The New Grand Tour; Tesla's Dodge; SHOCKING Repair Estimate

Our thoughts on the new Grand Tour; Tesla's accident avoidance pros/cons; Matt's surprising Taycan repair estimate; and a correction about the Lexus RZ550e. Patreon questions include: Should a recent college grad drain a 401k to buy a sports car? Is a new 6Pack Challenger a deal at $40k? How long does it take to REALLY know a car? Favorite small town near a race track? Why are Lotus Elise prices FINALLY going up? Fun cars for the winter Would the U. S. auto industry be BETTER without the oil crisis? The last hypercar we CARED about Where to NEVER put your feet And more! Recorded September 9, 2026 Show Notes: Casper Right now, save up to 20% on mattresses when you go to https://casper.com Quince Find your next fall favorites at Quince. Download the Quince app for app-exclusive offers, or go to https://quince.com/tire Get free shipping on your order and 365-day returns. Now available in Canada and the UK, too. AG1 For a limited time, save 20% on your first subscription order of AG1 Next Gen or AG1 Pro at https://DRINK AG1.com/tire. DeleteMe Get 20% off your DeleteMe plan when you go to www.joindeleteme.com/tire and use promo code TIRE at checkout. Use Off The Record! and ALWAYS fight your tickets! For a 10% discount on your first case go to https://www.offtherecord.com/TST Want your question answered? Want to watch the live stream, get ad-free podcasts, or exclusive podcasts? Join our Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/thesmokingtirepodcast Instagram: https://www. Instagram.com/thesmokingtire https://www. Instagram.com/therealzackklapman

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

• 0:00Matt Farah?

  What up everybody, welcome to the Smoking Tire Podcast. Today's episode is brought to you by Off the Record. Loving Off the Record. I got an active case right now that I'll tell you all about once I get that text that says dismissed. No double jeopardy for your boy here. If you get pulled over for any type of moving violation, big, small, or in between, don't plead guilty, get off the record. They will connect you with a qualified attorney in the jurisdiction where you got that ticket, and they will fight it all the way to the Supreme Court. Hopefully, they don't have to argue in front of Clarence Thomas. You know what I'm saying? They'll fight it all the way, though. That's what I mean. Then they'll get you that. They'll get you those points off your record. Go to offtherecord.com/tst.

• 0:43Matt Farah?

  That's offtherecord.com/tst. That code, link code, will give you 10% off all legal services booked through Off the Record. We love these folks. They're always looking out for us. They'll look out for you, too. All right, on this episode of the program, I watched an episode of the Grand Tour. Tesla has introduced a new crash avoidance feature. I have an update on our finicky Lexus RZ cameras. A famous racing driver that I happen to be a little bit friends with is trying to build a big ol' racetrack. And speaking of big ol', wait till you see the bill to fix my Taycan. It's the Smoking Tire Podcast. Let's go.

• 1:28Matt Farah?

  I took this watch strap, and you know, these rolled canvas straps are like great. They're beautiful. You know, they're made really nicely. Bosphorus and Turkey makes these things. But you know, they

• 1:40Speaker 01

  They made my hair.

• 1:41Matt Farah?

  They're canvas. So they, you know, they get dirty. They absorb your sweat, your oil, your wash your hands, whatever the fuck it is. So this, this has been on there for like a year. And it was kind of like stained and like gross. And so I, you know, I washed them normally. I have a dirty toothbrush, an X, an X toothbrush.

• 2:01Speaker 01

  Right.

• 2:01Matt Farah?

  And I'll get some hand soap in there, in the toothbrush, with hot water, and I'll just, I'll scrub them out. And then I'll like press them in a towel and let them dry. And that's like a halfway clean, you know? But I took it off and I put it in the washing machine with like, in one of those like lingerie bags with like Hannah's bras. Money move. Absolutely money move. Fresh as new. I actually thought some of the color had like faded out of it. And I was like, ah, maybe they, they dyed it and they didn't wash it enough and it's kind of fading. But like, no, I washed it and it is the right color.

• 2:37Speaker 01

  That's awesome. Those, those bags are very handy for that stuff. Put small things in, in laundry machine.

• 2:43Matt Farah?

  This is what I do in the rain. How do I fuck? Yeah, I put, I put stuff up for sale. I, I clean things, you know? How's everybody doing today? I've had a couple of coffees. Had an iced coffee, home state earlier. I'm, I'm fucking addicted.

• 3:00Speaker 01

  You're zooming.

• 3:00Matt Farah?

  I'm addicted to those home state breakfast tacos. Them's are the shit.

• 3:06Speaker 01

  I'm gonna go there for lunch.

• 3:07Matt Farah?

  That's a very high quality breakfast taco. One is enough.

• 3:12Speaker 01

  Yeah, they're big. I got the egg white mushroom one. It's really good.

• 3:15Matt Farah?

  That chorizo, I fucks with that chorizo. Also, got my cholesterol test results back. Despite the weight bounce, which we discussed on the Pro Show, I'm sure fucking everybody, all the pro drivers liked hearing the Matt Farah Therapy Hour on the Pro Show. But uh, my cholesterol is rocking and rolling, my friend.

• 3:34Speaker 01

  It's good?

• 3:34Matt Farah?

  Bro, my shit is, in some cases, it's below the green, in some cases. Like the bar graph, it's like white, green, yellow, red. I was in yellow, you know, bumping up on red when we started. Now, I just got checked, and some of these are like below green.

• 3:54Speaker 01

  Did you do that shot thing?

• 3:56Matt Farah?

  I'm on medication, but not a shot. My dad's on the show.

• 3:59Speaker 01

  Right, that's right.

• 3:59Matt Farah?

  Yeah, I know. I'll get, when I hit 70, that's in, it's amazing to me. And I don't know, well, you're adopted, so you can't relate to this at all. But my physical journey with the things that work and don't work and need, need maintaining on my body is like to the year of my father, which is, which gives me a lot of optimism, because he's actually very healthy. And, and, and I, in a lot of ways, take better care of myself now than he did at his age. The science is better now. The medical choices are better now than he wa, you know, than in the 80s.

• 4:37Speaker 01

  For sure.

• 4:38Matt Farah?

  But like, I, I can see what I have to look forward to. And like, it's not so bad.

• 4:42Speaker 01

  Well, and your brain will keep working, right? We talked about that.

• 4:45Matt Farah?

  He stopped smoking weed after college.

• 4:48Speaker 01

  We were talking about that during your family reunion.

• 4:51Matt Farah?

  We don't have a dementia family, an Alzheimer's family. Yeah, no, we have, our family is heart shit. It's all about heart shit. And in, in some cases, colitis and Crohn's in my family, too. So if you skate on the colitis and Crohn's, you know, you don't get that later. You get that when, you know, when you're younger.

• 5:07Speaker 01

  You have the big toilet paper roll for the wedding.

• 5:09Matt Farah?

  Still got the big roll. If we skate on the Crohn's, then all that's left to deal with, if you're a Farah, is heart stuff. So it's nice for that to be under fucking control. Makes, makes a man feel good.

• 5:25Speaker 01

  Yeah, and you, and you work out a lot, so you should be pretty good like that.

• 5:28Matt Farah?

  Um, but dude, there's, I, I was wondering like, what we're gonna talk about on this show, because like, you know, three shows, three days in a row. And um, there's only so.

• 5:38Speaker 01

  That's why I started reading the news today.

• 5:40Matt Farah?

  That's what I'm saying. You found a thing, I found a couple of things, and also, things fell into my lap, because I got a letter this morning. You want to just start, start on this?

• 5:49Speaker 01

  Yeah, but you want to start with a picture?

• 5:52Matt Farah?

  Well, you could, yeah, yeah. So I got a letter this morning saying that I am being issued a payment to pay for the repairs of my Taycan. The, I don't know, I think on the Pro Show, I can't remember if it was last show or the Pro Show,

• 6:09Matt Farah?

  that we talked about this, but uh,

• 6:14Matt Farah?

  there was a delay. They found more damage. I think it was on, it was on the Pro Show?

• 6:18Speaker 01

  Yes. And then in the last show, we talked, oh, right. Pro Show, we talked about how the, the claims adjuster had not visited.

• 6:24Matt Farah?

  Right.

• 6:24Speaker 01

  Previous shows, we talked about how there's more damage.

• 6:26Matt Farah?

  There's more damage. The claims adjuster finally visited, okay? And, and I, I got on their ass about it yesterday, because I was like, guys, you know, WTF, like, I'm waiting here. They finally visited, and I got an email from my insurance company this morning, saying, here's how much we are going to pay you. So they pay me and I pay the shop to fix the car, right? I could probably have the money go directly to the shop, but it's whatever. I've done it before. It just, it comes to me and I pay the shop. I get the credit card points.

• 7:00Speaker 01

  Jeez, that's good.

• 7:00Matt Farah?

  And wait till you see how many credit card points.

• 7:03Speaker 01

  Yeah, no kidding. You can fly to the moon.

• 7:04Matt Farah?

  So let's, let's start with a photo, and I apologize for the audio, people. I'm gonna try to describe this. We're looking at the driver's side rear three-quarter of my Porsche Taycan, taken just after the accident. Now, I first have to say, if you're new to this, I let my friend borrow my car for the weekend. He drove it to Lake Elsinore, which is in the mountains. We're actually gonna be talking about Lake Elsinore later in the show for a different reason. But uh, drove it out there for the weekend, and he was hit by somebody who then lied to the police and the insurance company about the accident.

• 7:42Matt Farah?

  The, my insurance company did an investigation and was found, my friend, to be totally not at fault for the accident. And I have letters written from the insurance company absolving my friend of, and me, of any liability here. They're gonna go after this girl's insurance company, okay? She's, she was 20, and it was apparently her third accident in a 2024 Mustang.

• 8:06Speaker 01

  I wonder if there's a penalty also that she lied and they figured out she was lying?

• 8:09Matt Farah?

  I don't think they have punitive penalties for lying in insurance, yeah.

• 8:13Speaker 01

  We don't have that in America anyway.

• 8:15Matt Farah?

  So, so here's, this is the photo of my car. And, and what we're looking at, when he, when, when my friend, Mahdi the Shaman, sent me, who's no longer a shaman, now he's Mahdi the fucking peptide. He's gone from Mahdi the Shaman to Mahdi the peptide.

• 8:31Speaker 01

  Oh, he's still offering healing properties.

• 8:33Matt Farah?

  His Rogan transformation is complete. Um, is Mahdi, Mahdi the peptide, of course, not at fault, sober. Look at the daylight, no shadows, middle of the day. Okay. The rear, the rear bumper, he was hit rear end slash side swiped by this girl, okay? So, so the, the damage cuts across sort of the rear three-quarter of the car, more towards the side than the rear end. The rear, the bumper is damaged, needs to be replaced. The parking sensor is damaged. The painted over fender is damaged, and the HRE wheel is damaged.

• 9:15Speaker 01

  But if, but for people who are not looking at this photo, if I, if I said this car was hit and it's undrivable, you would not believe me, because the damage to your bumper seems minor. I mean, the patch, the patch of visible damage is like the size of uh, two coasters? Like, it's really small. So the bumper is not pushed in a ton. There's not a ton of paint cut off of it or, or left on it from the other vehicle.

• 9:45Matt Farah?

  You could accurately call it a scrape, more so than a crash.

• 9:49Speaker 01

  Mild scrape. And the wheel, I mean, the wheel damage is also looks like, you know?

• 9:54Matt Farah?

  The wheel damage looks like a really bad curbing.

• 9:57Speaker 01

  It looks like a bad curb wheel.

• 9:58Matt Farah?

  Yeah. Yeah. It looks like you had backed into a bollard, a parking bollard of some kind.

• 10:04Speaker 01

  And we know from previous shows, like, how much damage this did across the car, but this is like someone stubs their toe and their shoulder's broken. Like, that's the kind of damage visibly we're dealing with.

• 10:16Matt Farah?

  So, and, and, and if you're looking at the photo, the air suspension is raised to its maximum height, which it's not supposed to be. So there, there is, there's obviously something amiss with the air suspension as well, okay? But, but when he sent me the photo, the day of the crash, I was like, oh, okay. Well, that's not so bad. To, and at first, I was considering, I was so mad at him, because he asked to borrow the car and then got in an accident. Uh, I'm not mad anymore, but I, but, but I was that day. I was, fuck, you know what I mean?

• 10:47Speaker 01

  You're like, what peptide did you take?

• 10:49Matt Farah?

  You can imagine how mad someone would be, saying, if you let them borrow your Porsche and they call and say they've been in a crash. If, once you get past they're not hurt, then you're just like, fuck, you know what I mean? But he sent me the photo and I went, oh, okay. Well, that's, that's not so bad. I have the bill.

• 11:06Speaker 01

  Yeah, we do.

• 11:09Matt Farah?

  If you looked at this, I mean honestly, if I looked at this photo, I thought I was getting out of this for like 5 Gs.

• 11:14Speaker 01

  Or less, yeah.

• 11:16Matt Farah?

  If this was a Chevy, it's 5 Gs. It's 5 because it's a Porsche and there's an HRE wheel. Like, that's why I think it's 5.

• 11:22Speaker 01

  And it looks like all you do is order a new bumper?

• 11:25Matt Farah?

  Yeah.

• 11:25Speaker 01

  And have it painted and put it on.

• 11:29Speaker 01

  That's what, that's what visibly you go, oh, okay, that and fix the curbing.

• 11:32Matt Farah?

  Shall I work backwards from the total? Would you like parts, labor, total?

• 11:36Speaker 01

  Let's do, let's start with the total, because we've talked about some of the parts, because the total is wild.

• 11:45Matt Farah?

  It's, it's insane to look at this number.

• 11:50Matt Farah?

  Are you ready?

• 11:52Matt Farah?

  Thirty-nine thousand, three hundred and seventy dollar, three hundred and, excuse me, thirty-nine thousand, three hundred and ninety dollars and thirty-seven cents is how much I'm being paid at, out.

