911 GT3 S/C Review; the Manthey Difference; a RIde in Waymo's Van

Matt Farah went to Spain to drive the all-new Porsche 911 GT3 S/C and it might be a problem; he also drove 5 Porsche track specials that have small differences that add up to quite a lot; reviewing Waymo's new van. Patreon questions include: What percentage of car owners can drive their car at 100%? Tricky paint that hides size Why aftermarket seats aren't always the right idea Upgrade your road car or get a dedicated track beater? Why do BMXers love VWs? A fancy SUV that can tow Recorded September 21, 2026 Show Notes: Avants https://avants.com/tst use code TST for 10% off your membership! DeleteMe Get 20% off your DeleteMe plan when you go to www.joindeleteme.com/tire and use promo code TIRE at checkout. Square Get up to $200 off Square hardware when you sign up at https://square.com/go/tire #squarepod Mudflap Keep more of every dollar you earn, because Mudflap has your back. Sign up at https://Muddy.com/tire and get $100 in free fuel credit after approval. Casper Right now, save up to 20% on mattresses when you go to https://casper.com Use Off The Record! and ALWAYS fight your tickets! For a 10% discount on your first case go to https://www.offtherecord.com/TST Want your question answered? Want to watch the live stream, get ad-free podcasts, or exclusive podcasts? Join our Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/thesmokingtirepodcast Instagram: https://www. Instagram.com/thesmokingtire https://www. Instagram.com/therealzackklapman

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

• 0:00Matt Farah?

  What up everybody, welcome to the Smoking Tire Podcast. Today's episode is brought to you by Avance. That's right, Avance is back. Their first round of sponsorship of the Smoking Tire was so successful that they are back for more. What do you need to know? Avance is a membership club in which not only do you get a cool magazine, do you get invites to exclusive events around the United States centered around cool car culture things, but also you get all kinds of discounts on tires. That's right. Members get 10% off at all discount tire stores across the country, plus an additional 10% if you buy Michelin and BF Goodrich. That's right.

• 0:43Matt Farah?

  If you are a two tire household, or if you go to the track or have multiple vehicles, you could save all kinds of money with an Avance membership. Plus, members get all kinds of sweet discounts at 10%, like 10% off at FCP Euro, 5% off Hagerty Insurance, and more. Head over to avants.com/tst. That's A-V-A-N-T-S dot com slash T S T to learn more and sign up today. All right, people, on this episode of the show, Zach and I are back in studio after I spent a week in Spain, a little bit of vacaciones, but also testing five different ultra-high-performance Porsches

• 1:23Matt Farah?

  from Manti on the circuit and driving the 911 GT3 SC Cabriolet on the roads up in the Spanish mountains. It is an excellent time that results in a little bit of news on the Smoking Tire Podcast. Let's go.

• 1:43Speaker 01

  Like, I wore this for people listening, and I'll cut out some of the plate discussion.

• 1:47Matt Farah?

  It's Zach's birthday!

• 1:48Speaker 01

  My birthday is tomorrow.

• 1:49Matt Farah?

  But if people are listening to this not live, the day of the show is up, 9/22. Zach is 44 years old.

• 1:57Speaker 01

  Indeed.

• 1:57Matt Farah?

  Which means that for three months, we're the same age.

• 1:59Speaker 01

  Right, yeah.

• 2:02Speaker 01

  We can both go to a bar.

• 2:03Matt Farah?

  This is the three months of the year that Zach and I are the same age.

• 2:06Speaker 01

  This is the Venn diagram.

• 2:08Matt Farah?

  So, it was Zach's birthday, so he had a party at his house, which is a dinner party for all of our friends, many of our friends. And it was a dress-up party, and the theme was racetrack drip, because Zach is 44 years old, and Lewis Hamilton is number 44, and he's very fashionable.

• 2:32Speaker 01

  Yes, he is.

• 2:33Matt Farah?

  Extremely fashionable. Hey, you know Lewis Hamilton was in LA last night for the opening of the George Lucas Museum?

• 2:39Speaker 01

  Oh, he was? I saw him at the opening. I just didn't know it was yesterday.

• 2:42Matt Farah?

  Okay, and here's a funny one. My neighbor, my neighbor Driving Gloves Ryan, who is a lovely guy, but that was his nickname forever. You could tell why. He texts me, and he goes, "Dude, I swear to God, I just saw, I think it was Lewis Hamilton, drive by your shop in a Ferrari F40." And I was like, I was like, "Are you sure it was Lewis Hamilton?" Because Tyler, the Creator, has a Ferrari F40.

• 3:15Speaker 01

  He has an F40 also?

• 3:16Matt Farah?

  Yeah, and he drives by all the time. I see him driving by in all of his cars, like, all the time. And he goes, "I don't know. I was going quickly the other way, but like, you know, I know Lewis Hamilton just got that F40, and I heard he was gonna be in town for the thing, blah blah blah." I was like, "Okay." Well, like TMZ, like, three hours later, somebody snapped Tyler, the Creator, like, a block from here, like, literally in that F40, right in front of the Hilton. So it turns out it was Tyler, the Creator, and the F40. But then I saw on the thing, I was like, "Holy shit, Lewis Hamilton was, like, also in town last night, and it could have also been Lewis Hamilton."

• 3:51Speaker 01

  I think his car is in the middle of getting restored by Ferrari. Like, he had a story, he had a post a couple of weeks ago that was, like, about his barn-find F40 covered in dust. So I thought it was going to...

• 4:03Matt Farah?

  No, I think it's done now.

• 4:04Speaker 01

  It's done now?

• 4:04Matt Farah?

  Yeah, I think it's that you do the thing, and then you tell the story.

• 4:07Speaker 01

  I wonder where it lives.

• 4:08Matt Farah?

  But it's also in England.

• 4:09Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's also there.

• 4:09Matt Farah?

  Yeah.

• 4:10Speaker 01

  So the one he used to rip in Japan, was that a rental, or like, he borrowed it?

• 4:13Matt Farah?

  A person's car, yeah. But Driving Gloves Ryan said that it was a Cali-Plated F40, which would not have been Lewis Hamilton.

• 4:20Speaker 01

  Oh, true.

• 4:21Matt Farah?

  So, anyway, yeah, spotted Tyler, the Creator's F40 right up the road.

• 4:25Speaker 01

  Yeah, so we did, did you say this while I was frantically texting? We did Lewis Hamilton fashion-themed birthday.

• 4:30Matt Farah?

  That's why, that's how we got on the Lewis Hamilton F40 thing. But, yeah, so the outfits were average, except for Zach's, which was excellent. And your wife was Susie Wolff.

• 4:41Speaker 01

  No, she was Toto, but she didn't want to get, like...

• 4:43Matt Farah?

  Well, Toto and Susie wear the same thing on race day. They have the same outfit, and forgive me, but your wife does identify as a woman.

• 4:53Speaker 01

  Very true.

• 4:53Matt Farah?

  When she was like, I was like, "Hi, Susie Wolff," and she was like, "I'm Toto." I was like, "Well, okay, sorry."

• 5:02Matt Farah?

  "I'm a dude who's playing a..."

• 5:05Speaker 01

  I don't read scripts, script read me. "I'm a dude, playing a dude, playing another dude."

• 5:10Matt Farah?

  Yeah.

• 5:11Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 5:12Matt Farah?

  But you were dressed like if Lewis Hamilton was inspired by Obi-Wan Kenobi.

• 5:18Speaker 01

  Very much so, which, like, when I looked up Lewis Hamilton fashion, I was not prepared. And I watch F1, I follow him.

• 5:26Matt Farah?

  You weren't prepared.

• 5:26Speaker 01

  No, no, I wasn't prepared for the variety he wears.

• 5:28Matt Farah?

  Oh, yeah.

• 5:29Speaker 01

  It was, it expanded far beyond my imagination.

• 5:32Matt Farah?

  Yeah.

• 5:32Speaker 01

  And Sarah, you know, a week into this, she was like, "What do you think you're gonna wear?" I'm like, "I, I mean, I could wear a puffy jacket made out of, like, neon-green highlighter, like, carpet, with fitted pants."

• 5:44Matt Farah?

  You look like a Missy Elliott video.

• 5:46Speaker 01

  He's got Missy Elliott. Then he's got perfect suit. Then he has, "I stole Ellen DeGeneres' pantsuit collection and got it tailored for me." Then he's got, like, DMX streetwear. Then he's got mesh shirt going out to a club where all love is celebrated, like...

• 6:02Matt Farah?

  There's a whole range of kimono's.

• 6:04Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm. And my original idea was, I wanted to, I liked this red thing he had, so I ordered a close version on Amazon, and I got it and put it on, and it was like a straight-up Kung-Fu shirt. And Sarah goes, "You can't wear that." And what's funny is, I agreed with her, and so what I'm wearing, what I wore last night, which was a little bit more different, Phil Morrison came, he took Kung-Fu for like 20 years. And he looks at me and he goes, "Very Kung-Fu." And I told him the story about avoiding, and he goes, "This is less than what you originally put on?" And I felt like such a dick. I was like, "Yeah, man." Yeah.

• 6:39Matt Farah?

  But Nino showed up, and he was like, "This is the best you've ever dressed."

• 6:43Speaker 01

  He literally said, "You have so much potential, you should play with your fit more." And like, if you don't know, our friend Nino is like a fashion designer of...

• 6:52Matt Farah?

  Of Lewis Hamilton clothes.

• 6:54Speaker 01

  Of Lewis Hamilton clothes. So he wore, he had pants that were wider than mine, that he made. But he was dead serious, and he goes, "Dude, you should wear this."

• 7:02Matt Farah?

  You were wearing as a joke, he just, like, showed up wearing.

• 7:05Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 7:06Matt Farah?

  Nino's fashion show is October 10th. By the way, we have to go.

• 7:11Speaker 01

  We have to go.

• 7:13Matt Farah?

  Me and Hannah were like, "Listen, can you, this time, can you seat us, like, not in the front row, so we're not, like, in the background of, like, every one of these photos looking like fucking dorks behind the fashion-y people?"

• 7:26Speaker 01

  But I should be pretty cool. We also don't want to be facing the sun again, but it is a fun time.

• 7:30Matt Farah?

  Oh, no, it's indoors now. You went to the one at his, like, house back in the day.

• 7:33Speaker 01

  I've been to both.

• 7:34Matt Farah?

  Yeah, the other one was inside. This is on time. So, but, but like, also, with the party, Sarah, like, got fucked me up, because like, you were thinking, like, the variations of Lewis Hamilton. But then Sarah, at the show the other night, was like, I was like, "Can you explain a little further what's expected of me? Because I don't own anything that would pass for Lewis Hamilton, and like, come on." She was like, "Oh, well, you could, like, you could be anybody in the paddock. Like, you could be Pierre Gasly." And I was like, I was like, "Okay, so..."

• 8:07Speaker 01

  Famous F1 fan.

• 8:09Matt Farah?

  "Am I being fashionable, or am I wearing a costume as somebody?" And like, I didn't, you know, I didn't put it together. So I just, I wore the most colorful shit I had, which was about all I could do.

• 8:22Speaker 01

  Totally works.

• 8:22Matt Farah?

  Yeah, and it was fine, and that's what a few other people did as well. But I, but yeah, you were like, you were being Lewis Hamilton, pretty much.

