Brett Berk

Brett Berk might be the busiest freelance journalist we know. He has the incredible power to drive one car and extract 3 interesting, unique stories from the experience. That's why he's driven Jaguar's new EV, a very special Bentley, driven cars on boats (yes, that's a thing), and toured factories. Patreon questions include: Best used AMG car for under $40k? Can we fix bad drivers? Will Aston make an entry-level mid-engine car? Cameras vs lidar Toddlers vs supercar owners Best bang-for-buck car EPA's move to 15% ethanol Do Alpina's last longer than BMWs? Are convertibles always worth more than coupes? Is car-themed luggage gauche? BRZ: best chassis you can buy under $100k? And more! Recorded March 31, 2026 Find links to all Brett's work here: https://muckrack.com/brett_berk http://brettberk.com/ DeleteMe Get 20% off your DeleteMe plan when you go to https://joindeleteme.com/TIRE and use promo code TIRE at checkout. Hello Fresh Go to https://HelloFresh.com/smokingtire10fm to Get 10 free meals + a FREE Zwilling Knife (a $144.99 value) on your third box. Offer valid while supplies last. Free meals applied as discount on first box, new subscribers only, varies by plan. Drive Season 4 Listen to Drive with Jim Farley Season 4 at https://lnk.to/drivewithjimfarleyPS!thesmokingtire Avants: Enter code “TST” to get 10% off your Avants membership https://www.avants.com/tst Enter to WIN a 2025 Porsche 911 Turbo S! Podcast Link: https://www.dreamgiveaway.com/tickets/porsche?promo=SMOKINGTIRE Get 4X bonus tickets with any donation of $25 or more. With every donation you are helping benefit some wonderful veterans' and children's charities. Use Podcast Promo Code: SMOKINGTIRE Promo Code Offer: Get 4X bonus tickets with any donation of $25 or more. With every donation you are helping benefit some wonderful veterans' and children's charities. New merch! Grab a shirt or hoodie and support us! https://thesmokingtireshop.com/ Want your question answered? To listen to the episode the day it's recorded? Want to watch the live stream, get ad-free podcasts, or exclusive podcasts? Join our Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/thesmokingtirepodcast Use Off The Record! and ALWAYS fight your tickets! For a 10% discount on your first case go to https://www.offtherecord.com/TST #cars #comedy #podcast Instagram: https://www. Instagram.com/thesmokingtire https://www. Instagram.com/therealzackklapman Click here for the most honest car reviews out there: https://www.youtube.com/thesmokingtire

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

• 0:00Matt Farah?

  What up everybody, welcome to the Smoke and Tire Podcast. This episode is brought to you as always by Off the Record. We love Off the Record over here. They are looking out for you wherever you are, 50 states if you get pulled over for a moving violation, big or small. Don't plead guilty, call Off the Record. They will arrange for a qualified attorney to represent you in your case and at a hugely high percentage, get those points off your record. Go to offtherecord.com/tst. That's offtherecord.com/tst. We'll give you 10% off all legal services booked through Off the Record. One more time, offtherecord.com/tst.

• 0:43Matt Farah?

  And also this morning, welcome to Avance. You guys know Avance, right? It's a quarterly print magazine, it's a cool editorial website and Instagram and they do awesome in-person events all over the US. I've known about Avance for a long time. My red car was even on the cover of their magazine. And now they've got a new membership program allowing you to save money on things that you're buying anyway, like tires. Avance members get 10% off a discount tire, plus an additional 10% off all Michelin and BF Goodrich. So, if you spend 1,500 bucks on a set of Cup 2s, you're going to save $300 just for being an Avance member. It's only $99 a year and it comes with a $70 Griot's Garage gift card, so it's basically

• 1:28Matt Farah?

  paying for itself right off the bat. Now you can use code TST for 10% off your membership. Go to avants.com/tst and use code TST to sign up. One more time, avance, A-V-A-N-T-S.com/tst and code TST for 10% off your Avance membership. And thank you to Avance for sponsoring the show today. All right, folks, on this episode, our old pal Brett Burke is in studio. He writes for Vanity Fair, Esquire, all kinds of different, very important, print publications. And as we learn on this episode, also, Super Yacht Weekly, or Monthly, or the magazine

• 2:13Matt Farah?

  where people buy yachts in. It's Brett Burke on the Smoke and Tire Podcast. It's like, I can't take vacations during the month of September and October, because it's just like, all the new cars are out, like the, all of the of the year tests, all that bullshit.

• 2:29Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:30Matt Farah?

  And like, they don't plan that shit early enough for me, so I just, I have to leave the months open, it's like, same for you, right, kind of?

• 2:36Speaker 01

  I mean, it just depends, you know? Uh, yeah, I mean, I never really think about things being busy or not busy, like, certain times of the year, I guess, are busier than others, but...

• 2:46Matt Farah?

  I went a really long time before observing that I shouldn't do, like, I did this job for like 18 years before, I was like, hey, you know-

• 2:53Speaker 01

  Maybe I never bothered to think about it.

• 2:55Matt Farah?

  You know, August through October, pretty fucking busy, I get a little crazy if we start doing it.

• 3:00Speaker 01

  Right, start taking vacations, yeah, that makes sense, I haven't really put it together, maybe I, yeah, maybe I should track these things more carefully.

• 3:05Matt Farah?

  No, but you do the thing, don't you do the thing where you go, you plan for like, being somewhere for three months and just line up all the press cars there?

• 3:13Speaker 01

  Yeah, I'm out here for like, uh, six weeks right now, this is the end of my time here, so yeah.

• 3:17Matt Farah?

  And you just do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do. So give me, give me your six car lineup.

• 3:19Speaker 01

  Okay, this year-

• 3:20Matt Farah?

  It's always good, because you write about, you write for rich people.

• 3:23Speaker 01

  Right. Uh, week one, uh, was Mercedes E53 AMG wagon.

• 3:31Matt Farah?

  Oh, that's probably lovely.

• 3:34Speaker 01

  It was really, really nice, yeah.

• 3:36Matt Farah?

  The 53's a real sweetheart, isn't it?

• 3:37Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 3:38Matt Farah?

  In line six for the win.

• 3:39Speaker 01

  Yeah, and like, you know, 40, 50 miles of electric range or something like that, if you want to plug it in.

• 3:44Matt Farah?

  Yeah, yeah, alright, okay.

• 3:45Speaker 01

  Then, um, McLaren, Artura, Cabrio, or whatever.

• 3:50Matt Farah?

  Sure, Spider, yeah, lovely.

• 3:52Speaker 01

  Uh, Lamborghini Temerario.

• 3:55Matt Farah?

  Mmm, that's a good time.

• 3:56Speaker 01

  Yeah, that was fun, which, of course, sprung a coolant leak and was-

• 4:00Matt Farah?

  Oh no, it did!

• 4:01Speaker 01

  Smoking the entire way down the, down the edgeless crest, everyone was like, pointing at me like, "Your car's on fire!" I was like, it's, it's a- We just heard this story from someone, I don't think I'm not-

• 4:10Matt Farah?

  Was it on fire, or was it steaming?

• 4:11Speaker 01

  It was steaming, yeah, it was steaming, but it looked like it was on fire.

• 4:14Matt Farah?

  Someone once thought my Countach was on fire, but it was steaming, so I'm glad to see things have improved.

• 4:18Speaker 01

  Rare occasions when it wasn't on fire, right? Yes, there's my ancient, uh...

• 4:24Matt Farah?

  Steam, okay.

• 4:25Speaker 01

  Still, uh, still, um, off Instagram since the election. Oh, got it, okay. So, I mean, you know, it's a placeholder. I'm still, I still exist as a person if someone wants to find me. This is an excellent, you know.

• 4:35Matt Farah?

  No, but like, good for you, though.

• 4:37Speaker 01

  Goodbye. Yeah, it's been great, actually. Yeah, that's how come I don't know what anyone's doing.

• 4:41Matt Farah?

  Do you use any social media?

• 4:42Speaker 01

  Mm-mm.

• 4:42Matt Farah?

  Great.

• 4:43Speaker 01

  No, I've gotten off entirely social media.

• 4:45Matt Farah?

  Any of the whole position you're in.

• 4:46Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's kind of exciting.

• 4:47Matt Farah?

  Fucking fabulous.

• 4:48Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's great. I live my life entirely incognito, like, no one knows where I am or what I'm doing.

• 4:53Matt Farah?

  But do you also have an attention span?

• 4:55Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, I'm already quite, I'm already quite, um, efficient and productive, because I write for a million outlets and have a lot of work to do all the time. But, um, yeah, now I like finish up, finish up my work sooner and I can do other things that I'm interested in.

• 5:09Matt Farah?

  Wait, let's go back. Temerario, because obviously I have no attention span, because I still have, I don't have social media on my phone. I do know, I don't have any social media, but I, but I do still exist on Instagram and...

• 5:20Speaker 01

  But you have to.

• 5:21Matt Farah?

  Yeah.

• 5:21Speaker 01

  That's your job.

• 5:22Matt Farah?

  I don't exist on Twitter anymore.

• 5:23Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah, I got rid of that when Elon bought it.

• 5:25Matt Farah?

  Deleted that and deleted all my tweets. Had all my tweets retroactively deleted.

• 5:29Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think I got, there was a period of time when I got kicked off of one of those for some reason. I couldn't log back in. It was like an old email account and I had to start over and then I was like, fuck this, this doesn't make any sense.

• 5:40Matt Farah?

  But, uh, okay, so Temerario.

• 5:42Speaker 01

  Temerario, uh, Dodechi Chilindri Spider. Um, then, what was after that? I think I had a RS3, the new RS3, and M2.

• 5:54Matt Farah?

  Oh, wow, okay.

• 5:55Speaker 01

  Right at the same time.

• 5:55Matt Farah?

  And now you drove up here in a Bentley.

• 5:57Speaker 01

  And I had a Spectre before, Spectre Black Badge before that, right.

• 6:01Matt Farah?

  Boy, have you had a luxurious six weeks. That's crazy. That's a run.

• 6:05Speaker 01

  Pretty high-quality, um, automotive lineup.

• 6:08Matt Farah?

  Yeah.

• 6:08Speaker 01

  For the whole, the whole time.

• 6:10Matt Farah?

  I mean, these are obviously very different cars, but...

• 6:12Speaker 01

  Totally, yeah.

• 6:13Matt Farah?

  Give me, uh, give me, uh, one love and one hate for each of those cars. Mercedes Wagon.

• 6:18Speaker 01

  Mercedes Wagon.

• 6:19Matt Farah?

  E53 Hybrid.

• 6:20Speaker 01

  Uh, let's see, I mean, it's a great all-rounder, like, it can do anything, right? Um, it's quick, it's luxurious, it's not, it's not flashy, um...

• 6:32Speaker 01

  I miss the V8, you know?

• 6:35Matt Farah?

  Sure.

• 6:35Speaker 01

  So maybe that's a negative.

• 6:36Matt Farah?

  The 6 is better than like the 4.

• 6:38Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 6:38Matt Farah?

  I drove the C53 Cabrio, which is a on-the-sly, awesome car.

• 6:46Speaker 01

  Oh, okay.

• 6:47Matt Farah?

  Something most people probably wouldn't think about when going, hey, actually, like, what's a pretty awesome car that nobody would think about?

• 6:54Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 6:54Matt Farah?

  The one I drove was a hundred thousand bucks, loaded.

• 6:57Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 6:57Matt Farah?

  Every option imaginable. C53, and not a hybrid.

• 7:01Speaker 01

  Right.

• 7:01Matt Farah?

  So it's that slick 6, it's on all the times, 400 and whatever horsepower. Lovely to drive.

• 7:07Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 7:07Matt Farah?

  Very nice.

• 7:08Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 7:09Matt Farah?

  Okay. And what's not good about it?

• 7:12Speaker 01

  I kind of miss the sound of the V8.

• 7:13Matt Farah?

  Sure, right. Okay, yeah, okay, yes, of course.

• 7:16Speaker 01

  Uh, let's see, what was that?

• 7:17Matt Farah?

  We've talked about our Tour a million times.

• 7:19Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 7:19Matt Farah?

  New shit.

• 7:20Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah. Temerario. Um, I mean, I think it, yeah, it goes, yeah, it looks great, it revs so high, um, super fun to drive up on Angeles Crest, and you know me, I'm not a very strong driver, but every so often I take a car up there.

• 7:34Matt Farah?

  It's a hero maker.

• 7:35Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 7:36Matt Farah?

  Temerario is a hero maker car, uh, a medium-grade driver can go real fucking fast in that thing.

• 7:42Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 7:42Matt Farah?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's really easy, really easy to go fast.

• 7:45Speaker 01

  Exactly, and so that's the kind of car that's good for me.

• 7:48Matt Farah?

  How nice, how nice is the jump from Huracan to Temerario ergonomics? The space, it's like, wow.

• 7:56Speaker 01

  So much more room in there.

• 7:57Matt Farah?

  I can see.

• 7:57Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 7:58Matt Farah?

  It's awesome.

• 7:59Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 7:59Matt Farah?

  I could go on a road trip in that.

• 8:01Speaker 01

  Yeah, I thought it was very comfortable, and yeah, you could put stuff in it, of course, it, you know, had a little issue with some sort of leak, so that was spraying or spraying clouds of steam or whatever.

• 8:12Matt Farah?

  It's probably fine.

• 8:13Speaker 01

  Yeah, exactly. Keeps your food warm. Keeps your food warm, exactly. You know, I put it in Eevee mode at the end, and that's, it's, that seemed to help.

• 8:18Matt Farah?

  You hit the pasta button.

• 8:22Matt Farah?

  It is a rice cooker.

• 8:23Speaker 01

  Right. It was, you know, uh, it's a challenge when something goes wrong up there on Angeles Crest, because, yeah, there's no reception.

• 8:30Matt Farah?

  No, now they have, do you, do you have, uh, do you, have you fucked with the iPhone satellite texting?

• 8:35Speaker 01

  Oh, I forgot about that.

• 8:36Matt Farah?

  That's what, that changed the game. Yeah, now you get a flat up there or something.

• 8:40Speaker 01

  Just call.

• 8:41Matt Farah?

  You can text AAA from up there with the iPhone satellite.

• 8:44Speaker 01

  That's true, I do have that feature.

• 8:45Matt Farah?

  You can see everyone at Good Vibes walking around like this, trying to find, trying to find the one satellite.

• 8:50Speaker 01

  Trying to find the one satellite.