• 12:09Matt Farah?

  Notice, that includes, see fifteen hundred total adjustments, because they found us not at fault, they're giving me my deductible back, too. So that's the fifteen hunj.

• 12:17Speaker 01

  Oh, okay.

• 12:18Matt Farah?

  For the deductible, right? So, the, the actual, I'm being paid thirty-nine thousand, the actual cost of repairs of the car, thirty-seven thousand, eight hundred and ninety dollars.

• 12:32Speaker 01

  And to go back to the photo for everybody. Now, we know that there's other, other parts were broken on other parts of the car you can't see, but just looking, there was a car parked on my street yesterday, it was like a Mercedes E-Class, and someone had scraped both of their doors, magically not hitting their own fenders, they scraped it so hard, it ripped the metal off of the door, and I could see, I could see the green pulleys that-

• 12:58Matt Farah?

  Like it accordion'd the door back a little bit?

• 13:00Speaker 01

  Yeah, I could see the pulleys that make the, the windows go up and down. I bet that was less expensive than this.

• 13:05Matt Farah?

  It probably was. I mean, there are a few, you know, the, the, the, the parts total is actually less than you would think. Folks, you know where my favorite place is outside of the driver's seat of my Demand Spider? That's right, bed. You know, you get that long day, you're always running around, maybe you're a little sweaty, maybe you're tired, and what do you need? Curl up in bed? Maybe you got a couple of kittens? Maybe you got a pup? Maybe you got a partner, wife? Something to keep you warm? I like to keep cool. That's why I'm about that. Casper with the snow technology. We'll come back to the snow technology, but let's talk about Casper. They make reliable, high-quality mattresses designed to deliver consistent, comfortable

• 13:48Matt Farah?

  sleep night after night. That's why, out of ninety-nine mattresses, Consumer Reports named Casper's The One Mattress their top-rated all-foam mattress of 2026. That's a big deal. Now, you've been talking about getting a new bed? Well, now is the time with Casper's September Savings. You can head over to casper.com and save up to 20% on the mattress you deserve. Casper's mattresses are built to be durable and long-lasting, so you're not replacing your mattress every few years. Their products are designed to withstand the test of time, maintaining support and comfort over the long haul. And Casper has their 100-night risk-free trial, so you can give Casper's mattress a try, risk-free, although

• 14:33Matt Farah?

  with 110,000 five-star reviews, I'm sure you're gonna love it like I do. When I slept on my Casper mattress last night, I had three cats! Three cats. And the snow technology is better for attracting the cats. So if you want to sleep in bed with your pets, the snow technology is what's up. But Casper does offer a wide range of mattress types, so whether you like it firm, soft, or somewhere in between, there's something for you at casper.com. The day always ends well with Casper, and right now, you can save up to 20% on mattresses when you go to casper.com. One last time, that's C-A-S-P-E-R.com. Save up to 20% on

• 15:18Matt Farah?

  the mattress that you deserve. And we're talking about Quince today, support coming in from them. You know those pieces in your closet that you find yourself wearing on repeat? That perfect sweater that goes with everything? That pair of pants that fits you just right, or the t-shirt that you somehow always reach for first? I'm actually wearing that t-shirt right now. These are the pieces that make getting dressed easy, and that's what Quince does best. Quince focuses on high-quality wardrobe staples made with premium materials like 100% Mongolian cashmere, organic cotton, and merino wool. The styles are timeless, versatile, and designed to become the dependable pieces you reach for day after day. Their 100% Mongolian cashmere sweaters start at

• 16:01Matt Farah?

  just $60, giving you the softness and quality you expect from a luxury brand without the luxury price tag. Quince also makes premium pants, fitted tees and polos, breathable activewear, and quality basics designed to work across your wardrobe and hold up to everyday wear. Everything at Quince is priced 50% to 80% less than similar brands. They work directly with ethical factories and cut out the middleman, so you're paying for high-quality, not brand markup. I've got myself some t-shirts, some blank, you know, clean, black, blue t-shirts from Quince. I'm wearing these things every day. I don't like to wear big logos anymore,

• 16:41Matt Farah?

  and I like the thicker fabric. It, it hides my, like, Arab chest hair better than the thinner stuff I used to wear, and Quince has got it. It's not just clothing. Quince brings that same approach to everything they make, from hotel-quality bedding and bath to kitchen essentials and thoughtfully-designed furniture. They make well-designed pieces for everyday living. Find your next fall favorites at Quince. Download the Quince app for app-exclusive offers, or go to quince.com/tire. Get free shipping on your order and 365-day returns now available in Canada and the UK, too. That's quince.com/tire, Q-U-I-N-C-E.com/tire. And now, back to the show.

• 17:27Matt Farah?

  The parts total is 7,100 bucks.

• 17:30Speaker 01

  What?

• 17:30Matt Farah?

  Yeah. So, the labor, it's, um, I just saw it, it's like 50-something hours of labor. Body labor, six and a half hours at 75. Paint labor, seven and a half hours at 75. Mechanical labor, uh, um, oh, wait.

• 17:54Matt Farah?

  Sorry. There is $29,000 in labor on this car.

• 18:04Speaker 01

  Okay, well, now, now let's talk about what parts are being replaced.

• 18:06Matt Farah?

  Oh, wait, no. Oh, no, no, no, I'm sorry, I read that wrong. That's just the body, that's the body is 7,100. The, the way this is written, it's categorized in different ways, okay? So, I'll just, I'll just, I'll just read off a few highlighted items for you, okay? So, air compressor, that's 1,700. Rear air suspension control module, 25 hunj.

• 18:35Matt Farah?

  Uh, right strut assembly, front suspension, 2800.

• 18:43Matt Farah?

  Control arms, front and rear, lateral arms, that's gonna be 1,200. Uh, left rear shock, 1,800. Left knuckle, 1,500. Left air spring, 3 Gs for the left air spring.

• 19:01Matt Farah?

  Uh, let's see, we've got 1,200, uh, for the bumper, the rear bumper. It's actually less than I would've guessed.

• 19:13Matt Farah?

  Yeah. I mean, holy fuck, right?

• 19:15Speaker 01

  Holy shit.

• 19:16Matt Farah?

  Now, look, there's probably someone out there that's listening to this and going, "They're ripping him off!" Look, I'm not paying a dime. Zero of this comes out of my pocket.

• 19:24Speaker 01

  And you also, we have no control over what a body shop charges-

• 19:27Matt Farah?

  None.

• 19:27Speaker 01

  And-

• 19:28Matt Farah?

  And it's not, it's not in my interest to even question it. I don't give a shit. It's paid for. Whatever it is, they're going to fix it, I'm gonna get my car back, so like, please don't fucking DM me and go, "That part shouldn't be..." I don't care. It's getting fixed. But like, holy fucking shit.

• 19:47Speaker 01

  Right.

• 19:47Matt Farah?

  That is an insane amount of money to fix this car. And to be honest, if I didn't have Hagerty Insurance, they probably would have totaled it.

• 19:57Speaker 01

  Well.

• 19:58Matt Farah?

  Or they could have easily totaled it.

• 19:59Speaker 01

  So you bought the car for seventy-two?

• 20:01Matt Farah?

  I bought the car, well, the, the purchase price of the car was sixty-four-eight. Now, by the time I paid everything, everything, everything with taxes and all that, it was like seventy-two grand.

• 20:14Speaker 01

  So this is more than fifty percent of purchase price?

• 20:16Matt Farah?

  Yes, yes.

• 20:17Speaker 01

  Wow. Even with taxes and stuff, this is over fifty percent of the value of the car.

• 20:23Matt Farah?

  Isn't that crazy?

• 20:24Speaker 01

  And again, to go back to the picture, which is like, looks like nothing.

• 20:29Matt Farah?

  Yeah.

• 20:30Speaker 01

  Uh, that's nuts.

• 20:31Matt Farah?

  And so this morning, I, I went, I was at, again, free plug for Home State, having a taco, and I met up with Nick from the Grotto, who paid us for our Blazers project. And by the way, he mentioned this, you and I each designed a Blazer.

• 20:48Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 20:49Matt Farah?

  We each sold exactly the same number of Blazers.

• 20:51Speaker 01

  That's crazy.

• 20:52Matt Farah?

  We tied.

• 20:53Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 20:53Matt Farah?

  Which is a crazy thing.

• 20:54Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 20:55Matt Farah?

  Um, and I hope, if you bought a Blazer, uh, especially if you're a Patreon, you know, DM us a photo, if you, I mean, we had no returns. Zero Blazers were returned. So like, that's an amazing statistic.

• 21:08Speaker 01

  That's really good.

• 21:09Matt Farah?

  In the clothing industry, people always return stuff. Now, I hope it's not, I hope they're not keeping something they don't like because of us, but, but, you know, if you don't like it, fucking return it or exchange it or whatever. I hope everyone got them tailored so they fit beautifully, but send us your photos of your Blazers.

• 21:24Speaker 01

  Yeah, definitely tag us in it. That's really cool.

• 21:26Matt Farah?

  I met with, met up with Nick this morning, and I showed him this, and I told him, and he's like, oh my God. I backed up into a fucking post outside my office. The damage looked kinda like this in a Range Rover, and he said, and he had bought a used Range Rover, like, three years old. And he said he was out of the car for three months, and the bill was thirty-five thousand dollars for, for similar looking damage. And the body shop guy was like, hey, do you like this car or not? Because I could kick this either way.

• 21:57Speaker 01

  Oh.

• 21:58Matt Farah?

  You know what I mean?

• 21:59Speaker 01

  Total it or not total it?

• 22:00Matt Farah?

  Yeah, I could say, I could make this car, you know, and it was like, this same kinda damage in a, in a car that he had bought, like, three months before the damage. So he was like, fix it, I'm gonna keep the car. But, but, if he could, could have kicked it either way. But like, fucking hell.

• 22:14Speaker 01

  Yeah, I don't know, we'd have to get, if there's anyone out there who works at a body shop, you wanna speak anonymously, like, you know, do they see luxury badge? Do they see good insurance? And they go, hey, you know, we can do a little bit, like, we have friends that are techs, and they know that a job can take them two hours, but they can bill for four.

• 22:32Matt Farah?

  Yeah.

• 22:32Speaker 01

  Or bill for six, or whatever.

• 22:34Matt Farah?

  Well, this is, this is not just a body shop. This is a body shop and a dealership.

• 22:38Speaker 01

  Well, they're paying far more than aesthetic stuff, but I'm just wondering, like, you know, it just seems like a lot of money.

• 22:45Matt Farah?

  With the, in the case of the Range Rover one, it was because Nick damaged, he hit it on the corner, and it was like, tail, LED taillight, power tailgate, and corner panel were all damaged, like, just a little bit. So it didn't look bad, but it was like, gotta.

• 23:01Speaker 01

  The lights these days are crazy expensive. Someone put, had a thing online, a new headlight for a Cayenne was like, eight thousand dollars, like, well.

• 23:08Matt Farah?

  G wagons.

• 23:09Speaker 01

  Ballast control, lasers, all this stuff.

• 23:10Matt Farah?

  Yeah, so G wagons, you can remove the headlights without breaking into the car. Like, you don't need to open the hood, you can just take them out from the outside. And so, we've gotten here at West Side, multiple headlightless G wagons. Where their fucking headlights got jacked, and they're not leaving that motherfucker outside anymore. And, uh, and they get cars, uh, G wagons that come in when people go out of town for a couple of months, because they live in the hills. The car doesn't live in a garage, or even have a garage, they don't wanna leave it for, their headlights are gonna get jacked.

• 23:45Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 23:45Matt Farah?

  Yeah. All the time it happens.

• 23:47Speaker 01

  That's the new hubcap scam. Spinelli told us, our friend of ours, long ago in New York, but, people would steal their hubcaps from their family's car, and his dad would give him twenty bucks and say, go to the shop down the street, they'll have the hubcap. And Mike didn't realize at the time.

• 24:00Matt Farah?

  He was buying his own hubcap.

• 24:02Speaker 01

  Yeah, he's buying their own hubcaps back.

• 24:06Matt Farah?

  So, yeah, I mean, holy, holy mother of God, and, and honestly, I'll be lucky if we have this car back by the end of the month.

• 24:13Speaker 01

  Couple people in the chat say that totaling is usually two-thirds or three-quarters of the value, but someone says it can be as low as fifty percent.

• 24:20Matt Farah?

  Yeah, this one, this one could have gone either way. If, I mean, if you just look at the damage, that is not a totaled car. And, and I think, I think part of the reason the bill is so high is because they had to do some double work, and they wanna get paid for it. Cause if you recall, they only half-diagnosed the problem, and then found the other shit later. And I think that, that, that leads to, they were already sunk in part of the way, so they weren't gonna go, err, no. And they'd already spent money, they'd already bought parts, um, they were already part of the way there, and, and so, and also, I think they, I think somewhere in here, they billed for all of that time.

• 25:04Matt Farah?

  They didn't go, well, we fucked up, so we'll just eat that one, like, nah. This is, the customer is so far removed from the car.

• 25:11Speaker 01

  Right.

• 25:11Matt Farah?

  At this point, like, nobody gives, you know, so, but fuck, don't, don't lend your car to your friends. I mean, it's like, this is, this is what can happen, and it's not even a big example of, like, he didn't cause the accident, I'm saying. Like, what if you borrowed, if he borrowed the car and then caused the accident? Holy shit, would we be in a world of trouble.

• 25:36Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah, you, yeah, you would. That would be very.

• 25:39Matt Farah?

  The fact that it was proven by the adjuster that he didn't do it is the best-case scenario.

• 25:45Speaker 01

  Right.

• 25:46Matt Farah?

  Of course, also not getting hurt, but like, you know, if, if, you know, even if he innocently made a mistake, and the accident was like his fault, like, now I'm in deep shit.

• 25:57Speaker 01

  Well, cause it goes on your insurance, right? And then your insurance premium goes up, and that's, that is the risk. But I would also say, you know, you, I, I'd say, I, you loan your cars to people a lot, like, the manx, cause you're excited about your cars.

