transcript

Speaker 1:
[00:00] What up, everyone? Welcome to The Smoking Tire Podcast. Today's episode is brought to you, as always, by Off The Record. We love them over here. And as I drive around the country, I know that Off The Record is always looking out for me. If the V1 doesn't get them, if the Waze doesn't get them, Off The Record's gonna get them. Off The Record sets you up with qualified attorneys in every state in America to fight moving violations on your behalf. Don't let it ruin your day. Don't let it ruin your vacation. And certainly don't plead guilty. Get Off The Record. Go to offtherecord.com/tst to get 10% off all legal services through Off The Record. Again, that's offtherecord.com/tst to get 10% off all legal services through Off The Record. All right, folks, on this episode, I've got the homie Shant from CMS Motorsports in studio. We're talking about AMGs. We're talking about what it's like restoring them. We're talking about the demand for them. We're talking about what Shant and his team are doing with my car. And a whole lot more. It's Vintage AMG Day on The Smoking Tire Podcast. Let's go. Guys, The Smoking Tire is giving away a 992.1 Turbo S. In partnership with Dream Giveaways, we're giving away a $275,000 car with some slick choice mods. The proceeds benefit charity, and you don't have to buy any merch. It's a straightforward entry process. So hit the link in the show notes and get entered to win today. What's happening, Shant? Welcome.

Speaker 2:
[01:44] Not much, man. Thank you for having me, man.

Speaker 1:
[01:45] Willkommen, my neighbor, about a quarter mile up the road from the studio here, CMS, which you won't see because the sign says Marina West Auto Body on it. Business within a business, if you will.

Speaker 2:
[01:59] Well, we have the other side, which was CMS, which is smaller. Now we've grown to a bigger facility in downtown. So now we officially have a showroom and we're building out. So I'm building out the showroom to where, when you walked into AMG, you had a car. It's a huge office with all the seats, the wheels and everything on display.

Speaker 1:
[02:17] So you can specify your shoe go. So, all right, reverse it, reverse it some years. We met eight, nine years ago, probably, but you'd already been in this game for a long time at that point. Why pre-merger AMGs as an area of expertise?

Speaker 2:
[02:37] I've always been passionate about just AMG, the pre-merger. I mean, back in the 80s, if you had anything pre-merger AMG or tuner, it was like that you were the king of the road. So, my first experience with an AMG car, so my mom, she designs custom wedding dresses. She's retired, but she was a private designer that used to get hired through all these like very high-end wedding gown businesses. And when someone wanted to design a custom wedding dress, they hired my mom to come in and design it.

Speaker 3:
[03:14] So some brand name, you know, needs the specialist to actually do the thing.

Speaker 2:
[03:19] So her main clientele was based out of one bridal shop in Beverly Hills, which is probably still there right next to Saks. I don't know if it's there or not, but they used to have a parking lot in the back with like a gazebo smoking area. So in the summer, when I was on summer break, when they used to contract my mom to go out there, I just used to go hang out, walk around, and go eat. So I was sitting in the back of the shop one day, and in the parking lot comes this white SEC, just AMG, white Pentas, brand new car. This was late 80s, mid 80s, 85, 86. And I see them rolling up, and they just parked. And they were probably engaged. So she walks inside, and then he stood out there and was smoking a cigarette in the gazebo, and I'm just staring at this car. And he finally comes up, and he's like, you like the car, like with some European accent. I don't remember what he was. And I'm like, yeah, I love it. So the guy opened the door and told me, you know, go ahead and take a seat. And this was, you know, whatever, eight, nine years old. I'm on like Cloud 9. Core memory. And I remember like Grey Recaro's, fully trimmed, the whole nine. And that was like, wow.

Speaker 1:
[04:38] Yeah.

Speaker 2:
[04:38] This is what I like. This is what I want. And then, you know, the whole thing with Miami Vice and all the, you know, drug dealers driving all these.

Speaker 1:
[04:47] So, and you dress like them guys now when you go to car shows too. Yeah. You dress like Don Johnson.

Speaker 2:
[04:53] You know, Radwood and all that. Yeah. You have to understand, it was a great.

Speaker 1:
[04:56] It looks good on you though.

Speaker 2:
[04:57] It was a great time, man. It was a great time. And I started, you know, watching, you know, Miami Vice when it was, when it was, you know, the show. And I used to record it and rewind and play back all these parts with the, and then my parents were.

Speaker 1:
[05:14] He's wearing out the tape like an old porn, but it's like Don Johnson getting out of a Testarossa.

Speaker 2:
[05:21] Over and over. So, all these clips that had these, you know, all these clips that had these Benzes, I used to rewind and replay to a point where my parents looked at each other, like, is our son grown up to be a drug dealer or what's going on, you know?

Speaker 1:
[05:36] No, he's just sexualizing Mercedes vehicles.

Speaker 2:
[05:42] That's where it started. That's hilarious.

Speaker 1:
[05:44] A guy let me sit in a Countach when I was like seven, and it was like, you know, the next level. There was a place in Atlanta. I lived in Atlanta at the time when I was a little kid, and there was an importer called, like a gray market dealer called Formula One Imports. You might remember these motherfuckers because they were on the back cover of every DuPont registry in the 80s and 90s. They owned that real estate.

Speaker 2:
[06:09] That was the expensive magazine. That was like eight bucks back then.

Speaker 1:
[06:12] That was where you bought fancy fucking cars from. That's how you knew what was for sale on the other side of the country. They had the back page of it. When I was a kid, it was around the corner from them. I was a real nerd about cars. He would let me sit in all the cars.

Speaker 2:
[06:25] I still have all those magazines.

Speaker 1:
[06:26] Of course.

Speaker 2:
[06:27] We all do. It was the best.

Speaker 1:
[06:29] It's too bad they have zero value to any other person. About once a week, somebody's like, would you like my entire collection of Road and Track? I'm like, no, I already have one. Once you have, what am I going to do with this?

Speaker 2:
[06:42] Where are you going to store it?

Speaker 1:
[06:43] Yeah. I don't want your garbage, but thank you. And I say this, I have plenty of my own garbage. I've had to build fucking warehouses for my own garbage.

Speaker 2:
[06:52] Believe me, I know.

Speaker 1:
[06:54] Right, right, right.

Speaker 2:
[06:55] It piles up quick.

Speaker 1:
[06:56] So did you become a body guy, a body shop guy, because you wanted to build custom shit? Or did you decide to build custom shit once you got into the bodywork industry?

Speaker 2:
[07:12] Well, my uncles both were in the business from back home. I'm Armenian, originally born in Syria. So back in Syria, you know, with not having parts available like you do, you had to fix everything. Every body shop was a fabricator. And they used to, you know, sit there and beat the metal, heat it, and that's the way you fixed cars, because you just didn't have a parts department where you called. So my uncles were real crafty with their hand when they came to the States. They flew to Boston, and my dad's cousin owned an Osmobile dealer in Boston called Berejikian Osmobile, and they worked there for a few years. And then my uncle bought a 69442, brand new, and they drove it to Los Angeles. Cool. And that's where they opened up their first body shop in Hollywood called Stallion Auto Body.

Speaker 1:
[08:10] It's better than the name of the Osmobile dealer.

Speaker 2:
[08:12] Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[08:12] It's got more and more of a ring to it.

Speaker 2:
[08:15] Yeah. And then they opened up their second facility, and then eventually grew into retirement. And then that's when I kind of took the business over and continued at Marina West.

Speaker 1:
[08:30] Did you go work with them when you were younger?

Speaker 2:
[08:31] I was there in the summers. I mean, I have photos of me, like, five, six years old, like, pounding on metal. Like, it's, you know, I loved working with my aunt. So they used to come pick me up in the summer and take them with them to the shop. And I just used to dabble. And I remember, like, back in the day, they used to heat up the paint. And that's how they sprayed it. It was like they were spraying glass right even back then. But it was just solvent based pungent. You could smell it. Like after you painted a car, you could smell the paint for, like, three weeks after. It was serious stuff.

Speaker 1:
[09:06] That seems bad. Very bad.

Speaker 2:
[09:09] And he used to be in the booth with, you know, smoking a Marlboro, just spraying the car, you know.

Speaker 1:
[09:14] The ash and the fucking paint.

Speaker 3:
[09:15] It's flake.

Speaker 2:
[09:18] That's kind of how I grew into it.

Speaker 1:
[09:21] What kind of flake? It's a camel? Is it a camel blue flake? It's a camel light. It was camel lights for sure back then.

Speaker 2:
[09:27] So that's kind of how it all started, man. And then why Mercedes? You know, I was always passionate about Mercedes. My dad's first car was a 57 Mercedes 180 Pontoon.

Speaker 1:
[09:38] Yeah.

Speaker 2:
[09:38] Rack top. And ever since then, there's been a Mercedes in the family, whether it's a diesel or whatever it is. And the whole, you know, movement with Mercedes and the tuners in the 80s was exciting.

Speaker 1:
[09:52] Yeah.

Speaker 2:
[09:52] I mean, it was just, you know, the car to have.

Speaker 1:
[09:54] How do you start building cars like you're building, more like you're building now?

Speaker 2:
[09:59] My first car that I built, this was right out of high school. I bought a 1986 300E. It was grandpa gold on Palomino Interior, bone stock. The guy worked for JPL. At the time, my brother worked for Rusneck, and he brought it in as a trade in. This thing was like spotless. So my brother called me, he's like, listen, you want a car? It's not that expensive. It's, you know, the color is not too exciting. It's smoke silver. Do you want it? I said fine. So I ended up buying that car.

