Culture
Spike Feresten on Podcasting and SoCal Car Culture
In this episode, Spike Feresten joins Randy Nonenberg to discuss his popular car-oriented podcast and the vibrant car culture of Southern California. They delve into the evolution of Spike's podc...
Spike Feresten on Podcasting and SoCal Car Culture
Culture •
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Interactive Transcript
Speaker A
Foreign Trailer podcast. Hey everybody. Welcome to the Bat Podcast. This is Randy Nonenberg reporting from Bring a Trailer headquarters in San Francisco for another episode. And for this one we have a super special guest, we have Spike Fariston who's here to join us, who runs a podcast that dwarfs ours. So maybe he'll give me some hints and tell me a little bit about the car world in SoCal and what is happening. Good to reconnect with you, Spike. Thanks for being here.
Speaker B
Yeah, thanks for having me on.
Speaker A
We have been talking about all sorts of corners of the Bat universe, but your touch points on cars in SoCal go quite a bit broader. You've built what I always hear as kind of one of the benchmark car oriented podcasts. But I wanted to ask you about that. Get some updates on the podcasts and what else you're up to. But tell me, I mean, you consider the podcast sort of a side fun project or do you do put a lot of focus on that as one of your main outlets or tell us how it has informed life for you?
Speaker B
It's always been a side hustle. It's always been just an hour of fun with me and my friends that, you know, continues to grow in size and demand more and more attention. But if you knew anything you like about me, it's like I, I do put quite a bit of planning into it. Not like Zuckerman or any of the other guys, they just show up. But I'm thinking about every kind of inch of what we're going to talk about. You know, I have a great team down in Austin who edits with me and we, you know, we want people to enjoy this hour of kind of, you know, off center car talk, you know, and what we're always trying to go for is like the real conversation people are having behind the conversation. So when you're hanging out with your friends and you're looking at cars, at a cars and coffee and then you go off to the side with your buddy and you go, hey, here's what I really think. That's our show. And then we have accumulated knowledge of many at this point, decades of buying and selling cars and including from your site, your great site and your great community that you've built. And we love just sharing some of that craziness with everybody and you know, hopefully we're there to go, hey, I've been in that situation and here's what I think you should do, you know, because when you're buying and selling cars or when you're collecting cars or Even when you just have one car. And I remember it was at the very beginning of this, you know, your thinking is not all there. You know, I remember one of my first instincts was, well, I'll buy the cheapest rotted out thing I can find and then I'll restore it. Not understanding that that would cost me four of those cars, you know, And I always would get advice from folks around me and go, oh, that makes sense. Buy the best preserved, lowest mileage example I can afford and then ask before you restore because it may not be worth it, you know. So we're now trying to kind of give back to our car community a little bit. Still learning a lot about the whole car collecting deal. And, you know, spikes car radio is just a whole lot of fun for us, you know, it really is. We love getting together. I love driving press cars and new cars. That's super fun. And now we're getting to travel and have, you know, more interesting people on the show than just my crew of monkey guys. So, you know, it's good.
Speaker A
Yeah, that fun aspect of it and time with your friends I think comes through and I think that's why probably people relate with it so well. You say traveling around, I know you guys have kind of established a beachhead a little bit year after year. Now you come into pebble beach at, on the Saturday or on the Friday, you guys are there and kind of doing the live version. Is that something that's good and you want to keep doing that or is that a bunch of folks that don't get it and you're talking to a crowd that's a little disconnected or are people pretty, pretty engaged in it? That's a good place to be.
Speaker B
No, our friends show up, you know, we do a show, we sell tickets. All the money goes to charity. And we always, we have sold out the last five or six years. And it's always like our group, our friends, you know, they're wearing shirts, they know the answers to all of our trivia questions. You know, I think I can stump them. They've got them. It's always super fun. And now, you know, I'm off to Audrain Concord with Johnny Lieberman. Tomorrow we're flying out there to do a show. It's me and John. Have you been there before?
Speaker A
It's pretty cool spot. Yep.
Speaker B
Yeah, no, but I'm from the east coast and you know, I was born not too far from there. Not in fancy Newport in Fall River, Massachusetts. But I'm excited to go kind of connect with the east coast car community and see this event. I didn't understand the scope of it until I looked at the schedule yesterday and went, oh, damn, this is a real deal. They're wearing pink sport coats. So I'm, I'm psyched, I'm psyched to get out there finally and hang with Donald Osborne and hopefully I'll get to see Jay Leno's mansion. I really want to see that. Wow. Yeah. Thing that on the peninsula there and, and just see what this whole thing's about.
