The Most Fun Car At Each Price Point, Van Life In A Car, Jail Speeds In First Gear | Episode 1,015

Interactive Transcript

Speaker A It's another podcast. Thanks for joining us. We're glad to have you back with us. And we have. We've decided we're not even going to do questions this time. We're just going to do the actual.

Speaker B News so we can get to conclusions.

Speaker A We're going to get to conclusions. We're going to do an actual idea that we have that came from one of your questions, actually. That is the whole topic Tuesday, about great cars at different price points.

Speaker B This is good.

Speaker A We're going to have really two really interesting car debates, some conclusions. It's still going to be a long podcast. We're very excited about it. I am going to jump in first with two very different bits of news about the current market, the current car market.

Speaker B I want to, like, shuffle papers or like.

Speaker A Yeah, for sure. Yeah, it's that kind of stack some.

Speaker B Papers or do something to.

Speaker A For sure. This is the news. The Lexus ls. This is the car that put Lexus on the map.

Speaker B Yeah.

Speaker A This is the car that, when they.

Speaker B Announced how it's changed through the years.

Speaker A Seriously, when they announced it, it was. Remember all of the, the champagne glasses on the, on the hood and the whole thing? I mean, this was Lexus going almost too far to prove a point. Yes. And this is what made Lexus a real brand and a real luxury competitor. And honestly, the concept of Lexus then carries forward to this day, but the LS really put them on the map and it's now dead. I am showing a photo of the first gen and the current gen. They're doing like a weird Heritage Edition thing for the last few people that are going to buy it that I guess are less fans. Please buy it, I guess.

Speaker B Does this mean they're no longer a luxury brand if they're getting rid of the car that launched their brand?

Speaker A No, because what it shows is where the market is going and that is away from these big sedans into SUVs.

Speaker B Yeah.

Speaker A Okay. So, you know, obviously Audi is hanging on. BMW is hanging on. Mercedes, of course, is still trying to lead the charge because the. The S Class is their signature vehicle. But even they leaned in with the EQ lineup and thought they were going to go away from all their normal stuff. Of course that's having pullback, but very interesting that this is dead. I see this less as a failure on the part of Lexus because I don't see it as a failure on part of Lexus. I see it as a real bellwether of where the market is.

Speaker B I did see a Maybach GLS 600 in town. That is the official shuttle vehicle for one of the high end luxury hotels in Park City. It is the Maybach version. And I thought, wonder if Lexus could do some sort of luxury brand above Lexus and do the Sequoia chassis. They'll just build the equivalent because it was the S class that they chased to launch that car.

Speaker A But they'll just do it with the.

Speaker B New LX now, do it with the.

Speaker A New land and make it even a super luxury. I don't know. What is the Lexus? I don't know. Century Edition, what are they going to call it? I don't know. Yeah, they could. So that's happened. I don't have really any commentary other than this is a real representation of where we are. The other thing going on, representation of where we are is the Ford and GM news. Not a collaboration. I mean not officially. I mean they've done things like maybe soon, maybe. Yeah, they've done things like, you know, the 10 speed transmission together and they've shared technology. Even though they supposedly hate each other, they've shared technology. But the reason we're talking GM and Ford right now is an interesting little. How do I put this tactfully? It's a loophole. Let's put it that way. It's a loophole, okay? Because as you've probably heard, this is the beginning of October when we're recording this and there has been actually an increase in the buying and leasing of electric vehicles here in the US because the tax credit, the $7,500 tax credit was ending September 30th. So it just ended a few days before we were recording this. Okay. A lot of people were buying and leasing right up until the deadline it turned all of the electric cars positively.

Speaker B Rivian's had massive sales because everybody knew.

Speaker A It was going to fall off a cliff when the EV tax credit ended. Except Ford and gm. I'm sure they have some very well paid lawyers and beyond that, some even more well paid accountants. And those two groups got together and had some coffee and they came to the conclusion and they even apparently talked to the IRS to confirm their reading was correct. Because the reading is this. In order to still qualify for the tax credit, all it meant is that a customer had to at least put an initial down payment on a vehicle even if they didn't take delivery before September 30th and they could still get the tax credit officially. So what GM and Ford have done is had their finance arms pay an initial down payment on all of the remaining EV inventory, which essentially puts a pin in all of those cars with a $7,500 potential tax credit sitting waiting in the wings because the first payment's been paid. So if you go and lease a GM or Ford vehicle through the end of the year or whenever, all of these ones that have been marked actually sell, you could still get this credit. So while this is the letter of the law, technically legal, I don't think this is the spirit of the law. But that's, I mean not that like that doesn't happen with every car company in some way, but I just think this is really interesting. This is technically news. They have officially done this. So you could still get a tax credit. If you rush out to your GM or Ford dealer right now, even though the credits are gone, you could still do it because they've lived in the.

Speaker B Gray area there's going to bite them somehow.

Speaker A This is maybe.

Speaker B I don't predict success with this. Well, it's a short term solve.

Speaker A What it does is it allows them to continue to say, and I bet you money you're about to see some sort of national commercial, be it YouTube or somewhere where they talk about tax credits are still available. They're going to advertise this in order to move stuff in this last quarter, maybe into next year. They have figured out a way to do that. They are going to market it and promote it. We'll see if it's a problem. What it's not going to do, it's not going to change the trajectory of EVs. Whatever's going to happen with EVs is irrelevant to this maneuver.

Speaker B Only change the balance sheet for.

Speaker A Yes, of course it will.

Speaker B Fiscal year for them and that's all that matters to report to Wall street to show whatever they want to show.

Speaker A You have to grow every single quarter, Paul. That's the only, that's the only thing you're supposed to ever show Wall Street. You grow every single quarter. You didn't know this? Successful companies don't matter anymore, Paul. Selling more product, irrelevant. Just do you look on paper like you grew from last time so we can give the appropriate people bonuses? I'm being very cynical today. Welcome to the podcast. By the way. You and I want to be in Europe. The two of us are wearing Europe shirts today. So apparently we want to be in Europe. We will be going back to Europe next year. We'd love to have you with us. There'll be a of trips. In fact, we're going to do a cool one to Portugal and Spain. Really Fun.

Speaker B Very excited for 2020.

Speaker A That's going to be really great. A lot planned. Oh, okay. You've jumped to other news.

Speaker B I've got some more news and that is based on an article on the drive from Chris Chilton who reported on Nissan Z cars now outselling Toyota Supras. He defines a number of different reasons. So here is the Nissan USA website and I'm very intrigued by this because why now? Why are Nissan Z's just now starting to sell? And through the third quarter of 2025 they've more than doubled supra sales but that 5,000 versions of the Nissan Z have been sold to about 2500, maybe a little bit less. GR Supras.

Speaker A The question is how much has the Supra slid as well?

Speaker B It has slid a little bit now. It's an older car. It obviously came out before the Z did. And also Chris reports that the Z car starts at a lower price. Yes, it think this just shows the market is hungry for these cars. The Z's now been out for a few years. Why is it now just starting to catch fire and outsell its competition? Why now? Yes, money, I guess. You can get one.

Speaker A Yeah.

Speaker B There's the special edition coming up that hits the, you know, Chris writes the hits the hearts of z owners like 300zx owners and all that is fine. Which proves that special editions work, I guess.

Speaker A I suppose, yeah.

Speaker B But I just think it is a reflection of people want sports cars, people want GT cars and there is a dearth of product offerings available in the market. This, the super has been out, Everybody kind of knows. All right, the GR super, it's good, we've had it. The Z4. Great. What's next? Oh the, the Z car.

Speaker A Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker B It's.

Speaker A Everything else is dying. It's the one that people haven't seen enough of yet. Okay, maybe, but it shows for me.

Speaker B Room to run for this market. So whoever comes out with the next ZN super competitor, whatever that is, I think they will do very well. This shows hunger in the market to me.

Speaker A It's never going to be a volume selling world. It just isn't. But I do like that that at least exists. That is fascinating. Little point.

Speaker B We're adding FCP Euro as our partners and supporters for both everyday driver and hooked on driving. For nearly 40 years, FCP Euro has been an industry leading supplier of genuine original equipment and OEM parts and performance upgrades for European cars.

Speaker A That means BMW, Audi, Volkswagen, Mini, Mercedes, Volvo, Porsche and even Saab. Paul, you have to call your brother in law and tell him FCP Euro is the place because as I just said, even Saab, we're putting it in the ad anyway.

Speaker B They offer a lifetime replacement guarantee on everything including consumables like brake pads, wiper blades and even oil filters. Buy a replacement, send back the old one and receive a credit for the full amount for your SAAB. Plus FCP Euro offers free economy shipping on orders over $49 and a 90 day hassle free return for new, unused and uninstalled parts.

Speaker A So visit FCP Euro today for more than 300,000 parts ready to ship for your European car and your Saab. Fcpuro.com this is our topic Tuesday and it's more list time because we like lists here at Everyday Driver. But I went a couple places with this and I want to put it in perspective. Our listener Kyle Bliss wrote in as a question and we knew this was a topic Tuesday right away. It couldn't be answered quickly. The question was what's the most fun car at certain price points? And he gave the following 5k, 10k, 20k, 50k, 75k and 100k. What is the most Now I want to reiterate the most fun car.

Speaker B Yes.

Speaker A So I let that filter through my headspace. Yeah. And I came up with it needs to be lightweight, focused. Meaning it doesn't need to do anything else but be fun.

Speaker B Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker A Involving and probably special and unique. Those are my kind of personal categories for it. But again, 5, 10, 20,000, 50,000, 75,000 and 100,000. What is the most fun car? Doesn't need to do groceries, doesn't need to carry family. Does. I mean, doesn't need to do anything else but just you get in it and you have fun driving it. Which is a fascinating thing. And then I went down an unexpected rabbit hole. Okay. And I have to start there. And maybe it's a rabbit hole, maybe it's the obvious, but I'm just going to enjoy the fun of the following. Okay. All right. And that is okay. For $5,000 you could get yourself a first gen. There's quite a few out there actually. In a Mazda MX5 Miata. Yeah. For $5,000. Yep. Yep. For $10,000 you could get yourself a. Believe it or not, NC is even possible. For $10,000aMazda MX5 Miata. For $10,000. For $20,000 you could get yourself a slightly used fourth generation MX5 RF Miata or convertible. Doesn't matter. But the point is the current gen is down to 20 in used market.

Speaker B That's pretty amazing. 2017 here.

Speaker A Yeah. So that's the $20,000 figure. For $50,000 you could get yourself a with a couple dollars left over for taxes. A brand new MX5 Miata RF. I went on the, on the site and literally built one today just to see how much I could get.43155 for an RF with all the goodies. So once taxes, it's a $50,000 car. There you go. However, here's what's even funnier. I was looking at Miatas at all price points today and I came across a guy who really, really doesn't want to sell his Miata.

Speaker B Okay.

Speaker A Because showing the photo of a person who is listing their 1996 MX5 Miata base with 150,000 miles, he says in the description he really, really didn't think about selling it until right now. And it is listed. I'm hoping this is a typo. It is listed at 50,000 DOL, 150,000 mile, 1st gen Miata. He would like $50,000 please. And it says in the description, never thought I'd sell it until recently. This is a man who does not want to sell his miata. But for $50,000, working with our list, you could have a Miata.

Speaker B Everybody has their price.