• 26:10Matt Farah?

  I give people a taste.

• 26:11Speaker 01

  You share them, you give them a taste.

• 26:12Matt Farah?

  That's different than take it for the weekend. I, I don't, I don't think in the future I will ever, present company excluded. If Zach Klapman needs my car, you can be trusted, but outside of that.

• 26:23Speaker 01

  I'm afraid to.

• 26:24Matt Farah?

  Yeah, right? Outside of that, I even, this dude is one of my best friends.

• 26:27Speaker 01

  I know.

• 26:27Matt Farah?

  He, this is a trustworthy individual.

• 26:29Speaker 01

  And look how mad you are. I have known you as long as Marty.

• 26:32Matt Farah?

  Known for thirty fucking years.

• 26:33Speaker 01

  I'm fucked. Uh, so, it is, it is a risk. It's like, I think Sarah's car was in the shop, and for a second, I was like, she could borrow, and I went, nah. No.

• 26:43Matt Farah?

  Yeah.

• 26:44Speaker 01

  She doesn't drive manual that much, yeah.

• 26:47Matt Farah?

  So, yeah, that's, that's crazy. Maybe if you had Tesla's new crash avoidance system.

• 26:54Speaker 01

  Perfect segue.

• 26:55Matt Farah?

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• 27:34Matt Farah?

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• 28:16Matt Farah?

  It's super easy. All you gotta do, pour one packet of that AG1, or one scoop, if you get the big bottle, and boom, that's your, that's your nutrition for the day. You should still eat healthy. Like, but, this covers your basic vitamins, nutrients, and all the stuff you need to stay moving down the rivers. So, for a limited time, save twenty percent on your first subscription order of AG1 Next Gen or AG1 Pro at drinkag1.com/tire. That's drinkag1.com/tire. And we are supported today by Delete Me, dude, it's crazy out there, scam calls, fake texts, weird crypto,

• 29:01Matt Farah?

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• 29:46Matt Farah?

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• 30:31Matt Farah?

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• 31:12Matt Farah?

  They have included a feature that will allow the car to do an evasive maneuver on its own even if FSD is not engaged. Now, the car has to have FSD.

• 31:29Speaker 01

  Correct.

• 31:30Matt Farah?

  But if FSD is not engaged, the car, if it senses an imminent collision, will take evasive action, the accelerator pedal will stop working, but the brakes will continue to work.

• 31:43Speaker 01

  Well, but there was also, there was two scenarios. It would also, it could use the acceleration to avoid a crash if necessary. So, it was very, it was wild to read. You could be driving and it could have an imminent, one of the, one of the scenarios is a head-on collision, imminently, like on an undivided highway, and it could take control of the wheel, turn you onto the shoulder, brake or accelerate to avoid something, and then return control. But the only way to get control back from it, if you don't like what it's doing, is to grab the wheel, turn and countersteer.

• 32:16Matt Farah?

  Wrestle it back.

• 32:17Speaker 01

  The words of Motor One, wrestle it back until it goes, okay, you're, you want to drive. But I, I think that system, I understand what, what their optimism towards it, but if you're a older person, weaker person, whatever, and you are suddenly in a car that is doing something you didn't control in an accident, and you try to grab the wheel and turn against it, and you feel resistance, like this is all happening in milliseconds, are you strong enough to overcome the wheel? Are you going to be able to compute quickly enough that yes, I want to continue trying to make a maneuver?

• 32:50Matt Farah?

  Yeah.

• 32:51Speaker 01

  Or are you gonna go, oh, fuck, the car's not letting me do what I want to do?

• 32:54Matt Farah?

  Yeah.

• 32:55Speaker 01

  I think that's a more likely scenario in someone's brain. This seems, I mean, it seems problematic.

• 33:00Matt Farah?

  I don't think it automatically defaults to being on. You have to go in a menu and turn it on. So, you, in theory, in theory, you have, you should know what you're turning on, right? So, go, go, go down, it says in the article, has, you, look, it needs things, a car built for North America, an owner has purchased FSD and switched it on under control. So, so, it, it's, it's.

• 33:30Speaker 01

  So, you have to opt in?

• 33:32Matt Farah?

  You have to opt in. So, that's good.

• 33:34Speaker 01

  That is good.

• 33:35Matt Farah?

  And on, on one hand, it is sort of what we have been saying we would prefer, right? Rather than trying to sell fake autonomy, they should be selling the uncrashable car, right? A car that, where you're not monitoring it, where it's monitoring you, and it takes over in an event of an emergency and not the other way around. That's sort of what they're saying they can make it do here, right? You, you're driving the car, and in the event of an emergency, it will take over. So, in theory, that is good.

• 34:09Speaker 01

  True.

• 34:10Matt Farah?

  And because you have to opt in, that is also good. You should know what you're opting into, although many, many people think FSD is an actual self-driving system. So, many people observably do not know what they're opting into by using FSD. That's a different kind of problem. But the thing is, it, it, it then makes, raises the questions of, let's say it takes over, tries to avoid an accident, gets into the accident anyway. Yours, yet now, it's still your, that's your insurance. Test, there's no, there, there is no situation in which Tesla takes responsibility for what

• 34:53Matt Farah?

  its cars do when these systems are activated.

• 34:56Speaker 01

  That, well, that's a great point. I wonder if they have either, Tesla has either, will accept responsibility.

• 35:03Matt Farah?

  No.

• 35:04Speaker 01

  Because now they're saying, our car is going to avoid the accident.

• 35:07Matt Farah?

  No chance. There's no fucking chance.

• 35:09Speaker 01

  I, based on previous, based on their history, I agree with you, but they are saying, we have a feature.

• 35:17Matt Farah?

  Yeah.

• 35:18Speaker 01

  That will turn on even when you're driving to avoid an accident for you.

• 35:21Matt Farah?

  Yes.

• 35:22Speaker 01

  So, that could present a very interesting court case. If, if they then, if someone then, let's, you know, I'm driving, you're coming towards me, we're about to crash. The car takes over, goes into the shoulder, hits a pole, hits something else.

• 35:37Matt Farah?

  The car has done a trolley problem.

• 35:38Speaker 01

  Right. I go to court and say, well, Tesla did this, and they go, oh, no, no, right, the millisecond beforehand, you touched the wheel and you took over.

• 35:47Matt Farah?

  Well, that's what it does now.

• 35:48Speaker 01

  Right. So, what, can they use that argument still? Or can I go, no, your software said it put me over there, it put me in that situation? I don't know, this might, they might have actually paid themselves in the corner here.

• 36:00Matt Farah?

  This article, which is Motor One, it says like Motor One's take or whatever, and I think it summarizes nicely, that capability, that capability meaning this feature, that capability shifts liability towards owners, insurers, and regulators. Owners confirm the settings and insurance coverage, watch for clearer clash, crash reporting and intervention numbers from Tesla, I'm sure those will be honest. Regulators will use that data to decide whether new limits or rules are needed. But it does, the last paragraph for that is, once it takes over, the accelerator pedal goes dead. Pressing the brake still adds deceleration, but does not cancel the maneuver.

• 36:44Matt Farah?

  The only way to break FSD's grip is firm countersteering enough force to physically override the system's input. Man, that's a scary couple of seconds before you hit that fucking wall, huh?

• 36:57Speaker 01

  Well, I mean, look, on the plus side, like, you and I, we've done a lot of driver school, a lot of driving, we feel like we could probably avoid an accident if it's physically possible with a car. My mom can't do that.

• 37:08Matt Farah?

  Yeah.

• 37:09Speaker 01

  She's, she's gonna panic, brake in a straight line or whatever. So, this, I'm sure, hopefully, is better at avoiding that than she is. It is a straight-up rally school, moose test, whatever. But how it's implemented, and then again, the, the responsibility conversation that will happen after it, I think will be very interesting in the coming, coming months and years.

• 37:32Matt Farah?

  Yeah. And I, and I, I do want to see some real demonstrations of that system as well. But it does, you know, on the, it's, it's a funny thing because, you know, on the one hand, it is sort of what we've been saying we would rather these cars do and use this technology for. On the other hand, they're now saying it can do it, and it does raise a couple further questions, you know, about, about liability and stuff.

• 38:01Speaker 01

  And I wonder if they'll, like, pretty much all cars today have like blind spot monitoring, radar, you know, cars approaching, electric steering. I wonder if more of them can, can implement this tech or develop their own, because they're getting this data, right?

• 38:16Matt Farah?

  Yeah.

• 38:17Speaker 01

  Like, if you're about to crash into a bunch of stop cars on the highway, and your car can look to the shoulder to your left and see that there's no one coming, and it could dodge over there instead of hitting the cars in front of you.

• 38:26Matt Farah?

  Sure.

• 38:27Speaker 01

  You know, will the Tesla do that? Or will eventually Hyundai have that, or Honda have that?

• 38:31Matt Farah?

  Presumably, any car that has, you know, servo steering, right? With lane, you know, lane centering or whatever, and/or self-parking, where it can steer enough angle, like, could do it, right? Like, it's not necessarily a technical limitation at this point, even if you, especially because everyone besides Tesla has cameras and radar. They actually, most people have a better sensor suite than Tesla does at this point.

• 39:00Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, I mean, it depends on how much information they can like process at, in a, in a millisecond.

• 39:08Matt Farah?

  Well, it may not be like backwards compatible to existing cars, but there's no reason that Ford or GM with Blue Cruise couldn't just build that in. It's, it's a choice whether or not you want to make the car do that. It wasn't ever a technical limitation.

• 39:24Speaker 01

  And I, I feel like Ford and GM will probably be more restrained in saying, you know, this car avoids accidents, but once, if they do come out and say that ever, it's, I think it's a, that statement carries more weight, because they're gonna be much more conservative about that. And Tesla, of course, is like, they can do it, we, you know, trust us.

• 39:41Matt Farah?

  Yeah. Meanwhile, someone died in a Tesla over the weekend.

• 39:44Speaker 01

  This is pretty wild.

• 39:45Matt Farah?

  Just saying. Speaking of tech and cameras, I have an update to last week's, or last show where I talked about the Lexus RZ550.

• 39:56Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 39:57Matt Farah?

  And it's very frustrating parking camera system that would come on every time the car came to a stop. Now, here's the photo. If you missed that show, I went on a rant for about five minutes about this feature that I couldn't figure out how to turn off. Now, as it turns out, car's not broken, okay? And as it turns out, there's a way to turn this feature off, but it's not necessarily intuitive if you're...

• 40:30Matt Farah?

  If you don't, uh, if you're either not trained or give yourself a certain amount of patience. Because basically, on the left side of the camera screen, every time you came to a stop, the cameras would come on, regardless of whether there was anything near you or not. And it was very silly.

• 40:48Matt Farah?

  Pressing the buttons on the left side, which seemed to change camera views and/or settings, didn't do much in the moment. You'd press them and then nothing would really happen. But the second one up from the bottom, that one that the mouse is on now, it actually is a camera with an A next to it for automatic. So if you click that, it slashes through it and turns it off. But the camera doesn't go away. You have to then X out of it. Okay?

• 41:22Matt Farah?

  Because of when I turned it off in my drive and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. If you turn the car off after that, but turn it back on within like 10 or 15 minutes, like if you're running errands, the settings stay the same. If you don't, the settings reset.

• 41:46Matt Farah?

  So like, basically, I have that backwards. I have that backwards. If you turn it back on too quickly, the setting doesn't stay. If you let it simmer, it stays. So basically, I would deactivate this system successfully, but I didn't do the correct restart cycle to get it to stay off.

• 42:07Speaker 01

  So you would tap this automatic camera button, let's call it that. You tap automatic camera button, which says, no, I don't want that. You X it out. When you hit X, it goes back to the home screen or whatever it's called. But then if you parked within a few minutes

• 42:21Matt Farah?

  Yes.

• 42:22Speaker 01

  And then got back in the car a few minutes later, it would turn back on. But if you had parked the car

• 42:29Matt Farah?

  Overnight.

• 42:29Speaker 01

  And then left it for an hour or maybe overnight, then it would

• 42:32Matt Farah?

  Stay off.

• 42:33Speaker 01

  Stay off.

• 42:33Matt Farah?

  Yeah. And it stayed off permanently after that. Now, I had other weird stuff happen. Like I said, like, uh, radio memory would be forgotten. Hannah's phone would like, cause the system to kick over to like CarPlay audio when she was playing with her phone in the passenger seat doing, with nothing to do with audio. It would just spontaneously go like, I had weird software hiccups with this car. So like, maybe it's not supposed to be like that, but I just wanted to issue a I want to give accurate information. And on the last show, I said this screen was permanently up. I couldn't turn off the setting, I couldn't figure out. Eventually, I figured out the way. And once I did, it stayed off.

• 43:17Matt Farah?

  But it wasn't, I don't know why, if you didn't leave the car off for long enough, the settings were still in the oven.

• 43:24Speaker 01

  Did Lexus respond to that?

• 43:26Matt Farah?

  No, no one got back to me.

• 43:28Speaker 01

  I mean, that's a question.

• 43:29Matt Farah?

  And the car went back yesterday.

• 43:31Speaker 01

  So it's a, it's an ADAS system, but ACAS, it's like automatic camera assistance.

• 43:36Matt Farah?

  There were a lot of what I might call my first EV problems that I had with the software of this car. Like, just settings were weird, things that it didn't remember. Like shit that happened with my Mach-E in 2021 was going on with this car. That's what I mean by like weird, just software hiccups and icons are, you know, different and doesn't remember settings and stuff like that. But it was, it wasn't a permanent thing, is what I'm saying. So for whatever journalist boneheaded role I played in not getting it turned off properly before delivering my review, I apologize.

• 44:14Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 44:15Matt Farah?

  Correction issued.

• 44:16Speaker 01

  They should still OTA so that if you turn it off, if you stop two minutes later, or stop for an hour or whatever, or two days, like it should just know you don't want the system on anymore.