• 8:31Speaker 01

  And what's funny, Sarah was like, "Are you, are you trying to be Lewis, or are you trying to, like, just be fashionable?" I was like, "No, I'm trying to, like, wear the costume. If I'm gonna do this, like, I'm gonna look ridiculous. You know, this is gonna be Halloween, because we don't really Halloween anymore." But, yeah, people could do, it's just like, "It's a Sunday, it's 44th." To quote Patton Oswalt, like, "You're 44, who gives a shit, go to work." But like, let's add a little spice to the event.

• 8:55Matt Farah?

  Well, Hannah made the themed shirts for my 40th, the F40 shirt with the cat, trademark and fringe shirt. Yeah, it's fucking great.

• 9:01Speaker 01

  That's what I'll, like, on my 50th, I'll do a big thing. This was like an intermediate, a little thing.

• 9:07Matt Farah?

  Yeah, and your 50th, what, like, what we should, like, what's the big thing?

• 9:11Speaker 01

  We've had an idea for...

• 9:11Matt Farah?

  Safari?

• 9:12Speaker 01

  No, we've had an idea for years, and that, I think, of like, renting a parking garage and having, like, the Fast and Furious kind of hangout.

• 9:22Matt Farah?

  I thought you were gonna say like a drift event in the indoor.

• 9:25Speaker 01

  I mean, that would be, if we could get the permit, sure.

• 9:27Matt Farah?

  They had that in, where, Malaysia, on the Grand Tour.

• 9:30Speaker 01

  Yeah, you gotta go there. But like, renting, you know, two stories of a parking garage, and just having all our car friends, and like, food, music, all this stuff. Oh, really?

• 9:38Matt Farah?

  The guy next door, that awesome parking garage here.

• 9:41Speaker 01

  And it's always empty, like, everything seems empty these days.

• 9:43Matt Farah?

  They finally, you know, they finally sold it out, but it's all offices, so it's empty at night.

• 9:48Speaker 01

  So they might do it, that'd be great. So that's our big plan.

• 9:51Matt Farah?

  Pretty awesome.

• 9:52Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 9:52Matt Farah?

  Oh, that'd be fun.

• 9:53Speaker 01

  You know, food truck, sort of a...

• 9:57Matt Farah?

  Yeah. Yeah. What you have to really do is get a bunch of, like, because the one thing that those type of meets never have, that they have in the movies, is like, just a bunch of, like, scantily clad women. Like, this is not to say that, like, women aren't around cars or car shows, but they don't look like that. And so you need to hire a bunch of them to just, like, just ambiguously be around.

• 10:23Speaker 01

  Some of our friend circle do dress like that, just when they go to things.

• 10:28Matt Farah?

  That's true. I guess if you invite the Burning Man crowd to the car show, they would just bring that vibe. Okay, fair enough.

• 10:33Speaker 01

  There's a person who just always wears corsets, and I feel so awkward talking to this person. I'm also, like, not great friends with her, so I just, like, that sounds weird.

• 10:42Matt Farah?

  No, I know.

• 10:43Speaker 01

  Just eye contact, that's what I'm doing, maintain, and then move on.

• 10:47Matt Farah?

  The other day, I was walking down the street and someone was full corset. I was like, God, that it was hot out. That looks uncomfortable.

• 10:53Speaker 01

  That's why that's why fainting couches were invented because it's hot. You can't breathe because of the constriction. Crazy.

• 10:59Matt Farah?

  Straight up. So anyway, yeah, cars, Zach's birthday and cars. Fun things happened since our last program. I went to Spain and drove a whole bunch of Porsches on the racetrack. Some Manti stuff as well as the new nine 11 challenge race car. And I drove the GT three SC on the road, the convertible. Guys taking a break because support is coming in from Delete Me. Listen, have you ever thought I should probably be doing a little more to protect myself from stalkers, scammers and hackers, but you're not really sure what to do?

• 11:41Matt Farah?

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• 12:22Matt Farah?

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• 13:05Matt Farah?

  when you go to join delete me.com slash tire and use promo code tire at checkout. That's the only way to get 20% off is to go to www dot join delete me.com slash tire and enter code tire at checkout. That's www dot join delete me.com slash tire code tire. And we're also supported today by Square. It's the system that fixes one of the biggest headaches in running a business. Starting a business can be very exciting. I've done it a couple of times now, but running it. That's where things get complicated. You're juggling payments, inventory, staff, payroll, scheduling, online order, in-person orders, reports, taxes.

• 13:49Matt Farah?

  And somehow you're still supposed to serve your customer, sometimes even take a day off here and there. But Square brings all that stuff into one place. Whether you're selling lattes, cutting hair, running a website, detailing cars, parking cars or reviewing cars, doing anything very specifically and only with cars. I'm just kidding. You can use Square for almost anything. It helps you run your business without running yourself into the ground. And right now, TST listeners can get 200 bucks off Square hardware. When you sign up at square.com slash go slash tire. That's square.com slash go slash tire. Visit Square to get started because the right tools make all the difference.

• 14:31Matt Farah?

  Uh, the smoking tire, uh, not the smoking tire because we don't process payments. Westside Collector Car Storage, my business that does actually process payments runs on Square, right? And it makes the experience very easy. Uh, it's the quick and easy point of sale with the credit card. It's the recurring transactions that I need for my subscription services. The quarterly financial reports that it outputs and I can talk about with my CFO. The customization, because my business isn't like other businesses. So I have to customize various fields and SKUs and stuff for what I need. And, and when I'm on another city and I'm, I swipe my credit card at a business that uses Square.

• 15:12Matt Farah?

  It all, it feels a little more put together. It's a slick and easy system with quick checkout, easy receipts, et cetera. I use Square in my own business and I love it and you can use it too. So if you're starting a business or running one that deserves better tools, Square helps you sell, manage and grow without slowing down. Right now you can get 200 bucks off Square hardware. That's the credit card readers and terminals at square.com slash go slash tire. That's square, S Q U A R E dot com slash G O slash tire. Run your business smarter with Square. Get started today. Going to Spain was lovely this time because I got to go a few days early, hang out with Hannah,

• 15:56Matt Farah?

  eat some great food. We treat it as a work, a workcation, as you will, a few days of vacation and then work.

• 16:04Matt Farah?

  But not, not much better than the GT three SC on a, on a winding Spanish road in a beautiful day, just after sunrise. That's pretty goddamn good. And, uh, but it's like every, it's like, you know, with Porsche, uh, you know how turbo doesn't mean turbo anymore? It just means the fast one. Like I think, you know, we made fun of them for a little while for that. And you have to explain it to a normie once in a while, but like, we've pretty much just come to accept this redefinition of the word. We're redefining what GT three means now too. GT three doesn't mean race car anymore. It means the fizzy, connected, naturally aspirated one.

• 16:47Matt Farah?

  Because this SC, you can't even take to some track days. You know, so it's not, and there's a bunch of people in the comments of my Instagram review, you know, who love it. A bunch of people who talk about how it's poser shit. A bunch of people talk about how it's not worth the money. And, and you know, there's a little bit of truth in all of those things. But when it comes to like how it drives on the road, fundamentally identical to a nine nine two dot two GT three. And, and in some ways, because it's a very relaxed car to drive on the highway. It's got some of that ST vibe in there as well. It's got the ST doors and front fenders.

• 17:33Matt Farah?

  So it actually looks more like an ST than it does like a GT three.

• 17:36Speaker 01

  It's a great design. I love that. That's cool.

• 17:39Matt Farah?

  And it also means it's got the good door handles. The good door handles are clutch, believe you me, uh, cause I have the bad ones on my Taycan and they suck.

• 17:48Speaker 01

  So you say it's more relaxed on the highway. Is that because this has all the updated shock tuning they got from the ST? Or do they do, do they change the alignment versus like a touring or anything else?

• 17:58Matt Farah?

  They didn't say they did. I mean, uh, it's they, it's really about the updated steering and, and updated shock settings from the ST.

• 18:09Matt Farah?

  And I think it drives more like a G, like it's like a GT three touring, but it looks like an ST. So by having those doors, those fenders and, and using some of the lightweight bits from the ST and the GT three lightweighting kit, all of which come as standard on the SC, they're able to get the weight down under 3,400 pounds. It's like 3380 pounds.

• 18:36Speaker 01

  Wow.

• 18:36Matt Farah?

  So it's like a hundred and something pounds heavier than a GT three,

• 18:42Matt Farah?

  which isn't nothing. And it's slightly less torsionally rigid than, uh, than the coupe, obviously. But Porsche makes a really tight convertible. Their convertibles like don't jiggle. The nine 11s, like they're, they're, they're really tight anyway. So it, at least on the road, you know, it, it, it feels like a GT three where the top goes down.

• 19:06Speaker 01

  It's a nearest makes no difference sort of thing.

• 19:08Matt Farah?

  Yeah. If you're driving at 10 tenths on certain specific situations, then yeah, it'll feel different from a GT three. But when just driving it around or hitting a canyon like at seven, eight tenths, like, yeah, it feels like a GT three. Like it's, it's fast when you zing the engine and it's slow when you lug the engine. And you have to be a gear lower than you always think you do. Uh, especially if you're used to turbo cars that have a good torque shove. This fucking thing has like no balls, like it's got no balls. Like it has other things. It has so many other things besides balls.

• 19:52Matt Farah?

  And like it, the peak torque is like 6,300 RPM. Peak horsepower is like 8,500 RPM. Redline is nine. And, and it's peak torque is 349 pound feet. And that's not a lot, even for a lightweight car. And so it is actually a momentum car. So when I was driving all the other GT threes, the race car as, uh, they're not just the race car, but, um, the, the Manti cars on the track, you're always up, up there, especially with, with a PDK car on the racetrack. You know, you are, you're always up there and you're, even your quote, slow corners

• 20:38Matt Farah?

  are still going to be a typically higher speed than a Spanish hairpin.

• 20:43Speaker 01

  Yeah. Yeah. The roads are tight in Spain.

• 20:45Matt Farah?

  We're tight. And so, uh, and so with a stick car, when you're going in and out of that power band and using more of the mid-range, it just doesn't feel all that fast for a car that's, you know, north of $250,000. It doesn't feel all that fast, but you know, that motor sounds amazing and it, the frequency that the motor operates at the fit, which what we, what you might call the fizz, you know, the fizz that comes out of a big block V8 is different from the fizz that comes out of a Supra is different from the fizz that comes out of a GT three.

• 21:25Matt Farah?

  And like, people who love Porsches and me too, the fizz that comes out of a GT three is a premium fucking level fizz, extremely premium. And so you, even if you're not making like all the power, it's still.

• 21:41Speaker 01

  It's about the drive though. I mean, we, we talk about this all the time with it's, it's the same as slow cars fast. It's just a slow, slower, expensive car fast.

• 21:48Matt Farah?

  Right.

• 21:49Speaker 01

  It's a fast car, but like compared to modern turbo shit or anything supercharged. It just feels totally different, but you get the joy of driving it. And at the end of it, having driven plenty of things that go really fucking fast. We, we come back to like, what do you like driving? You know, what, what works enough? And like controlling the sound of it is such a huge part of driving.

• 22:10Matt Farah?

  And the inputs are extremely light, the clutch is light, the shifter is really light. You know, the engineer who worked on this said with this new six-speed shifter, they benchmarked the S2000, which is so funny that that's what, you know, that they're doing. But it is kinda like that. And they've really, I don't know how it rides on a really bad road, but on good roads.