Speaker A Everybody has their price, but I'm still going because we have two more price points. $75,000. I got you. Oh my God. An MX5 Miata Sport fully built race car. It's an NC Miata. Here it is, $75,000, currently being offered for 117,000 miles. It has a salvage title because of course it does. It's a race car. It's an NC Miata 2006 Miata sport race car. And you thought that $100,000, I'd get stumped, but I didn't. $100,000 everybody. You can just go right on over. A couple of years back, selling on Bring a Trailer was Flying Miata's actual test car with a 6.2 liter V8 in it. It was the flying Miata LS3.6 speed. It sold on bring a trailer for $99,787, which we can all agree is just a hundred grand. So I have just done the entire list, Kyle, with just Miatas. And I'm saying that because I do not intend to return to them again. We can acknowledge, yes, Miata could be the answer, but let's go somewhere else.

Speaker B I agree to that. And as funny as that is, I don't think there's another car on the planet that you can do that with.

Speaker A It is pretty unique. In fact, one of the other rules I gave for myself is on all of these price points. I never wanted to touch the same car again.

Speaker B I agree to that.

Speaker A Yes. I also wanted to be like, okay, I'm gonna touch it there and I'm not going to touch it again. Even though you can find some of them at various price points. But you're right, I've just run the table with an MX5 Miata. I ran the table.

Speaker B I'm amazed that you did the high end Miatas. I mean, okay, race car, but then I had no idea that that was a hundred thousand dollar. The test car.

Speaker A I thought it was out there somewhere. I Knew There was 100 grand out there somewhere. This is what happens with bring a trailer and things that can't be made anymore.

Speaker B Auction price though.

Speaker A Hundred thousand dollar Miata, it's probably brilliant. I doubt it's a hundred thousand dollars. Not.

Speaker B I mean if we're spending $100,000, you got to really like Miatas to walk away or walk past, as you say, everything else you get for 100 grand.

Speaker A But again, for those of you. Look, for those of you watching right now or listening and are thinking Miata is always the answer. I have proven Miata is the answer. I guess you can turn the podcast off and we're going to go other places now. But I did think I could run the table and I got hard. The guy trying to sell his N A for $50,000 made it kind of pretty funny. But I thought you were going to.

Speaker B Say, well, at five grand, na. At ten grand, two nas. At 20 grand, four nas you could stack up.

Speaker A That's funny.

Speaker B At 50 grand you can get an NC and four nas or what?

Speaker A What's crazy to me is that you really can get the, the early ones of the current gen, the ND3 at 20. That really does amaze me. Which means every generation you could find for under 20 and then above that, how crazy do you want to go? And, and I am not. Look, I, I am a guy that likes the MX5 Miata. I don't fit into most of them, but I do like them. Anytime we drive them, we is a car that epitomizes fun. It's not all that's out there, but I had to follow the joke. The whole, the whole list, just Miata and pretty good.

Speaker B You did well with it. Yeah, you did well. Okay, so are you going to come back to your actual list?

Speaker A Go, go somewhere Else and I'll come back to my actual list later, which includes, by the way, no Miatas.

Speaker B Okay, fair enough.

Speaker A Well, now that you've covered it, so.

Speaker B I'm going to go endlessly, I am going to jump in with my list here and it does include at the $5,000 price point, the NA, because it does need to be acknowledged here.

Speaker A Agreed. Yes.

Speaker B But what I did for my list was similar to yours. Cars need to be not mentioned again. There were some real close ones that I couldn't decide. So there are a few at certain price points that I just couldn't decide on the right one. So they all get a gold star at that price point. They all fit in there.

Speaker A All right, good.

Speaker B But also I ignored trim level maintenance issues, like I wonder if it's going to run. I ignored year I just went for pure fun. Only it doesn't matter. The powertrain, doesn't matter. The maintenance, how scary it is like.

Speaker A Oh, I bet I know a couple of.

Speaker B So don't buy one of those because of whatever reason, I just went purely for fun, imagining that all these cars worked perfectly.

Speaker A They'll all be fine. They're all going to be fine. Paul, I don't know what you're questioning.

Speaker B Any Miata under 5K and it doesn't have to be an NA. It can be really any Miata 5K. We've always said when you buy a $5,000 car, you're not buying a $5,000 car because of all the stuff that it's going to need. But mostly these will just run and it doesn't matter the mileage. So okay, $5,000, I'm just simply acknowledge that acknowled. Acknowledging it. Starting there.

Speaker A I love it. It's great.

Speaker B Quickly moving on to the second category at $10,000 would be for me, the Ford Fiesta ST. They are 10 grand above and below. It doesn't have to be right bang on. I kind of gave myself, you know, a few thousand leeway on either side of the price point. But Fiesta st, we've driven them recently and I cannot, I'm so reminded. I cannot believe how fun they are.

Speaker A Yeah.

Speaker B And it also doesn't matter the drive wheels. It's just a fun car to drive. You think? I hope it lasts. I hope the turbo doesn't go. I hope the maintenance is fine. But you know what? Throw all of that out. Is it just pure fun? For ten grand you can get one of these right now. Absolutely. Get yourself a Fiesta St at $10,000. Yes to that. It's at the $20,000 price level, where things start to diverge a little bit for me. But 20k, I went and found $20,000 gr86s. The problem is at that price level, there's a lot of brand on autotepis.

Speaker A Because that's the bottom. That's the bottom.

Speaker B I did find some at that price point that have higher miles. They're not branded titles, so that does count. Here is our show car that we had for a long time, and I do miss that car.

Speaker A It's a great car. Yeah.

Speaker B And then most recently at the Toyota event that we hit in May 2025, this is taken at Eagles Canyon Raceway. The new Yuzu edition of the GR86 body kit quad pipes out back in that brilliant yellow color. Looks fantastic. No changes as far as power, but still brilliant car to drive. We had this on track and really loved it. Really reminded us again. So the Yuzu edition, this continues on. I just show this again as a representative example of GR86s. But along with that, at the next price point.

Speaker A Ooh, moving. I wondered if you'd go here.

Speaker B 50K. The 1993 FD Mazda RX7 is just fun. And I had to ignore the worrisome rotary. Will this blow up? Do I need a new engine? How long will it last? You know what? I'm going to zing it to 9,000 right now because I'm here and the car's awesome. And driving this is just so much fun. 2,500 pounds. It's brilliant to drive.

Speaker A Yeah.

Speaker B When you are driving it and you're, you know, mid corner and you're having fun, all of those things don't matter how much you paid, what maintenance it might need. True. Something might break.

Speaker A Phenomenal. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker B It's just fun, pure fun at that time. So this had to make my list. But of course, I could not leave off the JCW Mini Cooper. Oh, interesting. Also showing the GP because at $50,000 now, you and I have not driven this. I really liked these, like four of.

Speaker A Them in the world.

Speaker B Well, yeah, they were $50,000 mini.

Speaker A It was.

Speaker B It was along the lines that, you know, we thought Corolla. $50,000 Corolla.

Speaker A Where?

Speaker B Here's a $50,000 mini.

Speaker A Yep.

Speaker B And you know what? This intrigues the daylights out of me because I love this third gen so much. This had to make my list again. Weird front wheel drive, but it was so entertaining. It was so interesting and fun. But at $50,000, I cannot leave off your lease. These are no longer 30 they're not 40. At $50,000, you want a decent one. So 50,000 for all three of these.

Speaker A Cars, 40 to 60, you could certainly get a very nice lease.

Speaker B Yeah, it's really brilliant at this price level. You're probably wondering where the Cayman is at this point. It is next, but it might not be the one you're thinking, oh, okay. Because at $75,000, I feel like the Cayman R is the sweet spot. These have dipped and they're now starting.

Speaker A To go back up.

Speaker B But any $75,000 in that price range, a Cayman R from 2011 and 2012.

Speaker A Is this sweet spot here they are really great to drive.

Speaker B 330 horsepower, lightweight. Brilliant. This is the still the hydraulic era of steering. This is still the raw feeling and it was personified in the R version. I would actually consider having one of these again. And it's a different car than a GT4 even.

Speaker A Yes, it is.

Speaker B And so the Cayman R is where the Cayman and any Porsche lands on my list at $75,000, that's very good. The runner up at the $75,000 price level is the BMW 1M. And here is the 1M that we track at one of our hooked on driving track days. This is at Sonoma Raceway, as a matter of fact. The hood is up, cooling is happening. Awesome car. So the 1M was a nice runner up.

Speaker A I really like this car.

Speaker B For 70, $75,000 somewhere there. And at the top end, 100K the most fun.

Speaker A See that?

Speaker B Yeah.

Speaker A It's hard because at 100k I struggle with this too because you start to get into cars that are iconic. You start to get into cars that are badge perception machines. You start to get the cars that are trying to be more than just fun because you're spending so much money. So I'm very curious where you went.

Speaker B I wanted to leave all that off.

Speaker A Off. Okay.

Speaker B The $100,000 winner alongside your Amira. But it would be the Evora gt.

Speaker A Okay.

Speaker B It's not the flashiest car out there. It's not. Lotus isn't the flashiest badge. But what I love is the pure fun, the pure joy. Everything disappears. Everything about man, this is just a built up kit car to. Is the engine gonna survive? What about maintenance? What about longevity? It's so much fun. It's so such pure brilliance at $100,000. And your emir is absolutely included in that for me.

Speaker A So the Evor is really compelling at that price point. I do agree with you at that. It's. It's hard. I know this Sounds weird. I felt like the hundred thousand dollar level was harder than I expected it to be. But I'm going to jump back all the way to the beginning to the five thousand dollar level. I just realized that these cars are this cheap. The mini Cooper, the first gen mini Cooper, the R53 when BMW first re released the mini Cooper. So starting in 03 you want an 05 or 06 when that first Tim was almost done. But this was the only generation where they supercharged it. The second generation was turbo, right? Yeah. And was a reliability disaster. I mean these have their issues but the crazy thing about a Mini throwing all that out. We are throwing all that out. I have never driven one of these or had anyone else around me drive one of these and have them get out and say anything other than that's really fun. Yeah, it just, it kind of surprises you with the fact that it's fun. You get in it and it's quirky and it's a Mini and I've heard these are cool and oh, I drove one before and whatever. And you just get in it and there's just, there's not any other real conclusion. You're not like it's super fast or oh my gosh, it handles great. The, the feeling is just. Well that was just fun.

Speaker B Yeah.

Speaker A And then you look around and they're all under five grand. They're like the entire market is under $5,000. So I just thought, I don't think you can spend $5,000, have more fun and have more options at five grand than a Mini Cooper. The R53, the actual Cooper S supercharged. What's crazy is the market was $5,000 a few years ago when I bought Spot and I looked again, it's $5,000 now. That's just what these cost. And here's the crazy thing.

Speaker B That's so cool.

Speaker A The cleanest one out there, five grand. The most beat down one out there, three grand. That's the spread.

Speaker B That's really cool.

Speaker A Which is ridiculous. So these three mini, that is definitely my $5,000 choice. My $10,000 choice may surprise you, but they're down there early. Gen 86 is showing here. A 2013. That's first year Subaru BRZ Premium because those were slightly nicer inside than the Scion FRS of the same era. But you have your choice. Brzs scion frs. You're spending $10,000 now. Now look, we can go. The one I'm showing on screen here is showing for 8,000. The point I want to make Here.

Speaker B But there's a swap. Like I said.

Speaker A Of course. Thousand on each side of the $10,000 in your pocket. You have choice of the first gen 86. And I will go to all of the downsides real quick. Some people think the motor is going to blow. Some motors have blown. Yes, it's not as powerful as it should be. Yes, there is a torque dip. All of these things are reality. But we're talking about function.

