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1 appearance
Magnus Walker is a driver, a famous collector and builder of Porsches. He's in a short documentary called "Urban Outlaw" featuring his cars and his obsession with Porsches.
2 appearances
Alex Ross is the owner, and co-founder of Sharkwerks, which creates dialed-in, tweaked-out modern Porsches for Porsche enthusiasts.
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That's it, ladies and gentlemen. We're live. We're live with two fucking
psychopathic car fanatics here in the lovely valley of Los Angeles.
Magnus Walker and, of course, my friend Alex Ross from Shark Works, who I drove
his car yesterday.
I know you've driven his new creation.
That was, without a doubt, the scariest car I've ever driven.
It wasn't the best environment for it because it was on the canyons, and it's
got so much power.
You can't really use it on those canyons because it's just so, by the time you
hit the gas, you're hitting the brakes.
You hit the gas, it's like something around 800 horsepower?
Around there, yep, give or take, depending on what gas you use.
And like 3,200 pounds?
31.
3,100 pounds. That's fucking ridiculous.
It's like a factory sort of GT3 weight with 800 horsepower, gobs of torque,
about 650 to the wheels.
Wait until you're bouncing off the Revliminer, second, third gear.
My experience, second gear on the Limited was 87 miles an hour.
Third was about 25, and then by the time you deep in a fourth, you're just sort
of running out of road.
And have you done a top speed on that car yet?
You attempted it yesterday.
Well, officially we saw 147 somewhere yesterday, and we were not out of fourth
gear.
So it's probably got to be close to 200.
Oh, it goes over 200.
Actually, the way that kit works, it's already, just in a turbo car, it already
does about 202 in the mile.
So in a lighter two-wheel drive car, it's above that.
I mean, it'll trap 140 in the quarter easy.
It's like a, it does everything, you know?
You know, there's always this thing about cars where people always want to add
more power.
And as you guys both know, we're in this weird horsepower war now in the world
where every year cars have to, if you have a car that makes 400 horsepower,
next year it's got to at least make a little more.
Yeah, 400 horsepower is like a Camry right now, right?
Well, yeah, well, that BMW M3 that I have, which is a pretty moderate car, 420
horsepower.
Let me tell you the craziest thing I did recently.
Last year in July, I went to Norway to the Gatbol Festival.
I don't know if you've heard of this thing.
No.
I describe it as like Mad Max meets Burning Man on steroids, and it's
essentially a DIY drift fest, but essentially these guys, 800 to 1,000
horsepower in a Volvo wagon, and they're drifting sideways around the whole
track.
So, yeah, the days of 400 horsepower sort of being a benchmark are gone, but I'm
sort of the opposite.
I'm the less is more guy, you know?
Yeah, well, that's why I wanted to – I thought it was interesting that you
take these really cool old classic 911s, and if you haven't seen the
documentary Urban Outlaw, you've got to check it out.
What is it, about 30-plus minutes?
32-minute short documentary.
It's an amazing – it really got me excited about those old cars.
It's an amazing documentary.
Thank you.
And, you know, one of the things that you said – are we down already?
Same problem, I don't know.
With the audio?
Yeah.
Yeah, we'll work it out.
Um, we have a new setup here.
This is completely new.
It's very high tech.
It's like, you know, being at NASA over here.
Yeah, yeah.
Well, that's all – this is a new thing called a TriCaster, and it does
everything in HD, but we haven't worked out all the kinks yet.
You mean we're not shooting this on an iPhone or something?
Well, I'm sure we'll hear about it on Reddit, and everyone will explain how to
work it.
Yeah, the audio – it's back up, but is the audio up?
Let me hear – hold on.
Yeah, it's work.
There you go.
You know why –
Ralph in the corner's got an iPhone.
He can take some great shots with that.
Right, Ralph?
Yeah.
Ralph's ready to rock.
Yeah.
But your documentary about those old classic 911s, and, you know, you rebuild
them and add your own touches to them, but your cars, you know, you're working
with some of them less than 200 horsepower.
Yeah, I mean, most of my cars are small displays.
You know, for those that don't know, my collection's basically early 911s from
64 through 73, you know, and that really just covers two liter up to two four.
Unlike this mad dog and Englishman right here, Alex, where, you know, too much
is never enough.
My background was sort of the opposite, you know.
It was more the sort of giant killer trying to chase down the cars with twice
as much power was, to me, a bit more exciting rather than just sort of, you
know, flooring it in a straight line.
And you can still get a lot done if a car's set up pretty well, because 277,
that's the car I've tracked on and off for 12 years, done a lot of club racing
stuff, and it's so dialed in that 220 horsepower is pretty usable in a car that
only weighs, let's say, 2250.
Yeah, weight is such a key thing.
It's what I call a flatfoot car.
You can keep your foot planted all the time.
Unlike the GT2, as great as that is, you've got to roll into that amount of
power.
Because if you just stomp it, you just spin in.
Go off the road.
It's almost too much power.
I mean, it's like a throttle stop.
I think the challenge is there is trying to be able to modulate and actually
get that power down is, takes a little bit of finesse, because you've sort of
got to roll into it.
Because traction control on or off, if you stamp it, it sort of does the same
thing.
You're just chirping and spinning and stepping sideways.
Well, correct me if I'm wrong.
With the traction control, do they calculate it based on the horsepower that
the engine actually has?
So when you jam it up to...
It's not just traction.
It's a stability management.
It was the first time on a 997 that it had, well, on a GT car.
So your car being, you know, 07, 08 Mark 1, it actually has, like, a more
simple traction control system that, you know, you can turn off, but it doesn't
have stability management like the GT2.
So it actually has two buttons.
One is, you know, are you fucking nuts?
And are you going to fucking die right now?
So, yeah.
So is that on the button or it just says pass them or something?
It says, like, SC plus TC equals death, right?
It doesn't even tell you what those things are when you buy it.
This orange light comes on, you know, and, yeah, you know, it's sort of like,
it gives you a chime as if you've got a problem with your engine.
You know, that same, like, if you have a check engine light on a car, you know,
it's got this ding, and you're, like, you know, you're driving and you have
this, like, you know, orange, amber, you know, warning sign.
So it's, you know, they're pretty...
See, the old cars have none of that crap, you know, you just sort of feel it or
you don't feel it.
Especially with the brakes, right?
You actually can modulate the brakes by pushing them hard.
Yeah, no power assisted small...
I mean, what's happened is...
I think the brakes on the GT2 are almost the same size as the wheels on 277.
What are they, 14 and a half, 15 inch?
Yeah, they're 380 mil.
I have 15 inch rims.
So, yeah, they're almost the same size.
They are. They're 15 inch brakes.
That's hilarious.
I got 15 inch wheels.
Those are 15 inch brakes.
Well, you need it with that car.
And most people aren't aware of how much computer-generated stuff is going on
behind the scenes of a lot of these modern, high-powered horse cars.
Like, I got to drive the Challenger Hellcat recently.
Oh, that's a beast.
And even though it's 707 horsepower, it's very manageable when you're driving
it around because they have all this stuff going on behind the scenes.
I'm an ex-Mopar guy. I still got my 69th Super Beetle.
Well, that's a Mopar to be proud of, this new Hellcat.
Is the valet key, like, special for the 500 horsepower?
Yeah, they give you that, but I told them I don't even want that.
I mean, no one else is going to drive it.
No, but I mean, what do the valets do?
It's stupid.
And why do they have 500?
I don't get it.
You don't let your valet guy park your car, do you?
Yeah, but if you leave a valet guy with a 500 horsepower car, he could kill
himself for wrapping around a tree just as easily as he could have a 700
horsepower car.
That's pretty funny.
For folks who don't know what we're talking about, there's two different keys.
One is a red key and one's a black key.
The red key gives you full access to all the power, which gets you up to Hellcat,
707 horsepower.
Tire smoker.
Somehow or another, just having the black key limits the amount of horsepower.
Yeah.
Well, it just doesn't.
It probably controls, you know, it controls, you know, throttle mapping.
It's not as much black metal.
Yeah, you know, an amount of, yeah, it's probably just a throttle map
controller and, you know, obviously, you know, it doesn't allow you to sort of,
you know, dig deeper and go higher up to 700.
Well, there's a lot of rev limitations, too.
Like, even when you just rev the car up just to have some fun with it.
It feels sloppy.
Well, it just backs off when you get up near, anywhere near the red line.
Like, you feel it cutting out.
I think the moral to the story is never let a valet guy know your car, really.
That is the moral of the story.
You really don't need two keys in it.
I've never let any valet touch my GT3.
Well, I had a valet key with one of the first cars I had, which was, you know,
like, in the end of 99.
It was a supercharged Jaguar XKR.
And it was a convertible.
Best of British, right?
Yeah, best of British.
Convertible, too.
Convertible, right?
Total California car.
Was that when you were doing all that modeling you were telling me about?
No, that was a lot longer.
PC world internet supermodel days.
Yeah, early internet celebrity days.
Yeah, did you know that about him?
Well, he was a gamer.
You were a video gamer.
Do you, I don't know.
Do you remember websites like, you know, Tom's Hardware and Nantech?
Yes, yes.
Oh, totally.
So Sharky Extreme was mine, and that was one of the big three.
And then Voodoo Extreme was another one I started.
Dude, I remember that.
I remember Voodoo Extreme.
This is the man.
And I remember Sharky Extreme.
Dude, I started Voodoo Extreme.
The man behind the shop.
We've talked about this before.
I don't know if we talked about it on the podcast, but we've definitely talked
about it before.
That was your background.
Yeah.
I was a student video gamer.
I was trying to make some money, so I started writing for, you know, magazines.
And this is back in England.
And they would go, why do you want to write about, you know, hardware and 3D
cards and all this shit?
It's never going to work.
And so I just started posting it on the internet instead.
And I moved out here and, you know, sold a website that was big during the dot-com
era.
Isn't it funny?
That's one of those things where people thought there was no market for it.
People thought, nah, no one's going to pay attention to that.
But you can put it on the internet.
And you put it on the internet, and it becomes giant.
Well, obviously, there's a market.
It's just you fuckheads couldn't figure out how to reach that market.
Remember this crazy thing in 1999?
Y2K?
Like, everybody's going to melt down.
I mean, it's amazing how far we've come since then, right?
It did fucking melt down.
Oh, well, how about again in 2012?
Everybody thought the Mayans were right.
The end of the calendar.
They were right, dude.
Stars were going to align.
The aliens were going to land.
Put the stars up there.
Yeah, exactly.
They've got stars right above us.
Come on.
Those are fake, though.
Yeah.
It's just a low-resolution photograph.
But, you know, you grow up in England, and you know, because, well, there's
this big divide, basically,
between the Great North-South Divide.
So you've probably seen those Snatch and Lockstock.
Southern fairies, Northern monkeys.
So it's like LA, or it's like America.
It's like being in the 818 or 213.
You know, I'm a 213 guy.
Well, in America, there's the South, and then there's the North.
But I grew up in the ritzy, cool part, which is the South.
That was the grim northern steel town, Sheffield.
Right, but even in the South, you know, if you said, you know, to your school
counselor or career person, you know, I want to be a fucking astronaut, they'd
be like, tone it down a bit, you know.
Or I want to be a baker.
No, you can't do that, son.
You know, just get a normal job.
Live with any means.
See, that's the great thing about America.
I used to hear, cut your hair and get a real job.
I was into heavy metal.
I've had long hair since I was 14, 15.
And, you know, over 30-odd years later, I still got long hair.
You got more than long hair, man.
You got a whole ecosystem on your head.
You got some crazy extra long, like, rope-like things happening in the back
flying out of the car, though.
It looks epic, dude.
Getting caught in the door.
I was telling these guys one of my funniest moments was at the Frankfurt Auto
Show when Porsche debuted the 918 last year.
And it was literally 10 minutes after it debuted.
All the press was there.
And they invite me up on stage to get in this 918.
And I get my hair caught in the door.
Next day, there's, like, headlines in the newspaper.
Subtitle, it read something like,
English-born American rock star gets hair caught in the 918 door at Frankfurt
Auto Show.
But for me, it's sort of like this Samson thing where, you know, I'm afraid to
cut my hair because I'll lose my strength.
But now it's just turning gray and getting thinner and falling out.
But I've had long hair for 30 years.
If it goes bald on top, are you going to keep it on the sides?
Yeah, probably.
It'll be like Nashville Pussy.
Have you ever seen that band?
Yes, yeah.
You know, where the guy takes his hat off and he's, like, completely bald on
top?
Yeah, it'll be like that.
But I think the point I was making is England is a sort of class-divided
country, whereas coming to America for me at 19, you could sort of do whatever
you want.
Yeah, but even class-divided, even in the South, I mean, when you come from
England, I mean, let's face it, we don't have much of a space program.
We don't have, I mean, you know, no career person is going to tell you.
You've got good teeth, though, right?
But you guys do.
He brought a shark with you, you son of a bitch.
You carry those things everywhere.
Everywhere, dude.
Everywhere.
Chicks dig the shark.
They do, man.
They don't dig the dicks, but they dig the sharks.
Well, I have a good friend from Steve, his name is Steve, and he's from England
as well.
And he tells me the same thing.
No, Steve.
He's actually a professor.
Oh, Steve, Steve, yeah, but he's John.
He's a professor at Stanford, and he says essentially the same thing.
He says that when you are in England, they sort of limit what your aspirations
should be.
They tell you where to go, they tell you what to do.
I mean, I literally went up to the biggest magazines, and, you know.
I have Ralph in the background.
It's okay.
Yeah, but it's distracting.
The image is distracting.
Yeah.
Talking about his kneecaps?
No, I mean, you could sit over here.
You could do whatever you want.
You could join in if you like.
Yeah.
Should we get him some long pants?
Is it a kneecap thing?
We have this guy in the background.
We're the dude in the background?
With the image.
But just so you know who he is, he used to work for a very famous Porsche race
team.
He's the godfather of Porsche.
Yeah, he's the godfather.
He used to work for Vasek Polek, and he was parking, like, RSKs and moving all
these, like,
multi-million dollar cars that, you know.
No, no.
He's also one of the first adopters of your 3.9.
He is.
Yeah, he is.
Like, right off to Kermit.
That's right.
He's also barefoot.
He's also barefoot, and he drives barefoot.
I've got a photo of him barefoot at the gas station in downtown, actually.
Yeah.
You want to get in?
You want to sit in here?
No?
You're good?
Okay.
We know he's cool.
He's incognito.
Yeah.
He's the less, he's more guy.
My friend Steve Hilton, who, he's a professor at Stanford.
He's a very interesting guy, fascinating guy, and he fucking loves America.
And he said he didn't realize how negative and how limiting the attitudes of
people in England
are until he got to America.
In America, people are like, yeah, you can do whatever you want to do.
Whatever you want to do.
Literally, I think I told you this on the last one, but I went to the most
academic, ritzy
school.
I don't know how the hell I got in there.
A lot of hard work, and, you know, my mom.
Stunning good looks.
Yeah, stunning.
And when I did get there, I mean, the whole time, it's sort of, you know, no,
just keep it
down, son.
Keep it down.
You know, don't just try and do something different.
This is what you need to do.
You need to do this, this, this, and this, and then you'll get a job in the
city.
There's no such thing as dare to be different there.
I left school at 15.
I don't know when you left school, but after 15.
I don't even remember.
Is that just like the momentum of ancient times?
It's just like they don't want to make noise.
It's almost predetermined, you know?
You don't want to make a lot of noise.
You go down this path.
Imagine going to the biggest, you know, gaming magazines, well, whatever, if
you're a nerd,
gaming magazines and PC magazines back in the 90s, and saying, hey, there's
this really
cool new technology that I'm playing with, and it's sort of early on, I know,
but it's
going to make all these video games better.
And then, you know, the editor-in-chief, you know, who's been there since, you
know, 1985
just goes, no, that's not going to fucking work.
I'm not doing that.
And so you've got nowhere to, like, express, you know, something cool and new.
So, yeah, the internet was pretty freaking amazing for me, you know?
I just threw it up there, and then people start reading it, and, you know, then
what's
funny is that same company, the publishing company, tried to buy my website,
like, fucking
four years later, and I said, nah, I sold it to internet.com.
We're seeing something similar in America, where the Midwest, and there's a lot
of parts
of this country that don't have urban centers and don't have, you know, there's
a lot of
people that are there that have, like, really limited ideas of how people
should act, how
people should dress, what people should do, what religions you should follow,
and because
of the internet, there's, like, this embedding of, like, a new culture in all
of these areas.
Like, you could go to anywhere.
You can go to the Midwest, you can go to Kansas, you can go, and you'll find
really fucking
cool kids who are on the ball, who understand what's going on in the world.
We used to have to go to a library to find anything out.
Do those things exist anymore?
Yeah, they do.
They do.
I take my kids to the library.
What do you do with them there?
They look at little kid books, man.
Like dinosaur books.
We're talking about bookstores on the web, because we're talking about
magazines and where
do you get them.
It's like, bookstores, it's sort of hard to find them.
Yeah, we're talking about, you buy magazines at the airport, it seems.
Well, a lot of them, yeah, a lot of bookstores are dying out.
Yeah, and then everything, like, all the, you know, Porsche magazines and stuff,
they're
all, like, you know, on the iPad now.
You know, my mom's, like...
They're better on the iPad.
Everyone's got an iPhone and snapping photos.
I've sort of, because I'm an ex-magazine guy, too, I just, there's something
about reading
it on paper.
I still, you know, I still want to cut down trees, I guess, to do it, but, you
know.
I got a great photo of him, the tree hugger photo outside in the rain.
Mad Dog's an English man hugging the tree.
I was humping your tree, sorry.
He's getting all excited.
I just rent here.
You just rent all excited.
Just wipe it clean.
But it is amazing that the internet offers up all these opportunities, and the
internet
is essentially how I found out about both of you guys.
Yeah.
I found out about you because of the Urban Outlaw documentary, which is, look,
how else
would you have ever watched that documentary if it wasn't for the internet?
That came out of left field.
I mean, if I can talk about that for a minute or two.
I mean, I got to give props to Tamir Moscovici, my Canadian beard old buddy,
who'd, he'd been
following my post on Pelican Parts, and I was starting to get a little bit of
magazine coverage
probably three years ago.
And Pelican Parts, for folks who don't know, the website.
Nerdy Porsche.
It's the sort of classic Porsche go-to online forum and parts supply place, and
I had a thread
going there called Porsche Collection Out of Control Hobby, and Tamir was a
Canadian film
director who was sort of dissatisfied with doing Bud Light commercials, and
more importantly,
he was a Porsche owner, and sort of connected with my story and figured maybe
there's a little
bit more to it than had been told through my post.
And talking of the internet, shot me an email, and a couple of emails later, we
had a sort
of online verbal handshake, and he flew down on his frequent flyer miles to LA,
hired a
sort of very talented crew for nothing.
And from my point of view, it was like, what's the worst that can happen here?
I'm going to drive around for four days and get some great footage.
We didn't know what was going to happen with that film.
You know, and we released a trailer, probably, we shot it in 2012, January,
released a trailer
a couple of months later that got picked up by Top Gear.
And that thing sort of went viral and exploded.
And then the film came out October 15th online and got into the Raindance Film
Festival.
And it just sort of went from there, you know, and it's amazing how global that
thing became,
because I think people connected to the story.
You know, the film Urban Outlaw is not purely about Porsche.
It's about my story of following my dream, which everyone can relate to.
And we touched on it a little bit, growing up in England and then coming to
America as a 19-year-old,
not knowing anybody, but just sort of following your passion.
And my theory is always the same.
How bad can it be?
And that's ultimately the great thing about America.
And I think that's what Tamir captured in the film Urban Outlaw was my sort of
spirit,
which is a common spirit of trying to, you know, follow your dreams and do what
it is you like to do
without taking no for an answer.
And the past two years since that film came out, you know,
it's just been a whirlwind of travel for me and meeting great people.
And I've realized the sort of common bond with all car guys,
it doesn't matter whether you're driving an 800-horsepower GT2
or building a VW in your backyard or you're a Mopar guy.
We all share that same common bond of loving to tinker with cars,
getting out and driving and basically trying to express yourself
through the styling of the car and the passion of the car and everything that
evolves.
And it is a language.
You know, I say Porsche is a language, but I think all car guys share that same
common bond.
And I think that's the connection why people sort of relate it to the film.
Well, your passion and your enthusiasm is really addictive.
And that's one of the things I love about people.
I watched a documentary recently, a short piece on a guy who makes knives.
He makes, like, butcher knives.
Bowie knives and stuff like that?
No, I mean, he makes mostly, like, knives for chefs and houses.
But he does them all by hand.
He hammers the steel, the whole deal.
And you're watching him cut the wood pieces and polish them down.
I met a similar guy that's selling knives to Eric Clapton.
And these things are, like, you know, 25, 50 grand knives,
some of these old, like, you know, vintage collectors.
It's a month to make one, right?
Yeah.
Well, this isn't vintage.
This is all handmade stuff.
But it's just this guy used to have a regular job.
And then I think his company is called Brooklyn Cut.
And he just started, like, you know, he was, like, in a funk.
And he started making knives almost as a hobby.
And then it became his job.
But as he's making these knives, it's like you're really interested in the
craftsmanship
and his passion and enthusiasm.
That's so addictive.
I don't have any desire to make knives if I kick a knife, I cut a tomato, and
the knife's done.
I'm done.
But it's pretty fucking cool to see someone that's just, you know, he's
obviously, that's his life and passion.
And he's putting everything into it.
Yeah.
And it's a process.
I think passion goes further than street smart, than book smart.
So I often describe myself as a street smart guy because I left school early
without a lot of education.
And you were talking earlier on about the path people go down where they're in
school, university, college.
You know, they come out when they're 22, 23, and they've got no idea what they
want to do.
But they've got all these degrees in education.
And then sometimes they just sort of float around.
For me, it was the complete opposite.
But just always trying to enjoy life and find things that you enjoy doing.
But the key is never give up.
You know, it's like the guy with the knives, you know, turns what seems to be a
hobby, passion, into what sounds like a pretty successful business.
I mean, when I came over here in 98, I didn't even have a driver's license.
Wow.
That's hilarious when you consider what you do now.
Well, have you seen him drive?
He drives good, man.
He drives a little crazy.
Not that good, though, yeah.
Not as good as him.
He's actually, you know, it's funny you mention, you know, most of your
collection is, you know, the early cars and low-powered.
But, you know, I left the car with him.
It rained in L.A., remember, like a while ago for like a week?
Thanksgiving.
Thanksgiving.
And, you know, my wife, actually, who made that video that you saw, which is
not as good as his, actually.
Which video?
The one with Kermit, you know.
I thought it was like one of those home videos you guys like to shoot.
Yeah, we like to do those, but that's a different one.
You know, when you guys are wrestling in oil or something?