• 8:51Matt Farah?

  Yeah, because the phone is all like, turn right.

• 8:52Speaker 01

  Hold it up in the sky or something, right, yeah.

• 8:54Matt Farah?

  You should, you should, you should try it.

• 8:56Speaker 01

  Okay, I'll try that out. Okay, I'll try that out.

• 8:58Matt Farah?

  It works for like regular texting too, you know, not for emergencies.

• 9:01Speaker 01

  Oh, okay. Yeah, I'm like, I don't want to use this.

• 9:03Matt Farah?

  No, no, no, it's not. No, for like the first little minute, it was for emergencies only.

• 9:07Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 9:08Matt Farah?

  And now you can use it all the time. It just like rips through your battery.

• 9:12Speaker 01

  Ah, okay.

• 9:12Matt Farah?

  So you have to remember like-

• 9:14Speaker 01

  Cause it's like seeking out like Starlink or something like that?

• 9:16Matt Farah?

  Apparently the difference between I can communicate with towers and I can communicate with satellites is like juice.

• 9:24Matt Farah?

  Horsepower, alright.

• 9:26Speaker 01

  Takes away all your batteries. Okay, that's good to know.

• 9:28Matt Farah?

  So the 12C, we drove that as well.

• 9:30Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 9:31Matt Farah?

  Did you love the 12C?

• 9:31Speaker 01

  I loved that car, yeah. I think that was probably my favorite of the whole run this time. I hadn't driven it in, uh, where were we? Like Luxembourg or Liechtenstein on the, on the, um, on the launch. Uh, but it was the regular, um, uh, the Berlinetta or whatever, um, as opposed to the Spider.

• 9:48Matt Farah?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 9:49Speaker 01

  Yeah, I thought it was fantastic. It's so, I mean, it's, you know, it's crazy. The proportions of it are crazy, right? Like the length of the hood and all that kind of stuff.

• 9:56Matt Farah?

  And then it's like not that big inside.

• 9:58Speaker 01

  Right, yeah. There's not that much room inside of it at all.

• 10:00Matt Farah?

  And there's like not much trunk either.

• 10:02Speaker 01

  Yeah, the trunk is small because the top goes to back there or something like that, right? Um, but yeah, uh, you know, feels much, no, does not feel small in the Trader Joe's parking lot, for sure. You're like, whoa, I'm already at the barricade, wow. I'm way back here. I'm like still out in traffic.

• 10:20Matt Farah?

  You get that carbon splitter and you have a curb stopper. Oh, boy, yikes.

• 10:24Speaker 01

  Yeah, but, uh, but, you know, on a, like a windy road or whatever, like, mm, yeah.

• 10:30Matt Farah?

  Fabulous.

• 10:31Speaker 01

  Yeah, really, really a great car.

• 10:33Matt Farah?

  Although if I'm honest, I think I, I think I like the 812 better.

• 10:36Speaker 01

  Oh, really?

• 10:37Matt Farah?

  I think I just like, because they drive pretty much the same.

• 10:40Speaker 01

  Yeah, I feel like the, the, the 12C or Dodichi Chalindri or whatever you want to call it, um, is more, is more my, my speed. For some, the 812 felt too aggressive.

• 10:50Matt Farah?

  It is, yeah, it is.

• 10:51Speaker 01

  I'm always looking for a car that I can like wear an ascot or imagine myself in an ascot and a captain's hat.

• 10:56Matt Farah?

  For sure.

• 10:56Speaker 01

  And I feel like that, that one works fast as hell.

• 10:59Matt Farah?

  You should have got the Morgan plus four. You could have ascotted the fuck out of it.

• 11:03Speaker 01

  I tried to get them to bring me one because wherever it is, do they keep it in Long Beach or is that, you guys' place?

• 11:09Matt Farah?

  No, they keep it at my place. It's in Gardena.

• 11:10Speaker 01

  Yeah, so I was like, it's a schlep, you know, like I have to like have a, have a separate car or someone get me, give me a ride out there. I was like, you guys can bring me one maybe. Like, oh yeah, we'll look into that. And that was, you know, eight weeks ago.

• 11:22Matt Farah?

  They should have probably just eaten the pill. It's not that expensive to have us deliver the car. We do it all the time.

• 11:30Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's what I figured. I never heard that from them. That's all right. It's not your fault.

• 11:33Matt Farah?

  I was just, you said Ascot. When you say Ascot, I go to one place.

• 11:38Speaker 01

  Right, exactly.

• 11:38Matt Farah?

  I'm straight at Morgan.

• 11:40Speaker 01

  That is a flat cap Ascot looking kind of thing.

• 11:42Matt Farah?

  I'm staring at that thing all the time. It's great.

• 11:45Speaker 01

  Yeah, I would like to drive it, so hopefully.

• 11:47Matt Farah?

  Now it's a BMW a little bit.

• 11:49Speaker 01

  Right, that's right.

• 11:50Matt Farah?

  The last Ford one?

• 11:52Speaker 01

  Uh, no, I don't think I drove that one.

• 11:55Matt Farah?

  It was a riot. It was great fun. I had such a great time with it. Zach and his wife went like full costumes. Tweed.

• 12:03Speaker 02

  I had the little, you know, newsy cap on and the vest and stuff. She got kind of dressed up like, you know, pinup style with lipstick and we went for a fun drive. And that's, that car is great for six tenths and lots of smiles. And people like seeing it. They wave to you.

• 12:16Speaker 01

  Exactly. Yeah. It's like, yeah, it's like a factory resto mod essentially.

• 12:21Matt Farah?

  Yeah, people have absolutely no clue what year it is. That could be a 67 or an 87.

• 12:27Speaker 01

  Someone might say the same thing about the people at Morgan. Right. To their credit, I guess, right?

• 12:33Matt Farah?

  I love Morgan. They're just, they're the fucking best. Yeah. 12C was awesome, but the one I drove was the red one. Did you have the red one?

• 12:39Speaker 01

  No, I had the, like, the kind of olive green with the terracotta interior.

• 12:44Matt Farah?

  Johnny had, yeah. Mine started with a six on the sticker. And, look, I will pay an enormous premium for a naturally aspirated V12. A really, really big one.

• 12:58Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 12:59Matt Farah?

  But a front engine Ferrari with a price tag starting with a six, maybe a little adjustable lumbar. Can we get, can we get a lumbar in this motherfucker for 600 Gs?

• 13:11Speaker 01

  And maybe something to, if you're wearing shorts, protect your knee from those speaker grills, which are like a cheese grater, you know? I was like...

• 13:20Matt Farah?

  I've got little, little skin left on my knee. Oh, what was it? I had a, it was, it had to have been my Corvette. Guys, taking a break for our friends HelloFresh supporting us today. Nothing hits like home cooking and HelloFresh makes it easy to do more of it this year with recipes that feel good and taste delicious night after night. You know, last night I literally gave my trainer, Sean, uh, my gym trainer, a course in meal prepping, helping him meal prep, uh, for his week. But I was also like, hey, you know, you could also just join HelloFresh. And that way you can have a hundred new recipes every week. Cuisine from around the world, meals that help you, uh, with extra protein in the gym.

• 14:05Matt Farah?

  Super, uh, super protein recipes each week, including Mediterranean options. There's wholesome ingredients, good sustainably sourced seafood, antibiotic and hormone free chicken. And he was like, that's okay, Matt. That sounds really good. But why don't you just cook this dinner for me and that'll be like meal prep? And it, and that's what I did. Uh, but, but I really did recommend the HelloFresh for him because it is so easy. If you like, love cooking, but you don't like the annoying parts of cooking, such as going to the store, figuring out what to make, buying more food than you need and having to waste some of it because you gotta buy a whole thing of spices for like one recipe. HelloFresh is your jam. And now they're throwing in all this good stuff.

• 14:49Matt Farah?

  They've got new grass fed steak rib eyes. They've got seasonal produce like pears, apples and asparagus. And there's now three times the seafood for no upcharge. Um, but like I said, I love cooking it. Uh, the recipe cards are good to keep around if you wanted to make multiples of the original recipe for a crowd. And, uh, when I am busy and I don't have time for the shopping or the thinking, but I still want to cook a fresh meal at home, HelloFresh is it. Go to hellofresh.com slash smoking tire 10 FM to get 10 free meals plus a free Zwilling knife, $145 value on your.

• 15:30Matt Farah?

  Third box, offer valid while supplies last. Free meals applied as discount on first box. New subscribers only, varies by plan. One more time, hellofresh.com/smokingtire10fm. That's smoking tire 10 FM to get 10 free meals and that's willing knife. Also supported today by Delete Me, making it quick, easy and safe to remove your personal data online at a time when surveillance and data breaches are common enough to make everyone vulnerable. Data brokers are out there making a profit off of your data. The way it works is you buy something and then you have to give them your data to send you the thing, but then they sell your data to the next guy. That's just how the internet works now.

• 16:15Matt Farah?

  And those guys are called data brokers and they'll sell your data to anyone, right? This can lead to identity theft, phishing attempts, harassment, spam calls, all of that stuff, but now you can protect your privacy with Delete Me, right? All you have to do is sign up for Delete Me and I'll tell you how at the end, but you give them the information, right? You tell them your address, your phone number, your email, your job, your brothers, your sister, your cousin, your former roommate, your old addresses, whatever you can think of, and then they go looking for that information on data broker websites. They then come back with you a couple of weeks later with a probably scary, it's going to be scary how much of your information you'll find, particularly the first time

• 16:59Matt Farah?

  you run a Delete Me search. But like, they'll come back with it and they'll delete a lot of it automatically, they'll click a couple of things here and there, have to do a couple small proactive steps to file these takedown notices and then Delete Me will keep going. It's not a one-time service, they're always looking out for you. They're gonna keep going and then a couple of weeks later, they're gonna send you another email and there's gonna still be more stuff, it's gonna be less than before and then on and on and on and eventually that number gets to be really low, but it never gets to zero because they're always, we're always shopping and they're always in there, so Delete Me is on the game, so don't worry about it. Take control of your data, keep your private life private.

• 17:40Matt Farah?

  By signing up for Delete Me now at a special discount for our listeners. Get 20% off your Delete Me plan when you go to joindelete.me/tire and use promo code tire at checkout. The only way to get 20% off is to go to joindelete.me/tire and enter code tire at checkout. That's joindelete.me/tire code tire. And now, back to the show. I think it was my C5 Corvette that had speaker grills that were so cheese gratery. And I had the car for so long that like, and I, you know, obviously would wear short.

• 18:18Matt Farah?

  Over the 18 years, like, and like a, like a stain from my skin on the metal speaker grill was like the size and angle like of my calf.

• 18:33Speaker 02

  Imagine Larry Casilla video like how to clean skin off a car and the FBI shows up like, alright, we all knew.

• 18:39Matt Farah?

  The speaker grill is literally like that tool they use when you're getting a pedicure. It's just that, but it says bows on it.

• 18:46Speaker 01

  Totally true. What was after the, the, oh, I had the RS3 and M2.

• 18:54Matt Farah?

  Those are a good time. It probably feels like a real downgrade after the Ferrari, but.

• 18:58Speaker 01

  I mean, yeah, in some ways, but also like, you know, easy to get around. Exactly. Much easier to park a Trader Joe's for both of them. And then I had the.

• 19:07Matt Farah?

  The Spectre is the opposite of that.

• 19:09Speaker 01

  The Spectre is the opposite. I know. It's like driving like a Yukon, like a two-door Yukon.

• 19:12Matt Farah?

  You have to yell attacking every time you make a right.

• 19:15Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 19:16Matt Farah?

  Was it painted an insane color?

• 19:18Speaker 01

  It was like a kind of crazy, um, kind of Caribbean blue, kind of.

• 19:25Matt Farah?

  Well, I do like, I do like that a lot.

• 19:27Speaker 01

  Metallic Caribbean blue.

• 19:28Matt Farah?

  That's a good time. Yeah.

• 19:29Speaker 01

  With some black gloss wheels. I was like, these wheels are bat shit. I'm like, no, they actually look like bats swaying around trying to take a shit.

• 19:37Matt Farah?

  Fucking, I hate, I almost, I kind of hated the Spectre until the very last day I had it. I didn't hate it. I just like, a gas Rolls Royce is so smooth already. That as much as an electric Rolls Royce makes obvious sense, it's such an incremental change in refinement. But the car has to be like, because we have a, we have two wraiths that live here.

• 20:01Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 20:02Matt Farah?

  So you park it next to a wraith and you go, oh, this wraith is awfully tidy, isn't it? You know, and, uh, but then the last day I was going home, coming home from something late at night. And I put all the windows down. It was like a warm night coming down the highway from Hollywood.

• 20:17Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 20:17Matt Farah?

  And I was like blasting something at full fucking volume.

• 20:21Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 20:21Matt Farah?

  And like, I had like the shooting star ceiling going and I was like,

• 20:27Matt Farah?

  yeah, like I could, I could,

• 20:29Speaker 01

  It's a pretty baller car.

• 20:30Matt Farah?

  Oppress people for this.

• 20:31Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's a, it's a, I think it's, I mean, I, I love the idea of electric Rolls, you know,

• 20:35Matt Farah?

  Sure, of course.

• 20:36Speaker 01

  It makes perfect sense. And, um, I was talking to the, actually to the Chair of Rolls this morning because I'm doing a story for the Times about their current product strategy, you know, they're expanding, expanding Goodwood significantly. But, um, not expanding production, they're just expanding like bespokeery. Uh, which is, you know, a, a device for extracting maximum profit from their, from their, from their clients.

• 21:03Matt Farah?

  So I, maybe by the, maybe by the time this show goes out to the public, I, I just wrote my column for Road and Track this month about my opinion that income inequality is kind of ruining cars.

• 21:14Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 21:15Matt Farah?

  And it's not ruining cars just because rich people are buying shit.

• 21:18Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 21:19Matt Farah?

  That is, that's the thing, but also it's, it's when automakers realize that like, yo, there's like 1,500, there's like 3,500 billionaires in the world.

• 21:30Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 21:31Matt Farah?

  Let's say half of them are quote car enthusiasts, that's generous, but let's call it half, 1,500, 1,700 people, 700 families. When you're pivoting an entire business model to service that few people globally with a corporation that size. And it's not like Rolls Royce ever made cars for everybody, but like when you're, when your regular customers are like, you know, not being invested in for these very small, and it's happening at Aston Martin, it's happening at Ferrari and Lamborghini and Lamb, you know, Ferrari just bonused out their workers, uh, and, uh, because they made so much profit, but, but they made it on, on fewer cars.