Speaker A
Yeah, I mean I, I hear people talk about your guys podcast on the east coast, on the west coast. I was in Europe recently doing car stuff and somebody said they were listening to it, driving around overseas. So that sort of reach, obviously we've had a kind of similar journey with bat and you just kind of are a little surprised when it kind of catches fire a little bit and you guys are all over the place. So I love hearing what you guys have to say on it and tuning in, but there's always some questions that I have about it in terms of, yeah, you have your BUDD on it with you. And I, I love the different banter and their different experiences, the press car thing. So obviously once you get some visibility, like you get to drive some brand new stuff. You guys are always talking about the brand new stuff that you're driving used to be super heavy, Porsche centric, but now it's like all over the map.
Speaker B
Right.
Speaker A
I mean, you guys are driving all sorts of stuff. Is that right?
Speaker B
Yeah, you know, my, my, my sensibility for the show is guys having fun with stuff, you know, So I really only say yes to stuff that I think we can have a good time with. And then I try to communicate the, you know, the west side of LA lifestyle, use of this thing, you know, so right now we have a long term loaner, an INEOS Grenadier, and all of us are, you know, driving it. I was just in it this morning. I took it to play tennis this morning and you know, it's fun for me to like get on the set and then go, hey, when I brought it to tennis, nobody knew what this was. When I was at the Ralph supermarket, somebody said, what, what, what's an ineos? Is that a defender? Is that a G wagon? I don't understand what you're driving. And then, you know, you meet people in the neighborhood who have them and go, oh, you like grannies, don't you? And you know, you learn, you know, you get to talk to them and go, what do you think of this first generation suv? And they go, oh, the steering's a little weird, but I really. It's charismatic and I like the way it looks. And you go, yeah, that's what I'm experiencing too. And these guys really have developed something right out of the gate that's like a solid, a solid grade B, I would say, which is really hard to pull off. And then, you know, I called them up and said, what are, where are we going in the future? And gave them some of my feedback and they said, we're already on it. You know, I love hearing that. And, you know, I can't tell you what they told me, but there's good stuff coming, you know, and that to me is very important information to communicate to somebody who's in the middle of nowhere or just like, I like this thing. I, you know, I like the way it looks. And I go down to the dealer, you're not necessarily going to get the feedback that I'm going to give you or the other guys are going to give you. Right? They're just going to sell you a car. So, you know, while we don't take it too seriously, we do understand that there's a hungry audience for kind of basic information. You know, a lot of other shows will geek out and, you know, drill down on the tech and the specs and, you know, I think that's well covered. But not a lot of shows will go, my wife hates this thing, my kids told me not to drop them off in school in it. Or three people flipped me off in one drive today and I was not doing anything. That's like what a Bentley convertible does in la. It's saying something to the world. And you should know before you buy this, there's going to be a bias against you wherever you might be driving it. And, and, and you don't want to be surprised when you're spending that kind of money, you know, two weeks in, when every day you're getting flipped off, like, oh, man, what did I sign up for here?
Speaker A
Well, people appreciate that sort of straightforwardness, right? And you have some sponsors on the show, but it's not like you're sponsored by Jeep. So you can't say what you feed the grain or you can't say what you feel about, you know, the, the exact model. It seems like podcasts in particular. I mean, I think the new car magazines or the reinvented car magazines are trying to do that, but frankly, nobody reads and nobody does that anymore. So they definitely much rather hear from you or hear it from something that just feels like a real personality in their ear in a, in a better way.
Speaker B
But we have, you know, we have had Porsche sponsor us, we have had Ford sponsor us, but it's always a specific thing that they're trying to sell and we're, you know, they know we're just going to speak our minds, you know, that that's just, just what we do, you know. In fact, there are times where I think the guys are being a little unfair. A lot of times that Zuckerman, a little personal bias that he's putting on something. But I think all of it's kind of important. And, you know, I feel when I'm kind of digesting content, I don't want to be in a negative space. You know what I mean? I really, these days I would rather someone be telling me, you know, how I'm going to enjoy this because I'm already kind of interested in it. And then maybe say, here's something to consider. You know, maybe it's a little too expensive for you. Maybe it doesn't handle right here and here. But, you know, I, I think I'm trying to remember. There's only one car in our eight year history that we really went, what the is this? I. I'm happy. I can't remember it right now, but we were all just like, yuck.
Speaker A
Come on, man, you gotta be, you gotta remember.
Speaker B
I think it was something. No, it was something Johnny brought on the set. It wasn't something. I, I don't know what it is, but, you know, people think of us as like a Porsche podcast, but we're, I mean, we love Subaru a lot. We're big Subaru fans. I'm a big Ford fan. You know, Porsches are getting more and more expensive and obviously we love those. But, you know, we just like driving stuff and talking about it and talking about, you know, our experience and how it affects the world.
Speaker A
Yeah, you've had a, you've been a Bronco guy, haven't you? You had a Bronco for a while. I have one and you have one. Now. Those had the big bubble run up when everybody was chasing them right at the beginning on bat. Now that has simmered down. We still sell. There's still a trickle of those on bat.
Speaker B
Oh, really, man?