No, not in oil.
Just in water.
Okay.
You're a water-cooled guy.
That's right.
That's it.
You've got to get that water-cooled thing.
I've got to get it in there.
But, yeah, I mean, you know,
we left it, well, I said, I've got to get back on the flight.
You want to tell him the back story before that?
Yeah, we'll tell him the back story.
But the point where you're trying to get at is that you left the car with him
to try to get him addicted.
Exactly.
And this is like the third or fourth time.
There's a funny point to the back story, though.
This is the third or the fourth time.
And just watching him sort of go up in his roads, not in, you know, a 277 or an
early car.
And, you know, he respects the power, but he just eases in.
And like I said, it was like a, like he found a song on the radio that he liked.
If anyone listens to the radio, but, you know, and he's like, I think I like
that.
And he turns up the volume a little more, then goes back and, you know, chops
tomatoes with those knives, probably.
And then goes back.
I like that song a lot, actually.
And I'm going to turn it up a little more.
And he continues to cook.
And by the end of like that drive, was it a two-hour drive?
It does go to 11.
Yeah.
You know, instead of having like 30% throttle or a three out of 10 on the
volume knob, you know, he was more at seven or eight.
And he's like, yeah, this is, this is, this is, this needs some time, you know.
And, yeah, so I left it with him for a month.
Horsepower is addictive.
It must be something that you also have to get accustomed to when you're coming
from these cars that are, essentially, most of your cars are somewhere around
200 horsepower.
And then all of a sudden you're driving.
I mean, that thing's almost got four times the amount of power.
So I'm used to sort of getting in these 277 type cars and you just keep your
foot planted all the time.
I call them flat foot cars where pedal to the metal is sort of my slogan.
Yep.
GT2 with almost 800 horsepower, you can't do that.
Pedal to the carpet.
Yeah.
Well, gradual pedal to the metal, you know, to me, it's a lot about variety.
And the challenge with that car is trying to get comfortable with it where you
feel confident, where you can push it more and more and, you know, brake later,
get on the gas earlier type of thing.
And it's a challenge to be able to modulate and try and get the most out of
that car.
The flip side to it is, you know, driving around town under 4,000 RPM is pretty
docile, just like any other car.
Yeah.
But, you know, it gets real angry real quick.
But, again, it's the whole passion thing.
You know, I'm addicted to his passion, basically, you know, from the first time
I met him, you know, like, really, it was about a year ago with the blue car to
the point where, you know, I'm crazy enough, I guess, some people think, to
just go,
Hey, man, can I leave the car with you for a month, you know, some guy that's
got a video like that, you know, up in the canyons.
Well, not only that, you're leaving a car with, it's one of one and a modified
one of one, but essentially one of 200 Porsche ever built.
But I couldn't think of anything better.
Like, I'm not going to bring a, you know, I'm not going to bring a dolled up.
You see, for me to clarify, I've owned a lot of early 911s, a lot of them.
But my collection's my own collection.
I don't build customer cars.
And I think there's a bit of this mis-sort of interpretation that people think
I'm a tuning shop or a performance shop building customer cars.
I get these emails all the time from guys wanting me to build cars for them or
can they drop their car off.
And I've had quite a few people approach me wanting to do collaborations with
other tuners.
So, you know, just to clarify, I'm a collector and I like to get out and drive.
I don't build customer cars.
I've helped my buddies out occasionally.
So when Alex approached me with the car and just sort of left it and he gave me
the classic line, like, what I think is going to become the all-time classic
line for me, he goes, just treat it as if it was your own car and do whatever
you want to do with it.
So you painted it.
Yeah.
You know, so now I'm down with what I call OPP, other people's Porsches.
You know, for me, this was just a real fun collaboration to be able to put my
sort of artistic, stylistic interpretation of the 60s and 70s sport purpose era
onto a new car, which is something that hasn't really been done.
You know, no one's really took that 60s, 70s styling and put it on a new car.
And the Porsche world is a little bit black and white in a sense, just to sort
of be real broad is you're either an air-cooled guy or you're a water-cooled
guy.
You know, in a generic term, the two don't necessarily mix, even though they
really do.
For folks who don't know what we're talking about, just explain the era.
This is not a Porsche forum we're on right here.
This is just a regular podcast.
But it's essentially...
Is anyone out there on the E-Tars?
94 was when 993 ended production?
No, it was 98.
That was the last.
98, it ended?
And when that happened, when that happened, all, you know, Porsche guys that
were, you know, fanatics for, you know, 30, 40 years...
Let's start at the beginning.
The 911 came out in 1964 and was air-cooled, so we'll start there.
We'll start there, all the way up to 98.
Literally, people that were Porsche guys wanted to jump off a cliff because
they thought...
It was over.
It was over because Porsche announced they're going to water-cooled, and they
were just like, that's the end of Porsche.
And they went to water-cooled because it was the only way to really get more
horsepower.
That, and I think it's cheaper to, you know, in a way, it's cheaper to mass-produce
because when they were air-cooled, they were making fewer cars.
Yeah, volume went up.
Volume went up.
Performance went up.
Post-power went up.
You know, actually, that's not true.
It wasn't 90...
Well, 98, they made the last air-cooled 993, but in 97, they actually
introduced the Boxster, and that was the first water-cooled.
Oh.
So, you wouldn't know about the Boxster.
No, I had a friend, my friend Lou, had one of those.
He had one.
It was an automatic.
God bless this.
The manual is a great handling car.
You know what's great about, like, doesn't the exhaust pipe look really weird
in the middle like that?
It's a little weird.
Well, I've seen one with two circular ones.
Oh, that's the S.
That's the S.
That's the S.
That's good.
I think the new one is beautiful.
It is, actually, yeah.
The new Boxster is a beautiful car.
Well, the killer one is the new Cayman.
You know, they've got this thing coming out called the GT4.
That's real.
Yeah, it's real.
It's happening.
It really is happening.
Yeah, it's like a Cayman GTS-R on steroids.
So, it's like a GT3, but a Cayman version.
I wouldn't go that far.
No?
It's still modern and...
Wait till these guys, you know, do the short work tuning and take a bite out of
the Cayman...
No, but that's what's interesting.
I'm becoming an old, like a newer version of you, like an older, grumpy, sort
of new car guy.
Grumpy new car guy?
Yeah, because the golden era for me is the era of Joe's car.
997.
Yeah, 997, you know, GT3 from 07.
I like the 996 GT3.
When did you get your first Porsche?
I got 996 turbo in 2003.
I think today, that 996 turbo is the best bang for the buck in the Porsche.
Yeah, yeah.
You can get them for 35 grand.
Yeah, and really fast car, but mine was a lemon.
Mine broke down like crazy, and I got away from Porsches for a while.
You went NSX, didn't you?
I went for an NSX, and then I got rid of the NSX, I got another NSX.
I had two NSXs, but then I found out about the GT3, and I was reading about the...
My car broke down five times.
The 996 turbo?
Yeah, they had to replace the engine, the throttle, the throttle, the fuel pump
broke, so it just
ran out of gas.
The fuel gauge broke.
That's a common one.
These are big problems.
He ran out of gas, the fuel pump broke, and the fuel gauge broke.
The shift linkage broke twice.
Okay, that was a really common problem.
If you looked at it, you would laugh, because you're thinking like, a hundred
and, you know,
whatever, $30,000 car, and it's got this plastic piece of shite, basically.
Linking the floppy, you know, shifter to the cables on the transmission, and
that thing
would break on cars from 97, because it's the same part in a bog-standard boxer
to a
turbo, and yeah, we always had to make, like, a billet part for the early cars.
Billet shifter.
Oh, so you made something much stronger.
Yeah, yeah.
Actually, a company in Arizona that's like a tuning partner for me, Evo, they
make it,
and yeah, it's just a little billet piece, and then, yeah, you don't get...
Because you know what happens?
You get stuck.
You can't shift.
You can't go anywhere.
Well, I got lucky.
Mine's stuck in second gear.
Oh, that's a good gear to be stuck in.
It was enough to drive to the Porsche dealership.
Yeah, that's a good gear to be stuck in in that car.
But to happen twice is pretty stupid.
So when did you get the GT3?
I got the GT3 a year before I made you, so was it three years ago?
You got the 2010.
You went hardcore and went backwards.
She dove right in, though.
Yeah, I loved it.
I loved it.
But then I found out about the Shark Works cars, and I was like, oh, this
motherfucker just
took it to the next level.
You saw my wife's video.
Yeah, I saw the video, and then it was the cover of Excellence, I think it was.
It was, yeah.
So 3.9 was on it, and they were talking.
The guy was just raving about the engine.
He was comparing the 3.9.
That must be your buddy, right?
PS?
Oh, yeah, Pete Stout, and now he's in charge of Panorama.
That's right.
So I got rid of the 2010, bought a 2007, had it sent to Alex, never even saw it.
Didn't even see the car.
Just bought it.
Straight off the showroom floor.
Just sent it right to him.
So you hadn't even driven in stock form?
Nope, just sent it to him.
I knew it.
Just knew stock wasn't enough?
Well, I talked to him, I'm like, this motherfucker is exactly what I wanted to
hear.
Right.
Everything you're saying, I'm like, that's my dog.
I just sent him the car, I go, let's do it.
There it is.
I just said, go crazy.
It is addictive.
And he went crazy, and I love that car.
What's your favorite road to go drive?
I love that Angel's Crest and Iron Man.
You called me at the top of that, too.
You got cell phone reception up there?
No, no, I called them when I got to the bottom.
Oh, you're going to say.
Yeah, well, we were up there yesterday at the other side of it.
I had a reception.
It's such a masterpiece.
When I drove it, I was like, this is better than any ride at Disneyland or Six
Flags.
And I got to the bottom.
When you drive a car like that on a crazy, windy canyon road with no one
anywhere near,
that's when you really understand what those cars are all about.
I can relate to that.
God, it was so fun.
Well, that was sort of how I connected to the GT2, you know, and then just
little by little
eased into that car.
And then, you know, these guys had already added performance.
I just added a little bit of style and personality.
Well, you did a crazy.
Is there a best website to look at the images of the version of the one that he
created?
Basically.
It's all over sort of Instagram.
It's all over Instagram.
So if you go to like the SharkWorks Instagram or Magnus Walker.
Yeah, you can see it.
I mean, you did a bunch of wacky shows.
Well, there you go.
It's on my Instagram.
Oh, yeah.
It's on for Matt Ferraz.
Oh, look at that guy with a Honda t-shirt.
Look at that guy.
Who the hell is that?
That's a sexy bitch right there.
So I saw the best or worst looking GT2.
Dude, it looks like I got some holes in my jeans.
It looks good when you see it in person.
It's like the blue car.
The blue car, your 4.1.
You thought it was really wacky.
You're like, and then you came and saw it and you were drinking coffee.
And I think I like it.
Yeah, the 4.1, when you see it in person, you see the blue and the orange.
That's a real animal.
That's pretty dope.
You can hear it if you play it off that other.
There's a video of Matt Ferraz driving by.
Yeah, let's watch that video.
I think you're in that video.
I think so.
Can you hear that?
That's just my Instagram video.
Oh, yeah.
Okay.
It looks pretty fast coming around that turn, actually.
And it's pretty cheeky, right?
To have a British flag with Union Jack upside down.
Yeah, people are digging that.
What is with Union Jack on Porsche car?
On the German car.
It's also, you did the thing with the seat inserts.
Oh, yeah.
We took a, my wife and I took a UK tour right before Christmas.
We did an event with Porsche in London and then went to see my mom in Sheffield.
And then went up to see my sister who lives in Aberdeen, Scotland.
Aberdeen.
So, yeah, Aberdeen, where we got some iron brew.
Yes.
So, you know, I'm a big fan of messing up interiors in cars.
But Porsche had been putting plaid interiors or tartan interiors in these cars
since the 70s.
Tartan, is that what it's called?
Tartan.
You know, it's like a kilt.
I thought you guys called it plaid.
Tartan.
Tartan.
Tartan.
You know, they make a lot of that in Scotland.
You know, them William Wallace dudes with the kilts and the sparrings and the
haggis.
So, anyway, long story short.
You know, they pull it up and show their willies or their arse, that thing.
I was just there for the tartan fabric.
But I managed to find this tartan that is almost the same colors that are on
the car.
So, couldn't resist just putting the inserts into the seat just to give it a
little bit
more character on the inside as well.
I mean, when you open it, you just go.
It doesn't make it drive any better.
It just sort of looks like it's got a little bit more style and personality.
Yeah.
I bow down to you guys on this.
That's you.
You're into it.
I like solid colors.
I don't like plaid interiors.
But honestly, that car has a lot more character in a very unique and weird way
now that you've done all this painting.
Yeah, it's got a lot of personality.
I wouldn't have done it.
But, Ian, and with the gold wheels, it does work.
It really does work.
I like those three color combos, you know, and just sort of trifecta, I call it.
And like I say, it's an acquired taste.
But it's sort of a late 60s, early 70s, race-inspired livery interpreted onto a
new car, which is, I don't think you'll see another car like that out there on
the road.
And, you know, you see the privateer teams, you know, from the 70s, 80s.
That, to me, is when I see that car going down, you know, as opposed to just
being like a stealthy white 911 with a sort of big wing on it.
It looks like a race car.
That, to me, is the glory days of Porsche, because 911 came out in 64.
They won Le Mans in 1970.
So, that first 10 years, you know, Porsche just started winning everything in
the 911, 917.
And that's just like the iconic sort of era, the beginning of everything.
It's become this automotive legend that has gone on for 50 years.
And there's only two other cars that have been in production as long as the 911,
the Corvette, which got there 10 years before.
Yeah, I've got a 65.
Well, you know what I'm talking about then.
And then everyone's favorite, the Mustang.
And I'm always floored that people don't do more Mustang-Porsche sort of
comparisons, because to me, I've owned...
It came out at the same time.
It came out at the same time.
I owned a 65 Mustang GT350R replica.
And the Mustang owner and the Porsche owner, to me, are very similar in the
sense that both of them love to customize the cars.
Yes.
You know, you see a lot of upgraded Mustangs.
I mean, just look at all the Parnelli Jones, the Shelby's, the Boss 302's, you
know, these factory conversions on the Mustangs.
It's just never-ending.
The 911, in a sense, is sort of a similar thing.
And I think the owner and enthusiast of the two cars share that common bond of
the cars are easy to sort of upgrade from a performance point of view, personalize
them from an aesthetic point of view.
And they're both being in continuous production for 50 years.
And they're both icons.
You look at Ford, and I think you identify Ford with the Mustang.
You look at Ken Block and what he just did with his Gymkhana 7.
That thing is ridiculous.
It's a monster.
Pull that video up.
Ken Block, Gymkhana 7.
That is fucking insane.
I never had a Mustang, but, like, in England, if you were thinking of an iconic
Ford, it was probably, like, a Ford S...
Capri.
Well, that too.
RS2000 Escort.
No, no, it's a Ford Escort XR3i.
It was the most stolen car ever.
Depending on what area he grew up in, I think.
Here's the video.
First of all, how beautiful does L.A. look at night like that?
That is amazing.
I was fortunate enough to be a couple of hundred yards away from some of these
scenes.
He's running on, you know, the guys that you work with on your wheels.
Yeah, he's running on those.
Yeah, he's running the same 1552 wheels.
It's a 69 Mustang?
Is that what it is?
What year is it?
Well, truth be told, it's sort of a completely purpose-built car.
But the real key to it is 800 horsepower and four-wheel drive.
Yeah, it's insane.
It is unbelievable.
And I think what this did for Ford, in a way, is bring a whole new fan into Ken
Block's world
and also the Ford world through this Mustang, which to me just looks like Darth
Vader meets
Mad Max on steroids.
It's the baddest looking Mustang I've ever seen in my life.
It's a 65.
And the fact that it was a notchback, you know, a notchback as opposed to a
fastback.
Yeah, notchback and wide-ass fender flares.
It's just a monster.
Look at this fucking thing, man.
It's unbelievable.
I know.
He's going to spin the wheels.
Oh, yeah.
Four-wheel.
He's got it hooked up to a chain.
Yeah, all-wheel drive Mustang.
Spinning all four wheels.
And the sound, you know, I'm not hearing that sound, but it's just intoxicating.
There you go.
It's unbelievable.
There you go.
The only all-wheel drive performance Mustang ever built.
What's the benefit of having a car like this all-wheel drive, though?
Putting the power down better, right?
Yeah, but that's it, right?
It's going to change the handling dynamics.
Or it makes more smoke, even.
He's smoking all four.
This guy is a fucking madman.
Ken Block's driving is insane.
Nice guy, too.
That video that he did with his Subaru, where he's spinning around all these
different objects.
Yeah, he did that on Top Gear, right?
The control that he has in this thing.
I thought the San Francisco Gymkhana V was the best until I saw this.
I mean, the San Francisco one's still epic, but this one.
He's in downtown LA, going sideways around every corner in the craziest fucking
Mustang that's ever been built.
My mother-in-law sent me this video, have you seen this?
It's like, yes, along with 3,000.
Who hasn't seen it, right?
You're right about Mustangs, though, in that Mustangs might be the most
customized ever American car.
Without a doubt, I would say.
I mean, what else has been around in production for 50 years?
And they're also one of the most radical cars as far as what you can buy.
The most radical what you can buy straight from the factory.
They were the first to go completely hog-wild.
That GT500 with 668 horsepower, I mean, what the fuck is that?
King of the road.
I mean, that is bananas.
That is a goddamn bananas car.
And to have a live rear axle in 2014.
Yeah, yeah.
The new one, have you seen the new GT350?
They've gone the other way.
They've lowered the horsepower down to 500.
They've lightened up the car.
I like that.
Giant carbon brakes.
And apparently, with this new independent suspension, it's a motherfucker as
far as it's handling.
It's supposed to...
See, honestly, I would actually take a slightly less horsepower, but lighter.
I'd like that.
For GT, that was one of my all-time favorite cars as a kid growing up.
The GT350 is a new Mustang.
That's a Ford GT.
Yeah, the Ford GT is a beautiful car.
Freaking prices on those went bonkers.
The modern version of it, the modern one, is just insane.
Nobody ever drives them, though, ever.
They're over, like, 300,000.
Well, I had a friend who had one.
He said it was dog shit.
I drove them.
It wasn't...
There was a time when I was thinking of getting one.
It was the gulf livery one, obviously, because I like weird colors.
And, you know, it was around 180 at the time, so it was, like, the best time to
buy it.
And now I see they're, like, 400 grand.
But nobody ever drives those cars.
See, that's the great thing about it.
You drive the shit out of them.
You see a lot of high-mileage Porsches.
You don't see a lot of high-mileage Ferraris or Lamborghinis or anything like
that.
You know another thing about that?
What you just saw?
So...
Manual transmission is standard.
That's all you can get.
Yeah, how great is that?
Six-speed manual is the sole transmission.
How great is that?
S-O-L-E and S-O-U-L.
Just bow down to that.
You like the sticker, huh?
That's one of my favorite things on the GT2.
The anti-theft sticker, the manual.
Yeah, I love that.
Dan came up with that.
I think it's fucking gross that Porsche's not making manuals anymore.
It's really disappointing.
And the worst thing is, you know, the GT3...
Well, that came in GT4.
It's coming manual.
Yeah, that does.
That's going to ruffle a lot of feathers because guys are going to go like you
or 991 GT3 guys.
They're going to go, how come I can't get a manual in 991 GT3?
They just ripped the sole out of the GT3 program when they, you know, said it's
PDK only.
You know, I get that they have to compete with, you know, the Nissan GTR, the M3s,
and all these cars that are basically, you know, automatic and you just push a
button and it does everything for you.
They've got no sole.
Well, actually, you do have to still push the gas.
Well, they're all playing numbers.
They're all tripping and keep up with the GTR.
And even on Nürburgring, they can't compete unless...
But so what?
I agree.
Ultimately, it's all about the journey, I think, you know, the interaction and,
you know, the control you put into the car.
You lose your arm and the leg, you know, you're just like, you're falling
asleep.
The 991 GT3 is honestly the first GT3 ever that I've been sort of bored in.
You know, it's a GT3 that I've been bored in and I'm like pushing buttons
because I see, oh, it's got some new buttons.
What does this do?
Right.
Instead of like actually going, you know, wow, I'm really engaged.
Don't get me wrong, it's a great car for a first-time Porsche buyer, I suppose,
but that's who's buying them usually and not the hardcore GT3.
Well, it's rich guys who don't really know how to drive a manual.
I mean, I have a friend who's wealthy who doesn't know how to drive a manual
and I go, listen, I go, rent a fucking car.
I go, rent a car for, no, he doesn't, but he's thinking about getting one.
I go, don't do it.
I go, rent a car, rent it for the weekend and beat the shit out of it.
Learn how to drive it.
Drive, yeah.
I go, you can learn how to drive it in 10 minutes, it's not hard.
It's like, eh, that's it.
See, that's the great thing about driving a manual.
Yeah, exactly.
How bad can it be?
How hard can it be?
You know, I say it covers all the senses.
That, to me, is a great thing about driving.
I think, ultimately, it doesn't matter what car you drive, but what matters is
being engaged and involved in that experience, which covers sight, sound, feel,
touch.
You know how it is in the canyons, once you get bored, just all you would do is
put, because you probably not even push buttons anymore, but you just push the
gas and you're going around and it's like, okay, now what?
My arm's not doing anything.
My leg's not doing anything.
I'm not getting that feedback into my body.
Well, I have both.
I have, my M3 is a PDK car.
It's a double clutch car.
Yeah, yeah.
It drives great.
It's awesome.
It's my traffic car.
I love driving it in traffic.
Yeah, there you go.
It's great, because it handles great.
You do a lot of commuting?
Yeah, constantly.
I'm the opposite.
I live 200 yards from where I work, so for me, 80% of my driving, pure pleasure.
Do you have, like, a regular car that you drive or do you commute anything?
I literally, well, hold on, hold on.
I walk to work, so I got the garage full of cars.
I walk to work.
I have my wife, Karen, her car, what I call the wife's car, is a regular car.
Has four doors.
It's a BMW.
I gave him shit for that.
I gave him so much shit for that.
What's wrong with a BMW?
No, no, but I mean it's, it's, you know.
The funny thing is when people pull up next to me and they look at me and go,
they puzzled
look, they go, aren't you that Porsche guy?
And I go, yeah.
And they go, what are you doing driving a BMW?
I go, it's my wife's car.
Still a great car.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Oh, it is, it is.
A 335i BMW, you know, sort of gets the job done.
Are you on the Bluetooth, too?
While you're driving it?
No, come on.
I have a 2012 M3.
I barely know how to turn the iPhone on.
But you know what I really like?
I like the generation before mine.
Mm-hmm.
The, you know, the one with 333 horsepower.