• 22:37Speaker 01

  I drove the ST on a garbage Italian, the road in Italy was like really messed up. And at the time, I thought, why did they choose this? But it allowed them to point out either intentionally or unintentionally, how much better the shock tuning was than the predecessor GT3. So I think it'll ride pretty good.

• 22:53Matt Farah?

  This, the ride was excellent. And you know, when you have a power top, unlike my Spider.

• 23:00Speaker 01

  Which is more of a power bottom, sure. It was right there.

• 23:04Matt Farah?

  Bravo.

• 23:04Speaker 01

  It was right there.

• 23:05Matt Farah?

  Bravo. You can put the top up and down multiple times in a single drive, which is not something you do when you have a manual top. And that just, just means it's more usable. It's more usable. And when the top is up, it's not like my Spider is a super lightweight top. So when you put it up, you're just looking at the metal that goes across it, which is a vibe. But this car has a normal top, like the same as the Carrera. So it's got the insulated panels. So when it is up, it really does feel more like a coupe. It doesn't feel, it's much more insulated.

• 23:45Matt Farah?

  You could drive it through four seasons, you know, and, and, and, you know, if the sun comes out for five minutes in the winter, you drop the top and then you put it right back up or whatever. But I really, really, really, really liked this car. And it's not that I didn't think I would like it when I drove it. I was a little sort of cynical about it because it's not a speedster. It's obvious this was a much more affordable way for Porsche to come out with a car like this. It's literally like parts bin. It's like ST parts bin, convertible parts bin, GT3 parts bin. Like just rearrange the parts in a new number and dial in the fine tuning.

• 24:30Speaker 01

  They're very good at that. I mean, it's 911T all the way to this. It's just the little things and they all feel distinct, which is very impressive.

• 24:37Matt Farah?

  And so, you know, it is, it is fully parts bin and it's not a speedster.

• 24:43Matt Farah?

  But I don't, after driving it, I don't, I don't really give a shit. I, I think it's fucking great to drive. It's, it's an incredibly desirable piece of hardware.

• 24:56Matt Farah?

  And yeah, I even called the fucking, my dealer and asked if I could get one.

• 25:02Speaker 01

  They say, how desirable is it?

• 25:04Matt Farah?

  Called the dealer, asked if I could get one, and they didn't say no. They didn't say no.

• 25:08Speaker 01

  So this is a very big deal.

• 25:10Matt Farah?

  Conversation. I've not furthered the conversation, but we'll see.

• 25:16Speaker 01

  So this would replace the Spider, right? You wouldn't keep both?

• 25:19Matt Farah?

  A hundred percent have to, and it, and it couldn't. It could, I couldn't, I couldn't even come close to affording something like this.

• 25:26Speaker 01

  It'd also have some overlap, so.

• 25:28Matt Farah?

  Baseline. No, but just purely money, like there's no, there's, it's not even a question. Like that's an immediate, has to get tossed in, yeah, yeah.

• 25:38Speaker 01

  So going back to the.

• 25:40Matt Farah?

  Doesn't mean I don't love that car. It doesn't mean I wouldn't also happily keep that car. It's not, let me find a way or a reason to get rid of that car. That's not it. It's that this actually does to me feel like the, uh, uh, the next upgrade from my, my car that I have in like a couple of crucial ways. The, the front end and the steering and all that kind of stuff.

• 26:14Matt Farah?

  The fact that it is a, you know, whatever quote real GT car. And, and it's, and I think because it's the GT power, the GT3 powertrain and the convertible and the power top, like, and it's, it's actually kinda got those things that, and a very light clutch. And all of that together would mean that if I had this instead of the car I have, I would drive it more, not less. Like, like if I think about, and I said this on the Pro Show, so, so patrons already have heard this little bit. But, but when I don't drive the pink car,

• 26:57Matt Farah?

  the times I look at it or think about driving it and then choose not to, of those times, the vast majority are because of the heavy clutch, which is a necessary evil and compromise to deal with the power of that engine. But in the 911, whether it's one of those Carrera Ts with big turbos and shit like we did, we, we tested and that was a great time, or this, you have a much higher, you have a higher performance machine, but that has the very, very light clutch. And if I got stuck in traffic with one of these, it wouldn't bother me in the least. It's the same as if I was in an Integra Type S or it's like, and it has good clutch.

• 27:39Matt Farah?

  What's amazing about this car and great is it has very good clutch feel, which it has to have because it has that light flywheel, which makes it kinda stallable.

• 27:51Matt Farah?

  But without a lot of weight and like my knees are fucking broken and shitty. And eh, like, you know, so, so the times I don't drive my car, it's because I go, ah, it's gonna hurt my knee today. I don't wanna do it. And if I had a car with a lighter clutch, maybe I would drive it more. So like, anyway, this is a, still a deep, deep, deep maybe, but I asked about getting one. So, yeah.

• 28:19Speaker 01

  I think, I'm optimistic it'll happen. I mean, obviously you could get scooped by some rich person who's like,

• 28:24Matt Farah?

  For sure.

• 28:25Speaker 01

  I'll pay 50 over for Ferraris car.

• 28:27Matt Farah?

  If that, and if that happens and the dealer dunked on me and cashed a big check, like I wouldn't even be mad. Cause I can't, there's no, I can't afford an ADM, I can't afford.

• 28:37Speaker 01

  You don't wanna get in a bidding war about this.

• 28:39Matt Farah?

  I can't afford a, I can't even afford even, I can't afford a high specification car. Like if I, if I could get one, it would be a pretty basic build.

• 28:50Speaker 01

  They'll have the four cylinder probably.

• 28:51Matt Farah?

  It would.

• 28:51Speaker 01

  Have the two five.

• 28:52Matt Farah?

  Nine 12 version.

• 28:53Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 28:54Matt Farah?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 28:54Speaker 01

  So going back to the torque, will you, you know, one thing you've said you liked a lot, you like a lot about the pink car is the torque. You don't have to rev the shit out of it. It's just a different way to drive.

• 29:04Matt Farah?

  It's a different way to drive, yeah.

• 29:06Speaker 01

  But you're just willing to make that change, I guess. I mean, there's a lot more pros. I'm just like, will you miss that torque?

• 29:13Matt Farah?

  I mean, look, we've, we've driven cars with this powertrain, you know? We drove the ST up on the 39, we've driven GT3s in, on the mountain. Those aren't, they're not slow, you know? There's nothing wrong with those cars. You have to rev them higher. I mean, you just have to rev them higher. And, but I think as you and I have done more racing and more track stuff, I've begun to get better at the fact of being like, yeah, this engine's actually fine at this. Like you can, you can actually beat the shit out of this like much harder than I typically beat the shit out of anything.

• 29:51Matt Farah?

  And it'll just like be fine.

• 29:54Matt Farah?

  But it's, it just, it does feel like, okay, it's, it's got almost all of those real analog boxes that I like. It's as fast as a car would ever need to go. It makes very special sounds. It's, it's got a really, really good ride, but like unbelievable turn in and balance. It's manual gearbox.

• 30:22Matt Farah?

  It's got the, the one button ADAS off. So they, they put a hard button there for that on these GT3s. So even though it's got, and, and actually that's global, but in the American cars, it, it, the ADAS stays off.

• 30:40Speaker 01

  It is the perfect car for you.

• 30:42Matt Farah?

  You know, it's still got, it's got the door straps, but, but I, but I think when I, when I drive convertibles that have power tops, I get a lot more functionality out of the fact that it's a convertible. Even though it's like, oh, I gotta do this annoying thing in my roof and that makes it better somehow. The spider, but.

• 30:59Speaker 01

  Well, it makes it special.

• 31:00Matt Farah?

  It makes it special.

• 31:00Speaker 01

  And then, and then it's sort of this thing we get to do. We're like, well, it's a little more difficult. And I choose that difficulty.

• 31:05Matt Farah?

  Yeah, yeah. Your vice signaling.

• 31:07Speaker 01

  Totally. It's like when I go backpacking, like, yeah, it's hard and uncomfortable. Look at me.

• 31:11Matt Farah?

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• 31:55Matt Farah?

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• 32:36Matt Farah?

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• 33:21Matt Farah?

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• 34:05Matt Farah?

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• 34:49Matt Farah?

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• 35:28Matt Farah?

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• 35:35Speaker 01

  The only manual top that I think is ever good is the Miata, and that's only because it's such a small car. You can put it back up without getting out of the car.

• 35:41Matt Farah?

  Yeah.

• 35:42Speaker 01

  Anything larger than that, you have to get out and put it up yourself. It's so annoying.

• 35:45Matt Farah?

  Yeah.

• 35:45Speaker 01

  And so be able to, even when we have spiders, and I'm not a convertible dude, but if I have a button that lets me do it for a minute, I'll do it.

• 35:52Matt Farah?

  Yeah.

• 35:53Speaker 01

  I can hear the car and then I'll put it back up again. So this, this makes so much sense.

• 35:57Matt Farah?

  The, uh, when I had the, the C8 Corvette Grand Sport in Idaho, I, I, that, that was a power-top convertible car. I put that motherfucker up and down 10 times in a day. It was just, you know, you don't have to come to a stop even. Forget getting out of the car. You can do it while you're rolling, you know? And, and so if you don't have to give up any real perception of chassis rigidity, if you don't have to get up, get, get out of the car and buckle a bunch of stuff if it starts to rain, you can just do it on the move. If you don't have to give up the GT3 engine, because you, you know, you, you, you can't only get that as a coupe,

• 36:40Matt Farah?

  um, or you don't have to get it as an automatic or whatever, you don't have to accept, accept some kind of a lower-performing car.

• 36:48Matt Farah?

  And yes, I know you can get a Turbo S as a cab, but like, it just, uh, it's a vibe. It is a vibe and it's, uh, easy to be cynical about it until you try one, I think. And I think they'll probably sell a lot of them. I don't, you know, it's not, it's a limited production car, but it's not limited to a number.

• 37:07Speaker 01

  Oh, interesting.

• 37:08Matt Farah?

  It's not, they're not building 1,200 of them. It's, it's, it's limited production like the GT3 is, so they're gonna be a pain in the ass to get, but it's not, we're only building a certain number.

• 37:19Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think they'll sell a ton of them.

• 37:20Matt Farah?

  They'll sell a shitload of them.

• 37:21Speaker 01

  Sure. Why not?

• 37:22Matt Farah?

  Yeah. Um, it was, it was fucking great. What's, what's not to like about something like this? Except if you are a real highway driver and you don't like the idea of having to do a multi-gear downshift on the highway.

• 37:38Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah, but.

• 37:39Matt Farah?

  Because if you put this, if you're in sixth at like 75, 80 and you go to make a pass, you have about 75 horsepower.

• 37:47Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 37:47Matt Farah?

  Because you have nothing, you have less than nothing. Like, it's crazy. You have to do a 6.4 at minimum to make that pass.

• 37:55Speaker 01

  It's kind of true of any manual-shifted car, really, that doesn't have.

• 37:58Matt Farah?

  Your car too, kind of, huh? Uh, your car's a little better.

• 38:00Speaker 01

  It's, it's actually pretty torquey. If I'm at, if I'm at that speed, it's okay. I mean, if I go to fifth or fourth, then I'm like, ooh, spicy.

• 38:06Matt Farah?

  No, this thing's got, it's got no balls.

• 38:08Speaker 01

  I wonder, what's the, do you know what the peak torque is of this?

• 38:11Matt Farah?

  6,300 RPM. And in sixth gear, you're at like 3,000. It's got a real, it's got a highway gear.