• 22:11Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 22:11Matt Farah?

  So like, You know, when all the companies start to chase this very small number of people to just buy everything.

• 22:20Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 22:20Matt Farah?

  Everyone else, even the normally rich, you know, get kind of fucked.

• 22:26Speaker 01

  Yeah. Yeah, no, it's a really interesting point. And, um, you know, it's a, it's a money grab, obviously, right? Like, this is where the money is right now.

• 22:34Matt Farah?

  Sure.

• 22:35Speaker 01

  And, you know, the horror of it for the foreseeable future.

• 22:38Matt Farah?

  Imagine Bugatti opens in even more bespoke, it's like this company makes.

• 22:43Speaker 01

  There it is.

• 22:43Matt Farah?

  I know, I'm saying, no, imagine, I didn't say imagine, I mean, like, this is what's going on.

• 22:48Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 22:48Matt Farah?

  Where a fucking, you know, a special version of a Chiron, the tech noir jackoff edition, like, isn't enough anymore, you know? You can't have the special version of a car we make a hundred a year of. Instead, there's this new division.

• 23:05Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 23:05Matt Farah?

  And we only make three.

• 23:06Speaker 01

  Right, or one, you know?

• 23:08Matt Farah?

  You know, like.

• 23:09Speaker 01

  Exactly. And then they're like, yeah. And, uh, yeah, I was talking to an analyst for a story about just this. I think it was for Road and Track, actually, maybe it was for Car and Driver, I can't remember.

• 23:20Matt Farah?

  Was it the numbers issue of Road and Track that we just came out with?

• 23:23Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 23:24Matt Farah?

  That sounds numbery.

• 23:25Speaker 01

  I can't remember, it might have been. Whatever it was, it was just.

• 23:27Matt Farah?

  Go to the new numbers issue of Road and Track on newsstand now, go ahead.

• 23:30Speaker 01

  But, yeah, it was essentially like, you know, profit on, on that segment is like 50 to 80% or something like that. So it's like, why would they, why would they, they're just, you know, they realize like, oh, we can, we can extract another, you know, one to two to $300,000 per transaction, per client.

• 23:47Matt Farah?

  It's like they've started a Patreon.

• 23:49Speaker 01

  Right.

• 23:53Matt Farah?

  I get it, business is gonna be business, right? Shareholders need maximum value, like, I get it.

• 24:00Speaker 01

  No, I'm not saying it's good.

• 24:02Matt Farah?

  It's just, it's crazy to me that, like, for, for 1,500 families globally, there are more choices in seven-figure vehicles right now than there are in, like, five-figure enthusiast cars. Like, what the fuck is that about? Like, that's crazy.

• 24:19Speaker 01

  No, it is crazy.

• 24:20Matt Farah?

  I just want to discourage.

• 24:23Matt Farah?

  You know, it's like, it's like, I get it, but it's also like sort of morally objectionable to change your business model to that.

• 24:29Speaker 01

  Yes, I agree. And yeah, and you know, obviously, this is driving up everything, right? Like, there's very few affordable vehicles for people who need cars, and most Americans do, and then drives up the price.

• 24:40Matt Farah?

  Don't worry, Bezos will solve it.

• 24:41Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah. He's got it. I trust that guy.

• 24:44Matt Farah?

  He's got your best interests.

• 24:45Speaker 01

  Yeah, he's always thinking about me. He's always thinking about others. That's what he's so great for.

• 24:50Matt Farah?

  That's what he does.

• 24:51Speaker 01

  Yeah. Those guys are all the best.

• 24:52Matt Farah?

  Um, but like, when I was driving the Spectre, I found, unlike any other car, you drive the craziest car, you get mad, and people are like, "What the fuck is that? How fast does it go?", blah, blah. The Spectre, it's, "What do you do for a living? How'd you get that money?". That's what everybody was asking me when I was driving the Spectre.

• 25:09Speaker 01

  Wow, that's interesting.

• 25:10Matt Farah?

  Did that not happen to you? Guys, taking a break from the action because support is coming in fast, like Jim Farley, the CEO of Ford, who's now got a podcast. And you're always asking me what I'm listening to when not recording this show, and right now, it's this, the new season of Drive with Jim Farley. In it, the Ford CEO talks to some of his favorite people about what they're driving and what drives them to succeed, like Formula One driver Daniel Ricciardo. Listen, there's a well-worn trope about racing drivers not being interesting to listen to, but if there is one that is interesting to listen to, it is Daniel Ricciardo. I think this guy's

• 25:50Matt Farah?

  takes on stuff and life are great. And, look, Jim is a racing driver also. I personally raced against him like two months ago. And it, for me, a CEO that drives race cars on the weekends is about the pinnacle of CEO-dom when it comes to car companies. So, the two of them together obviously have a lot of things to discuss on Drive with Jim Farley, which you can get on your podcast app. Very easy to find, Drive with Jim Farley. Check it out.

• 26:23Speaker 01

  People were asking, "Is that electric?", like, when I'm parked at a charger with it plugged in. Yes.

• 26:29Speaker 02

  I understand that question, because they're like, otherwise are you just a rich person taking the spot?

• 26:33Speaker 01

  Right, taking a spot, yeah, exactly. I know, that's what I was thinking, I was like, I want to make sure everyone sees me plugging this in.

• 26:38Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 26:39Matt Farah?

  You just saw your dash, I'm not a dickbag, it's electric.

• 26:42Speaker 01

  It's not mine!

• 26:44Matt Farah?

  It's so funny, dude. I saw a guy with a fucking Aventador, a guy parked in Aventador at an Electrify America charger, the one in Malibu.

• 26:53Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 26:53Matt Farah?

  Right behind, uh, where the, like, the lobster place over there. And, uh, I saw a cop yelling at this guy, and he was trying to tell the cop, "No, it's a hybrid," and he's like, "Show me the charging port." "Where's the charging port?" And the guy, like, obviously it didn't have one, so he's like, "Oh, it's in the trunk." And I just walked by, I yelled, "They don't make that in a hybrid!" And he walked away.

• 27:17Speaker 01

  Throw him under the bus.

• 27:18Matt Farah?

  Oh, you fucking asshole.

• 27:20Speaker 01

  Yeah, exactly. Uh, yeah, and then I just got the, uh, this Bentley, uh, Continental GT convertible Azure.

• 27:27Matt Farah?

  I went downstairs, I'm like, "This is lovely," but it says Azure on it, which is a revival of the name.

• 27:34Speaker 01

  It's a package of some sort, right?

• 27:36Matt Farah?

  It's got Cool Wheels.

• 27:36Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's got Cool Wheels.

• 27:37Matt Farah?

  Cool top.

• 27:38Speaker 01

  Cool top, uh, really nice color, it looks like it's black, but it's a real dark, dark metallic green.

• 27:43Matt Farah?

  Yeah, it's Hampton'sy, real Hampton'sy.

• 27:46Speaker 01

  Pretty dark green and cream-colored interior, it's got piano cream, like, instead of piano black, so you can touch it all you want, it doesn't, you don't see every picture.

• 27:56Matt Farah?

  I gotta go look at that again, I did not notice the piano cream.

• 27:58Speaker 01

  Piano cream, right. I don't know if that's what it's called, I have to look on the spec sheet.

• 28:01Matt Farah?

  My favorite Bentley dash material is the granite. Have you gone to one with granite?

• 28:06Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 28:06Matt Farah?

  That shit's crazy.

• 28:08Speaker 01

  I love the idea of stone in cars.

• 28:10Matt Farah?

  Oh, like, Ralph Nader is probably like, "What the fuck?"

• 28:14Speaker 01

  How did they figure this out?

• 28:15Matt Farah?

  Yeah, what happens if your head impacts this, I don't know, it looks fabulous, though.

• 28:19Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, and some of it is... But there were some car where they had it like backlit, like it was like really thinly sliced and some sort of stone and it was backlit. Maybe it was, maybe it was something Rolls Royce.

• 28:30Matt Farah?

  That sounds like Rolls Royce. That's crazy. That's like when you, when you go to like a, like a spa, a spa and they have like the wall made of like salt rock.

• 28:38Speaker 01

  Yeah, exactly.

• 28:39Matt Farah?

  Is that salt rock?

• 28:40Speaker 01

  Yeah, there's salt. Yeah, exactly.

• 28:41Matt Farah?

  I think Rob Ferretti got a salt rock wall in his, in his house. He built this. It's like, that's a thing people do, right?

• 28:48Speaker 01

  Yeah. Yeah. It's supposed to heal your ions or something.

• 28:51Matt Farah?

  Yeah, and you can lick it.

• 28:53Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 28:54Matt Farah?

  You need to like.

• 28:55Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 28:56Matt Farah?

  Yeah, no, I think, I think Rob did get a salt.

• 28:58Speaker 01

  Grind your margarita glass in there. Right.

• 29:02Matt Farah?

  That would be.

• 29:02Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 29:03Matt Farah?

  Amazing.

• 29:03Speaker 01

  Right.

• 29:05Matt Farah?

  I wonder if there's a way to do that.

• 29:06Speaker 01

  I don't know. You're probably not supposed to be drinking in the sauna or the steam room. Right. It's probably not, not optimal.

• 29:12Matt Farah?

  It helps with the schwitz.

• 29:13Speaker 01

  Yeah, it helps with the schwitz.

• 29:14Matt Farah?

  Um, so, all right. In this, in this insane, you know, lineup of cars you're driving, are we parking them on the street?

• 29:23Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 29:24Matt Farah?

  Airbnb and you're in your Airbnb.

• 29:26Speaker 01

  In my Airbnb, yeah, in Silver Lake.

• 29:27Matt Farah?

  Silver Lake, okay.

• 29:28Speaker 01

  And the, um, so there's, you know.

• 29:30Matt Farah?

  And the neighbors, are they being, have they been inquisitive?

• 29:32Speaker 01

  The neighbors are somewhat inquisitive. This is our fifth year in the same spot, so they've gotten a little bit accustomed, but there's a, there's a family that lives across the street. And, uh, the woman, the family, they have like three kids, maybe two boys and a girl, or two girls and a boy, whatever it is. The girls sell Girl Scout cookies, so we always arrive around this time of year. So I ran into the mom and I was getting some Girl Scout cookies from her and she was like, "Oh, you, you guys are here. The boys have been looking up and down the street for the past few weeks to see if you're coming, cause they know you come during cookie season."

• 30:05Matt Farah?

  So you take them for rides?

• 30:06Speaker 01

  Uh, I've, I've offered, but you know, uh.

• 30:09Matt Farah?

  Found those kids.

• 30:10Speaker 01

  Yeah, I know, exactly.

• 30:12Matt Farah?

  This kid, this guy's got cookies and a Rolls Royce?

• 30:17Speaker 02

  They're like, no, we've gotten in that van before. You're like, no, no, I'm an auto journalist.

• 30:21Speaker 01

  Right, yeah, exactly. But, uh, yeah, no, the, and the, yeah, the neighbors are sort of like, I mean, when I had, I had the M2 and the RS3 at the same time, one of the neighbors was walking by, he was like, are these both yours? And I was like, yeah, you know, this week.

• 30:33Matt Farah?

  Yeah.

• 30:33Speaker 01

  And he's like, well, I had a first gen RS3 and I'm thinking about getting a new one, like, but I'm also cross shopping the M2, which one do you like better? We had like a whole conversation about, you know, it's part of the job, right?

• 30:43Matt Farah?

  Yeah, yeah, of course. Yeah, you have to be that guy.

• 30:45Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 30:46Matt Farah?

  I, every time I have any new electric vehicle, there's an older woman who lives up the street from me that drives like a real old Model S that she got new.

• 30:55Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 30:56Matt Farah?

  And so anytime I have anything electric, she like, within 10 minutes of me parking, because I have to drive by her house to get to mine.

• 31:03Speaker 01

  She sees you.

• 31:04Matt Farah?

  She must have some kind of alert set up because she like runs up to my house.

• 31:09Speaker 01

  She's got your face loaded into it.

• 31:10Matt Farah?

  Is that the, is that the R1S? And she got to know everything.

• 31:14Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 31:14Matt Farah?

  Everything about it.

• 31:15Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 31:15Matt Farah?

  So it's, it's funny.

• 31:16Speaker 01

  It is funny. Yeah. The, one of the neighbors asked, he was like, do people look at you funny when you drive around in these cars? I was like, a middle-aged Jewish guy driving a fancy car in Los Angeles isn't that weird, you know? And he was like, what about here in Silver Lake? I was like, yeah, they, you know, they look, they sneer, but I can tell that they love it.

• 31:33Matt Farah?

  It's funny when you drive cars like that around this town or New York or Miami versus like a lot of other places, you know?

• 31:40Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 31:40Matt Farah?

  It's like the, you know, you drive a Carrera in Ohio and you are a rock star, you know, here versus, uh, you know, whatever. That was like us, that was like us on the boat in a, like this boat that we rented, you know, it's like a million dollar boat, right? And like, holy shit, there's a million dollar boat, but there's like 10,000 of them down here. You're like, no, this is the Ford Taurus of these.

• 32:02Speaker 02

  Well, now we used to park next to some boats that were like 200 foot yacht, you know, with tender boats and all this crazy stuff. It was wild. Same parking lot.

• 32:10Speaker 01

  Right.

• 32:11Matt Farah?

  Yeah. When you watch a mega yacht roll up and like, you know, open, it's like thing, like the space shuttle and like drop out, you know, another huge boat.

• 32:20Speaker 01

  A boat that's like twice as big as the boat you've been living on.

• 32:22Matt Farah?

  Yeah, a 46 foot, you know, like rib boat that like Navy SEALs use and they're using to like go to dinner on shore, basically is what most of them do.

• 32:31Speaker 01

  I used to write for this magazine called Showboats International.

• 32:35Matt Farah?

  Get the fuck out of here. Now that's living.

• 32:37Speaker 01

  Yeah, I did their car column for years.

• 32:39Matt Farah?

  You wrote about cars for Showboat? I thought you were gonna say you wrote about boats.

• 32:42Speaker 01

  No, I've done a little bit of boat writing here and there, but not that much. But um, yeah, they had, we did some feature one time. It was about like the kinds of cars that you would have on your super yacht. Like to drive around the boat.

• 32:55Matt Farah?

  Like to drive a lap of the deck?

• 32:58Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 32:58Matt Farah?