So the E46?
Yes.
That's a beautiful car, man.
So a lot of people make track, yeah.
A lot of people make sort of track cars out of those.
And then even the E36, that's like probably the most common, you know, sort of,
you know,
like get into, you know, tracking other than a Miata.
That's, you know, the E36 M3 is the most common sort of track car.
They look beautiful in silver.
I've seen some silver ones.
I always loved the 2002 TII and the 3.0 Batmobile.
Yeah, so you're going older on it.
Old school.
I always go back to old school, 70s.
I always go back that way.
Why is that?
Why are you so old school?
I think it's my age.
My era, you know, I'm 48, so I grew up, born in 67, grew up in the 70s.
You wear it well.
Yeah, well, thanks.
You know, so as a kid, those are those informative years.
Alex is a little bit younger, so I think his point of reference is 80s.
My point of reference is 70s.
You know, I remember watching motor racing on TV on Grandstand on a Saturday,
watching rally cars.
Grandstand is a sports program in England on the BBC.
You know, this is when we had two channels, I think.
No, no, we had three.
1982, they introduced.
Three channels.
We had three channels, and then I think it was 82 or 83.
BBC One, BBC Two, and ITV.
They went with, now we're going to unveil Channel Four.
Four, yeah.
Basically, the entire country stopped as if it was a royal wedding, right?
And the very first program was this thing called Countdown, right?
Which was like a game show where, you know, they would have, like, they'd pick
letters, and
you'd go, "I'd like a vowel, please," or, "I'd like a consonant, please."
And they'd put it up, and you'd sort of have to fill in the blanks, you know?
And they'd have celebrities and stuff, and they'd go, "Okay, well, you know,
give me an A,
give me a, you know, sorry, give me a letter," and, you know, you'd make a word
out of it.
And it was like, that was the first program to launch the, you know, Channel
Four.
And you're like, "What the hell?"
I don't remember that.
You know, for me, I remember Old Grey Whistle Test, Top of the Pops.
They were the music shows.
Top of the Pops.
Yeah.
That was sort of, you know, every Thursday, Top of the Pops.
And then, what was Channel Four's music show in the '80s?
Oh, that was, it was with Paula Yates.
Right.
Who ended up marrying Bob Geldof.
Yeah.
Oh, I think it was The Tube.
The Tube.
The Tube, that was it.
This is pre-MTV, so, you know, this is going back.
It was pretty trendy.
They had some really good bands on it, you know?
It was sort of a cool era of music.
You know, my thing growing up was, I'm from Sheffield, so Sheffield was sort of,
I portray it grim northern steel town, but it was also a great music town.
You know, Joe Cocker, who recently passed away, was from Sheffield.
He died recently, poor lad.
Yeah, he did, a couple of weeks ago.
Yeah.
But when I was a teenager, you know, late '70s, early '80s, Sheffield was known
for its new
wave bands, Human League, Heaven 17, ABC, Cabaret Voltaire, but the flip side
to it was Def
Leppard, Saxon, heavy metal music, so Sheffield's always had a great musical
vibe.
I guess the current pinup band from Sheffield's Arctic Monkeys, which are sort
of big and popular.
Love those guys.
So, you know, these northern environment towns, you know, Manchester, Sheffield,
Leeds,
Liverpool, I think they breed creativity because, you know, people are just
looking for a way
out, something different.
You know, back then in the '70s, it was pretty depressed.
Steel mills closing down, coal mines closing down.
Coal miners for games.
Yeah.
Well, we'll talk about that later.
Have you seen that movie?
Coal miners what?
Coal miners what?
So there was a movie I saw recently called Pride.
You know, you like English sort of humor, black humor movies.
And this is going to sound weird.
It's like Full Monty on steroids.
Yeah, it's like Full Monty on steroids.
It's called Pride.
You should look it up.
Small sort of British movie.
You'll probably win some awards.
It came out this year.
But it's about the coal mining strike in the '80s, which I remember growing up.
Arthur Scargill was the leader of the coal miners.
Yeah.
Practically shut the country down when the miners went on strike.
Exactly.
Everyone was on strike.
Exactly.
Everyone was on strike.
And there was police brutality towards the miners that were striking.
But there was also police brutality to gays and, well, not lesbians, but gays
mostly at the time.
Nobody gets brutal with lesbians.
No.
Well, you don't mess with them.
No, you don't mess with that.
You don't want to get your ass kicked by a lesbian, right?
No, you don't do that.
You don't do that.
So in London, and, you know, they were activists and they were thinking, well,
nobody's taking us seriously.
But we have something in common with these miners in the middle of Wales.
You know, Wales is this really...
What is that common bond thread?
Do you know what that is?
Yeah, I know.
You said it before.
It's the...
I'll let you say it since you're the dirty-minded one.
But yeah, you've got the...
What is it?
There's something about a black hole.
Black hole.
Yeah, I know.
I know.
How dare you.
But they are, you know, being beaten on a daily basis and, you know, just penalized
for being, you know, gay.
And they're like, well, we have a lot in common with these coal miners right
now.
What we're going to do is we're going to form this coalition called Gays and
Lesbians for Minors, you know, coalition.
And we're going to raise money for them.
And so what happened is, you know, they would raise money since all these
miners were out of jobs and striking, you know, on the street.
So you can imagine in, you know, the 70s, sorry, in the 80s, the early 80s, you
know, gay people on the streets going, hey, would you like to donate to the
miners of Wales for gays and lesbians?
You know, we're gays and lesbians.
Would you like to donate?
Wow.
Yeah, the kind of looks and things were like.
That's interesting.
Yeah, that's an interesting thing.
Yeah, it's really cool.
So then, you know, they get all this money and they end up actually getting a
lot of money for these miners and they go visit them in Wales.
They get in a, in a bang bus basically and go visit them.
Um, and when they get there, you know, you have to fear, you have to realize
that, you know, these are coal miners.
There's probably, there's probably homosexuality there underneath, but.
What are you trying to say?
I'm, that they go digging, I guess, for coal.
I don't know.
It's a fossil fuel thing.
I think if you're doing gay sex, if you're digging, you're doing it wrong.
I haven't done it, but yeah, so, I don't know.
I don't know.
I've read books about it.
People would shake their head and go, this is not the right technique.
This is a little bit different to the Ewan McGregor coal mining brassed off
movie, right?
Yes, it is.
Where they're talking about the brass band, the working brass band.
Yes.
But they get there and there's this 105 year old, you know, grandma that's, you
know, pouring tea for all the miners at their club.
And.
Working man's club.
Working man's club, right?
That's the thing we have in England.
And she's, and she's just like, you know, whatever the guy's name is, who's in
charge of them.
She goes, your gays are here, you know, and it's like the whole place just
stand still.
And, you know, they're bringing money for them.
Yeah.
And they form a bond.
That's awesome.
They actually kind of turn them around.
It's, it's happy go lucky, but then not to put a dampener on it, but then, you
know, the main guy gets, is, is one of the, he's the second person with the, uh,
to contract AIDS in, uh, in the UK.
So then he dies, sorry.
Oh, great.
But the other, sorry.
The, and the other guy does live there.
I thought you were going to have the story on a high note.
Sorry.
Well, the other guy lives.
The other guy does live.
Did you hear that Russia recently banned transgender people from driving?
From driving?
How would that impede anyone from driving properly?
Well, you gotta not dress like a woman or dress like a man if you're a woman.
Could you?
I mean, I don't know if it's, I think trans, transgender, transsexual, trans,
transvestite.
Trans anything.
Trans whatever you want.
Transylvania.
Transmission.
They, they have like.
VDK transmission.
They have, yes.
I like how they bounce around here.
What about manual transmission?
That doesn't make any sense.
They're holding a stick.
I think Russian is, um, they're, they're so archaic with their, their views on
homosexuality.
And they've, they've like decided to just literally ban gay people.
Well, there's documentaries on that too.
It's fucking insane.
Yeah.
They go head hunting for them.
Like, you know, really crazy.
It's a, that country is falling apart right before our eyes.
And coincidentally, doesn't make a good sports car.
Russia.
Yeah.
Well, they, you know what they did?
They bought.
Remember they had the Moscovich in the 70s.
Remember that?
The Russian Moscovich?
Yes, they did.
They, they bought the, the worst British car company you could possibly buy.
Remember that, um, Russian guy?
He was like a 20 year old kid.
Billionaire.
He bought TVR.
Oh, Trevor out of Blackpool.
Yeah.
He bought, and that's not a good car company.
I mean, they, they look.
I like the styling of the TVRs.
No, the styling's good.
Just don't drive it.
They look cool.
The windshield falls off.
They have a boatload of power.
Remember, I remember that, uh, Top Gear episode where, you know, he's testing
like a, you know,
one of those weird looking TVRs with the paint, you know, from the mid early
2000s.
And, uh, you know, the, the windshield wiper actually just like flies off.
I mean, it's a, you know, factory car.
It just flies off going 120 miles an hour.
This is, this is how crazy Russia is.
They've, they've lumped it all in with rational ideas.
Like, you shouldn't be allowed to drive if you're blind.
Shouldn't be allowed to drive if you have like severe physical.
That's probably a good idea, right?
Yeah.
And then along with that, they, they listed the desire to live and be accepted
as a member
of the opposite sex.
And people who wear clothes of the opposite sex in order to experience
temporary membership
of the opposite sex.
Temporary.
Those people.
What was interesting.
The Russian drivers must not have sex disorder.
Well, so what was interesting though.
Can you have sex in a car in Russia though?
I hope so.
Yeah.
I bet that's been going on since the communist era for sure.
But the, the crazy part is that, um, you know, they had their first F1 race
there.
Right?
And sort of like coming to Texas, you know, a black guy, Lewis Hamilton, wins
the first race.
You know, it's, they don't see many black people in Russia.
I mean, it's a very sort of white place.
It's, it's actually quite racist.
I know because, um, I have Russian blood in me, unfortunately.
And that's the racist part of you?
No, no, not at all.
Not at all.
Actually.
I was born and raised in London.
Very cosmopolitan.
I have many, many green, yellow, you know, black.
He's like the United Colors of Benedictine, really.
Oh, there we go.
That's right.
I remember that.
I remember those acts.
I always think of them as American apparel, like CD basement, wood paneling.
That's how I look at you.
She, she's, she, she got kicked out of, uh, the former Soviet Union.
I remember seeing that Fear Factory episode you did down at the American Apparel
facility down there.
Yeah, we did a few down there in downtown LA.
Yeah.
Speaking of which, our t-shirts are made by them.
American Apparel.
And printed in Fremont by the same guys that make it for Tesla.
That's all here.
Well, the guy, the main guy in American Apparel was supposed to be very weird.
Eccentric.
Shady.
Shady.
Uh-oh.
Creepy.
Isn't he?
Like there's all these articles written about him.
I never met him.
It does seem to attract him.
We just pay the bills for it.
I don't know.
They tried to kick him out of the company and somehow or another he bought his
way back in.
That company got huge pretty quick.
Yeah.
You know, stores everywhere and, you know, all over the world.
Well, it's all teenagers in their underwear and wood paneled in the basements.
Well, the cool thing is actually about that company is that on the labels, you
know, we
can specify what we want.
So, like, you know, that blue, that bright blue thing, you know, it's not that
one because
that's a demo, but we're going to have labels that say, you know.
Wear until it smells.
Wear until it smells.
Yeah, no.
This was made by, you know, people over the age of, you know, 12, you know,
that didn't,
that didn't, you know, earn one cent a month.
You know, it wasn't exploited, you know.
Well, that's a whole big thing, fully vertical.
It was done in L.A. by real wages.
It was done in L.A. by real wages.
They knit the fabric in L.A., they cut it, they sew it right there on Alameda
and 6.3.
Yeah, so, you know.
Yeah, well, I've been to their factory.
There's no shark fins in it.
Yeah, there are regular people.
They've got like a million square feet of production down there.
It's a giant.
Well, it's, they also--
I hope it's not all the front, though, because I'd be really disappointed.
No, no, no.
And it's actually made in Honduras or something.
No, it's made in DTLA.
No, it's made in DTLA.
I mean, I've walked down through their, I've actually, when we were filming
there, we
actually walked through their factory.
Yeah, but see what happened, this is going back to the geeky thing, sorry, but
when I,
you know--
Are we still talking about England and 4 Channel?
We're talking about whatever the fuck we're doing.
No, but when, so 1998, you know, I'm out of, uh, university, '97 actually, I'm
out of university and I'm doing this website thing and I'm going to, you know
what, um,
CES is right now.
Yes, the Computer Expo.
Right.
It used to be called Condex.
Is that like the Big Bang Theory for geeks or that, that's Comic-Con, right?
It's the Big Wang Theory, actually.
The Big Wang.
Yeah.
Wang Chung tonight.
Yes.
Wang Chung.
Um, I was invited to go and speak in Taipei at the, you know, like the Chinese
version
of it.
Um, and, you know, I went there and there's all, you know, you got to visit all
these motherboard
companies, you know, in Taiwan.
Um, and, uh, you're like, oh, this is where I get my, you know, ASUS
motherboard and I overclock
it and they're like, oh, thank you for mentioning us and all this stuff.
You know what he's talking about?
Yeah.
Yeah, he knows.
He knows.
Sorry.
I used to build computers.
Oh, okay.
Yeah.
And, uh...
I had to have Alex fix my printer the other day, so...
And there's all these rather nice factories in Taiwan, but you're sort of
looking, looking
there and going, this isn't made in Taiwan.
They're not actually doing anything.
All they're doing is taking these things and boxing them and there's like dust
that thick
on the, uh, you know, on the equipment and on the tables and you start to
realize actually
what they're doing is they're making it in China for way, way less.
You know, sorry to break that, but it was disappointing.
Oh, so they make them in China and they box it up.
Yeah, but it looks like they're made in...
So I was just saying, I hope it's not like that with those t-shirts.
I don't believe it is.
Because I was very...
I wanted to go with a company that was local, keep it sort of, you know, in
California.
I don't care about paying more for it.
Think global or local?
Well, I feel bad for, you know, 12-year-old kids or whatever in Honduras or
wherever it
is, you know, earning a dollar a month, you know, to work 20 hours a day to
make a t-shirt
that I can sell for, you know, whatever, 30 bucks.
It doesn't feel good.
Yeah, that whole thing that people...
It really doesn't.
Something happened in America where they started moving almost all of our
factories
and all of our...
Overseas.
Yeah.
All, I mean, most of the cars.
So, I mean, look at what happened to Detroit.
Detroit was essentially gutted.
I mean, Detroit had some of the most amazing cars.
That was the first city I came to in the States, Detroit.
I mean, that's like a ghost.
Oh, you couldn't have picked a better one.
You know, I flew into New York, took a trailways bus from New York to Detroit,
worked on a summer camp with kids.
That was how I got to America in 1986 and then spent some time in Detroit,
which looks great from Windsor if you go across the...
Truth be told, as you would say, you didn't have your driver's license either,
did you?
No, no.
I didn't drive in England either.
You know, as a kid growing up, nobody had...
We couldn't afford one, first of all.
We couldn't either.
She spent everything on my stupid school.
You went everywhere on the bus for 5p, but, you know, it's...
You can go back now and get an old age pension, a free pass.
Yeah, I could do it.
Yeah, almost.
What is that, AAP once you get to 50?
48?
I'm getting there.
I'm almost there.
It's close.
Yeah, it's close enough.
I will say, though, just for the record, the first car I ever bought,
I bought it here in LA, passed my driver's test in LA, I think in 1987 when I
was 20,
at the Santa Monica DMV in a 1977 Toyota Corolla 2TC that I paid 200 bucks for.
So that was the very first car I owned.
Wow.
Second car was a Saab Turbo 900 SPG.
I had plenty of it, yeah.
And the third one was a 911.
What do you guys feel as Englishmen living in America, Top Gear, the number one
television
show of all time when it comes to cars, but Jeremy Clarkson is pretty adamant
about being
like anti-Porsche.
Yeah, he's known to be a bit of a knobhead about Porsches and that's okay.
He actually, there's this episode, I believe it's before the new sort of format.
I think it was either late 90s or early 2000s, you should look this up.
Well, if you look at it.
It's on YouTube by now.
He takes what now is probably a 60, $70,000 911.
It was like a, you know, 73, 911.
Yeah, he drops the piano on it.
He tries to destroy it.
Yeah.
He hits walls with it.
Oh, it keeps going, yeah.
That must have been the first generation.
That show initially was canned because Tiff Nadal was on the first one.
Well, that's what I grew up watching.
And I think you mentioned this with Chris Harris, how Tiff Nadal drove with him
and stuff.
Yeah, that was the first incarnation.
And from what I can get, I...
I actually liked it better then.
I mean, it's really spectacular now with all the explosions and all the silliness,
but...
It's sort of like Jackass for car guys.
Yeah.
Tiff Nadal's show, Fifth Gear, I did that show.
And that seems to be a bit more of a serious driving show.
Well, all of them can drive too.
Yeah.
What's her name?
Vicky, who used to be on...
There he is right there with this car.
Yeah.
Oh, dude, your man is on point.
On point?
Look at that.
I wouldn't have found it.
Look at him.
He's got...
He doesn't even have any...
He's gonna smash that car though.
I mean, that is a fucking beautiful car.
You gotta remember though, back then these cars were under 10 grand all day
long.
Now...
Isn't that amazing?
It's amazing how prices doubled and then tripled.
Like what is like a 1972, like really...
911 S or something?
Well, if it's an S, well prepared.
200 grand.
200 grand.
That's incredible.
Dude, a 73 RS.
He drops a fucking piano on it.
Don't do it, Jeremy.
Yep.
That's the final...
Yeah.
Ah, fuck, man.
No, but he does way worse.
He goes into like walls.
He just, he cripples the thing and it just keeps on going.
That's the joke about it really.
But...
It is kind of fucked up that car takes such a beating.
It is.
They are rock solid cars, man.
Yeah, they are.
Well, look at, I mean, who would have thought, you know, we're racing around in
the, you know,
in the canyons in a 71.
It's just set up right, you know?
Yeah, 277's, what, 44 years old now.
Yeah.
You know, that thing's, you know, it's aging very well.
Yeah.
Yeah, those cars are amazing, man.
I feel bad just watching that, actually.
It doesn't do well.
Yeah, it's gross.
It is crazy, though, you know, if you feel...
I'd rather watch those other videos that you found last time of like...
Burning caravans.
No, people making love to orangutans or...
Uh-oh.
You are on the wrong show.
No, no, no, no, it was.
No, no, I think, no, it wasn't that.
It was, you were saying a horse was banging a dude.
That's true.
That was the one that you were, you were really high on that one last time.
Hey, hey, with the language.
Sorry.
Not true.
Yeah.
No, no, no, I mean...
I'm shocked.
Post-raced.
Disturbed.
Come on, dude.
High on...
No.
It's a good job no one's letting...
You said, you said...
I'm high on like the movie Avatar.
I enjoyed that.
I was high on that.
I'm not high on this horse.
You said, you said that was...
You're high on life.
Actually, and it was in your stand-up, too.
You said the noise that that guy makes will stay with you for the entire life.
Well, it will if you've ever watched it.
I didn't watch it.
I don't wanna see it.
But you made the noise, so it was as good as...
Don't put it up then.
I was watching it.
You made the noise.
Thank you.
Appreciate it.
I don't wanna...
It was coal mining in somewhere in Kentucky or something.
Back to my original point.
Did you ever wanna get Jeremy Clarkson one of your 4.1s?
I mean, I want that guy to drive that car.
Not him.
Not him, but actually Richard Hammond.
But he likes Porsches.
Right.
He had a GT3 RS, a green one like ours.
Mm-hmm.
I really wanted him to drive ours because I think he'd understand it.
Clarkson, first of all, he wouldn't fit in the seat 'cause he's a bit of a chubby,
tubby guy.
He's getting a bit chubby, right?
Yeah.
Well, if Matt Farah fits in, how the fuck could Clarkson not fit in?
That's true, actually.
He just said on the way over that when we were driving his car, that when Matt
Frost sat on
it, it's developed a new creek.
Yeah, a new creek that wasn't there before Matt sat on it.
A new creek.
Yeah, a new creek.
Yeah, a new creek.
Yeah, a new creek that's on the passenger side that wasn't there yesterday.
A good solid 250 if not higher.
Yeah, the weight distribution was a little bit different with him in the car.
Yeah, he could go on a little bit of a diet and be better.
Nice guy, though.
He's a great guy.
He's super cute.
He had fun in 277, so that was good.
I think he had fun in the GT2 as well.
Oh, he was raving about your 277.
He was raving about the way it handles, about how that sticks to the road.
I think it surprised the stick.
Yeah.
No, Matt sort of got it towards the end of the day, too, 'cause at first he was
like,
"Holy shit, holy shit, this thing's like, you know, huh."
And then I said, "Just ease in, just ease in."
And the more time you spend with that GT2, such as a month--
Ease in pretty quick, because before we got to the Canyon, I was in the
passenger seat when he was driving,
and we did do the 147.
Well, he's also like--
147 kilometers.
No, it was miles per hour, it was 147.
It was a professional driver on a closed course.
I mean, come on, full disclaimer here.
Matt Ferrer is also one of those guys that really loves cars.
Oh, yeah.
When you're around him, it's the same sort of infectious sort of energy.
Sort of for hours, yeah.
When he's driving those cars in those videos, I mean, that's how I became
friends with him,
is watching his videos and then reaching out to him.
Like, his videos are fun.
Like, he's enjoying driving those cars.
It's not like some sort of an antiseptic review of these things.
He's excited about it.
Passionate.
He's got a collection of cars himself.
I love his DeLorean.
I love his DeLorean.
That's great.
That's the car--
I saw him up in Monterey, we parked next to each other, and he was going
everywhere in that DeLorean.
So, got a lot of style.
Yeah, you know-- exactly.
You know a guy that shows up in a DeLorean.
That's a good dude.
Good dad.
He's here to party.
Yeah.
For sure, yeah.
Good sense of humor.
Yeah, I saw one the other day in Hollywood, so I looked for Matt.
Yeah, I looked to see if it was Matt driving.
And it was just some weird nerd?
Some guy.
I mean, they're cool to drive now.
I posted a photo.
I ran into him at the LA Auto Show not long ago, the opening day.
And he just happened to be parking in the same spot underground at the
convention center.
But he pulled into the handicap zone.
He didn't park there, but he pulled into there.
Opened up the door, and I took a photo.
And of course, I had to put it up online.
And of course, within like three minutes, there's all this hate of,
"Why is that asshole parking in a handicap zone in the DeLorean?"
You know, it didn't take long for that to sort of get punchy.
Mentally handicapped for owning a DeLorean, that's what it is.
I think we're all mentally challenged here.
A little bit.
Yeah, mentally challenged.
That's not a bad thing.