• 38:18Speaker 01

  Okay, so you have to look at the torque. Man, that's more complicated.

• 38:20Matt Farah?

  Yeah.

• 38:21Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, this, this makes so much sense as a natural progression of your automotive-owning, uh, landscape or whatever. Um, makes a bunch of sense and you might end up keeping this for a very, very long time.

• 38:33Matt Farah?

  It's the kind of car, you know, that you could keep for a long time.

• 38:37Speaker 01

  Where do you graduate from here? I think that's the, like, the GT3 has been at the top of the pedestal now for 15, 20 years. And this, the engine, the engines don't change that much and they're actually probably gonna get worse as the world goes forward. The manual's there. You get rid of the particulate filter if this comes with it. And then you have a car that is, does all the things you, Matt Farah, really like a car to do.

• 39:00Matt Farah?

  Yeah.

• 39:01Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 39:01Matt Farah?

  It's got so much room for like your bags and stuff.

• 39:03Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 39:04Matt Farah?

  The two trunks.

• 39:05Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 39:06Matt Farah?

  Yeah.

• 39:06Speaker 01

  And it's actually, you know, it's not that heavy. It's lighter by several hundred pounds than a Corvette Z06 Spider.

• 39:12Matt Farah?

  Yeah.

• 39:13Speaker 01

  Like 400 pounds lighter.

• 39:14Matt Farah?

  It's a lot lighter and it's a stick, you know, stick is forever. And, and as cool as those Corvettes are, man, the longer time I spend in them, my, my, my legs are just that much too long and my hips get that much too tight. And I don't think I can buy into that one. Just don't think I can do it. This is comfy all day.

• 39:35Speaker 01

  The seats are so good in the Porsches.

• 39:36Matt Farah?

  So this one had the Buckets. Buckets are $6,200. It comes base with four ways and 18 ways are like 2,500.

• 39:49Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 39:50Matt Farah?

  18 ways are, 18 ways are where it's at.

• 39:52Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 39:53Matt Farah?

  Yeah, 18 ways are where it's at.

• 39:54Speaker 01

  You don't need the bucket.

• 39:55Matt Farah?

  For touring, you know? But, I mean, with the door, with the doors and it's got the look.

• 40:01Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 40:02Matt Farah?

  It's got the vibe.

• 40:02Speaker 01

  The doors are super cool.

• 40:04Matt Farah?

  Yeah, I'm into it. It's, I don't love the digital gauge cluster, not my favorite, but I gotta deal with it to get the rest of it and.

• 40:13Speaker 01

  Well, you've had a Tayco, you've gotten used to this with a Tayco.

• 40:15Matt Farah?

  They've warmed me up.

• 40:16Speaker 01

  It's not as cool. Uh, well, I think I look forward to you having one of these in six months.

• 40:21Matt Farah?

  No, I, if, if, if it was at all, it would be longer than that.

• 40:26Speaker 01

  Because of the build time?

• 40:27Matt Farah?

  It would probably be sometime in the back half of 2027 at the, at a minimum.

• 40:33Speaker 01

  And that's assuming no maritime errors.

• 40:36Matt Farah?

  Yeah, right. And, and by the way, paint to sample is now $24,000 and paint to sample plus is $48,000 on this car. So that is not on the table. That's not even, that's not even, forget on the table. That's not in the fucking meeting room.

• 40:56Speaker 01

  There are so many colors available in paint to sample.

• 40:59Matt Farah?

  Yeah.

• 41:00Speaker 01

  But I get it. When you have, when you're, you're making accounts.

• 41:02Matt Farah?

  $24,000? No.

• 41:04Speaker 01

  No, I'm saying if you go paint to sample plus, like, yes, you're so rich you don't care, but like, what color have you seen that they don't have something close enough to?

• 41:12Matt Farah?

  Yeah, you gotta get them to match one of your other cars or something.

• 41:14Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 41:15Matt Farah?

  Yeah, that's usually.

• 41:16Speaker 01

  Coenig said gold.

• 41:16Matt Farah?

  How they do it, yeah. Or, or, you know, use chroma flare everything or whatever.

• 41:22Speaker 01

  That's true.

• 41:23Matt Farah?

  You say, have you seen that car? Yeah?

• 41:25Speaker 01

  Chroma flare 911?

• 41:26Matt Farah?

  Yeah.

• 41:27Speaker 01

  Uh, I've seen them before. I don't know. Here?

• 41:30Matt Farah?

  Yeah, we have one in storage that is the, the most chroma-flared car I've ever seen in my life.

• 41:36Speaker 01

  I have.

• 41:36Matt Farah?

  Chroma flare wheels, chroma flare brake calipers, chroma flare plastics.

• 41:41Speaker 01

  It's like a shapeshifter.

• 41:42Matt Farah?

  It is. It's a, it's a real freaky, crazy fucking car. Yeah.

• 41:48Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 41:48Matt Farah?

  It's bananas.

• 41:49Speaker 01

  It's a lot. I like the chroma flare paint. I think it's cool.

• 41:53Matt Farah?

  Yeah, yeah. The, the wheels, uh.

• 41:56Speaker 01

  That's when it goes overboard.

• 41:57Matt Farah?

  That's a lot. Yeah, yeah. And, and all of the plastics is a lot too. I, some of the plastics I think you could paint and it's okay, but like, when you paint all of them, it's, it's a lot. Because the shape, you know, it's like, I don't mean like, like, if something is meant to be painted, it's usually shaped a certain way. And if it's meant to be plastic, it's, you know, it's shaped a certain way. And so like diffusers and things are shaped this way, but they're normally kind of black plastic to sort of make them hot a little more. And when you paint them, it brings them forward and you really notice them. It changes the shape of the car.

• 42:40Speaker 01

  Definitely.

• 42:40Matt Farah?

  Yeah, it's interesting. And, you know, Porsche will let you paint whatever the fuck you want.

• 42:46Speaker 01

  Like imagine if you painted the whole back half of a Vantage. You know, like the big, the scowl exhaust part that kind of hides, I think looks bad anyway. But if that was all orange, like the rest of the car, then it would look like you're about to crash into a Zenvo head on.

• 43:00Matt Farah?

  You see people doing this with like McLarens and stuff a lot. Yeah, it's weird.

• 43:04Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 43:06Matt Farah?

  So anyway, the GT3 SC, it's like $270,000. So it's, it's, it's pretty easy to jack one of these things up to, starting with a three, which is a lot of money, you know, it's a lot of money. But it's, it's, it's just crazy that analog is what really costs a lot of money these days. It's not horsepower anymore, or handling, or, you know, downforce. You know, you can, you can have a fucking, I just saw a video of a guy in a ZR1X doing the Virginia City hill climb that looks like it was in fucking fast forward. I couldn't believe the pace of that.

• 43:43Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 43:44Matt Farah?

  But like, it didn't even look fun. I watched that, I was like, oh God, don't die.

• 43:50Speaker 01

  Yeah, not for us, yeah.

• 43:53Matt Farah?

  You know, it's, uh, maybe I'm getting old, but, and I was, and after I put this GT3 SC away, I spent the entire half of the day, second half of the day on racetracks, reviewing five different cars on a track.

• 44:08Matt Farah?

  And, and believe me, you know, I wasn't going as fast as those cars could go on that track. And I know that because Timo Bernhard was there.

• 44:18Speaker 01

  Yeah. They post the lap times?

• 44:20Matt Farah?

  He was nice about it. It, it, um, they did, they, they gave us his lap times so that we could see the delta of all of the cars, which I, which was actually really interesting.

• 44:36Matt Farah?

  Oh, should I, should I get that piece of paper? Does that interest you?

• 44:39Speaker 01

  Yeah, definitely, for sure.

• 44:41Matt Farah?

  Let me grab it. I need, it's right on my desk. I need two.

• 44:44Speaker 01

  Yeah, grab that and then we'll go through the differences.

• 44:47Matt Farah?

  Holy hell, Zach.

• 44:51Speaker 01

  Not sure what that's about.

• 44:58Matt Farah?

  I can't wait for you to see the color of this Kona you're driving.

• 45:02Speaker 01

  Oh, boy.

• 45:02Matt Farah?

  Oh, boy. Have you ever driven a citrus? Just a, just a, just a fruit?

• 45:10Speaker 01

  Now, is it, uh, is it grapefruit or is it orange?

• 45:15Matt Farah?

  It's, it's the yellowest of yellows.

• 45:17Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's what I was worried about, okay.

• 45:18Matt Farah?

  It's a yuzu.

• 45:19Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 45:20Matt Farah?

  It's straight yuzu.

• 45:21Speaker 01

  Is it good sonic yellow or is it old piss yellow, though? Like, uh, like I call it unsellable yellow, where it's too faint.

• 45:29Matt Farah?

  Yeah.

• 45:33Matt Farah?

  Okay, so Circuit Ricardo Tormo in Valencia is four kilometers with a front straight of eight tenths of a kilometer, eight hundred, eight hundred and something meters. And, um, these are, this is, this was my notes on the GT3 Manti, which I just overlaid on the track map, GT3 RS Manti on the back. And the lap times, so I didn't actually, they wouldn't give me, give us the actual lap time, just the delta from a cup car.

• 46:08Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 46:09Matt Farah?

  So the hierarchy, you know, they had a cup car, they had the new 911 Challenge, the, uh, the GT3 RS Manti, GT3 RS Regular, GT3 Manti and GT3 Regular. So I was there to drive the, the road cars, the Manti and the regular versions of those, because I've already driven a cup car and there was only time to drive four of the six. So my story for Road and Track is, is can you actually feel these Manti kits? Or do they just translate to numbers on a, on a spreadsheet? And, and no, with no real change in feel. Unfortunately, because I was very efficient, I also got to have a go in the 911 Challenge race car.

• 46:54Matt Farah?

  And talk about that in a second, but. So starting with a cup car, this is Timo driving all the cars, four kilometer racetrack.

• 47:03Matt Farah?

  Warm, but not crazy hot day. The Challenge car was 4.6 seconds behind the cup car.

• 47:10Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 47:12Matt Farah?

  The, the, um, Manti RS was 1.8 seconds beyond that. So it's 1.8 seconds slower than the Challenge car.

• 47:25Speaker 01

  So it's six seconds off a cup car.

• 47:27Matt Farah?

  6.2 off a cup car. The GT3 RS non-Manti is 6.8 seconds off a cup car. The GT3 Manti non-RS is 8.8 seconds off a cup car. And the GT3 Visoc non-Manti is 9.8 seconds off a cup car.

• 47:49Speaker 01

  Whoa.

• 47:50Matt Farah?

  So that's the, that's the gap of all those, 10 seconds a lap, basically.

• 47:54Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 47:56Matt Farah?

  So, and it is, it's, you know, fairly linear, although not equal. The smallest gap is from a GT3 RS to the GT3 RS Manti. That's, that's actually the smallest gap, which is kind of funny, because it's actually like the most transformative in some ways.

• 48:19Speaker 01

  You mean in terms of appearance or in terms of price or? Like what's the, what's the delta between it on the lap time?

• 48:25Matt Farah?

  Uh, six tenths of a second.

• 48:27Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 48:27Matt Farah?

  Between it and the, uh, and the regular GT3 RS.

• 48:31Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 48:32Matt Farah?

  So, yeah, and it's, but that's, it's like a hundred thousand dollars.

• 48:35Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 48:36Matt Farah?

  And you eliminate the car's rear window, it becomes a solid carbon panel. And it, it's a, it's a very, you know, it's a very aggressive aero package.