Speaker A
At the beginning, those were banana. Remember guys paying over sticker and guys salivating for the Raptor to come out and blah, blah, blah. There was some crazy times when those vehicles were just coming out. It's a pretty special vehicle for them to relaunch, though, the way that they did. It's cool. I always like that you. Even if the conversation was veering like supercar or whatever else, you'd be like talking about your Bronco and driving it around L. A. And I was like, it's especially satisfying.
Speaker B
Normal because, yeah, I had a bunch of Land Rovers, like Range Rovers and Land Rover defenders. I've always had that as my kind of daily. And a car in the garage and that in the driveway. And then I started looking at these Broncos and this limited Heritage edition, and I thought, boy, I don't think I've owned a Ford since my first car. When I had like a Ford Torino 571 Torino 500. You know, my dad bought it for a couple hundred bucks and my brother promptly crashed it into a telephone pole after a few drinks. So that was my last Ford experience. And Johnny said, you're gonna hate this. It's too cheap for you. It's not you. And I said, I know. I said, you're right, and I think I'm gonna love it. And I think you're wrong. But everything you're saying is accurate. Everything that I've done up to this point, you're right. My taste, you're exactly right. Yet my kids, I have two teenage boys, they're tired of me saying, don't, you know, throw the mud and the surfboard and the crap in the car, this thing. I'm not going to say that I can take the tops off, you know, both kids are driving now. I can let them take it, not worry about it too much. But I think I'm just going to have fun in it. And I think that's going to outweigh all of the other concerns. And that, that little voice in my head was so 100% right. I have fun. I still do. I'm a year and a half into it. I'm still having fun driving it. When it's put away for a month, like, I'm driving the ineos. When I get back in it, I go, here I am, I'm home. I absolutely love it. You know, and I leased it. It was a business lease. I'm going to buy it. When it. When it's done, this is going to be my Bronco. This is going to be my old man car.
Speaker A
It's awesome. I tell everybody to get them. I think they're terrific. You see them all over now, but they are awesome. And you can spec them the way you want. And yeah, the Heritage edition one is super slick. So no, when I first met you, man, I think you had a, like a short wheelbase. Series 2 or Series 3.
Speaker B
Series 2A Rover.
Speaker A
You had a 2A.
Speaker B
I, I still have that. Yeah, I still have.
Speaker A
You still have it. Oh, okay. I thought maybe the Bronco displaced that or.
Speaker B
No, it's definitely not getting used as much. But recently Zuckerman bought an 82 Range Rover, a Euro spec, and asked me to go halfs on it. And we had bought another car that same day from the same guy that I went half on him, the BMW 525. And I just said, no, it's, you know, it's too much Zuckerman. He goes, trust me, you're going to love this thing. And I said, I'm not buying half of it. A year later, now I was handing off the ineos to Cameron, our producer, and I called Zuckerman, I said, hey, let me drive that Ranger over. He goes, okay. I drove it home and I fell in love with it. You know, it's, it's, it's 11 years older than my Series 2A and it's like a Series 2Ameets a rolls Royce and then crash in the middle and they, you know, it's got a V8 in it and it works, right. It's a four speed and it's way faster than, and works better than I thought this one wasn't leaking. And I called him and I go, oh my God, I made such a horrible mistake. Did you sell half this car to somebody? And he goes, I did. And I go, can I buy the guy out? So that's where I'm at today. Like I, I may sell my Series 2A, you know, this weekend to try to get into that because those, those old Range Rovers and people have been telling me this for, and I feel so stupid for not listening to them. For 10 years they've been saying when you get inside and your, your seating position is high, it's high. You just see glass and the visibility and you know, and it's vintage, but there's enough modern where this is usable as a daily. I wasn't listening. And boy, were they right. They're great SUVs and a great choice for something fun and old and trucky, you know that's going to work.
Speaker A
Yep. The low dash in those, the seating position is crazy. Really different than a land. A lot of people associate them with Land Cruisers and stuff of the same era, but it's, they have a different vibe. The pillars are thin. Those are super cool. I drove a 95, the stretched one, the long wheelbase one. For a while, I actually put a fair number of miles on. It was loaned to me by a friend, and I snuck out without having to do repairs myself. So I thought I was the hero. I thought I. I thought I had a great experience for about a year in one of those.
Speaker B
So I found six things wrong with this one immediately. And as I do with sometimes press car, anytime I drive something I love, I start fixing it whether they want me to or not. I'm sending it. I'm sending it off to my mechanic. I don't own this car, but I'm sending it to my mechanic in Inglewood who's a Land Rover expert. And I just gave him a punch list. I go, just do this stuff, Zuckerman, I'm taking your car, I'm getting it fixed. You're going to love what I do to it. But there were just tiny little things, but things that I could not live with, like the rear wiper blade piece of it was hanging off a trim piece here, speaker there, a light in the bonnet wasn't working, you know, and this guy will just crush it and that car will be 100%, you know, that's the whole game.
