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On the Road with Matt Farrah
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Jun 28, 2024
Welcome to JC Whitney's "On The Road" Podcast. Please "Subscribe" to our channel. Matt Farah talks about his love of cars and awesome channel The Smoking Tire, after nearly 20 years on YouTube channel. There's a driving force for every car collector and enthusiast. Thanks for tuning in to On The Road, the JC Whitney podcast series. We are featuring an episode every other week with industry experts, friends, and storytellers. SUBSCRIBE to our channel so you don't miss an episode. Visit The Smoking Tire https://thesmokingtire.com/
View Video Transcript
0:00
Hello and welcome. Yes. Hola. I am your host Angel Sala Balen and today we are
0:13
joined by Matt Farah. So we are in your shop. Go ahead and give the... Westside
0:18
Collector Car Storage. WCCS.com. Yep. High-end storage and care and concierge for collector car owners. Yep. And I built this shop because I have a problem
0:31
Can we talk about your problem a little more? I had too many cars, have too many cars and
0:36
living on the Westside there's not a lot of space. You know, you can't, you can't
0:42
even if you're like super rich, which I'm not, but even if you are super rich you
0:46
can't buy space on the Westside. And so I started this business for people who
0:53
wanted to live in Playa Vista or Playa del Rey or Venice or Manhattan Beach or one of
0:59
those areas and collect cars but didn't have anywhere to keep them. So you
1:05
identified the void in the market. I was. I was the void in the market. He was the void. And now
1:10
I'm an enabler because those, some of those people didn't buy more cars, you
1:15
know, once they find that it's safe and trustworthy to keep them here and
1:19
get more and more cars. Yeah, the reputation. Right. Yes. So Matt already started off a
1:24
little bit talking about what he's doing now in the automotive world. He does have
1:30
a YouTube channel. Mm-hmm. The Smoking Tire. The Smoking Tire. And on that YouTube
1:35
channel he gets his hands and his feet on some of the world's most sought-after
1:41
vehicles. Yeah. And also some terrible ones. Some terrible ones. Some of the least
1:45
sought-after. Let's talk about the terrible ones. Everybody knows the... Most of them
1:49
aren't that bad. Most of them are pretty decent. But there's, there's, you know
1:53
there's some not great stuff. Yeah. Yeah. What's not great on your scale? I mean
1:58
because I don't know. Give me, give me a point of reference. No, I mean, well, there's cars that are just like not that interesting. Okay. I mean, you know, like you go out and you drive a
2:05
mini-car. A Corolla or something. It's not, not that interesting. Yeah. Or a minivan. But like
2:09
and, and not that there's nothing wrong with that car. Sure. It's just not like, the
2:15
smoking tire is like, obviously like an enthusiast thing. So enthusiasts aren't
2:20
gonna care. Yeah. Pickup trucks, stuff like that. And then there's, there's great
2:25
stuff. There's super exotic stuff, but then there's also affordable performance cars and, and are like meat and potatoes. Like are, you know, the thing that does
2:35
the best for us is cars that are reasonably affordable. You know, I know
2:41
that all cars feel really expensive now, but like, you know, re reasonably affordable
2:47
Your, your GR Corollas, your Mustang GTs, your, your Corvettes, your, you know
2:52
stuff where it's like, I might want to buy that. Let's see if it's good. Yeah. Like a
2:57
real attainable thing for most Americans, I would say. Sure. I mean, and, and we do
3:03
you know, we do exotic sports cars as well. You saw the McLaren that I'm driving this week is
3:08
downstairs. Yeah. I mean, that's awesome. And like who I'm not going to be like, no
3:12
I don't want to drive a McLaren this week, you know, like I do, but what the audience
3:17
wants is, is stuff they can reasonably afford. Yeah. Right. Yeah. No. So the
3:22
Porsches, all of that, most of us can't afford it. I would love to. Right. Also
3:26
Porsches. So it's our meat and potatoes is stuff people can afford and Porsches
3:31
because Porsches are very, very, um, particularly in Southern California. It's huge. Porsches in Southern California go together really well because they're really usable. Um
3:43
you could drive one every day to work. You could drive it in the canyons. You could drive to the track. You can do a lot with a Porsche. And I sort of snowballed with the Porsche thing. Like
3:52
I became the guy who's driven every Porsche. And once you are that guy, then anyone who wants a
3:59
Porsche, cause there's so many of them comes to you. Yeah. They go, where do I, I'm looking at
4:05