• 48:48Matt Farah?

  And it's a very aggressive package in general. I mean, it's a, it, it really, really transforms the feel of the car. And it's, um, you know, less of a, of a lap time upgrade than if you had a GT3 and traded it for an RS, for instance.

• 49:05Speaker 01

  Right, you'd get, you'd gain a lot more speed that way. But if you are going for faster, faster, faster, I mean, six tenths a lap in five laps, you're, well, 10 laps, you're six seconds ahead, like that's, but, but, but the margins get tighter as the cars get more advanced, yeah.

• 49:21Matt Farah?

  Yeah, correct, until it becomes race car and then the margins get big again.

• 49:25Speaker 01

  Uh, yeah.

• 49:26Matt Farah?

  You know what I mean? But, but, uh, so interestingly, um, so, so this is the first year you can get a Manti kit for a non-RS.

• 49:39Matt Farah?

  And, uh, previously, these were only really available for RSs. And so, so what I think would be really fun is actually to get a Visoc manual GT3, manual gearbox and put a Manti kit on it, and that would be pretty fun. And they will sell you one like that. I think you'd end up with a very rare car, actually.

• 49:58Speaker 01

  Yeah, well, yeah, that would be that weird combo of like the most extreme aero and suspension, but the least extreme transmission, the least efficient transmission. I saw a car parked in Santa Monica the other day. It, and it had these like Manti wheel covers, the super wing.

• 50:13Matt Farah?

  Yeah.

• 50:14Speaker 01

  So are these wheel covers only for Manti or are they Visoc?

• 50:17Matt Farah?

  They're only for Manti, although there are some like knockoff ones.

• 50:22Speaker 01

  Well, this was like a forest green GT3 RS parked in a lot.

• 50:26Matt Farah?

  There are two or three GT3 RS Mantis in LA that I've seen.

• 50:29Speaker 01

  They look very cool, but.

• 50:30Matt Farah?

  The shark fin thing is a lot.

• 50:32Speaker 01

  I'm, I wonder, I'm sure it makes it less comfortable on the street. Like, does the Manti kit change the suspension? I know you can't get it too far.

• 50:39Matt Farah?

  They both do.

• 50:40Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 50:40Matt Farah?

  So, and I, and I don't want to get too far into this because I don't want to scoop myself and like, because I'm writing a very lengthy piece for Road and Track about it right now, but I can tell you, I can talk about what the cars are.

• 50:51Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 50:53Matt Farah?

  With the GT3, the Manti kit is the, the new wing, um, the rear wheel covers. In this case, uh, the, my test car had the, had Mantis forged aluminum wheels, which save six kilograms versus the standard aluminum GT3 wheels. If you get Porsche magnesium wheels, it saves nine kilos, but they cost more than Mantis aluminum ones.

• 51:17Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 51:18Matt Farah?

  Um, and you have a fixed, um, suspension, meaning non-adaptive, but it's four-way adjustable coilovers. Um, and then you have a brake pad upgrade, so that's on the GT3. On the RS, you have this massive aero package. You have the wheels, you have brake pads and stainless steel brake lines. You have the rear window delete and the shark fin. And you have, uh, a, a semi-adaptive suspension. So it's still an adjustable coilover, but it does have a couple of electronically adjustable modes that are accessible through the normal parts, uh, knob, okay?

• 52:04Matt Farah?

  So the key with these Manti programs is they can't, none of the cars have more power or even like exhaust or anything like that. The powertrain has to be completely stock. And none of the packages are allowed to reduce their fuel efficiency at all. So they have to make downforce and improve handling and improve lap times to this degree. Um, you know, a full second in the case of the GT3 and six tenths of a second in the case of the GT3 RS, while not only having no extra power, but also not negatively impacting fuel efficiency. So that's pretty cool, actually. Like, that's pretty, and also not voiding Porsche's warranty.

• 52:51Matt Farah?

  So it has to be well engineered. It has to be incredibly thought out. And, uh, and because you're not negatively impacting fuel efficiency, um, it also means, you know, that, that the car, uh, will can go for a 30 minute track session. You're not, you know, if you're actually, um, maybe using these kits at, at, in a racing application or a semi motorsport application, um, it won't really negatively impact your, your drag in the front, in the front straight for the most part. And in the case of the shark fin, um, the shark fin is supposed to add lateral arrow, uh, lateral downforce. So when you're cornering, but also apparently really does a lot to help the car not have worse efficiency.

• 53:36Matt Farah?

  And if you drove the car without that shark fin, it would not be, that package would not be sellable because it would not be fuel efficient enough.

• 53:44Speaker 01

  Wow. So that helps it remain slippery even with, like it keeps drag down a little bit, even though they've added all these other wings and things.

• 53:53Matt Farah?

  I'm not smart enough to tell you exactly why this element positively impacts fuel efficiency when going in a straight line.

• 54:02Speaker 01

  Got it.

• 54:03Matt Farah?

  But it does.

• 54:03Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 54:04Matt Farah?

  And it does enough that they couldn't sell the kit without it.

• 54:07Speaker 01

  Wow.

• 54:08Matt Farah?

  Yeah.

• 54:08Speaker 01

  That's incredible.

• 54:09Matt Farah?

  Um, and then both the GT3 and RS with Manti kits have massively expanded uh, under tray, um, diffusers that are like triple the length of the original ones. So you can't see that, but there's a lot of underbody stuff that goes on. So.

• 54:27Speaker 01

  So this is the stuff they get from racing, like so much of racing, especially if it's endurance racing, is focused on efficiency and how do we go faster without burning more fuel? Like the computing that's going on at the, in the, in the pits of like, what, when do we pit? How often, how much fuel are we using? Go two tenths slower so then we can go two laps longer. Like they have, uh, like models running the whole time on these, some of these teams. And so they get to bring that intelligence to, uh, cars and coffee near you.

• 54:54Matt Farah?

  Right. Um, and so, you know, my story is going to be about if you can actually feel the kits and, um, as opposed to just lap times and long story short, you, you can feel both of them in different ways. And each kit, in my opinion, affects its base car in different ways. Um, and I go into that in, in great detail in, in the, um, in the story. And I don't want to scoop myself on it. So, um, but they're fucking badass, these things. Um, um, and to get to have a day on a racetrack and it's, this was not a lead follow session. This was, uh, do, do you need a, do you need an instructor? You do not?

• 55:37Matt Farah?

  Enjoy yourself. So it was just an hour and a half of open track, you know, lapping in these fucking things. And then because I was efficient, I also got to drive the 911 challenge race car, uh, which, which was such, no, I didn't get to take a picture of it because it was literally like, they were like, if you can put your racing suit on in like five minutes, you can, you can have a go. And I just sprinted to get my suit on and, and they, uh, the, the track guy was like, I've never seen somebody get dressed that fast.

• 56:03Speaker 01

  Nice.

• 56:05Matt Farah?

  So you can, yeah, you can pull up one of Porsche's pictures, the 911 challenge. So when they announced, you know, six months ago, that, that there was going to be a 911 GT4 that was going to replace the Cayman GT4 range.

• 56:21Matt Farah?

  And they showed photos of a car testing on like the Nürburgring or somewhere. They, the, the stories of there being a GT4 were frequently accompanied with photos of this car. So the 911 challenge is replacing the GT4 RS club sport. But unlike the 911 cup car, and, um, it, it's based on the road car. It's a, it's a GT3 road car effectively with slicks, fire suppression and a cage. That's, that's what it is. The dashboard is the regular car dashboard. The steering wheel is the round airbag wheel.

• 57:02Matt Farah?

  It's not a, it's not a motorsport yoke or even a, you know, momo wheel. It's like the regular wheel. You start it with the regular start button. It has like factory climate control in it. Um, the gauge cluster, other than saying 911 challenge, when you start it up is like the factory gauge cluster. So it is, it is as close as you can make a road car feel uh, and, and seem to, uh, to, to driving your, uh, street car.

• 57:40Matt Farah?

  You can drive it in automatic, you know, for instance, um, you know, that, that kind of, there is, there isn't. The cup car, you know, has a clutch pedal. It has a sequential gearbox. It's not a PDK. This is a PDK. Um, and so not only does it replace the GT4 RS club sport, and in my opinion is a su- superior product to that car, and that car was very cool. Um, that car was trying to be cup car mini. This car is trying to be GT3 plus, which actually I think is better. So they're going to have a one make series, similar to Mustang challenge. Um, and, but you'll also be able to buy them for track days.

• 58:20Matt Farah?

  It has, um, some of the set, it has like the, the, the PTV settings like you'd have for a GT3 RS. So you can dial in the handling.

• 58:29Speaker 01

  Right. Yeah. On the steering wheel there. Is it going to be like a feeder series for the GT3 cup?

• 58:35Matt Farah?

  Uh, it's a gentleman driver series. So it's, it's, yeah, maybe.

• 58:40Speaker 01

  So yes, if that gentleman wants to effectively. Okay.

• 58:42Matt Farah?

  Um, so this was really interesting because I went from the Manti RS to this. This is, as we saw, um, 1.8 seconds a lap quicker than the Manti RS. It has much less downforce than the Manti RS. This has standard GT3 downforce, which is like 180 kilos of downforce.

• 59:09Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 59:10Matt Farah?

  Right?

• 59:11Speaker 01

  And it also still has 508 horsepower based on the, so it's like, okay.

• 59:15Matt Farah?

  So, so it's a, it's a GT3, narrow body. So a regular GT3 has, I, I think it's, it's under 200 kilos of downforce. I think it's like 180 at, at 175 miles an hour. The, uh, GT3 Manti is 540. The GT3 RS is 840 and the GT3 RS Manti is a thousand kilos of downforce.

• 59:41Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 59:41Matt Farah?

  Okay. This is 1.8 seconds a lap quicker, but with a fifth of the downforce that that car has.

• 59:52Speaker 01

  Right. So how do they do it?

• 59:54Matt Farah?

  Slicks. A cage and slicks.

• 59:57Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 59:57Matt Farah?

  So this is, this has a bunch more mechanical grip, but less aerodynamic grip. Whereas that has all the aerodynamic grip, but road tires.

• 1:00:09Speaker 01

  And no cage in any of those cars, of course, because they're road cars.

• 1:00:12Matt Farah?

  Right. They, they all had, um, track bars, the carbon, like the Manti, you know, club sport.

• 1:00:19Speaker 01

  Little half cage thing for.

• 1:00:21Matt Farah?

  It's not a cage, but it's a, you know, harness. It's a, I think it does add some structure, but it's, it's not a cage. This is a caged race car.

• 1:00:29Speaker 01

  Whoa.

• 1:00:30Matt Farah?

  With slicks.

• 1:00:30Speaker 01

  It's that fast.

• 1:00:31Matt Farah?

  And so, yeah, so it has all this mechanical grip, but, but a lot less, um, uh, aerodynamic grip. So two different ways to approach, you know, a lap time.

• 1:00:41Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:00:42Matt Farah?

  This thing was like mega fun. There's a, um, there's an onboard, uh, video of me running a full lap uh, on my Instagram. I was a little disappointed with their, uh, with where this camera was pointed. It should have been pointed a little more forward. Uh, the sound of this car is crazy. And as you can see in the, in the video, it's, uh, it is very composed.

• 1:01:08Matt Farah?

  And, uh, it makes all the right sounds.

• 1:01:13Matt Farah?