Speaker A
I love that. Nice to have somebody you can rely on if you have one of those cars to fix it up a little bit for you when you need it. I want to talk. I don't know if many folks in our audience knew about your sale, your charity sale of the Moto that you did. I wanted to kind of reach back and see what you remember about that and how that went. You were selling a pretty cool Triumph motorcycle that was in your garage for a charity benefit. Can you tell us whatever ended up coming to that?
Speaker B
Yeah, that was so obviously in the top of last year or top of this year. We had the fires in the Palisades and, you know, the town pretty much disappeared and the school was raising money. The school, 75% of it was there. Both my kids are pally high public school kids, and my wife, you know, said, what can you donate? And I said, well, why don't I donate my Triumph Bonneville? Why don't I call Randy up and bring a trailer? He's got such a great audience there and we'll sell it for charity and see what we can get. And, you know, you were great and, you know, help this out. And you've helped us out before, like you did with Sheffield. I think we raised money from my wife's health care initiative in California. That's Right. She's. She's about free health care and getting people free health care in the state of California. And, you know, we got a lot of publicity. I think you helped publicize it. It was on tmz, weirdly, I was so surprised. Like, to me, I was just selling an old motorcycle. But it got a lot of press, and a buyer down in Orange county who was about to buy a house in the Palisades before it burned down, and then that house going to buy burned down, said, I want to do something for the community. And he wrote a big check for $25,000 for that. You know, and it's always so much fun when we're selling something on Bring a Trailer. I mean, you probably know, but Jerry and I and Zuckerman will always lurk in the comments when one of our auctions is going off.
Speaker A
Yeah.
Speaker B
You know, several times I've had the pleasure of sitting with Jerry and smoking cigars while his auction ends. And I'm commenting for him, and we are just laughing and having fun. You know, there's nothing better than that. It's so much fun. I mean, we were doing a writing session this year at some point, and his auction was ending, and we lit cigars up, and it was such a great 45 minutes. Like, when it was over, you know, we got a ridiculous number. Obviously, people knew it was Jerry, so there was a premium paid. But when the auction was over, we just. Jerry was just like, isn't that the greatest thing? Didn't we just have the greatest time? You're talking to the people bidding. We're getting texts from our friends in Malibu who we didn't know were bidding on it. And they were. We're like, what are you doing? They go, I want the car. They go, well, why didn't you call us? We could. It was so funny and so much fun. And that's what you do so well.
Speaker A
You know, it's funny bring you guys together like that. I appreciate that you've adopted it. You've always had nice things to say about it, and I appreciate that. That was part of our early success, I think, with some folks like you guys with some visibility saying, hey, this was an okay place to sell a car. And it's turned into a crazy thing. But it still has that one off experience too. Right. It's not just like, full industrial, like, boring website. Thankfully, there's still that connectivity. If you're in the moment, it can get the endorphins going. Pretty.
Speaker B
It can. No, it's very exciting. I. You Know, they're the two things we like, obviously, is the, the idea that we know we're going to come there and find some cool stuff. You know, you're bored. You got an hour to kill before a meeting. You're saying, go and bring a trailer. See what I can find. Put in the word, oh, look at that. You know, there's cool stuff and then the community, the people, you know, there's nothing like it on any of the other platforms. I mean, there's such a vibrant community and they're mostly respectful, I, I think, which is rare these days. And, you know, you have the ability to kind of. Because sometimes you can't look at what you might be buying. You can digest the comments and talk to people in the comment section and read your, you know, but that's my question. I want to hear how that was answered. And, oh, I didn't know that about the number that were made, and I didn't know that about that color or, you know, and you bet the car in comments, which is really fun. You know, it's, it's, it's an experience more, I think, than an auction platform.
Speaker A
I appreciate it. Thanks for saying that. Do you delve into comments in your own world? I know you do a lot of social stuff and your podcast obviously has a lot of people with an opinion about it out there.
Speaker B
Oh, they definitely do. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker A
Some people want to run the other way. Some days I want to run the other way from the comment section. But in general, we try to engage in it. But outside of that, in your own world, is that something as a public figure, that may be something you just want to.