Speaker 1:
[10:30] And when he had that exact car in high school, it might have been a 320, but it was a 124.

Speaker 2:
[10:37] This was an 86.

Speaker 1:
[10:38] Okay.

Speaker 2:
[10:38] You know, just bare bones, you know, gray bumpers, just real basic.

Speaker 1:
[10:44] Yeah.

Speaker 2:
[10:44] But it was amazing transportation. It ran great. So I ended up buying that car. And then a year later, you know, after flipping through magazines, I'm like, hmm, let me make this thing look like a hammer.

Speaker 1:
[10:54] Yeah.

Speaker 2:
[10:55] You know, like the six liter hammer. So at the time, I couldn't afford to buy the AMG parts because they were super expensive. So there was a shop that used to sell, it was called Euro Imports. It was in the valley and they had replica AMG parts, which were amazing.

Speaker 1:
[11:16] Yeah.

Speaker 2:
[11:16] And then there was another company called Performance Autosport. So I bought European headlamps, I bought this AMG kit, I found monoblocks for it. So I made this thing exactly like a 6-liter clone. And that's what I drove, but it was grandpa gold. And everyone used to be like, why this color? That's all.

Speaker 1:
[11:35] Because you only wanted to paint the bumper. You wanted to paint the whole car.

Speaker 2:
[11:39] Right.

Speaker 1:
[11:39] Actually, a hammer in that color, like today, would be pretty rad.

Speaker 2:
[11:45] I still own that car.

Speaker 1:
[11:46] Oh, you do?

Speaker 2:
[11:47] I still own it.

Speaker 1:
[11:48] Do you put a V8 in it eventually?

Speaker 2:
[11:49] Not yet, but eventually I am.

Speaker 3:
[11:51] How old are you when you built it?

Speaker 1:
[11:52] Folks taking a quick break for Mac Tools. You know Mac Tools. You've seen the Mac Tools truck at shops before. But have you ever thought of being the one who actually owns that route, selling those tools to those shops? For anyone already into cars, working on them, being in and around shops, or at least spending your weekends wrenching on something, this is perfect because Mac Tools franchisees run their own mobile tool business, selling directly to shops and technicians. It's a relationship business. It's repeat customers that you service every week. But you're not left to figure it out on your own. They've got an extensive training program and support to build this the right way. As a small business owner myself, multiple small business owners myself, I really think this is a good idea because I had to figure out a lot of expensive and difficult lessons to start my business. But if you've got a partner that's been around for a long time and they've got training, they've got resources, they've got support, they can integrate you into their ecosystem and set you up with stable income for a very, very long time. That is incredibly beneficial if you're trying to be your own small business owner and you're not ready to learn some of those lessons in what we call the trial by inferno way like I did. Mac has been doing this for over a century. There's a reason it still works. So if you've ever thought about doing your own thing in the automotive world, it is worth checking out. Go to mactools.org/tire to learn more and see if there's an open route near you. That's m-a-c-t-o-o-l-s dot org mactools dot org slash tire to learn more. We also got support today from Factor. And for me, eating healthy isn't a willpower problem. It's a setup problem, right? Until I found Factor, because here's what happens to me. My setup is a mess. I do not put time to eat in my calendar. I got four jobs, I got a lot to do, I'm running all over the place. I don't put that hour or whatever to deal with lunch in that schedule. But with Factor, I can hit the nutrition goals, I can eat on time, I can eat correctly without the planning, the grocery store runs, the cooking, because the Factor food, it's already in the fridge. Factor's got meals built around goals. That could be weight loss, it could be overall nutrition, it could be protein, could be GLP-1 support. For strength and recovery, they've got the Muscle Pro collection, and every meal is crafted with those functional ingredients like lean proteins and colorful veggies, whole foods, healthy fats. Factor, in fact, bans 175 ingredients. There's no artificial colors or sweeteners or high fructose corn syrup, all that stuff. Everything's fresh, it's not frozen, and they have over a hundred rotating weekly meals. So basically, when I'm running around all morning, I don't get to noon or one when I'm starving, and then I try to figure out what to eat, I make an unhealthy decision because it's whatever's quickest, and that's how you just, that's how your diet completely falls apart. But with Factor, the food's here. It's in the fridge, it's ready to go, two minutes in the microwave, no mess, no prep, all good. Factor shops, preps, cooks and delivers right to your door, so I have more time for work and everything else that I love. So head over to factormeals.com/tire50off and use code tire50off to get 50% off and free daily greens per box with new subscription only while supplies last until September 27th, 2026. See website for more details one more time. factormeals.com/tire50off. That's five zero. Tire 50 off and use code tire50off to get 50% off and free daily greens per box. And now back to the show.

Speaker 2:
[16:04] Wow.

Speaker 1:
[16:05] So that would have been like 1990.

Speaker 2:
[16:07] This was 97. Yeah. 97. Yeah. Late 96, early 97 is when I bought the car.

Speaker 1:
[16:14] That's pretty rad. That's pretty good.

Speaker 2:
[16:15] And I still own the car. And I actually took my wife on the first date with that car.

Speaker 1:
[16:19] That's cool. You should do the 55 powertrain thing that I'm doing.

Speaker 2:
[16:24] Eventually. When Matt frees up a little bit.

Speaker 1:
[16:27] You're not practicing on my car.

Speaker 2:
[16:28] Yeah, no, no. No, we've done it before, but I took my wife on the first date with that car. And when I picked her up, she's like, what is this? I said, well, this is my Benz. And you know, she was used to, you know, her parents leasing her new cars. And she had a new Benz at the time. And I mean, it was amazing how humble she was. I mean, the car was spotless, but it's an old Benz.

Speaker 1:
[16:51] I think it's clean. I think you could have an old car or a cheap car. As long as it's clean. I think a lot of men put too much thought into what women think about their car. And all they really give a shit about is, is it clean and like in good enough condition.

Speaker 2:
[17:10] And at the time, I mean, that's all I had. You know, that was my car. And, you know, fast forward, you know, now we're married. And I built her that wagon.

Speaker 1:
[17:20] Now you have 47 cars.

Speaker 2:
[17:21] 109, actually.

Speaker 1:
[17:22] Get the fuck out of here.

Speaker 2:
[17:23] 109 cars. So I built her that wagon, that 124 wagon. And then now her daily driver is the 500E, the 6-liter car I came with. She doesn't want a new car.

Speaker 1:
[17:36] We originally kind of met because of that red wagon.

Speaker 2:
[17:39] Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[17:40] Which, because I had, and I suppose I still have, although I'm running out of money. I still standing offer to buy that car for Hannah. She loved it.

Speaker 2:
[17:50] That car is just badass.

Speaker 1:
[17:52] Yeah, it's awesome.

Speaker 2:
[17:53] I love that thing. And every time I drive it, I mean, she won't allow me to sell it. She's just like...

Speaker 1:
[17:59] It's a red, essentially a 500E wagon.

Speaker 2:
[18:03] Yeah, it might be on my Instagram. It's on the Lord.

Speaker 3:
[18:07] It's somewhere way down there.

Speaker 1:
[18:08] Yeah. It's really, I mean, you can't miss it. It's awesome. It's exactly the thing you think it is.

Speaker 2:
[18:12] It's badass. That's great.

Speaker 1:
[18:14] Yeah, great car. Okay, so the trend of these cars kind of, I mean, you know, it dipped for a while. They were out of trend and now, partially because of stuff like Radwood, partially because of, you know, once Mercedes expanded AMG to a full model lineup plus a sub lineup of the AMG light with the wheels and but not the engine and blah, blah, blah. You know, everyone then flocks to the sort of purity of the original vehicles, even if, and they're so rare, the original ones, the true original is so rare, that there's plenty of room in the market to create accurate recreations using original and period parts and whatnot and hand make stuff that splits the difference.

Speaker 2:
[19:14] Absolutely.

Speaker 1:
[19:15] You know.

Speaker 2:
[19:16] Even if you were to find, like let's say an original body kit, it's 35 years old that's been repaired multiple times and just like, you know, the Dinos for a while, when they had no value, when people were building these cars, they didn't dump much money into them.

Speaker 1:
[19:32] Oh dude. I own a Countach and a, I had a 328. You're telling me. Yeah, I got those two cars were more full of more Mickey Mouse trash, right, that I've spent more money on fucking.

Speaker 2:
[19:44] Yeah, you know, and the thing is, I used to go collect parts from like Pick A Part. And back then they didn't have online where you got a, you know, you knew what car was coming. I literally after school, I used to go, you know, twice a week and walk. Yeah. And I've bought AMG kits, wheels, AMG wheels, all kinds of stuff from the junkyard because people just didn't care about them. And the condition of these parts is horrible. I mean, bondoed and drywall screwed. They used to put pieces of wood and, you know, just destroy it.

Speaker 1:
[20:15] So is there, in today's world, in 2026, is there any, unless a car is a, you know, it's one of these cars you see at Gooding that's $700,000 and it's, you know, it's as delivered, you know. Outside of that, is there any real value in saying, this is an original AMG body kit versus, you know, wherever you're getting the stuff that's going on my car, for instance?

Speaker 2:
[20:45] So if you're building an original AMG car, something special, whether it's a six liter or a hammer, having original parts on that car does make the difference. However, if you see the condition, I mean, I have an 84, 500 SEC factory-wide body car with 23,000 miles. The car is untouched. And if you look at the body fitment of the body parts on it, you know, over the years, they fatigue.