• 44:27Matt Farah?

  Really, really strange.

• 44:30Matt Farah?

  The, uh, I said, yeah. Go on, what you got?

• 44:34Speaker 01

  Had you and Hannah both paired your phones to the car?

• 44:36Matt Farah?

  No, just Hannah.

• 44:37Speaker 01

  Okay, nevermind.

• 44:38Matt Farah?

  Yeah. So I said earlier, we were going to talk about Lake Elsinore again. Did you see that Boris said's Lake Elsinore Ring? They've released the PR?

• 44:48Speaker 01

  No.

• 44:48Matt Farah?

  Did you, did you talk to Boris about this in North Carolina at all?

• 44:51Speaker 01

  No.

• 44:52Matt Farah?

  Okay. So I talked to Boris said, legendary racing driver down at the Heritage Invitational in Charlotte when we were down there earlier in the year. And he showed me this PDF doc on his computer, like a PowerPoint presentation, for this insane fucking racetrack project in Lake Elsinore, which is like, at the very east edge of LA, where LA meets the desert, pretty much. Right? It's not, it's not Palm Springs, but it's like out that way.

• 45:28Speaker 01

  How far is that from Thermal?

• 45:30Matt Farah?

  Oh, it's closer than that. Zoom out on the map. Thermal's fucking far, far. So zoom out on the map. It's, uh, it's off, it's sort of off the 15. Uh, it's south on the 15. So, yeah, so Palm Springs is way to the east. So basically, you know, if you're in east LA, you would go east to Corona and then south. It's like on the way to Temecula.

• 45:54Speaker 01

  For people not from here, it's southeast of Los Angeles.

• 45:58Matt Farah?

  Yeah, it's probably like an hour and 20, hour and 25 from where we live.

• 46:01Speaker 01

  Go to Disneyland, keep going southeast for a little bit. All right.

• 46:06Matt Farah?

  And so, but it looks to be, he showed me this thing and I was like, Boris, you fucking serious with this? It was like, I mean, if you look at it, it looks like a video game. Uh, it's, they said it's going to be called the Elsinore Ring. And it's going to be a Hermantilka Formula One style, you know, motorsport facility in, in east LA. And look, even as

• 46:29Speaker 01

  Awesome.

• 46:30Matt Farah?

  Even as someone who's, for now, you know, Team Willow Springs, this can't hurt. Two, two world-class motorsport facilities, maybe.

• 46:39Speaker 01

  I mean, San Diego, we've talked, you know, lovely city, great beaches, nowhere to drive. But there's one decent road and it's very busy. So this will cater to those folks. But yeah, this, if you're listening, I mean, this is a track that winds around a bunch of man-made lakes. Uh, it's got some nice S's here, some pretty big straightaways.

• 47:00Matt Farah?

  Yeah, and it's like, you know, it's got car condos and a bunch of stuff. Now, they haven't, they haven't broken any ground yet. I think they're looking for investors, you know, I don't, I don't know the details, but it does look pretty fucking serious.

• 47:14Speaker 01

  The layout of the track is pretty awesome.

• 47:16Matt Farah?

  You know, it, it does look like, uh, like, kind of like, you know, these are renderings, of course. But it does, it does look like a manicured, you know, uh, sort of like, like you'd want a beautiful, world-class, got water features, a lot of water features. Uh, it's got a couple of kinked straightaways. It's got a variety of nice shaped corners.

• 47:42Speaker 01

  Looks like they paved a golf course.

• 47:43Matt Farah?

  It does look like

• 47:44Speaker 01

  Just down the middle of the fairway here, you know, there's a lot of water features. These white spots, these white spots look, actually, they are sand traps. This is runoff, right?

• 47:52Matt Farah?

  Yeah.

• 47:52Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 47:53Matt Farah?

  Yeah. That's funny, yeah, they are, they pretty much are. It's, it's, it is, it does have a golf course aesthetic on it, doesn't it? And those, those car condos, I think, are elevated up there on top of a hill. Looks like you got a view. I mean, pretty cool.

• 48:08Speaker 01

  Very cool.

• 48:09Matt Farah?

  Yeah.

• 48:09Speaker 01

  I, uh,

• 48:10Matt Farah?

  I hope they get to build it and then I hope I get to drive it.

• 48:14Matt Farah?

  Elsinore Ring is a, is not a great name.

• 48:17Speaker 01

  Clunky.

• 48:17Matt Farah?

  That's very clunky.

• 48:18Speaker 01

  It looks like, it looks like a misspelling of something.

• 48:21Matt Farah?

  Yeah. I'd rather like

• 48:24Speaker 01

  Elsino Ring would be maybe better? That sounds like Encino, man.

• 48:27Matt Farah?

  Angelino Ring?

• 48:29Speaker 01

  Yeah, but it's technically in Orange County, I think.

• 48:32Matt Farah?

  Something, you need a, like, you need a better, it's gotta have a better ring. We gotta workshop it.

• 48:36Speaker 01

  Needs a better ring. I don't think you should use ring because the Nürburgring is a one of one.

• 48:42Matt Farah?

  There's other, no, there's other rings. There's the Hungaro Ring, there's a, there's a, there's a, there's another ring I'm blanking on somewhere.

• 48:49Speaker 01

  I still think, when someone says, we're driving at the ring, we all think Nürburgring. And the Nürburgring is what, 160 turns or something? And it's many, many miles long.

• 48:57Matt Farah?

  It's one of one.

• 48:59Speaker 01

  All the other rings, even bullfighting rings are much smaller. So I just don't think competing with that, uh, like colloquial term is a wise idea.

• 49:10Matt Farah?

  It does write a check that your body may or may not be able to cash. You know? Calling, calling something ring. It's pointing, it's pointing at, pointing at the fucking outfield fence.

• 49:21Speaker 01

  Right. You know what I mean? Going to the ring, you're like, oh, you're going to Germany? Like, no, no, no, the one in Elsinore, you go, oh.

• 49:25Matt Farah?

  Yeah, but I mean, look, if it, if it looks like that, I'm down.

• 49:28Speaker 01

  Good looking track.

• 49:29Matt Farah?

  Let's fucking go.

• 49:30Speaker 01

  Seems like it's got a lot of variety of corner, which I like.

• 49:33Matt Farah?

  It would be, you know what would be super dope? If you, if you somehow weaved an actual like par three course around the track. Like if you hit over the water, you know, from tee to green, like within the track, that'd be pretty fun.

• 49:47Speaker 01

  You'd have to do that after the track goes cold, so you don't shatter someone's windshield while they're driving.

• 49:52Matt Farah?

  An extra challenge.

• 49:55Matt Farah?

  No, you don't like that idea? Golf course, a golf course racetrack combo move?

• 49:59Speaker 01

  I think cleaning up golf balls that are on the track would be an annoying use of time for the staff.

• 50:03Matt Farah?

  On the track. You never hit a golf ball that bounced on the cart path?

• 50:07Speaker 01

  No, keep going, but then eventually it'll go somewhere else.

• 50:09Matt Farah?

  Yeah, yeah, not on the track, though.

• 50:11Speaker 01

  I think the people that can afford these condos have enough golf courses.

• 50:16Matt Farah?

  You don't think they want one at the same place?

• 50:17Speaker 01

  I bet they do, but just save some water somewhere.

• 50:21Matt Farah?

  Well, they're already put in the water. They're already put in the water, they're already putting, they're already gonna make it that green. You might as well put a tee box there. Just saying. Um, okay. The, I mean, I hope they make it. Thought that was a cool thing. Um, I watched an episode of the Grand Tour last night. I watched episode two, which is the Malaysia-Singapore one.

• 50:46Speaker 01

  Correct.

• 50:46Matt Farah?

  Yeah. Um, I'm so happy for Thomas and James.

• 50:50Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 50:51Matt Farah?

  Uh, lovely, lovely guys. Every time I've hung out with them, they've been fucking solid as fuck. Lot of fun, great dudes. And, um, I was very impressed with Francois.

• 51:03Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 51:03Matt Farah?

  I was very impressed with his, um, his quickness, both behind the wheel and, and, uh, and his wit.

• 51:11Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 51:12Matt Farah?

  Um, and, and I think there's, uh, probably a lot more depth to that dude than most people realize, which is cool. That's a very good find. Um, I thought the vibe of that entire episode was like 2004 Top Gear, which may have been intentional. At first, my first instinct was to go straight to episode six.

• 51:36Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 51:37Matt Farah?

  I didn't want to watch one. I saw the summary, Clarkson hands the baton off or whatever, like, I don't want to watch that. I want to watch the show. Um, and this is episode two.

• 51:47Speaker 01

  The Clarkson moment was like sixty seconds long.

• 51:49Matt Farah?

  Okay, but

• 51:50Speaker 01

  Kind of funny, but

• 51:51Matt Farah?

  Still, I, you know, I, I, I didn't want to, I, I someone, I forget if it was you or somebody watched it and said it felt like a pilot.

• 51:59Speaker 01

  I said that, yeah.

• 51:59Matt Farah?

  I didn't want to watch that. I wanted to watch the show. It, the thing was, it felt like a 2004 episode of Top Gear, which also kind of felt like a YouTube video. Like, it felt more to me like a long YouTube video, and it was shot to me more like a long YouTube video than it was. Like, there wasn't any real good music production. I wasn't blown away by any of the cinematography. I thought they relied on drones a lot and, and, um, I wasn't blown away by the production. I thought it was a little basic.

• 52:43Speaker 01

  Uh, yeah, I, I think there were a few shots that were really nice. Some were drone shots that really helped tell the story. Some were like the sliders down in the basement thing, like the drifting, uh, the drift guys. Um, but I agree, like, when they did their, their three-car race through the city, they seemed to spend more of their production value and granted, I, they've both done production, like, how much time do they have? There was a lot more shots used in Thomas's lap, I think, than

• 53:13Matt Farah?

  Well, because he was sliding. He was the one doing all the sliding, so.

• 53:17Speaker 01

  Yeah, but I think still, like, they seemed to shorten the cuts they used for Thomas and for Francois and, like, tell the speed story. Like, I didn't, both, when both those guys ran, so many of the shots were, like, tight corners that I didn't get a sense of the scale of the place. And then when they cut to, I think, Thomas accelerating down, I was like, oh, this, this course has a lot of, like, long sweepers that benefit speed.

• 53:37Matt Farah?

  Overhead drone of him doing the big burnout away.

• 53:39Speaker 01

  Not burnout, he was just pulling away from a corner. I went, oh, this is like almost a straightaway. I just didn't know that.

• 53:44Matt Farah?

  Yeah. Um, I thought the small moments were surprisingly good. The banter, I thought their chemistry was shockingly good.

• 53:53Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 53:54Matt Farah?

  James is fucking quick.

• 53:56Speaker 01

  He's really funny.

• 53:56Matt Farah?

  He's on it.

• 53:57Speaker 01

  Yeah, he's got amazing one-liners.

• 53:59Matt Farah?

  He's got great one-liners. I thought the editors did, did a disservice to a couple of Tom's one-liners where he said, he said something funny and then the edit, like, lingered as his expression went away. You know what I mean? Like, they didn't, they didn't cut hard away and they, like, left the camera on him and, and I could see the funny moment leave his face in the camera. And I thought that was a bit of a disservice to him.

• 54:26Speaker 01

  Um, which, and, you know, we both host, like, you deliver the line with an emotion to sell the line.

• 54:31Matt Farah?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 54:31Speaker 01

  And then your brain's like, okay, and you kind of reset back to, to, to neutral.

• 54:35Matt Farah?

  But you expect the cut to happen before that.

• 54:38Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 54:39Matt Farah?

  Um, and also, uh, but, so I thought the small moments were great, but I watched it with Hannah and almost right away, she, she pointed out, and I, I had the same thought, like, why are they going on this road trip?

• 54:55Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 54:55Matt Farah?

  Why are they in Singapore and Malaysia? Why, like, so it, it was a, it, it, that's one I sort of, um, I, I, it, they missed. Like, they missed on the big thing and they got, and they nailed the little stuff.

• 55:09Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 55:09Matt Farah?

  Like, I thought the intro, the opener to that episode with the three of them sitting at the couch was awful. Like, that was like 2012 drive shit that we were doing, sitting around a fucking fake couch, having a fake discussion about cheap cars. Like, that is, that's old. But there, some of their mo, the moments, once they got in the thing, the little moments of a road trip and banter and fun bits where they're pushing each other's cars and stuff like that, like, their relationship with each other and, like, will that turn into funny things over the course of this series, I think is a definite yes. But I thought the, there wasn't a, we never learn why they're driving there or where they're fucking driving or

• 55:53Matt Farah?

  why they're really making the stops where they're making the stops or anything like that. It's sort of a

• 55:59Speaker 01

  I think, I agree with you most of the way. Uh, like, I thought the production office scene, seeing that there was a big team behind them actually pulls some of their power away. Like, the trio

• 56:13Matt Farah?

  The shitty trailer.

• 56:14Speaker 01

  Well, there's, there's the shitty trailer, but they're always kind of seen as autonomous unless the producers handed them something. So when they were like, we found cars, we decided to do, you know, or we were sent here by evil Willman or something. But this was like, look at the machine. So I would just, I would just put them in a couch, like, by themselves and, like, make it seem like this is more of their idea and, and their effort. Uh, this, yeah, the mission, I think they were lacking, like, this larger why and the larger wisdom of why each of their cars were so important. And I think, uh, Francois, Francis actually did the best job at the end of, like, selling the power of the Mercedes and, like, why it's such a great solution.

• 56:59Speaker 01

  And then I did cheat, I watched episode three last night, which did have a, like, mission to it through the United States, but I don't think they had as many production, produced moments of the journey that sold their mission. And like, the Malaysia thing, like, they modded, they modded one of the cars, but not all of them, so they, they lacked some of that the, the small stuff of, like, fucking with each other, tinkering, tinkering with each other's cars or, like, a pause to modify things and then continue, because that changes what their cars are.