Excited in a very illogical way.
Let's put it that way.
Makes sense to me.
That's a mouthful.
I want to get Jeremy Clarkson in one of your cars, man.
I really do.
It would be, "Hey, Jeremy, if you're out there."
If you're listening?
I'm sure he's listening, right?
Come on, I'm sure he is.
You know what?
He doesn't even know what the internet is.
Seriously, he does not.
I'm sure he's probably aware of it.
He calls it the interweb.
I guarantee.
Well, he's fucking around.
You know what he calls a Prius?
A Prius.
You know what he calls an iPod?
An iPod.
Well, you guys say it's aluminum wrong, too.
Tomato, tomato, color, color.
What's up with aluminum?
Aluminium?
It's not how it's spelled.
I don't know.
It's spelled aluminum.
Do they spell it differently over there?
They just pronounce it differently.
Color is spelled differently.
C-O-L-O-U-R.
You know what, dude?
All I can say is if you don't want to speak English anymore, then go ahead and
speak Spanish.
No, we're speaking American.
You're speaking American.
No, no.
You're speaking English, brother.
No, we run the world now.
It's a different thing.
No, China does.
You'd say so, but we have all the bombs.
Essentially, if the shit hits the fan, America takes it.
China has some bombs.
We will own this nuclear wasteland that is the world if we all go to war.
Yeah.
It's like Frankie goes to Hollywood, right?
Yeah, yeah.
Go to war.
When two tribes go to war.
Yeah, when two tribes go to war.
You guys can't deny America when you already moved over here and said how
awesome it is.
Hey, it's the land of opportunity.
No.
The grass is greener on the other side.
Hey, I'm an American citizen, I'll have you.
Hello.
You know how I became an American citizen?
You went along?
Only in this country.
How?
I was working way too hard.
You made a Mexican.
Yeah, I shook hands with him and we went across the border.
When did you come to the States again?
'98.
All right.
You were one of them newbies almost.
Newbie, yeah.
No, so I did all the process.
I had what was known as an 01 visa, which is like a special thing pre-9/11.
It was kind of easy to get in LA for people that were like internet celebrities.
Whoa, internet celebrities.
Dude, you should have seen my groupies, man.
Sharky's extreme.
Can we Google Sharky's extreme or something?
I don't know.
Sharky extreme?
Oh, dude, don't do that.
Don't do that.
Don't do that.
It's embarrassing.
You know, when you went to these things, you know, there was actually one time
that a woman actually showed up.
So it was like really cool groupie one time.
I had a woman, but most of them were guys.
Anyways, back to that.
Yeah, no.
You watched The Big Bang Theory, right?
That's sort of how I imagined your life a little bit.
You know, but when I got here, I had the 01 visa.
Then I got a green card.
You know, I got married to my girlfriend who was a game developer.
And, you know, I started another company after retiring, which was Shark Works,
out of a hobby again.
And, you know, sort of a few years into that, I'm like, okay, I have to get the
second green card, which I think is three years later.
So they make the appointment, and I lose the card.
Right?
You lose it.
Lose your green card.
The way I lose it is by bringing it back to them.
I've seen how he loses stuff.
Yeah.
Lose my lunch.
I got a good green card story when you're done.
No, no.
So I take it, you know, I take the green card back to them, the original one.
And then I'm supposed to come back in three months and pick up the second
version of the green card.
I don't get, I don't get to the appointment on time because, you know, I'm
supposed to make an appointment within six to nine months.
And I'm so busy with Shark Works that I don't.
So I come there, the officer there, you know, eventually is like, hmm, well, we're
never going to find it.
I mean, you're here like a year late.
So you could either start this process again or do you want to just become an
American citizen?
Literally, I'm not kidding you.
And I was like, okay.
Did you test right there on the spot?
Yeah.
So I did like a, no, not on the spot.
I had to come back and do a history test.
And at the time.
You're talking about the Mustang?
No, no, no, no.
What was this?
This John Adams thing was on HBO.
Oh, uh-huh.
Fucking useful.
Sam Adams' brother.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
That's the one.
That's the one.
These are American stories, right?
Yeah, man.
Yeah.
I'm not a US citizen, so I'm sort of doing some schooling here.
And then, you know, I picked up on that.
And then, you know, my education finally came in handy because, you know, we
did, we did a lot of history and stuff.
And actually, you know, the Brits did kind of rule the, Britannia ruled the
waves back then.
You know, we colonized everything.
That's right.
Talk to yourself about that.
Including the wing of a GT2.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Um, but yeah, you know, so that's how, that's how I got it.
And so I feel that.
That's amazing.
Isn't that cool though?
So you came in for a visa and they said, look, just become a fucking citizen.
That's unbelievable.
Just become a fucking citizen.
You speak English.
You look kind of weird.
You look weird.
They never said that to me.
Really?
My green card, sorry, I'll make it really short.
You know, I'm on a green card.
I've been here 28 years.
A couple of years back, I go to England.
Leave, leave LA, no problem.
Get into England, no problem.
10 days later, I'm ready to go back to LA.
And they go, okay, we need to see a green card.
I hadn't even looked at it in about two years.
Well, it turned out it had expired.
Oh, yeah.
I'm thinking, what's the big deal?
It's sort of like an expired driving license.
It's only two weeks.
Before you know it, Homeland Security's coming in.
Flying on a suspended green card.
Yeah, Karen's all upset because we were like, how long is this going to take?
You go, what?
You may have to stay here a week or two and go to the embassy and blah, blah,
blah.
Anyway, long story short, we got a 24-hour extension just to fly back into the
States.
Got sort of hammered when I came into LAX because, of course, they thought this
was some Mickey Mouse 24-hour extension.
But long story short, don't let your green card expire.
In 2015, it's really hard to become a US citizen, right?
It's much harder than it was back then.
I think for a white English guy that has or had a posh English accent, it's
probably not as hard as it is for people of other ethnicities.
You mean for a guy with a northern accent?
No.
No, I'm talking with a different skin color.
Yeah.
A turban.
You're saying it's all right if you're all white?
Have you heard about the Turban Outlaw thing we're doing?
The Turban Outlaw.
Turban Outlaw.
It doesn't start in a corner shop, does it?
No.
The band corner shop, no, it does not start in a corner shop.
No, I'm talking.
Have you ever thought about doing something like what Sanger's doing, but doing
it with, like, the actual classic shape, you know, 1970s, late 1960s car and,
like, producing them?
No.
You know, I think I touched on that earlier on about I don't build customer
cars.
I know you don't, but god damn what a demand there would be for your car.
There's a demand there for sure.
But, you know, then it goes for me from being a hobby and a passion to a job
and a business, which means responsibilities.
Right.
It's like if you come to me and say, hey, I love your car, but all of a sudden
it's not my car.
It's your interpretation of my car.
It might have some tweed on it and, you know, it might be pumped up and, you
know, all of a sudden it's got your personality, which is fine, but then I'm
sort of under the pressure, I believe, to make you happy to build the car to
your expectations, your timeline, your deadline.
So I don't really have any interest in turning that side over to becoming like
a production line.
Even though I know if I built, let's say, three or five cars a year, I could
probably sell them because I've had no problem selling cars.
You know, through the press I've got people, I get all these emails, if you
ever want to sell that car, let me know type of thing.
It's interesting, though, with so many collectors out there and so many people
who customize cars and do things, you've sort of somehow or another, just by
just your own infectious passion and enthusiasm, you've risen to the top of
this short group.
You're probably talking about the long hair and the beard, I think.
It's a little bit of that, the tattoos.
You don't have time to cut that stuff anyway.
Yeah, no, no time.
For me, I think it was luck and timing.
You know, last year was the 50th anniversary of the 9/11.
So you could not escape hearing about Porsche and the 9/11, 50th anniversary
issues.
And I think from a story point of view, the builds that I were doing were quite
interesting.
But I also think not being your typical Porsche-looking guy, because truth be
told, there is a stereotype, especially in L.A., of doctor, lawyer, Beverly
Hills guy driving around, never taking his car to the canyons, you know, just
more of a status symbol.
So I was a complete opposite of that.
So I think from a story point of view, why I got a lot of sort of momentum was
a couple of things.
Timing, not looking like your typical Porsche guy.
And also the cars that I build, instantly recognizable as 911s, but just
slightly tweaked.
You know, it's the little details that I think separate my builds from the
countless other people building cars.
And the one common thread between the fashion, the clothing, and the property
and the filming that we do is just putting our own little style on it, which
became personality.
And for me, I never set out to say, okay, here's the 1973 RSR that left the
factory, the Porsche factory.
And everyone that replicates that car just duplicates exactly what the factory
did.
And I want to make this point, too, because a lot of people are going to ask me,
how did this happen?
You know, he hasn't made a single cent from like, what happened is, you know,
we sat down by the fireplace, had a love affair and had a baby, you know, which
is a GT2.
Outlaw GT2.
Oh, you mean you two together?
Yeah.
I wasn't sure what he was talking about there either, actually.
Oh, just check your rear end later for Cole.
Yeah.
Cole Miner's daughter.
Oh, geez.
That's a good film.
This is going downhill.
This is going downhill.
No, but there wasn't a cent.
Actually, the only thing he's gotten out of me was a 1/18th scale white GT2,
which I just happened to send him the day I got the car.
Yeah.
And the funny story is that Dan, who was here last time, him and I, the first
day we got that GT2, we're like,
well, it's not as pretty as the, or flashy or crazy as that blue and orange car.
What the hell?
What we need to do is make a sketch of his 277 car.
So, you know, we used Photoshop, or he did, because I suck at it.
And he did like a five minute job of a tribute card to the 277 and emailed it
to him.
And, you know, I texted him and he's like, how's the horsepower coming?
You know, basically that's an English subtle way of saying, you know, don't
quit your day job.
Stick to making cars go fast and not look better.
Yeah.
And perhaps the moral to that story.
Yeah.
And I sort of kept needling, needling and needling.
And he had to live with it.
And, you know, he just, I don't know, I guess he got passionate about the car.
So he did it.
This thing, this thing evolved organically.
I think I touched on in the past, people have asked me to collaborate on, you
know, some of the people's builds.
And for me, I had to be connected to the car.
You know, and I think when they left the car with me for as long as I wanted,
really.
It rained for a long time.
Yeah, it rained for a long time in LA.
But I finally connected with the car.
And then it just made sense to put my personality on that car.
Because for me, this is not about money.
I'm not making money off this collaboration.
It was just a fun project that, wow, this is great.
I've got this awesome car that I can keep for a little bit.
Hence the OPP, other people's Porsches.
It's our baby.
You can have them any time.
And I can do with it whatever I want to do.
You know, it was just, for me, it was really exciting to put my sort of
interpretation on a new car.
You know, I'm sort of moving forward in the Porsche years.
I often talk about variety and wanting to experience more of what Porsche's got
to offer.
So for me, my original goal was having one of each year from '64 through '73,
which covered short wheelbase and long wheelbase cars.
Now you need one from 2007 to 2011.
Well, no.
My new goal now is to have one of every generation.
There's seven generations of Porsche, you know, through the G series into the
993, 964, 996, 997, 991.
So I want to experience everything that Porsche has to offer in the 911 range.
So far, I've covered sort of -- I've driven all those cars, but I've never
owned them.
Well, let me ask you about this then.
You really love those old cars.
And one of the things you love about those old cars is the tactile feel that
you get.
Right.
When, you know, you're dealing with a car that weighs 2,000-plus pounds.
It's such a light car.
You feel the road.
No insulation.
No power steering.
You literally feel the pebbles that you're driving over.
When you get to, like, 996 and 997, you're going to get, like, a more muted
feel.
It's a muted experience compared to the earlier.
Until you get to the GT3s.
Yeah.
And the GT3s sort of removes some of that insulation.
So what better car to do it on than a car that -- you know, they only produce
200.
Nobody understands.
And when you say new car, it is a newer era car, but it's actually a 2008 car.
Were you talking about your car?
Yeah.
The GT2.
You know, put it this way, right?
Walter Rohl, who, you know, is the world's greatest ex-rally driver.
Used to drive group B rally cars that were, like, death traps and win.
You know, he did, you know, mid seven minutes in a Carrera GT and the exact
same time in a stock version of that GT2.
So --
The GT2 these guys have got has got 200 horsepower more than the Carrera GT.
And British flags on it.
But it's an easier car to drive.
But is it unmanageable?
I mean, when you get to that kind of power --
The way he drives it, actually, he manages -- you wear it well.
But is there a point of diminishing returns?
Where you have too much power in a car and you're spending so much time trying
to figure out --
Trying to not kill yourself?
Yeah.
You obviously don't need 775 horsepower.
You always say too much power is never enough.
I'm the less is more type of guy.
But I got to say horsepower is addictive, you know.
I had that Mopar background driving the Super Bs and those things were
addictive in a straight line.
The GT2, there's no question, that's a scary car and it's got 775 horsepower.
But that's sort of part of the challenge of can you man up and sort of conquer
that power?
Yeah.
You know, and that's one of those things that unless you, you know --
Yeah, do you want to surf the big wave?
Or do you want to --
I think you've got to grow into that.
So, to me, that's the challenge of trying to get the most out of that car.
You know, and I've sort of been lucky through these guys to be able to drive
various variations of the GT3.
You know, I've driven in stock form.
I've driven the 3.9.
I've driven the 4.1.
I've driven that GT2.
This year, I got to drive a lot of my dream cars.
The 911R.
I drove a 74 RSR.
But I drove three of Porsche's iconic super hyper cars.
The 959, the Carrera GT, and the 918.
And they all offer -- I keep going back to variety because they all do the same
thing differently.
And that's sort of what's great about the GT2.
It does the same thing, but it just delivers it in a different form.
Challenging.
Challenging.
You know, and the challenge there is, truth be told, that car is done by 7,000
RPM.
You're on the limiter.
You're bouncing off the limiter at 6,800 RPM, and it's done.
Step into 277 that's got a quarter of the horsepower.
That thing will rev over 8,000.
Step into the GT3 3.9 or 4.1.
Those things go to, what, 86, 88, 9,000 RPM?
We're kind of just talking about numbers here.
But what my point is, is, like, there's two different schools of thought and
two different philosophies that you're dealing with.
You're dealing with, in one school of thought, the cars that you are famous for,
which are these really lightweight cars that are very tactile.
And there's some sort of a strange character to those cars.
Like, even when that Urban Outlaw video, when you get into that silver car and
you rev it and you're looking at the gauges,
it has a feel to it that you just do not get from a modern car.
But there is a -- there is -- I mean, you've admitted this, too.
There is, like, some level of connection between them.
The DNA's still there.
There's the DNA that's still there.
Unquestionably.
You know, it's a little heavier.
It's a little more modern.
It has a cup holder.
But it's still got that -- that's why I said the golden era is 2007 to 2011,
those GT cars.
They have -- they're all manual.
They still have that link to the real 911.
That's why that car has gone up in value so much, you know, all the GT cars.
Mm-hmm.
Because people that know -- and there aren't many of them, unfortunately -- and
that like to drive, they get it.
And they've had older cars or they want older cars, you know, or their parents
have had older cars.
And they drive these new ones and it's like, you know what, it's -- okay, it
does all that stuff a little more comfortably and has nav and all that shit,
but it's still a 911.
I think the GT3 up to what you've got, the 997, is the connection to what I've
got from the 60s and 70s.
Yeah.
That's what I said.
You're 277's a baby.
Yeah, it's like a baby GT3 because that throttle response, the lightness, the
way it feels the road, the way it turns in, it's back to that -- I keep talking
about it -- the five senses, the connection, the sight, the sound, the feel,
the smell.
The GT3 has that, you know, and that's what's great about those cars.
I've yet to own one.
I'm trying to get a 996 GT3.
Yep.
So I think that's the most bang for the buck.
I mean, truth be told, I've been collecting these early 911s for over 20 years
when you could find them in -- you know, auto trader.
Yeah.
I bought 277 at the Pomona Swamp Meet in 1999.
And it just -- it's the second Porsche I ever owned.
And it's evolved into what's become, I think, my -- the car that I'm most
connected with.
And all my memorable moments and everything you talk about, that tactile feel
and the connection and sort of what I think, to me, got across in Urban Outlaw,
the documentary, is it's a common thread that everyone relates to.
You've always got your favorite car that you go back to.
And I describe that being like my old favorite pair of beat-up jeans or your
old shoes because you're just comfortable in it.
There's no surprises.
And it's funny.
You know, you spoke highly about Matt Raven about the car.
You know, he got comfortable in that car within half a mile where, you know, he
was pushing that car.
So the limits are not that high where, yeah, the car's fast, but it's not GT2
fast where, you know, you're not going to get way over your head really quickly.
I think that's the difference.
And that, to me, is the challenge of driving these early cars is, yeah, they're
antiquated by today's standards.
But it's -- every time you get in, I talk about driving for me is freedom
because I don't commute.
I walk to work.
So 80% of my drives are pure pleasure.
It's like you working out in the gym.
No two experiences are the same, I don't think.
But there's that rewarding satisfaction, I assume.
I don't work out.
But to me, I often say people like -- some people like to go to gyms to work
out.
I like to get in the car and drive.
That's my physical and mental workout is behind the seat of that car because
nothing else matters when you're there.
You're not thinking about what you might be pissed off about or, you know,
something that's sort of bugging you.
When you're behind that wheel, it is this sort of almost out-of-body sensory
type of expression of man and machine on the open road.
With those lightweight cars, that's where you're getting this experience.
Yeah.
I think that's one of the things that people miss when they talk, oh, I don't
care about cars.
Cars get me there, everybody gets wrapped up in cars.
I think what they're dealing with is the difference between, like, a modern
commuting car and what you're driving, which is essentially like a ride.
Yeah.
You're in a ride.
Being on a roller coaster.
Well, that's why I said it's sort of like -- I like surfing.
I've had seven concussions, so I can't do it anymore.
But --
You got a concussion from surfing?
I got one from surfing and six from soccer, football.
Damn.
Oh, and sorry, one from being a passenger in a car one time.
Tell them about that.
That was from Ralph, right?
You were semi-pro footballer back in the day?
No, not -- no, just basically -- let's just call it public school boy footballer
then.
How about that?
Okay.
That sounds sexier.
So David Beckham shouldn't be worried about your football skills?
No, no.
I was two left -- I was --
Two left feet?
No, no.
All right with the -- no, I was left-footed.
But, yeah, it's sort of like surfing where it's not for everybody.
It doesn't make sense.
I mean, in Northern California, you go out.
It's 50 degrees in the water.
There are some sharks, actually.
And it's gnarly.
And the surfers are not friendly at all.
They're very localized.
And they hate you.
And you can't open your mouth if you don't live there.
Sounds like Point Break.
I just watched that film like --
It's like that, actually.
That's an issue with surfers, man.
Their violence with surfers.
Let me tell you, Santa Cruz, where I go, you know, it's not the friendly city.
I mean, you would think they're all, you know, lit all the time and everything,
but they're
not friendly.
It's not a bro-fest up there?
No.
This is my wave fest and get the fuck out of the wave fest.
Whoa.
What's that Kiefer Sutherland movie that's set there?
Kiefer Sutherland?
Kiefer Sutherland?
Yeah.
Lost Boys.
Oh, Lost Boys.
Yeah, that's cool.
That's Santa Cruz, right?
Lost Boys?
Yeah.
I don't know.
I don't think the location was like a main point.
No, I think it was the vampires.
The vampires?
Yeah, the vampires was the big deal.
You missed the point, dude.
Missed the point.
All right.
Right over my head right there.
Yeah, no.
When I go surfing, I mean, there's better things to do with your time that are
less risky,
probably.
Because it is kind of risky to do that.
Surfing?
Yeah.
So driving a crazy, weird, low production car that doesn't make a lot of sense,
it's challenging,
but then, you know, why do people, you know, I mean, not to make it sound
glamorous, but,
you know, why do people bungee jump or why do they, you know, I want to do
something that's
sort of challenging and takes time and it's rewarding.
You know, you get one out of ten shifts correct or, you know.
That's what Max is talking about.
Yeah.
Senses.
It's a sensory...
It's a challenge, right?
Yeah.
I mean, you know, like with your MMA stuff, I mean, you probably started as a
white belt,
you know, back in...
Everybody does.
Right.
That's where you start, right?
Yeah.
Like a dozen blank belts or something.
Yeah.
Well, exactly.
But it takes time and it's challenging and, you know, you beat up your body and
it feels
good when you get there.
So, you know, the blue car beat the shit out of us in terms of the development,
the costs,
the setbacks, the, you know, it didn't make any sense to do that.
You know, I should have just focused on something that, you know, was a high
volume, high production
car, like a, I don't know, like a Prius and made it get better gas mileage.
You know, then I'd be, you know, driving the world's most pimped out Prius
probably.
But that's not what I wanted to do.
I wanted to do something that's, you know, feels good and it's challenging and,
you know,
work with these...
Passion projects.
You're surrounded by weirdos like him.
That's what happens.
I think passion projects go a long way.
You know, for me, you know, the best things in life are never easy.
Literally, like I said, okay, there is one thing he's getting out of it.
Okay.
So other than the 1/18 scale model, I said, dude, I cannot look at your smashed
iPhone 5
anymore.
You're really, really good at all these pictures and everything.
I'm buying you an iPhone 6 and I'm helping you upgrade.
That's what he's getting.
So I got...
Let me tell you my iPhone background.
I resisted, resisted, resisted.
Up until 18 months ago, I was still Motorola Flip Razer phone.
And that, to me, was cool because everyone's here with their iPhone giving it
this, that,
and the other.
I'm like, what the fuck is that about?
And then, finally, my Motorola Razer died.
And I literally had no choice other than a real sort of throwaway crap burner
phone or...
The ones for grandmas that only have three buttons.
Something like that.
Yeah, exactly.
It was that or an iPhone 5.
So I got the iPhone...
I remember I got it before Amelia Island last year.
So Amelia Island, I think, is March.
So barely had the iPhone two years.
And that's sort of how my life's changed in two years.
It was never on Facebook, wasn't on Instagram, still not on Twitter.
Well, he's still not on Twitter, yeah.
Still not on Twitter now.
Yeah, I'm trying to set him up with that.
He's probably already got Magnus Walker.
Yeah, probably got again.
I think someone does.
You know what we can do?
We can do Sharkness Walker.
Yeah, there you go.
That's what we can do.
Sharkness Walker.
Magnus Walker 9/11.
My friend Ari went back to the flip phone.
Ari Gold?
No, Ari Shafir.
Okay.
Stand-up comedian.
He abandoned his iPhone and went to a flip phone.
He does all of his social media stuff, either on a computer or not.
He doesn't check his Twitter on his phone.
He's like, I was getting too wrapped up and like, I would be talking to someone.
Yes, this guy.
People do.
Dude, I fell asleep last night.