Speaker 1:
[21:12] Yeah.

Speaker 2:
[21:12] And the car has never been repaired. It's just perfect condition. But they fatigue and the technology they had back then, building the, you know, the body kits and the body panels, isn't what it is now. There is no one that's recreating these as far as on a factory level. There is, you know, AMG has a classic program, but it's not meant for parts. It's meant for like, you know, record-keeping preservation. They have this whole, like, you know, a certification process now that they do. And which is great. But when it comes to manufacturing parts, there's no one doing them. So I've purchased new body panels, new bumper kits, like for the 500E, I have brand new fenders, brand new bumpers, everything brand new in boxes that I've purchased years ago. I bought the last of the stock of everything that they had with 500E. The back glass is different on a 500E. It's thinner. The defrost lines are different. I have two brand new rear glasses. And I just bought everything. This was probably about 10 years ago for pennies to the dollar because they didn't want them anymore. And that's what I'm popping molds out of because they're just not available. So if you have a 500E or you have a wide body car or you have anything special, God forbid that gets wrecked or you want to restore, there's no one manufacturing these parts. We're recreating them. And I don't see anyone worldwide that's doing it. There's people in Russia and Ukraine and all these people that are manufacturing parts. But I see some of these parts that they bring and they're just not usable. Sure.

Speaker 1:
[22:51] The QC is just garbage?

Speaker 2:
[22:53] It's garbage.

Speaker 1:
[22:53] What about, okay, so that's if you have an original car that gets damaged or the body kit is warped and needs to be replaced or whatever. That's a small percentage of the people we're talking about. And you do that stuff. You restore those original cars. And that's a real thing. You also do stuff for people like me.

Speaker 2:
[23:14] Right.

Speaker 1:
[23:14] Who go, I want a thing that is a fictional product.

Speaker 2:
[23:20] That hasn't been done.

Speaker 1:
[23:20] That hasn't been done. Or, you know, I would like you to recreate a wide body SEC hammer, but I don't have one, you know. And so it's, you know, a third or a half of the price to make one from scratch. In that case, is there any value to putting a premium on real parts? Or it's only if it's a whole part of the whole.

Speaker 2:
[23:42] There is no value to go original in that case.

Speaker 1:
[23:45] And are the reproduction parts that you're, like, it'll look, it looks better probably, right?

Speaker 2:
[23:49] They're actually more perfected than the original. I mean, and everything is made out of steel construction. Like the wide body SECs were doing, they came fiberglass bumpers and fiberglass quarters. The later SECs, very few of them, came with the metal quarter panels because people were complaining. They were cracking, you know, it's a pillarless coupe. We do everything out of steel construction. It's welded to the car. The body kits, the spoilers, the cladding fits perfect. So if you look at it, it's kind of overly restored, but that's just the way I like doing it, you know, to make it look perfect.

Speaker 1:
[24:26] Yeah, I went down when you're homie, what's that guy's name? Your metal worker who was working on the car.

Speaker 2:
[24:32] Attila.

Speaker 1:
[24:32] Attila, yeah, Attila. How do I forget that awesome name?

Speaker 2:
[24:37] That guy's on a different level.

Speaker 1:
[24:38] I had the picture of it. He was at the halfway mark where he had them tacked on and was just starting to blend it into the one. And then you sent me, you know, the photos of it primered. And it's got a really, it's just got a beautiful curve to it.

Speaker 2:
[24:53] It's gonna look unbelievable. I mean, once the car comes back from Tennessee, there's a lot of massaging we still have to do to the metal.

Speaker 1:
[25:01] Yeah, wait, okay, so let's talk about my car for a minute because I'm so excited.

Speaker 2:
[25:05] So I'm excited that I'm building this thing.

Speaker 1:
[25:08] This thing's gonna be badass. I've wanted to, if I couldn't buy the fucking red car from you, I was gonna have you make me my own red car.

Speaker 2:
[25:15] There you go.

Speaker 1:
[25:15] And it just so happens, I mean, that I might not have pulled the trigger had I not gotten a free red 124.

Speaker 2:
[25:23] It's the perfect color.

Speaker 1:
[25:24] That's right, it is.

Speaker 2:
[25:25] It's the perfect color for what you're doing. I mean, bless you, you don't understand that the red in a 124, like the wagon, it's just gorgeous. Any red Mercedes is just...

Speaker 1:
[25:37] Same on the 129s, on the SLs.

Speaker 2:
[25:39] Absolutely.

Speaker 1:
[25:40] You know, a silver 129 is like a $20,000 car and the same car in red is a $30,000 car.

Speaker 2:
[25:46] You had a silver one.

Speaker 1:
[25:47] I had a silver one and it was beautiful. And I only got it because I couldn't find a red that I liked. So now we're doing a red. Okay, so I came to you with the concept which is 500E Cabriolet and we didn't have to say much more than that. You're like, I know what to do here.

Speaker 2:
[26:02] Oh, yeah.

Speaker 1:
[26:03] So, but we did, when we post things about it, you know, people are a lot of this, you should have done that, you should do this, you should do that. And oftentimes, there isn't even a real debate because the reason we are making certain choices become very obvious once you learn why the choice was made. So, take me through, from when I came to you and I said, here's what I want to do. What are the challenges and what do we do to overcome them in making the convertible look and feel and sound and drive like Mercedes had done it, but in a way that is reasonably cost-effective given the challenges and returns the best possible result?

Speaker 2:
[26:56] Right. Now, as far as the exterior goes, there's really not much you can do. I mean, the 500E looks pretty badass, the way it is. I mean, with the bumper and everything, the way it's set up, the fender flares, they just make the car. It's not really a challenge, but the difference between doing the coupe versus the sedan or the wagon that I did is the flare in the back is kind of different on the sedan on the original car because you have the dogleg molding, which is a separate piece that has the flare. So just taking that design, and what we did was we 3D'd that. That's what I did originally. I 3D'd that and I made a mold out of it as a separate piece without the dogleg. Without the dogleg. And then we created that same shape in a 3D model and then we reconstructed it out of steel. That's what we did here. So in essence, it does have the same flare, but it's one piece. The side cladding, obviously, the quarter cladding is one piece as opposed to a separate dogleg molding and the door cladding. So that we basically scanned and we recreated a piece of cladding which has that taper which meets the body. The front fender cladding is the same. And then the rocker molding is the most challenging part to take the four door rocker molding and recreate it into a size of a coupe that has the taper both in the front and the back. The whole point is to make it look like as if Mercedes created a 500 CE, that's what it would be. And that's the most challenging part is to make it look factory. See the wagon was a bit easier because it does have the side profile of the sedan.

Speaker 1:
[28:43] The sedan to the wagon is the same, right?

Speaker 2:
[28:44] Yeah. Only the fuel door was a little challenging because the sedan has the fuel door on the top and the wagon has it on the side. But we figured that out. And that's basically what it is, you know, it's just that back section of the coupe.

Speaker 1:
[28:57] Yeah.

Speaker 2:
[28:58] So, that's what I pay attention to, to perfect, because the rest of everything else is bolt on, the fenders, the bumpers.

Speaker 1:
[29:07] And actually, we got super lucky because a bunch of the bits on my car that were shot, like the bumpers, were stuff that we were throwing in the garbage, and a bunch of the stuff that was in good shape, like the trunk lid and the hood, and the doors, were like, oh, we're keeping those. So, and those were actually in really good shape. We got lucky. There he is. Get at it, Attila. The fucking blend on that is real nice. And then, so I already kind of knew, I'm not as much of a fan of IAM as the 500E. I, having owned my SL500, my 129, with the 113 that I had, I knew that for the kind of driving we were doing around, we weren't going on the Autobahn in this car. I'm rolling around LA. That's what I'm doing. Maybe I'm going on a road trip on the weekends. That's what we're doing here. The 4-cam engine was not going to be that beneficial to me in the first place. And then you said, by the way, it won't actually fit. Folks, one more break because support is coming in from BlueChew. You know what it is. The future of erectile function is here. Not dysfunction, Klapman, function, high function. And it's my anniversary today on 420. So BlueChew Gold, it is changing the way millions of men are having sex in 2026. The new arousal boosting formula combines passion and performance into one tablet that dissolves under your tongue for super fast onset. Crazy. No more waiting for them pills to kick in. No more moments ruined by performance anxiety, just the results you want when you want them. Most CD meds focus on blood flow alone, but BlueChew Gold goes further by combining two ingredients for blood flow with two for mental arousal and connection. So you're not just physically ready, you're actually in the mood. This type of innovation is why BlueChew Gold is the number one brand in erectile dysfunction. The process is super simple. It's all online. So get started today at bluechew.com and go for the gold. I mean, dude, you can... It's not about need, I think, anymore, right? That's why they're saying function, because it's like it used to be like, oh, you have a problem and this can fix it. Now it's like you don't have a problem, but you can be Superman. I think that's where it's at. And I like that thought process. It's a reframe, folks. And boy, do we have a special deal for you right now. Get two months of BlueChew Gold. You get the third for free with promo code Tire. That's promo code Tire at bluechew.com. For more details and important safety information, we thank BlueChew for sponsoring the podcast. Again, code Tire. Get a third month free when you get two months of that BlueChew Gold, baby. Guys, taking a break from the action, because support is coming in fast. Like Jim Farley, the CEO of Ford, who's now got a podcast. And you're always asking me what I'm listening to when not recording this show. And right now, it's this, the new season of Drive with Jim Farley. In it, the Ford CEO talks to some of his favorite people about what they're driving and what drives them to succeed. Like Formula One driver Daniel Ricciardo. Listen, there's a well-worn trope about racing drivers not being interesting to listen to. But if there is one that is interesting to listen to, it is Daniel Ricciardo. I think this guy's takes on stuff and life are great. And look, Jim is a racing driver also. I personally raced against him like two months ago. And for me, a CEO that drives race cars on the weekends is about the pinnacle of CEO-dom when it comes to car companies. So the two of them together obviously have a lot of things to discuss. On Drive with Jim Farley, which you can get on your podcast app. Very easy to find. Drive with Jim Farley. Check it out.