  And I real, I turned in for turn one at 155 kilometers an hour, I think, in this car.

• 1:01:20Speaker 01

  Yeah. Looked like it.

• 1:01:24Matt Farah?

  Um, which is about three or three or I said 155 kilometers an hour. Did I say miles or kilometers?

• 1:01:30Speaker 01

  You said kilometers.

• 1:01:31Matt Farah?

  It's kilometers, yeah. Which is about seven kilometers quicker than I did it in the man tie car.

• 1:01:35Speaker 01

  Wow.

• 1:01:36Matt Farah?

  But it takes curbs really well.

• 1:01:38Speaker 01

  And that just really highlights what slicks do.

• 1:01:40Matt Farah?

  Oh, my God, yeah. So this thing, this thing was a ripper. I mean, you could really take a grip of curbs with it. Um, and it, it was absolutely so much fun. I only got to run like four laps in it. So I obviously didn't get anywhere near, you know, the potential of the car. But this was a very fun track, Ricardo Tormo, because you could see everywhere, you know, nothing really sneaks up at you. You could look really far ahead. And that made it easy to learn the track and, and get to a point where I was getting pretty aggressive on the curbs, um, you know,

• 1:02:20Matt Farah?

  straight away. Still no, the, the York Bergmeister line is like crazy. Like you're, you're driving like off the track, like so many places. Like, his line is probably not like allowed in a race, frankly, but, but it was amazing to see. And, uh, yeah, Timo was going deep into the curbs.

• 1:02:39Speaker 01

  Did you watch, uh, I watched part of Larry Chen's, the clips of him racing the Max Verstappen car race. I didn't watch the whole race yet. I want to watch it later tonight. But when he did his quali, Larry and I think Max and a couple of other people, like, they did full four wheels cutting, like the rumble strip. And it's like, well, there's no track limits law, but like it was, he was passing mad fools doing that. Yeah, it was very flagrant.

• 1:03:01Matt Farah?

  Yeah.

• 1:03:02Speaker 01

  Helps.

• 1:03:02Matt Farah?

  Um, so, you know, that's, uh, the 911 challenge is, it's, it's, it's really what I like, if I was like mega rich guy, country club guy, this is, this is the thing I would want. Um, the cup cars are pretty overwhelming, you know, with the sequential box and the steering wheel just full of fucking crazy knobs.

• 1:03:25Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:03:25Matt Farah?

  Full, you know, there's people that love that shit, but, you know, a 911, a 911 GT3 turned into a race car is awesome.

• 1:03:36Speaker 01

  Yeah. And you, before you get to somewhere with, before you get to the steering wheel with all the switches, you should start here. Cause in this, you can adjust the diffs and some other things, like learn that.

• 1:03:46Matt Farah?

  Yeah.

• 1:03:47Speaker 01

  And truly master that. And then at a certain point, you go, okay, I want more. You're going to go actually racing and you need these cars with all the adjustability, but crawl before you walk.

• 1:03:55Matt Farah?

  Yeah.

• 1:03:56Speaker 01

  Yeah, this would be very fun.

• 1:03:57Matt Farah?

  I asked, would it be possible to get one in a manual? And he said, it would be a very special wishes thing, but it, you know, there isn't any real technical reason that you couldn't other than, you know, the, the knobs that, that control PTV, like you wouldn't have that. You'd have a manual diff. So it would be less competitive, but like, there's, they based them on GT3 cars. So you, they could build one as a manual.

• 1:04:24Speaker 01

  So if you were going to get one of these in a manual, why, why would you not just go with an older, you know, former like cup car that has a manual?

• 1:04:32Matt Farah?

  Oh, I don't know.

• 1:04:33Speaker 01

  I'm just curious. Like, to me, the, one of the advantages of this versus like the 996 you drove is this has the PDK.

• 1:04:38Matt Farah?

  Yeah.

• 1:04:38Speaker 01

  So you, you're like, great, we got the advanced transmission. It makes it paddle shifty race car. Awesome. So why would, why would you want to go to the manual other than just fun?

• 1:04:47Matt Farah?

  It could be fun. I mean, it could be fun. I don't know. Who knows? I mean, they, I don't know.

• 1:04:52Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 1:04:52Matt Farah?

  Someone might just, somebody might just want one, you know? I, I, I would, if I was buying a race car, I would not want a manual, but.

• 1:05:00Speaker 01

  Oh, okay. I thought you were saying you would prefer.

• 1:05:02Matt Farah?

  No, no, no, no, no. One could get one.

• 1:05:04Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 1:05:04Matt Farah?

  As a manual is all I'm trying to say. Um, what else do we have? Um, oh, okay. We're doing a couple of live things. We've got Willow Springs Reimagined, October 17th, uh, live podcast. Uh, your, your reimagined ticket gets you in. It's going to be a cool day. There's going to be a bunch of racing. There's a celebrity race. There's a B sedan race. There's some really cool vintage, uh, vintage races and exhibitions. Uh, October 17th out at Willow Springs. Uh, come on down. Sort of, it's, it's a good woody vibe. I think there's going to be a good wood element of it as well. There's going to be a lot of singers out there. Um, the cars, not the performance, I think. Um, plus, um, October, November 7th,

• 1:05:49Matt Farah?

  8th, uh, 7th and 8th, Zach and I will be at the Time to Drive Festival in Miami. Uh, we have a live podcast down there. And again, your festival ticket gets you into the show. You don't need a special one. So come on down and see us. We've got the live podcast is going to be Saturday, the 6th, 7th, Saturday, the 7th. And then, um, I'm moderating, uh, panel chat with, uh, racing driver Felipe Nasser on, uh, the Sunday. And Zach, originally we were going to be driving a, uh, an Audi, an electric Audi. Uh, we have been upgraded. We, we are driving an Oris now.

• 1:06:30Speaker 01

  Oh, okay.

• 1:06:31Matt Farah?

  So we will be, it's a Miami Camry. You know, you gotta have, it's, when you, when you move to Miami, you're just issued one of those.

• 1:06:39Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:06:39Matt Farah?

  Um, and, uh, so those are going on. Uh, come on down, hang out. Plus, if you want to come drive with me, we have, I think, one or two spots left at the Road and Track Hudson Quattrocento at the end of October. That's October 27th, I believe, October 20, 27th, uh, Hudson Valley, New York. We've got, uh, two racetracks, Lime Rock Park and Will Zigg Manor. It's 27th, right? 27th to 30th. Yeah. We have some beautiful Hudson Valley hotels. We've got great roads. Uh, scouted the route myself. Leaf peeping and all of that shiznat.

• 1:07:22Matt Farah?

  It's going to be amazing. That's going to be a lot of fun. I love that event. Uh, and now before we get to the questions, I was going to Zach's, uh, birthday celebration last night. And for the very first time, we, I knew that we were going to be drinking. And, uh, what are them shits that Sarah had me drinking?

• 1:07:42Speaker 01

  Long drink.

• 1:07:42Matt Farah?

  Long drink.

• 1:07:43Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:07:43Matt Farah?

  Never had it before.

• 1:07:44Speaker 01

  Never had it before?

• 1:07:44Matt Farah?

  No, never had it before.

• 1:07:45Speaker 01

  So delicious.

• 1:07:45Matt Farah?

  It's a, it's a canned gin and juice.

• 1:07:47Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 1:07:48Matt Farah?

  Which is all right.

• 1:07:49Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:07:49Matt Farah?

  Especially when you're this close to Inglewood, am I right?

• 1:07:52Speaker 01

  It's a good, I mean, canned gin and tonic. It's delicious.

• 1:07:54Matt Farah?

  Is it tonic? No. Cause it's no calorie. It was no calorie.

• 1:07:57Speaker 01

  Well, they do zero calorie tonic too.

• 1:07:58Matt Farah?

  Gin and seltzer.

• 1:07:59Speaker 01

  Whatever. They're gin based, seltzer-y drinks. And I think they're probably the best thing.

• 1:08:02Matt Farah?

  Not bad.

• 1:08:03Speaker 01

  Right now.

• 1:08:03Matt Farah?

  Got a little drunky.

• 1:08:04Speaker 01

  Did you?

• 1:08:05Matt Farah?

  Got a little drunky on them.

• 1:08:06Speaker 01

  We bought them. We wanted to be able to drink them.

• 1:08:08Matt Farah?

  I didn't drive. I took a fucking.

• 1:08:09Speaker 01

  Yeah, we had to carry all the other shit up that people didn't drink.

• 1:08:11Matt Farah?

  Yeah. Which brings me to the, uh, point of my story, which is that I took a Waymo, uh, over there. Uh, Jabron, my friend Jabron was with me and, and he had never taken a Waymo before. So I was like, we should try one. So we summoned a Waymo and one of the fucking Chinese vans pulled up. I have not, I've seen them driving around. I've never seen them driving around with people in them. Um, I knew they were testing. Um, but they, uh, they have just, uh, I guess, started picking up people. So for, I've been riding in Jaguar i-Paces for the last couple of years. And, um, so we got in, we, this thing

• 1:08:48Matt Farah?

  pulled up. I was, I was pretty excited. And, uh, the excitement, Zach Klapman, at first it was like, kind of like an ID Buzz, where you've got that sort of upright windshield, but that's very far away.

• 1:09:03Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:09:04Matt Farah?

  So it's like you're in a monorail a little bit. Um, and it is very spacious. The front and the backseat, very spacious. Uh, I'll give them that. The excitement waned pretty quickly because I suddenly realized that although those Jaguar i-Paces are like 10 years old and, you know, kind of aging, they're still Jaguars. But those are 75, $80,000 vehicles when they were new. You know, they're, they're built to a standard. This motherfucker is made of plastic, straight the fuck up. And the seats feel real cheap, you know, not

• 1:09:47Matt Farah?

  a lot of support. The, everything about it is just injection molded and, and, you know, industrial kind of grade. Now, I, I understand this is a vehicle that's designed from the ground up to be a taxi. And so, you know, maybe it needs to hold up for 300,000 miles, whereas the Jaguar service life was maybe 100 to 150,000 miles. I've only recently started seeing the Jaguars with over 100,000 miles on them. For a long time, they all had pretty low miles. And now they seem to have a lot of miles as people are really using them. But, but even for a taxi, 100,000 miles is not a lot.

• 1:10:26Speaker 01

  It's not.

• 1:10:27Matt Farah?

  For a Jaguar.

• 1:10:28Speaker 01

  It's tons. But you're, but you're right. They are very comfortable. I think they all had leather interiors. I remember the seat shapes, front and back are really nice. Like you, you get in it and it feels like a luxurious.

• 1:10:38Matt Farah?

  Yes.

• 1:10:38Speaker 01

  Uber black level car picks you up.

• 1:10:40Matt Farah?

  Okay. So as soon as I sit down, I go, ah, well, this situation has just gotten in shitified. So then we start to go and it starts to play a video on the screen that you can't stop.

• 1:11:02Speaker 01

  No.

• 1:11:02Matt Farah?

  With audio that you can't mute.

• 1:11:04Speaker 01

  No.

• 1:11:05Matt Farah?

  And it's, it's welcoming you to a Waymo and telling you everything about Waymo, ideally for someone who's getting in one for the first time.

• 1:11:15Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 1:11:16Matt Farah?

  And if, if I was a new Waymo, if I just made my account and it showed me that video, the first time I actually got into a car. It's, it's very much like a dealt, like an airline in-flight safety video. If it does that every time, if it does it the first time, forgivable, annoying, but forgivable. I've, I've provably been in many Waymos.