the 991.2 GTS, but I'm also looking at the 997.1 GT3, but I'm also looking at the 992 Turbo S
4:14
What do you think? And you just go, it's like, I don't know. Right. Right. Right. Do you want
4:18
the one that has 200 pounds less because of carbon fiber? Right. Well, exactly. What ends
4:23
up happening is I can come back to them with a couple of questions that will in a totally binary
4:33
way, figure out what their values are for that car, right. It'll make the choice for them. And
4:39
then what happens is even though they've tried to ask me a rational question
4:47
when you go back and apply reason to their choices, you learn that there is no reasoning
4:53
behind their choices. Like people will go, should I buy a Porsche 911 GT3 or a BMW M5
5:00
One is a two seat, very high performance track focused sports car. And one is like an Autobahn
5:06
burning luxury sedan. And I go, do you need a back seat? It's a real easy question, right
5:13
Yeah. Because if you want a high performance car and you don't need a back seat
5:19
you have to make a lot of compromises in order to have a back seat. The car will be more compromised
5:25
than a two seat car. And then we learn right away that they don't actually care. They're not
5:33
choosing these based on needs. It's just like, well, I like the M5 and I like the GT3. That's it
5:40
And I'm going, well, why can't you choose between this huge sedan and this small sports car? Right
5:46
And you've come to me to choose for you. And you're the guy. You've come to me to choose for
5:49
you and you don't know what you want. People don't usually know what they want until somebody comes
5:55
and tells them what they want. No. What they want is to be told that the thing that they want is
6:00
right. That's what they want. So as long as you don't come back to them and say, you know, no
6:07
that car sucks, you know, then you're all right. Then you can just let them fly like a bird
6:13
Back to the enabler part. Right. I said, whatever choice you buy
6:18
you keep it at Westside Collector Car Storage and that's what makes you a winner
6:22
Yeah. That's right. I'm going to pick the car that fits on this. Yeah. Yeah. Right. Six thousand pound maximum, bro
6:27
That's it. Let's go. Yeah. That's awesome. Yeah. So out of all of these cars you've got in your hands on
6:35
have you amassed a collection of cars? Do you have? Yeah. Between my wife and I, we have like nine cars
6:40
Okay. All right. Out of those nine, do you have a favorite? I mean, the thing is like, they're all different. And so the thing, not everybody does this, but my
6:50
car collection, I'm constantly finding a little hypothetical niche to fill, right? A little hole
6:57
to plug. Well, what if I want to drive to Palm Springs for a weekend? Well, what if I want to
7:02
do this event? Well, what if I need to do this? And then telling myself that it's okay to buy a car
7:09
to fill that niche. And so it's like, there isn't necessarily a favorite because they're each good
7:18
for these sort of different type of things. Yeah. Like I'm not going to wear these shoes to go hiking. I wear hiking to go dance
7:25
Right. So it's that kind of thing. They spread across. There are some like themes
7:33
Yeah. What are they? I like manual transmissions. I like typically naturally aspirated engines. And most importantly, like the things that I buy
7:47
and if I review a car, I try and put myself in everybody's shoes. Whereas people want to know
7:54
what I buy because I'm the guy who drives everything. But like what I buy and like what
7:59
you should buy are like not the same thing. And I want you to be happy. And if I just tell you to
8:04
buy the thing that I want to buy, you might hate it. Yeah. Well, you're not wearing the same clothes
8:09
You're not dressing the same. I'm not picking the same ways of life. So why would you pick the same
8:14
car? Right. Well, you should live exactly like me. Everybody should live like you. Everyone should live just like me. But so like I have a Lamborghini Countach. Like that's the
8:22
game over. Right. Like if you're talking about a guy in his early 40s collecting cars, that's it
8:29
There's nothing above that. Maybe like an F40 or something. But even then, Countach, I would argue
8:37
is more dramatic than F40. Do you have a Miami Vice outfit that you wear with your Countach
8:42
No. You have to get one. No. When I drive that car, I try to dress as like schlubby as possible
8:51
Really? Yeah. Okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I want to look. It's mesh shorts, flip flops
8:57
The Adam Sandler. Yes. It's Sandler core. Yeah. Sandler core. Is how I dress driving that car
9:02
It's the move. Yeah. And mainly flip flops because I have to take my shoes off to drive it
9:08