Speaker 2:
[33:17] Right.

Speaker 1:
[33:18] And so explain why we went with the 5.5 liter from the 2002 E55.

Speaker 2:
[33:25] The 500E, the 400E and the 500E was manufactured by Mercedes. And they reconstructed the firewall for that engine to fit in there. Because essentially the 4 cam engine is a bigger engine.

Speaker 1:
[33:38] Yeah.

Speaker 2:
[33:39] And the way it sits in there, you need to basically cut away the firewall from a 400 or a 500E and re-weld it, which changes everything. Dash, everything comes off. We've done that before too. And it's a lot of work.

Speaker 1:
[33:54] It seems like diminishing returns.

Speaker 2:
[33:56] Yeah. At that point, financially, it's not the smart thing to do. Other than that, you're going to have to sit there and beat... And I've seen this happen where people have literally beat the... Hence the name Hammer. That's where it kind of came about.

Speaker 1:
[34:11] Get the fuck out of here.

Speaker 2:
[34:12] No. They literally beat the firewall.

Speaker 1:
[34:14] That's where the name came from because they hit the firewall with hammers?

Speaker 2:
[34:18] Yes. That's where the name originated.

Speaker 1:
[34:20] There's your Instagram clip right there. Did you know that?

Speaker 2:
[34:24] No. Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[34:25] Is that a commonly known thing and I'm the last one to know? Do your customers know that shit?

Speaker 2:
[34:30] Very few people that are like real AMG guys know that that's what they did to fit the 6-liter in there. They literally hammered the firewall to make that fit.

Speaker 1:
[34:40] That is... You know, from a company that is famously unfunny, you know, nobody takes themselves more seriously than Mercedes, than maybe Ferrari. That is a very funny inside joke from an unfunny company.

Speaker 2:
[34:55] If you hear some of the stories, you know, I got a chance to meet Hartmut that owns Rentec.

Speaker 1:
[35:03] He's different.

Speaker 2:
[35:04] And he... Well, he tells me some stories of AMG and what they did, like, when they did the Road America shootout and all the stuff they did to that hammer when they brought it to the States. That's a whole different story. But he told me some of the stuff that they did. I mean, it's amazing that they thought of all this stuff back in the 80s. This is 86, 87. But, yeah, they...

Speaker 1:
[35:27] Zack and I have spent time with Hartmut in Florida. Guy doesn't fuck around.

Speaker 2:
[35:30] No, no, he doesn't. He doesn't. And he's actually in the process of building, like, a set of SECs called the Sledgehammer.

Speaker 1:
[35:38] Yes, yes.

Speaker 2:
[35:39] Which is pretty wicked. Yes.

Speaker 1:
[35:41] You have to knock the firewall back even further. You have to fit the fucking V12.

Speaker 2:
[35:46] He's really recreating those SECs, which I'm so happy that actually someone is re-imagining this thing.

Speaker 1:
[35:51] Hartmut, don't forget your fucking boy when it comes time to do content on that car.

Speaker 2:
[35:56] Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[35:56] That's going to be bananas.

Speaker 2:
[35:57] It's going to be bananas. I'm stoked.

Speaker 1:
[35:59] Yeah. Okay. So anyway, the 500E engine is neither practical to install nor, in fact, I think is it practical for my use case, actually.

Speaker 2:
[36:11] It's not because the parts are becoming obsolete. It's becoming harder to find people that want to work on these engines. You know, like if I didn't have, you know, the network that I did or as a matter of fact, my brother, which has been with Mercedes almost 40 years, you know, 38 years, he knew these cars when they were brand new. So I'm very grateful for that. But a normal person that wants to own a 119 powered Ford Cam Mercedes, it's becoming very few and, you know, far in between to find someone that knows those engines. And that's when the 113 engine comes to play, which is a much newer engine. It's a much more dependable engine and it has a lot more power.

Speaker 1:
[36:53] Yeah.

Speaker 2:
[36:55] And it's a smaller package.

Speaker 1:
[36:56] Yeah. So it fits.

Speaker 2:
[36:58] Beautiful.

Speaker 1:
[36:58] More power and torque. And because we got a donor car, a 2002.

Speaker 2:
[37:04] Yes.

Speaker 1:
[37:05] We get a five-speed gearbox. Yes. We get a better diff. We get the entire powertrain from the E55.

Speaker 2:
[37:13] Right. I mean, that's a 350 horsepower out of the box.

Speaker 1:
[37:16] Yeah.

Speaker 2:
[37:17] Smog-legal, smooth as butter. And with ECU tune, with the exhaust, I mean, you can easily pull close to 400 horsepower and still be a daily driver, which gives you 20, 25 miles per gallon. And let me tell you something, man. You're looking for a weekend cruiser. This thing is going to be a hot rod.

Speaker 1:
[37:37] No, no, I don't. I want to have balls. I just like, with a 4 cam engine compared to a 2 cam engine or a single cam, whatever, a single overhead cam engine, the up high power band, when you have a car with a fucking slush box, how am I going to just keep the power up here effectively? You know what I mean? It's not like I'm talking about a Ferrari. I'm talking about a big, heavy cruiser. So yeah, I want some power. I want some torque, but I don't need a dual overhead cam power profile for that type of driving.

Speaker 2:
[38:13] And with this car, once it's all dialed in, I've driven plenty of 124s with a 113 swap. I was working on one last year and they took it to Monterey with a six speed gearbox that Matt Quick did. Dude, that car was zesty. That is a Quick car.

Speaker 1:
[38:35] We have one. Sorry, is mine the one? When you... Shout out to Matt Quick, Quick Classics in Tennessee. He's doing our powertrain swap. And we should be getting the truck, the truck going there like very, very shortly, now that we have sorted the E55 can be driven onto the truck. That's a detail that I did not know and is good to know. I thought it was more crashed than it is.

Speaker 2:
[39:00] No, no, it's drivable.

Speaker 1:
[39:01] Okay, cool. But, so he's kind of known for doing the manual swaps. We have one at our other store, a black series that he did. A CLK black series with a manual swap that is fucking spicy, really nice. And so, we're not doing a manual swap. I don't... Right, there's no need. It just doesn't fit the character of the car. It's not...

Speaker 2:
[39:23] Especially in LA., you don't need it.

Speaker 1:
[39:25] It's a cruiser. We're giving it an extra automatic gear, which is the right move. And so, he's gonna make the whole... Put the whole E55 underneath my car. He says, including HVAC, he's also gonna do the suspension. He's gonna do the Bilstein damper with the H&R spring, which is what the E500 had. I saw my homies at HRE came up to laser scan.

Speaker 2:
[39:50] They did, too. That's some pretty...

Speaker 1:
[39:51] The laser scan is good. I like the laser scan.

Speaker 2:
[39:54] Yeah, no, they got some pretty high tech shit. And the guy is pretty knowledgeable. Sean came by, a really nice guy.

Speaker 1:
[40:01] So what they are doing is... And we'll get a photo of it up when Zack, who will come back from the bathroom, I guess... Everything all right, buddy?

Speaker 3:
[40:11] Yeah, my nose started running.

Speaker 1:
[40:12] Oh, that's problematic. That's problematic. There's a lot of pollen in the studio. Zack, will you pull up a photo, please, of the H&R?

Speaker 2:
[40:19] You're talking about pre-merger AMGs and your nose starts running.

Speaker 3:
[40:23] I'm allergic to them.

Speaker 1:
[40:25] We did not talk about stash pockets. The HRE 544 wheel, please. HRE has had to restart production of the 17-inch version of this wheel.

Speaker 2:
[40:40] They are going to go 17.

Speaker 1:
[40:41] They're making them in a 17. That's why they had to laser scan. If they were doing them in an 18, they could have gone off the route. No, 17 is the correct move. It's the 544. It's the same, the two-piece FMR, which is, it looks like a three-piece, but the barrel is a forged barrel.

Speaker 2:
[41:01] Which is better.

Speaker 1:
[41:01] So it's actually a two-piece.

Speaker 2:
[41:02] Yeah, it's a better one.

Speaker 1:
[41:03] Stronger and lighter. And we're going to do the, I haven't chosen the finish yet, but you were right. We need to go with the brightest silver with the liquidiest clear coat on it to make it like, with that red.

Speaker 2:
[41:21] Almost like a platinum silver.

Speaker 1:
[41:23] It needs to glow.

Speaker 2:
[41:24] It does. It does.

Speaker 3:
[41:25] Frozen, polished clear.

Speaker 1:
[41:27] Yes, like something like that.

Speaker 2:
[41:29] Frozen, polished clear. It does need to pop.

Speaker 1:
[41:32] Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2:
[41:33] Without a blink.