• 57:30Matt Farah?

  Sure.

• 57:30Speaker 01

  And it kind of resets the show a little bit. But they, they have the foundation, which is their relationship seems great. I mean, Thomas and James are, like, such good writers and have, that's why they're there. They've proven that on YouTube. And Francis totally surprised me with his driving skill.

• 57:46Matt Farah?

  Yeah.

• 57:46Speaker 01

  Absolutely. Um, very funny dude, but, you know, he, he plays sort of like, not the straight man. I thought he was going to be the straight man in the relationship. He's also very funny, just in a totally different sensibility.

• 57:58Matt Farah?

  Yeah. I also think

• 58:03Matt Farah?

  at least in the beginning, James should be doing almost all the voiceover. I don't, I don't think Thomas or Francois's voiceover was as strong as, and I

• 58:13Speaker 01

  I think Thomas is pretty good at it personally.

• 58:15Matt Farah?

  I think he's better at it on Throttle House. I think they were trying to get him to intonate, or he was maybe doing it unintentionally to sound like Top Gear. I think he was trying, I think it, it felt like, and I love the guy. I don't want to, you know what I mean? I'm, I'm, I don't I hope if he hears this, he understands that I love the guy. It sounded like he was trying to do a Top Gear impression, as opposed to how I've heard his voiceover on Throttle House, which is a little more natural of how he talks. It could have been how someone wrote a line for him, or it could have been that he was in that moment of let's make this like the Grand Tour, so let me shift into that mode a little bit, but like,

• 58:59Matt Farah?

  the natural moments, I thought the three of them crushed, crushed. But I thought the produced moments were, were weak in, in a couple of the ways. But like, it's promising. It's fully promising.

• 59:13Speaker 01

  It's very promising. I'm wondering who,

• 59:16Speaker 01

  like, who care, I, I have no idea who carried over from the last Grand Tour in terms of production team.

• 59:21Matt Farah?

  Yeah.

• 59:21Speaker 01

  Like, I don't know.

• 59:22Matt Farah?

  Didn't recognize a lot of big names. I'll tell you that.

• 59:24Speaker 01

  I think Willman's producing it, but I don't know if he's EP, which is different.

• 59:28Matt Farah?

  I didn't recognize the writers.

• 59:29Speaker 01

  Oh, okay. I'd have to, I'd have to go back and watch the old Grand Tour credits to see who came and went.

• 59:35Matt Farah?

  But, uh,

• 59:37Speaker 01

  I think, like, if we treat it like early Top Gear, they can work out the bugs and gain more control or, I don't know, they can figure it out, but at least they have, I think, a good relationship, because, like, when Top Gear relaunched, relaunched with Harris, you had Harris, who was great, and then Chris Evans and, like, a bunch of other people, and they were just trying to, and like, the relationships weren't there. It was very fumbly and switchy. And then they figured it out with Rory and, um, and Matt LeBlanc, but like, these guys have that already. I mean, two of them have worked together for fifteen years or ten years, so that's good. And Francis dropped in really well and totally, totally won me over, so.

• 1:00:16Matt Farah?

  It's a good start. I'm gonna, I'm gonna, look, it's, I've also learned, I, I also don't, I'm a little, um, I don't know. The word isn't burnt out. That's not the right word, but I live and breathe cars. So like watching a thing about cars like isn't necessarily interesting to me for the cars. Like I'm watching this out of curiosity and I watched the grand tour because Top Gear and those guys is what I grew up. For the same reason I still listen, I'm gonna buy Pearl Jam's new album.

• 1:00:47Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 1:00:48Matt Farah?

  You know what I mean? It's not because I need to, I need to learn about the cars they're fucking driving or the places they're going like, no, I do that too. You do that too. Um, we wanna support our friends and see if they're doing a good job and, and um, if it's a conscious strategy that, that either our boys or the producers said, hey, you know, let's start this show off. Sorta like we started off old Top Gear, you know, back to basics, cheap cars. Like, alright, like that's a strategy. Like I'm not against that at all. I just think if you're gonna go to fucking Singapore and Malaysia and all that, like, why are we there?

• 1:01:28Matt Farah?

  I need a reason and I need a, we're gonna drive here. Like even Clarkson would make up, we're gonna go to the, to, to, oh, they're turning on a lighthouse in wherever the fuck, I mean, they would make up some bullshit reason.

• 1:01:40Speaker 01

  Yeah, they did that in the third one of like, they're trying to sell K cars to the United States. Um, but I don't think they did as good a job as they could have done with bits of like demonstrating the K car's ability. Cause they, they drove them, but they didn't like, you know, what's a family's two weeks of groceries? Will that fit in a K car? Can we move a couch with a K car? You know, things like that, that you'd have to try to convince the United States with. And then they also, I think they're all so excited. They're all so nice. The trio toward, you know, they would needle each other constantly. When they're driving their cars on a road trip, they're always like, Jeremy bought the wrong car because,

• 1:02:17Matt Farah?

  Yeah.

• 1:02:17Speaker 01

  You know, Richard bought the wrong car because look at your stuff breaking down. Like, I think they need a little bit more antagonism between each other, like competition essentially. Uh, but I think they'll figure it out. I hope they're given the chance. Because like, yes, it is more car stuff and, and I watch enough car things, but if it's entertaining and well done, I'll still be interested in it. So that's kinda why I'm gonna keep checking it out.

• 1:02:42Matt Farah?

  Yeah, I'll, I'll go watch whatever the last episode is they put up and see how it evolves from sort of beginning to end of this season.

• 1:02:50Speaker 01

  Hopefully they shot it in order then. That's something that we should maybe ask one of our people.

• 1:02:55Matt Farah?

  We should ask them what the last episode is they shot.

• 1:02:57Speaker 01

  Because we know with Drive, we, we air things all in totally different orders.

• 1:03:01Matt Farah?

  Yeah.

• 1:03:03Speaker 01

  Yeah, but congrats to those guys. They, they fucking earned it for sure.

• 1:03:07Matt Farah?

  Yeah, I mean, it's an amazing gig. It's, uh, you know, um, I, I'm certainly a little bit jealous.

• 1:03:12Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 1:03:14Matt Farah?

  It's an amazing gig and it-

• 1:03:15Speaker 01

  When Porter told us, he was like, we did so many, so many screen tests, so many screen tests. I was like, cool.

• 1:03:21Matt Farah?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:03:22Speaker 01

  Let's plan and I, I know why I'm not there, but I was also like, okay.

• 1:03:27Matt Farah?

  Yeah, so many, so, we looked at so many people, all the-

• 1:03:30Speaker 01

  We looked at everybody.

• 1:03:32Matt Farah?

  We looked at all the top names in the field.

• 1:03:34Speaker 01

  The internet.

• 1:03:37Speaker 01

  Uh, confirming my own fears about myself.

• 1:03:41Matt Farah?

  Face for radio.

• 1:03:42Speaker 01

  Let's see, uh,

• 1:03:42Matt Farah?

  So-

• 1:03:43Speaker 01

  Someone in the chat says Ep6 did a good job of telling why they were doing what they're doing. Alright, check it out.

• 1:03:48Matt Farah?

  Hopefully they, uh, they learned that one by the end of the first season. Um, we have confirmed before we get to the Patreon and some questions today. We have confirmed our next giveaway car. Um, we, uh, we announced that there was a winner of our giveaway car. The drawing was done. You know, all the legal, they have to have some accounting firm do it. It's like Bryce Waterhouse Coopers. It's like the Oscars. It's like that.

• 1:04:12Speaker 01

  Sweepstakes in the United States are very regulated.

• 1:04:15Matt Farah?

  So the winner was a 77-year-old woman from, uh, Southern California.

• 1:04:20Speaker 01

  Amazing.

• 1:04:21Matt Farah?

  And, uh, yeah, congrats to her. Uh, we don't have to say her name, but she won herself a very fast car. Um, and our next car that we will be giving away, we're, we're turning it around quick. We're shopping for cars right now. Is, uh, is going to be a Porsche 911 Carrera T with a manual gearbox. And a couple of very tasty modifications that should make it a real good time, that our audience will really, really like.

• 1:04:49Speaker 01

  Cool.

• 1:04:50Matt Farah?

  Um, and so that is coming imminently. Um, although like last time, you know, we do the whole thing. We buy the car, we modify it, we do the whole thing before we start the contest. So even once we have the car in hand, it's gonna be a couple of months before, um, before the contest goes up. But giving away a Carrera T should be a good time.

• 1:05:13Speaker 01

  Love those cars.

• 1:05:13Matt Farah?

  Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. Have to think of fun things to do with it.

• 1:05:18Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 1:05:19Matt Farah?

  We should do a before and after dyno when we, you know.

• 1:05:23Speaker 01

  We should, we should do the Virginia City hill climb. Is that too abusive?

• 1:05:27Matt Farah?

  That, I don't know.

• 1:05:29Speaker 01

  It's risky.

• 1:05:29Matt Farah?

  I don't know. You, I don't know. I don't, I'm down. Sounds good. Sounds good to me. Um, but, uh, yeah, them's the, uh, them's the things. So let's go to the people over at patreon.com slash the smoking tire podcast. They are privy to, uh, getting the live stream, getting the show early, asking questions for the show, getting, uh, the show without ads, getting extra show. We just put the pro driver show up, uh, yesterday so you can get that. And, uh, access, early access and sometimes exclusive access to merch collabs and, uh, various things that we, uh, sell here at the smoking tire. Um, here we go. I love teriyaki chicken. Don't we all, brother?

• 1:06:14Matt Farah?

  23 and just graduated college. Been working at Starbucks for the last seven years. Boy, I hope you've made assistant to the assistant manager of them. Uh, I want your opinion on cashing out my $25,000 401K and buying a C5 Z06. I'm currently living with my parents and I'm actively interviewing jobs in my degree field.

• 1:06:41Matt Farah?

  This is very poor.

• 1:06:42Speaker 01

  To quote Dave Chappelle, don't do it!

• 1:06:44Matt Farah?

  Don't do it!

• 1:06:45Speaker 01

  No, don't, don't do it.

• 1:06:46Matt Farah?

  That's not a good idea at all, brother. Don't, no, you can't cash out a 401K at 23.

• 1:06:52Speaker 01

  No, so I put this at the top because this is a, a great question and look, your 401K, I get it. You're, you're looking at all this money. You're like, I could do this and have some, do something fun with it. You're gonna get penalized for taking the money out, right? You will have to pay a fee. I forget what it is, a percentage or a fee. But you're gonna, they're going to take a bunch of your money and you're gonna get taxed on it. So you're not gonna have 25 grand. You're gonna have less than that once you're done with it. Plus, you are in such a good position. If you're 23 and have a 401K, what I would give to go back in time 20 years and start one of those fucking things. I would, I could have retired probably by now if I'd been aggressive with it. Like, you're so set.

• 1:07:33Speaker 01

  You're doing a great job. Keep contributing to that thing and it will change the, your future in so many good ways. I swear to God, I know it's really hard to use the frontal lobe you don't have right now. So let me use mine for you.

• 1:07:46Matt Farah?

  I, I'm with you. I, I think if, if you wanna have, uh, you could try to have a fun car. Whatever degree of a fun car you can afford, you know, for your daily life right now. Probably don't need more than one car. But man, dude, a 25-year-old Corvette, when you're 23 years old, fu, don't do it. Just, just, just don't do it. Trust me on this one. That is a bad idea. I understand where your head's at.

• 1:08:17Speaker 01

  I get it.

• 1:08:17Matt Farah?

  Don't do it. Sage says new six-pack challengers are going for low 40s, even scat packs. Feels like a steal for a daily. Is there something used you'd rather get at that price range? No electric cars. Low 40s? Tons of cars in low 40s. I mean-

• 1:08:37Speaker 01

  Mustang GT. I'd much rather have that.

• 1:08:40Matt Farah?

  Yeah, I mean, dude, there's so, I mean-

• 1:08:46Speaker 01

  I mean, I haven't driven the new six-pack. I know the engine. Did you drive the new one?

• 1:08:50Matt Farah?

  Like, I drove the scat pack. I drove it on that road and track event. I drove it like, like 1500 miles.

• 1:08:55Speaker 01

  That's right.

• 1:08:56Matt Farah?

  It's fine. It's not great. It's, it, there's a lot to not like. Um, but if you like how it looks, that's, you know, you gotta start with that. It's huge. Like it's a big fucking car and it has four seats for four full-size adults. Like that's good. It's a big two-door coupe. Um, it has the right look and it, it, a scat pack, like it goes pretty quick. Um, but it's not a sports car.

• 1:09:28Matt Farah?

  And I mean, I, I, I just don't want one, period. I don't like how it sounds. It has a very droney exhaust, um, which is weird because it's an inline six. Inline sixes usually don't do that. It sounds, it sounds more farty than the M3 even, which I think sounds terrible. Um, so I mean, something used like, dude, the problem with used is like, we, I, would I rather have forty grand? I mean, I'd rather have like a Macan, a used, whatever forty grand gets me in Macan S, I'd rather have that for a daily.

• 1:10:03Speaker 01

  I mean, if I'm shopping turbo inline six in the forties, there are so many used BMWs I'd rather buy from M2, M3, M4, even a 340 would be better.

• 1:10:13Matt Farah?

  X3M?

• 1:10:14Speaker 01

  Supra, you Supra, like, or yeah, X3M if you need to carry more people. I mean, there are a lot of options in the low forties.

• 1:10:22Matt Farah?

  All the Mustangs, all the Mustangs. Uh, shit, maybe, maybe even a Cadillac CT4 Blackwing. Maybe, maybe they haven't dropped that low, or maybe it's an ATS-V you're looking at, but like, shit like that. I mean, F, forty, forty, low forties gets you a lovely F80 M3.

• 1:10:42Speaker 01

  Cars and bids five days ago, forty-one grand for a CT4V Blackwing, six-speed manual, with tons of options and I'm not sure how many miles around, but like that.

• 1:10:52Matt Farah?

