend or have driven? All the big boys are seven figures. I'm looking for a restored manual lighter-weight analog car, but with suspension and some other upgrades that come with the 993 era.

• 1:31:23Matt Farah?

  Um, 993s?

• 1:31:26Speaker 01

  I don't know.

• 1:31:27Matt Farah?

  No.

• 1:31:28Speaker 01

  I feel like I have friends that have 993s that just maintain them or modify. They don't have like a shop that's just known for doing that. They can take it to a lot of different speed shops and they can give you a spicy engine and good suspension and kind of get, get you what you want for way less than 500 grand.

• 1:31:43Matt Farah?

  I mean, look, if that's your budget, I would get yourself the nicest 993 you can find and call Joey Seeley. And go, here's a car and a check for $350,000. And he will deliver you something that will fucking blow your head off.

• 1:32:02Speaker 01

  It's true.

• 1:32:03Matt Farah?

  It may not look much different from the stock car, but it will rip.

• 1:32:08Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:32:09Matt Farah?

  And I, I mean, and there's, and I, you know, I, I, I say Joey it because he's, he's my friend and I, he has a very long track record of doing amazing things and doing these, these types of builds for, for people.

• 1:32:24Speaker 01

  Yeah, if your goal is lighter analog stuff, that is what he did with his red car. Wasn't, was not a 993.

• 1:32:31Matt Farah?

  Yeah, but he would do it.

• 1:32:32Speaker 01

  He can do that. And his company's now called Paradox Performance, by the way.

• 1:32:36Matt Farah?

  Oh, yeah, he changed, he got rid of e-motion engineering. It's now Paradox Performance. But, but like, basically I would do that.

• 1:32:42Speaker 01

  It's a good solution.

• 1:32:43Matt Farah?

  And I don't know where you're, where you're coming from, but like, maybe in your city, there's a guy, you know, there is someone like that, that's just that genius, you know, with the setup and with the, you know, with the motor.

• 1:32:56Speaker 01

  I think you want someone that has a pretty good motorsports engineering background, because that's how you'll get the lightweighting and the feeling of lightweight with suspension alignment, et cetera.

• 1:33:06Matt Farah?

  Mm-hmm. Uh, try Motor Quadra Cock.

• 1:33:11Speaker 01

  Quadra Coke.

• 1:33:12Matt Farah?

  Quadra Cock.

• 1:33:15Matt Farah?

  Advice for first-time Gridlife experience, headed to Laguna in two weeks. It's been a long time.

• 1:33:22Speaker 01

  It has, I'd say it depends on how old you are. I think there's two versions of, of Gridlife. There's, you know, you're 22 and you're going to the rave and you're partying all night. And then there's like, are you time attacking and bringing your, your science project?

• 1:33:35Matt Farah?

  Yeah, I mean, what's great about those events is, is you have two things that are not necessarily related, kind of happening at the same time. And like, there's people that are going for racing, there's people that are going for music, there is crossover between the two, but also some like not at all. And so it's this weird vibe of, of, of these two things that are together that sort of works.

• 1:33:59Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:33:59Matt Farah?

  Um, I mean, my advice would be, sorry, you either, either you're sleeping at the track, in which case, be comfortable.

• 1:34:08Speaker 01

  I would, I would sleep at the track, just immerse yourself in it, but yes, make sure you're comfortable.

• 1:34:13Matt Farah?

  Yeah, so like that may mean, oh, you know, RV or whatever, camping trailer, like, I, I, I'm not tent camping anymore, but, and Laguna's fucking cold at night, by the way. So be prepared. I would really prepare for the fact that there are seven weathers a day at Laguna Seca, if you don't already know that.

• 1:34:31Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:34:31Matt Farah?

  It gets, it's really fucking cold in the morning and then it gets 1,000 degrees at 2:00 PM and then as the sun goes behind the mountain and the fog rolls in, it's like, once you're sweaty, it's like 50 degrees again and you are freezing.

• 1:34:45Speaker 01

  Next weekend, the temp swing is 20 degrees at least.

• 1:34:48Matt Farah?

  Yeah. Um, I mean, it's, look, it's a great event, it's been happening for a long time, they, they got it pretty well nailed down. Laguna's one of the greatest racetracks in the world. I'm sure you don't have to know much to have a good time. I would say, bring something, uh, that makes you cool and notable. Either like, have a fun costume, or have a fun shtick you're doing, or fucking bring a big griddle top and make grilled cheeses for folks. And just like, be the guy that's doing that thing. Or don't.

• 1:35:24Speaker 01

  I think that's very good advice.

• 1:35:25Matt Farah?

  Yeah.

• 1:35:25Speaker 01

  And if you're bringing a track car, uh, I would hedge yourself toward being like on the soberer side for a couple of days. Like, basically, don't wake up super hungover on the driving days, because that will ruin all the prep you did to go to this event to run your car, you know? Uh, and I've seen many a person vomit when they try to drive real fast in the morning or midday when they're really hungover, um, because you're just giving yourself motion sickness. And also, go say hi to all the drivers that you're fans of, because one thing that's good about Gridlife, it is you get access, like, those people are just walking around. You, like, you get so much access to such famous people having a really fun time. And I think it just adds to part of the allure of that event.