  I think you'd need like a go-kart.

• 33:00Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 33:00Matt Farah?

  I know showboats. For sure. Showboats is a real airport favorite.

• 33:04Speaker 01

  Is it? Yeah. I was gonna say, it's a real airport reward paradigm for like rich people. It's got, yeah, it's got like, you know, thousands of pages of like, you know, eight, nine, 10 figure. What size car would fit on a boat and be able to drive around a boat?

• 33:17Matt Farah?

  You'd need, you'd need a boat that's.

• 33:19Speaker 01

  They had like, you know, people would have like a Jolly or an electric Jolly or something like that.

• 33:24Matt Farah?

  A teal P50, you could probably do.

• 33:27Speaker 01

  Yeah, a little like electric thing. I can't remember. There was another, there was another vehicle. Right. A gem. Yes, a gem.

• 33:32Matt Farah?

  I'd like to have like an Ernest Goes to Camp three-wheeled golf cart from like the late 70s. I think that would be appropriate.

• 33:40Speaker 01

  With a, with a Rolls-Royce grill. You need the. And the tiller to steer in the front.

• 33:44Matt Farah?

  Do you remember the guy from Venice when I was living in Venice? Like my neighbor? He was buddies with Nino. There's just this guy. He was about, he was a real meathead. He looked good. Big fucking guy, you know, pointy beard, of that ilk.

• 33:58Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 33:58Matt Farah?

  Uh, and he rolled around, he got, he got like a 70s Rolls-Royce golf cart.

• 34:05Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 34:06Matt Farah?

  And upgraded the powertrain to be something a little better. But it was a golf, it was a full-on 70s. On the roof, it had tassels.

• 34:14Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 34:14Matt Farah?

  The whole way. And this dude just rolled it around Venice like it was his car.

• 34:19Speaker 01

  That was his regular vehicle.

• 34:20Matt Farah?

  No registration, parked that motherfucker wherever he felt like.

• 34:23Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 34:24Matt Farah?

  Nobody cared. The cops let him do whatever. It was like, oh, that's, that's Josh. Yeah, of course. Of course, that's Rolls-Royce Josh. It's just just his Rolls-Royce golf cart. Like he, he put it wherever.

• 34:35Speaker 01

  That's what he does, right?

• 34:36Matt Farah?

  Yeah, it was great. You'd see him rolling with like three, four girls on that thing. It was, it was a good time for him.

• 34:41Speaker 01

  Yeah. I guess they have those laws now, right? Where you can have like one of, you can license some of those vehicles, right?

• 34:47Matt Farah?

  Yeah, you can drive them on roads 35 miles an hour and less.

• 34:50Speaker 01

  Right.

• 34:50Matt Farah?

  So like all of Manhattan Beach or all of like Santa Monica and shit.

• 34:54Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 34:55Matt Farah?

  That's what the electric Manx is eventually going to be.

• 34:58Speaker 01

  Right, when and if that comes to fruition.

• 35:00Matt Farah?

  I think it will, I just think it's it's more like building a car than it is like building a golf cart.

• 35:06Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 35:07Matt Farah?

  Because like despite those laws, they're they intend to sell them in places that don't have those laws and you can it's gonna be a thing that can go 80 miles an hour.

• 35:17Speaker 01

  Right.

• 35:17Matt Farah?

  It's gonna be restricted where legally required, but like they're building like mostly a whole car.

• 35:23Speaker 01

  Right.

• 35:23Matt Farah?

  So it's just like hard.

• 35:27Speaker 01

  Didn't you buy a Manx?

• 35:28Matt Farah?

  Uh, yeah, I have the I have the airplane engine.

• 35:30Speaker 01

  Right.

• 35:30Matt Farah?

  Which is just the greatest thing ever. You should drive it.

• 35:34Speaker 01

  Yeah, I would like to.

• 35:35Matt Farah?

  How long, how much longer are you here?

• 35:37Speaker 01

  Hmm, I leave on next Monday, Monday the 6th.

• 35:39Matt Farah?

  Oh, you have time?

• 35:40Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 35:40Matt Farah?

  Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, no, you should drive it.

• 35:42Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 35:42Matt Farah?

  It's the it's the best thing ever. Your audience, your rich people will like it.

• 35:47Speaker 01

  Yeah, rich people like it, yeah.

• 35:48Matt Farah?

  Yeah, no, it's amazing, it's amazing. It's the it's by far the coolest thing I've driven in a long time.

• 35:52Speaker 01

  Well, that's exciting.

• 35:53Matt Farah?

  Yeah.

• 35:54Speaker 01

  Sometimes we gotta make it real weird, right?

• 35:56Matt Farah?

  You and I, I mean, once you've tried everything else, like what's what's left? Airplane engine fucking dude, all right, that makes sense, you know?

• 36:04Speaker 01

  Have you had it out on the sand and stuff?

• 36:06Matt Farah?

  No, mine's set up for road driving.

• 36:08Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 36:08Matt Farah?

  Mine's like a they is they call it the tarmac height, so it's it's got independent reservoir shocks and all this good stuff, but it's it's lower and it's on like regular road tires, so.

• 36:18Speaker 01

  And is that license to drive wherever you want, or is that one of these like 35 mile per hour things?

• 36:22Matt Farah?

  No, it's um, the gasoline powered Manxes are all um classic Beetle restomod. So it's a 71 Beetle, so no emissions, no anything. It's it's on a Cali black tag, it's proper, yeah. Paid taxes on that motherfucker, no shady registration. Here, no, we're going, it was full California. I got the license plate radial.

• 36:44Speaker 01

  Oh.

• 36:45Matt Farah?

  It's awesome.

• 36:45Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 36:46Matt Farah?

  It's really good.

• 36:46Speaker 01

  Oh, that was available, I guess, yeah.

• 36:48Matt Farah?

  All the.

• 36:49Speaker 01

  For a plane, maybe for a plane license, right, yeah, right.

• 36:51Matt Farah?

  All the airplane engine cars running around in LA and I missed out.

• 36:57Matt Farah?

  Yeah, I know. So anyway, yeah, you must drive it.

• 36:59Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 37:00Matt Farah?

  When you have written about boats, have you done it from experience? Or have you just seen a spec sheet and a release?

• 37:06Speaker 01

  Most of the time, it's something like that. And then, I'm not really a big boat person. I did go on a cruise on the biggest boat, biggest cruise ship in the world.

• 37:15Matt Farah?

  Oh, you went on that shit?

• 37:16Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 37:17Matt Farah?

  Which, whatever of the seas?

• 37:18Speaker 01

  I kind of disease, we called it, right?

• 37:20Matt Farah?

  Was it the Gary Steingart piece about that? Not to sideswipe you, but it was so fucking funny.

• 37:27Speaker 01

  He did a story about that a little while later.

• 37:29Matt Farah?

  It was called like crying or something.

• 37:31Speaker 01

  Yeah, no, it was really, it was quite sad. It was quite sad, his experience. I like to say, I brought my partner with me on there and he and I, we were like, we came back and people were like, "What was it like?" And we were like, "It was terrible, but we had a great time."

• 37:48Matt Farah?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, if you're just there to observe the garbage, then, I mean, there's joy in that, for sure.

• 37:56Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's kind of never near.

• 37:57Matt Farah?

  As long as there's someone there to laugh with you. That's why Gary was so sad.

• 38:00Speaker 01

  Right, exactly.

• 38:01Matt Farah?

  He tried alone.

• 38:02Speaker 01

  I had Tal there with me and we were just like, you know, we started drinking as soon as we got up and we didn't talk to anyone else. And I think that was the way to do it.

• 38:10Matt Farah?

  Oh, he tried, yeah, he tried interacting.

• 38:12Speaker 01

  No, I'm not there to make friends. I'm not in most places to make friends, but certainly not on a cruise ship.

• 38:17Matt Farah?

  Well, if you're stuck on one by yourself, you really have no choice but to try.

• 38:20Speaker 01

  That's just like a setup for sadness.

• 38:22Matt Farah?

  Well, our good friend Christian Hand, who is, you know, fucking amazing at what he does, you know, does his like music breakdowns. He's now, he just went on the I Love the 80s Cruise and the I Love the 90s Cruise to work, to do, to do shows. And he said like, "The shows were amazing and a cruise ship full of people who love music is the best possible version of a cruise ship."

• 38:47Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 38:47Matt Farah?

  You know, but, he said, he's like, "When I was on stage doing the gigs, like 400-seat room, great audio, engaged audience, like, loved it." He's like... Then I was on a cruise.

• 38:59Speaker 01

  Right.

• 39:00Matt Farah?

  He's like, and they tried to throw me like a bone, like I only had to do a gig every other day. And he's like, can I do seven gigs a day?

• 39:07Speaker 01

  I need to stay busy, so I'm not like standing around here.

• 39:10Matt Farah?

  Can I do this all day long? And he showed me his like Apple Health thing and he walked 20,000 steps a day on a boat.

• 39:18Speaker 01

  Yeah, that boat I was on was like a quarter mile long or something like that and 20 stories tall. I mean, it was, there was like 10, it could sleep 10,000 people or something like that.

• 39:27Matt Farah?

  We, we saw even small cruise ships on our like little boat.

• 39:30Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 39:30Matt Farah?

  And we were just like, fucking, oh God, no.

• 39:33Speaker 01

  It's like a skyscraper turned on its side or something. They're gigantic.

• 39:36Matt Farah?

  I, I understand why people love it.

• 39:38Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 39:39Matt Farah?

  I just can't do it.

• 39:39Speaker 01

  No, it's not, it's not really for me. Every time I get on a boat, actually, I feel like I'm someone's captive. And I feel like that's what people who have boats want you to feel like.

• 39:48Speaker 02

  Because of the implication.

• 39:50Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 39:51Matt Farah?

  Yeah. Yeah. Well, that's why I became the captain.

• 39:56Matt Farah?

  It's implied if you're on the boat.

• 39:57Speaker 01

  Right.

• 39:58Matt Farah?

  You work for me.

• 39:58Speaker 01

  Yeah, exactly. Is that how you felt, Zach, when you were on the boat with Matt?

• 40:02Speaker 02

  I mean, a little bit in a good way. I was like, I don't know how to sail.

• 40:05Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 40:05Speaker 02

  And you know how to sail, so I will learn from you.

• 40:07Matt Farah?

  There are a couple of things that need, that need doing.

• 40:09Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 40:09Matt Farah?

  On the boat.

• 40:10Speaker 01

  Right.

• 40:10Matt Farah?

  You know.

• 40:11Speaker 02

  It's a team effort.

• 40:12Matt Farah?

  Usually like anchoring, mooring, things like that.

• 40:14Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 40:14Matt Farah?

  They're like, you know.

• 40:15Speaker 02

  Plus the implication.

• 40:16Matt Farah?

  And you know.

• 40:19Speaker 02

  He could hurt me. Who would know, except for the other five people on the boat?

• 40:23Matt Farah?

  Yeah. And you know, the, the drugs.

• 40:25Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah. Right.

• 40:26Matt Farah?

  If you keep them, if you keep them down here.

• 40:28Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 40:31Matt Farah?

  Sorry, that turned dark. Okay.

• 40:32Speaker 01

  Right.

• 40:35Matt Farah?

  Uh, let's go to the people. We've got a lot of questions from the folks over at Patreon and let's see what they have to say. Patreon.com slash the smoking tire podcast is where you get er done. Uh, you can get the show live. You can get the show early. You can ask questions of the show. You can get the show without ads. You can get extra show and um, you can support the show that you were already prepared to do all of those other things for. Am I right? Patreon.com slash the smoking tire podcast. Do, oh, can you, you just made those small. Can you make them big again? No, the other, there we go. Whoa, not that big, goddammit, okay. Uh, BadPPI8 says, oh, there's a sort of an informal competition for like filthy usernames.

• 41:13Speaker 01

  Oh, I see.

• 41:14Matt Farah?

  Be prepared. Uh, what AMG do you buy for under forty thousand that makes the right sounds and power first and foremost, but with good styling and decent handling? Oh, seven C sixty-three?

• 41:28Speaker 01

  Yeah, I would say, yeah, something with that naturally aspirated V8 in there, right?

• 41:32Matt Farah?

  Yeah. What's a sixty-three that most people wouldn't think of? That would have good, like, yeah, C sixty-three is the obvious one, right?

• 41:44Speaker 01

  Yeah. I mean, they put that motor in pretty much everything, didn't they? They put it in the wagon, right?

• 41:49Matt Farah?

  Yeah, I mean, dude, decent handling, like, if you want, you're probably gonna get an ML sixty-three for fucking, you know, for nothing, right? Like, if you're willing to go SUV on this bitch, you can get something with a sixty-three in it that'll sound the business for not much.

• 42:02Speaker 02

  And the upshift speed is pretty quick in these things. Downshift, not so much, but...

• 42:06Matt Farah?

  For forty, could you get a CLS? I bet you would get like a twenty thirteen CLS sixty-three. Those will have turbos, too.

• 42:13Speaker 01

  The stupid one?

• 42:13Matt Farah?

  Yeah, CLS sixty-three, twin turbos, Randtech tuned that thing to nine hundred horsepower.

• 42:20Matt Farah?

  Right? Yeah, something like that.

• 42:22Speaker 02

  I mean, you can get an oh-seven CLS sixty-three for thirteen grand.

• 42:26Matt Farah?

  Oh, yes.

• 42:27Speaker 01

  All right.

• 42:27Matt Farah?

  Now we're talking.

• 42:28Speaker 01

  A hundred and eighty thousand miles on it.

• 42:30Matt Farah?

  Forty K, you can probably get an SL sixty-three.

• 42:33Speaker 02

  Shocking.

• 42:33Matt Farah?

  Like, you could probably get like an eighteen or seventeen SL sixty-three, right?

• 42:38Speaker 01

  That's probably true.

• 42:39Matt Farah?

  Dude, these CLSs are cheap, cheap, cheap.

• 42:42Speaker 02

  Oh, my god.

• 42:43Matt Farah?

  Who is it?

• 42:44Speaker 02

  A few years ago, but like...

• 42:45Matt Farah?

  Dude, here, a twenty seventeen for forty-five grand.

• 42:50Speaker 02

  That is a lot of good-looking, very fast car.

• 42:52Matt Farah?

  Five hundred and seventy-seven horsepower, twin-turbo, all-wheel-drive. Let's go.

• 42:57Matt Farah?

  That's a, that sounds like a value proposition.

• 43:01Speaker 01

  Seems like it.