because the pedal box is really small and I have big feet. Not because of like dirt
9:11
but like literally my feet won't fit in the pedal box. The gear box is too wide or something. No, just like it's meant for like little
9:18
Italian people. So it's like this wide. Not all Italian people are little
9:23
Yeah. Right. Okay. It's not for like Rocco Sofretti over here, but every other Italian
9:29
Balboni, very small. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So that, and I have a Porsche, a 718 Spyder, Boxster Spyder that I put a hot rod engine in
9:42
I took the engine out and put in a four and a half liter high compression racing engine
9:47
And it's just insanely fast. LS? No, no. It's a Porsche engine. Oh, it's a Porsche. I'm sorry
9:52
It's a Porsche engine, but it's bored. It's stroked. It's high compression. It runs on race gas. We did shorty gear ratios. It's just, it's stupid, stupid fast. It's
10:01
fantastic. Demand motorsport. Yeah, it's 570 horsepower in a Boxster. Naturally aspirated. All the sounds that you're getting out of that
10:10
Yeah. No, like verbal tune is copying what this engine does normally
10:18
I have an Acura NSX. That's lovely. An older one. They're great. I have a Ferrari 328
10:25
Which is great because it's got that old Ferrari vibe, but it's new enough that it works properly. Yep
10:34
And it's like, it's not original. Like some of my car, like my NSX is like very low miles
10:39
highly original, mint cherry. The Countach has some miles on it, but it's also very original
10:44
The Ferrari has been painted like four times. Okay. Like nothing is original. So it looks fine. It's not like modded. Like it's just like
10:53
everything's been replaced at least once. And it's the original color, but it's not the original
10:59
paint. It's not the original leather. And it's got like 45,000 miles on it. And what's great about
11:04
that is I can just use it as a car. You can have fun. Yeah. I just use it. Like I'll go to the grocery store. I'll run errands in it. Like it's not
11:12
like a special occasion car. It's an all the time car. That's right. So we were speaking to someone that had like a mint collection. Yeah
11:19
And I mean, he was saying that it was so difficult for him to get over the fact of taking it out onto the road. He's like, I can't drive this thing
11:28
He's like, I got to put it in a trailer and take it to a car show. Then I get to enjoy it with people
11:34
I can't live like that. And so my NSX is mint, but like I put paint protection film on it and
11:41
I will drive it. I'm not afraid to drive it. I did have a car, I had an E46 M3 that was so mint
11:49
like literally it presented as new and I would wash my hands before I drove it
11:56
And I'd only wear sweatpants. I wouldn't wear blue jeans. So you didn't get the dye
12:01
So I didn't mess up the leather. Yeah. And after about a year, I was just like, this is dumb
12:06
This is crazy. I'm not enjoying this actually. We actually have a similar, I don't have an M3. I have an E46, 2001 E46. I love that
12:13
They're great. You know, I drive that slow car fast and I love the feel of it. And I'll just start ripping and
12:20
tearing through those Virginia, you know, mountains. And I love it. E46s are some of the best cars for drivers ever. I mean, it doesn't matter which engine you get
12:30
I mean, I happen to like, I think the 330 coupe is like really right where it's at
12:36
The spec E46 suspension you can do. I mean, it's just amazing. But I had this M3 and like
12:42
it was so nice. I couldn't drive it. Meanwhile, Zach, my cohost in the Smoking Tire Podcast
12:47
his daily is an E46 M3 and it's got like 130,000 miles on it and drives it every day
12:53
And so here I am like babying this thing. I'm not enjoying it. And the upside of it is like driving the car that like my cohost is just dailying and like
13:02
parking outside in the ocean. And so I was like, this is so dumb. Like, why am I treating this M3
13:08
better than I'm treating a Countach? Like that's stupid. So I have a lot of cars and I'm also
13:14
testing other cars all the time. And so there's only so much that I can drive any of the cars
13:20
So if I put 2000 miles a year on one of my cars, like that's a lot, but it's not because I'm
13:26
trying to keep the miles down. I just, I'm just all, I have so many options and so few places to
13:32
go. So anyway, my newest car, I got a 1991 Bentley Turbo R that I'm very excited about
13:44
because the lease on my wife's car is up and we need something to drive until her new car comes
13:51
in. And so that was a hole I found. It wasn't just like, oh, just like lease another car now
13:57
Like the electric Macan is coming out in September. So I have to buy something to cover
14:03
you know, meanwhile, she has two weird JDM cars that she could very easily be driving in this