Speaker B Yes.

Speaker A And I really have to argue that at $10,000, more fun than this. Or fun just get in, drive it. And also, here's the other thing about this whole discussion. I'm not imagining you in traffic. This is you on a road you enjoy just trying to drive for the fun of it. And this car, you spend $10,000 and you take this car out on a fun road for the day. You're going to have a good time, you're going to enjoy it. So I had to put this. And I can't believe they're this low.

Speaker B I mean, I mean high miles, but starting to get there. But whatever.

Speaker A But again, there were tons of options. A $10,000 fun car. You are hard pressed to do better than an early 86. Jumping up to 20. This is where I put the Porsches of the world. The first gen Boxster S. It's also a convertible. You get convertible, you didn't go Miata, you got a Boxster S. This is the 987 generation. So it's the early bargain here. Yes. I cannot believe it. This one I'm showing here is 64,000 miles. A 2008 Boxster S for bang on $20,000. That is either side of the equation. Here's the thing about this. At this price, you spent $20,000. You got a Porsche badge, you got Porsche engineering, you got a really cool top. That is actually all weather year round.

Speaker B Yeah.

Speaker A I'm actually showing a Boxster S. You got decent power. This is going to feel quite luxurious for 20 grand. Even though it is a 20 year old car. And they're just fun.

Speaker B Yeah.

Speaker A And this early gen, I mean you talked about it with the Cayman are hydraulic steering and lighter weight than you expect.

Speaker B Yes.

Speaker A But $20,000 for this. The fact that they're out there, it's not like I found the only one. Okay. You know I put it. And just to defend myself, I put in $22,000 as the cap on Auto Tempest and was scrolling through pages. Yeah. So they're out there. I'm jumping to 50. None of you will be surprised. But if we're talking about fun. It's the Elise. Doesn't need to be my Elise. I obviously have pictures of my Elise, so it's easy to show. But, yeah, if you're shopping for fun at $50,000, I'm sorry, but it's not a Porsche product. It's also not a Miata. You're just shopping fun. Just the purpose of this car is to drive and enjoy it and have fun. It's just the Elise. You're just. That's the end of the list.

Speaker B Yeah.

Speaker A Everything else is following it on the list. And I don't say that as an owner. I say that because people that drive in a lease are like, oh, oh, I see now. I mean, you're in that camp.

Speaker B I'm very much.

Speaker A Every time you drive it, you're like, oh, that's right. I get it now. Okay.

Speaker B And it is mid corner. The sun shining. Yes. The corner's perfect. The line's great. Like, I cannot do better.

Speaker A And it isn't good at everything. It isn't good at most things, but just fun. Yeah. Yeah. The Lotus Elise wins at $50,000. I jumped up to 75, and I had a few things in there. The ones you had in there at 75, the. The. The Cayman R, I debated maybe putting a Boxster Spider of that early gen in there.

Speaker B Oh, you did like that a lot.

Speaker A All of that stuff is great. Lightweight, fun to drive, etc. But I do have a definitive winner for me. $5,000. It dawned on me and I said, yep, discussions over Alpine 110.

Speaker B Okay, that's good.

Speaker A $75,000. I am buying an Alpine 110. And these are very, very happy boys.

Speaker B Are these 50? Are these. Well, they're 50.

Speaker A The. The ones you want are between 50 and 70.

Speaker B Are they?

Speaker A That's where they all are. So $75,000. You could buy any Alpine. A 110. Okay.

Speaker B I love it that you went.

Speaker A I just.

Speaker B Doesn't matter. Doesn't matter where.

Speaker A Because the reality is these are more expensive than Elise's.

Speaker B Yeah.

Speaker A Especially if you're buying one. Nuke. You can't buy an Elise new. But that you just. These are still out there. And $75,000. I'm buying an Alpine 110. I'll give you another one. Maybe it's $75,000. I could afford to buy one that's not the full price and import it and still drive it here a thousand miles a year. I don't know. I just. I'm done.

Speaker B That would still be worth it.

Speaker A It would Be I'm done at $75,000 there. And that brings us to a hundred. And as you already discovered, a hundred was harder than I thought it was going to be. Yeah. Because you start to get into this sounds crazy but quite a few options between stuff that sells new at 100.

Speaker B Yeah.

Speaker A And stuff that has depreciated to 100.

Speaker B Right.

Speaker A And then stuff where you could just go crazy. If we're talking about fun, do I just want to buy a track car? Do I want to just spend $100,000 on a track car?

Speaker B Well, it's also badge perception because the badge suggests fun. But not all of those cars from Porsche and Ferrari and all of all the brands, not all of them are as fun as something else that might be older and lower priced.

Speaker A So that you've hit on it. Exactly. So I have two answers here. My first answer, if we're shopping new hundred thousand. Really the answer is Amira. I'm showing a picture of both my V6 and also the four cylinder. And in this situation I'm going to say what driver you. I don't care. I personally like the V6 manual transmission. I did my one year piece on owning my Amira for a year. We put it with the four cylinder. We had a really kind of fascinating discovery and discussion about how the cars drive differently. Slightly different steering racks, very different power delivery. There were more changes in feel than we anticipated. Yeah. So that was really cool. I say which one of these are you interested in? Because you can go out right now with a hundred thousand dollars and buy either one of these. New. New. There's options. I actually like your Aurora gt but these are brand new options. And that's what's crazy and why I picked it. Not because I own it, because if I'm talking 100k new, it's actually a pretty small list. That's even trying to be fun. Yeah. But if we play the depreciation game, I have to wind up with the piece we did earlier this year and that is the would you rather piece. Because 100 grand, you could do a used Ferrari. We had a 360 with a manual swap. Swap my Amira new. Or a really nice first gen Acura nsx. And if we're talking fun, that's a good point. Car that's not going to blow anybody away with badge or usability even though it's very good or perception or anything like that other than just you're behind the wheel going, it's not that powerful man. This is good. It's just great at 100 grand and a hundred thousand dollars gets you a really nice NSX. They used to be 50. We all should have bought them. But apparently somebody did because now they're all 100.

Speaker B Exactly.

Speaker A So I'm stopping there with a hundred thousand dollars and do Ferrari used Emira new NSX used that's on this exact same channel. A would you rather piece. We did all three.

Speaker B He got me thinking about the Ferrari.

Speaker A I know. Really, really liked that. You liked it a lot.

Speaker B That was a lot of fun.

Speaker A It was very fun. That's the thing. The reason I brought up all three.

Speaker B Can I change my answer?

Speaker A Well, because it is a question about what do you as a driver consider fun?

Speaker B Yeah.

Speaker A You know what is the stuff that connects with you and that was the really hard part of that. Would you rather piece is because there were great things about the 360, the Amira and the NSX and it really came down to what are the potential pain points you're willing to tolerate and the things that speak to you as a driver.

Speaker B I'm noticing about both our lists though is the top end the upper echelon of price points. Both of us chose mid engine cars and that is a through line.

Speaker A Yeah.

Speaker B Doesn't matter what the price is. We're all gunning for the mid engine kind of feel because that recipe alone denotes fun. That just that's the starting place to create more fun.

Speaker A True. And also I think when you start to get to the higher price points, stuff starts to also get a lot heavier. Yeah, a lot of the stuff that stays anywhere close to £3,000 and again lightweight is below 3,000. But anything close to £3,000 in a modern time when most cars are 3,500 up is probably mid engine.

Speaker B Well, here's the deal. With the price of fun piece that we did, it proved that. Well, I'm susceptible to McLaren's and high end luxury cars.

Speaker A Yes.

Speaker B I wonder about this list stacking up. If we went further from here and the next jump would be 250. This entire list from both of us as we move higher in the price points up to, to say a million.

Speaker A Sure, sure.

Speaker B Would those be more fun than any of the cars that we named in both of our lists all the way down to the lowest price point.

Speaker A Well this, that's a hard sell for.

Speaker B Me and I think the answer is.

Speaker A No, I don't think that that is the 250.

Speaker B Yeah, we're talking Porsches and GT3s and yeah, for sure. Amazing.

Speaker A Yes.

Speaker B Fun at higher speeds. The fun is Coming at you a lot faster.

Speaker A We're closing it on fun quite rapidly at this point.

Speaker B I have, I have a real soft spot for the new Ferrari Amalfi.

Speaker A I know you do. I know you do.

Speaker B Oh, that car is just pretty. I cannot wait to see one on the road, see one in person, drive it, maybe own one one day. I'm completely dreaming. But that's just return to sexy cars.

Speaker A I agree with you. The other thing you're touching on and I want to, I want us to, I mean we pioneered doing the price of fun piece. I'd like to do it again with different cars. It's something you and I've talked about. Hopefully, hopefully we will. We could use these lists as a starting point. But I also wonder once you start to get in these really expensive cars, I wonder if the fun definition is starting to change. And the point I'm making here is as we talked about in that original price and fun, if we do it again, it's something we'll talk about again. What you're defining fun is I as a driver am engaged with the car and I'm enjoying being in it in a corner right now. I do think price is irrelevant. I think it's utterly irrelevant because as we talked about with these lists, you can enjoy that corner on a perfect day in the $5,000 car. And I don't really think you're enjoying the actual mid corner dynamic fun moment more. In a $500,000 car, the difference becomes the wonder factor of the higher price, the engineering awareness of the higher price, the badge perception, the feel of the interior, how comfort comfortable are you beyond the fun. Because race cars, all of that's thrown out. In fact, fun's even thrown out. It's just, did I go faster than last time? That is where the fun lies.

Speaker B Well, I would say the faster and more severe race car is you're not having that much fun. It's just, it's really hard on your body.

Speaker A It's a bit of survival going on.

Speaker B A lot of fun. But that's interesting because to your point, at the, the price levels, anything above 100k, we have been told by people who drive very high end cars on the street. And we would have to start introducing the negative column that chips away at the fun. Like people who try to follow you and do dangerous maneuvers to try to follow you. And a McLaren Senna. We've heard from people who are driving a Senna and people are doing dangerous, stupid stuff just to get a photo of the car and kind of making you feel uncomfortable and frankly, unsafe.

Speaker A Sure.

Speaker B That actually chips away at the fun that you think you're going to have driving a Pagani utopia. Is that utopia by everybody trying to cut you off and doing dangerous traffic maneuvers just so they can see it and get a photo. Well, maybe that's why all those cars are driven 20 miles an hour across grass and golf courses to just be shown and put on a trailer and never driven. Because the fun is the detraction from driving it on the street and going out and finding that. Would we have to introduce some sort of leaderboard where. Yes, fun. And here's the points. And then. Well, because of the looky lose and the dangerous traffic maneuvers, this part of it. Do we have to introduce that the higher we go? Because at 100,000 and under, I don't think any of that really matters.

Speaker A Well, but. And also, the lower you go on the price board, the less it matters too. Because I'll give you a perfect example. Back to the list that I had, the $10,000 86. I promise you, if you are an owner of that and you like driving fun, you are going to find every possible opportunity to drift that car.

Speaker B Yes.

Speaker A Every opportunity you can to get it like dangerously sideways. You were going to attempt it. And when you go to the grocery store or the drive through or whatever, you're going to take whichever parking space. I'll take that one. That one's fine. Between the two vans where I can barely get my doors open. It's open. That's fine. It'll take it. Now jump forward to some really expensive car. You're going to think about your drifting and you're going to park it near nobody. And these are all factors. It's fascinating how all of this is a reality of all of this. I thought of one other bit of news we should touch on before we move on too far.