  Okay, but you're in the ballpark.

• 1:10:53Speaker 01

  Much preferred over the new, uh, six-pack.

• 1:10:57Matt Farah?

  That's a lovely car. That's where you want to be.

• 1:10:59Speaker 01

  Thirty-two thousand miles.

• 1:11:00Matt Farah?

  Fuck yeah, dude. That's, how much, forty grand?

• 1:11:04Speaker 01

  Forty-one.

• 1:11:04Matt Farah?

  Fuck yeah, that's the move. All day. That's so much.

• 1:11:08Speaker 01

  Black and tan interior.

• 1:11:09Matt Farah?

  Dude, that's so much car for forty grand. That's a fast car. It handles so nice, too. It is everything that that, the Charger is not.

• 1:11:19Speaker 01

  Yep, correct.

• 1:11:20Matt Farah?

  Christian James, handbrake, very good. How many miles or how much time do you feel you need with a car to really understand it? Depends on the quality of the miles and the time. You can learn a whole lot in the first two hundred yards.

• 1:11:37Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 1:11:38Matt Farah?

  You can then learn a whole lot more in the first like fifteen or twenty minutes. And you can then learn a whole lot more if you can have it for a whole day.

• 1:11:48Speaker 01

  And then more if you have it for a week.

• 1:11:50Matt Farah?

  Yeah. So, I could give you, you know, the basics of a car review in probably like thirty or forty minutes. Uh, if I start from the right place, you know, like, if you started me at the, like, the base of the Angeles Forest, and I could like, drive up and down the highway quick, drive around the surface streets real quick, and blast up the hill and back, thirty-five, forty minutes, I'll give you a car review. If I had to. I mean, dude, I just did a Bentley Supersports review in six laps around a racetrack. I mean, I wrote, I wrote fifteen hundred words and did twenty minutes on the podcast, six laps around a racetrack. So, not that much to, to get the basics done, but it'll be a much, much

• 1:12:35Matt Farah?

  better review if we have more time. I mean, the more time I spend with a car, the better the stories, the more opportunities for stuff to happen, the more shit you're doing with it.

• 1:12:44Speaker 01

  It also depends, if it's a car that's built upon an existing car, you know, you, you kind of have your homework done. So if it's a new version of a 911, you know it's going to have the ergonomics and all the things of a whatever 911, but now it has different steering, or not different steering, like different suspension or whatever its intent is. So Bentley Supersports, it's probably going to be comfortable. It's going to have this kind of built quality, but what does it do in this new arena that it's in? Whereas if you get in someone's home-built something, or if it's like a, a new idea from a company, or a new car from a new company, then you might need more time to understand it.

• 1:13:21Matt Farah?

  Um, she put her Volvo on my pole like a star. Just went to Watkins Glen for the first time. What's your favorite small town that you've been to near a track? It's so much more often that the small town is terrible. Just more often. It's more often, not always, but more often.

• 1:13:40Speaker 01

  Tracks in the middle of nowhere, middle of nowhere doesn't have a lot of money, so the towns can be very, very small.

• 1:13:45Matt Farah?

  But, um, the Glen, um, I, I guess the town is Watkins Glen. There's at least a couple of cute hotels and restaurants. Uh, it's, it's, it's small and very remote, but nice enough. Um, Elkhart Lake, where Road America is, is kind of nice.

• 1:14:02Speaker 01

  I don't think I've been to that town before. It's like.

• 1:14:05Matt Farah?

  What was the town that we stayed in when we raced at Road America? Was it on the lake?

• 1:14:10Speaker 01

  Oh, right.

• 1:14:11Matt Farah?

  What town was that? Sheboygan. That was in Sheboygan. Couple of nice little restaurants in Sheboygan. We had a great, good Italian dinner that one night.

• 1:14:18Speaker 01

  I think that would be my favorite, because it was a little bigger than something like Watkins, or, you know, the town near, um, Stafford where we raced in Connecticut. That was like two blocks long.

• 1:14:29Matt Farah?

  That was tough, yeah. Um, I mean, dude, Portland International Raceways is in Portland. Um, small town. I mean, Sonoma is, is right near like, you know, Yountville and Naperville. All those nice wine country towns. Mod Laguna, it's right next to Monterey.

• 1:14:50Speaker 01

  We have to eventually define small town, that's the challenge, you know. I mean, Monterey is a great city, city town, so.

• 1:14:57Matt Farah?

  I can't say I did much at Brainerd.

• 1:15:02Speaker 01

  Get some pancakes.

• 1:15:04Matt Farah?

  Yeah, I don't know. Was there, what's a really, what's a great small town? I mean, Old Lime in Connecticut, by Lime Rock, fabulous. So cute. The cutest Connecticut town. That, that shit is great. That's tough. Usually cute towns and racetracks, not, not necessarily. There's got to be some other good ones, though.

• 1:15:25Speaker 01

  I bet there's some nice ones in Italy. Like Anglesey, you know, those would be cute because the town's two thousand years old.

• 1:15:32Matt Farah?

  Spa. The town outside of Spa is awesome. Um, really is. Can't un, actually, that's a fuck, dude, the Nurburgring, like the little village at the Nurburgring is heaven. Absolutely heaven.

• 1:15:45Speaker 01

  The one inside?

• 1:15:46Matt Farah?

  Yeah. It's the, you know, the main building where there's like the cafe, and where you buy your passes and shit, and where you queue for tourist days. But then like right across the street, around the corner is like the, um.

• 1:15:58Speaker 01

  Is that Nurburgring?

• 1:15:59Matt Farah?

  Piston Plaza, and I, I don't, I don't know if it's actually Nurburgring, but like, whatever that town is, um, is, is fucking ace. Also the town at Spa. Okay. Uh, can't unshitbox this. Um, is considering a Hamilton, uh, watch, and click that link. I like the look and want to try a bigger watch as I have pretty large wrists. Hamilton is, oh my gosh, that's a lot happening there. Um, okay, so, twelve hundred bucks for this fucking thing. I don't love this, if I'm honest with you. Um, Hamilton makes a great watch. Old school brand, been around a long time, um, a lot of, it's a, it's a very

• 1:16:43Matt Farah?

  popular entry-level brand. Um, the Hamilton Khaki Field and the, the General Khaki Collection is, uh, popular. Would I personally spend, um, eleven hundred and ninety-five dollars on a, uh, a quartz Hamilton chronograph? I probably wouldn't.

• 1:17:05Speaker 01

  I like this color combo, though. I think they've got some nice colors. I think the blue is nice. But it's busy because it's a GMT, right? You've just got like, there's so many numbers.

• 1:17:14Matt Farah?

  Well, it's a, it's a GMT chronograph with a date, so there's really a whole lot of shit happening in there, in this watch. And so, it's a little too like, I, it's a little too busy for me. Um, I don't, I don't love it. And, um, but that's okay. I mean, Hamilton is a good brand. This is going to be a high-quality product. I'm, I'm not saying that they don't make high-quality product. I just, I don't love the aesthetic of this. It's a big, fat, fucking chonker. Yeah, it's forty-six.

• 1:17:46Speaker 01

  I'm too small for that.

• 1:17:47Matt Farah?

  That's a big boy. Um, uh, but if you, if you want to go, go big boys, man, if there's, if you want a big boy, fucking big body watch, there's really no substitute for like a Breitling Navitimer, uh, or a Panerai. Those are, there's your fucking gold standards of big boy watches. I would rather, this is twelve hundred, I'd rather find a used Navitimer for two grand that you could sell for two grand. I very rarely get stopped and asked about my watches. Uh, when I wear a Breitling Navitimer, I find that, uh, I, I get stopped more. There's a million different kinds of Navitimers,

• 1:18:30Matt Farah?

  by the way. There's like, they, they, they probably, maybe they start as cheap as like three, maybe not two. But, um, you can find these motherfuckers used on eBay and stuff all over the place. Um, that's what I would do for a big boy watch. I don't love this one, but Hamilton is a good brand. For over a thousand bucks, though, I'm not getting a quartz watch unless it's some kind of special quartz. Like, I have the Grand Seiko quartz, uh, which is the nine F movement, which is literally the most accurate quartz movement. And if you look at the case back, it's like fully decorated, it's a whole thing, and, um, you know, it's accurate to like one second a year or something. Um, it's a Grand Seiko. So, I paid a little more for that, it was like maybe three thousand, but that

• 1:19:15Matt Farah?

  was also the Carl Ruiz charity watch. So like, I probably wouldn't have bought it if not for that. Now, I happen to love it, but quartz, it's like, I don't, unless it's something very, very special, I don't put a lot of value on quartz watches, personally. I like machinery. Hugh Blowoff valve. Hugh Blowoff valve.

• 1:19:35Speaker 01

  That's great.

• 1:19:35Matt Farah?

  Hugh Blowoff valve is very good. Um, Lotus Elises, historically have been, uh, forever thirty, thirty-five thousand dollar cars. Now it seems like they are going up. Um, is that inflation, or will they become truly valuable soon? Um, can you pull up some results? I, I, I read your accusation, but I want to see some numbers. But yeah, for the longest time, a Lotus Elise with a clean title, no, no accidents, and whatever the fuck miles, has been a thirty-five or forty thousand dollar car. And let's go to the recently ended ones. And holy shit, it looks like these are now

• 1:20:17Matt Farah?

  low mile, low mile ones, right? These are under, under forty thousand miles, which is a good, is low for these cars, because they get driven. So low mile cars, it looks like are selling for fifty and sixty thousand.

• 1:20:32Matt Farah?

  If they're good ones. So these seem like, like they're well optioned, nice cars. So if we, the last time we thought of this was a few years ago. So, you know, high 30s to mid 50s, part of that is inflation and part of that is there aren't a lot of analog drivers cars on the market anymore. They don't make these cars anymore. They're known for being light and analog and fun and dependable.

• 1:20:59Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 1:21:00Matt Farah?

  And a good store of value for the middle-class car enthusiast who has known for years that you could buy one of these and drive it and not lose any money.

• 1:21:08Speaker 01

  It should also be said that, because this person, their question was like, they've been pretty flat until 2020. Like, inflation is contributing to it.

• 1:21:16Matt Farah?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:21:16Speaker 01

  The, the overall appreciation of most sports cars is contributing to it. So maybe some of it is that people are recognizing the value, no pun intended, of Lotus, or actually literally the value. But also, there's other factors pushing it up.

• 1:21:30Matt Farah?

  And I think the ones that are those big numbers with a five or a six are low-mile cars. Those, I saw, some of those had four-figure mileage. You know, go back. Look. So, so that Elise R, I don't know why that is so expensive, 37,000 miles from last, last month. But, you know, the 10K mile one next to it looks like, you know, bid to 52. The one that was sold for 54 is supercharged. The one that sold for 26 is a race car, SC 65. So that's supercharged and 14,000 miles and the very last VIN of that one. So that 08 SC, that is your top of market.

• 1:22:14Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:22:15Matt Farah?

  That's perfect miles, perfect, you know, limited edition, even within that one, the last one. And it's, it's an SC, which is the best driving one. So 65.5 is top of market. I think if you look at these, these other ones, high 40s, low 50s for a really nice car. But some of that's going to be inflation, for sure. These are fucking fun.

• 1:22:39Speaker 01

  They're so fun.

• 1:22:40Matt Farah?

  Yeah, they're a good time. J Cat, a fun, I want a fun manual car for a New England winter. 15, this is hard, 15,000 bucks. Should I get a JDM Pajero?

• 1:22:57Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:22:58Matt Farah?

  These are all over the place. A Saab 93 wagon, an E91 BMW all-wheel drive, a Wrangler. Like, the problem is, he says winter, but then he says doesn't have to be all-wheel drive. And then you've got Saabs and BMWs, but also a Wrangler. So like, you're, a Wrangler is like a terrible thing. Like, you're willing to buy like a terrible driving thing. But you've also got like, things that are, drive good. So like, do you want a good driving thing or a truck?

• 1:23:31Speaker 01

  Yes. I would say it also depends on how far you're driving every day. If you're driving literally around a snowy town, slow speeds, Wrangler is fine. And it has ground clearance. It can go over a snowbank or whatever.

• 1:23:42Matt Farah?

  But the first word is fun.

• 1:23:44Speaker 01

  Yeah, but it's fun and it's, if you want to off-road, if you want to go muddin' in the trails. But if you need to get on the highway, like, I would never want to drive a $15,000 Wrangler on the highway unless I had to. BMW will cruise, Saab, Saabs will cruise. The Pajero is sort of in the middle. I've actually, I don't know how they handle on the highway, but like, at least they're cool and interesting.

• 1:24:01Matt Farah?

  Pajero. I mean, dude, 15K, you can get a Delica, if that's what you want.

• 1:24:07Speaker 01

  That's true.

• 1:24:08Matt Farah?

  Yeah. For 15K, if you're willing to go JDM, you could get like, like a little car, like a Pulsar GTI R or something, like a little, a, a little fun manual car that would be like, zippy and cool.

• 1:24:27Speaker 01

  That's like, that's your rally car option. I think Pajero is your, Pajero is your cool, fun, JDM Wrangler. And then if you need something to literally like, commute in, then sure, E91 X-Drive.

• 1:24:38Matt Farah?

  Yeah, or even like an E46 330 XI manual.

• 1:24:43Speaker 01

  That's a good one.

• 1:24:43Matt Farah?

  Pretty sweet.

• 1:24:44Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:24:45Matt Farah?

  Did they make an all-wheel drive wagon E46? I don't know if they did. If not, and dude, an E46 wagon, it says doesn't have to be all-wheel drive. A $15,000 E46 325I manual would be great. That would be a lovely winter beater with the right tires and a good set of shocks. Mmm, mmm. That would be fucking tasty.

• 1:25:10Speaker 01

  They did. There was a 325 XI wagon. So E46 generation touring. Yeah.

• 1:25:18Matt Farah?

  J Roll says, scroll down a little bit, please, Zach.

• 1:25:24Speaker 01

  It's kind of long, but...