• 1:11:43Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:11:43Matt Farah?

  This is not much.

• 1:11:44Speaker 01

  And they know, somewhere in the data, they know that you've been in them many times.

• 1:11:48Matt Farah?

  They know.

• 1:11:49Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:11:50Matt Farah?

  But it, it, this video.

• 1:11:52Speaker 01

  Did it, did the video teach you anything new?

• 1:11:55Matt Farah?

  No.

• 1:11:55Speaker 01

  About Waymo?

• 1:11:56Matt Farah?

  No, no, no, no. But I, I was well out of my neighborhood by the time the video ended. Like, dude, yeah, yeah. This is not great. And then all of a sudden, this is, this, these are, these are new. I mean, these cars, I mean, maybe it's, maybe it's six months old or eight months old, but they're, they're essentially, these are new. Jabron and I look at each other and we go, this thing rides like garbage. This has the most unrefined, cheap ass rental car in China ride. I, I couldn't believe it. Then I, and then I'm like. Holy shit, we were riding around in Jags this whole time. And now we're in this fucking thing.

• 1:12:42Matt Farah?

  And then it goes to turn up, uh, where was it? So we, where did it go? Okay, so, wait, where did it happen?

• 1:12:55Matt Farah?

  Cause it did it twice. Okay, first it did it as we passed here. Cause we were going from my house to your house. So as it passed here, you know, the, the kind of bump in front of the, on the right, in the right lane here?

• 1:13:07Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:13:08Matt Farah?

  It hits it, could you, and it like porpoises a little bit?

• 1:13:12Speaker 01

  Oh no.

• 1:13:13Matt Farah?

  And gets rubbed at the front end.

• 1:13:15Speaker 01

  Whoa.

• 1:13:15Matt Farah?

  I was like, whoa. Yeah, I was like, oh my God, I can't believe that just happened. I can't believe, I can't believe it just got rubbed. And then we pull into your complex. And it's, it's, there's a transition there.

• 1:13:30Speaker 01

  Little bit, yeah.

• 1:13:31Matt Farah?

  Little bit.

• 1:13:31Speaker 01

  But like my car doesn't scrape, it's pretty smooth, yeah.

• 1:13:34Matt Farah?

  Doesn't scrape. My cars don't scrape. I, you know, if I have a car that has a nose lift, I will raise the nose lift and I don't take that corner like at speed.

• 1:13:43Speaker 01

  No, you wouldn't do that.

• 1:13:43Matt Farah?

  But it's not bad.

• 1:13:44Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 1:13:45Matt Farah?

  It's not bad. Even a, even a normal sporty car, like a, a nine eleven Carrera. I would just take that as a normal driveway entrance. It would not be a problem. Double rub. As it, as it.

• 1:14:00Speaker 01

  So is the suspension really super soft, but somehow also like, when you said it rides like garbage?

• 1:14:06Matt Farah?

  Somehow also like low. Like it's low, but soft and with poor damping. So it's like, just, it, it's.

• 1:14:14Speaker 01

  And what's gonna happen when you have four people in these?

• 1:14:16Matt Farah?

  I don't know.

• 1:14:17Speaker 01

  Because is it three seats in the back across and then there's a one in the front?

• 1:14:19Matt Farah?

  Yeah.

• 1:14:20Speaker 01

  Or is it more seats than that?

• 1:14:21Matt Farah?

  No, that's it.

• 1:14:21Speaker 01

  Okay. The seats also, I mean, it looks like they covered like a bleacher bench in fabric. It's so flat.

• 1:14:28Matt Farah?

  No support. But, so dude, in this, you know, the ride from my house to your house is not even two miles.

• 1:14:36Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:14:36Matt Farah?

  So this, this was a crazy experience for a brand. I was like, they, they have really done a number on this shit.

• 1:14:44Speaker 01

  I'm kinda surprised because yes, LA roads are some of the worst in the country, but there are plenty of places. Boston has cobblestones, like there's a lot of big municipalities that will, that they would use these in, I assume, that have bad roads.

• 1:14:57Matt Farah?

  Well, this is what they're gonna replace all the Jags with.

• 1:14:59Speaker 01

  Right, so I wonder how quickly like the drivetrains or the suspension will like fall apart.

• 1:15:04Matt Farah?

  It was a, it was a shockingly cheap, cheapened experience to go from one of the Jags to this.

• 1:15:12Speaker 01

  Cause if it's rubbing, if it rubs a lot, it will probably eventually pull the fender liner out. And then what's the Waymo gonna do when it has that weird obstruction?

• 1:15:19Matt Farah?

  I don't know, man, it was crazy.

• 1:15:21Speaker 01

  That's surprising.

• 1:15:21Matt Farah?

  Yeah.

• 1:15:22Speaker 01

  I mean, the cheap seat like that sucks, not surprising.

• 1:15:25Matt Farah?

  Right.

• 1:15:25Speaker 01

  It's like, you know, buses have more contouring than this thing. That's a bummer.

• 1:15:29Matt Farah?

  Yeah.

• 1:15:29Speaker 01

  But they go, if people are in it for 20 minutes, they'll just deal with it.

• 1:15:33Matt Farah?

  Well, a taxi being a taxi, like, all right, I kinda get it. It's a bummer, but I get it. But like this other shit, I'm like, dude, this is no good. And then the other, the last one is the windshield on the, this thing was filthy. Really filthy. And it does have wipers. Uh, and although, yeah, it doesn't matter. Driver that needs to see. If I'm offering an experience and maybe, maybe hey, maybe it's a, it's a, hey, we're Google, go fuck yourself. But if I'm offering experience where I'm, I'm hoping that people who get in these cars feel comfortable enough to do it a second and third time.

• 1:16:16Matt Farah?

  Uh, they, people would like to be able to see out the front windshield. I mean, you, it was so dirty, this windshield, that you really almost couldn't, it was like going off, like I had been off roading.

• 1:16:27Speaker 01

  Oh wow.

• 1:16:27Matt Farah?

  It was so dirty that you really couldn't see much in the afternoon, you know, sunset light. Um, you, you couldn't see almost anything out the front of the car. And Hannah was like, this is very disconcerting. Like it, it must know that this windshield is dirty somehow. And it has wipers, like, so I don't know. Or maybe it doesn't.

• 1:16:50Speaker 01

  I, I think if all the cameras and radar are on the outside of the car, then it wouldn't know it's dirty. And it would require these to come back in every night and they have an attendant that can like clean the windows. But then if it goes out and drives, you know, on the wrong road or something, it can get totally covered and it just doesn't matter to the robot. But I would wonder, at what rate does the windshield get dirty versus the sensors on the front get dirty? You know, or do they not focus on cleaning the windshield to clean the sensors?

• 1:17:17Matt Farah?

  These, at least the Jaguars have sensor cleaning sprays, like right on all the sensors. So it can do, it can clean sensors completely separately from cleaning other things. I just had another car that had that.

• 1:17:29Speaker 01

  They should have it then, just program it in. Every time the, the sensor cleaner is activated, and just hit the windshield wipers.

• 1:17:36Matt Farah?

  I just drove something, it might've been one of the Genesis's or something that had, it had, you know, front windshield sprayers and rear camera sprayers. It did not have a rear windshield wiper.

• 1:17:49Speaker 01

  Oh.

• 1:17:50Matt Farah?

  But it had a rear camera cleaning spray.

• 1:17:52Speaker 01

  And was the, was the rear view mirror a screen?

• 1:17:55Matt Farah?

  Digital.

• 1:17:56Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:17:56Matt Farah?

  Digital. It was the Escalade. It was the Escalade in, um, in, uh, what do you call it, Detroit?

• 1:18:02Speaker 01

  So you don't need the window. It's like the Manta thing. Yeah, you don't need the window.

• 1:18:06Matt Farah?

  Uh, let's do a couple of questions because I have a hard out, uh, in 15 minutes. Apologies on that, but it is what it is. Patreon.com slash the smoke and tire podcast. If you would like to ask us questions for the little program here, uh, you get to watch the live stream. You get to get the show early before everybody else. You get to get the show without ads. You get to get, uh, extra collabs and merch projects that we work on before everybody else and possibly totally exclusively. Uh, in fact, our new tactile turn pen collab is up on the Patreon right now. That's gonna be a good one. We're only doing a hundred of them. Get them while you can. Patrons get first grabs at that before the public gets them.

• 1:18:48Matt Farah?

  Uh, and you get extra show with those pro driver shows and champ level shows we do every single month. We just did the September pro driver show, um, yesterday. So you can get that, uh, get that now if you're a pro driver or a champ level patron. We love you guys very much. Plus you get the satisfaction of supporting your favorite car podcast. So, some of these questions. The new Honda ProLapse says, what percentage of sports car slash supercar slash hypercar owners can actually drive their cars to a hundred percent of the car's ability? How do you think that percentage changes with manufacturer? That's interesting.

• 1:19:28Matt Farah?

  I think the manu, I think, look, as long as there have been professional drivers, and I mean probably starting in like the 50s.

• 1:19:44Matt Farah?

  There's been sort of an understanding that the people who, who buy the cars are not as good at driving them as the professional drivers. And, and, and I don't think anybody, myself or anybody else, wants to gatekeep a fast car from a person who wants to buy it just because they're not capable of driving it to a hundred percent.

• 1:20:07Matt Farah?

  You know, when do you think, what periods, Zach, do you think it was easiest to drive a car to a hundred percent? I think like, like the Ferrari, like two, like 2005, six, like, or like.

• 1:20:22Speaker 01

  What are we defining as a hundred percent?

• 1:20:24Matt Farah?

  Like to, to drive a, like, like what time period in cars? Like maybe probably, could a regular person drive a car as fast as it could maybe go?

• 1:20:37Speaker 01

  Well, I think it was either between 1900 and 1920 when things were slow. Or maybe 2010 where traction control ABS technology had advanced, but we hadn't turbocharged everything.

• 1:20:53Matt Farah?

  I think you're, I think you're right there. So, but, but today the, the cars are so fast that, you know, most people shouldn't even turn off traction control. Um, you know, most of the time.

• 1:21:05Speaker 01

  And even, and if you drive it poorly, like Golf R has downstairs, has all the drive, all the sensors, and it's not 700 horsepower like McLaren. But if you go too fast into a corner, the, the, the technology can't save you from physics.

• 1:21:18Matt Farah?

  Right.

• 1:21:19Speaker 01

  So you're over a hundred percent, like you're at a hundred percent of throttle, but you're gonna crash anyway.

• 1:21:24Matt Farah?

  Yeah. I, I, I think the, the percentage of people who own cars and go to the racetrack is like pretty consistent across the board. Except for like a couple of specific groups, like Miata owners and GT3 owners, which are probably like above, you know?

• 1:21:43Matt Farah?

  So, you know, the percentage of, it's probably like, single digits.

• 1:21:49Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:21:50Matt Farah?

  Five, maybe five percent.

• 1:21:52Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:21:52Matt Farah?

  Where someone has the skill to drive within a couple of percentage points of a, of a pro.

• 1:21:57Speaker 01

  Yeah. And the number of people in each of these manufacturers listed, Corvette, Porsche, Ferrari, like that have that skill, which really means that they have become a gentleman driver of pretty high caliber.

• 1:22:10Matt Farah?

  Yeah.

• 1:22:11Speaker 01

  Cause they're still behind the pros. They're always behind the pros, but the, the gap narrows.