Speaker B Okay.

Speaker A And that is Max and the ring.

Speaker B Okay. All right. All right.

Speaker A So you. I'm sure you've seen. It's been everywhere. Yeah, I don't have a photo because we've all seen photos. Max Verstappen. A little while back, under a pseudonym we talked about on this podcast, he did his first lapse ever on the ring in an actual car versus in the sim. And he did really, really well. And they made exceptions to give him a license because why wouldn't he give him a license? They made exceptions. They gave him the license. He just ran his first NLS, which the Nurburgring based series in the GT3 class.

Speaker B Right, right.

Speaker A He ran in the Ferrari that is driven on his race team. He ran in that Ferrari and he threw down. He almost got polled. The reason he didn't get poll was traffic. He had two of the fastest sectors ever. He just didn't have the fastest sector in one of the sectors. He didn't get poll. He also went out earlier, apparently in the competition and then he went on to win it. Okay. With his co driver. I have two major thoughts here that I find fascinating. Besides the fact that clearly this guy is the Terminator. He's just. He's a machine that knows how to drive and he is crazy fast and everything.

Speaker B Yes.

Speaker A But I have two other thoughts. One of them is, and actually my wife brought this up because if you watch a Tom Cruise movie and he does all his own stunts or pick your action star. Okay. A lot of actors have got got dangerous pastimes that they do for fun. And what happens with these actors is when they are signed on to a movie, they have to sign a clause. This happens with a lot of sports folks as well. You have to sign a clause of, I'm not going to do these dangerous things over the course of my contract that you're paying me for so I don't get injured skydiving when you need me to be on the soccer field next week. I'm not going to do any of that stuff during the season.

Speaker B Stuff still happens. You still hear about, oh, you're riding your motorcycle in traffic and you got.

Speaker A Exactly, exactly. But generally you're supposed to sign. And many, many sports people and many actors, et cetera, people that lots of money is counting on have to sign these clauses. They're not going to do this during the season. Well, Max just went out during the middle of the current. We're currently F1. He did this last weekend because it happened to be between two F1 races when there wasn't a race. We couldn't be more mid season. He is currently competing to be world champion again.

Speaker B Yes.

Speaker A The guy's busy on the thing you pay him for and yet he got an exception to go run this. And I forget which person it was. I think it was George Russell. But one of the other F1 drivers made the comment where they said it's cool that he was allowed to do that. There's subtext in that sentence. He made a comment about how it'd be cool if all of us could do it. You know, this was a long time coming and Max has said, this is important to me. So he got an exception to go run at the ring. What if he'd been injured? Yeah. What if by, let's be honest, let's say by no fault of his own. The ring's a dangerous place. He's racing with, it's like Le Mans. He's racing with lots of different classes of racing.

Speaker B Yeah, completely.

Speaker A You come around a corner and here is the car in the slowest class parked sideways. Yeah. You've got few options. Okay, so what if he'd gotten injured? What if something had gone wrong? Here I am amazed he got the exception. That's the first point I want to make. The second point I want to make is his co driver and the guy that finished second was John Marbur, whatever the guy's name is. That was the guy that was the inspiration for the Gran Turismo movie.

Speaker B Oh yeah.

Speaker A Max's co driver and the guy that came in the second place car both came out of sim.

Speaker B So glad you brought that up because I have talked about SIM as a personal choice and it doesn't necessarily make you a good driver. And all of that is out the window. I can no longer say, even though.

Speaker A I wondered what you say about it.

Speaker B I know it's simulated setup and it kind of depends on how much money you spend on your sim setup. It really kind of does come down to what the inputs are and that just kind of depends on how good your wheel is and your setup is. But there's some SIM games that I found and the wheel that I'm using, I know the car will turn in. I've been there on track in the same car and I know it turns in and suddenly I'm hitting the wall. I'm through the grass and the brakes felt like wood and sure it shouldn't break properly and I'm doing the same inputs that I would on track and it didn't do it virtually. That has been the disconnect for me personally, but I can no longer say because definitively, yes, sim racing actually does lead to being a better driver.

Speaker A Yes.

Speaker B And lead to being a top class race car driver. Full stop. Hands down, I'm 100% wrong. Even though I still think it depends on the setup.

Speaker A Had a life experience that led you to your thoughts. I get it.

Speaker B I'd like to try by continually better and better sims, because of course the sims that are used in F1 and IndyCar, any high performance, very high class drive. Well, yeah, there's a lot of money and I've seen and heard of very high end SIM rigs and we've, you know, we've been close to them, we've experienced them a little bit. I'd like, you know, some more time on those. But Chris Lillum was. Lilham was Max's co driver and Max apparently from sim. From sim from not being on the racetrack. And Max had never driven the ring until he did it this year. Yeah, he had only driven it virtually and then got in the car and set some of the fastest laps the ring has ever seen.

Speaker A And Max has been in trouble with Red Bull before for showing up at races tired because he was winning some sort of sim race overnight.

Speaker B Well, we've seen F1 drivers Alonso compete in IndyCar. We've seen other F1 drivers compete in Lamar. So it does happen. But I'm thinking to myself now, well why isn't every F1 driver out there, I'm doing these other races.

Speaker A This is a contract exception competing.

Speaker B What's the exception for Max?

Speaker A I don't know.

Speaker B Simply he wanted to.

Speaker A I. He has, he and his dad both have wielded a ton of power at Red Bull. Yes. And he's been very successful and he clearly is a put him in a car, he goes fast and he sims all the time.

Speaker B Redible.

Speaker A This is Max strikes me as an interesting guy. Look, I don't know him at all. I've never met him. It all I have is public perception of him. I also think he's gotten more interesting since he's become a father. I think that has shifted his demeanor with others a little bit. Okay, I'm wrong but he is clearly a robot designed to drive and you put him in whatever kind of like Sebastian Loeb. He's just fast. It doesn't matter the car situation. What he's just fast and he gets up to speed very, very quickly. And sim I think is the only opportunity we have. And yon Marlborough, sorry, I'm getting his last name wrong. He's the best example example of leveling the playing field of talent versus money. Because you can come out of a less than ideal sim rig and still spend tons less than just a season of carding and get very, very good. Now the thing I wonder about and clearly these guys are jumping past it is the jump of no consequence to all the consequences. You've been driving, driving, driving, driving, driving. Reset, reset, reset, reset, reset. And now you jump in the car and all of the consequences are real. And I think that's fascinating because at least when you came up through carts and that kind of stuff there's an awareness of consequence. But if you jump from sim to Car, you went from zero consequence to I'll have it all, please.

Speaker B I suppose the only consequence is that because in sim you didn't get the lap time you were going for, you didn't get what you were doing, and so you know not to do that. And so in real life you will know I won't get the lap time, so don't do that. Crashing actually is not part of your thought process. It's more like, well, I don't have a reset button and I won't get the lap time that I'm going for.

Speaker A Yeah, maybe that's it.

Speaker B I hope it's a little bit more than that. But now, does this make karting and F1 drivers coming up through the ranks of karting when you're two years old and then you move to F4 and then three and you come up through the ranks, does this mean we're going to finally see an actual F1 driver who started in sim as a youngster.

Speaker A And then I think we're coming, went.

Speaker B Straight to F1, maybe F2?

Speaker A I don't think it's going to come straight.

Speaker B Still want to see your talent and you still have to prove yourself on a real racetrack with other racers. Yeah, but are we going to see somebody come directly out of sim and right into a formula?

Speaker A I mean, this is. This is what, you know, Jan did and others. I think it's clear you can jump from sim straight into the GT class stuff. That clearly is the case. And I think some of those folks are going to jump beyond. I like the opportunity this theoretically creates that everybody we're watching. It's true of the current F1 lineup and there's a lot of interesting guys in there, but a lot of them are like, well, I grew up in Monaco. Of course you did.

Speaker B But now it's going to be, I grew up gaming.

Speaker A Exactly.

Speaker B Course you're an F1 driver, but I grew up.

Speaker A I grew up not coming from money, not coming from privilege, and now I've just proved myself to be really good. That part of it fascinates me and I love that Max is promoting that. But what kind of contract exemption did he get?

Speaker B Incredible.

Speaker A Because he's driving F1 this next weekend. It's craziness.

Speaker B Incredible.

Speaker A Yes.

Speaker B My respect has definitely grown, especially after watching that Mustang GTD review with him and Chris Harris, because he was somewhat like a human. Well, he was a human, but he also just jumped in and was turning hot laps and making the Mustang do what he wants. He's used to lightweight race cars. This is one of the heaviest cars, high end sports cars and he's still just kind of making making it do what he wants.

Speaker A He is clearly just letting drive get him away. And yeah for sure need to all.

Speaker B Right, so if you've got a topic Tuesday and you're interested in price points or you want us to discuss anything, write to us everyday driver tv mail.com for all your topic Tuesdays. We'd love to hear your questions since you're listening to us. You'll end up shopping for your next car very soon. And when you do, you need auto.

Speaker A Tempest.Com any car, anywhere, at any price. Auto Tempest searches all the major car listing sites on the website, web, local or nationwide and autotempest has recently added price history for every car listed so you can see how prices are trending and know if you found a good deal. You can also create search alerts and lists of saved searches so you can find your perfect spec even easier.

Speaker B Next time search on any device in your browser or as an app for Apple, iOS and Android. New, used or unexpected? AutoTempest is how we search for cars. Go to autotempest.com everyday so they know we sent sent you Auto Tempest all the cars one search.

Speaker A So we have done. If you've been following along more than a thousand podcasts, this is like 10, 15 or something. We've done a lot of podcasts. We've been doing this for more than a decade and we thoroughly enjoy it. We love that you guys listen and now that you watch and we appreciate it and I'm putting that in perspective to say that a first has happened this week, something that's never happened in a decade and more than a thousand podcasts we received. I'm showing paper to the audience. You can hear it crinkling in the mic. We received a handwritten car debate. First off, the handwriting is excellent. I say that because my handwriting is horrific, which is why I type everything.

Speaker B Todd went to the doctor school of handwriting.

Speaker A My handwriting is very, very bad and my son has inherited it and I'm very, very sorry for him because he's going to have to type everything. But this is an actually well written, handwritten written letter version of a car debate. And I will acknowledge Mark also sent it in digitally, but he says here in the postscript he just thought a handwritten letter would be fun. So Mark, he's right. Kudos to you and your wife Tamara because you guys have just sent in the first ever handwritten car debate. By the way, it doesn't guarantee you'll get your car debate covered. But it was. I'd open up the P.O. box was like, what on earth is this now? What year is this?

Speaker B It was very cool in the digital age.

Speaker A Very, very cool to get that.

Speaker B So. Well, Mark, thank you for writing. Mark and his wife Tamara were talking but the other day about their retirement plans. They're considering selling their house, buying a vehicle and just living in it while they drive all over the country, all over the U.S. however, Mark recently discovered fun, lightweight vehicles in his life. Early in life, he started driving a Chevy Cavalier wagon, 1984, he thought. Next was a 1992 Cutlass Calais. Then a 69 Chevy Custom Deluxe 10. Then a 2001 GMC Air pickup truck, then another 2014 GMC Sierra pickup truck. And he needed these trucks for the work. And after that he had a 2003 Accord Hybrid, which was a piece of junk because the hybrid part didn't really work, but somehow it was still reliable because it was a Honda.

Speaker A Because Honda Accords run in spite of you, not because of you. By the way, I don't know the last time we've said 1992 Cutlass Calais.