• 1:25:25Matt Farah?

  It's long, but, okay, the question is, had the auto industry not been strangled with the immediate mandate of tighter emissions in the 70s, do you think we would have seen the technologies we see today as far as power, traction, safety, and efficiency sooner and possibly be farther along in the automotive technology today? Fuck, no.

• 1:25:48Speaker 01

  Hell, no.

• 1:25:49Matt Farah?

  Dude, read unsafe at any speed. GM and Ford and Chrysler had such contempt for their customers during this period of time. They were changing the fucking bumpers and the mirrors and the body panels every single year to try to get you to fucking buy a new car every year while leaving everything underneath the same, since the 50s. Because they could. Because they were printing money and fucking smoking cigars and drinking martinis like Don Draper on the 14th floor of the fucking GM executive building.

• 1:26:26Speaker 01

  Well, also, the Mustang in 89, live axle rear-wheel drive. The GT-R in 89.

• 1:26:32Matt Farah?

  Yeah.

• 1:26:33Speaker 01

  You know, four-wheel, uh, four-wheel, like, all-wheel drive, amazing traction control, you know, dominated everything. Like, outside competition is what fueled a lot of the innovation that happened in America. And, you know, we had efficient cars coming from Japan, oil crisis, all of these outside factors. Your dad worked, he says dad worked AT&T and thinks that if they hadn't been broken up, we would have a much more advanced infrastructure for information. Maybe, but a lot of times the monopoly will not develop because they can just exploit profit and there's no competition.

• 1:27:08Matt Farah?

  Or maybe they would build the fiber optics, but then they would own it all and ramp up the prices and, you know, it might cost four times what it costs today because they had a monopoly.

• 1:27:16Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:27:20Speaker 01

  What is the term? It's like, evolution thrives in competition. I mean, you, if your outside competitors come in and have a different thing, or if it's a species that is dealing with an outside factor, it will have to evolve over time, not instantly. That's not how evolution works, to manage with that new stimuli.

• 1:27:38Matt Farah?

  Mm-hmm. I think, I think, the, the real question is, should they have given them a graduated and longer ramp up to full compliance as opposed to right now? Could we have avoided the malaise era? That's the question. And I don't think so. I don't think, I think they were caught so far on their back feet that it would take them 10 to 12 years to develop the new product to meet those emissions standards anyway. I, I, I do not think, I think they were up their own fucking asses as long until they absolutely could not be anymore.

• 1:28:20Matt Farah?

  The Duffle Shuffle Retirement Club says, you've made a few comments on how the Myers Manx makes you more excited than a lot of billionaire-spec hypercars. True, if that still stands. What was the last super-hyper car that got you excited? Now, uh, 21C, probably? Zinger, Zinger 21C?

• 1:28:41Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:28:41Matt Farah?

  I mean, that's, that's, that's pretty much the only car at that price point that I think delivers an experience worthy of that kind of money. For that much money, you need to be unlike anything else on the road at high speed, low speed, and parked. And I think it delivers on all three of those goals in a way that really no other car does.

• 1:29:10Speaker 01

  You were also very excited about the Singer Turbo.

• 1:29:14Matt Farah?

  Sure.

• 1:29:15Speaker 01

  Which is not as expensive, but it's a car that has a similar formula to other things we've driven. But was special enough and good enough in execution. You were like.

• 1:29:24Matt Farah?

  The Singer Turbo is, yeah, no, I mean, different angles, right? The Singer 21C is like, it's an overwhelming sensation of different. The Singer Turbo is the leather jacket that you put on. That's like fucking $10,000, but you put it on and it just fits perfectly. And you look amazing in it and it feels nice on your skin. You know what I mean? Like, it's like that, it's like a perfect piece of clothing. That's how that is. The 21C isn't that.

• 1:30:07Matt Farah?

  It's you're getting fucking punched in the neurons, like constantly. The Singer is, I could settle this into my daily life today. You know what I mean? I could dump all cars and just have this forever. And it would be like No Notes, which is a different type of excitement.

• 1:30:28Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 1:30:30Matt Farah?

  Day to day, though, there ain't nothing like the Manks. The Manks is a joy, is just a joy machine in a way that even a Singer Turbo is not. A Singer Turbo is too serious.

• 1:30:40Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:30:40Matt Farah?

  And too functional.

• 1:30:42Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 1:30:43Matt Farah?

  You need, if they could do a 12-layer gel coat on a Singer Turbo and make it look like my Manks is sparkle. I might be on board for that.

• 1:30:53Speaker 01

  They can do that and Bo Bachmann will probably do it, you know.

• 1:30:57Matt Farah?

  You know what would be super sick, actually? If I was building like my dream Singer Turbo. I would have them do like a ghost flake, meaning I'd have a solid collar. Call it silver. And I'd have them do a stripe that was the flake that looked like it was coming out from underneath the car. And then you'd have like the Porsche lettering on the side, but it would be ghost flake from underneath. That could be pretty nuts.

• 1:31:26Speaker 01

  That's pretty cool.

• 1:31:27Matt Farah?

  It would be aggressive.

• 1:31:27Speaker 01

  A little duality, huh?

• 1:31:28Matt Farah?

  A little bit, yeah. If I just sell everything I own, could do it. I'd go back to being a one-car guy.

• 1:31:36Speaker 01

  Could.

• 1:31:36Matt Farah?

  Crazy. I'd go stir crazy. I could, I don't think I could do it.

• 1:31:40Speaker 01

  You'd also have to wait three years for the Singer to be done.

• 1:31:43Matt Farah?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:31:43Speaker 01

  And that would drive you nuts.

• 1:31:44Matt Farah?

  I know. It would satisfy my need to always have something being built, but I would just.

• 1:31:49Speaker 01

  Right. But you'd have the Taycan and nothing else.

• 1:31:51Matt Farah?

  Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.

• 1:31:54Matt Farah?

  Panic at my disco. I drove past someone in a Dodge Durango yesterday cruising with their leg up and left shoe resting on the dashboard, like between the steering wheel and the door. Dude, you should not do that. Don't look up photos of what happens to people who get into crashes with their fucking feet on the dashboard.

• 1:32:16Speaker 01

  Right. You get folded, yeah.

• 1:32:18Matt Farah?

  God, is that, those are ugly injuries, man.

• 1:32:22Speaker 01

  Talk about back pain.

• 1:32:24Matt Farah?

  I had a panic attack, not really. I had a stressful moment when we were taking Cricket to the vet. And Hannah had to do a really hard stop to avoid an accident. And I had Cricket in the carrier on my, and I go, man, if she hits at like just enough speed to deploy the airbag.

• 1:32:46Matt Farah?

  The airbag was killing Cricket. You know what I mean?

• 1:32:49Speaker 01

  Was Cricket in your arm or in the carrier?

• 1:32:50Matt Farah?

  In a carrier.

• 1:32:51Speaker 01

  Soft carrier or hard carrier?

• 1:32:53Matt Farah?

  Soft carrier.

• 1:32:53Speaker 01

  Oh.

• 1:32:54Matt Farah?

  I was like, she would probably get crushed, like probably get killed. Like blood force trauma to the head, that would probably kill a cat.

• 1:33:01Speaker 01

  Yeah, maybe.

• 1:33:02Matt Farah?

  So anyway, Cricket's fine, but I was bugged out about that.

• 1:33:05Speaker 01

  What car were you in?

• 1:33:06Matt Farah?

  The RZ. I was in the passenger seat of the RZ.

• 1:33:09Speaker 01

  Why'd you put Cricket in the backseat?

• 1:33:11Matt Farah?

  Because she was being comforted.

• 1:33:13Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 1:33:14Matt Farah?

  She was crying, you know. Anyway.

• 1:33:17Speaker 01

  I know, I've had the thought, we like, we would do very, very short drives. Occasionally, you know, Tucker jumps in the front seat. Mostly he's tethered in the backseat. But like, if we got in a crash, the airbag is sending him to the back of the car, so.

• 1:33:30Matt Farah?

  But yeah, do not put your feet on the dashboard where you're driving. That's a fucking recipe for a problem.

• 1:33:35Speaker 01

  These are highlighted because they're related.

• 1:33:37Matt Farah?

  Okay, two related questions. Question one, how do you fix the affordable sports car segment?

• 1:33:44Matt Farah?

  Number two, thoughts on the protectionism against Chinese EVs in the US?

• 1:33:50Speaker 01

  I feel like the answers are very similar, so.

• 1:33:53Matt Farah?

  Yeah, I mean, the answers are, the answers are the same. The problem isn't the product. The problem is the, is the income side.

• 1:34:00Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:34:01Matt Farah?

  It's not, it's, it's, the sports cars.

• 1:34:06Matt Farah?

  The entry-level sports cars are actually affordable. If the middle class had more money to buy them. They could buy not just, you know, American cars, but also fun cars.

• 1:34:22Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:34:23Matt Farah?

  We've done this math a few times. It feels like everything's getting too expensive, but you're just not making enough money.

• 1:34:32Speaker 01

  And not because you're not working hard, it's because wages have not kept up with inflation.

• 1:34:36Matt Farah?

  Yeah, I, sorry, I didn't.

• 1:34:37Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah. I just wanted to make sure people.

• 1:34:39Matt Farah?

  Sure, I wasn't trying to turn that into an individualist problem. That is a collective problem. But like, you know, with the protectionism against Chinese EVs, like I can understand both sides of that. Like, they're doing shit that we can't do over there. And, and we've tried protectionism before and it doesn't usually last. We did it with Japanese cars.

• 1:35:03Matt Farah?

  You know, we could, look, we're in, we're in the fucking time of tariffs, so fucking let them in and charge them 10,000% tariff if that's what you want to do. Like, I, I mean, I guess that's what I would do. I think American cars are tariffed in other countries. Like, we were about, when we were in New Zealand, people were paying 200 grand for a Raptor or whatever, like. Let them do that, I guess, you know. I think there's implications regarding the software that I'm certainly not privy to. But I'm not, I'm not afraid of China, like in the way that other people are afraid of China. I think, I think a lot of that's fucking, I'm more, much more afraid of my own government and the fucking technocrat oligarchs than I am from the fucking Chinese.

• 1:35:48Speaker 01

  Yeah, but I also understand if, if they were allowed to bring in these $12,000 cars. You would decimate the US auto economy, but that would hurt all the workers that build the cars. The fallout among the citizens in that workforce, I think, would be so terrible.

• 1:36:05Matt Farah?

  Yeah.

• 1:36:06Speaker 01

  So that's kind of the corner we're in.

• 1:36:07Matt Farah?

  I do understand that side of it as well. But yeah, I mean, I think wages just need to, need to be adjusted. And we need, we need to have a major, major reckoning. Because it's not that the cars are that much more expensive. We've done it with the Miata. We've done it with the fucking GTI. We've done it with the 911 Turbo. We've done it with the 1,000 horsepower fucking, or 800 horsepower electric Cayenne. Like, the cars really aren't, I mean, inflation sucks, but the cars are not.

• 1:36:36Speaker 01

  They're not outpacing it.

• 1:36:37Matt Farah?

  They're not outpacing inflation, for the most part.

• 1:36:39Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:36:40Matt Farah?

  Federal investigator.

• 1:36:45Matt Farah?

  You mentioned the Ford GT being treated like royalty. What are other cars you would consider to be royalty by most, if not all, people? I mean, there's, like, you got like the McLaren F1 and, you know, Ferrari GTO and stuff like that. But it's situational. The Ford GT, you're royalty in Detroit. You bring that car to Italy, you're not royalty.

• 1:37:08Matt Farah?

  You know, in Italy, in Italy, you drive a fucking, you drive a 12-year-old Ferrari California around. You get that thing for 75 grand here with a check engine light and a whole bunch of problems. You're royalty in Italy, driving that piece of junk around.

• 1:37:21Speaker 01

  What car do you think is royalty in Germany? Because they make more cars than Italy does. And they're, like, I'm wondering what they revere

• 1:37:33Speaker 01

  nearly as much as Italy.

• 1:37:35Matt Farah?

  It's gotta be.

• 1:37:36Speaker 01

  It can't really be with Italy, but like, you know, United States.

• 1:37:38Matt Farah?

  Speedster or something, you know, or like.

• 1:37:42Speaker 01

  Like, I wonder if they like the German hypercars the most, or do they like, you know, the Unimog or something? I don't, I really wonder.

• 1:37:50Matt Farah?

  Trying to think of when I have been in Germany, has anyone given a shit about the car I was driving?

• 1:37:57Matt Farah?

  Not openly, not to me.

• 1:38:01Matt Farah?

  In Germany. Because Germany's like an, it's like an anti-show-off culture.

• 1:38:05Speaker 01

  It is. You de-bad your AMG.

• 1:38:07Matt Farah?

  You de-bad your shit.

• 1:38:08Speaker 01

  And a lot of, I mean, AMGs are kind of rare there because of the taxes on displacement.

• 1:38:14Matt Farah?

  I bet if you got, I bet, I bet if you showed up with a fucking Raptor. I bet the hoops you have to go through to get a Raptor in Germany, people are like, oh, you know.

• 1:38:25Speaker 01

  Well, we saw, there was a picture long ago of a guy who had a Crown Vic Highway Patrol. I bet, I wonder if they respect the 3RS there. I feel like that is, you know, one of the more impressive cars that country builds.

• 1:38:37Matt Farah?

  Sure.

• 1:38:37Speaker 01

  And it, across, across any competition almost. I wonder if the country, even if you're a Beamer fan, do you like the 3RS?

• 1:38:46Matt Farah?

  Yeah. I think they like, they like classic Porsche there a lot and classic Mercedes. You roll up, if, I mean, most people won't know what it is, but if you roll around Germany in an AMG Hammer. The people who know will lose their minds, yeah. Alpinas. Alpina could be the most German car. Re-education through shitty Toyota pickups. I bought a Golf R as my first sports car. I have fallen in love. I'm wondering if and when you start modifying and what to start with, without the obvious driver mod.