Like literally, my iPhone hit my forehead three times and I finally gave up.
Because I was like, what the fuck am I going to post?
Yeah, another concussion.
You know, I'm like, I'm looking and I don't think it's spelled correctly.
And it's probably like, you know, a bunch of weird, winding characters or
something.
Well, it brings me back to what I was going to say.
What were we going to say?
There's senses.
That's a big one.
There's something about iPhones that drag people in, right?
There's something about like, being able to look at videos and you're
interacting with
your phone.
The interaction that you get with those old cars, the feel that you get, the
addiction
that you get to getting in those things is very different than the new cars.
And is there, and I wanted to ask you this because you're the expert on those
older cars,
is there like a point where it crosses this line and it's not the same
experience anymore?
And was there like a sweet spot in the production of cars?
Is there a spot where all the technological advances and all the advances in
suspension, although
they may allow you to get around a racetrack a little bit quicker, especially
with like PDK
transmissions with dual clutches working at the same time.
They do allow you to get places faster.
But is it missing all the stuff that gets people excited about cars?
I mean, because I know that driving an automatic car is fun.
It is satisfying.
But I also know it's not as satisfying as shifting your own gears, as the feel
that you're going
to get from a car like yours.
And I think that that's something that's missing.
I think ultimately moving forward, the manual may become a lost art.
Because you look at kids growing up today that don't know how to drive manual
cars.
So their point of reference is completely different.
You know, most of us here, I think, learn driving a manual car.
And everything you said is perfectly true.
That it's the interaction between man and machine, which gets you down the road
differently
in a manual than what it does in a new car in a PDK or automatic.
And as to trying to nail down a real answer to what is that sweet spot, I don't
really know
what the answer is to that question.
You know, I've driven almost every Porsche out there.
And, you know, I've driven the new turbos.
I've driven the new Cayman, which is a phenomenal car.
I've driven the 991 in manual and PDK.
And the new manuals are not the same as the old manuals.
You know, they've got this-- it's hard to heel and toe the way the pedals are
set up,
especially if you've got ceramic brakes where--
Explain heel-toe to people who don't know what the fuck you're talking about.
Well, it's sort of an odd thing when you're downshifting.
You know, you want to be basically on the brake and ripping the throttle at the
same time,
doing it with one foot, so covering two pedals with one foot.
And the early cars, it's really easy to sort of modulate the brake and the gas
pedal.
You know, I've often put little blocks of wood on the gas pedal to bring it
further up,
so when you're all the way down on the brake, you can just sort of squeeze the
brake with your right toe
and roll over to the throttle to blip it, so you're matching the engine refs
when you're downshifting.
That essentially is what heel and toe is, you know, it's a smoother transition
between the gears.
So as you're shifting gears, you're revving the engine at the same time.
Yeah, to match, you know, when you're going down.
And you're also dealing with a lightweight flywheel that allows the revs to
drop.
Some of them, yeah. The early cars don't have that, but what these guys are
doing is super throttle responsive lightweight flywheels.
Yeah, lightweight components. It just makes it like, you know.
You know, in a new manual 991, it's a little bit different because you've got
those ceramic brakes that travel on the brake pedal.
Let's say you're coming down Angelou's Crest Highway in fourth gear, you want
to make a right or left-hand turn.
You've got to go down, let's say, third or second, got to go down one or two
gears, and you're all the way hard on the brakes.
The travel difference between the brake pedal and the throttle on those new
cars is almost too big to roll over in heel and toe.
So, you know, they've sort of come around that with that sport plus mode where
it automatically blips the throttle for you.
That's what I wanted to ask you about.
So when I first got in the car, you know, I can get it where my foot's almost
on a 45-degree angle, knees sideways, where I can roll off, you know, keep my
foot on the brake but still modulate the throttle at the same time.
So what I ended up doing was double blipping. I'd blip, and then almost the
exact same time, the computer would automatically blip the throttle to match
the revs, assuming that Porsche thought most people don't know how to heel and
toe.
Now, the rev matching, they're doing that on new cars now.
I think the Nissan 370 was one of the first cars to do it.
Yeah, there's actually the newest Porsche, which is sort of known as the "We're
Sorry Edition" Porsche for GT3 guys.
What they did is, as I said, the 991 GT3 came out only in PDK.
The GTS now has a proper manual transmission, not like the fake manual
transmission with the 991.
What do you mean?
Well, it was actually that you could get a manual, a 7-speed 991 if you really,
really tried, but it was essentially just a PDK box.
That's all it was with a freaking gear shifter.
And what's the difference?
Well, I think Chris Harris explained it.
Oh, the new one is a real...
Should we get Chris in here to explain it?
Yeah, to get Chris in here.
He's already been here.
Yeah, I know.
Well, like he was saying, you know, like you can go into like 7th gear and it's
all like this, and it's just...
7th gear is such an odd gear in those 991s, 'cause when are you ever in 7th
gear?
Why haven't?
They're driving to Vegas.
Well, because it was a PDK transmission, they have to use it.
Right, but the new one exists.
I mean, they have a 6-speed manual transmission.
That's a new transmission, though.
And it came in.
The new one is...
Yeah.
The 7th speed is a new one.
That's what's...
Does that go into 7th speed in sport mode?
Uh, yeah, it does.
No, no, it doesn't.
My point being, why have a 7th speed?
If it's so annoying, it's almost universally derided, right?
But they have to use it, because it's a PDK transmission.
Well, I think that's the thing with those new cars.
When you get in a 991 and it's PDK and you're just driving around town,
before you're even up 50 miles an hour, you're in 6th or 7th gear.
For folks who don't know what the fuck we're talking about, PDK means automatic.
It's a German word.
Porsche double klumpen.
It's a German word.
Porsche double klumpen.
It's a crazy long word.
But what it stands for is two clutches.
And what it means is that there's one clutch that grabs the gear.
The second clutch already has the second gear in line.
It already has it grabbed.
So the change between gears, between first and second gear,
is literally instantaneous.
It's so fast that your brain can barely perceive it.
So as you're driving, when you're driving a manual car,
you let off the gas, you hit the clutch.
You put it in the next gear.
This one's like .
It shifts so quickly that there's no way you'd be able to do it on your own.
That's the fault of the Nissan GT-R, by the way.
The Nissan GT-R being so fast and so technologically.
And everyone says that car is soulless though, right?
Well, actually what nobody says.
It's a spaceship.
Well, yeah.
Which is really annoying because some of my customers bought them.
They fell for the hype.
And don't get me wrong.
It's an amazing technological piece of blocky something.
But what it does is it takes a lot of weight.
That's a really, really heavy car.
So a lot of journalists will take it a few hot laps.
And it's like, man, look at this lap times.
Look at the lap times.
But the guys that actually ended up buying them and going on the weekend,
they would have to, you know, like change the fluids.
The brakes would be cooked after like one session.
And one session meaning, you know, 20, 30 minutes.
That's not much.
The Porsches, you just bang on them, you know.
You change brakes and stuff eventually.
Do they have ceramic brakes?
Yeah, they have them too.
They have that option.
Is there an option?
Yeah, even Corvettes have them, you know.
Sorry, not even Corvettes.
I'm just saying, you know, cars that are a lot less money.
Not new Corvette, let's be honest.
That's a lot of bad for the buck.
Fuck yeah.
Well, you were telling me that you had driven around the Camaro ZL1.
And you were saying how addictive that was.
I wasn't sure.
No, it was me.
It was me, the ZR1.
But you got a chance to drive the Camaro for a while, didn't you?
Oh, the Z28 you're talking about.
No, before that.
You didn't drive the ZL1?
No.
Goddammit.
Must be the other guy with the beard and the English accent.
I swear you were telling me.
You've never driven one of those Camaros?
No.
No, no, no.
It wasn't yesterday.
It was a long time ago.
I was telling you I own a Super B, but no, never a Camaro.
You've never driven one?
They never loaned you one for a while?
No.
No?
God, why do I feel like it was you?
You were talking about the--
I got visited by BMW.
I got visited by Volvo.
I got visited by, believe it or not, the guy from Bugatti.
But yeah, other than Porsche, no one's ever loaned me cars.
I'm just--
Or Sharkworks.
Yeah, or Sharkworks.
You know, I'm just sort of thrilled that Porsche loans me cars.
But no, not me.
Yeah.
No, but the 991 GTS, to touch on that, is the latest one that they've just
released.
And it does have a proper manual gearbox in it, not the pseudo PDK one.
That's one that says like the in-between car between the GT3 and the regular 991.
And they're like, okay, you can order it in manual.
We don't care about performance numbers.
You know, it's an NA car.
It's sort of like a manual GT3, if you would.
NA, meaning naturally aspirated.
Naturally aspirated.
That's true.
Naturally aspirated.
Non-turbo.
No one knows what the fuck you're talking about.
It's an NA car.
Yeah, what's NA?
Basically, it doesn't have hair dryers or a blower or any forced induction
boost.
Boost.
All it is is vacuum.
And is this a good car, this GTS?
A lot of journalists are raving about it.
I think Chris Harris was about to go drive it after your show, or he was back
from it.
I'm not sure.
But Ralph, you drove it, didn't you?
Or they took it up to you and you didn't like the automatic blipper.
He didn't like that.
Well, no one can hear you.
So, yeah.
Unfortunately, unless you want to get on the microphone, let's not talk to
Ralph.
Yeah, but basically...
Sorry, yeah.
But...
Yeah, sorry, dude.
If you want a manual, modern 991 platform, that's the car to buy right now, at
this very
time.
I don't want one, but that's if you want one.
And what are they going to do with this GT4?
What's the specs?
Is it going to be a fast car?
The Cayman GT4, it's funny.
You talk to people at Porsche and they won't tell you anything about it.
You know, it's essentially a Cayman GTSR on steroids with supposed GT3-esque
performance...
Right.
...in the mid-engined, already great handling Cayman package.
Well, that's the thing about the Cayman.
For people who aren't aware, 911s are a rear-engined car and there are certain
inherent flaws in
having all the weight in the back of the car.
Right, and you move it forward to the middle for the Cayman.
The Cayman, which is a mid-engined car, is better balanced, but they have
purposely...
Porsche has underpowered that car in order to keep the 911 at the top of the
food chain.
Yeah, it's always sort of being handicapped because, as we know, the 911's top
dog, been
around for 50 years.
Essentially, the Cayman handling capabilities are really, really high.
I mean, you can get in the Cayman, you know, and go fast really, really quick.
Porsche alone me Cayman last year for a week, and my favorite go-to road is
Angeles Crest Highway.
And I had two of them, manual and PDK.
And I'm pretty comfortable in Angeles Crest Highway.
I drive it all the time in 277.
I was amazed at how much quicker it was, or I was, in the Cayman with less
effort.
So, back to the original question, you know, the reward, you know, the payoff
versus the effort put in.
I'm quicker in the Cayman, but the drive's not quite as rewarding because I'm
not quite as involved with it.
We had the first year at Cayman S.
So it's personality, really.
Yeah, but we built the first year Cayman S as a shop car.
And then, you know, it got tracked a lot and went up through the canyons.
And I'll say, you know, it's an '06 Cayman S.
And we added a bunch more power, lightweight flywheel, better suspension,
better brakes.
Tried to make, you know, better seats.
Tried to make it like a canyon carver.
And it was easier to drive fast.
And it was also, like, anyone could get in it because it was just really well
balanced and drive it fast.
But it was missing, you know, the special engine, the whole connection.
You know, the steering wasn't quite the same.
The feel wasn't the same.
I mean, it's really nice to have that engine over the back because it's always,
like, tugging at you and you've got to think about it.
Whereas when you're in the Cayman, you can just drive like an idiot.
But isn't that a crazy thing to say?
Yeah, it is.
It's good to have a flaw because you have to think about that flaw and counter
that flaw.
Because it's more effort.
It's essentially an engineering flaw that they've worked through.
Depends how you look at it, you know, you can rotate a lot quicker.
Yeah.
And you can put more power down better too, right?
No, you're not spinning the wheels.
I mean, that's why 9/11 is powered down.
Well, you are in that one.
You are in that GT2.
800 horsepower you're spinning, but car number 277 with a quarter of that, that
power's just biting into the ground.
And you can come out, you get a much better corner speed exit, you know?
You know, which is why I'm still a believer in a sense of less is more because
you've got to put more in.
It's a more reward.
I keep going back to rewarding experience.
Well, that was what I was going to get to.
Are you more comfortable?
Do you enjoy the older cars better or do you enjoy like a 4.1 GT3?
When you're getting in the 4.1, you're dealing...
I don't own any 9/11 beyond my 1979 9/11 SC yet.
I've owned over 50 9/11s.
I bought my first one 23 years ago.
But you've driven the other cars.
I've driven them.
I do see in my future a space in the garage for a newer Porsche 911.
Probably some form of 996 or 997 GT3.
But I also just said earlier on I want to get one of every generation.
I also recently bought a 9/24.
Let's talk about Porsche's unloved cars, 9/24.
I bought a 1980 9/24 front engine turbo.
That was Porsche's first production front engine water cooled turbo.
So my new goal is to have one of each of the three, let's call them ugly duckling
Porsches.
9/24, 9/44 and 9/28.
9/28 is a weird one, huh?
Yeah.
I mean, you know what I mean?
It's just back to variety.
It's like I've been so focused on early, early Porsches.
And I've driven, you know, 40, almost 50 of my cars have been early Porsches.
So I've sort of covered that base.
You know, I've covered, I've got one of the first year, 1964.
And I've driven the tail end, buck end, let's call it, the iconic 73 RS Carrera.
And they all sort of drive in a sense, same but different is how I describe it.
So, you know, now I'm back to variety.
You know, what is more variety than a 9/24 and 9/44 and a 9/28?
Those are disgusting cars.
It's pretty unbelievable.
I have no interest in those cars at all.
But you're a collector.
My 9/24 turbo cost me 4,500 bucks.
It's unbelievable.
I swear to God.
It's worth it.
I put a couple of posts out there.
It's silver with charcoal.
It's got the black and white what Porsche calls pasture or checkerboard
interior.
And the funny part to that story is it took about a day before.
I didn't even know the 9/24 forum existed.
But a post and a thread developed on the 9/24 forum.
Someone sent me a link to it.
And the title was watch 9/24 prices go up.
Look who just bought one.
And there's this whole like rambling thread about why would I have bought a 9/24?
I'm a 9/11 guy.
But lots of bang for the buck and back to variety.
They're also very well balanced.
Yeah.
I have a friend who races them.
Right.
He loves 9/24.
It's a good race car.
It's hard to work on.
I mean, 9/24, 9/44 spec series is phenomenally successful, just like the Boxster
series.
And people email me all the time, you know, and it falls into a few categories.
Obviously people liking the cars.
But my favorite sort of category of emails that I receive is from non-Porsche
people that have maybe seen Urban Outlaw,
maybe followed my builds, and all of a sudden are being turned around from
being Porsche haters into all of a sudden looking at Porsche a little bit
differently.
Predominantly the early cars.
And these are guys that are looking to get into a Porsche for the first time.
I wanted to pull up, pull up this video, what we talked about before the show,
Jack Olsen's 9/11.
Oh yeah.
Versus 1972, 9/11.
9/1.
1972, 9/11 versus 991 GT3.
And Jack Olsen is a writer in Hollywood who is a really fascinating character.
I'm going to get him on the podcast too.
Cool guy.
We've talked about it.
And he has essentially had this lifelong -- there's a video, Jamie.
There's a -- I can email it to you if you want me to.
Do you want me to email it to you?
Okay.
I believe he actually has a part -- I met Jack over 12 years ago when he was
first developing that car and it's gone through several phases.
And I remember giving him car number 277.
Ironically, I had AC when I first got it.
And Jack Olsen was looking for an AC compressor.
And I actually gave him my compressor that I think is in that car.
But cool guy and has really fine-tuned and developed that car.
Spent a lot of time at Willow Springs.
I think what you're getting at here, though, is pretty much every person you
mention here with a Porsche,
is a wacky son of a bitch.
Yeah.
You know?
But we're all passionate.
Yes, this is it.
What's interesting about this --
Yeah, it's badass.
-- is you're dealing with a car -- no, this is not it.
Yeah, okay, this is it.
Yeah, 991.
Is he driving both cars?
No, no.
They have a professional driver.
And what's interesting is that his car, which is a 1972 car, only has 272
horsepower.
It's very light.
It's around 2,200 pounds.
And the modern car, which is 475 horsepower, PDK transmission, the automatic
transmission,
the whole deal, all the technological innovation, all the suspension and
traction control, and a professional driver.
And Olsen is still quicker.
Who's driving both cars?
I don't know.
Well, Jack's driving his car, which is the 1972 car.
But what's interesting to me is Olsen is obsessed with his one track, with his
one car, and tweaking everything, constantly trying to shave seconds off of his
car, trying to hit the perfect line every time.
And in doing so, he's able to drive faster around Willow Springs, which is one
of the fastest racetracks in America.
Fastest road in the west.
And he's able to drive faster with his 1972, lightweight, low horsepower car
than the most modern, most spectacular version of the 991 GT3.
That's incredible.
That is a lot of power, though, for that car.
I mean, they never came with that kind of power.
Well, he's got a 3.6 in there.
Yeah, but it's still only 272 horsepower.
I think that's at the wheels, right?
Yeah.
Yeah.
Well, it's a 993 stock engine.
But think about it.
What did it come with stock, right?
That package?
That was about it.
Probably 180.
Oh, you mean the original 72?
Yeah.
If it's a T, it would be 130.
If it was here, it would be 160 or 180.
Yeah.
Well, he's definitely added more horsepower, but it's still 1997 technology.
I mean, at the height of whatever he's got.
It's 1997 technology along with some tweaks.
He's got some very custom wheels.
He's got Fuchs centers with like, I think he uses like a Corvette middle.
Like the wheel is, all his tires and wheels are custom.
I've got a question for you then.
So of the two guys in the car, right?
I don't even care who wins.
I know who wins.
But when they come in, who do you think was having more fun?
Jack.
Exactly.
Because you know what?
And you asked the pro driver.
I bet you if he drove the other one.
And even if he was slower, he'd say it was more fun in the other car.
Well, also Jack's having more fun in the corners.
Like he's keeping up way more speed in the corner.
The other guy is catching him on the straights.
Yeah.
I mean, that's where it is.
It's just raw horsepower and straight line traction.
I mean, he could probably have a similar time in like a, you know, a modern GT500.
What time did you do in the end?
120 what?
I don't remember.
I don't remember what the numbers are, but I remember the Jack's was quicker.
Well, we'll see.
That's just kind of.
So here he's coming around turn nine.
If you watch the video, it's really interesting because Jack narrates it.
Right.
And he talks about the differences between the two cars.
Well, Jack certainly knows his way around Willow for sure.
Yeah.
Well, that's also part of the rub is that 126.
So he, you know, look at that.
I got a nice nugget for you, brother.
He beats it by six tenths of a second.
I got a nice nugget for you, brother.
So you know your car, the GT3 RS with a 3.9.
So I had a pro driver, Cort Wagner, like the video you saw with the two green
cars.
Yes.
Yeah.
So that day he was in the 124s and that was on shitty tires.
Wow.
So just letting you know.
Yeah.
I think a real test there is to have a pro driver drive the same cars.
Yes.
I know Jack's got thousands of laps at Willow.
We don't know who the other guy is.
Yes.
Very good point.
Let's say like a Pat Long, you know.
I was driving with Pat Long last week.
Randy Popst or someone who knows it.
A guy like that, you put those guys in the car and see.
That's more of a true test, I think.
Yeah.
But still.
Same guy driving both cars on the track is a true test.
But still, it shows that, you know, like your car is not, even your car, which
is four
years older than the new generation 991 GT3, it's not slower.
Right.
Right.
Yeah.
But you're still having more fun.
It's different.
I think it's all about the driver though.
Because, you know, we were up in Angeles Crest the other day.
I'm driving 277 and you were with James in the GT3 3.9.
Yes.
That's right.
And it's all about the driver, I think.
Behind the car is what I'm trying to say.
But what Jack's showing here is that these lightweight cars have distinct
advantages.
They're unbeatable.
Yeah.
They have distinct advantages in cornering.
In braking and handling, everything.
Yeah.
My question is, isn't that also what you're getting like this tactile response
and feel
from, is the fact that these cars are so light.
So there's a tremendous benefit in having a lightweight car.
Yeah.
Super nimble.
Like the Lotus Elise.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Which is a very praise car.
I'd like this with Colin Chapman's, you know, mantra.
Why doesn't Porsche develop a lightweight?
I agree with you.
I think it's all new, safety, you know.
It's a different era.
They talked about it.
They talked about it.
Remember there was supposed to be that collaborative effort with VW a few years
ago.
Keep this thing as close.
Oh, yeah, sorry.
Sorry.
A collaborative effort of like a mid-engine.
It was only going to have 200 horsepower and it was going to be about 2,500
pounds, which
okay, it's not as light, but that's light.
Still pretty light.
Yeah.
And it would have been a fun sort of Elise-esque kind of effort, but no,
instead they decided
to, you know, release another Panamera or another Cayenne.
And when you get to the Cayman, which is a very lightweight car for modern
standards, it's
about 3,000 pounds for the GTS, right?
Is it about somewhere around there?
It'll be around there, yeah.
That's pretty light, right?
Yeah.
It is by today's standards, yeah.
By today's, yeah.
I think things have just got obviously heavier and bulkier and more sort of--
More horsepower and bloated.
Yeah, they're not necessarily faster though.
No.
You know, I still think, I keep going back to it, less is more, but I think
those times have
gone when it comes to new cars.
Porsche's not going to start making a 2,500 pound 911.
That's never going to happen.
No, never.
Well, why not?
Because it's just, they get sued because someone would die in an accident and
doesn't
have eight airbags.
Can't you put an airbag in it?
I mean, how much does an airbag weigh?
They weigh a lot when you have eight of them.
Oh, I see.
You would have to have modern standards would be, there's several.
Yeah.
Safety standards wouldn't allow it.
I think the standards of what sort of killed everything.
Yeah.
Well, that's what's kind of cool.
I've had a 1970 911T with a 3.0 in it and cams or mismatch cams, but never mind.
And I've had a, you know, 79, 930.
So, you know, I've owned those cars too.
I've sold them at the absolute worst time.
Yeah, you've got great timing when it comes to volume of cars.
I do, don't I?
I see them now and they're worth way too much.
But I've driven them enough too, and older cars, you know.
Because everyone at Shark Works, everyone at Shark Works has had, you know,
either a 912, like the absolute base base, you know, oldest model, you know.
Or, you know, James has had a phenomenal amount of old, you know, rusty cars.
Because they weren't galvanized back then.
He's a quiet guy, James, right?
But really, there's a lot going on there.
He's like that scientist that's going to create something.