Speaker B It's been a minute.

Speaker A It's been a long time. I actually forgot about those words. Went in like in order.

Speaker B Exactly.

Speaker A And there it is.

Speaker B Anyway, yeah, next up was a 2011 Accord EXL. Great car, very dependable, had some power. Then another 2024 Accord Sport L Hybrid. Fantastic car. But after the 2025 Accord, he kept getting this nagging feeling he should get his Civic. So then he traded the hybrid bid for a 2025 Civic Si.

Speaker A Cool.

Speaker B He loves the car so much he washes it every Friday. I hope with Griot's Garage products.

Speaker A Let's hope so.

Speaker B He changes his own oil and he finds any excuse to drive it. Now, Mark and Tamara are in the Dallas area and there's no fun roads there.

Speaker A You just have the spaghetti overpasses. That's it. You just have the weird crazy six story high spaghetti over. Practically, yes. That's about all you can do. Anyway, so he takes lots of trips.

Speaker B Across his neighborhood looking for any little road to enjoy the Hampshire handling. So back to the reason that he's writing. If they retire and choose the road, life. Yes, it's like van life with cars.

Speaker A That's exactly what he's trying to do.

Speaker B It's like van life, but he's trying.

Speaker A To do van life with something small and lightweight. Keep in mind the Civic SI weighs just around £3,000, just barely under in some Trims. So this is the other end of the spectrum from van life and from the stuff he's owned. That is a genuinely light car in the model.

Speaker B Van life with light cars.

Speaker A Yes, I know. No, there's additives in the written version, by the way, that I have to add. Okay. There's a couple little things in here. Was like, what on earth. Yeah. Anyway, okay, so what vehicle could they.

Speaker B Get that can hold their life, meaning all their stuff, and also be fun to drive? Because there's plenty of vans we can name. It seems like everybody in Park City has an Earth Realm or some sort of van. I keep thinking, was I sick the day they were handing those out? Because I see vans. People just drive them around to go get groceries.

Speaker A Yes, they do, because they haven't driven it. They drive their enormous. This could have survived the apocalypse van.

Speaker B They just park them store, like, from home to the store, like, five miles or less.

Speaker A That is a Park City thing for sure.

Speaker B He wants to enjoy handling. He wants fun, lightweight cars for van life. Mark told his wife, maybe an Integra type S, put the seats down and throw an air mattress down and maybe fit the rest of their stuff around it. That's like one T shirt, one pair of pants, your toothbrush, and your shoes.

Speaker A Let me add.

Speaker B That's it.

Speaker A He says in the written version, the handwritten version version, the he that the hypothetical car here would need to accommodate driving, sleeping, and clothes, not bathroom or cooking. The thinking is fine. Fine that they would use their gym membership, which apparently must be a national chain, because it's talking about driving all over their gym membership to shower, and they would eat out every meal. This is the pitch. It is literally the car to drive and sleep. Sleep in. It is trying to do van life with a car.

Speaker B The gym shower thing is good. Eating out every meal. You can do that.

Speaker A Mm.

Speaker B That's interesting, because I didn't go too big, but I started kind of large because you're thinking, well, you got to have space for some stuff. You want some creature comforts. It can't just be, you know, an air mattress. Well, maybe it can be.

Speaker A Be.

Speaker B I'm not sure. Well, I started here, okay. With an SUV. One of my faves. It is the Mercedes GLE63S.

Speaker A It's very good to drive.

Speaker B Loads of power. Surprising amount of space in the back. Plenty of space for your stuff. I'm glad they acknowledged.

Speaker A Yeah.

Speaker B Take your Dopp kit into the gym, take your towel, do laundry at the laundromat. Minimum amount of stuff. Also, you can't Buy a whole bunch of stuff while you're out, because it's going to accumulate. You don't have anywhere it to put. Put it. Very true. So this has loads of power. Fun to drive, great to live in. Make sure you carry a lot of air fresheners or the stinky be gone. Because if you're living out of your car, it's going to smell like feet.

Speaker A Yeah. Yes. Or worse. Yes. Huh.

Speaker B This is where I started also. And that is a Cayenne. Obviously. It's a.

Speaker A Sure. Yeah.

Speaker B Put the mattress. Air mattress in the back. What I don't want to happen. Mark and Tamara, you know when you see those cars every so often parked on the side of the road and it's full of stuff and maybe an animal, and it's like, above the windows, above the shoulder line, and the stuff fills the window, and the only space to sit in the car is the driver's seat, and there's so much gnarly crap in the car. I don't want you to go down that road. I don't want. You're gonna have to be very fastidious with your cleanliness.

Speaker A What you're describing, overly clean. What you're describing is what the sentence I'm living in my car meant before Instagram. All van life has done is made. I'm living in my car aspirational. Prior to Instagram, if anyone said to you, I am living in my car, you went, oh, I'm sorry, yes. Or, yes, sorry, I'm gonna go back. Chris Farley and his famous joke, I live in a van down by the river. This was not a positive thing. And now it's van life, yo. Now it's this thing we aspire to. Yeah, living in your car was not something to aspire to until very recently.

Speaker B Regarding Instagram, van life, I didn't go all the way to recommending a van. But Mark and Tamara, I think you're serious about this. I really, truly think you're considering it. And I do want you to have something fun. And it can't be a giant suv. It can't be a Suburban or a pickup or something with a giant tent. I mean, ooh, maybe the Pontiac Aztec was built for you, like, 20 years ago.

Speaker A Who knew we needed Aztec? No one's ever said, I need an Aztec, but there it is. Moving on.

Speaker B Pontiac was 25 years.

Speaker A They were. They were early. Truly, they were, because they were before the SUV craze. If that had come out during the SUV like, explosion, that might have survived.

Speaker B Pontiac might have survived in the Instagram era. Sadly, it didn't. I'm going to go to rooftop tent era.

Speaker A Oh, look at you.

Speaker B Because I want something. The car that you have. I mean, if you're gonna sell your house, we can probably afford something. You didn't give a budget anywhere in the letter or.

Speaker A Yes.

Speaker B Or your email. So what that means is a 911 with a rooftop tent. Because I think you're going to want more space than just the back hatch area with an air mattress.

Speaker A I agree.

Speaker B I think that's going to get old after about 14 minutes. I think that you're going to want some more space. And I am showing you the. Probably the most glamorous shot I can. But in 2022, Porsche came out with a line of rooftop tents through their techquipment program and offered this as a actual Porsche SKU number to do just this. Now, I think what they're intending is maybe a weekend. Can you stretch this to a year or longer? I'm not sure. So 9 11, that's the. Okay, that's the dream.

Speaker A That is good glamour shot. And it is a very nice photo. It is the. The. The perfect version of this life. Yeah.

Speaker B Look, you've got plenty of space up top. The 911 can theoretically go anywhere. And then I thought, well, if we're getting a 911 and we're selling our house, could you. Oh, here's another lovely glamour shot. You see, the tent is Porsche branded.

Speaker A Of course it is.

Speaker B This is an actual property product from Porsche that you can buy. And since we're now past the initial craze of it, I guess you could probably find them a little bit more easily for sale. Talk to your local dealer, talk to your parts counter to your Porsche dealer. But this is the idyllic setting. You're out there. You've rolled the Porsche off grid here, and you've got the rooftop tent. And look, something is cooking on the hibachi back there. And they're smiling at each other.

Speaker A Yes.

Speaker B Still smiling at each other.

Speaker A I have many things to say about this. Yes.

Speaker B And one more glamour shot. That's more the hard top rooftop tent, but I mean the idyllic setting. Okay. So I thought, you know, AI could help us out. Here's an AI version of a 911 with a motorhome on the back. Fun to drive big lifted AI911. Thank goodness for AI to come through.

Speaker A And it looks like monster trucks from the 80s.

Speaker B Yeah.

Speaker A With a 911 body and a rooftop.

Speaker B Does it not look like Tonka invented Something.

Speaker A It looks like somebody had too much of something and then decided to sit down at a computer. Yeah.

Speaker B So there you go. But I was going to say, if we're talking 9 11s and something, go anywhere, do anything. What about a Dakar? I found you one. This one's actually for sale on blue chip fleet.com for 395,000 or 365,000. I can't. I can't remember which. But the price difference for a GR86 doesn't matter if we're already spending that money. And the better part of 400 grand cares.

Speaker A Yeah.

Speaker B Get yourself a Dakar 911. I think this would be a lot of fun. Rooftop.

Speaker A 10 on this bad boy would go anywhere.

Speaker B Yes, you would get the looks. You could go anywhere. Yeah, I mean, I think you could make this work. It's gonna take some gumption. You're gonna have to really get through this.

Speaker A Yeah.

Speaker B But. Okay, My last choice for you. If we're going to go that far. I thought about the Taycan. The Taycan Sport Turismo and its brother, the Panamera Sport Turismo.

Speaker A I agree with both of those.

Speaker B Also shown with the roof box up here. And I' showing you the most idyllic glamour shot. Rooftop camping on your Tycon Sport Turismo out in the wilderness. Look, the people are still smiling.

Speaker A Everybody's smiling. Everybody's perfect. All the puffy jackets are awesome. Everything is great.

Speaker B A cup of hot something.

Speaker A It just rained, but not so much that we're overwhelmed by the fact that everything's wet. It's just like a mist. It's like a mist of rain. The misty morning.

Speaker B The dew is still in everything.

Speaker A It probably has a ukulele or a guitar in that rooftop.

Speaker B Sure.

Speaker A The fire pit is on the. Just turn around in the photo. There's the fire pit.

Speaker B There you go. But it is a thing. Look, all the Porsches, the 911s, the Panameras, the Taycan Sport Turismo. The Sport Turismo, I think, was built for you because if you decide to not pitch the tent, you've still got the Turismo back in. You still got that wagon part, and it's big enough to carry your toothbrush and rooftop tent life. Look, everybody's doing it. Here is a sunset over la. It's a thing. Porsche just is it, though. Came out with the product in 2022. So you're just slightly behind, but ready to go 911 first. But I do think, if you're serious, I think you could make A Panamera Sport Turismo or a Taycan Sport Turismo actually work.

Speaker A I do like where you landed. I have to warn all of you, my also, my co host included rant and coming. But I do think that the Panamera is a, is a good argument here and I have to go with you on that. I'm going to start Mark and Tamara, I'm going to start right here with the. Because you are a Honda person, you've had multiple Honda Accords. Now you have the Civic Si that you love. And so you said. What about the Integra Type S? I'm starting right here with the Integra Type S. And my short answer is yes. Sure. Excellent hatchback. I. How. How big are you as people?

Speaker B Okay, that's something we don't know because.

Speaker A I don't know you. Yes, you could probably lay the seats down. You could sleep in this. Look, I've known people that have slept in miatas. They were doing a road trip, they had no money, they slept in miatas.

Speaker B You could sleep in any car house and you're sleeping.

Speaker A Exactly right. So the Integra Type S would work. I'm glad you went to Panamera because the big point I wanted to make for you guys is just wagons. I'm showing a fairly recent sold in the US version of a 3 Series wagon in the mountains parked in a nice little parking lot. This is a genuinely good sized wagon and in fact I would argue that a good wagon potentially has more horizontal space for a bed than most five seat SUVs. Seven seaters. It's game over.

Speaker B Sure.

Speaker A But you're not driving. We're trying to get driving fun.

Speaker B Exactly right. Yes.