• 1:39:20Matt Farah?

  Well, it depends what you want to do.

• 1:39:21Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 1:39:22Matt Farah?

  I mean, when you start, when to start modifying, the answer is as soon as you can. The longer you have this mod, the more you are enjoying it. So if you can mod the car on day one, if you know what you want, you are maximizing your mod value.

• 1:39:38Speaker 01

  That's true.

• 1:39:38Matt Farah?

  Right? Putting it off, you're reducing your mod value. So I say ASAP is when you should mod.

• 1:39:49Matt Farah?

  But the question is not what to start with, it's what do you want the car to do differently? Do you want it to steer differently? Do you want it to ride differently? Do you want it to sound differently? Do you want it to be a little more powerful? Like, what do you want? That's where you start.

• 1:40:08Speaker 01

  Yeah, depends on where you live and what your life will benefit from the most. The good thing with that engine is you can like do a stage one or two tune and it will be very fast and you can keep everything else normal.

• 1:40:22Matt Farah?

  BM Trouble U. Hot take, Mazda has the engineering know-how to make an engaging 911 competitor but would not go into that segment because of brand perception. No, it's because they don't have any money. If not Mazda, what non-premium OEM has the best chance of making an engaging sports car to compete with lower-tier 911s?

• 1:40:46Speaker 01

  I mean, I'd say Alpine, because they've done it.

• 1:40:49Matt Farah?

  Sure.

• 1:40:50Speaker 01

  But, let's go with US.

• 1:40:51Matt Farah?

  Toyota, if Toyota comes out with this MR, a new MR2, that could, that could get there.

• 1:40:58Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 1:40:59Matt Farah?

  Nismo Z. Nismo Z manual. Nismo Z manual is a full-on fucking driver's car.

• 1:41:04Speaker 01

  Haven't driven it, but I trust you.

• 1:41:07Matt Farah?

  There, there is a Corvette to compete with the 911 at every price point. I mean, there are, there's already a Corvette to compete with the 911 at every price point.

• 1:41:16Speaker 01

  Yeah, their cars are great. I would say that Mazda's products and like Toyota GRs are more engaging because they're simpler, they're lighter, they're just, they feel almost more mechanical, even though they have like e-pass, just like the Corvettes do. Yeah.

• 1:41:36Matt Farah?

  Yeah, I mean, I think on a, in a, in a, it's performance level, cars like the Supra and the Nismo Z are competitive with the lower-tier 911s, at least stock for stock.

• 1:41:49Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:41:50Matt Farah?

  Right?

• 1:41:51Speaker 01

  The AMG GT was there, but I think the new one is more SL-ish and has kind of moved up market too much.

• 1:41:57Matt Farah?

  It's more GT'd up.

• 1:41:58Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:41:59Matt Farah?

  Genesis, Genesis could make a, could make a hundred thousand dollar sports car, and in fact, should.

• 1:42:05Speaker 01

  They should.

• 1:42:07Matt Farah?

  They should and they may. They're making, they're making some kind of mid-engine car, but it's probably gonna be more. Probably gonna be more.

• 1:42:14Speaker 01

  They need an engine besides their, their V6 turbos, or a different construction of it, because that car we drove, the engine was like...

• 1:42:20Matt Farah?

  No, it's no good.

• 1:42:21Speaker 01

  Mid AF.

• 1:42:22Matt Farah?

  That is, for sure. I'm not old, I'm preservation class.

• 1:42:27Speaker 01

  Nice.

• 1:42:28Matt Farah?

  Very good. Has the influx of investors into the market changed, changed the speed of price increases as well as raising prices? Wait, wait, wait. We talking about new, we talking about new cars or old cars?

• 1:42:43Speaker 01

  I would guess old cars.

• 1:42:45Matt Farah?

  I think there's a, there's a couple of things. You've got new investors coming in. Car values increasing increases investment in cars, for a time being. They see the values go up and they go, "I need to get in." That goes in. It doesn't last. And they all, they, they come back down eventually, and there's a guy who follows the market and, uh, high-end Ferrari, high, high, medium-high-end Ferraris, meaning not the true blue-chip hypercar shit, but 812s and, you know, things like that, have, have dropped like 20% in the last three months. And so, everyone talks about the prices when they go up, they don't talk about them when they settle.

• 1:43:27Matt Farah?

  But you've got new money coming in, inherited money, kids of boomers that are inheriting millions of dollars, and, and their in-house financial advisors are saying that these cars are safe bets, so you've got that. And you've got the fact that a lot of the companies are not selling new product that people really want. People may not want a fucking hybrid Lamborghini, at any price.

• 1:43:53Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 1:43:54Matt Farah?

  So that props up Aventadors and Huracans. People may not want a hybrid Ferrari, or they may want a Ferrari with eight cylinders, or 12 cylinders, and not six cylinders. So that props up the older stuff. And so, you know, if, if, if Ferrari's not able to convince people to buy a 296 who are instead going for a 488 or an F8, that's a problem.

• 1:44:18Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 1:44:19Matt Farah?

  So...

• 1:44:20Speaker 01

  It's a bummer for everyone who is, the people that were shopping for used because they couldn't afford new, now you have to compete against the people who can afford new but don't want it.

• 1:44:27Matt Farah?

  Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. Senator Mitch McCuckled, do you think the participants of the Palmdale 500 would be good drivers behind the wheel of an actual sporty car, or do you think their driving skill is limited to box trucks and Ford Transits?

• 1:44:42Speaker 01

  Some of them would probably be good and you could discover some talent, and some would die.

• 1:44:47Matt Farah?

  Yeah. I mean, there's something to be said for really knowing your vehicle.

• 1:44:50Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:44:51Matt Farah?

  Um, but I've been in, dude, I've, I've taken yellow cabs in New York City before, where I'm like, "Bro, if I was entering Gumball, this cabbie is my guy." You know what I mean? Where I'm like, the, someone, Ed Bolian needs to get this motherfucker and do a cannonball with this guy, because he is on it. Um, I've, I've had some of those folks drive me in cabs where I'm like, "You understand vehicle dynamics."

• 1:45:15Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:45:16Matt Farah?

  And, and you know where your corners are, and you have situational awareness coming out of your fucking eyeballs right now." Um, yeah. Some of those guys would be good drivers.

• 1:45:27Speaker 01

  I think so. When you see the truck brake before the corner and then lift off for the corner, you go, "That person knows what to do."

• 1:45:32Matt Farah?

  Yeah.

• 1:45:33Speaker 01

  When you see someone brake late and stay on the brakes and, "Rrrrr," you go, "That... no, they would die."

• 1:45:39Matt Farah?

  Kevin Byrd, thoughts on Sin watches? Johnny loves these fucking things.

• 1:45:45Speaker 01

  I think a lot of them are very good-looking.

• 1:45:46Matt Farah?

  They are. They make a nice watch, German, um, a lot of pilot watches, a lot of what you would call tool watches. Um, they're very tough, um, and, uh, they're, they're known for making a very high-quality product. They don't, um, they don't starm a soul. Um, you know, a, a silver watch with a black face and without a big pop of color, doesn't necessarily really do it for me. Um, and I don't, I don't, I don't look for a lot of tool watches, um, that much, but they, but they make a high-quality item, that's for sure. Um, oh wait.

• 1:46:27Matt Farah?

  We answered that one last show.

• 1:46:29Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 1:46:30Matt Farah?

  Okay, wait. Um, two more, and then we're gonna, we're calling. The Toking Sire, when shopping for a used car, would you view an en, a recent engine replacement, or a value add, or a point against? There's an F-Type on cars and bids with 26,000 miles and an engine was replaced. Seems troubling that that was needed so soon. I mean, troubling for the engine that was replaced.

• 1:46:58Speaker 01

  Right. Troubling for Jaguar.

• 1:47:00Matt Farah?

  Yeah, I mean, I, I don't know if blown engines is a, is a problem in jet, in these cars. I don't hear about a ton of blown engines. Um, I think it would make the engine less desirable. Having said that, once you've got the car in your hand and you've paid for it and you're driving it, there is absolutely no difference to the user that that engine is not the original engine. Right?

• 1:47:27Speaker 01

  I, I think as the user, it's fine. I do, I don't, and it's probably a problem. It would give me, there's a little pause to seeing that that went wrong, and I'd have to do a lot more homework to know that not only was the engine replaced, did it cause any other issues that were also addressed? Or is there gonna be a knock-on effect? And I would know that, I would wanna pay, I would expect to pay slightly less for it compared to a car that had the original engine, because I know that going to resell it, I bet you're gonna have a little bit more difficulty.

• 1:47:59Matt Farah?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:48:00Speaker 01

  Apparently, some of the models, uh, in 2019 F-Type, uh, crankshaft pulley bolt may fracture due to improper manufacturing, potentially leading to sudden engine failure. So, that may have been the problem.

• 1:48:16Matt Farah?

  It may have been. And in that case, if you got a new engine, it's probably sorted.

• 1:48:20Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:48:21Matt Farah?

  It probably, so that, you know, it's always a point against when it comes to selling a car that's got a blown motor, right? But if you, or that had a blown motor, had a replacement, but if you personally are like, "Look, rest of the car's got 26,000 miles, interior looks nice, the paint is nice, here's the, you know, it was done at a Jaguar dealer or whatever, maybe under warranty," you know?

• 1:48:48Matt Farah?

  Here's a video of it running and driving just fine, doesn't smoke, you know, the car works like a 26. Hopefully, the engine that was put in was a new or very low mile engine.

• 1:49:00Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 1:49:00Matt Farah?

  That matters, but if what you want is a car to drive, there's value in that. You know, who gives a shit? No, you don't have to tell everybody you meet that's got a replacement engine. Nobody cares.

• 1:49:12Speaker 01

  That's true. I think you made a great point of who did the work, where the engine come from, what condition was the engine in? Cause I saw a Reddit story, a person paid very little money to replace their Honda Civic engine and the quote, the replacement engine was running like garbage.

• 1:49:24Matt Farah?

  Yeah.

• 1:49:25Speaker 01

  And it was like, well, did the shop do a bad job? Was the engine trash to begin with? So you need to think of all those things.

• 1:49:31Matt Farah?

  Yeah, if it was replaced at a dealer under warranty, chances are you got a brand new engine.

• 1:49:35Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 1:49:36Matt Farah?

  Um, if it was replaced by some other shop, not necessarily certain where that engine came from. Uh, suspension of disbelief spring. That's very good. My mom's had Miata's my whole life. She's had four of them, uh, three of them. Her ND2 was totaled, so we want something new. Uh, the ND2 didn't give her the fizz like older Miata's, but she's now accustomed to some modern features. CarPlay, backup camera and heated seats. What roadsters should we be looking at? Manual, convertible and small 60K max. Boxster. The answer is Boxster.

• 1:50:11Speaker 01

  Oh yeah, they said they live in Atlanta and there's not that many 718s around. I would say be willing to travel, make a road trip out of it, especially with your mom. Like you could find a good one somewhere.

• 1:50:23Matt Farah?

  There is no reason in 2026 to be looking just in your own city for a car. You could ship cars easily. You can fly somewhere and drive them home and make a trip out of it. Like, don't look in your own city. Look, look everywhere. I mean, you don't have to look, you don't have to make it 4,000 miles, but here in Atlanta, Nashville, you know, not Florida.

• 1:50:47Speaker 01

  Right. You know, I would, I would take your mom to look at a local 718 or Turo one. If she likes it, now you're just shopping for color, trim and price. So good, so you go nationwide, find one in a place that doesn't have rust and then fly there together or get a PPI, which you can do remotely and then fly there, buy it and drive back together. That's what I would do.

• 1:51:09Matt Farah?

  Porsche Experience Center. She could go drive one at the fucking PEC still.

• 1:51:13Speaker 01

  Oh, sure.

• 1:51:13Matt Farah?

  You could still go drive a Boxster if you wanted to.

• 1:51:15Speaker 01

  That's true.

• 1:51:16Matt Farah?

  Down there. So that's what I, I mean, the, the, your options are limited. You've got Z, you've got F types, only 2017 to 2019s, uh, Z4s and, and, and Boxsters. Like that's kinda it. Or

• 1:51:33Matt Farah?

  C7 Corvettes. Now, your mom may not be Corvette person, but top go down.

• 1:51:40Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:51:41Matt Farah?

  Has the goods.

• 1:51:42Speaker 01

  Will feel like a Miata.

• 1:51:43Matt Farah?

  Is manual.

• 1:51:44Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:51:45Matt Farah?

  Um, and, and will be fast. A C7 Grand Sport is kinda like a big, a bigger, faster Miata.

• 1:51:51Speaker 01

  A hundred percent.

• 1:51:51Matt Farah?

  So like, you might want to throw that one in there, but I, I see your mom in a Boxster.

• 1:51:56Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:51:56Matt Farah?

  Yeah.

• 1:51:57Speaker 01

  You can find one. All right.

• 1:51:58Matt Farah?

  That's our program. Um, I, by the time you hear this, I'll be in Spain, uh, unless you're a pro driver and getting it live. If you're a Patreon, getting it live. Everyone else, um, I'll be back soon. Um, no interruption in our programming, I don't believe. Thank you to our patrons for asking such good questions today. We appreciate you very much. Thank you to everyone else for listening. Let's, let's pray for my Taycan going back together. Thirty seven thousand dollars in repair work. Um, crazy, right?

• 1:52:29Speaker 01

  I mean, he's gonna have a twin turbo V8 when it comes to that, for that money.

• 1:52:33Matt Farah?

  Dude, I, I, I'm spending only slightly more, only slightly more to have a completely new powertrain, suspension, brakes, wheels, bodywork, seats, uh, paint done to a 1994 Mercedes. I'm having a completely new car. A car, I'm having a car turned into another car for less money than this.

• 1:53:00Speaker 01

  That's crazy. Yeah. This body shop probably has a really nice building, or sorry, this repair shop.

• 1:53:08Matt Farah?

  Oh boy, that's our show, everybody. We'll see you later. Bye.