Speaker B
Yeah, I'm over that. I, you know, comments are always good because it means people are engaged and opinions are all over the place. So there's no way to please anybody. But it just means people are invested and care about what you're doing. And the, the, the trick is always, like, looking for useful feedback if it's there at all, you know, versus just doing somebody else's idea. You know what I mean? So at this point, I know the type of show that I want to do, and I know how it's going to affect views and certain listeners or viewers on YouTube. YouTube is its own separate ecosystem, too, with its own type of, you know, feedback. And if you pay too close of attention to it, you'll get lost because, you know someone's going to beat you up, someone's going to praise you too much, someone's going to tell you, you know, just put the guys on someone's going to say, get rid of the guys. I hate that guy. I hate you. I love you. You know, and it's fun for me when, you know, I think more so than comments is when we do a Q A or now we're on Patreon. So it's getting very small. Like, Patreon is a place now where we can do an after show. It's way more relaxed. You can subscribe at a couple different levels. And if you're there playing with us, like, we do this like Dear Abby segment where Zuckerman answers questions. You know, we can now do a very small version of that. Well, we'll fix your personal problems and we'll post it here for Patreon and we'll talk about it. You know, it's not us talking about cars. It's us talking about your fiance and what she did. And, you know, that's not necessarily big enough for the show and nor do people want to see that in the show, but it's become this really new fun place for us to play. I like that. I like answering people's questions and talking to them there and engaging them on Patreon right now because it's smaller. And then, you know, Patreon also offers a place for us to make, you know, we, we bring cars onto the set, but we haven't been able to drive them yet. So now when the show's done, we're talking about the new Porsche, you know, 911 Turbo S. We stick a camera in it after the show and we, we drive. Zuckerman and I go for a drive and that's just him road raging, really, while I try to talk about these experience of the car. But people get to see what he's really like on the road. So, and, you know, that's something we can't do when we're shooting the podcast on set. So I get excited about where I think we're going to be taking the show in the next five years and what we're going to build from some of this. I, I, I think of it as pilot Patreon content that then, once it's refined, is going to bounce back to YouTube as a new show next to the podcast. So it's all good.
Speaker A
Yeah, that's a pretty good teaser I was going to ask you about what does success look like in the podcast world? You just go bigger and bigger or do you want to expand sort of laterally? So maybe that's the teaser right there with what could come in terms of new Types of content that's interesting.
Speaker B
Well, yeah, I mean, you've got to evolve and change and bring your audience somewhere. And that was, you know, last December when we launched on YouTube. You know, truthfully, none of us wanted to see our stupid faces and do that, but it provided an opportunity for the show, and it provided an opportunity to kind of show our listeners what we're talking about. You know, forget about us, but go, hey, here are these new watches that we're making with Sheffield. Or, hey, here's this car. Or look, you know, you've heard Zuckerman talk about his BMW collection. Let's look at them. Let's. Let's put a camera on him. He can take you through some of the interesting, you know, that. That we're really enjoying. And, you know, we can also now talk about news and pull things up on a monitor and you can see and, you know, we can have that conversation that we've been wanting to have and being a little more topical rather than evergreen. And in that way, we're hopefully kind of mimicking what people are talking about across the country and when they're out of cars and coffee. So once you do that, you see. You know, I saw right away, like, okay, well, this. This is its own thing, this podcast. But now, like, we definitely have a vibe that's different from other car podcasts, right? It's irreverent, it's sometimes stupid and frequently inaccurate, but fun. So if you take that. But we have a lot of access. We have a lot of access to Hollywood because, you know, that's what I do in my day job with Johnny. We have a lot of access to real automotive journalists, you know, in our orbit, and people like, you know, so what can we take now? And how can we make, you know, a car show for YouTube that kind of carries that aesthetic forward, that concept forward. And what is an irreverent Jay Leno's garage look like? If Jay's 11:30 where the 12:30 show, what does that mean? So that's kind of where I'm trying to figure out right now. Like, I want to do the 12:30 version of Jay Leno's garage.
Speaker A
There you go.
Speaker B
You know what I mean?
Speaker A
He's got his thing.
Speaker B
He's the king. He's the king of YouTube right now. And I don't want to step on that. I want to do my own thing that's a little out there. And, you know, that's what we're working.
Speaker A
On as it evolves. Tell me about, like, old car versus new car. I know Zuckerman's into some old cars, you're into these old Land Rovers, some different things. But some of your audience is probably younger and is like, why are you talking about 70s BMWs? I don't care at all, Right? They want to talk about, you know, the latest. The latest, greatest spec. I feel like Lieberman is kind of sometimes peppering in the, you know, the latest stuff he's driving. How does that balance?
Speaker B
I mean, press cars are generally. Are the new cars and they generally come in there, but we also collect old stuff. You know, I drive that Zagato that Zuckerman and I own. We love 356s and, you know, it's cyclical, like anything I just noticed here in the last couple weeks in la, I'm seeing more of the old cars on the road. People are getting back into their old cars, and it's just because the weather's, you know, 10 degrees cooler and people are not worried if they don't have air conditioning and they want to take a nice drive out to Malibu. It's nice. And I see, you know, my kids and their friends, they like a lot of vintage cars, you know, the ones that are car guys like you and me and everybody probably listening, they like old stuff and they know an awful lot about it because of YouTube, you know, so it's always a balance for us, you know, it's just a balance. And I find in my decades of going back and forth with stuff I'll be driving, and I'm kind of in it right now. A lot of modern stuff, like I've been driving our 718 Spyder RS and then picking up the ST and then getting in the Spyder RS and then the st. And just today I went, I'm done with the new stuff. I want to now go right back to the beginning and drive the oldest thing that we have, which will be the. And that's coming up, you know, when I get back from Audrain. That's what I'm going to drive now for a week, and then I'm going to start moving forward again. And I. I think a lot of folks are kind of like that, unless they're just starting out and then they're. They're going, all right, I want to buy something from the 2000s, the 2010s that I grew up kind of looking at. And, you know, I just got my first job and I got a little bit of money. You know, that's a segment that's hot right now, but the new stuff, it's kind of hard to tell. I don't know. Have you been up to pebble lately?