Speaker 1:
[41:34] Yeah. So I'm going to have to go down there and look at finishes in person again, because the configurator is helpful. Oh, yeah. Do we have, do you have photos on the 124?

Speaker 2:
[41:43] There's actually a 124 there.

Speaker 1:
[41:44] Yeah, look, the black one. In the second row, second, yeah, that. That's a 124. Yes.

Speaker 2:
[41:50] That looks badass. That's actually a 500E. It is. With the Lorenzer front bumper on it. That's rare.

Speaker 1:
[41:55] I mean, I think that looks correct.

Speaker 2:
[41:56] Don't you? That looks gorgeous. That's the best looking wheel on the car. Like the monoblock, whether it's the Aero one or the OZ3 piece, you know, you have to keep the car within its era.

Speaker 1:
[42:07] Sure.

Speaker 2:
[42:08] That's why when I have clients that tell me, oh, I want to put a newer E55 wheel on it, it just doesn't work.

Speaker 1:
[42:13] Zack, third from the right in the top row, there's a whole car photo. I mean, below. That's on a coupe too.

Speaker 2:
[42:20] That's on a coupe, man. That's white bodied.

Speaker 1:
[42:22] That looks fabulous.

Speaker 2:
[42:23] That looks great.

Speaker 1:
[42:24] That's our look right there, doesn't it?

Speaker 2:
[42:26] Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[42:27] If I can get it.

Speaker 2:
[42:28] But that's an 18 inch, you know that.

Speaker 1:
[42:29] You think so?

Speaker 2:
[42:30] That's an 18.

Speaker 1:
[42:31] Shit.

Speaker 2:
[42:31] You see the distance between the floor and the rocker? To me, that's too much because, and also what they did to this car, not to knock the car, but there's no side skirt. You see how the front bumper and rear bumper sits lower?

Speaker 1:
[42:44] Right.

Speaker 2:
[42:44] To me, it looks incomplete, and the center looks empty. But that's an 18, it's too big. I would go 17, and your car is going to be squatted down a little more. You want it to look good.

Speaker 1:
[42:55] The car you brought outside is the car I want it to sit like.

Speaker 2:
[42:59] And that's exactly how you want it to sit.

Speaker 1:
[43:01] But that is the right style of wheel.

Speaker 2:
[43:02] Yes, absolutely.

Speaker 1:
[43:03] That's exactly the right wheel.

Speaker 2:
[43:04] Absolutely.

Speaker 1:
[43:05] Oh, and speaking of style. You see what I have? It arrived today.

Speaker 2:
[43:11] No way. That is beautiful, man.

Speaker 1:
[43:13] No, you're looking at the wrong side. That's the back. This is the front.

Speaker 2:
[43:18] That is awesome.

Speaker 1:
[43:20] So, this is our fabric for the seat inserts and the doors. And I think...

Speaker 2:
[43:24] It's gonna look nuts.

Speaker 1:
[43:26] This will look great with the black leather.

Speaker 2:
[43:28] Absolutely.

Speaker 1:
[43:29] And it's got this matches, this one tone matches the car. And then this brightness will do nice with the silver trim.

Speaker 2:
[43:39] Yeah. Right? I think it's gonna look great.

Speaker 1:
[43:41] Yeah, and it's like, it's aggressive, but not like psychedelic.

Speaker 2:
[43:46] You know what it is? Once it's in there, we're gonna have to pick and choose the stitching. I would probably go with like a gray stitching and or piping, because the original seats do have piping. Now, what I'm gonna do with your car, the 500E has perforations on the bolster.

Speaker 1:
[44:07] Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like your car.

Speaker 2:
[44:08] So we wanna do the 500E style seat. It's an actual Recaro seat. So my guy can take the factory seat and re-bolster it to where it looks like the 500 to give it a little bit more support.

Speaker 1:
[44:20] It's really like, that's actually important to me, is why I have a hard time with old cars. I need a brand new seat.

Speaker 2:
[44:27] You sat in my car.

Speaker 1:
[44:28] Yeah, yeah, so we need that.

Speaker 2:
[44:29] If you wanna take it to the next level, maybe we should talk to Recaro, because they do make a newer seat, which does look like the classic, but it's a different design.

Speaker 1:
[44:39] The one like yours is perfect.

Speaker 2:
[44:41] So the one like mine is the 500. And what I did with mine is it's not as springy as the original 500. It has a little firmness to it.

Speaker 1:
[44:50] That's what we need.

Speaker 2:
[44:51] And you want that support.

Speaker 1:
[44:52] Yeah, more structure.

Speaker 2:
[44:53] And with the cloth insert that I have on my 500, it gives you a lot more...

Speaker 1:
[44:58] It's grip. Grip, yeah, yeah. I love a cloth seat, because you have that actual tension on your clothes. You don't slide around. But yeah, more support on the bottom, firmer bottom, so it doesn't...

Speaker 2:
[45:12] You need that support.

Speaker 1:
[45:13] Every old Mercedes on earth, the front left of the seat is like completely collapsed, and it fucking destroys my spine.

Speaker 2:
[45:21] The early models have the spring. The late models, like your 94, 95 model, has the foam, which has a lot more support.

Speaker 1:
[45:28] But still, it's so old now, it's all.

Speaker 2:
[45:30] It fatigues.

Speaker 1:
[45:31] Yeah, so... And then, all right, what else? So we've got the 500 suspension. Who did you say is doing the... Who did Matt say is doing the exhaust for this car? Super Sprint. Yeah.

Speaker 2:
[45:41] It's out of the UK.

Speaker 1:
[45:42] He said all the HVAC will work, like factory, which was great. And my top is in okay shape.

Speaker 2:
[45:49] It is. Yeah. The hydraulics probably would need to be rebuilt because those have a tendency to leak, which my guy can do. I would do that because you're going to put the top up and down. It has, like, things that you need to... Old car shit. Yeah. It has to be done. But good part is the top is good, the cams is good, the headliner is nice. You know, I wouldn't put a brand new top on it because you're not going to drive that car with the top up. You're going to constantly put it down.

Speaker 1:
[46:16] The top doesn't leak. It doesn't have tears. It's in decent... It was replaced maybe, like, four or five years ago.

Speaker 2:
[46:21] It needs a good clean up. We can clean it up and that's it.

Speaker 1:
[46:25] I'm so excited about this car. I think it's going to be so cool.

Speaker 2:
[46:27] Brother, you're going to love this car. You don't understand. It's going to be so fun to drive. You have no idea. I mean, this is going to be your first experience with a V8-powered Mercedes that didn't come with a V8. That's the whole thing around it. You're going to be like, wow, this car can do this.

Speaker 1:
[46:45] I like old school hot rodding shit.

Speaker 2:
[46:47] It's going to be a hot rod. And the beautiful thing is you can drive the shit out of the car. It's not a car that you have to be afraid of. It's just...

Speaker 1:
[46:54] The mileage, like, whatever.

Speaker 2:
[46:56] You lay in this thing, and it's going to... Anytime, like, my first experience with the swap, I sent my SEC to Matt Quick, and I sent him an SEC and a 2005 S55. And he swapped that with a supercharged engine transmission. I mean, we were driving... We were going to drive this thing to Monterey. I sent him both cars, and literally three weeks later, I drove my SEC down from Tennessee. And the second day, I drove it to Monterey. This thing is an absolute beast. 550 some horsepower. And it's like, the first time I drove this thing, I'm like, I couldn't believe this car can go this fast. And the same thing with the 124. With that V8 in it, you lay in that thing, it's just gonna lay rubber.

Speaker 1:
[47:46] Yeah, I mean, the stock engine's 220 horsepower. This is gonna be like 380, 400.

Speaker 2:
[47:51] Just a 400 horsepower. In a little car, in a little ass widebody.

Speaker 1:
[47:55] Yeah, it transforms it. Some people have asked, do we have to reinforce the structure of the car for this?

Speaker 2:
[48:01] You know, listen, if you're gonna track it, I get it. If you're gonna drive it on the street, you're gonna be fine. The convertible already has the chassis, which is super strong. I mean, you lift this car from one end, the whole side of the car goes up. It's pretty beefy. You know, it depends on your use. I mean, if you're gonna drive it on the street and your wifey's gonna drive it around, you're not gonna need to do any of that. As long as your brakes are good, you have good brakes.

Speaker 1:
[48:31] Well, Matt Quick said we're gonna use the R129 SL600 brake, which is the OEM upgrade.

Speaker 2:
[48:38] It's plenty.

Speaker 1:
[48:39] That'll be fine.

Speaker 2:
[48:39] Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[48:40] So, yeah, it's a pretty straightforward, but he did say we talked about maybe doing dry ice underneath, maybe we talked about, and he was going to, you know, when he takes the motor and everything out, he was gonna do all the seals and service the motor, service the gearbox and stuff. So, you know, it's not just like, he's expensive. I mean, he's giving me friends and family, which I greatly appreciate, and this is, he's like the guy for this, from what I gather.

Speaker 2:
[49:14] I mean, listen, he's getting it done.

Speaker 1:
[49:15] But I was like, you know, this is quite pricey, and he was like, well, let me literally run down the whole thing, and when you do it all out, it's like the bushings and the seals, and the this, and the this, and you're like, fucking just, yeah, I can see it.

Speaker 2:
[49:30] You have to keep in mind it's not just the engine swap. You know, I had a hard, you know, in the beginning, I was kind of figuring it out, and, you know, he's doing a lot of work to the car. It's not just dumping the engine in there.