Yeah, mad professor.
Yeah, and then you're going to like explode when you hit the gas probably.
To your point being, they enjoy the modern cars more.
Yeah, we enjoy it.
We enjoy it, but the reason we had them.
You enjoy the modern cars more?
No, not about more.
It's like, I like sharks.
There's a lot of different, sorry man.
I like sharks, there's a lot of different, you know, species.
You know, I like some bit more than others maybe, but I like sharks.
I like 911s and there's still a connection there, you know.
For me driving, you know, my 1970 911T or my Speedster replica 356, you know,
it was nice.
And I, you know, there's still something there that connects all the way up to
the GT3.
You know, and I do get that the modern cars are losing it.
And the fact that you can have, you know, one of them.
I mean, he's the best known collector of air-cooled cars.
And, you know, he pushes the button, you know, to his garage.
And he's got, you know, two water-cooled cars in there.
I mean, that says something, right?
What water-cooled cars do you have in your garage?
GT2?
No, those are your cars though.
No, but they're in there.
Yeah, but you're letting him borrow them.
He's not buying them.
Yeah, but he's allowing them in there.
I've got a leaky roof and water's leaking into the garage.
It's a joke.
But you're not, you're trying to infect him.
I have water-cooled cars.
Not with coal mining.
Before I met Alex, I was already, you know, working towards water-cooled.
But my heart and soul is air-cooled.
You know, I'm going to own one or two water-cooled cars just for variety.
Do you like the sound of the air-cooled cars better?
There's a weird sort of a raspy quality to those cars.
You know, air getting sucked in through the carbs or the MFI.
It's just a different visceral, sensorial feel that the new cars, they don't
deliver the same way.
Is there an issue with those cars in traffic?
Like with overheating?
I drove 277 in traffic.
No, it's pretty easy to drive around.
It depends on the setup.
Is there an issue?
Like if you were driving to the airport and you got stuck on a 405 in summer,
would it be an issue?
277 is unbelievable.
Even on the racetrack, it never gets above 210.
But when you're on traffic, like stuck, bumper to bumper, it doesn't overheat?
The turbos run hot.
The early turbos run hot.
But my early air-cooled cars never get above 210, 220.
Let's say I'm in my turbo, my 76 turbo, and I'm driving to my buddy Marty's who's
at Roscoe and Reseda.
I'm on the 101, it's 100 degrees.
You know, that gauge is, you know, crawling 240 just because you're sat in
traffic.
So the early turbos run hot.
The early sort of two-liter, two-fours that I'm running, no issues.
Now, do you take that car places?
Like if you go to the movies, will you take it somewhere and just park it?
Just shut it off?
Yeah.
No problem.
It's a very valuable car, though, to just leave parked.
I never think of it that way.
You know, to me, the sum of the parts of 277, there's nothing.
If I give you the bill sheet on what that car is, there's nothing really
special about it.
But I think the uniqueness of the car is it's developed its own personality.
You know, it's not like it ever raced at Daytona.
You know, I used to do 40, 50 track days a year in that car with the Porsche on
a club between 2002 and 2007.
But there's no real significant race history to the car.
But I think the connection people have to the car really is a real simple theme
and message.
It's like just follow your dreams.
You know, that was my dream car.
It still is my dream car.
But it evolved.
It wasn't like this.
It wasn't like I went out and wrote a check and just got a new car delivered.
That car was, you know, I bought it at the Pomona swap meet.
It wasn't flared.
I talk about customizing Porsches.
Straight away changed the motor in that car and, you know, just made it look
more like a 73 RS Carrera.
And that's the great thing about these early Porsches is they're really easier
to customize.
You know, we've touched on it a little bit.
A lot of things are interchangeable.
You can take a two-liter motor out and put a three-six in if you want.
That's what Jack Olsen did.
Right.
Took out his two-four and put in a three-six.
So that's the great thing about these 911s.
And they get driven.
They develop personality.
277's got personalities.
Jack's 72 black beauty car, I think is what he calls it, is also pretty unique
and got personality.
You know, the two cars are similar yet different.
That's ultimately the great thing about early Porsches is they develop
character and soul over time.
Just like Patina.
You know, some people like shiny cars.
I always say dirt, don't slow you down.
I'm not worried about rock chips and scratches.
Because to me, those are memorable moments that are earned over time and they're
earned by getting out there and driving the car.
You never meet a guy at a cars and coffee event and he proudly proclaims, you
know, I've got 305 miles on my 2007 GT3.
Quite the opposite.
Ralph has like 68,000 on his 3.9 GT3.
They're built to be driven.
Sorry, 70 more now.
Yeah, they're built to be driven and that's how you get connected with the car.
You don't get connected by leaving it in the garage.
Sure, there's some nice sort of curves on it and it looks cool.
But every time you drive it, stuff happens, you know, if you're driving that
particular car.
I think ultimately it's not necessarily about, again, for me to be the quickest.
You know, it's more about enjoying that journey and just sort of being at one
with the car.
Yeah, and these things, that's the great thing about all car guys.
It's really the great thing about Porsche guys is it is this language.
I've had people visit me from all over the world.
It doesn't matter whether you speak English, German or Japanese.
You speak Porsche and that's that connection.
And truth be told, yeah, I'm an early air-cooled guy, but I also like these,
you know, high horsepower, water-cooled things.
And to me, it's not a case of which is better.
They've both got soul, but they're both slightly different.
But they've both got personality.
And to me, I think that sort of sums up everything that's great about the
Porsche 911.
James, you know, who was up, he's the guy that built your engine and the other
half, well, the other third of Shark Works.
He got to drive the 277, you know, when they went off in the GT2 and I was
sitting with him.
And he's a man of few words.
And, you know, I just slowly, like a few corners in, you know, he starts out
slowly because it's the 277 and we're like, oh, we're in it.
It's amazing how many people want to get in this car.
His face is going like this and I just turn around and go, you're having a good
time, aren't you?
And he's like, yeah, you know.
And it's, you know, he drives every day, you know, 200,000 or whatever, 150,000,
200,000, whatever they're worth.
And builds, you know, GT3 RSs and he gets back in, you know, in your car.
And it's like, it's set up nice.
It sounds good.
You know, it drives properly.
And he's just having fun in the canyon.
Isn't there something about those old cars too, this knowledge that you're in,
something from another era.
And it's almost like a bit of a time machine.
Like stepping back in time.
Yeah.
Like listening to an old song.
Yeah.
You know, you listen to like a Led Zeppelin song from 1971 and it's like, there's
something about it that makes you think like, man, this was going on.
Like this guy was singing this in a different era.
The world was different.
And there's a finite number of those cars as well.
They will never, no one's ever going to build another 1971 911.
It's just, it is.
One of my favorite cars is my Irish green 66 911.
And it's pretty much almost in stock form that it would have been in 1966.
The brakes as well?
Yeah.
You know, I've changed weird, you know, obviously pads are new, but you know,
the point to my story is the car's 49 years old and it's the best way that you
just described it, that I could step back in time to 1966, even though I was
born in 1967.
It's like you get in that car and it just, it's the smell of these early air-cooled,
oil-cooled 911s.
You know, I'll go through the process.
You look at it, sight.
You walk up to it, put the key in it, turn it.
You sort of feel it and hear it.
Then you sit in it, put the key in the ignition, turn the key.
You hear it fire up.
Yeah.
And then you smell it.
And it's a time capsule right there.
Yeah.
Right there is, that's something modern cars will never give you.
You know, we've sort of talked for a couple of hours about the difference, but
ultimately if I can home it into, you know, five senses of sight, sound, smell
and feel, that is the time capsule that I think you just sort of brought us
full circle into what is great about these early air-cooled 911s.
Truth be told, it's probably the same thing all the VW guys experience because
it is like this living, breathing, time warp, time travel entity that
ultimately doesn't matter really how fast you're going.
You're just in this zone that is, yeah, it's antiquated, but it's also pretty
exciting and pretty special.
I found it really great, you know, picking up my car that was, you know, from '71.
And it's like I'm on the road, you know, in rush hour traffic, you know, with
things whizzing by me and a bright yellow, you know, it was like an RS clone.
And I'm sitting there, I've got no AC, no, no nothing, no cup holders, nothing.
I mean, and I'm just, you know, stinking up the place.
But I loved it, man.
It was just great, you know.
And then I got home, I would take a canyon road near me.
I mean...
My wife always says, Karen, you know, when I get home and I've been in a 911,
she can tell I've been in a 911.
Yeah, 'cause it's a stinker.
It's a smell, you sort of come in smelling with it, you know, you've got that
sort of sweat and oil and fuel smell.
I mean, you either love it or you don't, really.
You know, it's an acquired taste for sure, but that's why I'm passionate about
abortion.
It's like Chanel No. 5 for us, right?
Every time you drive one of those old carburetor-driven cars, even an old
muscle car, you smell the fucking gas.
Yeah, for sure.
Yeah, well, always the leaky carburetors.
I mean, James helped me rebuild the carbs on mine and it's like I spent like
three days on it, you know, rebuilding the carbs on that engine.
I put him in, boy, he helped me.
And it's like, son of a bitch, I can still smell leaks, you know.
And it's like, he's like, well, that's just how it is, you know.
And then in the three days that I'd taken them out and rebuilt them, the
weather had changed like 15 degrees, you know, and the car ran like shit.
You know, I just couldn't handle it.
So it's like back to the drawing board.
You know, there's that joke about if you're not early 9/11 is not leaking oil,
there's no oil in it.
These things are sort of living, breathing, you know, pieces of machinery that
have got soul.
Well, that's with your 1965, but with the new, with these ones that you've
built yourself, has there been new technology that allows those things to be a
little bit more reliable, have less issues?
Most of the cars that I've built, like the SDR or, you know, being involved in
the process of these cars, I'm still sort of keeping them period correct.
You know, I'm not putting newer motors in those old cars.
You know, you touched on a little bit what Singa's doing.
You know, the difference is they're taking a 964 and sort of backdating it to
resemble an old car with modern technology.
For the most part, other than updating for what I do, torsion bars and stiffer
suspension, which, yes, newer components, but yet it's still running for the
most part.
The original motor that's being rebuilt, maybe at a higher spec, but it's still,
if it was carbureted then, it's probably still carbureted now.
So what about gasket technology or any of those things? I mean, have there been
improvements?
Yeah, for sure. But, you know, it's still, you know, it's like right now I'm
building a 67S.
It's a car that have got the louvered fenders, which is my follow-up build to
the SDR.
I sourced the 67S case and bought some new Mali pistons and cylinders.
And as crazy as this story sounds, I'm shipping all the components to my buddy,
Matthias, who's got a shop in Hamburg, Germany.
And I'm going to have him build the motor or assemble the motor in Germany and
ship it back.
So it'll have new components in it and it's going to be punched out from 2
liter to 2.5, but it's still a 67S motor going in a 1967S.
Well, isn't that something that Porsche's doing now? They have, like, an entire
factory dedicated to rebuilding old cars.
Well, it's a Porsche classic restoration facility that they've actually had for
some time.
But what's happened recently over the past three to five years is, you know,
these cars have just escalated in value to the point where now a lot of these
cars that, let's say, would have been trashed five years ago because it wasn't
worth spending 50 grand to restore a car that might be worth 30.
Now that 50 grand car or 100 grand car could be worth triple that.
What's the name of the Porsche restoration facility in Germany?
It's just called the Porsche classic restoration facility.
Porsche classic restoration facility.
Yeah.
Porsche classic restoration facility.
It's amazing, though.
I've visited it.
You know, over the past two years, I've done various events with Porsche.
I went to the Techno Classica show in Essen with them.
I went to the old-timer GP at the Nürburgring and Goodwood Revival.
Yeah, that's it.
So the great thing about Porsche is they've got 50,000 parts in their showcase
of Porsche classic.
Well, that's all.
It's not just 356s.
It's all the way up to the 993 factory replacement parts.
It's also a great thing about Porsche in that they make new parts for their old
cars.
Yeah.
They continue to make parts for every single model.
That's why there's so many of them on the road.
They say there's 80% of them still on the road.
That's incredible.
How many other 50-year-old cars or 40-year-old cars are on the road?
I mean--
Well, there's companies like Year One that make parts for old classic muscle
cars and things along those lines.
But there's very few--
I mean, truth be told, Jag's got its own thing.
Jaguar's got the heritage facility where they're actually rebuilding 12 of
those continuation lightweight E-types.
I know Mercedes has been doing it for quite some time.
Those old cars, man.
Yeah, those are the 959s.
Do you know the story of the 959 in America?
How you can drive one?
Do you know why you can drive one in America?
Because Bill Gates bought two of them and crashed one of them to do the testing
on it.
That's right.
Which is hilarious.
Yeah, if you want to get one of those, you've probably got to call Bruce Kennifer.
You're going to be Bill Gates?
I mean, how much are those worth?
I mean, it's got to be worth close to a million bucks.
959s are now a million-dollar car a couple of years ago.
Yeah, they were 500, right?
Well, I remember when they were 253.
Yeah.
Meanwhile, if you drove that and then drove your car back-to-back, you'd be
like, fuck this old rotten hundred shit.
Like I said, I drove Helmet Fox Prototype 959.
The poster looked good, though.
That Brumos owned.
Yeah.
And really, you know, it was no different to any other 911.
It wasn't this brutally just crazy car that they built, the GT2, which is just
nap-snappingly, brutally fast.
The 959 is not like that.
I mean, you've got to remember how old that car is now.
It was in the '80s, right?
Yeah.
'86.
It was actually designed.
You know, I'd kind of compare it a bit to a Bugatti Veyron.
We're almost coming upon the 30-year anniversary on that.
Let's not talk over each other too much.
Oh, yeah, sorry.
It's confusing for people.
Can I take a bathroom break?
Yeah, yeah, please do.
What it was, it basically was designed to get to 200.
It was like the first, you know, supercar to kind of do that.
Right?
So like the Veyron.
So it wasn't brutally fast, but it was able to, you know, to go 200 back in '90
to '86, which was a big deal.
It was one of their first four-wheel drive cars too, right?
Yeah, yeah.
Well, yeah.
It had a lot.
All-wheel.
Yeah, all-wheel drive.
They like to say all-wheel because four-wheel is like, "Yee-haw!"
Yee-haw, yeah.
People think of, you know, fucking Hayseeds.
There's a cool picture, or I don't know if you ever...
Do you know about the Pari-Dakar rally, for example?
I've heard of it, yeah.
So you should check it out.
People die every year in it.
They go across Africa.
And they actually took 959s, you know, and had like, you know, Rothman's stuff
on it.
You know, it's a cigarette company.
They raised them, put knobby tires.
So the 959 Pari-Dakar, as you check it out.
So it's a 959, and they rally raced it across Africa.
And, you know, it did really well.
So that's another iconic 959.
That is so ridiculous.
They take a 959, which is worth a million dollars, and they essentially turn it
into a truck.
Yeah.
But they raced it.
That's Porsche.
Rally racing is very strange, because the cars look so odd, jacked up with the...
They have to have a lot of suspension travel.
Right.
And so, yeah.
Yep.
They have to.
And they have crazy tires.
It just seems wrong, though.
Yeah.
It seems wrong to take those cars and to put them with such a wacky suspension
and drive them over dirt.
Well...
When you watch rally drivers...
Do it down slow again.
When you watch them, like, some of the footage from the seat, oh my god.
The guy I'm worried about is the navigator, though.
Oh, yeah.
The guy reading the, you know, left, right, right...
Those guys have got big balls to navigate.
And they always get blamed, too, when they crash.
It's like, it's your fault.
Google, uh, Pikes Peak, Ari Varnan, or, uh, Walter Roll, and just see those
guys.
I'm not a big fan of the idea of a navigator.
I think you should be forced to fucking drive.
Well, they didn't have GPS, then.
So what?
You know, I feel like you should be able to figure out every turn, and if you
go off the side of the cliff, that's part of the fun.
So, you know, we were talking about this program called Grandstand, which, um,
you know, on a Saturday afternoon in England, on one of the three available
channels, and they had this...
Have you watched any Isle of Man racing before?
Yes.
Those crazy fucking bike guys?
Yeah, those guys are nuts.
We had a series with these sidecars where these guys would, like, trapeze off
the side of the bike, right?
That's all they did.
But they would be the first ones to, like, go flying when the thing crashed.
I mean, it was just into a wall.
Pretty gnarly.
Yeah, it's gnarly shit, man.
I think the Isle of Man TT is the true test of big balls and a real hero when
you see what those guys are doing out there.
Yeah, those guys are nuts, man.
Yeah, fuck the soldiers on a motorcycle.
Yeah, I know.
Yeah, I know.
Yeah, I know.
Yeah, I know.
Yeah, they're real heroes.
They're fighting for our country or something.
Freedom to go fast on a motorcycle.
Yeah.
Yeah, those guys are animals.
There's something really crazy about someone who wants to race for a living.
They're like McConkie guys, you know, the Sean McConkie guy, for example.
They're just nuts.
What was the movie, the recent Formula One movie with Thor?
What the fuck's his name?
Oh, Drive?
Rush.
Rush, sorry, Drive, Rush.
James Hunt, Nickelodeon.
Well, that was my era growing up in the '70s.
You know, England in '76, '77, James Hunt won the F1, and Barry Sheen won the
World's Hooper Bike title.
That movie didn't get nearly enough respect.
That was a good movie.
It was Ron Howard's movie on racing.
Yeah, it was pretty good.
I mean, my mom remembers it differently because she fancied James Hunt.
A lot of people did.
You know, you see those guys, that was the sex, drugs, rock and roll era of,
you know, partying, the lifestyle, the glamorous lifestyle.
Now it's a whole different thing.
I mean, the guys are faster, the cars are quicker, but it's a whole different
corporate mentality.
Look at F1 footage in the '70s and people are practically bare feet smoking in
the pits.
Look how it is today.
Yeah, drinking.
He looks like Thor.
Thor really does look like that guy.
Tell him about your Hesketh sticker on the GT2.
Oh, yeah.
So, you know, remember, so, yeah, last time when we were, when we came here
with the F1, you know, we showed up at Leno's place and Dan was wearing a Hesketh
T-shirt, you know, and then we showed up right to his place.
That's how we met.
We went, you know, off to traffic.
And he's like, Hesketh.
And he's like, you guys are all right.
These guys are blue books.
Hesketh.
Hesketh, you know, in the movie that you were watching, you know, Lord Hesketh,
he was the, you know, financier for James Hunt.
You've got to get your car to Seinfeld.
You've got to have that nut drive your car because he's got one of the best
Porsche collections in the world.
I mean, he's a real Porsche aficionado.
Have you seen that show Cars?
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Comedians and Cars getting coffee?
Yeah, it's pretty, it's pretty badass.
He has a legit 1972 RS that's worth over a million dollars and he drives it on
the street.
Yeah.
Which is fucking bananas.
Wasn't there some, wasn't there some, uh, video, yeah, backed into it, right?
Someone did, really?
Yeah.
In New York.
In New York.
Yeah, they backed into it.
It's like, oh.
And they probably had no idea it was worth a million bucks.
No, there's like some old stinky Porsche.
Yeah, that's what it looks like.
With a bunch of ugly decals on it.
Dripping oil, probably.
Is it backed up into it hard?
Is it fucked up?
Or was it on the show?
It was a fender, I thought, right?
There's a video of it out there.
Yeah.
I guess you could, uh, Google Seinfeld's RS getting rear-ended in New York.
This video of it getting hit?
Yeah.
Yeah.
Oh, no.
Yeah.
Find that.
Yep.
I want to see how he reacts.
My car.
What are you doing in my car?
It's almost like you didn't even know it was there.
It's like Jerry's set right opposite me in the body of Joe Rogan.
It's like that line, you know, when you reverse Tyrone, things come from behind
you.
Oh.
Yeah.
I don't know why anybody would want to spend a million dollars on that car.
I don't understand.
He might have bought it when it was a 50 grand car.
Oh, I'm telling you.
There you go.
Look at this, right there.
Hamptons.
Oh, in the Hamptons.
Oh, sorry.
Hamptons woman.
Yeah.
Now, do you, Jerry, impression right now?
Yeah, you do it.
Do you even know what you just did?
Hi, lady.
See how happy he looks there?
He looks really happy.
Yeah.
Is that the before?
That's the before shot.
He acts into Jerry while he watches.
Come on.
Is there a video?
I think there's a video.
There was a video.
There you go.
There you go.
I gotta hear this.
I gotta hear this.
This video's gonna get a lot of views now.
I wanna hear what he says.
Uh-oh.
He doesn't look happy there, does he?
I wonder if he finally swears.
See, this is the great thing about the internet.
We're talking about it and there it is.
There it is.
Is there a video of it?
Yeah, yeah.
Look up there.
Yeah, but that's a video of Seinfeld.
Oh.
Right there.
No, no.
Those are photos.
Hey, what are you doing?
Look at her.
Why are you backing into my car?
Hunchback twat.
Look at her.
Backing up into his car.
How do you know?
You can't see her face.
It's 46,000.
What year was this?
Yeah, that's not correct.
No.
14?
No.
That's the other problem with the internet.
Everyone has a freaking opinion.
Yeah.
I'm not afraid to use it.
Scroll down for video.
Where's the video?
I saw the video.
That's what I was saying.
I don't know where it is, but maybe he took it down.
Maybe.
Yeah, but it says scroll down for video in the article.
Yeah.
Well, you also can't believe everything you read on the internet.
Isn't that funny?
You're going to the Daily Mail, which is a British tabloid.
That's a British tabloid.
Dailymail.co.uk.
Isn't that where you...
Did you guys give us that guy from CNN?
What's his name?
Oh, that idiot.
That asshole that's not even around anymore.
Pierce Morgan?
Is that from the Daily Mail?
Is he from there?
Yeah, he's a...
Well, I don't want to say anything.
He's gross.
Yeah, he's not a very nice chap.
We also gave you Simon Cowell.
And that's the problem with the other problem with the US.
Like, it's sort of like the British rejects get thrown here.
Well, no.
Hold on, hold on.
Ricky Gervais, come on.
Yeah, well, Ricky's great.
Look, a lot of great comics.
Ricky's a funny guy.
There's a lot of great stuff.
He was not great.
I felt really embarrassed being British with him.
What, with Ricky Gervais?
No, no.
With that Piers guy.
Well, that Piers guy got owned by Chelsea Handler.
You ever see that?
No.
Was that the gun stuff?
No, no.
You got owned by Alex Jones and the gun stuff and by Ted Nugent.
Oh, yeah.
But Chelsea Handler, who's a stand-up comic, just fucking destroyed him.
Good.
Because she was like, you're not even paying attention to me.
Like, you know, during the commercial break, you just go over and look at your
phone.
Like, he's a fucking moron.
I didn't enjoy him on that show.
I thought he was just...