• 43:02Matt Farah?

  Yeah.

• 43:02Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's sometimes surprising how inexpensive 10-year-old, 15-year-old cars that were,

• 43:08Matt Farah?

  That's crazy.

• 43:09Speaker 01

  Six-figure cars can be.

• 43:11Matt Farah?

  I kinda like it.

• 43:13Speaker 01

  Yeah, same. It'd make me nervous to own them.

• 43:16Matt Farah?

  Do you know how many, me and my wife, like, you know, like Punch Buggy?

• 43:20Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 43:20Matt Farah?

  You know the game Punch Buggy?

• 43:21Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 43:22Matt Farah?

  My wife and I have a game that we play pretty much just within the confines of our neighborhood that's blown out bags. And it's when we see an old Mercedes where the chassis isn't dragging on one side. And it's there for, you know, there's like grass growing around it. It's very clearly, we'll get around to fixing that this decade, you know, and then it just returns to earth.

• 43:48Matt Farah?

  Front Wheel Drive NSX says, as someone who drives a lot for work, is there a fix to bad drivers beyond expansion and promotion of public transit? Of course there are. Education.

• 43:59Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 44:00Matt Farah?

  Don't these things work?

• 44:01Speaker 01

  Enhanced driver education is probably not a bad idea.

• 44:04Matt Farah?

  They work.

• 44:04Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 44:06Matt Farah?

  Retesting, maybe, at a certain age?

• 44:08Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 44:08Matt Farah?

  I mean, if we're gonna be driving into our later years, like, I'm not against that shit.

• 44:13Speaker 01

  Yeah. I just worked on a big story for the AARP, which is one of my regular outlets, about trying to figure out, you know, what to do if you're thinking about getting rid of your car, like, how to be proactive and forward-thinking about that. And, yeah, there's a lot of stuff that the, strangely, it was interesting, like, I talked to the head of the New York State Office on the aging, and their stated strategy is really like, we want to keep old people in their cars as long as possible. Like, they don't, they don't drive that much, they don't drive at night, they're safe, they're the safest category of drivers. Of course, if they do have accidents, they die at much higher rates because they're more fragile. But essentially, like-

• 44:54Matt Farah?

  Is that, are those other bits true?

• 44:55Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 44:56Matt Farah?

  I mean, yeah, okay, all right.

• 44:57Speaker 01

  Yeah, statistically, yeah.

• 44:58Matt Farah?

  Sure. I don't disagree that if they're physically capable and can see, like, I'm not against it, they're like- Retesting is not the worst idea.

• 45:07Speaker 01

  Agreed, and yeah.

• 45:07Matt Farah?

  Cause the ones that can't.

• 45:09Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 45:09Matt Farah?

  Like, really.

• 45:10Speaker 01

  I drove with my grandmother toward the end of her life, she was still driving up until she was like 98 or 99. And she was like, I don't understand why these people are always honking at me in this roundabout. She was like, drives through and it's like, she just cuts off, like, yeah, just.

• 45:26Matt Farah?

  My grandma got to get a new car at like, I think 99.

• 45:30Speaker 01

  Oh, wow.

• 45:30Matt Farah?

  And like, it was like.

• 45:32Speaker 01

  Maybe lease, grandma.

• 45:34Matt Farah?

  Right. It was not an expensive car, but, but she had her other, her car before that was a, she had purchased a new, a Cadillac Cattera.

• 45:42Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 45:43Matt Farah?

  And.

• 45:43Speaker 01

  The caddy that zigs.

• 45:44Matt Farah?

  It did, it zigged. And I, I was sort of hoping, this was maybe 2015. I was hoping at the time that she would give it to me.

• 45:52Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 45:53Matt Farah?

  And we could turn it into a race, like a, like a lemon's car, or a champ car, or something like that. And I think she ended up just trading it on like, whatever shitty Corolla she ended up getting, and who even knows what happened to that car, but I was sort of. It's like, grandma, there's a thing called lemons.

• 46:06Speaker 01

  Right.

• 46:08Speaker 01

  Let me teach you about this.

• 46:09Matt Farah?

  But yeah, she was driving up until, I guess, almost 100. Uh, but like, you know, a mile.

• 46:15Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 46:15Matt Farah?

  It was much more about, I don't want to be trapped here than actually a real need to go.

• 46:21Speaker 01

  You know, the studies are showing that like, the social isolation that comes with, you know, not having that independence, or the loss of independence that comes with not having a vehicle is, you know. Very detrimental.

• 46:31Matt Farah?

  Yeah, for sure. Uh, Tim A. says, is there room in the Aston Martin lineup for an entry level mid-engine supercar? Uh, would it outsell the current Vantage at the 250 to 350 price bracket?

• 46:45Speaker 01

  Um, I mean, having talked a lot about and with executives at Aston Martin, I mean, they kind of tried that with the, with the Vantage, you know, maybe 10 years ago, right? Like, you could get, there was kind of a stripper Vantage GT, do you remember this? That was like 99K or something like that?

• 47:01Matt Farah?

  Sure.

• 47:02Speaker 01

  Um, and, I mean, I think that company has enough trouble staying in business. Uh, you know, with, with large profit margins on more expensive vehicles, which has been their intent to like, drive, drive. The the transaction price. So, I mean, from a like, would that be great if there was a, you know, entry level quote unquote Aston Martin? Sure, that might be fun, but like, is it a viable thing for them as a business?

• 47:28Speaker 02

  Especially.

• 47:29Speaker 01

  Probably not.

• 47:29Speaker 02

  I mean, they have the tub technology now.

• 47:31Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 47:31Speaker 02

  It means like, well, it's possible, but that price point would compete with like, fully optioned Vantage or like the Vanquish, right, is around 300.

• 47:41Matt Farah?

  Well, what I've heard is the Vantage is going away sometime around 2030 and not being replaced.

• 47:48Speaker 01

  Hmm, they're just going further up upscale.

• 47:50Matt Farah?

  Well, I think the thinking was the DB12 is very similar to the Vantage. And they could overlap, you know, and and they want to move that transaction. So by getting rid of the $200,000 car and introducing a 1.2 million dollar car, the Valhalla.

• 48:07Speaker 01

  Right.

• 48:07Matt Farah?

  That will do it. They also got rid of the base DBX.

• 48:10Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 48:10Matt Farah?

  Now the 707 is the base and they've got the S above that, which you should drive if you have.

• 48:15Speaker 01

  I have, yeah.

• 48:16Matt Farah?

  It's fucking nice.

• 48:16Speaker 01

  I like the DBX a lot.

• 48:18Matt Farah?

  I love the DBX.

• 48:18Speaker 01

  It's a great, great car.

• 48:19Speaker 02

  I don't think it wouldn't surprise me at all because they got the McLaren guy there. So he knows how that business works. You go P1 and 720, all the other ones.

• 48:26Matt Farah?

  I could maybe see a 500 or 600,000 dollar mid-engine car.

• 48:31Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 48:32Matt Farah?

  That would be around the performance of the Vanquish, but with the engine in the middle. I could see that more than I would. Aston Martin's not making.

• 48:41Speaker 01

  No, they're not interested in affordable cars. Yeah, that's a bad move for them.

• 48:44Matt Farah?

  Yeah. Yeah, the Porsche hatchback that I, you know, the platform shared GTI that I want Porsche to build is like never gonna, never gonna happen, you know? Uh, Christian says, oh, boy, here we go. Is there a big difference between automakers using cameras versus LiDAR? Why is it just Tesla using cameras? And they get so much praise for autopilot. Okay, there's a few different things in here, right? It's not camera versus LiDAR. It's camera versus camera and LiDAR and radar.

• 49:16Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 49:17Matt Farah?

  And so you've got Tesla, which is camera only, and you've got pretty much everyone else, which is what they call sensor complete, right? And why is it just Tesla using cameras? Because it's cheaper. And and they get so much praise for autopilot. I mean, because that's. A media problem.

• 49:42Speaker 01

  Yeah, and a Tesla fan person.

• 49:45Matt Farah?

  Right, well, and also when you have a financial reinforcement from being in a cult and repeating their messaging publicly.

• 49:52Matt Farah?

  And look, cameras, cameras can work pretty well on the highway in the right conditions. And cameras can work pretty well in the city with good software and the right conditions. But it's like, when they fail, there isn't a backup and then you have a crash. And when they get confused in something like a Waymo, there are other sensor suites that go, what is that? Do we see it too? And you have a much safer product, not perfect, but much safer. So, have you ridden Waymos much?

• 50:27Speaker 01

  I have, a few times.

• 50:28Matt Farah?

  Do you enjoy them?

• 50:30Speaker 01

  I don't dislike it. Like, I thought I would dislike it more. I feel like they do a pretty good job. Like, they do a pretty good job of driving.

• 50:38Matt Farah?

  They drive pretty well.

• 50:39Speaker 01

  Yeah, they drive well. I was in one and it, like, it went through a couple of yellow lights. I was like, okay, Waymo.

• 50:44Matt Farah?

  I think the last six months, they've turned up the aggression a little bit. I think they were a little too passive and they've dialed, they've dialed it up just a little bit.

• 50:52Speaker 01

  And I think some of it comes with just, you know, more and more miles and more and more experience. I mean, I'm not, you know, I'm not like a huge fan of the whole thing necessarily, uh, from a systemic point of view. But I understand the use case and, you know, we've got to, I guess they're taking this technology out for a spin, right?

• 51:11Matt Farah?

  Well, look, at least it's a commercial product that's running a commercial insurance policy. At the very fucking least, the very least, there is a company, evil as they may be, Google, that's backing this. It's not, here's a technology, it's gonna do this thing, 99%, perfect. But when it goes wrong, guess whose fucking fault it is? Like, come on, like, that's crazy shit. And so, but also Waymos have very fun limitations. They, they'll drop you in weird places, they, you know, and it's...

• 51:46Speaker 01

  They can come, like, they... When I first took them, they were only like on the surface streets and like in the in the valley. You know what I mean? The flat parts of the city. Now they're up in the hills and stuff like that. I see them on the highway. Yeah.

• 51:57Matt Farah?

  Yeah freeway. They added freeways like maybe, maybe six months ago.

• 52:01Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 52:01Matt Farah?

  But they're, they grow the map. They can't do the airport pickup.

• 52:04Speaker 01

  Right, right.

• 52:05Matt Farah?

  Airport is.

• 52:06Speaker 01

  Yeah, airport is a, is a mess.

• 52:07Matt Farah?

  They'll, they'll, they'll launch LAX around the same time they launch Riyadh.

• 52:13Matt Farah?

  It's about that level of, of aggression.

• 52:17Speaker 01

  I just worked on a story for Playboy, which apparently still exists.

• 52:20Matt Farah?

  Yeah, yeah, relaunched, right?

• 52:22Speaker 01

  Yeah, relaunched, um, and.

• 52:24Matt Farah?

  Why is not still there?

• 52:25Speaker 01

  No, he's not. No, he's not. Yeah, yeah. He didn't, he didn't, uh, that, that, that part ended. But, uh, we did a story kind of pegged to Waymo's about, uh, the history of sex in cars. And sort of this idea that you would think that, um, you know, this would be a new, uh, sort of golden age for sex in cars. Cause there's no driver and no one, no one to see the blacked out windows and stuff. But of course it's Google. So there's tons of surveillance.

• 52:52Matt Farah?

  Of course.

• 52:52Speaker 01

  In the vehicles and they are.

• 52:53Matt Farah?

  More or less titillating than having a human driver?

• 52:56Speaker 01

  I think for some people more and for some people less, although, you know, Waymo is like, yeah, we, uh, we monitor the footage and like if people don't, you know, abide our safety and cleanliness standards. Not only will they be banned from the app, but we will can turn those, if they do anything that's illegal, we'll turn those records over to law enforcement. So.

• 53:17Matt Farah?

  Wonder what league, like league, where do we draw the line?

• 53:19Speaker 01

  Yeah. I mean, you sign the, you sign the, uh, the agreement or whatever, right? When you clicked yes on the.

• 53:24Matt Farah?

  Also, if the footage is really good, we, you know, share it around the office and, you know.

• 53:28Speaker 01

  Right, yeah. Pass it about.

• 53:33Matt Farah?

  Dungeons and Datsun says, I've been listening to several AI experts on the Diary of a CEO podcast. One aspect that most seem to agree on is that middle class and upper middle class, white collar jobs are going to be affected first and worst. Medical, accounting, et cetera. If this is the case, how much of an effect might it have on the sports car market? Since these would be the ones that typically purchasing the one, all these questions circle back to exactly where we just were. The fucking automakers are targeting billionaires because they see this customer.

• 54:04Speaker 01

  Coming, what's coming, right?

• 54:06Matt Farah?

  Not necessarily because they see this specifically coming, but they're just going, "We could build 5,000 cars for 200 grand each, or we could build 500 cars for 2 million each and have the same amount of money, and those 500 people would be easier to please than these 5,000 people, and we wouldn't have to do certain regulations, and we wouldn't have to do this, and we wouldn't have to do this, and blah, blah, blah." They're just doing it. Yeah. They don't, they don't need an AI kick, they're just doing it.

• 54:35Speaker 02

  But I think it would, like I just looked up, Porsche last year sold about 20,000 911s and 718s, so sports cars. So, you know, this, if this happened and got rid, and a lot of white collar people lost their jobs, I think you'd see a huge shrink in the new sports car market, but also the used market would fall, fall a lot.

• 54:54Matt Farah?

  That could be also.

• 54:55Speaker 02

  Because anyone who was like, "Oh, I got money, I can buy a six-figure boring-ass air-cooled car," like, they're gonna have to let that go.

• 55:02Matt Farah?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 55:03Speaker 02

  So I think we'd see a lot of things fall in price.

• 55:04Matt Farah?

  Yeah, if you thought your Carrera S was an investment, I have bad news for you. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I think that's gonna... Dude, move your money to Dubai. Right. That's like real financial freedom. Super safe there right now. Yeah, and why, why don't you, let's buy a, buy a second home in Dubai. It's like, it's a no-brainer. Uh, "The road is my expense, the cost of my desire." Very good. "After 25 years as a preschool director, who throws a more impressive tantrum?" I should've read the second half of this before I read the first half. "A 20, a three-year-old who missed that nap, their nap, or a luxury supercar owner who found a scratch on their bespoke leather interior?" Oh, I'm gonna say a three-year-old. Yeah, I'm gonna say a three-year-old.

• 55:48Matt Farah?