Speaker 1:
[49:42] No, no, for sure.

Speaker 2:
[49:43] Yes, suspension, brakes. I mean, the Super Sprint exhaust system is a full stainless steel, I mean, that on its own.

Speaker 1:
[49:49] No, I had to send a deposit for that.

Speaker 2:
[49:51] Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[49:51] Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2:
[49:52] And he does pretty good work. You know, you get the Super Sprint, and then the continuation all the way up to the manifolds, he does himself. So he's putting a lot of time and effort, and he's the only one that I see that's doing it now. I mean, there's a lot of people out there that claim they can do it. I mean, look, my brother, which works for Mercedes, doesn't want to really get into it. He's kind of figuring it out for his own, but it's quite a bit of work, man, to do it the right way.

Speaker 1:
[50:21] It seems, well, there's also like the merging of two cars' wiring harnesses in order to like make the...

Speaker 3:
[50:28] From two eras, really.

Speaker 1:
[50:29] Like, yeah, to make the gauge cluster work.

Speaker 2:
[50:32] The key, the gauge cluster, all, you know.

Speaker 1:
[50:34] He said we're going to use the key from the E55. Yeah. He said he's going to change the ignition over and it's going to be the key from the E55, not the old...

Speaker 2:
[50:42] It's probably better. I mean, my car has the original key and the cluster's original and the shifter's original. I mean, you look at the car from the outside and you won't know that if I pop, if I don't pop to it, you won't know it's been shot. Sure.

Speaker 1:
[50:54] But I don't mind if the shifter is different. It's close enough that it wouldn't stand out as being like different. Did I send you the picture of, I sent it to Matt, of our buddy Marcus Smith's 280 SE with an E55 swap? I don't think I posted it on Instagram.

Speaker 2:
[51:14] Who did that for him?

Speaker 1:
[51:15] A local dude, but it looked, Matt did the powertrain.

Speaker 2:
[51:18] Oh, he did.

Speaker 1:
[51:19] Matt Quick did the powertrain.

Speaker 2:
[51:20] Was it a convertible car? Is it convertible?

Speaker 1:
[51:22] No, no, Matt didn't. I'm sorry. Matt did not do the powertrain. Someone did it in North Carolina, but it was a really beautifully done thing. I'll show you the picture later. It was a 280 SE with an E55, and it had the E55 shifter in it, but it surrounded in a burl. The rest of it looked pretty factory, and it didn't stand out. It wasn't like, ah, they blended it nicely. Yeah, it was good.

Speaker 2:
[51:48] As long as it's tastefully done, you know, that's the important thing.

Speaker 1:
[51:52] For my car, you would be hard-pressed to tell the difference between the shifter.

Speaker 2:
[51:56] Yeah, it's going to be– and again, the shifter, the difference between the E55 shifter and yours, the E55 changing the gears is like a blip.

Speaker 1:
[52:05] Oh.

Speaker 2:
[52:05] So the drive– see, yours has the drive, the– And then the snake. And then the snake.

Speaker 1:
[52:11] Yeah.

Speaker 2:
[52:11] This doesn't.

Speaker 1:
[52:12] So you– Oh, it's drive and then left-right?

Speaker 2:
[52:14] Left-right. Oh, I see. So I don't know if he's going to do that, if he's going to give you the left-right option, but if he– Paddle shifters. Called Twist Machine Paddle Shifters. Listen, the E55 does have paddle shifters too.

Speaker 1:
[52:27] Oh.

Speaker 2:
[52:27] So you can incorporate that. You can literally put buttons in the back of the wheel and start downshifting. I mean, you can do that. That would be kind of sweet.

Speaker 1:
[52:35] Money's fast. Money goes fast. Shit, that's probably expensive. He's just adding up the tally in Tennessee right now.

Speaker 2:
[52:42] Oh, boy.

Speaker 1:
[52:43] While you're in there.

Speaker 2:
[52:44] It's going to be fun, dude. I'm super, super stoked.

Speaker 1:
[52:46] It's going to be crazy.

Speaker 2:
[52:47] It is.

Speaker 1:
[52:48] And what's the name of– I just call it red, but what is the color?

Speaker 2:
[52:52] It's actually Signal Red.

Speaker 1:
[52:54] Signal Red is the color for the car. There's other reds that it is.

Speaker 2:
[52:57] There's Imperial Red.

Speaker 1:
[52:58] Which is from what?

Speaker 2:
[53:00] It's the same year, but it's more of like a reddy red. Yours is more of like a Bergen– not Bergen-ish, but a darker red.

Speaker 1:
[53:06] Yeah. What's your wagon?

Speaker 2:
[53:08] Same color as yours, Signal Red.

Speaker 1:
[53:09] Okay, that's Signal Red.

Speaker 2:
[53:10] Signal Red.

Speaker 1:
[53:10] Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2:
[53:11] Which is nice.

Speaker 1:
[53:12] Yeah.

Speaker 2:
[53:12] It's a beautiful shade of red.

Speaker 1:
[53:14] I'm stoked.

Speaker 2:
[53:15] With the interior and the top, the wheels, it's going to look gorgeous.

Speaker 1:
[53:18] Yeah, it's going to be crazy. I'm super fucking stoked. Do you, I mean, because you were building these cars before they sort of became trendy.

Speaker 2:
[53:27] Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[53:28] Again, how has the trend, I mean, is it just like as fast as you can build them now?

Speaker 2:
[53:34] I mean, right now we have 18 cars in production. Whoa. It's a combination of 124s, 126s, I have a 123, 116. And after the pandemic, it's just things just started to blow up. You know, it really put Mercedes on the map, partially because like people really started to understand how legendary these cars are. They started to realize these were really special back in the day and they've been forgotten about because everyone's after the Porsche and the BMWs and Mercedes was always kind of one step behind when it came to the 80s and 90s tuner game.

Speaker 1:
[54:16] Yeah. Now, BMW was racing, you know, in the 80s and 90s and so was Porsche. And AMG was like a separate thing that was cool, but also sort of like go.

Speaker 2:
[54:27] If it wasn't for AMG, then Mercedes wouldn't have a motorsport program at all. It would just, you know, they still are riding on AMG. But prior to the merger in 94, AMG was the one that was racing the DTM cars. They develop all the black series cars. You know, they put all that together. BMW, Porsche, even Audi had their in-house performance sector that was doing these. But after the pandemic, you know, things started shifting. And even the prices of these cars started to increase slowly.

Speaker 1:
[55:04] Yeah, the first time a widebody cracked 500k, it was like, I'm sorry, what?

Speaker 3:
[55:08] I think the hammer was on Hagerty's list in 2020 or 2021. I filmed it for them for whatever the series was, like the investor bull market thing. But like, it was about six years ago and it was like, hey, we should start paying attention to these.

Speaker 1:
[55:22] How many actual hammers were built by AMG?

Speaker 2:
[55:26] It's undetermined.

Speaker 1:
[55:27] Really?

Speaker 2:
[55:27] Yeah. They say there was 50 6-liter hammers built, but I don't think that's an accurate number.

Speaker 1:
[55:33] You think it's low or high?

Speaker 2:
[55:34] It's higher. It's higher. I mean, it could be. I know for a fact, they built a lot more engines because the heads were just leaky. They weren't that dependable. People that were buying these 6-liter hammers were eventually pulling the heads off and putting a single overhead cam head on it to make it more dependable.

Speaker 1:
[55:56] That's so funny.

Speaker 2:
[55:57] Every 3,000 miles, you had to adjust valves. So it was a race motor. Technically, it was a race motor that they wanted to introduce for the street. So there weren't many people that knew about it here, you know, and it was becoming to a point where that's where the cars lost value. You know, where...

Speaker 1:
[56:15] Yeah, once they're... if they're just too annoying to maintain.

Speaker 2:
[56:18] Yeah, and too expensive. People don't know how to work on them, and that's when they just start dipping in value, you know. But, just kind of like researching them worldwide, I would say probably 75 to 80 of them that were built. True actual 6-liter. Some of them were non-widebody. There's a handful of them that came, you know, a 6-liter with a regular SEC body, or the 4-door. Like, I own a 4-door SCL that came with a 6-liter 4-cam in it.

Speaker 1:
[56:52] And no widebody.

Speaker 2:
[56:54] No widebody. It's a 4-door car.

Speaker 1:
[56:55] I guess a 4-door car didn't really use it.

Speaker 2:
[56:57] I bought that car for, I mean, I was going to part that car out. It was, the story on that car is not...

Speaker 1:
[57:02] Is the, I mean, okay, we don't know exactly, is the documentation on the car good? Like, if you, that 6-liter car, is it possible to document an AMG as being authentic or not authentic?