14:08
time, but we had to have a car to fill this niche. And it has to be a turbo Bentley. Yes. Yeah
14:13
Single turbo. Oh yeah. V8 one turbo. What is that? Is that, um, cast iron head or block
14:20
Probably. Probably. Yeah. That monster. I don't know. 91, 92. Yeah. Six and three quarter
14:26
The numbers in this car. Great. Six and three quarter liter V8 one turbo red line, 4,500 RPM
14:34
Okay. That's kind of low. 300. Yeah. It's like a diesel. 380 horsepower, 480 pounds of torque
14:41
three gears. Okay. Don't tell me it's a column shifter. Column shifter
14:46
three gears, top speed, 140 miles an hour. So with three gears and 4,500 RPM, this thing will do 140
14:55
miles an hour. It's like a boat engine. That is torque, my friend. That's a boat engine, dude
14:59
I bought it off a guy in my neighborhood who died at 93. It was, he bought it for himself for his
15:04
60th birthday and he had one owner car, had it for 33 years, 20,000 miles. Nice. Yeah. And you
15:11
obviously have to mod that. His grandkids are super. I already modded it. What'd you do? I did
15:15
the French market yellow fog lights. Hey, that's cool. So it looks like when you roll up, it looks
15:21
like a mafia boss named Jacques is here to come murder you. Yeah. It's great. Yeah. That's the
15:27
way you're supposed to feel. And I put Bluetooth in it. In a Bentley? Of course. Yeah. It needed
15:31
Bluetooth. Besides that, it's fine. Does it have, I mean, does it have anything in the market where
15:36
you can kind of like, you know, make it work to mod it up? Like any kind of like bolt-on things
15:41
in the market that would match up? No, I mean like, it's not, it's, I mean, but so the thing
15:47
there are some things you can do. The stuff that you would do to it is stuff off of later
15:52
Bentleys. So if you put, if you got the cylinder heads off of the 97 Bentley Turbo R, you could
15:58
get, they, in 94, they went from a three speed to a four speed. So you could upgrade that. You could
16:04
do like a gear vendors overdrive. You could do like different final drives. You can't really do
16:12
much in the way of wheels. There's only one tire size that fits these cars and they're these Avons
16:17
and they're so expensive. They're like 500 bucks a corner. It's not like fun in that performance
16:22
What's fun about it is you to cruise. The essence of it. Yeah. It's the leather and the wood and the
16:30
metal and the torque and the, I drove it to Vegas a couple of weeks ago. Yeah. The best. Yeah. The
16:36
best. I bet it felt like you were just riding on a cloud. Yeah. I mean, I mean, it's a hydraulic
16:40
suspension, so it's, it's sort of, it's sporting, but it's like a Citroen kind of it's, it's really
16:46
really nice. The only thing I would ever do in terms of the only thing I think it needs is
16:51
possibly that four speed gearbox. Okay. But for the overdrive. Yeah. Because, because at, at 85
16:59
miles an hour, you're turning like 2,400 RPM when it doesn't need that at all. When you're cruising
17:05
around town, it upshifts at like 1800 RPM. So it's, it's like, there should be another gear there
17:11
Yeah. Yeah. But, and obviously Bentley figured that out eventually, but, but, um, for what it
17:17
would cost to do the swap, I don't care. Like what am I going to save a little fuel economy
17:24
maybe add a little ref, but like, eh. The experience. I, I, I have a lot of experience
17:31
I don't, I don't wrench. I don't know if you guys know that. I don't wrench. You're not getting your hands on. No, I don't wrench. Just drive. I drive, I make videos, I create content, but like
17:40
and there's people that look down on me for not wrenching. I don't care. Yeah. Yeah. I don't care
17:46
I don't like wrenching hurts me physically. Yeah. I don't enjoy it. I don't get set. There's people
17:53
who do bless them. I will work hard at my job to pay them to do that. And also I don't want to get
17:59
in a car and drive it fast when I've worked on it. Yeah. I want a professional to work on it so
18:05
I can go push the car and it's good. Hard. Yeah. Yeah. Yes. I I've been starstruck, I suppose
18:11
by a couple of cars and there's, it's not like make model, you know, I've, I've seen all that
18:17
I mean, there's weird, like really, really, you know, you get used to stuff. So it takes some
18:22
weird, unique. Yeah. To, to really be like, Ooh, wow. But like the back to the future, a DeLorean
18:32
the, the, the hero car post restoration when it was, when it was revealed to the Peterson
18:37
up close, you know, back to the future was a very important movie for me from a car perspective
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from a filmmaking, whatever perspective, all that stuff, childhood perspective, what have you. So