Speaker A
Absolutely, yeah, I've been there. That. I mean, that's pretty close to me. That's kind of my home field advantage in Monterey. But, yeah, for the event in August. I was actually racing at the track in August for the first time this year, so that was cool. And I got to see a bunch of the events. But, yeah, that's why Saturday was booked. I never get to come to your guys thing on Saturday because we always racing a Shelby Mustang 65 Shelby Mustang GT350. Yeah, that's always been sort of my dream race car to get to do there. When I was a kid, I went there to watch those cars race. So the car I raced was racing there in 96 when I was in whatever high school watching them race around. And I got to get that car and get it on track. So I feel pretty fortunate for that.
Speaker B
That's amazing. But maybe you noticed like I did. It seemed like that week was more about hypercars, supercars in the last two years. Hypercars, supercars. They're really hypercars. It's. Everything's getting nuttier. And it was in that direction and it used to be about old cars and beautiful old things. And, you know, you'd go up and you'd see a 250 short wheelbase at 6 in the morning, just gliding through the woods and you go, oh my God, my life is complete now. You know, it just seems like people were celebrating a different group of these cars. Like you're saying, you know, the supercars and hypercars. And, you know, I'm always trying to bring our audience something new, but also something I can. I'm interested in myself. Does that make sense?
Speaker A
No, totally.
Speaker B
I feel like. I feel like if we're interested in it in some way, then it will be interesting to our audience. It's. It's really only that simple.
Speaker A
Absolutely. And there are big generalizations around, oh, yeah, kids only like the supercars or kids only young folks only like this or whatever. And obviously you can break that rule in three seconds because, you know, a kid loves a, you know, 60.
Speaker B
Well, yeah, it's funny talking. Talking to Pebble Beach Concord people years ago, and they were like, yeah, we're thinking about getting video games and driving simulators to get the kids because we. This is generation of kids who don't like cars. I go, no, you're wrong.
Speaker A
Yeah, they don't.
Speaker B
Yeah, you're misplaying it. They're here just. They can't afford this.
Speaker A
Yeah.
Speaker B
You haven't given them something to show up to, and now, you know, now they. They get up there, no matter what, they don't go to anything. They're in the woods with their cameras. So, like, this year, there's, like, you leave the quail. There's 40 kids out there with their cameras getting psyched at the beginning of their thing, you know? And I talk to the kids here on the west side. You'll see them at the cars and coffees and stuff, and they are so passionate. It's so great. There's a huge generation of car lovers coming up, and. And in some ways, they're way ahead of where I was. Way, way, way ahead. You know, they're already putting on their own shows. They're already connected. I know one kid who's just like, yeah, I'm going to usc. Get right out of usc. Right? Went right to work for Zinger, you know? Is that right?
Speaker A
Wow.
Speaker B
Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker A
Cool.
Speaker B
It's just I'm so happy. I'm like, I've never seen someone's life work out like that, you know, but it's just. You meet them and you just go, you're going to be working in the car industry. There's no way you're not, because you just eat, drink, and breathe it, you know? It's so cool to see.
Speaker A
It's encouraging. That is certainly encouraging. My boy's 15 years old. I know you have a son you talk about on your show, and seeing them like cars and how they interact with it, it's really pretty cool.
Speaker B
Yeah. They're not once a pilot, though. He's about to solo, which has got me bummed out.
Speaker A
Oh, my God. Goodness.
Speaker B
If you're a dad and you're listening, you think of your baby at a Cessna flying up in the air in la. What do you do with that? Two hours of your life.
Speaker A
Oh, man, I don't know.
Speaker B
Kid who can't clean his bedroom and can't remember to set his alarm clock. And I'm not good with that. I remember when he got his driver's license and he said, I'm driving to school. And I said, well, hold on. For the first time, I called Zuckerman up and I said, what am I supposed to do? And he goes, you just got to take a Valium and let the kid drive. I go, really? He goes, he's got his license. Just let him go. And it's a real leap of faith. And now he's fine. He's been driving for a year and it's been no accidents. But, man, flying's a whole new level of scary. And the other kid is not a car guy, it's a motorcycle guy. And. Ooh, you know, that's another one. I've got a. Luckily for me, you know, these kids are all on these Surrons and electric bikes.
Speaker A
That's right.