  I don't think most people are that big of a weenie. No. I, we, I, in my company, we accidentally scratched someone's interior. Yeah. Like, you know how it happens, dude? Right, rivets on your jeans. The rivet on your jeans? If you don't give that steering wheel or the bolster a little room? Yeah. So, I had to pay to fix a guy's steering wheel. I mean, I had to pay to fix it, but like, he wasn't, you know, super mad, like, eh, shit happens. Yeah. Most people, it's a... How do they fix that? Do they, do they smooth it out, grind it down or something? I mean, that's, that is the way you would do it if you don't want to literally replace the entire steering wheel, which fortunately this customer did not ask us to do, so yeah, yeah, it was all right.

• 56:33Matt Farah?

  Wait, wait. Uh, Matt, you influencing son of a bitch. Uh, with respects to Mrs. Farah. She's a lovely person. Okay. "I had to go out and buy a pen. I didn't need a pen and my writing looks like unwiped asshole. But I got a Pilot fountain pen and I don't feel, like the feel very much. Is there something else I should try before diving first into another useless hobby?" Wait. Is this a fountain pen question? Or is this a veiled reference to something else?

• 57:00Speaker 02

  I don't know. Because Matt is into fountain pens. And he has influenced this person, I think, to be into pens. But he bought the pen and doesn't actually like it that much.

• 57:08Matt Farah?

  If you don't like fountain pens, you don't need to go down the road of fountain pens.

• 57:11Speaker 02

  By the way, you should watch the last two minutes of The Daily Show from Monday where, uh, John shows footage of Trump discussing fountain pens.

• 57:18Matt Farah?

  Oh, no. Am I gonna throw away my fountain pens? Is he actually like a savant on fountain pens? That would be a really interesting thing to learn.

• 57:28Speaker 02

  I can't imagine.

• 57:29Matt Farah?

  Really?

• 57:30Speaker 02

  I mean, he's into it. He's talking about how they write and the cost of them and, and he talks about the material and how he doesn't want to be holding one that feels like this or that. It's now, it's in the cabinet meeting, so he's like, he should got back on course.

• 57:44Matt Farah?

  So it was the rambling of someone who clearly is.

• 57:46Speaker 02

  Yeah, it's a madman.

• 57:48Matt Farah?

  What are your bracelets made of? They're shining in such a fun way. Are they springs?

• 57:52Speaker 02

  Yeah, they're springy metal. They're my grandmother's.

• 57:54Matt Farah?

  No, fucking, hey, these are awesome. These are really great. They're like, uh, they're like slinky bracelets. This is very risky with my Syrian arm hair, though.

• 58:03Speaker 02

  Yeah, same.

• 58:05Matt Farah?

  Oh, it is, yeah, it's a little, it's a little pinchy.

• 58:07Speaker 02

  You got a little pinchy.

• 58:08Matt Farah?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. But fuck, is that cool?

• 58:11Speaker 02

  Thank you.

• 58:11Matt Farah?

  Those are your grandmas?

• 58:12Speaker 02

  Yeah, these are my grandmas.

• 58:13Matt Farah?

  Wow, grandma was awesome.

• 58:14Speaker 02

  Grandma had some good style.

• 58:15Matt Farah?

  Grandma was awesome. Oh, man, I gotta give a shout out to my boy Adam. His grandpa just is 94 years old and just sold Restaurant Depot for $29 billion. He started Restaurant Depot in 1976.

• 58:32Speaker 02

  That's friend Adam, not this Adam.

• 58:33Matt Farah?

  Yeah, it's that friend, that, that friend Adam. You know him. I went to high, a guy, a guy I went to high school with. Like, just, he's just a dude. Like, he's just a, he's just a dude. But like, you know, his grandpa always was the guy who started Restaurant Depot, but like, he just sold that shit and like, whoa. Wow. Whoa. Fountain pens, I don't know dude, if you don't, like, a pilot fountain pen is a very cheapy fountain pen, like, you might, if you really care, like, go get yourself a Lammy, L-A-M-Y, that's like a thirty dollar fountain pen, and like, that's much nicer than a five dollar pilot fountain pen, and if you don't like it then, then bail. Cut the cord and cut the cord and bail. Maybe try a gel writer pen. There's a bunch of dope pens that aren't fountain pens.

• 59:16Speaker 01

  Yeah. Do you have a million pens now?

• 59:19Matt Farah?

  No.

• 59:19Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 59:20Matt Farah?

  I don't. But I did, I do like fountain pens a little bit because of how little I have to press.

• 59:27Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 59:28Matt Farah?

  They're so light. And we went to this, I'll show you afterwards, we went, I went, my wife like finds this shit. We went to the California Pen Show.

• 59:36Speaker 01

  Oh wow.

• 59:37Matt Farah?

  Which is a thing you should see.

• 59:38Speaker 01

  Yeah. I love any, anything like that where people are like obsessive and not, like, they're not like trying to kill me or something like that. That's not what they're obsessed about.

• 59:47Matt Farah?

  Very deep, deep level of nerdery about this kinda stuff, which I love.

• 59:51Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 59:52Matt Farah?

  And I just like, if I see something, maybe I'll get, so I got one, what most people would call an expensive pen, but it didn't, it didn't scratch the surface of what an expensive one, at the California fucking pen, or whatever fucking Trump is writing. He's probably writing, he's probably got a Montblanc, it's probably not even.

• 1:00:11Speaker 01

  Not even that great of a pen.

• 1:00:12Matt Farah?

  Yeah. Matt's, wait, holy shit. Belly, I, Matt's something, something tow rig. I'm sorry, I can't, whatever that's supposed to.

• 1:00:22Speaker 01

  It's probably gonna be a military vehicle again.

• 1:00:24Matt Farah?

  Okay, fine. Question for all three of you. Best bang, what is a great bang for the buck car related experience? You recommend listeners to try to do slash have slash achieve, that's a good one. Affordable car related experiences.

• 1:00:39Speaker 01

  Um, I often suggest the Lane Motor Museum in Nashville.

• 1:00:46Matt Farah?

  Dude, Jeff Lane rules.

• 1:00:47Speaker 01

  He's the best guy, right?

• 1:00:49Matt Farah?

  He is the best.

• 1:00:49Speaker 01

  He's the nicest guy.

• 1:00:50Matt Farah?

  Have you driven shit from there?

• 1:00:51Speaker 01

  Yes, I've driven like dozens of cars from there.

• 1:00:53Matt Farah?

  I drove the, uh, the propeller car.

• 1:00:56Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:00:56Matt Farah?

  What the fuck is it called?

• 1:00:57Speaker 01

  Yeah, I can't remember what that's called.

• 1:00:58Matt Farah?

  It's just an airplane without wings.

• 1:01:00Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:01:01Matt Farah?

  It's just a thing for taxiing.

• 1:01:02Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:01:02Matt Farah?

  Sketch.

• 1:01:03Speaker 01

  Yeah, very sketchy. But yeah, some like, so many weird microcars, so many weird like French cars, so many weird Italian cars, like such weird stuff. Nissan has its archive, you know, heritage collection in the basement. Like all the cars run, like he has the strangest, you know, strangest taste.

• 1:01:21Matt Farah?

  Jeff Lane rules.

• 1:01:22Speaker 01

  Finds the weirdest stuff, yeah. So I feel like, you know, Nashville's not that far from most places, easy to get to.

• 1:01:27Matt Farah?

  Good drive, good roads.

• 1:01:28Speaker 01

  Yeah, good roads around there, exactly.

• 1:01:29Matt Farah?

  I mean, driving, you know, driving the Smoky Mountains, Tale of the Drive, there's like, there's a dozen road trips, but like, I don't think that's what you want. Like, we talk about this every single year, but you can have a full week of excitement at Car Week without spending a dime outside of whatever your hotel accommodations cost.

• 1:01:50Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:01:50Matt Farah?

  There's so much free shit to do and to see during Car, free or very cheap.

• 1:01:55Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:01:56Matt Farah?

  You know, you can get into RM Auctions with a $25 spectator ticket, like that's what I mean, but.

• 1:02:01Speaker 01

  Yeah. Um. And just standing on the road, you know what I mean? Like you'll see.

• 1:02:05Speaker 02

  Downtown Montrier, Carmel.

• 1:02:06Speaker 01

  Yeah, you'll be, you'll be sick of seeing.

• 1:02:08Matt Farah?

  The world will come to you.

• 1:02:09Speaker 01

  The best cars.

• 1:02:10Speaker 02

  Yeah, we happened upon Pagani Street last year and it was like, what the fuck?

• 1:02:14Matt Farah?

  Uh, I think this year we're gonna do the Woodward Dream Cruise.

• 1:02:17Speaker 01

  Oh, wow.

• 1:02:18Matt Farah?

  We haven't done in a while.

• 1:02:19Speaker 01

  I have never gone and, you know, I'm from Detroit originally.

• 1:02:22Matt Farah?

  We went like 15 years ago. God, was it fun.

• 1:02:25Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:02:26Matt Farah?

  It was great.

• 1:02:27Speaker 01

  Seems like it would be fun and I think maybe there are separate weeks this year or something, right?

• 1:02:31Speaker 02

  I think they pushed Pebble back or forth one week.

• 1:02:33Matt Farah?

  No way. I'll have to double check that schedule.

• 1:02:35Speaker 01

  I should look into that.

• 1:02:36Matt Farah?

  August, but.

• 1:02:37Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:02:37Matt Farah?

  But I've been talking to Ford.

• 1:02:40Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 1:02:40Matt Farah?

  About, do, I have one idea that is something I've been really wanting to do that they said they might be able to make happen.

• 1:02:47Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:02:47Matt Farah?

  It's a very personal thing. I don't. I don't want to say it yet, I'll tell you, I'll tell you. But, um, I also said like, hey, man, nobody from LA gives a fuck about car week. If I came out there, got a big house, I was like, what do you got?

• 1:03:01Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:03:01Matt Farah?

  It's like, well, you know, what, what, go ask, go ask Jim, what can I drive?

• 1:03:05Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:03:06Matt Farah?

  You know, like, what can I go cruising? And he was like, all right, I will get back to you. We got something.

• 1:03:09Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, they have a heritage collection.

• 1:03:11Matt Farah?

  Oh, yeah, I got some dope shit.

• 1:03:13Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:03:13Matt Farah?

  But like, there's dudes like, you never go at car week, you never hear the word contraption.

• 1:03:21Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:03:23Speaker 01

  Or hoop-dee.

• 1:03:24Matt Farah?

  Yeah, but like at Woodward, it's like, hey, that, there's a boat driving down the road. Woodward Dream Cruise is like, it's like the purge for, uh, non-street legal vehicles. You know what I mean? It's like for this weekend, everything is street legal, nobody gives a fuck.

• 1:03:41Speaker 01

  Well, and one of the, you know, one of the things about growing up in Michigan in general is, you know, the, the, the state, uh, regulations are so beholden to the auto companies. It's like, you know, there's no inspections, you don't need a front license plate, you know, there's no inspection at all. Uh, and so you will see like the shittiest cars you have ever seen in the world going down the road.

• 1:04:01Matt Farah?

  Things that people build where you're like, I don't know where that started or what this dude was thinking, but like.

• 1:04:07Speaker 01

  It's probably a Pontiac Grand Prix chassis under there.

• 1:04:11Matt Farah?

  I got a secret for you, kid, it's always a Grand Prix under there.

• 1:04:15Speaker 02

  That's your tow, that's your tow rig.

• 1:04:17Matt Farah?

  Truck is, it's like, it's like.

• 1:04:18Speaker 02

  It's the largest, heaviest dump truck in the world.

• 1:04:20Matt Farah?

  Ukrainian mining truck.

• 1:04:22Speaker 02

  Exactly.

• 1:04:22Speaker 01

  Yeah, those, those wheel, those tires are like, uh, three stories tall.

• 1:04:26Matt Farah?

  Grandpa, where do our batteries come from?

• 1:04:31Speaker 01

  These children, working in this pit.

• 1:04:34Matt Farah?

  Federal investigator, love it. Uh, did you see this story? The EPA approved 15% ethanol content in gasoline, they want to let people water down the gas.

• 1:04:45Speaker 02

  Well, and, and an important thing to add is that the EPA doesn't usually do, they usually ban this in the summer.

• 1:04:50Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:04:50Speaker 02

  Because of the evaporation due to the higher temperatures and they're making an exception, so that's like the thing.

• 1:04:55Matt Farah?

  Okay, in theory to ease the price of gas.

• 1:04:58Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:04:58Matt Farah?

  And, uh, from what I read.

• 1:05:00Speaker 01

  Maybe you don't start senseless wars.

• 1:05:02Matt Farah?

  Just saying, there are other things that could do this. But apparently they're gonna label it 88 octane. So if you don't want the 50, you don't, you shouldn't get the 88 octane if you don't want.

• 1:05:12Speaker 02

  Well, because it could depending on your car, like it could cause problems with your seals or with detonation. It depend, it, you know, could have a lot of effects on your vehicle, but.

• 1:05:20Matt Farah?

  Yeah, so don't try to avoid it if, I would say if you can.

• 1:05:24Speaker 02

  I will.

• 1:05:25Matt Farah?

  If I can find ethanol free for the older cars, I prefer it.

• 1:05:29Speaker 02

  And also like your, your MPQ will go down a lot with higher ethanol. So the price may be lower, but you might actually burn more. It depends on the car you have, of course.

• 1:05:37Matt Farah?

  Yeah.

• 1:05:42Matt Farah?

  LL Cartier, can you scroll down, please, Zach? Does Alpina do anything to improve the reliability or the base vehicles? Or do they just compound the complexities? I've thought about getting a depreciated sedan as a sometimes daily, but scared of BMWs. I mean.

• 1:06:00Speaker 02

  That's an interesting question. You aren't really sure.

• 1:06:02Matt Farah?

  Alpina, have you ever been there?

• 1:06:05Speaker 02

  Uh, no, I haven't been there, but I've, I've written about them and I have interviewed executives and stuff like that.

• 1:06:09Matt Farah?

  Give me Andy, Bovin Seppen.

• 1:06:11Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:06:11Matt Farah?

  He was, he's the man. He's not, he's now moved on. He's got his own little thing because they were acquired by BMW. I went there though, and Andy toured me around. God, was he the coolest. It was the coolest place.

• 1:06:22Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:06:22Matt Farah?

  They did a lot more than I thought they did.

• 1:06:26Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:06:26Matt Farah?