Speaker 2:
[57:17] Yes, so they have a certification program now that they only have record of the special cars that they built. But there's a handful of, like cars that came with body kits, wheels and seats, there's really no record behind it. But the 6-liter cars, most of them are documented. The really high-spec cars are documented. Like, the 86 that I bought, I bought this car literally from someone who was thrown on a field in San Diego. And I went there to buy a 6-liter engine from the guy. And I ended up buying the engine. It's a 30,000 kilometer motor. And I see this car in the corner. And it was just, it's hit from the back, poor shape. So I said, what are you doing with that car? He said, well, I bought this car to part it out because I'm going to put together another SCL that I have. And he goes, I just lost interest. So I said, do you want to sell it? He goes, sure. So I went and I'm looking at this thing, AMG gauges, AMG steering wheel, AMG body kit, Penta wheels. But the car is just just torn apart. Like it's just poor, poor quality. Interiors all intact. It had a it has like a purple leather interior, with purple wood, wood everywhere. So I ended up buying the car for like 1500 bucks and I was going to part this car out. OK, I didn't know what it was. So I brought the car to the shop. A buddy of mine came by and I showed him the car. He's like, what are you going to do with that? I said, it's a parts car. He goes, don't tear this car apart. Don't do anything to it till I get back to you. Let me do some checking. So a week later, he comes by the shop with full documentation on this car. Apparently this was the highest specced SEL ever. It was bought by a Texas oil well tycoon. And he brought me the build sheet on it, which I have. $138,000 worth of AMG upgrades in 1986 when the car was... Six-liter Gleason Thorson rear end, Nakamichi sound system. The guy checked all the boxes. When he ran out of options, he didn't want Recaro seats because it wasn't good for his back. He put SEC seats in it, coupe seats, which fold forward for no reason.

Speaker 1:
[59:31] That's so funny.

Speaker 3:
[59:32] How much in options did you say?

Speaker 2:
[59:33] $138,000 in options. And the car at 86 is crazy.

Speaker 1:
[59:38] My Countach was 110 for the whole car.

Speaker 3:
[59:42] That's 400 grand in options today.

Speaker 2:
[59:44] So that car, I sent all the documentation to Germany a few years ago. MKB is a company in Germany which is run by Melker, the M in AMG. He sold it, but he originated that company. After the merger, everyone split, and Alfrick opened up HWA, and then Melker went to MKB. And they have a certification program through AMG Classic. So I got the certificate. I sent everything in the VIN number and photos, and they had the car in their database.

Speaker 1:
[60:19] Cool.

Speaker 2:
[60:19] So they sent me the full certification on that car.

Speaker 1:
[60:22] So is it worth restoring?

Speaker 2:
[60:24] I'm doing a full-blown restoration on the car. It's an incredible car, and I had no idea what it was. I knew what I had, but I didn't know what it was.

Speaker 1:
[60:34] That's cool.

Speaker 3:
[60:35] You thought you had an interior, and then it turns out you have a whole car.

Speaker 2:
[60:39] Yeah, so that car, it's rough. It needs a lot of love, but now that I certified it, now it's time to really throw balls out and just make it bitchin.

Speaker 3:
[60:50] Well, and as we've seen with so many of the classes at Pebble, you can restore it from being on fire, and if it's restored well and the VIN is there, then it's got a story.

Speaker 1:
[60:59] If you have a VIN number and a paper trail, you can build the car from dust almost. Yeah, that's so cool. So, and I think, you know, it's got, well, it's an SCL, so it's a sedan, right?

Speaker 2:
[61:14] It's a sedan.

Speaker 1:
[61:15] Okay.

Speaker 2:
[61:15] Yeah, it's a four-door sedan.

Speaker 1:
[61:17] Long wheelbase.

Speaker 2:
[61:18] Long wheelbase, just badass. If you see the car, you know there's something special about it. But you just can't, like, I don't...

Speaker 1:
[61:28] The wheels are Pentastar?

Speaker 2:
[61:29] They're Pentas, staggered Pentas, Nines and Eights, which were a rare. I mean, the car was fully, fully optioned with everything. Leather curtains, leather headliner.

Speaker 1:
[61:39] Leather curtains?

Speaker 2:
[61:40] Leather curtains. That's aggressive.

Speaker 3:
[61:42] Texas. You know, he's got cows.

Speaker 1:
[61:44] That is some Texas shit. Yeah, that's crazy.

Speaker 2:
[61:46] When I went, so a couple years ago, we went to the 233 West meet. This was something they put together in Chicago, like a little AMG meet. 233 West was the address for Westmont Chicago AMG.

Speaker 1:
[61:57] Okay.

Speaker 2:
[61:58] So they're doing another one in a few years, but I actually took my 124 Coupe there, and it was like a gathering of all these AMGs. And Richard Buxbaum, which owned the Chicago, you know, AMG sector, was there, and I told him about the car, and he goes, oh yeah, he goes, I know who that, you know, who that car was specced to. He goes, we built that car in Germany. He goes, most of the six-liter cars, so the real AMG cars, they say, were built in Germany.

Speaker 1:
[62:26] Yeah, and there were some built in the US as well.

Speaker 2:
[62:27] And there was some built in Chicago, and then, you know, Andy Cohen, which owned Beverly Hills Motoring Accessories, was an official AMG, but they mainly did body kits, wheels, suspension. Germany is where they did all the heavy-duty stuff, and that's when Hartmut actually came down from Germany to service all these cars, the six-liter cars. Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[62:45] Is there any other, like, outside of either restoring or replicating original AMG models?

Speaker 2:
[62:55] Right.

Speaker 1:
[62:56] Is there demand for other stuff? Are people, do people want Lorenzer stuff? Do people want Schnitzer stuff? Is there really a demand for that kind of stuff today?

Speaker 2:
[63:04] There is. I mean, people are wanting anything that has to do with Mercedes tuning. Like, I bought a Koenig, one-of-one Koenig a few years back, from an elderly couple out of Oregon, and the guy gave me, so he knew Willie Koenig personally, so they designed a one-off body kit for him, and when he shipped the car down, he shipped the body molds with the car. So I have all the original molds to that car, and I can tell you, maybe four or five times a month, I get people wanting me to pop a body kit for a Koenig, which I won't do, obviously, because I'm not going to devalue my car, A, and B, Koenig is still an operating company, you know.

Speaker 1:
[63:48] Yeah, yeah, but could you use the molds to build a whole car for somebody, though?

Speaker 2:
[63:54] Everything.

Speaker 1:
[63:55] But you would do that, it's just you just won't sell the body kits.

Speaker 2:
[63:58] Well, I won't do it because that body kit is specifically for my car, it's the one of one, but I have, people want a Koenig, people want the Lorenzer, it's, you know.

Speaker 1:
[64:08] I don't know, one of one, I feel like if you have the molds, you could operate like a stud farm, you know, like, the yours is still one of one, but like, you know, you could issue, you know, a run of 10 recreation body kits, I'm just saying, but yours would still be the one of one. So you could extract max value.

Speaker 2:
[64:29] It's just a lot of fiberglass.

Speaker 1:
[64:31] So much, Zack and I had a go in the Koenig Testerosa, which was supposedly a thousand horsepower, and I think it probably actually was, it was psychotic, the brakes were terrible, but it had like 400 extra pounds of fiberglass on it. Yeah.

Speaker 2:
[64:46] How did it drive?

Speaker 3:
[64:48] I felt heavy because it was. But also, the steering was heavy, but it was very stiffly sprung. Lifting the hatch was serious effort. I think we were filling it with gas or something.

Speaker 1:
[65:00] We had to open the rear clam shell to put fuel in it.

Speaker 3:
[65:02] There was no rod for it. So it was tiring on the shoulders to hold this.

Speaker 2:
[65:06] How would you do that by yourself?

Speaker 1:
[65:08] Oh, it would not be possible. You'd be out of gas.

Speaker 2:
[65:11] No rod, no...

Speaker 1:
[65:13] I mean, it probably came from the factory with a rod, but this one didn't have one.

Speaker 3:
[65:17] It was really shockingly heavy, though.

Speaker 1:
[65:19] The power was insane. I mean, really insane. And when you got on it, the amount of black smoke that came out of the exhaust, it was...

Speaker 2:
[65:32] Well, listen, Koenig really built some radical cars back then.

Speaker 1:
[65:36] Oh, yeah.

Speaker 2:
[65:36] They were very performance driven.

Speaker 1:
[65:38] Yeah. And if you had this body kit made out of, like, carbon or something, like, it would probably be okay. But, like, it was just so heavy.

Speaker 2:
[65:46] It was stock brakes.

Speaker 1:
[65:47] Yikes.

Speaker 2:
[65:47] The amount of bondo that they used on these cars is insane.

Speaker 1:
[65:51] Yeah.

Speaker 2:
[65:52] Like, I have an older Koenig four-door car that is in restoration. I'm restoring slowly. I mean, there's areas that have literally an inch and a half of bondo.

Speaker 3:
[66:03] Is that because the fiberglass was just wavy and shitty?

Speaker 2:
[66:07] They kept adding it just to smooth it out, and in the joints, you know, where they wanted them rounded, it literally, like, the corner has an inch of bondo, and it just kind of feathers out to the body. But eventually, this is going to crack.

Speaker 3:
[66:19] Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2:
[66:19] I mean, there's a quarter inch of bondo cracks everywhere. It's ridiculous.

Speaker 3:
[66:24] That's terrible.

Speaker 1:
[66:24] Is there, aside from, you know, something like you just talked about, barn find restoration of an original car, and, you know, you score the car for no money, and it turns out it's a thing worth saving. Outside of that, do you have, like, a dream build that you haven't gotten around to yet?

Speaker 2:
[66:44] You know, one of the cars that I wanted to build was the Shooting Brake, which was the one we did for my brother. It was something that, like, just was never done before, and it was something that's kind of like, you know, what if Mercedes made a Shooting Brake?

Speaker 1:
[67:02] It was so cool. I love that car.

Speaker 2:
[67:05] People either like it or hate it. You know, you get mixed reviews on the car.