First of all, I don't enjoy his background.
I mean, he was a part of people...
No, he's a shyster.
Not just a shyster.
They tapped into people's phones.
Oh, really?
That's not cool.
There were people that were missing and they hacked into these people's phones
and listened
to their voicemail.
And so the parents got a false sense of like, oh, they might be still alive
checking their voicemail.
And it was because these shitheads were tapping into the phone.
He was a part of all that.
And somehow or another, he escaped that scandal.
That's what I'm saying.
But it was easy for him to get in and impress and get into the US.
And they didn't really do a proper background check on him.
And then suddenly he became, you know, a celebrity over here.
Well, we got rid of him pretty quick.
I'm glad.
Sent him back home.
Well done.
He was shamed many times before.
I mean, people got to know what a shithead he is.
But also, we're a sucker for an English accent, man.
Yeah, that's what I'm saying.
That was my story coming almost 30 years ago.
English accent.
No, but you got a northern monkey accent.
Sex, drugs, rock and roll went quite a long way back.
No, see, you don't understand.
We don't know that that's a northern accent.
We have no idea.
Because just anyone that speaks proper English.
You gotta watch Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels.
Oh, he's watched it.
And that'll sort of tell you all about the great north-south divide.
You've seen that movie.
Yeah, it's great movie.
You know, Guy Ritchie's best movie, really?
Love it.
Love Guy Ritchie.
Huge fan.
But the funny thing is about, sorry, about Piers Morgan again, is that, you
know, if you watch Top Gear a lot, he's like the butt of every joke.
Like, any time there's anything nasty or disgusting, you know, you watch, you
know, Jeremy Clarkson compare, like, a car suspension to Piers Morgan, you know,
banging him in the rear, and he's like, you know?
Yeah.
So, he's really not liked.
Well, he shouldn't be.
You know, the thing that they did...
I apologize for being British.
Yeah.
The thing that they did with tapping into people's phones is just...
Yeah, it's not cool.
It's awful.
It's disgusting.
Yeah.
And the fact that he snuck in.
But it's like, we are a weird sucker for English accents, which is why those
infomercials, when they're trying to sell you some more sponsors...
Oh, yeah.
That's my favorite thing.
It's always an English guy.
It's always an English guy.
A villain.
A cleaning product.
Yeah.
It's always the villains in the Hollywood movies or the cleaning product.
Yes.
Guy, it's like, wow.
Gotta be a cleaning product.
Can we do anything else other than mess with Porsches?
Yeah, we brought David Beckham over here.
Come on, English guys talking about Porsches.
That didn't work.
You guys tried.
We tried.
He didn't.
Spice Girls, come on.
Yeah.
That lasted a little while, but we don't give a fuck about soccer.
You can try all day.
We're not gonna buy it.
We did try.
We did, yeah.
Or rugby.
Or cricket.
I think rugby would have been a better fit.
That's a man's game.
I think rugby is more manly than even American football.
Very close to American football.
I think if you took American football players and took the helmets away and
made them play
rugby, that's a more exciting game.
Actually, I did get one of my concussions from rugby because I played rugby.
It was a posh man's game, rugby.
You know, it's very thuggish.
It's a very thuggish game.
I mean, it's the only game I know of where like a big Samoan, you know, can
like step on
your teeth in a scrum and then he'll give you his hand to pick you up.
It's just bizarre.
And they've got studs on the bottom of those shoes, you know.
Oh.
Well, he feels bad.
Yeah.
So, you know.
Did you play cricket as well?
I really didn't.
I didn't like that.
Badminton?
No.
No.
No.
Just rugby.
Rugger.
Rugger.
Rugger.
Exactly.
And, you know, you don't wear any pads.
When you're like 12, it's scary when you're a small guy and you're the last
line of defense
as I was and fast at fullback or wing.
And, you know, at 12, the differences between certain, you know, nations,
because there'd
be schools from Tonga and Samoa and New Zealand.
They're like big gnarly guys.
And some of them definitely weren't 12.
They'd like reset a few years.
Oh, really?
They sandbagged?
Yeah.
Oh, yeah, man.
They sandbagged.
No one's checking ID?
No, no one's checking ID.
No ID back then.
Yeah.
But literally, you know, they would pollax you and pick you up.
So you'd have all these.
And then there weren't, it wasn't a professional game back in the 80s.
And you would have these, they'd have real jobs.
Like they were lawyers, you know, because they were posh.
You'd only played it in a posh school.
This doesn't happen in Sheffield.
No, it doesn't.
No.
And suddenly, you know, you'd know he's a rugby player because he's missing
teeth.
Missing teeth.
He's a lawyer with missing teeth.
But drinking 12 bites.
Or like black eyes.
Yeah.
Cabbage ears.
Yeah, cabbage ears.
I mean.
Cauliflower.
You guys call them cabbage ears?
Yeah, we call them cabbage ears.
Let me see your ears under those headphones.
No, he's got good ones.
He wears headgear.
Yeah, I wear headgear when I do Jiu Jitsu.
Yeah, you're smart.
I have a little bit of it.
Tell me about your martial arts background.
I mean, I remember seeing you on these UFC fights.
You know, I'd go around to my buddies and watch and I remember seeing you on
Fear Factor
and I've heard all about these black belts, but I don't really know your story.
I started martial arts when I was a little kid.
Where'd you grow up?
I grew up in Boston mostly.
Beantown, right?
Fatting around.
Yeah.
Beantown.
Going back there next weekend.
There you go.
It's got to be zero.
Minus one right now, I think it is.
I've got a buddy that used to run a store called Alston Beat in Alston.
Oh, okay.
Alston's great.
Yeah, and then he moved it to Newbury Street.
My buddy Craig and I owns all the G-Star stores.
Yeah, Newbury Street's like the heart of like fashion and Newbury Comics.
Right.
We used to sell that store actually, Newbury Comics.
Yeah.
So you grew up in Beantown.
Yeah.
With Marky Mark, or is this like the heart of like fashion and Newbury Comics?
Right.
That's a cool spot.
We used to sell that store actually, Newbury Comics.
Yeah.
So you grew up in Beantown.
Yeah.
Um.
With Marky Mark, or is this like the heart of the G-Star?
Yeah.
Yeah.
I don't know Marky Mark.
You don't know the Warburgers?
Did you know the Funky Bunch?
I didn't know the Funky Bunch either.
You didn't know the Funky Bunch.
No, but.
Were you Southie?
Southie, right?
No, I worked in Southie.
I used to teach, I used to be one of the trainers at the Boston Athletic Club.
I actually got to, do you know Bobby Orris, famous hockey player?
No.
How dare you?
Neither one of you fucks.
What's hockey?
Oh, we have hockey, but it's not on ice.
What's the boxer that Marky Mark portrayed in that film that was Boston's sort
of hero?
What's that guy's name?
Oh, that's Mickey Ward.
Mickey Ward.
Mickey Ward.
Yeah, who's an excellent boxer.
Um, so, uh, I worked in, um, South Boston at this place called the Boston
Athletic Club.
How old were you then?
I was probably 19.
I got to meet Bobby Orris.
How old were you when you got into martial arts?
Oh, martial arts.
I started fighting when I was 15.
Okay.
That's when I got, like, really into it.
And I was, I was fighting in the men's divisions when I was 16.
Kicking ass?
I was doing well.
Were you a street fighter before that?
No, no.
I wasn't really, uh, you know, I was scared more than I was, uh, like,
aggressive and mean.
I was just, I get into martial arts because I was worried about, you know,
people kicking
my ass.
Okay.
I just didn't know how to fight.
So I figured I got to learn how to fight.
I'm tired of being scared of everybody.
So, uh, I was, uh, four-time Massachusetts State Taekwondo champion.
Wow.
I, uh, won that four years in a row.
I won the U.S. Open.
I won a bunch of national tournaments.
Then I started kickboxing.
I did some, but I started doing that as I was doing stand-up comedy.
And, um, I, uh, I stopped competing.
And then, uh, I--
How did you get into stand-up?
Were you just a funny kid in the neighborhood?
My friends.
My friends talked me into it.
Guys that I used to train with, actually.
My friend, Steve Graham, who I'm still buddies with to this day.
So it wasn't like you failed the New Kids on the Block audition and figured I'll
go to stand-up?
No.
I didn't even think I was funny.
I thought they thought I was funny because they were my friend.
But other people were just gonna think I was an asshole because my sense of
humor was--
Were they just laughing because you thought you'd kick their ass or you were
just generally pretty funny?
No.
Well, I would do impressions of our friends, like having sex or doing weird
shit.
You know, I was good at impressions.
I would do these impressions of, uh, people that we knew.
And I would make people laugh in the locker room.
And my friend Steve was like, you should really be a fucking comedian.
I was like, look, you think I'm funny because you know me.
I think there's a joke there we just missed.
He made them laugh in the locker room.
How do we not pick up on that?
Well, we're getting ready to fight.
Okay, okay.
You know, we're getting ready to talk.
And everybody was nervous.
That's what you were thinking.
It was gallows humor is what it was, essentially.
Everybody was nervous.
And I would be the icebreaker because we would have sparring days, like,
especially on Saturday.
Saturday was a scary day because we would do what we call team training.
And team training was all the black belts would get together and they would pad
up.
And we would do these really long training sessions.
And they were brutal.
And everybody would shit their pants in the locker room.
So I would be making everybody laugh.
I would be like the icebreaker.
That must be, I don't know what's scarier there, like a fight or a stand-up.
I mean, both of me.
Fighting is way scarier.
Well, physically, but I mean.
Yeah, it's way scarier.
And all the above.
The losses are way more devastating.
Give me the Joe Rogan story past that point, though.
So we're in Boston.
We're still fighting.
I start doing stand-up comedy.
I stopped competing.
Somewhere around 97, which is several years later.
I'm still training, doing like various martial arts.
Are you in LA now or are you still back there?
I got into LA in 94.
Okay.
In 96, I started doing jiu-jitsu.
Okay.
So in 97, I started working for the UFC.
And then I got really into jiu-jitsu then.
So I, from 96 to today, I've been doing two different types of jiu-jitsu.
Gi and no gi.
Gi meaning with what they call kimono, which is like a karate uniform.
Looks like a thicker.
A jumper.
Yeah.
You throw people around with that.
You can grab it.
You could choke them within.
You could use it more.
Like, it's almost like a weapon.
And then no gi, which is essentially just clothes.
You don't grab people's clothes.
No clothes.
You're wearing like a skin-tight rash guard.
And it's all about wrestling techniques.
Like under hooks and over hooks and submission holds and stuff like that.
And so you're still fighting today?
I still not.
I just train.
I mean, I don't fight.
Fighting, you know, competing is a very different thing, obviously.
I mean, you're competing in the gymnasium.
You're going, you're sparring.
I mean, you're going 100%.
Right.
You're trying to choke each other.
But there's a big difference between that and going into competition.
I'm of the opinion that, especially fighting, like MMA, you should not do that
unless that's
all you're doing.
Yeah.
Part-time is over, right?
I think dabbling in that.
It should be 100% of your focus.
Because if it's not, you're going to run into someone and it is 100% of their
focus.
And they're going to get fucked up.
They're going to fuck you up.
I often say, if you're out for a real spirited drive or you're on the track, if
you're not
100% focused, you shouldn't be there.
Don't be texting.
Yeah.
Don't be texting when you're on race track.
So, when did MMA and UFC sort of really explode and take over the thunder of
boxing?
What was that?
Ten years ago?
Five years ago?
Um, let's...
About ten years ago it took off because of the Ultimate Fighter.
That was 2005.
When I came along...
I came along in '97.
I was the post-fight interviewer.
This was like long before it was big.
We used to fly into places like Dothan, Alabama, and we'd do these shows and
these little high
school gymnasiums.
What is UFC on now?
Fight number, you know, if you watch it on TV.
This is...
We just hit UFC 182.
Wow.
So, the next one's 183, I believe, which is...
That would make sense.
It's a lot of events.
But you've been with them since fight one?
No, 12.
I came along UFC 12.
Wow.
But I only worked for them for two years.
It was a different organization, different people owned it.
Worked for them for two years and then it was just getting too crazy.
They were banned from cable.
It was really like more of a blood sport image.
Like people didn't understand what it was.
No, it had rules.
But it was just the public perception of it.
Like, I would tell people that I worked with that I was going to do these...
They thought it was some YouTube backyard brawling type thing.
It was like I was doing porn.
That was the attitude.
They were like, "Why are you doing that?
Like, what are you going to ruin your career?"
But today, 183 fights later?
Different story?
Today is much different.
Much different.
I started working for the UFC again at UFC 37 and a half, which was in 2002.
And you've done them all since then?
Most of them.
Wow.
Most of the pay-per-views.
But there's so many events now, I can't do them all.
Like there's Fox Sports 1 events, which most of...
I'm doing the one next weekend, but most of those I don't do.
And then there's Fox events.
Kenny does those, right?
Sometimes Kenny does them.
He's going back and forth about Porsches with me on the interweb.
Who are the crazy guys that I'm sort of loosely sort of seeing visually that
were involved with...
What was the guy's name?
Dana or something?
Dana White.
Yeah.
He's the president of UFC.
Okay.
And they were from...
Were they Huntington Beach guys?
No.
Dana's from Boston.
Okay.
So you knew him back in the day?
No, I didn't know him until 2002.
I met him when I was doing Fear Factor.
Okay.
Because they had...
Now when did Fear Factor start?
2002, I think.
Okay.
2001, 2002, somewhere around there.
How did you go from being this Bostonian martial arts comedian guy to Fear Factor?
How does that...
I was on a sitcom before that.
What was that?
I was on a sitcom on NBC called News Radio.
Okay.
And that was on for five years in the 90s.
So did you come out to LA to do the acting stand-up thing?
I came out to LA for another show called Hardball that was on Fox that was
cancelled.
I got hired to do that.
What show was that?
It was a baseball show.
Okay.
Like a sitcom about baseball.
Okay.
That was cancelled after like six episodes.
And I was out here.
I'd already leased an apartment for a year.
So I was like, ah, fuck.
I'm stuck here for a while.
I wanted to go back to New York.
Was this a bit like Swingers?
One of my all-time favorite Vince Vaughn movies?
Yeah.
In what way?
You know, just people coming out to LA to pursue acting and...
Did you wear a Mickey Mouse suit?
You know, the hard life of Swingers.
Did you wear a Mickey Mouse suit?
I'd have killed for that role.
There was a lot of that going on.
You know, that skinny Vince Vaughn.
You look at Vince Vaughn in Swingers and you look at Vince Vaughn in the day.
It's a bit different now.
It's a John Favre.
A lot of booze.
Yeah, what happened there?
A lot of food.
Living a good life.
A lot of miles.
A lot of miles.
Hard miles.
So how do you fall into Fear Factor?
How does that...
I was the same casting director that worked with NBC for News Radio.
He just brought me in.
They were mostly interviewing like sports announcers and people.
They wanted it to be like serious.
And when I came in for the audition, I was actually mocking it.
I was laughing at it.
And they thought I was terrible for the job because I was mocking it.
And then somehow they realized like, look, if we don't mock it, someone else is
going to mock it.
Better to have our own guy mock it as it's happening.
Can I just take a flash?
Yeah, go ahead.
I just thought it was ridiculous.
You know, I thought you're going to sick dogs on people.
This is the most ridiculous show idea of all time.
How long did that show run for?
It just seemed like...
Six years, 148 episodes.
And then we came back and did another seven until we did an episode where
people had a drink cum.
They had a drink donkey cum.
Uh-oh.
Uh-oh.
And that's what got it canceled.
Uh-oh.
TMZ found out about it.
They put the images of this fucking giant beer stein of donkey cum and the
public outrage was...
But NBC was fine with it.
They had greenlit it.
They said that we could have the people drink cum.
Yeah, how bad could it be?
Well, you know what, man?
These people, everyone wants to push the envelope.
Yeah.
Where do you go next?
They keep pushing and pushing and pushing until finally...
They don't even realize how far they've crossed the line until other people
react to it.
Yeah, reality's blurred.
Well, I was telling them not to do it.
I mean, when I'm telling you that it's a bad idea...
Yeah, you know there's something wrong here.
Yeah.
There was two times when we did that show where I told people don't do it.
What was the other one?
Bull riding.
Yeah, they made people ride bulls.
And I said, this is a fucking bad idea, man.
Because you're dealing with an uncontrollable environment.
Environment, right.
You're dealing with an animal.
Yeah.
You know, I don't care if you think it's tame.
That's not tame.
It's a bull.
Just because you corralled it and you figured out a way to rope it or put it in
a cage,
that's not a tame thing.
Yeah.
A tame is a cat.
You go up to a kitty cat and you pet it.
It purrs.
It knows you're a person.
The cat's got claws, yeah.
That's a tame animal.
A dog's a tame animal.
Bulls are never fucking tame.
Yeah.
They will always fuck you up.
You know, bulls never come up to you to get pet.
You know?
They'll fucking stick their horn right up your ass and launch you over the top
of the arena.
They don't give a shit, you know?
I mean, we've all seen those images of a bull-
Gorging someone.
Yeah.
Have you seen the one where it goes through the guy's chin and out his mouth?
Yeah, yeah.
It's like that is, in my mind, why you should never fucking bullfight.
Like that image.
Or run with the bulls either.
Oh, that's the most ridiculous thing.
The thrill, they say.
Yeah, I don't get it.
The thrill of running with the bulls.
Like, what the fuck are you talking about, man?
Not my thing.
Not my thing.
You got animals with testosterone and giant balls and they're angry and they're
running down these-
Pissed off and angry.
Wet blood and fucking beer-soaked streets.
Everything's cobblestone and slippery.
And you're running to get away from these fucking bulls.
It's so stupid.
Not going out well.
I've been to that, the running the bulls.
You've done that?
No, I haven't done it.
I've seen it.
Why did they do it?
I thought that might have been one of the concussions.
Actually, no.
You've got a lot of stories, this guy.
You've actually had a-
Well, I've got a couple of podcasts lined up.
There's a doctor that's on there.
But Dan told me about it because he heard them.
But he's very into concussions and things.
Dr. Rhonda Patrick.
That's him.
Yeah.
No, her.
It's her.
Rhonda him.
That's him.
Well, we-
We talked about transvestites earlier, so.
Well, no.
She's a woman.
But she-
I took her to a UFC.
And her husband is-
He's a fan of it.
And I don't think she had ever watched it before.
Actually, I don't know if-
Is Dan a fan?
I don't know if he was a fan.
But anyway, I invited them because they live in Northern California.
So they came to the UFC and it was the first time she had ever seen it.
She literally had no idea what it was all about.
And after it was over, she was like, "Oh, my God."
And then she went deep on the show into the dangers of head trauma and all that's
going on.
Seems to be a lot of the day.
Yeah, I think-
Was that the one that I was at where Anthony Johnson knocked out-
Little Nog.
Yeah.
Yeah.
That was brutal.
Rogerio Noguera.
Yeah.
Beat the fuck out of him.
That's probably-
Left him with a headache the next day?
Oh, probably still.
Probably still to this day.
He probably gets up, "Oh, that fucking Rumble Johnson."
If you saw that, I mean, it was actually uncomfortable.
I wish they'd stopped it sooner, but yeah.
Well, it was a one-round knockout.
I mean, it was pretty quick.
But it was just-
He tagged him a couple times and put him away.
Yeah, Johnson's fighting for the number one title contention next-
Not next weekend, but the weekend after that in Sweden.
Yeah.
Who's the big top dog guy now?
John Jones is number one.
Just tested positive for cocaine.
Oops.
Oopsie-daisy.
Oopsie-daisy.
He entered into rehab.
People like to party.
He's an amazing fighter, though.
He's an amazing fighter.
He has a crazy reach.
Pretty arguably the best ever at this point in time.
He's only 27.
Wow.
My favorite, though, is Nick Diaz.
I love that guy.
Nick Diaz fighting in a couple weeks.
That's right.
January 30th in Vegas.
Against Anderson Silva.
Yeah.
That's crazy.
Is it 30th or 31st?
I remember that name.
Yeah.
Dude, Nick Diaz is-
He's just, like, got personality.
31st.
Well, no.
Portia guys?
No.
No, he's from Stockton.
I don't think so, dude.
No.
No.
He's awesome to watch fight, and he just does it like nobody else.
He's saying people from Stockton can't be Porsche guys?
Of course they can.
They just can't park them in front of their house and then sleep peacefully.
Yeah.
And, yeah, everything will be gone.
Out the window.
Yeah.
Yeah.
No, he's just awful.
He's a good dude.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So, you know, with things like, like, I posted an image of your car yesterday,
and somebody
wrote in the comments of Instagram, you know, I hate Porsche guys, they're all
show-offs.
Yeah.
Like, how hilarious is that?
They're all of them?
Yeah, every single one.
Every single one.
Every single one, yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
You can't just enjoy the engineering.
Right.
You can't, even if you was just by yourself, there was no one around, you didn't
even tell
anybody you had a Porsche.
You took the engine, the car cover off it and just drove it around a deserted
road and enjoyed
the shit out of it.
You can't do it by some people's views.
Yeah.
Well, look at him.
I mean, I thought he was a rocker when I first saw it.
Yeah.
Well, he looks so deceiving, right?
Yeah.
But some people, they've automatically, some people automatically associate
cars like Porsche's
or Ferrari's.
Yeah, for sure.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
It's an image thing.
Yeah.
You know, sometimes these Porsches don't leave that bevely little zip code.
You know, you go, you ever take it to the truck?
No, I don't want to get it chipped up.
I did see a guy in a Aston Martin repeat and he was definitely an agent.
Definitely an agent.
Hey, it is Hollywood, right?
It's a movie town.
I mean, he was looking at his phone and he was on a Bluetooth.
But you do that.
Yeah, but not, well.
Maybe you're an agent.
In bed and on the toilet.
Oh, okay.
I do it on the toilet.
Well, there's a lot of agents here.
So it's probably.
It is.
And it was like that time of the day where, you know, it's like we should be at
work, but
you're not.
It's not lunchtime.
So yeah, he's doing the meeting.
In the meeting.
Well, there's image cars and, you know, the big ones are of course Ferraris, a
big image car.
You know, that's like the probably the most obnoxious of all of them in a lot
of people's eyes.
That and Lamborghini.
Lamborghini's a big one.
Yeah.
Yeah.
They're so, they're outrageous and.
I think it's a key.
They always have one too for like the blue.
Jeremy Clarkson always says, you know, like M3 drivers are constantly on
Bluetooth and that's the big thing, you know?
Well, that's Jeremy Clarkson.
I don't know what the fuck he's talking about.
But he hates Porsches.
Talking of images though, you know, I tell this story all the time.
I think anyone growing up anywhere in the world in the 70s or 80s, chances are,
if you were a car guy, you had a choice of one or three posters.