Speaker A So I think wagons, four door wagons give you the length that you need and frankly top geared this forever ago. Jeremy had an old 5 series, uh, James had a Volvo, Richard had a WRX and they went through. I forget where it was, but I think they were looking for the Nile and they were all sleeping in their cars the entire episode. I mean this has been done. This is what we're talking about.

Speaker B They slept in their cars for an episode.

Speaker A Yes, they did. Yes they did. This, this is where I'm actually wanting to go. Okay. Because Van Life, I'm gonna go into the Instagram era of Van Life and I'm sure I'm gonna lose some of you. I'll probably get a nasty letter, but that's fine. I'm gonna actually back this up with things that I have seen, seen, heard, experienced. Van Life is just trying to be the mobile version of camping. Yeah, it really is what you're trying to be, what you're looking for. And I'm showing a photo of a tent in the middle of nowhere, perfectly lit inside, fantastic mountains in the background. You've all you can picture the scene, if any, if you can't see it.

Speaker B Beautiful for all of us to look at that.

Speaker A I have done a. A good amount earlier in my life. I did a good amount of solo backpacking, hiking and camping. Yeah. And it was transformative. I truly loved it. Okay. It is really cool to get out somewhere where you're not going to see people. You forget about your phone. What's very bizarre, I'm sure experienced everybody, but definitely happened to me. It was like my brain was cleansing itself. Lyrics of songs I never liked that apparently I knew every word of would just like download through my brain to be like, really? I know all the lyrics to that. Why? Why do I know that? I would write, right. I would sit out for a couple of days by myself. It was amazing. Camping in the middle of nowhere is wonderful, Van. Life is trying to be that. But you're moving and I'm going to go into the Instagram era now. We opened up the back of the van, we're looking at the surf. You and me and the dog. Oh, yeah, we're just staring out at the perfect mountains. My computer's off to the side because I just, just worked remotely and I made us all this money. Sure you did. That happened. Look, honey, we're on the edge of the Grand Canyon.

Speaker B Oh, that looks awesome.

Speaker A We're standing on the top of our purpose built van and we're pointing down into the Grand Canyon.

Speaker B Those are the ones that everybody in Park City has. They're driving all over town.

Speaker A Big sprinter vans. Yeah, the sprinter Mercedes vans that are by the way, well over six figures for a good one.

Speaker B But they sold their house.

Speaker A And then we have the. I'm up above the mountains, above the clouds, looking out over the Pacific Ocean, standing on top of my van. I have my hammock out. These are the idyllic. This is van life in images. This is when it went from van down the river to don't you really want to do this? And you guys are living in Dallas and look, my wife grew up in Dallas. I grew up in Houston. You're living in the exact opposite from this world. And I know what's happened and I'm not coming down on you. I just want to hit this Instagram right in the face. Okay. This is A thing where we all look at this and go, oh, I'm in Dallas and I could be there, if only. And we've all seen. Bumped into. Heard the van stories, which was, you know, we woke up this morning on a perfect idyllic beach, and there was nobody around. And we made coffee naked, and then we made love. And then we. We had this amazing walk across a beach and nobody was there. And we got in the van, and the van worked perfectly and we drove to this next idyllic location. We'll have more photos for you tomorrow. This is the perception. It is not the reality. It's not even close to the reality. People sometimes come to us frustrated because we bother to actually produce our videos. They want it to be raw. And then they look at Instagram photos like this, where I'm like, everything about your life is not that photo. And the photo shows, I want to do that. I have a buddy who has one of these sprinter vans. He's had it for years. He bought it used. He spent a lot of money on it. It is as nice as you can get. He has been unable to take a single trip. Trip without something breaking. Not a single trip. And it's not like he goes out for months. He goes out for a week at a time, and then he goes back to his life for a few months and goes out for a week at a time. This is a person who has the money to no expense spare this vehicle. Something breaks every time he goes out. Okay? And if you actually look into any of the. Because I've done it. Look into any of these van life blogs. They do have the. Well, there are downsides, and that is, you know, you're going to have to. To. You have to dump the chemical toilet. You have to do that.

Speaker B Tell us how the inside of that van smells.

Speaker A Guess what? The most expensive van on the planet still smells like a chemical toilet. I have never been in any RV or. Or expensive van ever. I've ranted with this. But Paul, why Paul's laughing so much.

Speaker B They all just smell like chemical toilets. Setting you up for this. You are just.

Speaker A Here you go. I am going somewhere with this. This is an idyllic idea. This is a. Honey, we're going to sell the house. We're going to travel. Travel. I am going to give you the counterpoint. And I got into this discussion slash argument with a couple of my buddies. One is the one that owns this van, okay? And they were all like, which one would you get? Which one would you get? We were having a roundtable And I said, none of the above. And I said, give me the budget. And the budget was high. Okay, it was like $200,000. And I was like, I'm going to buy a really nice hundred thousand dollar GT card. And everywhere you guys stop. I'm gonna get a hotel. I'm gonna get a nice hotel. Not even a super nice, just like decent hotel. All right?

Speaker B Like, or any hotel.

Speaker A One step above. Like, I could maybe stay there, like one step above that and I could go for as long as you guys can go. And I'm staying in a hotel with a shower and I don't have to worry about where everything goes. And all I have to bring is my bag and my clothes and a toothbrush. You guys are already talking about buying all your meals. You're talking about showering at the gym, which by the way, doesn't go away with V life. These folks still shower in public bathrooms. Even if they have a shower, they still have to empty the chemical toilet. And they are. Oh, this is a really nice bathroom at my gym. That grows old quick. I don't think you guys are going to like this as much as you think you are. And so my pitch for you is this. Buy a GT car. You're going to like go to our GT Cars episode. Spend 50 to 100 grand on a GT car. You're going to like, like and set out for six months. Sit down with the map. Set out for six months. Six months is a long time. Maybe it needs to be three. But set out with a map and go where are the places we want to go and then connect those places with great roads because what I don't want you to do. And this happens all the time in van life. We see it. We take all of our trips. I know, I'm ranting. We are on an amazing road and we all get stuck behind van life. Life. Trudge, trudge, trudge, trudge, trudge. It's the nicest van ever. And it is trudging because it has to. We were not meant to be snails, folks. We were not meant to be people carrying our house with us. That's why we built houses. Once we stopped being nomadic people. The house sits in a place. We go away, we come back to the house. That's why the house has got nice. Okay? You've lived at a nice house in Dallas. I know Dallas houses, they're nice. So buy yourself a decent car with enough space for you to take. You and your wife are going to take enough bags to feel comfortable. You could Go out to a nice dinner because you have those clothes. You could do drive thru because you have those clothes. The other thing I'm going to suggest to you is buy a tent and tenting stuff. Because if you really want to be in the middle of nowhere, park your GT car and hike in a mile or two and camp. And then guess what you get to do retreat. Go to a hotel, get cleaned up in two days. Yeah, yeah. Six months. Plan your route. Pick all the things you really, really want to see. Pick all the fun squiggles between it. It might only be three months. And try this out because I think even the struggles of we're still traveling, we're still in a different hotel than we were last night, we're still eating food that we bought out that might get wearing. I don't think Van life is even 20% what we're being shown. Shown. I think it's 10% what we're being shown.

Speaker B I think you're on to something here because I think you're serious. Market. Yeah, I think you're truly serious. But Todd's got a great, Todd's got a great point here. You need to do a trial run first before you put the house up for sale and choose whatever vehicle is going to be and you set out and that's it. I think maybe we could offer trial run trips, adventures, maybe. But I think even three months is too long because on our recent coda trip this year in, we were out for two straight weeks.

Speaker A Straight weeks, yes.

Speaker B And that got rough. I mean, we were hotels, eating out every night. It was awesome.

Speaker A Don't get me wrong, we had a great time, but it was every minute.

Speaker B But two weeks was exhausting. Now we were podcasting along the way. We did a massive track day in the middle.

Speaker A Filming every day.

Speaker B Filming every day. So we're on camera nearly every day, if not every single day. Turn the camera on. We're trying to.

Speaker A For sure. For sure. Yeah.

Speaker B Talk and say cool, funny things and whatever it was wearing after two weeks. True, true.

Speaker A Yeah.

Speaker B So I think even a month as a trial run would give you a really good taste of what this is actually going to be. And I, I am with you in the camp of buy a great car, connect it to great hotels, do great road trips. That's why we do these adventures.

Speaker A Yes, but yes. Sell the house.

Speaker B I mean, not even these Van Lifers. Well, I guess some of them have sold their house and this is, this.

Speaker A Is all they do. Yes.

Speaker B Not all of them. I think they have the backup plan. I Mean, that's why you see the fifth wheels and the bigger and bigger trailers.

Speaker A True, true. Yeah.

Speaker B Even that is for just a weekend out. So it's not for everybody. But you know what? I'm not going to fully rule it out, but I'm. I'm joking. But I'm half joking, I think. Yeah. The rooftop tent with the 911. Cool. But that's like a long weekend. Like who?

Speaker A Yeah.

Speaker B Be good to get home and get a hot shower and hot meal. I want to. I want to cook for myself and.

Speaker A I want to sleep in a full size bed. Yeah. Where I don't like bump into the sidewalls. Yeah.

Speaker B And I don't want to smell the inside of my car anymore. And I'm excited about that. I want to smell fresh air and I want to stand out on the deck and look at the view and whatever. You know what I mean? So if you're serious, I think you've gotten some valid options. But I also think there's some. There's some tough love in here too. There's some reality checks that need to happen.

Speaker A I wish I had a photo, but I think back on this one couple, we saw a lot, and it was one of the first times you and I ever went to Beartooth, Pat. We were standing at the top of one of the first overlooks of Beartooth Pass. It's Chief Joseph Highway, Beartooth Pass, doing the eastern edge of Yellowstone Park. We just did a trip with people and it was. It's one of honestly my favorite drives in the world. I love it. I've even driven the whole world. But I still think it's going to remain top five for me no matter what we do. It's such a great drive. And we were at this big overlook, we were filming, of course, and it was a stream of retired folks in RV. Big ones, big old RVs. And they're trudging up because it's like elevation to get up there. Trudging up, barely making it, stopping, getting out, little dog gets out. The whole thing. The whole RV picture was happening over and over and over and over and over. And then we saw this couple pull in. And at first we both were like, what? And then the longer we looked, we were like, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. You've done it right. It was a man and wife, retired, same age as everybody. I have to. You have to understand, this is the exact peers of everybody else we've been seeing. Okay? The exact peers. Yes. Man and wife, retired, pulled in in a blue Z4 BMW not unlike the one I owned for a bit. And they were pulling a paint matched motorcycle trailer off the trailer hitch. Like the motorcycle trailers you see for like a sky with a gold wing. Yeah. Okay, so they're good sized trailers. They look huge for a bike, but they're smaller than a car. But let's be honest, that's more than doubling their trunk size. Yeah, they, they were doing the same RV trip as all the RV folks, but they weren't sleeping in that car. You know, they were getting a hotel and they had twice as much storage space as they would for a car, which was probably plenty. And I remember thinking after my initial Mike moment of what on earth is going on there? I was like, wait, wait, wait. They're my hero. They've done it right. Because the Z4 is going to be very fun to drive and be in. And it's convertible. You can take the top down, down, and you still have lots of stuff. There are ways to do this, but I think it all comes back around to my buddies will be in their RVs and I will meet them for any dinner they would. I'll sit around the campfire with them. It's fine. And then I will take my Aston Martin back to the hotel. That's what I am doing. That's my plan.