• 1:22:14Matt Farah?

  Yeah.

• 1:22:14Speaker 01

  I mean, that's like 30 people.

• 1:22:17Matt Farah?

  Like me and a pro could go almost the same speed in like, like star in a reasonably priced car. I could get pretty close to a pro.

• 1:22:26Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:22:27Matt Farah?

  But as you add horsepower and air, the, the gap gets bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger. So you start talking about like coning zigs and shit, you know? The, and, or even like Ferrari Challenge or Super Trofeo, the, or, or, or like quote pro racing, like Daytona, 24 hours Daytona. The lap time gap between the pro and the amateur is big.

• 1:22:51Speaker 01

  It's several seconds.

• 1:22:52Matt Farah?

  Yeah, it's big.

• 1:22:53Speaker 01

  And that's, that's good. If it's 10 seconds, that's not good.

• 1:22:55Matt Farah?

  Yeah, it's, it's big. So not very many is the answer. And, and, you know, if they took the time to learn to drive their cars to a hundred percent of their ability, they probably wouldn't be making enough money doing their real job to, to get that money in the first, you know, in the first place. What, who, what manufacturer has the highest and lowest percentage? I think here's the lowest percentage is like Shelby's.

• 1:23:25Matt Farah?

  I, there's, and I don't, not, and I think the GT350R is, is the, is the outlier, not the rule there. You never see a GT500 at the racetrack.

• 1:23:33Speaker 01

  No.

• 1:23:34Matt Farah?

  Never.

• 1:23:35Speaker 01

  And some of that is because the older ones braking and turning wasn't their forte. So that may be part of it. It doesn't, you're not, you don't feel comfortable trying to go around turns quickly in those cars. It's not fun.

• 1:23:45Matt Farah?

  Yeah.

• 1:23:45Speaker 01

  It's truly not fun.

• 1:23:46Matt Farah?

  You also don't see very many vipers at the racetrack.

• 1:23:49Speaker 01

  Yeah. Those feel spicy.

• 1:23:51Matt Farah?

  Yeah.

• 1:23:51Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's a good point.

• 1:23:52Matt Farah?

  Yeah. Queer shifting gears.

• 1:23:56Matt Farah?

  Oh, wait. What other cars use, what cars use tricky paint to change the shape of the car? For example, oh, the roof of the Mustang Mach-E and the lower third of the Luce.

• 1:24:07Speaker 01

  So I looked at like, I picked a random company, I typed in Mazda and like the profile of them, they paint the lower part of like the rocker black and it makes the whole car look a little bit slimmer.

• 1:24:19Matt Farah?

  Lexus does it on the roof of like all their crossovers.

• 1:24:21Speaker 01

  Lexus does it and the Ferrari Persingo, I think the bottom is black.

• 1:24:25Matt Farah?

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:24:26Speaker 01

  So they're always trying to shrink it.

• 1:24:27Matt Farah?

  That's the body on body.

• 1:24:28Speaker 01

  To make it look more like a svelte car than like a big, thick crossover.

• 1:24:33Matt Farah?

  A bunch of the crossovers are doing tricks to hide their battery packs. You know, they're, they're, they're, they do these, these tricks sort of at the, at the, where they hide the height of the door in various ways. So you don't see the extra like eight inches of, of battery pack in the floor, you know?

• 1:24:56Matt Farah?

  Okay, wait. What is, oh, Chris V wants to reupholster the seats in his Miata to make them mildly more bucket-y with better quality fabric for a daily driver. Uh, it would probably be cheaper to get an aftermarket Recaro, but I'm unsure if removing a factory seat with an airbag is a significant attraction to the safety of a car if a better built aftermarket seat can compensate.

• 1:25:26Matt Farah?

  Does the NC have airbags in the seat? I didn't even know that.

• 1:25:33Speaker 01

  I was saying, do aftermarket seats also come with airbags?

• 1:25:37Matt Farah?

  I don't think they do. I would, you know, I, I think that's the kind of question you could call Recaro and find out.

• 1:25:46Matt Farah?

  A Recaro racing seat is, is certainly going to hold you in place, although, you know, the, the removal of an airbag, if one exists, is definitely a point against.

• 1:25:57Speaker 01

  NC Miata's have side impact airbags.

• 1:26:00Matt Farah?

  In the seat or in the car?

• 1:26:01Speaker 01

  In the seat.

• 1:26:02Matt Farah?

  Okay. Well, I mean, look, I can't argue with not taking out safety equipment.

• 1:26:09Matt Farah?

  I, uh, I think you probably, but if you're talking about mildly, making them mildly more bucket-y, if you're talking about shaping the seat differently, you may inadvertently affect the effectiveness of that airbag.

• 1:26:23Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's true. Like I added bolstering to my STI back in the day without thinking about the side airbag. I mean, the, the, the bolstering was on the inside, not the outside where the airbag is, but like you should definitely do some research before you do that. Because if you get in a crash and something goes wrong with the airbag, and you're not going to be able to like sue the company or blame anyone because you have altered the seat. Like if you changed the, the middle of it, like I did, like my, my car has seat airbags. You know, change the center for more grippy fabric and then that doesn't disturb the airbag.

• 1:26:53Matt Farah?

  Yeah. Yeah, yeah. I would, I would just, exactly. Be careful with the thing you change. You had me at hell, Lotus. Very good. I love my manual Amira, but it's a little soft on track and there's not much aftermarket support. Yep. Should I replace it with a 991.1 GT3? Or a 991.2 manual GT3? That's a question for you to answer. Or keep it for weekends, drive it on the road and spend under 50K on a dedicated track car.

• 1:27:27Matt Farah?

  Ooh. I do like an Amira as a road car.

• 1:27:31Speaker 01

  It's a great road car. It's a really comfortable, plenty fun road car. And the, the thing with this is, if you brought, if you bought a GT3, pretty expensive car, depends on your bank account, of course, Mr. Lotus, Mrs. Lotus. Are you going to drive it hard on the track? Or are you always going to be worried about this like investment grade vehicle? $50,000 dedicated track car does come with compromises. Can you store it at the track? Do you have transportation for it, all that? But I'm sure you will go harder in the paint and probably learn more having that car that you're not worried about going off in the dirt, crashing, God forbid, or like driving really, really hard.

• 1:28:10Matt Farah?

  Right. A dedicated track car, especially if you like your Amira as a road car,

• 1:28:19Matt Farah?

  means you could probably buy something that's like pretty much ready to race and where there is a series to race it.

• 1:28:26Speaker 01

  Definitely.

• 1:28:27Matt Farah?

  Like a dedicated HPDE car seems silly, but a car that like either lives at the track or that you can easily store and tow and take care of. 50K goes a pretty long way. I mean, when I helped, uh, Tom Segura or Burt Kreischer buy a race car for Tom Segura, we bought like the nicest, most sordid Specky 46 that like money could buy. And it was like $44,000, I think. And you could show up and race that in any number of series, you know, right away. If you're one, if you're willing to buy something that is not even a, you know, road-based car,

• 1:29:09Matt Farah?

  like a Radical or, you know, some, an Elon or some kind of prototype thing, your money goes a really long way.

• 1:29:18Speaker 01

  Yeah. So we're on racingjunk.com. And so just for reference, maximum of 50 grand. So now it's like you can filter through, is it approved for SCCA? Is it approved for NASA, like Formula, whatever?

• 1:29:32Speaker 01

  Well, the price filter did not work very well, did it? It's still showing a bunch that are over that, like old NASCAR here. Spec, Spec E36 with an S54 swap. Great. $32,000.

• 1:29:44Matt Farah?

  Yeah.

• 1:29:45Speaker 01

  And is this championship winning? It is. It won the championship of Spec, uh, Spec M3.

• 1:29:50Matt Farah?

  You could show up in WRL or any, you know, any endurance series in America and, and race that car, no problem. So, um, you know, if you've got the space and the funds and you like the Amira as a road car, I would say buy a race car.

• 1:30:06Speaker 01

  Me too.

• 1:30:07Matt Farah?

  Dude, you could buy like an old fucking NASCAR for that.

• 1:30:11Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 1:30:11Matt Farah?

  Like you could buy some, an open wheel car. Look, Formula, what is that? Formula something? Formula Speed 2.0, $28,000 for like something that looks like an Indy car. Radicals.

• 1:30:22Speaker 01

  S190. I mean, some of these are so cheap, you could run them for years.

• 1:30:27Matt Farah?

  Boss 302 SCCA T1, 35K.

• 1:30:30Speaker 01

  That's great.

• 1:30:32Matt Farah?

  Yeah.

• 1:30:32Speaker 01

  That is so awesome.

• 1:30:34Matt Farah?

  Yeah. And you could have something that feels different from your Lotus as well.

• 1:30:38Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:30:38Matt Farah?

  Yeah. It probably won't be a Porsche, unless you want a Cayman. If you want a Cayman race car, you can get that for 50 grand.

• 1:30:46Matt Farah?

  Go buy a C4ZR1.

• 1:30:51Matt Farah?

  I used to race BMX and about 15 years ago, I got into collecting and restoring classic BMX bikes. What surprised me was the cute crossover between BMX and VW fans. Every group show I've been to has all manner of VWs. It made me wonder if there were other car crossovers you can think of that have enthusiast co-hobbies. Every Porsche event has like a hundred Leica cameras at it.

• 1:31:18Speaker 01

  Really?

• 1:31:19Matt Farah?

  Yeah. Everybody's got a fucking Leica.

• 1:31:21Speaker 01

  That's true. I mean, there's posts on like BMXmuseum.com, like why are VW and BMX things have to think? Like Scotto was really into BMX and then he got into VWs. And I think, uh, Adam LZ, same thing. I'm wondering, was it just like the Tully partnership?

• 1:31:36Matt Farah?

  It could have been.

• 1:31:37Speaker 01

  With the Volkswagen Wolfsburg Edition, like they were like, hey, we're bike people. And that grabbed everyone's attention. It could have been. It might have been that simple.

• 1:31:45Matt Farah?

  Yeah, absolutely could have been.

• 1:31:47Speaker 01

  You know, I mean, the cars were also kind of cheap. BMX, you usually are coming right out of like junior high and you're getting your first car. And the BMWs were, or sorry, the VWs were cool, inexpensive, but that's a great question. I don't know. Other car crossovers? I mean, Subaru and everyone who rides a bicycle?

• 1:32:05Matt Farah?

  Range Rovers and gun people. Also pickup trucks.

• 1:32:09Speaker 01

  Also pickup trucks. Yeah, a lot of Raptors at those events.

• 1:32:14Matt Farah?

  Uh, humid it titties.

• 1:32:15Speaker 01

  That's funny.

• 1:32:16Matt Farah?

  That's very good.

• 1:32:16Speaker 01

  Humid it titties.

• 1:32:18Matt Farah?

  I was surprised to learn that the Audi Q8 can tow almost 8,000 pounds. Seems unusually capable. Yeah, Cayenne, Cayenne can tow 7,800. Same, same kind of deal. Yeah, that is a priority for them. Um, I have to end this program now. I will save, uh, questions for next time. Thank you very much. We'll have two more shows this week, I believe. And Jethro is coming in on Friday, Thursday, Friday afternoon, Friday afternoon. Jethro's coming Friday afternoon.

• 1:32:48Speaker 01

  Cool.

• 1:32:49Matt Farah?

  Thanks, everybody. We appreciate you patrons. We love you very much. We'll see you next time. Goodbye.