  You know, I thought the engines were just tuned, but they were doing, they were doing pistons. They were doing, they were casting their own air to water intercoolers and stuff. They did a lot.

• 1:06:38Speaker 02

  Yeah, they do a lot. Like both, like it's, it's about, I guess it's more like about like high speed comfort and driving than it is about all out performance.

• 1:06:47Matt Farah?

  Yeah, Andy said the cars are designed for people to do 40,000 kilometers a year, which is, I get that totally. But like, they're starting with brand new cars. So like, what, what are they gonna do to improve the reliability of the base vehicles there? They, they put in supporting. Modifications to handle the horsepower and those types of increases, but like, Yeah. What else are they gonna do?

• 1:07:11Speaker 02

  I mean, I would say unless it's in a press release where they go, hey, we identified that this water impeller fan sucks from the factory and we make a different one. That was a big problem at BMW's in the 90s. Just as an example.

• 1:07:23Matt Farah?

  Yeah.

• 1:07:23Speaker 02

  They might, but I would say unless it's in their press release, they probably just take the engine and they turn the boost and they fiddle with this a little bit and then they dress it up.

• 1:07:31Matt Farah?

  Yeah, I mean, our buddy Vinny bought a 2011 Alpina B7. Hmm. With like, I don't know, 100,000 miles on it. Yeah. For like 11,000 bucks. And it burned oil. Yeah.

• 1:07:45Matt Farah?

  But aside from, and to fix the oil burning problem, he got an estimate that was like $12,000. I mean, it was an engine out, it was a full engine out. And they were like, Keep it and keep, put oil in it. They were like, or, check the oil once a week. Yeah. You know, and it really only burned oil, like if it was sitting for a long time, it wasn't all the time. And so for like a year, he just fucking drove it. Yeah. And other than that, it was like, fine. And, eh, so what are you willing to put up with? Yeah, exactly.

• 1:08:13Speaker 02

  You could get lucky, you could get unlucky. And Vinny got lucky.

• 1:08:16Matt Farah?

  He got pretty lucky.

• 1:08:16Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:08:17Matt Farah?

  Yeah. I think they're really nice vehicles. I like what they do to their vehicles.

• 1:08:21Speaker 02

  They're fun, nicely refined and like,

• 1:08:23Matt Farah?

  They drive great. Yeah. Yeah. They're fat, dude, Andy picked me up at the airport in Munich and between, I think it was Munich, that's the nearest airport to there, I think. Yeah. Munich or Stuttgart, but I think it was Munich. And he personally picked me up at the airport and hit 200 miles an hour on the way back to Alpina. And then he, and then, you know, we go, and then he goes, he goes, this will be your car for the week. Right. We had just done 200 miles, like, that'll be fine. Yeah, that works for me. Yeah. Kelly Robinson 57 and O says, uh, what are some cars in y'all experience that are one fatal flaw from excellent? For example, the Audi RS5 cut the revs short before the fun started. Oh, I, I wouldn't have said that one. The RCF with intrusive nannies, that was the least of the RCF's problems.

• 1:09:08Speaker 02

  LFA with a single clutch.

• 1:09:10Matt Farah?

  The LFA's gearbox, although I'd still take it.

• 1:09:12Speaker 02

  Yeah, but I'd, They'll be bummed every time.

• 1:09:15Matt Farah?

  One fatal flaw. I mean, almost all of these hypercars that use that single clutch X-Track gearbox gearbox that's.

• 1:09:22Speaker 02

  Two nine six has all the capacitive hapticy things, but Ferrari said that they will now retrofit.

• 1:09:27Speaker 01

  Yeah, so I was just gonna say the Ferrari steering wheel, but yeah, they've they've got, they've worked that out. It's not in the new.

• 1:09:32Speaker 02

  It's cool they can backdate it with buttons.

• 1:09:34Speaker 01

  Exactly. They're like, we're starting with like the most recent cars and we're going backwards from there or something like that.

• 1:09:38Matt Farah?

  Yeah.

• 1:09:39Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, I'm glad that they that they admitted that that was that that sucked.

• 1:09:44Matt Farah?

  After six years of people bitching, they're like, actually, okay, fine.

• 1:09:50Speaker 01

  We amortize this. Now we're gonna say it's we're moving on to something else.

• 1:09:53Matt Farah?

  Sure. One it's hard. One fatal flaw from excellence.

• 1:09:58Speaker 01

  I mean, I think there's a lot of vehicles that have like, this drives me crazy, and I'm sure you guys have talked about this before on the show, like the vent control, the ventilation controls in the screen.

• 1:10:09Matt Farah?

  Touchscreen vent control. This is not good. This is not good at all.

• 1:10:13Speaker 01

  And then someone was like, I brought this up to a manufacturer. They're like, why are you adjusting your vents so much? It's like, have you been outside?

• 1:10:20Speaker 02

  I do a lot.

• 1:10:20Speaker 01

  Yeah, exactly. Like, sometimes the sun's shining through and you want that, you know, it's like.

• 1:10:25Speaker 02

  I'm a mental bitch, that's why.

• 1:10:27Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 1:10:28Matt Farah?

  Why are you having a coffee while driving your car, Brett? That's crazy.

• 1:10:33Speaker 01

  It's none of your business, right? Like, it shouldn't be this hard.

• 1:10:37Matt Farah?

  That's unbelievable. I love that.

• 1:10:42Matt Farah?

  Mark Ferrar, the tired smoker, says.

• 1:10:48Matt Farah?

  I wait, okay. I heard a high-end UK car dealer claimed that the only two collector cars where the coupe was worth more than the identical convertible is the SL300, which would be the gullwing, the 50s one, and the SLS gullwing. I do not agree with that assessment at all. I think most late model 911s, the coupe is gonna be worth more than the convertible.

• 1:11:14Speaker 02

  Corvettes.

• 1:11:16Matt Farah?

  Corvettes, absolutely, on the secondhand market. Yeah, I think in most cases. The, I mean, there could be, I mean, I mean, if maybe if you're talking about like, I don't know, muscle cars and they only made some small number of convertibles with the huge engine pack or something, and so rarity comes into play.

• 1:11:36Speaker 02

  I think that's the thing. Like, you have to go with rarity has to be a component. If it's just. You know, equal production numbers, I'm sure the coupes are worth more money, just based on the cars we've listed.

• 1:11:46Speaker 01

  Yeah, oftentimes.

• 1:11:47Matt Farah?

  Certainly there's ones where spiders are worth more money as well.

• 1:11:50Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 1:11:51Matt Farah?

  Almost anything with a carbon tub, for instance, the spider will always be worth more money. But like, most 911s.

• 1:12:00Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:12:00Matt Farah?

  Coupes hold their value better than.

• 1:12:01Speaker 01

  That makes sense.

• 1:12:02Matt Farah?

  Than convertibles.

• 1:12:03Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:12:03Speaker 02

  Hmm, alright.

• 1:12:05Matt Farah?

  Interesting claim. I wouldn't, I wouldn't listen to that UK dealer. She only wanted me for my turn-in. I've been listening to you guys talk cars for 10 years now, thank you. The Valhalla review got me thinking, how long does a car keep your excitement after the first go? What generally happens, oh, so like, I, I will say that there's a, it's not necessarily like, how long, but it's like, did you drive it in context of a group test or by itself?

• 1:12:37Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:12:38Matt Farah?

  Press launches are designed to make the car look really good.

• 1:12:41Speaker 01

  Yeah, exactly.

• 1:12:42Matt Farah?

  They've chosen a good road.

• 1:12:43Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:12:43Matt Farah?

  A complimentary racetrack, you know.

• 1:12:46Speaker 02

  Other cars aren't there.

• 1:12:47Speaker 01

  Right, yeah. There's no one else around.

• 1:12:49Matt Farah?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:12:49Speaker 01

  Right, yeah, exactly. You're driving, yeah.

• 1:12:51Matt Farah?

  Have you ever really changed your mind from an individual drive to a group test? You've participated?

• 1:12:56Speaker 01

  That's a really good question. I'm trying to think of a good example. I definitely have, where like, I drove a car at, you know, at launch or something like that, and I was like, eh, I'm not sure about this thing, and then I had it on my own for a little while, and, and I'm trying to remember, like, a specific example right now, where I was just like, I'm just not feeling this car. I'll have to think about it.

• 1:13:18Matt Farah?

  I've had a few cars where I thought they were pretty good by themselves, and then I did a, in a, in a Performance Car of the Year test, and I was like, oh god, with all this other stuff around.

• 1:13:27Speaker 01

  The other way around, yeah.

• 1:13:28Matt Farah?

  No-go.

• 1:13:29Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 1:13:29Matt Farah?

  And sometimes that was a pretty quick, I drove a car, and then a week later did Performance Car of the Year, and I was like, shit.

• 1:13:36Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:13:36Matt Farah?

  Can I rewrite my review of this thing beforehand? Fuck!

• 1:13:40Speaker 01

  I know, that's one of the benefits that they have of getting us to write these things quickly after we drive the vehicle, right?

• 1:13:45Matt Farah?

  Well, no, but all, but the context of a group test is like, man, you can't replace that.

• 1:13:49Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:13:50Matt Farah?

  That's the shit. Wheat City Night Court said, if you owned and Brett, if you owned and road tripped a Ferrari, Lamborghini, or Aston, would you pack your things in the corresponding fitted luggage? Or is a car logo on your suitcase too gauche? Good question.

• 1:14:06Speaker 01

  Yeah, good question. I would totally go for the luggage.

• 1:14:09Matt Farah?

  I would go for luggage.

• 1:14:10Speaker 01

  I think it's like it's custom designed to fit in the vehicle. Usually it's pretty nice.

• 1:14:14Matt Farah?

  It is.

• 1:14:15Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:14:15Matt Farah?

  That shit sells on Bring a Trailer like 15G.

• 1:14:17Speaker 01

  Exactly. So I'm not opposed to the, I'm not opposed to luggage. If there's any in the car, I usually steal it.

• 1:14:25Matt Farah?

  If you wanted to really be a boss though, you'd take the luggage to your guy.

• 1:14:30Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:14:30Matt Farah?

  And you'd have something stitched over it.

• 1:14:33Speaker 01

  Exactly. I'd have my own monogram on there.

• 1:14:35Matt Farah?

  Right, yeah.

• 1:14:36Speaker 01

  The double B.

• 1:14:39Matt Farah?

  Dude, I had a guy, I had a guy chase me the fuck down at a car show and it was hot as hell outside and this dude was wearing a full suit, which I thought was so weird.

• 1:14:50Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:14:51Matt Farah?

  And he said, "You have to see my new singer." And I'm, you know, okay. He goes, "I just got it yesterday."

• 1:14:57Speaker 01

  9/11 reimagined.

• 1:14:58Matt Farah?

  Yes, 9/11 reimagined as product of the Singer Classic Restorations Division trademark. We are not affiliated with Porsche, etc. So, alright, and he drives me and, okay, it's, you know, it's a singer. We've seen it. It's lovely. But then he goes, "I had them make this luggage." And he like folds the, and he actually did have them make this crazy like nine-piece set of stacked.

• 1:15:23Speaker 01

  Is it like woven like they do stuff?

• 1:15:25Matt Farah?

  Yeah, it was crazy. And I was like, oh my God. And I later asked, I saw Maz and I was like, dude, I met the guy with the fitted luggage. He was like, you know, he kinda like rolls his hair. And I was like, how much was the luggage? He's like, $250.

• 1:15:39Speaker 01

  Wow.

• 1:15:40Matt Farah?

  To have the luggage. To have one, one set made from nothing? It's not to design a set you're gonna sell people.

• 1:15:46Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:15:47Matt Farah?

  To have one set made? Jesus Christ.

• 1:15:49Speaker 01

  Wow, that's crazy. Yeah, I don't think I would, like, if it were up to me and I'm buying the luggage, I don't think I'd pay $250K for that extra luggage. But I don't, it doesn't, I don't think it costs that much in the, in those supercars.

• 1:16:02Matt Farah?

  Something tells me, no, no, no, certainly not. But something tells me Singer's customers are like, they want some other fucking planet. Certainly the guy wearing the suit at the Cars and Coffee.

• 1:16:11Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:16:12Matt Farah?

  Was like, whatever planet that guy's on, I don't fucking know.

• 1:16:15Speaker 01

  And an attention seeker.

• 1:16:16Matt Farah?

  Yeah, okay. USS Enterthys. It's pretty fun. From a chassis perspective, are the 86s the best you can get for under 100K? Brand new before buying a Cayman?

• 1:16:29Speaker 01

  I think.

• 1:16:30Matt Farah?

  Close to it.

• 1:16:31Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's a really, I had one of those recently and I had driven one on the launch and I'd driven one since then, you know?

• 1:16:39Speaker 01

  And it was fun as hell.

• 1:16:40Matt Farah?

  Great time.

• 1:16:41Speaker 01

  You know what I mean? It was so much fun.

• 1:16:42Matt Farah?

  Great time.

• 1:16:43Speaker 01

  It was just like I'd forgotten how much fun that that was. It had a manual, like it was just such a fun, light car, easily, easy to, easy to move.

• 1:16:51Speaker 02

  Displace, yeah.

• 1:16:52Speaker 01

  Yeah, easy to drive.

• 1:16:52Speaker 02

  Driving it on a yacht around.

• 1:16:53Speaker 01

  I was driving it on a yacht, yeah. I was just drifting on a yacht the whole time. That was it.

• 1:16:57Matt Farah?

  Set a new record for lapping the SS fucker.

• 1:17:00Speaker 01

  The USS Enterthys.

• 1:17:02Matt Farah?

  I mean, it's a great car, but 100K is a lot of money.

• 1:17:05Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:17:05Matt Farah?

  So it includes shit like the Dark Horse, the M2, the Nismo Z.

• 1:17:11Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:17:12Matt Farah?

  Uh, the Supras.

• 1:17:14Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:17:14Matt Farah?

  I mean, the GR Corolla, I mean, so there's.

• 1:17:17Speaker 02

  I think it, I think he said chassis, I'd still say this is the best. I'd, cause I drove, I drove the new one at Sonoma versus the GR Corolla and the Supra. Supra's faster, but when you get into this, it's, it's the balance, it's the touch, it's the, the conversation you have, all that shit.

• 1:17:32Matt Farah?

  That makes sense. That makes sense. So sure, okay.

• 1:17:37Matt Farah?

  Brand new, yeah. Well, hmm hmm hmm hmm hmm. Might I just throw in that you can get a Z51 Corvette?