• 1:36:07Speaker 01

  It's just, it's a really friendly thing that's filled with tire smoke and like mania. It's very cool.

• 1:36:13Matt Farah?

  Yeah.

• 1:36:15Matt Farah?

  Uh, Low Gaslight Anthem, oh, that's very good. Opinion on top three or four blackface chronographs in the 10,000 to $20,000 range that are not Speedmasters?

• 1:36:29Matt Farah?

  Oh, that's actually harder than you think. First off, most Speedmasters are going to be under 10,000 bucks. If you're spending over 10,000 bucks on a Speedmaster, it's going to be vintage, or it's going to be one of the, like, dark side of the moons with the crazy, like, carbon dials and, or carbon cases and stuff like that.

• 1:36:49Speaker 01

  They have a lot of blackface ones.

• 1:36:51Matt Farah?

  They do.

• 1:36:51Speaker 01

  What a weird sentence, on their website that are all under 10 grand, brand new.

• 1:36:54Matt Farah?

  Yeah, yeah, they do. But 10 to 20 range not Speedmasters is like, is, is actually kind of hard. So, over 10,000, you've got the Grand Seco Tentograph.

• 1:37:08Matt Farah?

  You've got sort of an entry-level, less desirable Rolex Daytona. You've got...

• 1:37:20Matt Farah?

  Jesus, I don't even know if there's, I don't think there's a Tudor chronograph that's 10 grand. Uh, I don't, 10, see, the 10 is like, is actually like a lot for a chronograph.

• 1:37:36Matt Farah?

  Blackface Zenith L-Primero Sport, uh, is very cool.

• 1:37:45Matt Farah?

  Um, I think, is it just called Sport? Zenith L-Primero Sport? It looks sort of like a Daytona.

• 1:37:50Speaker 01

  Chronomaster Sport, yeah.

• 1:37:51Matt Farah?

  Yeah, is that it? Chronomaster Sport? Yeah, it look, it looks Daytona-esque.

• 1:37:56Speaker 01

  Um, yeah, it's 16 grand. Unless you get, it goes up to 200, wow.

• 1:38:01Matt Farah?

  Well, you could, you could get it with fucking, uh, uh, crazy, you know, gold diamonds.

• 1:38:06Speaker 01

  Yep, that's the one.

• 1:38:07Matt Farah?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:38:10Speaker 01

  Uh, this is very cool looking.

• 1:38:12Matt Farah?

  Which one?

• 1:38:12Speaker 01

  Chronomaster Sport, the regular.

• 1:38:14Matt Farah?

  Oh, it's lovely. Yeah, Chronomaster Sport is a very underrated watch. If you wanted to, if you wanted to get a great, great watch with a cool history that other watch nerds would notice, but not everybody is like, oh, look at the guy in the Rolex, then yeah, Zenith is, is where it's at.

• 1:38:35Matt Farah?

  I would say one of the Zenith, Zenith Pilot watches as well, chronograph is very cool.

• 1:38:43Matt Farah?

  Higher-end Bell & Ross chronograph could be very cool.

• 1:38:49Matt Farah?

  It's an interesting question, because I don't think about blackface chronographs as a sub-genre to sort things by very often. Edward Shifter Hands, that's pretty good. I saw, what the fuck is that, Zach? Can you figure out what a Valara Corvette is? I saw a Valara Corvette at a car show. Do extreme body kits help or hurt value in your opinion?

• 1:39:13Speaker 01

  Whoa.

• 1:39:13Matt Farah?

  Well, it certainly depends on what the, what the...

• 1:39:18Matt Farah?

  Is that not like, that looks like a Resvani, doesn't it? Doesn't that look like Resvani would have done it?

• 1:39:22Speaker 01

  Is this a C7?

• 1:39:23Matt Farah?

  It's a C7, or maybe a C6?

• 1:39:27Speaker 01

  Oh, I hope it's a C7.

• 1:39:28Matt Farah?

  It's gotta be a C7.

• 1:39:29Speaker 01

  If the interior is C6 with this futuristic body, that would be bad. Oh, it's C6?

• 1:39:34Matt Farah?

  It's a C6, oh my gosh.

• 1:39:36Speaker 01

  Did they change the inside at all?

• 1:39:38Matt Farah?

  Uh, boy. Yeah, it's no good. I don't know.

• 1:39:45Matt Farah?

  That looks weird. All right, so does that add or subtract value? All right, my guess would be, if you can find the right buyer, this body kit, now, do the math with me, this car will sell more for more than the price of a base C6 Corvette with the same miles.

• 1:40:09Speaker 01

  Yes, but will, but how much money will you lose by ordering the body kit?

• 1:40:13Matt Farah?