Yeah.
Porsche Turbo, Lamborghini Countach and probably a Ferrari 512 Boxer or a Testarossa.
I had the BMW M1.
No way.
I had that on my wall.
The Alpino one?
Yeah.
That was a cool car, man.
How old are you?
47.
Oh, the same age.
Yeah, I had that on.
I didn't have the M1.
I had a model of that.
And it was a BASF.
Remember that company?
Yeah, yeah.
They used to make tape, basically.
Well, that was a cool car.
The BMW BASF tape car.
I remember that.
You should pull that up, dude, since you had that.
Pull up a BASF BMW.
Yeah.
Look at that.
And you'll be like, that's a cool car.
Well, I remember that was a space-age car back in the day.
But I look at it now, it looks like a piece.
Oh, you see those cars racing there.
Yeah, in the historics.
Unbelievable.
I saw the old-timer GP at Nürburgring.
Oh, that's...
Like 25 of them rolling around the F1.
That's the BASF.
Yeah.
I had that.
And my mom gave it away to someone when I left home.
How great is that?
I was like, thanks a lot, Mom.
Yeah, that's a kill car.
I can't find that.
Look at that, right?
And you know what?
And BASF is literally, you know...
Tape.
Tape.
You know, the tape for...
Remember Sony Walkman?
Oh, really?
That's what I mean by tape, you know?
I like the fender flares on that thing.
Well, dude, you love fenders, don't you?
Yeah, I'm a big fan of, like...
One of the things I love about, like, Jack Olsen's car.
Wide body.
Giant wide body fender flares.
I love those.
I love that car.
See, to me, that's the evolution of...
I spoke earlier on about liking the 2002 TII 3.0 CSL Batmobile.
Mm-hmm.
That, to me, is the evolution of that.
Do you like the 993 Ninemeister?
That RSR that they built?
I like those wide body cars.
People always ask me, do I like RWB?
I'm a big RWB fan.
I don't like those.
Really?
I like the car.
I get as far as, like, the Ninemeister, the RSR,
which is essentially, like, the GT2 body kit.
GT2 with the bolt on flares.
Yeah, there's an image for the 993 RSR.
Yeah, if you find a 993...
That's a fucking beautiful car, man.
Look at the ass end of that thing.
Click on that one that you were just at, Jamie.
Or get a white one so you can see the bolted on flares.
Yeah, white one, gold wheels.
Yeah, that's actually not even it, Jamie.
Click on the other one that you were just hovered above.
That right there, yeah.
That's the one that has the bolt on fender flares.
Yeah.
That's a fucking beautiful ass right there.
That's Jennifer Lopez to me.
Bam!
Look at that ass.
But also it's got Ronda Rousey on it, too.
Look at those wide ass fucking tires, too, man.
Giant tires.
Giant tires.
That thing's...
Pull up my STR and we'll see what Joe thinks to that.
Yeah, that's...
Just punch in Magnus Walker or STR or something like that.
Well, I've seen that car.
I love that car.
I love the back end of it.
I saw that car in person when we visited you.
Click that speed on this thing.
We...
Well, there's Tiff Nadell driving it there, but just go to the top.
Oh, there's a video of Tiff Nadell?
Yeah, Tiff Nadell.
Pull that up.
You never saw that on fifth gear, Tiff driving it?
Pull that up.
Look at that car, dude.
So, go back to the...
Remember, I spoke earlier on about doing something with Tiff Nadell.
Right.
That's it right there for his...
Oh, let's see that, man.
Let me see that.
For appropriate audiences.
Oh, here we go.
In the studio.
It was not...
Your car was not overly horse-powered either.
I mean, it was fairly reasonable.
No.
A short stroke 3.2.
Probably 2.7.
Is Tiff Nadell pulling into your driver with that horrible piece of shit?
Yeah.
Tiff and I drive it from downtown all the way up to the Snake.
And then he...
If you fast-forward it...
What was that truck that pulled in?
Was that his truck?
No, that was, you know, Jonathan Ward from Icon does the Derelicts.
Oh, that's his?
That's his.
Oh, wow.
Have you met him, Jonathan Ward?
No, no.
Oh, cool, dude.
You've got to get him on the show.
Well, we were talking about those cars that he makes yesterday, that Bronco
that he makes.
Oh, yeah, the Icon thing.
Which is incredible.
And he makes those old cars and they look like old shitboxes, but they have
incredible suspensions.
Well, yeah, that's his Derelicts where he finds those old beat-up patinaed
shells and everything underneath his new mechanical.
Yeah, but he doesn't do anything to the outside of it.
No.
Well, that's what's cool about it.
I don't think so.
So here's Tiff working it.
What is he saying here?
He's saying, "I'm looking for Ronin."
He's saying, "Where's that GT2?"
So this is sort of the inspiration for Alex's Sharpworks GT2 right there a
little bit.
And how fast is this car?
I mean, how many horsepower is this car that he's driving here?
275.
And it probably weighs 2,000 pounds, right?
2250.
So all steel, no fiberglass on it.
Yeah.
Well, if you wanted to get it lower, you'd have to go fiberglass.
And how much lower could you get it?
Yeah, not well.
You could go under 2,000, which is magic.
Could you really?
Yeah.
Oh, my God.
Why didn't you?
You pretty much just have a seat in the wheel.
That was all steel, you know?
You like the steel.
Yeah.
So the only reason why to go all fiberglass would be just for the weight.
Yeah, now you go carbon fiberglass.
But that stuff just cracks.
I mean, I've had fiberglass fenders before on wide body, old 911s, and then it's
just not
the same.
It cracks.
That looks so exciting.
This is the car that I sold at the Gooding auction at the 50th anniversary at
Pebble Beach.
How dare you?
Do you miss it?
Well, here's the great thing about it.
I have visitation rights to it.
It now resides in what I think is the greatest Porsche collection in the
country in Durham,
North Carolina.
I love those prototype steering wheels, those old school Momo steering wheels.
Yeah, that's an old fat Momo right there.
Oh, those are the best.
Yeah, I've actually driven this car three or four times in the past year.
Really?
Yeah, North Carolina.
I drove it down to Fort Bragg, and then in Monterey, I shot a video with
Patrick Long
and this up in Monterey.
Wow.
Well, if you wreck it, do you have to build him a new one?
I didn't wreck it.
I mean, come on, who thinks about that?
But if you do?
Sure, I'd take care of it.
Thankfully, I know my limitations on the road, and I never push above and
beyond them.
Looks like it's got a red bumper.
Yeah, red bumper.
That's an inside joke.
Yeah, red bumper right there.
Red bumper.
Now, what about this car doesn't have any spoiler in the back?
No.
There's nothing.
It's just flat in the back.
I think I'm an issue with speed.
Maybe if you're at Willow Springs going through turn eight flat out like a buck
35, 140 maybe,
but on the street, no.
Doesn't make any difference at all?
Not on the street.
Like a ducktail wouldn't aid it in any way?
I mean, let's say you're on a freeway on a sweeper doing 125, 130 miles an hour.
Yeah, maybe then.
But it's still fun sort of having that rear end move around a little bit.
And that's okay.
When you need to do that, you can do it in the water-cooled 41 with the big off.
Well, this guy is relentless in his pursuit to get you to accept the water-cooled
car.
One interesting little point.
The guy that shot these photos for speed hunters, Sean Klingenhofer, we're
actually going to be doing a photo shoot with him in about an hour in downtown
LA.
Oh, really?
Yeah, we're meeting him at three.
Oh, nice.
So how cool is that?
That was the inspiration for our car.
And I'm having the same guy shoot it.
And now he's having the same guy shoot it in the same spot.
Oh, that's amazing.
So that's the 72 911 right there.
And does the louvered deck lid like that, does that have any function?
It adds cooling, obviously.
It adds style, but obviously air is coming out of it.
Yeah, so it's full man function.
I mean, have you seen his new, well, it's not even finished.
It was like one of the coolest talked about cars at SEMA this year.
Have you seen the one with the louvered flares that was at the mobile one booth?
Oh, the louvered front fender.
Yeah, two years ago.
Where can I see that?
Is it online?
Yeah, you can see it online.
What could they look up?
What would Jamie look up?
Just punching 67STR.
Let me briefly tell you my SEMA story.
I'm sure you're familiar with SEMA.
Magnus Walker, 67STR.
That's it.
Yeah.
Just go images.
Punching Magnus Walker, 67SRT.
SRT?
SRT.
SRT, Magnus Walker.
Yeah, just put Magnus Walker.
Oh, dude, top down right there.
Well, click that one on the left.
So let me tell you my mobile one story real briefly, or my SEMA story.
Two years ago, I snuck into SEMA on someone else's pass.
And if you go back to that, this year I got invited by mobile one to display
two cars in their booth, which had three cars.
The other one was a pro touring sort of 67 Camaro.
But that's just how crazy my life had become in the past two years.
From sneaking into the SEMA show in Vegas, which is the biggest sort of aftermarket
specialty equipment show, to being invited by mobile one.
All from one documentary.
Yeah, I never thought that.
None of this has been scripted.
There's no PR person behind.
It's me and an iPhone same.
Well, that's what I enjoyed about meeting you at your shop.
There's no agent here.
The way we met is my friend Todd, Todd Messereau, who is the producer of my
show on Syfy.
Todd is a Porsche guy.
He owns a 993, loves Porsches.
And we were talking about you.
I showed him the video.
We had gone back and forth.
And he goes, you know, we're going to be in downtown next week.
Like, let's contact Magnus.
Let's go see if we can see his shop.
So he called you.
You answered.
I answered the phone all the time.
And then you guys had a conversation.
And after we shot, we just drove down and hung out with Magnus for a couple
hours.
I emailed him right before the Jay Leno show and right after.
And I said, is it still okay to come, right?
And he's like, yeah, yeah, no, it was like Friday at 9:00 p.m.
I arrived there.
The gate opens.
And my wife was real happy.
His wife was real happy.
And then he's like, oh, cool, man.
I was just reading about it on the cover, blah, blah, blah.
And I'm like, all right, we'll go for a ride.
Yeah, yeah, let me drive it.
So I hear him wailing around.
Well, not wailing, just putting around.
Oh, it's your 4.1.
Yeah, putting around in the 4.1 GT3 RS.
And Dan, who's in the passenger seat, you know, he's telling me later, yeah, he's
going like,
yeah, just one more lap, just one more lap, just one more lap.
And right before he got in the car, right before he gets in the car.
Sorry, this is going to throw you under the bus a bit.
He's talking to his wife, Karen, and going, oh, I've just got some stragglers
in.
They're the last ones of the day.
I swear, I'm just kicking them out right now.
You know, just kicking them out.
I'm kicking them out.
I swear, I'm coming over it.
Right?
And 70 freaking laps later.
I got to throw out props to my wife, Karen.
I've been with her for over 20 years.
And that's why I'm the luckiest guy in the world is I've got, first of all, she's
beautiful.
She's my Georgia Peach.
And she just allows me to be this crazy fool sort of, you know, enjoying my
life.
But without her, I don't think we'd be here today.
So, yeah.
You're not hand-pecked is what you're trying to say.
I'm just saying I love my wife and she's super supportive is what I'm saying.
Dude, my wife for my birthday, before I even had a shop, this is what she got
me.
It was a set of the first Brembo GTR brakes that I could put on my really fast
turbo.
And she helped me install nitrous lines when I was, you know, drag racing it.
That's a key for right there.
That's a key for right there.
That's a key for right there.
That's a key for right there.
And she makes video games.
So, we're used to.
Is there another way to take those naturally aspirated engines and get them
anywhere near
as powerful as that 800 horsepower that you have in that GT2?
Is there a way?
I mean, have we reached the limitations?
I mean, the limitations essentially on the air-cooled cars, it gets up to like
450.
Yeah.
Like, didn't Ninemeister get, they got a 993 engine up to like 450 horsepower?
I mean, it's really pushing a round thing through a square peg, you know, or
whatever the freaking thing is.
I don't think you need 800 horsepower with an early.
All the electronics.
Yeah, but I'm not asking whether or not you need it.
I'm saying, is it possible?
I mean, have you.
I don't think you can get 800.
But again, I'm not building it.
Out of a natural aspect.
I'm not talking about an early car.
I'm talking about like, your car, the 4.1, you got up to 560.
Yeah.
Like, what is the limitation?
Is that it?
So, that's an interesting question.
So, you can make more, but what's the delivery of more?
So, we probably, yeah, we could, you know, bore and stroke it out to 4 point
whatever we want.
4 point what?
I mean, how much?
4.3, 4.
Really?
You know, it's been looked at and the math's been done.
The problem is, and we've tried certain things.
We've tried, what happens is the pistons get larger, you know, they get heavier.
Then it stops feeling like a GT3 and feels like a, you know, sloppy V8 or
shitty V8.
You know what I mean?
Oh, because there's more weight in the back.
Yeah.
Well, there's more weight, you know.
I mean, think about heavier pistons and balance, you know.
Okay.
I mean, you can add more displacement, but how are you going to do that?
There's cost involved in terms of more weight.
Right.
I mean, V8 is the enemy in a GT3.
Just go get a muscle car.
Yeah, exactly.
You want to be revving.
Part of the thing with that 4.1 is that I thought it was still a GT3.
Like, you get in it and it's like, it's still related.
Like, it's related to your 3.9.
Oh, yeah.
Right?
For sure.
It's not like the GT2.
So you could technically make a big, you know, I mean, the GT2 doesn't rev the
same way,
you know?
It feels heavy.
It's got heavier, stronger components in it.
I think Joe needs to drive 277.
I think he does.
I do.
I'm pissed it's raining.
I think you need to drive that.
You do.
And then you probably need an early car in your stable, I think.
And that way you can sort of see how the less is more lightweight, smaller
displacement,
work a little bit harder, approach to getting a thrill out of driving gears.
And then you'll probably have the best of both worlds.
Mentor me, Magnus Walker.
Help me.
We'll just go for a drive.
That's all we're going to do.
We talked a lot about that.
We talked a lot about that.
We talked about, Alex and I actually talked about him building me a 964.
We talked about that.
Oh, that's a thing I want to build, a lightweight 964 RS inspired car.
Can you come to the right?
Yeah.
How light can you get one of those?
They start out pretty heavy.
They're actually heavier than a 993.
Really?
Mm-hmm.
Why is that?
Just the time period, you know?
They got heavier and heavier.
So a lot of people, they were sort of hated on a bit.
Now they're really popular because they looked kind of awkward.
They're in a weird middle stage.
Yeah.
It's like the end of the road for the early styling, moving into the 993.
Porsche guys are fickle, aren't we?
We always say--
964 was the unloved 911.
Yeah.
I mean, you could find them all day long under 20 grand, but not anymore.
Now you're poor.
Yeah.
The tables have turned.
Yeah.
Technology was different than a lack of it, I should say.
Yeah.
It was just heavier.
Well, Piston Heads featured this really nice one recently, a white one that was
like really
radical.
Look at you, Piston Heads.
I'm impressed, dude.
I'm impressed.
You're bringing out the English flag.
I got a computer.
Look at that.
He's an anglophile.
Yeah, he is.
Is that what we call him?
Well, that one that they did do though, that one 964 was very nice.
Sexy.
Really lightweight.
I think the license plate said Growler or something like that.
The thing that sucks though, and this is the bad stuff.
That's my buddy's car, Alex Bermuda's car, the white one.
Have you driven that car?
Yes, I have.
What's it like?
A great car.
A story with Alex, punching Alex Bermuda's because I got him into the Porsche
owner club
and now he's become a really--
Piston Heads had 964 Growler.
Pull up Growler.
Yeah, just punching Alex Bermuda's.
That's it.
There you go.
There it is.
The back one.
Yeah, he's a local guy.
That's it, yeah.
Yeah.
Oh, is that your wall?
No.
I thought it was.
I'm just kidding.
Alex is a cool guy.
I actually got-- I was his first driving instructor with a Porsche owner club.
And he runs a spec box to run my buddy Tyson Schmidt that used to work at TRE
built that car
and then Alex bought it from him and did his own customization.
What's that like to drive?
Is it like one of your lightweight cars?
It feels like 277 pumped up.
These sort of these stepping stones.
To me, that's in between 277 and the GT3 3.9.
But is it as tactile as your 277?
Yeah, it is.
The whole deal?
The thing that really sucks though is that a lot of those cool cars never
really made it here.
Like the RS is-- they had like an RS America.
Right.
But it's not the same.
You know, we had the one with the big fuck off wing on the back.
You know, plexiglass windows.
Uh-huh.
Sort of-- it's a shame in a sense that the States never gets a lot of these
great cars.
You know, like the 73Rs never really officially came in here.
Is that because of safety regulations?
Yeah.
And they don't want to crash them, I guess, or whatever.
Yeah.
Not everyone's Bill Gates or he doesn't want one maybe, you know.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Well, this is a really interesting conversation and a lot of people probably
are ignorant to the joys of these lightweight, exciting cars like what you have.
And certainly to what you're building, these extreme versions of the race-bred
911s.
You know, they're fascinating cars.
And it's a group of people that enjoy them that it generates such incredible
loyalty and passion.
You know, it's really unlike most cars in that sense.
Yeah.
Well, I mean, you hadn't even-- I'd not even met you.
And the first phone call we pretty much had, like, I was like, man, he gets it.
You rattled off all this stuff about GT3s, you know, because you had the 2010
and I'd had it.
So I'd had that connection.
And yeah, you'd watch the video.
And I pretty much, you know, we just kind of riffed for like an hour or so
after work.
And I didn't want to stop.
You literally shipped him a brand new car?
That was the story.
Yeah, you did.
You never even took delivery.
I didn't even met him.
I just saw my wife's video.
That's it.
Wow.
I gotta go back and see this video.
Well, that video of the green Kermit.
You've never seen that video?
No.
Throw that bitch out.
I'm gonna go do my homework, I think.
Throw that bitch out.
3.9 GT3 Kermit.
Bear in mind, it was done on her Avid station back before we had high def
cameras.
Hey, they matter.
Got Joe interested in it.
Doesn't matter, man.
Throw up the video.
Look at that sick bitch.
Yeah, Porsche versus Ferrari.
That's a good one.
We'll see it.
It smokes this, not even a stock 458.
It's a 458 that's been modified, right?
It's a 430.
Yeah, this was on battle.
It was a 430.
That's the new one.
That's the new one.
Yeah, this was back at Beale Air Force.
They shut down.
How great is America?
They shut down Beale Air Force Base so that we could film a TV show with Tanner
Faust
and Paul Tracy.
Oh, this was the one you were talking about?
Yeah, yeah.
And it was...
Boy, is that shaky as fuck?
What is she holding that with an iPhone?
No, no, she's not.
No, no, no, no, no, no.
She's doing the editing.
I'm doing the...
Who's driving?
Tanner and...
Tanner's driving the green car and Paul Tracy's driving that one.
Look at the fucking wheel spin off that baby.
That's your car, baby.
That's your.
Just a green version of it.
Well, talking of Tanner, I just saw he posted on Instagram that he's liking the
GT2.
Yeah, he likes it, yeah.
Did he drive that thing?
Not yet.
Yeah, he's got an invitation.
That's the guy you want driving that fucking thing.
That's, yeah, and Chris.
That guy's a mad man.
And Chris Harris.
Did you ever see...
Yeah, and Chris Harris.
But Tanner Faust is a real race car driver.
No, I've taken laps with him, dude.
Yeah.
He's also...
Rockstar.
A lot of people don't sort of give him credit, but, you know, because he's a
drift boy or whatever.
But he beat, like, Michael Schumacher, you know, in the Race of Champions.
And I've driven with him, like, on the track in my cars that I've built.
And I didn't even know they could go that fast.
I didn't know that he wasn't going to use any brakes.
I mean, he's an animal, dude.
Doesn't he use brakes?
Just lightly just to set the car up.
That's it.
Get some front-end balance.
Yeah, exactly.
I was just like, you're coming in really fast.
There's a wall right there.
And he says, yeah, that's really close, you know, as he's turning.
And he just lightly taps it.
And we're flying around the...
Well, he compresses the suspension so much at the hairpin of Sears Point.
And this was for Speed Channel.
That the front lip that I had on there, literally, it touched it and it
exploded.
It shattered.
We thought, like, we blew a tire.
And the guy that owns the track says, oh, I've seen that a couple of times on,
you know, the cut cars.
Just compression.
You know?
And he's doing that on our street car.
Yeah, just compression.
How could that be avoided?
Can you not avoid that?
Raise it.
Not go quite as fast.
You not have Tanner Faust drive?
I don't know.
Have you ever seen the video on Top Gear, the US version, where he's taking
this Corvette Z06 around this industrial area?
Yeah, that was one of the early ones.
That was one of the early ones.
Holy shit, is it wild.
He's a stud.
Oh, he's an animal, the way that guy drives.
He's super nice.
He knows what the fuck he's doing.
It's so, like, precise and surgical, the way he's taking corners.
Well, on that TV show, it was called Battle of the Supercars.
It wasn't the world's greatest show, but like I said, they shut down a stealth,
you know, that's where they fly all the UAVs that kill all the terrorists.
That's where they operate.
It's Beale Air Force Base.
Like, we weren't even allowed to look in certain directions, and there were
lines with people with guns that would shoot you.
They would shoot you if you looked?
Don't look.
Don't even look.
I don't know, dude.
Don't look or don't cross.
Don't step over this line.
Right.
It's a flag for the drama, have you noticed?
A little bit.
Yeah, no.
Well, no, I got to drive the car with a U-2 spy plane taking off, and I was
like the touch-and-go car, basically.
And he's like, don't get any closer or it'll burn your fucking paint off.
Yeah, I would imagine.
Right?
Those jet engines?
Yeah.
That's a badass little ride.
Gentlemen, we're out of time, but this has been a lot of fun.
It's been emotional.
Yes, and people need to watch your documentary if they haven't seen it.
It's Urban Outlaw.
It's available on Vimeo.
It's beautiful.
It's magnificent.
You're going to want to buy a Porsche.
If you do want to buy a Porsche and you want to get crazy, if you want to get a
GT3, send it to this guy.
Fuck it.
You only live once.
If you can afford to, send it to Shark Works.
How bad can it be, right?
Juice that bitch up, and you'll be flying in no time.
Thank you, gentlemen.
Really appreciate it.
A lot of fun.
Shark Works on Instagram.
Shark Works on Instagram and Shark Works on W-E-R-K-S on Twitter and Instagram.
Gentlemen, always a pleasure.
Good times.
Get that fucking shark out of there.
Get out and drive.
Get out and drive.
There we go.
Rock on.
Rock on.
Whoa.
Okay, that's a wrap.
That was fun.
Thanks, man.
Whoa, three hours went pretty quick right there.
Here you go.
Thank you, brother.
Thank you.
Thanks for all the time.