Speaker B So clearly the choice is for you, Mark and Tamara to buy a Z4 with a small motorcycle trailer, pulling it with a tent in it. Because, you know, they probably had a tent backup in it.

Speaker A Probably in case they couldn't get a hotel.

Speaker B Yeah, I'm sure they had backup.

Speaker A I totally agree.

Speaker B So that is your choice. I'm gonna see if I can find that photo and we will. I highly recommend the Z4 small motorcycle. Who knew trailer. But thank you for writing. If you have questions, comments, thoughts, we'd love to hear from you. Everydaydrivertvmail.com Topic Tuesday's car conclusions Car debates.

Speaker A Griot's Garage is our official car care partner and one of our very first sponsors for the show. They don't just make great car care products, they want you to get out and drive your car.

Speaker B Grios is a family owned company and they've been a part of every one of our road trips. We always take Speedshine on every shoot, helping us spot clean cars at a moment's notice.

Speaker A Their foaming glass cleaner is the quickest and best way we've ever found to get windows clean before a big day of driving. And they're always releasing new and improved products like their updated Wash Bucket 2.

Speaker B Plus all of Griot's liquid products are 100% guaranteed and made right here in the U.S. the Grios people are always happy to answer any questions to make sure you get the right product and the right results.

Speaker A So get the best quality car care products out there from a company that has always supported this show. Our audience can always get at least 10% off by using the code driver10@griosgarage.com.

Speaker B For our second debate, Art B. Writes to us because he's about to commit a felony before he upshifts to second in his current car.

Speaker A Okay.

Speaker B All right, Art, thank you for writing. He's been a longtime subscriber to the YouTube channel. He saw the cheap sports cars episode episode where we compared the C4 Corvette Boxster and 370Z. And so he's, he's loved the real world sort of life that we have experienced with these cars.

Speaker A Thank you. That's great.

Speaker B Really appreciate you writing. Very cool arts. Love of cars began before he could even walk. He dreamed of being a car designer. Like I have had the same dream. He said cars were always his passion. In his mid-30s, he decided the closest thing that he could do with cars and his abilities without turning his life's life upside down is to open a mechanic's shop with his longtime best friend and business partner, which allowed him to surround himself in the world of cars and get intimate with automotive engineering, design, and manufacturing, how cars hold up over time, their strengths, their weaknesses. He said he can go on for days when he sees under the skin of the cars, how are the design and manufactured. That's what I love. I, I share that love with you for sure.

Speaker A Yeah.

Speaker B At this point in his life, he can happily say that he's been fortunate enough to own a wide variety of cars that include at the very beginning, a 1992 Mitsubishi Eclipse 1.8.

Speaker A That is going back. Those were cool when they first came out.

Speaker B Those were cool when they came out.

Speaker A You're like, what is that thing?

Speaker B I'm not going to read the whole list, but it is varied. Let's say there's extensive and varied. El Dorado 4.9 Chevy Cobalt. Oh, he had an 89. Toyota Super Turbo. Toyota Super Turbo 5 speed.

Speaker A Yep.

Speaker B Then he, oh, look, number seven on the list. 91 Plymouth Laser Turbo.

Speaker A There you go. Perfect. He liked those 350 wheel horsepower on his Laser. That's great craziness. There's a Mini Cooper in here. There's a Tahoe in here. Ford Taurus that was a circle track racing car. The Eagle Talon, TSI. You keep circle number three there. We'll keep circling back. Multiple BMWs. Chevy Corvette, Dodge Ram 1500. So we're covering both ends of the spectrum here. He had a 2000 Dodge Viper RT10, which eventually had 700 wheel horsepower. Pay attention because that's going to come back. A 2018 Porsche Macan 2 liter is currently in the driveway, as is a 07 Chevy Corvette Z06 with 600 wheel horsepower. His all time holy grail dream car was owning that gen 2 Viper that year. 2000 Dodge Viper RT10. It was the literal car of his dreams from when he was 7. He felt like he won the jackpot when he finally had one. He purchased it, he loved modding it, and he said he went down the rabbit hole only to discover he'd made a car that had so 700 horsepower at the wheels.

Speaker B Holy cow.

Speaker A He says his description, he ended up with a big turbo and all the necessary mods, including having to rebuild the engine. So that means it blew up at least once. Okay. Anyway, so there you learned a lot about fabrication, tuning parts, etc. The hard decision was for him to let go of it because it had, he realized, hard truth and unmet expectations. The reality is he just couldn't use this car. He cannot enjoy it because Redline took him past 75 miles an hour in first gear.

Speaker B Holy moly. Well, now he's got the C6 06, which has a high compression block, big cam, 600 wheel horsepower. He says this is also a little bit too much on steroids, in his opinion.

Speaker A So.

Speaker B So he's looking for his next car to fill the void of what the Viper was for him.

Speaker A He said in the vet, he says he's committing felonies before he's into second. I mean, I understand you've got that much power. We talk about it a lot. A ton of power doesn't necessarily equal fun. And the difficulty that he's actually talking about here. Art's discussing the fact that it's not that it's not fun, it's just how often do I use it?

Speaker B Yes. I think it comes back to your using all of the throttle and all the pedestrians to the floor. Well, Art's looking for his next car. And he grew up playing all the need for speed games. All the European sports cars glamorized in his mind like 993s, 996s, Ferrari 348s, all the M cars, TVRs, Aston Martins. But now that Art is older and his three kids are fighting each other to see who can ride with dad in the two seat sports car.

Speaker A I get it.

Speaker B He has come to terms that he maybe needs something with four seats.

Speaker A Yeah. You got three kids and your wife, so there's five of you. That's a. An issue. It's an issue for sure. Yeah.

Speaker B The criteria is limited because he wants a car that has some sort of automotive significance. A unique design to fill his inner designer thirst. He writes and historical background.

Speaker A Okay.

Speaker B He almost needs to gravitate towards a car that is not just a normal everyday car with some sort of trim package. He says always Brownie points for a car with its own platform and design that isn't shared with anything else. Although he says that gets him into trouble when it comes to parts and availability for repairs and maintenance. A manual transmission is not necessarily a must since a lot of the modern dual clutch transmissions are pretty good. But for driving dynamics, fun is definitely at the top. Doesn't need to have a thousand horsepower.

Speaker A Yeah, true.

Speaker B But enough power to move past the traffic where he lives in Northeast Ohio.

Speaker A And then comes the sentence that I highlighted, bolded, underlined and italicized. Okay. Think about the cars that Art has had. Think about the high power stuff he's had. And then he throws this in. The most fun he's had in a car was an R53 Mini Cooper S. When he got to drive that car, 2600 pounds and 160 horsepower, he said it wasn't nearly enough power. But the short gearing, lightweight and handling of that car was out of this world and reformed his opinion of front wheel drive. That is the exact opposite of everything he's talked about.

Speaker B Absolutely.

Speaker A And he says that's one of the most fun experiences experiences he's ever had in a car.

Speaker B He says even he took his Viper down tail of the dragon. And as fun as that was being in first gear at 3000rpm for most, the road is not as fun as he had hoped. Yes, for sure.

Speaker A Yes.

Speaker B Art has always been a closet Porsche fan. Since driving a Cayenne and now a Macan, he believes he's able to understand what Porsche's driving dynamics philosophy is. It helps that Art is open to different design styles and he appreciates certain characteristics that Porsche has chosen. Chosen. He's smitten by 996 turbos, but he realizes that's a 20 year old car. He says they're half a price of the 997 Twin Turbos. So he'd consider it. But another possibility would be going to a 991.2 Carrera with that 3 liter turbo engine.

Speaker A Those. Those have actually come down quite a bit. They have.

Speaker B That could be interesting. I like what you're thinking. It's not out of the question but when it comes to price point about 40 to 60,000 he would need. It sounds like something, something really special to justify that kind of price. I think I can do it.

Speaker A He's intrigued by the 718s but he doesn't. He knows it's an amazing machine. But now we're talking two seats only.

Speaker B Yeah, we're back.

Speaker A We really are talking about more than two seats here. He of course he has a history of working at a local BMW dealership. So of course he looks back fondly on all the early 2000s BMWs. You pick your BMW and he kind of goes ah. Current garage is his daily macan. His wife has a Subway Bourbon. He still has a 1990 Eagle Talon. TSI loves those things and his C6Z06 with entirely too much power. So he could buy something outright for 30 to 40 grand or possibly something newer and more expensive. If we can convince him he would actually finance the remaining balance. He's trying to fill the hole that the Viper left in his heart. It's going to be hard but this is what he's come to us with.

Speaker B Art, I've got choices for. For you, but these are all supplemental. Think of these all in addition to what you're talking about. That Mini Cooper, I've talked about the third generation. How much I love that. So if you love the R53 and you want to spend a little bit more, go get yourself a John Cooper works Mini or that Mini gp. I think you would have a ball driving that car. I think you'd love it. And it is the antithesis to everything you've talked about and you even admitted how much fun you had driving.

Speaker A Agreed. Yes.

Speaker B Yes to the 911 as well. If you can do a 991.2. Yes. The Carrera S, yes. The four seats, absolutely. If you can swing it, I would say go test drive them first to see if that. That really does it for you. But if you really want four seats and you're really at a 30 to $40,000 budget, you need some wing in your life in the form of a Civic Type R or the Hyundai Elantra.

Speaker A N. Both are excellent.

Speaker B Yes, here are those cars. I think those are both great choices. The Hyundai is a little bit lower priced but still the Civic Type R. Lots of fun. And I think your kids would also fight to get in the front seat for this car. I think they would still really enjoy being in this car. Those are four cars, four choices so far. But if you want. I always think the, the two door four seat. It started life as just the two series. It's a. It's a couple coupe and then BMW made it hot and fire breathing. And that's the competition.

Speaker A Yes.

Speaker B So really good, really fun. Really like this car that is also a choice and I think you should drive one. But the car that I think you should actually go buy.

Speaker A Okay.

Speaker B Because you have a Viper shaped hole in your heart to fill. It's 700 horsepower. It came with a warranty. The engineering and metallurgy would make you think that these are going to last a long time. And up to this point I haven't heard of too many Hellcat engines disintegrating because of how they were driving. They're just supercharged wine and a lot of thunder and drama. You said you want something unique and has history. Charger.

Speaker A Yeah.

Speaker B 700 horsepower right out of the box. I think you should absolutely go get yourself a Dodge Charger SRT Hellcat. Wide body body. 700 horsepower in your face. Just think. You and all three of your kids doing burnouts. This is what burnouts feel like. Kids.

Speaker A The entire family. You and your wife and all three kids. Burnouts galore.

Speaker B This is the four door Viper.

Speaker A You're right. It actually is.

Speaker B This is.

Speaker A You've nailed that. The car. You've nailed that. Yes.

Speaker B And I think they're not 30 to 40. They're going to be more than that. But you said if you could justify it and it seems like you want something really fun. Fun and you'd be open to going completely in the opposite direction. Hence the Mini. Something totally different. You'd be. You love it. But I also think you said you closed your email. I've got a Viper longing.

Speaker A Yeah. It did it for sure.

Speaker B It was the car that you lusted after at age 7. You had one, then realized, I can't really drive this. This is the usable 700 horsepower Viper. This is it, my friend.