  Different question.

• 1:40:14Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 1:40:15Matt Farah?

  Because it says adds or subtracts value. So like, this car will sell more for more than a regular C6. However, the amount of money that it costs to install this shit on your car, you will never see again. If you have to spend 25...

• 1:40:34Speaker 01

  18 grand for the, the kit starts at $18,000.

• 1:40:38Matt Farah?

  Yeah. Okay, so it, once you've, once you've painting it, you know, it's 25 or 30 minimum. This is a full car you have to paint, right? So, you, there is absolutely no way. If, if you spend 30 on this to turn your C6 into this, you're going to get back five of that.

• 1:40:58Speaker 01

  It should also be said that their website, uh, lists the orders, uh, sorry, the website basically hasn't been updated since 2021. So installs for this year 2021 are completely booked.

• 1:41:09Matt Farah?

  Yeah.

• 1:41:09Speaker 01

  That was five years ago. So that might also tell you how much demand there is for this, like, you know, the person had an idea, this guy, Matt, like, great, he had an idea, executed it, designing cars is hard, I would just say.

• 1:41:22Matt Farah?

  Oh, this guy made the Vader body kit too.

• 1:41:27Speaker 01

  Uh, what is that?

• 1:41:28Matt Farah?

  That's the G35, the Infinity joint. Remember this fucking thing?

• 1:41:35Matt Farah?

  This is no good.

• 1:41:39Matt Farah?

  Yeah, this is, I mean, you can see.

• 1:41:43Speaker 01

  Wow.

• 1:41:44Matt Farah?

  Yikes.

• 1:41:45Speaker 01

  He has a, he, you know what? He should go work for Zenvo. This, this is very Zenvo.

• 1:41:51Matt Farah?

  Yeah.

• 1:41:51Speaker 01

  Probably inspired by, wow.

• 1:41:57Speaker 01

  It's very, is it brutalist architecture style?

• 1:42:00Matt Farah?

  Oh, brutalist? I don't know about brutalist. It's like, it's like post-apocalyptic future.

• 1:42:06Speaker 01

  Yeah, for sure. This is a good movie car.

• 1:42:09Matt Farah?

  Well, it was. They used it as a fucking Joker's car in Suicide Squad.

• 1:42:15Matt Farah?

  Remember that movie that nobody saw?

• 1:42:16Speaker 01

  I didn't watch it.

• 1:42:20Matt Farah?

  So, yeah.

• 1:42:24Matt Farah?

  Okay, wait.

• 1:42:31Matt Farah?

  Suzuki Jimny Eat World. "I want to get some older, borderline vintage Seiko's, not too expensive, kind of obscure, 500 to 1,000. Seems like a watch version of the Porsche 914 problem with servicing costs and pain in the ass levels. Not worth it relative to the value and experience of the thing being serviced. Is there a reasonable way to keep these things running without paying a lot for servicing a cheap watch? I'm in Florida and reputable watchmakers are difficult to find." You have identified a problem. Vintage Seiko costs almost as much to service as vintage Rolex or vintage whatever else.

• 1:43:15Matt Farah?

  And so, that can be a challenge. I will say, if the watch is legit, there is an official Seiko service center in Ma Waa, New Jersey, and most people just ship their vintage Seiko's there for service. I don't know what it costs. You can usually call or email them with a photo of your watch and, or, you know, and inquire about what it costs to do a service on a watch. But, yeah, the Porsche 914 problem is accurate. It costs a lot of money to keep old watches running, even if those old watches are not necessarily appreciating assets that would

• 1:44:00Matt Farah?

  justify their own servicing costs. Yeah, that's a bummer. You gotta be real passionate about vintage Seiko to be collecting it. Not that they're, they are very reliable and well-made watches, but, yeah, when the watch is 500 bucks and the service is 500 bucks, you're sort of like, ugh. But also, see air-cooled Porsche. I mean, you, you buy a fucking air-cooled 911 G-body for 60, 70, 80,000 dollars for an SC, right? For, you know, you think you're getting a good deal or whatever, even, even at 50,000 or 60,000 bucks for an SC. You get it and in 2,000 miles, the thing starts smoking. Now you need a top-end

• 1:44:42Matt Farah?

  rebuild. It's $25,000. And you go, "But I just paid 50 for the whole car." And they go, "Yeah, exactly." You know, so, it's, yeah, that shit happens, man, for sure. Well, thanks, everybody. I'll watch some of the Grand Tour so we can, oh.

• 1:45:01Speaker 01

  We have more, but we could save them if you want.

• 1:45:03Matt Farah?

  We could save that. I think we are, we are timed out. Yeah, we got a lot of radio to do this week as well, because I am traveling to España. So, we have to get extra shows going on this week. And thank you to our patrons, supporting us, keeping this ship floating down the ocean. Thank you to everybody else. For those who asked questions that we didn't get to, we'll save them for the next show. Appreciate you very much, and I'll see you guys later. Bye.