18:48
to sit in and touch and experience the back to the future, a car was very important
18:54
A lot of full circle things. Yeah. Kind of Ayrton Senna's formula one car at Woking and McLaren
19:01
When I, when I got near that car, I got sort of this warmth vibe that I thought was very unique
19:09
Did he win the formula one championship? Yes. Many times. How many times did he win that
19:14
This is a, someone's going to get mad if I get this wrong, but I want to say six. That's either
19:21
four or six. Yeah. He was the guy before Lewis Hamilton. Like he held Schumacher. It was Senna
19:30
then Schumacher. And then, but did Schumacher and then Vettel and then Hamilton. Yeah. But
19:36
Schumacher I think might've got, I think Senna got four or five Schumacher had six. Okay. And then
19:42
Vettel had, I think four or five. And then, and now Hamilton has eight, I believe. Yeah. I believe
19:51
monsters. They're all monsters. And I'm not like, I probably got all those numbers wrong. So don't
19:56
get mad. It's a bunch, a bunch, a bunch, a bunch, and a bunch more than me. But to people who love
20:02
people who love cars and driving a lot of people, Senna is the best driver who ever lived. So
20:08
that one was very, plus he died in a crash young and this whole thing there. So those two cars
20:14
probably are the most, just in terms of being in the presence, you know, felt something
20:21
Meant the most to you. Yeah, probably. Yeah. Okay. All right. So, I mean, I think he kind of hit on
20:27
that last little question that we were going to, but, you know, talking about a car or a moment
20:32
that you, that, that changed your life, whether that was a car ride from, you know, the hospital
20:38
with your firstborn or. Well, I was going to say, I don't remember being brought home from the
20:43
hospital when I was a baby, but. You did though. The idea that I would have a kid. That would be
20:48
amazing. Here's how, here's how, here's how not kids I am. The idea that I would have a firstborn
20:55
and bring them home from the hospital was so foreign that I interpreted that question as being
21:00
the baby. That's how bad I'm not. I thought I was anti kids for a while. Yeah. That's how many kids I'm
21:07
not having. I mean, look, there's no, you, you told me this question was coming. So there's
21:12
there's a few there's, there's when I was like five and my dad brought me my first ever car magazine
21:18
and it had the DeLorean on the cover and this leads to back to the future, but, but the DeLorean
21:24
was it's, it's, you know, most people who know about cars know that it wasn't a very good car
21:29
but that doesn't matter to a five-year-old to a five-year-old. It looks like a spaceship
21:34
which is part of a bit in back to the future where they pretend it's a spaceship. But that
21:40
was seeing the image in the magazine of that car made me earn that cars could be more than
21:48
this thing mom and dad drove me around in and they could be special. So there's that. Then there's a
21:54
like my ninth birthday, when my parents got me a go-kart and now I'm driving. Now I, you know
22:00
I'm, I was like the fat kid. I wasn't very fast at running. I wasn't that great at sports
22:05
If you've seen the movie heavyweights, maybe you can relate, but now I'm driving a go-kart and I'm
22:10
good. I'm getting good at that. And now you're getting fast and I'm fast. I can go fast. So
22:15
there's that, you know, and then, and then there's stuff like that. You know, first time I drove a
22:22
Ferrari, you know, there's, there's a bunch of those other firsts. Yeah. And, you know, there
22:32
there's, there's not one moment. If I had to go back to one, I would do the car magazine one
22:37
That's, that was the one where it was like, cars are special. Yeah. Cars are more than
22:42
cars are more than transportation. Yeah. And, and so that's, and that was a, that was a road and
22:47
track magazine. And now of course I get to write for road and track magazine. So that's, there's a
22:52
circle there. Yeah. Full circle. If any of our viewers have a question for Matt, go ahead and
22:57
drop it down into the comments and we will try to answer you. You can find my car review videos at
23:05
the Smoking Tire YouTube channel. You can find my podcast, the Smoking Tire podcast at youtube.com
23:10
slash the Smoking Tire podcast, or download it on any podcast platform that you choose. It's on all
23:17
of them. You can read me every month in road and track magazine. I'm the editor at large. And if
23:21
you're in Los Angeles and you want the best, most thorough, safest place to keep your car
23:26
Westside Collector Car Storage in the South Bay and Playa Vista, two locations
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