Speaker A I think you've hit it. That's excellent. That's really good. I don't think I did that well. But I'm going to try to sell you on my idea here, Art. And that is. I'm looking at your current garage. That's very good, Paul. Well done. Looking at your current garage and I'm thinking about what's not in it and what you need and what I really want to sell you, what I really want to sell you is a two plus two. But the problem is a two plus two doesn't work for multiple growing kids. The two plus two just has a ticking clock above it because they're going to outgrow it. Yeah. And it's just a matter of which one did you get. I mean, Honestly, of the 911s that you brought up, the 991992 is the one where they genuinely becomes a car where it's got usable back seats, but it's still a ticking clock. At some point, all the fun two plus twos just time out because the kids got too big. And I'm like, dad, I don't want to sit back there anymore. Okay. So unfortunately we are talking about four doors, four seats, I think. So to really do what you want to do, you have a macan, your wife has a Suburban, you have an Eagle Talon tsi. And you already have a focused car with too much power. You've admitted it's too much power. A 600 wheel horsepower C6Z06 that you've said is too much. So what I want to do is get you something that is none of those.

Speaker B Okay.

Speaker A It's got to be four doors, four seats. One of them that came to mind that is kind of a variant of where you were and I have to at least mention it is the Alpha Julia Quadrifoglio because I'm the guy that I'll always brings that car up. That would work though. I think Paul did it better with the Charger Challenger. That's the better one. Honestly.

Speaker B That's the four door Viper.

Speaker A Four door. But I think the car that springs off of your comment about the Mini and gets this done is Paul's already said it, but I have to say it again. I think you are a Civic Type R buyer. The Civic Type R feels special at 20:20. Yeah, it just feels interesting. The Hellcats, the Vipers, these kind of things you've talked about. Tale of the Dragon, other places where your super high horsepower cars aren't fun. The Civic Type R does that thing where. Yes. You mentioned in here you don't want something that wasn't purpose built to be this. I would argue that in this case the Civic Type R, they were thinking this first and then downgraded it. This is how the Civic Type R feels. It doesn't feel.

Speaker B I think you're right.

Speaker A I mentioned it before. This was like a blank check project at Honda. It doesn't feel like, can you make the Civic fast, it feels like. Can you make the perfect Civic? And then, by the way, give us a low rent hybrid version too, because this has a shocking amount of rear seat space. Yeah, this has rear seat space better than most five seat SUVs and pretty much every one of its competitors. Amazing amount of rear seat space. But when you drive it at 10 or 20, you're still like, oh, this is special. You haven't done anything yet. You just. I pulled it out of the driveway and down the block and I shifted once and I, oh, there's a stop sign. And you're still aware in the back of your mind this is a special car. True, but you got kids in the back and they're happy. And then when you have a great road trip, you can do it. There's trunk space.

Speaker B Yeah.

Speaker A And when you wind up on Tail of the Dragon, your Civic Type R, I bet you money your Civic Type R day on Tale of the Dragon will be more fun than when you took your Viper. That sounds crazy. On paper, I believe it.

Speaker B Absolutely, yes.

Speaker A So I think Civic Type R is nothing like anything else in your garage. You can just go buy one with your budget. You can take the kids, you can have fun, and you can go for groceries. So I am landing beginning and end at Civic Type R. Really? That's it?

Speaker B You're calling your shot?

Speaker A Calling my shot at that car. Even though you did really well with the Hellcat. But I'm going because it's the mini sentence in here where he's all of these other things he talked about and then ranting randomly. This mini front wheel drive that he had no expectations about is one of his most fun driving experiences ever. Civic Type R, 300 horsepower and we're done.

Speaker B Art. I even toyed with Lotus Evora gt.

Speaker A Ooh, except you only get like a kid and a half.

Speaker B Exactly. Growing kids. I mean, four seats technically, but I was trying to squeeze by in the technicality. I like the compromise because it's not the low power Mini. It's Civic Type R is in the middle.

Speaker A You can't drive the Civic Type R and not know it's special. You could drop somebody with no awareness of cars in that car. They're gonna be like, yeah, this car's cool.

Speaker B Art, happy hunting. Let us know what you get and we'll read it on air for a car conclusion.

Speaker A Speaking of car conclusions, we're gonna do a couple. We haven't done a couple in a little while. We're gonna do a couple real quick. We don't have any questions? This time we're gonna do car car conclusions instead. We're already at 90 minutes, which we're gonna keep rocking. Many of you have just said keep going. So we're gonna keep going. All right. With a car conclusion from Constantine. You may have heard of this recently. It was the car debate we actually did recently where it was, what do driving instructors drive? So he is writing back. This is the guy that works as a Porsche driving instructor. And we were many, many, many, many recommendations for him. And he loved it. He kind of breaks them all down. And he talks about the M2 competition. He talks about the GLA 35 and 45 that you brought up the GLE. He talks about the fact he was completely intrigued and surprised by you mentioning the BMW X2. He was like, I hadn't even thought of that. Inexpensive intrigued him. You mentioned the new RAV4 as maybe if you're leaning more commute than.

Speaker B That was an outlier.

Speaker A That was an outlier. But he talks about that was interesting as well. But he wanted more fun. He even talked about the two car conclusion, the two car thought. But he was like, one of them is never going to get driven.

Speaker B Yeah.

Speaker A And then we both brought up the Macan and just said, why don't you just go buy a Macan?

Speaker B You're a Porsche driving coach. Porsche driving coaches drive Macan. And you.

Speaker A Well, he wants a daily. He was looking at hatchbacks. He wants a daily. He realized when he was shopping the Macan that it was a foot longer and half a foot wider than the Golf platform. He drove the GTI and thought it was okay. So Macan was in the running. The GTI was in the running. And then he drove the Golf R, which was already on his radar. And he said he's delighted to say he's fallen in love with the little car. He has picked one one up. The interior feels much nicer than its competitors. I do have to agree with you there. He says he feels like Volkswagen was copying Porsche's notes on this car. He wishes that it had the mark 8.5 traditional buttons on the steering wheel. But the Golf R didn't get that. So he's kind of had to learn to work with them. Most of the time he's actually done fine, but he's had to learn to work with them. So he has a current Golf R. He says the power is perfect for his knee needs. It's actually not left him wanting, which the GTI did. He says he's always getting out of a 911 Turbo S. He needs to get into something that feels like it's got some grunt. The Golf R has made it happen. He is thrilled. He said he decided he was not going to modify the car. But even with the Golf R's adjustable dampers, it didn't ride quite right. So I love this. He went down from factory 19s to those look great.

Speaker B This is Constantine's car. He sent us photos. It looks great and it still looks good.

Speaker A Yeah.

Speaker B With the 17 smaller apex 17 with.

Speaker A More sidewall has solved the issues he had with feeling like it was kind of borderline unacceptable on the potholes of la. That looks great.

Speaker B It does look great. I think you've done so well, Constantine. I love that you actually considered the choices because sometimes I think they're dismissed, but they're not done without a lot of thought and care. But I like that you went in your own direction and you let the car speak to you. What you. You wanted. It seemed like maybe a little bit of bias crept in, but you really let the car speak and you've done so well. This is fantastic.

Speaker A Yeah.

Speaker B The slight mods and going down inches.

Speaker A Down in wheel diameter. Everybody. Everybody listening solves it. The Internet suggests that's the wrong direction. It looks cool. And he said it solved the ride issue shoes. Plus those are great looking wheels from Apex I love. Exactly.

Speaker B Constantine, well done. Thank you for riding. Really appreciate it. Congratulations on your new ride. I hope you enjoy it a long time. And I think when people ask, you've got a great story to tell.

Speaker A You've got.

Speaker B Yeah, you're a Porsche driving coach and yeah, you get out of some of the hottest, coolest, fastest cars and then you get in this and you're still happy and maybe even more so. That's pretty cool. Thank you for riding lighting.

Speaker A In the opposite category, we have Garrett, who wrote in for his car conclusion. And it is one of those stories where we made recommendations and it did not end up that way.

Speaker B Garrett Liked our Z4 suggestion from episode 943. Spent a lot of. A lot of time playing around with a configurator. Purple with white interior just looks so good. That's the problem. Everybody thinks, yeah, it looks so good when it's new.

Speaker A And in the configurator, white interior is always a problem.

Speaker B Three minutes later.

Speaker A Always a problem. Yeah. Mm.

Speaker B Well, he decided it was too much like his wife's purple M240.

Speaker A I. I can see that. Yes.

Speaker B Wanted something different. Garrett also decided that he wanted to stay away from turbos this time around. So he started looking at convertibles to rent on Turo. He rented a C7 in Cali and it solidified what he already knew. Just not enough headroom. But amazing mountain roads with a 55 mile an hour speed limit.

Speaker A Of course he says that he knows a lot of people like to trash talk California, but he said the same roads he enjoyed in California with a 55 mile an hour speed limit. He's pretty sure would have had a 25 mile an hour speed limit in his home in Wyoming. So in that regard, he's hat tipping to California for that. He loved it. He also rented a 981 base Boxster PDK in Arizona to see how it would work. Had power seats and while it didn't feel quite as Sporty as the C7, the letdown was he couldn't get enough headroom. But he isn't letting it go. The 981 Spider has been a dream car of mine since it first came out more than once. Since then he's made trips to actually sit in other Spiders to determine if he fits in the top of the line buckets. He can just barely fit. He's even taken a 300 mile road trip just to sit in one. So he spent time looking for the right spider. Wanted to get the very specific top of the line bucket seats, either white or red interior, in either yellow, blue or paint to sample with a black interior. He found a yellow spider, $93,000 in January, learned that it only takes a massive down payment for a bank to back you on $1,000 car. So now he has to go back to saving. So six months of waiting and looking at everything else you can imagine. E46s, Z4m's, GT350s. Again, still pining after the Spider. He did exactly what you'd expect and he bought a 2025 Ford F150 Lightning, which is none of the things he was looking. None of them.

Speaker B Here it is on one of his trips. Here's the Lightning. And you know what? He loves it.

Speaker A He says it checks exactly none of the boxes he was looking for.

Speaker B That's fantastic.

Speaker A The trick here is he actually works at a Ford dealership, got great incentives on this. His commute is three miles, so EV is perfect. That with the promotion and everything that's happened in his life, this has actually been the perfect choice. Even though not at all what he was expecting to actually solve this problem. So in that regard, you got a great car conclusion. Even though we're completely off the map, he has looked at Lotus of Denver to see if maybe he could get an Amira. I like this idea.

Speaker B It's fantastic.

Speaker A For now he has an F150 lightning.

Speaker B I like how you leave us with this question that I think we should tackle for a topic Tuesday sometime. Garrett he said what is worse as a car enthusiast, knowing exactly what you want and not having the funds to make it happen or having the funds but not knowing exactly what you want.

Speaker A Ooh.

Speaker B I think that's a great place to leave the podcast to end things and revisit it as a future topic Tuesday. But thank you guys for all of your emails. We really appreciate the photos. The follow up means a lot. Thank you. And I love that you want to share your cars with us and share it with the community too. So write to us everyday driver tv mail.com car conclusions topic Tuesdays Car Debates. We're looking forward to next time as always. Always Cheers everyone.

The Most Fun Car At Each Price Point, Van Life In A Car, Jail Speeds In First Gear | Episode 1,015

Interactive Transcript

Topics Covered

Related Episodes

Out on a Limb | Nov 2nd | Hillhurst United Church

How Do You Respond to Jesus? John 5:16–47 :Daily Devotional, Daily Bible Study

Episode 240: Otto Aerospace CEO Paul Touw talks teardrop, laminar flow, and Phantom 3500

Burnout, Breakthroughs, and the Power of Getting Back Outdoors | Gun Talk Hunt

Share Episode