• 1:17:45Speaker 01

  I was just gonna say Corvette.

• 1:17:46Matt Farah?

  For under 100,000 bucks.

• 1:17:47Speaker 01

  Ooh.

• 1:17:49Matt Farah?

  And I don't know, I think there's an argument to be made there.

• 1:17:53Speaker 02

  There is. That would be a good comparison.

• 1:17:55Matt Farah?

  We have mid-engine V8s.

• 1:17:57Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:17:57Matt Farah?

  That would be a good argument to be made. So if you actually have the Hundo.

• 1:18:01Speaker 02

  Hmm.

• 1:18:02Matt Farah?

  You know? Wider than the NASCAR racing line at Cota says, I got, I got to see the American Motor Drome Company and they put on amazing show. What the fuck is that? Oh, do they do, are they doing like barrel riding like back in the day?

• 1:18:17Speaker 01

  Yes, they are.

• 1:18:18Matt Farah?

  Oh, fun. What is your favorite kind of stunt driving slash riding?

• 1:18:25Matt Farah?

  There was a year before the 2018 fire where in Malibu, the motorcycle riders that were riding the snake, got tired of their sport bikes and all bought baggers and started doing stunts up the snake on baggers like dragging pegs, huge sparks and like big fucking wheelies on these huge baggers. Wow. And honestly, that was a good time. Yeah, they started doing bagger racing at Laguna Seca. King of the baggers is then what kinda came out of that. Bikes are fast. Like they put down some serious times. Has that circled back now? Do those manufacturers now sell? Fast baggers? Like something for the road that's based on their bagger race bike? This is now, this is the X6M.

• 1:19:12Matt Farah?

  For us. Oh, American motodrome, AMDC Wall of Death. Yeah, dude, this is like some old school shit. Oh, I'd love to see this. Yeah, where the ground, all that stuff. Oh, it's gotta be such a good time, dude. No hands. This is board track. This is, this is like, it's like racing was in Los Angeles in 1915. Right. Like where the Grove is was like a board track. It was Beverly Hills Speedway. Oh, cool. They travel with it. Set it up.

• 1:19:43Speaker 01

  There was, there was something I read about, this might have been a Car and Driver article 10 years ago. I think my friend Jared Gahl wrote it. And it was about this crazy, uh, you know, Mayhem Race Event that they would do, I think somewhere in Michigan or in the Midwest, where they would like chain two school buses together. And then like put like a blank, like stainless, like metal plate behind the back wheels of one of them or something. So this is like throwing it out.

• 1:20:11Matt Farah?

  Like skid plate racing. Yeah, so the front one does not have brakes.

• 1:20:17Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 1:20:17Matt Farah?

  The back one has brakes. Okay.

• 1:20:21Matt Farah?

  So it's like. Throwing nunchucks into a crowd or something like that. Yeah, so it's chain school bus figure eight. Yeah, it's bananas.

• 1:20:28Speaker 01

  That sounded, that sounded like it would be fun to watch.

• 1:20:30Matt Farah?

  Oh, incredible. It's beyond. It's one of the best spectator sports ever. They used to do skid plate racing at, um. Irwindale. Yeah, Irwindale. Granny shifting, not double clutching like you should. Wait, did you buy a GT3? No. Maybe they're thinking of someone else. Maybe they're thinking of someone else. Yeah, no, I don't have a GT3. Yeah. Oh, wait. Mark Farrar, the tired smoker, says, toss in a watch question here. Rec Watches DNA Series, cool or not cool? Can you pull that up? I'm not, I don't know this, I know the company. Don't they make companies out of, wa, excuse me, don't they make watches out of crashed cars? I'm pretty sure they make watches out of crashed cars. Huh.

• 1:21:16Matt Farah?

  Yeah, so this is their thing. They take the metal from crashed cars and then they make a watch out of it. Which like, okay, like, that's a vibe. Yeah. And they're not, the watches themselves aren't super shouty about like what they're made of, which is cool. Is it just like melted down metal? I think it is. Or it might be, click on like, I don't know, the bullet or one of the other ones that we can... Little tiny piece in the middle, like what's the part that comes from the car? Let's see, where is it? Can you, can you scroll? Can we see what part it's made, is made from it? It's gotta be the dial, right? A sub dial crafted from the repurposed brake disc. Okay, so go back up. Go back up, let's see what the sub dial is. That is...

• 1:22:01Matt Farah?

  Scroll down. Okay, so the top sub dial on this watch is made from a brake disc from this Porsche. You can kinda see it. I mean, look, dude... But the rest of the watch is made of watch. Correct.

• 1:22:17Matt Farah?

  So, I mean, I haven't heard any horror stories. If the idea of having a small piece of whatever that car is makes you horny, then like go for it. I like that it's not super shouty, the rest of the watch. It's a cool watch. It's just a watch, the rest of it, which I think... If you're doing a car watch collab, you really gotta tone the car a bit.

• 1:22:37Speaker 01

  The car part down, yeah.

• 1:22:38Matt Farah?

  Way as far down as it goes.

• 1:22:39Speaker 01

  It shouldn't have wheels, right.

• 1:22:41Matt Farah?

  The back of this watch did have a BBS looking kind of wheel, yeah. But the fronts are, you know, they're not, it's not immediately obvious, so, so, okay, cool. They're not really, for me, I don't need my car watch collabs to be that tight. But like, if you're into it, like, okay, cool, right? Doesn't look too bad. Uh, it's got a Swiss movement, manual winding flyback chronograph, like, okay.

• 1:23:07Speaker 01

  Yeah, but like, this one is, they made this watch from the coolant, resourced coolant pipes of a GT40 chassis P1001. So someone was throwing away the coolant pipe. Someone told someone, this is definitely the coolant pipe.

• 1:23:21Matt Farah?

  Sure.

• 1:23:21Speaker 01

  And then they made a watch, which, not a bad looking watch, but, you know, like, I can't see the coolant pipe in this.

• 1:23:27Matt Farah?

  I can't, I can't either, but like, dude, maybe that's for the best, you know? It's, honestly, it's a, it's a, it's a Swiss flyback chronograph with an integrated bracelet for 2,500 bucks that's not ugly.

• 1:23:41Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:23:42Matt Farah?

  So, points to them, right?

• 1:23:44Speaker 01

  If you're into the story.

• 1:23:45Matt Farah?

  Could be worse.

• 1:23:46Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:23:46Matt Farah?

  Yeah, it's what we call a lecturer's watch.

• 1:23:48Speaker 01

  Right, exactly.

• 1:23:49Matt Farah?

  Oh, can I tell you about my watch?

• 1:23:51Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:23:51Matt Farah?

  Please don't.

• 1:23:54Matt Farah?

  Um, you'll have to come over and, uh, drive the Mank's to try it. It's, it's, I mean, there is no better Hamptons vehicle, so you'll have to do other six weeks on the other side of one of these. Uh, anything you wanna plug?

• 1:24:06Speaker 01

  Let's see, working on a bunch of stuff recently, it's been a lot of fun. I just drove the new Jag.

• 1:24:14Matt Farah?

  Oh, the actual new Jag?

• 1:24:15Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, still, still a, still a, you know, a prototype or whatever, but, um, so that was kind of exciting.

• 1:24:21Matt Farah?

  Did it just drive like an EV?

• 1:24:23Speaker 01

  No, it actually had like a nice feel to it, you know what I mean? Like, it had a different, I don't know what they've done, I don't really understand it, but like, it has that, I mean, it almost feels like, and they, they said, they said this and they had some, some of these heritage vehicles for us to test out, to, um, check out like a V12 Jag. Like the seventies and eighties and it has a little bit of that feel to it where it's like there's always like more power so it's not like you flat out and you're like you know you break your neck but like it feels like you can keep going you know

• 1:24:55Matt Farah?

  Does it oh it looks it looks like this zebra

• 1:24:57Speaker 01

  Yeah it was still zebra

• 1:24:58Matt Farah?

  Is that you or Paul Newman?

• 1:24:59Speaker 01

  That's me

• 1:25:00Matt Farah?

  Is that you that from that angle you've got a very Paul Newman vibe happening there yeah

• 1:25:05Speaker 01

  I guess that's a good thing

• 1:25:06Matt Farah?

  There we go yes it is um and did it have anything resembling a production interior?

• 1:25:11Speaker 01

  No it was all covered up in like magicians black you know uh felt um uh some elements of it you could sort of see no no hard switches

• 1:25:21Matt Farah?

  Okay

• 1:25:21Speaker 01

  No hard switches although they'll have to change that yeah exactly So I'm like let's hope that the future that Jaguar imagines somehow comes to fruition but I'm not sure

• 1:25:31Matt Farah?

  Wouldn't it be a bummer if only billionaires got to have real switches on stuff?

• 1:25:34Speaker 01

  Yeah

• 1:25:34Matt Farah?

  If like the only way to get a real switch in something was to have a Pagani?

• 1:25:38Speaker 01

  Yeah well I did a story about this recently it was like uh analog is the new luxury essentially right that's talking about exactly that that that's uh that's where that's where automakers are seeing the demand sort of the most first

• 1:25:51Matt Farah?

  Nobody wants a EV hypercar for obvious reasons why would you when you can get a Tesla or Lucid that's like also fast uh and yeah it's the oh look at that photo and uh and and the um yeah anal analog and and tactile and

• 1:26:07Speaker 01

  Exactly engagement

• 1:26:08Matt Farah?

  It's record players and Leicas and fucking you know pour over coffee and watches and it's the same as all that shit if you're rich you can feel things

• 1:26:18Speaker 01

  Yeah exactly the rest of us are stuck with

• 1:26:20Matt Farah?

  The rest of us are the virtual version

• 1:26:22Speaker 01

  Yeah

• 1:26:22Matt Farah?

  Of feeling things right um

• 1:26:25Speaker 01

  What else?

• 1:26:25Matt Farah?

  Yeah yeah sure Good to see you

• 1:26:27Speaker 01

  Good to see you too

• 1:26:28Matt Farah?

  Um where can people find your writing digitally just your newsletter?

• 1:26:31Speaker 01

  Yeah just uh Brett Burke dot com

• 1:26:34Matt Farah?

  That's it Brett Burke dot com

• 1:26:36Speaker 01

  Yeah go to my go to my site and uh it has everything there uh hit on uh it should just be

• 1:26:41Matt Farah?

  The man who abandoned social media successfully

• 1:26:45Speaker 01

  Exactly it looks like there's a few things that are missing from here I gotta update, I've gotta update. That's a few, that's from a couple of weeks ago.

• 1:26:52Speaker 02

  That's why I found the other site, but I don't know, do you not wanna plug that one, the muckrak one?

• 1:26:56Speaker 01

  Oh yeah, muckrak is just like, uh, yeah, that's true also. Yeah, that works also.

• 1:27:00Matt Farah?

  Also Brett Burke on muckrak.

• 1:27:02Speaker 02

  Is that a lot, everything recent?

• 1:27:03Speaker 01

  Yeah, there's everything there, right? Yeah. Story about colors.

• 1:27:06Speaker 02

  I like this article, it's very going on.

• 1:27:08Speaker 01

  That was a fun one.

• 1:27:08Matt Farah?

  People do want good colors and they should get them.

• 1:27:11Speaker 01

  Yeah, agreed. There was a fun story we did for, uh, with Vanity Fair with LeBron. James about his new Maybach. That was a couple of weeks ago. Uh, yeah, I don't know, it's all over there, right?

• 1:27:24Matt Farah?

  Did you interview LeBron for his Maybach?

• 1:27:26Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:27:26Matt Farah?

  Was, and, and is there something particularly special about this Maybach?

• 1:27:30Speaker 01

  I mean, you know, it's a highly customized Maybach. He's, they made a second one that he's auctioning off for his charity.

• 1:27:36Matt Farah?

  Cool.

• 1:27:37Speaker 01

  Which is pretty nice.

• 1:27:38Matt Farah?

  Is this his garage these photos are in?

• 1:27:39Speaker 01

  This, uh, that is a really good question. We were not, I was not in person with him for this story. But, um, yeah, he, the one, one hilarious story that he told is that, you know, his first supercar, he bought a Gallardo. And, um, he must've been pretty young, right? Cause he started playing when he was just a kid.

• 1:27:58Matt Farah?

  Yeah.

• 1:27:58Speaker 01

  Uh, professionally. And, um, he said that he bought the car and then he realized he doesn't, he didn't know how to drive a manual.

• 1:28:04Matt Farah?

  Oh, he bought a stick Gallardo, well, good for him.

• 1:28:06Speaker 01

  Which is great, but then he bought another car, like a cheaper car with a manual to learn.

• 1:28:10Matt Farah?

  Oh, he bought a beater?

• 1:28:12Speaker 01

  Yeah, he bought a beater to learn how to drive a manual before he drove his Gallardo.

• 1:28:16Matt Farah?

  I don't wanna, uh, blow up his spot in a way, but a guy, a vendor that we use here at the shop also works for him.

• 1:28:24Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 1:28:25Matt Farah?

  And a couple of cars have just shown up at this vendor's shop. And they're like, cool, they're, they're, it, they're, they're, it's a cool car.

• 1:28:34Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:28:35Matt Farah?

  But a fairly shit example. And he'll go, oh, well, that's, that's for LeBron. And I'll go, What the fuck? And I'll go, why is he buying a shit example? Yeah. He could buy the best example. And he's like, you know, you don't, you don't really get it. He's so rich, he doesn't even take the time to look for other examples. He like, he just sees some shit. Right. He clicks, clicks buy, and then it just shows up here and I'm told to do, you know, whatever. And he doesn't care what it costs to fix it. Get it right. He found the one. Right. Here's the one I bought. Right. Yeah. Fix it up. And so I've been like, wow, like, he clearly has good taste. Yeah. But like, somebody should be like, hold up. Yeah. Just wait a sec.

• 1:29:17Matt Farah?

  Give me like three days to find you one of these that isn't a complete shit pile and we can do something here. You know? Uh, very funny, but clearly he has, he has good, good taste in at least the right direction. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Very cool. We appreciate that. Yeah. Very cool. Thanks for having me out. Thanks for coming. Happy west coasting. Thank you very much. We'll top it off with a Mank's Drive before you go home. Okay. I'll try to make that, I'll try to make that happen. If not, I'll be out again. You'll plan for the next six weeks. Exactly. Six weeks block. Thank you, Brett Burke. Get him at brettberk.com. We'll see the rest of you guys next week. Bye.