Speaker B
And, you know, already had a horrible leg break. Not related to that.
Speaker A
As he points out.
Speaker B
Not related to that dad. Even though we found him in the street once and he broke a finger some other time. But he, you know, he had an account where he's doing wheelies and standing on the seat. My wife is like, what is happening? I go, I. I didn't know he was doing. But it's pretty cool, right? Look, thankfully, and if you're a parent going through this, when your kids get to high school, there's peer pressure to not ride those things because it's a middle school sir.
Speaker A
Does that flip. Oh, I love that.
Speaker B
It's. Suddenly he called, he goes, I'm selling my bike. I'm like, oh, my God, am I awake? What do you mean? He goes, selling. I just want the money for something else.
Speaker A
And I'm like, well, I wanted to step up to like, a Yamaha or. What do you want to step up to?
Speaker B
Unfortunately, he loves dirt bikes are different. No, we still take dirt bikes out in the desert. That's fine. It's. It's being on the road with people that's the problem.
Speaker A
Yeah, nobody.
Speaker B
He said. I said, I suspect that, you know, because I see younger kids on it, that you don't want to be doing it. He goes, yeah, it's kind of a middle schooler thing.
Speaker A
And I went, oh, okay, cool. Grow out of that as fast as you can.
Speaker B
Middle schoolers on motorcycles, that's the reality here out in la.
Speaker A
Oh, man. Yeah, you mentioned the st. I know you were going through a line of interesting. Porsche's kind of latest and greatest. We've had STs going through the site. I don't know if you guys have been seeing them or monitoring them, but that was a crazy phenomenon. Still moving one or so of those a week through bat, which is crazy. After they reached a year old, Right. They became a free for all, but you guys took delivery of yours and that's a keeper. Or you guys are now jonesing for the next latest thing.
Speaker B
Well, I think we're supposed to. We had to buy a lease for it for a year, and I think that lease is up in January, so. That's when we'll make that decision. That car is. I drove it yesterday.
Speaker A
It's incredible though, right? I mean, it's really. There's nothing else. Why would you, why would you jones for anything else? I mean, I don't even know where they go from there. That car is so impressive.
Speaker B
Well, we, you know, we're a little spoiled by our friends at Porsche Clearwater and we were supposed to just have this car to drive for a year. You know, we had traded in the GT4 and kind of kept the money on the table and got a GT3RS and then sold that, kept the money on the table and we were able to buy the lease out for a year and kind of have a free 911st before we had to make a decision. And that was a five year plan of ours which worked quite well. And now here's the car. And at the same time I had a friend, I won't say who he is, but he's a famous film star who wanted a 718 Spyder RS. And Porsche Clearwater was able to get him an allocation and at the last minute he changed his mind and decided to get something else. So Porsche Clearwater said, do you want his allocation? You can do paint to sample. You're nodding. That's what we did. We went, yeah, yeah, yeah, we'll do that.
Speaker A
Yes, please.
Speaker B
Yeah, yes please. But we don't think we'll hold it that long. But you know, we'll keep it for six months or so. And we did a ratio green, you know, an old 356 color. And that car got delivered three or four weeks ago and we're unexpectedly in love with it. It's one of, one of the greatest driving convertibles I've ever been in that has a monster race car when you want it with a push of a button. And then you're just, you know, I'm having these sunset drives down Sunset Boulevard to PCH and you know, with my wife or one of my kids and I'm just feeling like I just came back from a week long vacation. So, you know, that car has been just a joy right off the bat. So I don't, I'm lost now, you know. And we had an allocation for a GT3 touring for the spring, I think. And we spec that out with Mason from the Porsche kind of special wishes department. And that car is spectacular, but something has to give. Randy, we can't hold all of this stuff, it's too expensive. But it's just a long way of saying I don't know where we're going with it, but we're lost.
Speaker A
Maybe January will be an inflection point. Something's got give and a decision needs to be made in January of whether you keep that thing or launch it.
Speaker B
I tell people, I tell people when they call with this kind of stuff or they can't get this or they can't get that from the dealer. I said, look, there's so many places to win here at this point. Just find anything like this, a991 speeds. Find anything, you're going to be happy and just stick with it. Is one appreciably better than the other? I don't know other than the st, but you know you'll be happy. They're all special cars and Porsche is going to continue to churn them out and you're not safe anywhere.
Speaker A
Good advice, good advice. Wanted to maybe wrap it up with asking you about the state of things in the SoCal car scene, which you're obviously a big part of or see, at least. I don't know if you like going out to events. You have name and face recognition. I don't know how much you like mingling amongst the masses and people running up to you.
Speaker B
I love it.
Speaker A
And it doesn't have grief, but they don't. Things have evolved. I mean, Luft has been out for. I think they're in their 11th year.
Speaker B
Yeah, yeah.
Speaker A
And other things in SoCal. There's a big Italian show that we were at this last weekend. They're sort of getting some traction and some momentum. Are you finding things that you're excited about or that are happening, or would you rather just kind of run for the hills in your cars and drive some twisty roads and do it in a less public way? What's the exciting part of car culture in SoCal right now for you?
Speaker B
Well, driving is always the reason that we live here. I mean, it's so great. The PCH was closed because of the fires. It was really hard for me personally, because I did not know how much I loved that experience and what a release it was from stress, the stress of the week. So now that that's open, like on the weekends, you see a lot of folks in their cars driving out there, hitting the canyons, having a good time. There are lots of great new shows popping up on the weekend that I like to go to that are much smaller. But I think the thing that we're all excited about more than anything now is the rebirth of Willow Springs. You know, having the racetrack there. And having this new Disneyland for gearheads opening up is the thing I think that everybody's buzzing about right now. You know, they've dumped a lot of money into the tracks there. They've redone them, they've made them.
Speaker A
The pictures, the new pictures this week of the green and white runoff area and the logo and all that stuff, it looks pretty solid, doesn't it?
Speaker B
Yeah. And it's an hour drive from la. And you know, while some of it's going to be private, a lot of it's public facing. And you know, the guys who were doing it like cars. They like two things, money and cars. But the right people bought it and they're saying to us in Southern Cal, this is the place you want to come to play. Bring your cars up here to race. Race our cars, race the carts. We've got everything for you. Come here on your bachelor weekend. We're building a hotel, rent a condo. You're going to have a, a memorable time. You know, that to me is the. I, I think really is the next big building block for the SoCal car culture. You know, we've got the shows, we've got the people, we've got the cars. It's diverse, it's everywhere. But now you've got a racetrack, you know, and it's not gonna go out there.
Speaker A
When are, when are we gonna see you out there? I know they're having, on the of October, they're doing that like, big, groundbreaking. You're going, okay, cool.
Speaker B
Of course. Yeah, yeah. It's funny, I, I say everybody, but everybody is going.
Speaker A
Is that right?
Speaker B
Hey, Jay, you going? Yeah, I'm going. Matt Ferry, you go. Yeah, I'm going. Singer, I'm going. Everybody is going. Triple zero. I'm going. You know, they've called everyone and everybody's showing up and they've got a giant car show going. They've got demonstration laps. It's. It's really going to be great. It's just the beginning of what I think is going to be a really cool Southern California kind of racing story. The next generation racing story for SoCal.
Speaker A
Cool, man. Well, thanks for your optimism around that and getting the word out. Yeah, I've talked about that with friends. I was sharing those photos right. When they posted those drone photos of the green and white. I don't know. Yeah, yeah, there's a couple tracks. I mean, Coda does that a little bit, but there's a couple tracks in Europe that have all that painted, striped sort of runoff area, which looks super exotic from the Air and just how much of an improvement it is. That place was a little dusty and the concrete wasn't exactly as tidied up as they're making it now. It looks like it's amazing. So.
Speaker B
Yeah, no, it was, it was, it was always kind of run down and that was cool too. But it didn't have, you know, it seemed to be on the down. You know, there were no signs of life. Right. There was nobody there with a vision to go, okay, what could this be? I do like Thermal Club, but it's very exclusive and it's. It's much further from la. And you know, these guys kind of have calibrated this thing right. You know, this isn't just for people who have a hundred million dollars in the bank. It's for everyone.
Speaker A
Fantastic. Yeah, I, I'm excited to get down there. I can't come on the 11th, but I hope everybody goes. I think it's kind of a come one come. All right. I mean they're not.
Speaker B
Yeah, they're selling tickets on Eventbrites.
Speaker A
Yeah, okay.
Speaker B
It's Eventbrite. It's 10 bucks a ticket. The most of the pro charity. They're gonna, you know, they want you to bring your family up and they want it, you know, it's just like the beginning of what they're gonna do. You know, they've done all the tracks. I don't. The hotel's obviously not up, but they have a, like a three to five year plan that's really wild. But the racing is up and running as I understand it, so.
Speaker A
Awesome. Well, I hope people get out there and maybe get to see you there. Or maybe we'll pick some other SoCal events where we can cross paths. Spike, this has been super fun to catch up a little bit. It's been a few months since I was down at your garage there and you have me on the podcast, which I really appreciated. Maybe we'll get a chance to do a couple more of these, but thanks for the update.
Speaker B
Any other, come back and visit me. Bring a car on.
Speaker A
I would love to do that. Now that you got video, we can walk through it for the Patreon folks. So thanks for playing that as well, but terrific to have you. Spike's car radio. Everybody ought to be checking that out and hearing the latest and greatest. And we appreciate you also listing your stuff on BET and helping us out in that way. We always appreciate it. It.
Speaker B
Thank you.
Speaker A
Thanks, Spike. Thanks everybody for listening. Another bat podcast. Check us in another week and we will see you then.