Speaker 1:
[67:10] I feel like if someone hates it, they probably just don't understand what you've done with the interior. If it had a fucking tan interior or something, they probably wouldn't even think. But I love this interior. I think it rules.

Speaker 2:
[67:20] It was a color that my brother chose. I mean, it was a collaboration we did on this build. He did all the mechanical, he did most of the assembly. We did the coachwork. That's real glass. It's not plexi.

Speaker 1:
[67:35] And it's not tinted blue.

Speaker 2:
[67:36] It's not tinted blue. It's totally clear. But it does look, everyone thinks it's blue tinted glass, which it isn't. And the car is just breathtaking. Every time I still look at it, it just kind of, it's unreal.

Speaker 1:
[67:51] It's the dopest shit ever. So did you take a roof off of like a 124 wagon, or is that fully hand made?

Speaker 2:
[68:01] So the roof is off of a four door car, just because of the flatness and the continuation. But everything else is hand fabricated. The pillars, the door, the reinforcements, everything is hand made. Just the skin of the center portion of the roof is the one we used off of a sedan. And that's because we wanted the same flow. But everything else is custom made, man. Those side moldings are all hand made. The drip rails are all hand made. And these are all intricate aluminum pieces that we had to weld and shave and bend. All of the roof from the inside, getting it reinforced so when the car's twisting, you're not cracking glass. We literally built like a cage within the roof to give it reinforcement. That thing is stiff. The rear hatch is completely custom fabricated. The hinges and the struts are off of a 124 so if you break your hinge, you can buy another one off of a 124 wagon. But everyone thinks it's a donor roof, which it isn't. Everything was hand made. I'm making the second version of it, which is called a Speedtail, which has a bit more of a slope to it. And that one's going to get a 6.3 in it. It's a 156 with the manual six-speed. It's going to be meant more for performance.

Speaker 1:
[69:27] What's a 156? That's a 6.3 from like a 20...

Speaker 2:
[69:32] S63, ML63. It's the naturally aspirated 500 horsepower. It's what comes in the black series. And they do have a black series tune, which with the cams and everything, which will make it pretty beefy. And that's going to get no backseat, leather-wrapped cage. It's going to be pretty wild, you know, once it's done. And then, you know, when we built the car, we were like, you know what, let's just kind of get creative with it and see where it goes. And this is what we ended up with, you know.

Speaker 1:
[70:03] I love how this car looks. And I know you don't want to show it publicly, but you did show me the rendering of the second car. And the roof line is badass.

Speaker 2:
[70:11] It's badass. Yeah, it's going to look wicked once it's done.

Speaker 1:
[70:15] It's not in a different universe from this one, but it's just...

Speaker 2:
[70:19] It has a bit more of a slope, a bit more aggressive. And that one's going to be all black, which is going to be kind of like the sinister version of this, you know.

Speaker 1:
[70:28] That's tough, though. If you're trying to build a car, black hides body lines.

Speaker 2:
[70:34] You know, something about a black wide body just looks...

Speaker 3:
[70:38] It does look tough.

Speaker 2:
[70:39] It looks unbelievable.

Speaker 3:
[70:40] Maybe you're in the right light to see it, but it does look...

Speaker 2:
[70:42] The other black one that we drove to Monterey, which we did the wide body on, and, you know, everyone kind of gravitates to the black. Like, you see the black one, it just looks... It looks vicious.

Speaker 3:
[70:54] Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 2:
[70:55] You know, it's got a much more vicious look to it. And that's kind of what I want with this one. I want it to be kind of like if, you know, if Dr. Evil had a shooting break SEC, that's what it would be, you know.

Speaker 3:
[71:07] I mean, the Mercedes is kind of the bad guy of the luxury brands, right? Part of it is like they're driven by bad guys in movies, but also like they're fast, they look good in black. I think they've probably used that color for a lot of the flagship cars, the black series. Like it's just associated with that. Farah's got red and...

Speaker 1:
[71:24] Yeah, it's like a real like Russian gangster car.

Speaker 3:
[71:27] Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[71:28] It's an earned reputation, I'd say.

Speaker 3:
[71:30] Yeah. But yeah, the shooting break looked magnificent.

Speaker 2:
[71:35] Yeah, it's very, it's a breathtaking car. It is. I mean, it's just, it turned out right.

Speaker 1:
[71:40] But like a good Mercedes shouldn't be like friendly looking. It should be pretty mean.

Speaker 2:
[71:46] See, this is like my brother's car is very, it's a joyful car. It just looks happy. Like the interior color, the whole thing, which is great. You know, and that's where people really are astonished about the color of the interior. Like my brother blew it out of the park, choosing that color. It's a custom shade of leather that he had tinted, and that's the color he wanted.

Speaker 1:
[72:09] It's like a cerulean blue, sky blue.

Speaker 2:
[72:14] There's really no name for it. He chose that color, and he had it dyed in that color. I mean, he looked at like maybe 15, 20 different shades, and that's the one he put his finger on. And in the beginning, I had second thoughts, but he had a vision, and I'm like, go with it, and he was right on the money. It looks unbelievable.

Speaker 1:
[72:33] Because there's a lot of it. It's like every surface in the car. If it wasn't every surface, I think it might not work so well. Like if it had a black console or a black dash or something like that. I think it has to be not just the color, but like an egregious amount of it.

Speaker 3:
[72:53] It's full boogie. But like you said, I remember we had dinner at that Italian place in Monterey Car Week, and we walked out, and the car was across the street just by happenstance. Park profile under one lamp, like so dramatic. And it looked like the windows were blue tinted, because every single surface, I know you said this, is covered in this, I don't know, BVI Tahitian Ocean blue, and from floor to ceiling. But the contrast of that with the all white car, and having the huge window, I don't know, man, it's like a sneaker or something. It's just so striking.

Speaker 2:
[73:25] So that color, even the exterior color, is a pure white.

Speaker 1:
[73:30] Yeah, there's no pearl or anything.

Speaker 2:
[73:32] There's nothing in there. And the panel roof really makes a big difference. When the sun hits it, it like glows inside, which looks awesome.

Speaker 1:
[73:40] I get that, absolutely. But when you have a color that is so ubiquitous in your interior that it appears the windows are tinted that color, that's a pretty powerful use of color.

Speaker 2:
[73:54] It is.

Speaker 3:
[73:55] True.

Speaker 2:
[73:55] And you know, it works. He knocked it out of the park with choosing that color, and I mean, it's got the blue matching woodgrain, you know, everywhere, which makes it nice. And going back to what you said, where it's all one, it makes it look a lot more complete and desirable.

Speaker 3:
[74:12] Do you think you've built a lot of cars, and we've seen you at Radwood for years with all kinds of cool stuff. Do you think this car puts you on the map more than others, or is it just a step?

Speaker 2:
[74:23] I mean, this is just a showstopper wherever you take it. Just people gravitate to it. I mean, when we first took it to Monterey last year, it might... my phone was blowing up. Like, people worldwide were noticing this car because it's just never been done before, you know? And it's still till today. Like, we were at a Mercedes event this Sunday, and it just... it creates a crowd.

Speaker 3:
[74:48] Sure. There's no other body like it. There's no shape like it. And then, even without the interior, it would probably have that effect.

Speaker 2:
[74:54] Yeah.

Speaker 3:
[74:54] That is like a beacon for everybody.

Speaker 2:
[74:56] It is. It is. We're building... Now, I'm kind of changing it up. I'm redesigning the wide body now. Like, I want to make my own design that mimics the AMG, but something a bit different, something a bit more CMS, like a custom build. I'm in the process of building an SEC for myself, which is a body swap. It's going to be based on E63S 2022. We already have the donor, and I want it to be more performance-driven with the newer interior. Just something different, you know what I mean, for people. Because the wide-body SEC, it's becoming too diluted in a way now. You know what I mean?

Speaker 1:
[75:39] Well, you start to see more of them.

Speaker 2:
[75:41] There's more of them around, and people want a change. People want something different. I'm also in the process of building a Jag. I have an XJS, and we're putting a custom-wide body on it that we've already created. And we're putting... I bought an XKS that's been wrecked, so we're putting that whole drivetrain in there with a six-speed and making it just a badass Jaguar.

Speaker 1:
[76:05] Oh, cool. We saw one of those Lister Jags at Radwood in Charlotte that was pretty fun. Let's go to the people. We got a few questions from our patrons over at patreon.com/thesmokingtirepodcast. If you want to ask questions of the show, listen to the live stream, get the show early, get extra show, get access to exclusive collabs and things like that, and more, patreon.com/thesmokingtirepodcast is where you do it. And we thank the lot of you. Our patrons have odd usernames, so get on board. Focaccia Country Day School says, I'm trying to rescue a S123 Turbo from a neighbor. What are your favorite ideas to mod or build this type of car? What is an S123 Turbo?

Speaker 2:
[76:55] It's probably a sedan. The S stands for a sedan.

Speaker 1:
[76:59] Like an S-class?

Speaker 2:
[77:00] It's the 123 is like the 300D, 240D. Oh, okay.

Speaker 1:
[77:04] Oh, all right. So turbo diesel.

Speaker 2:
[77:06] I'm assuming it's a sedan.

Speaker 1:
[77:07] All right, gotcha.

Speaker 2:
[77:09] You know, with diesels and performance, I don't know much about them, but I do know in Europe, they have like tons of upgrades to get these diesels going. I mean, the newer style diesel is like the most desirable one, I believe, is the model that's out of the 210, the 210, which is like the E55 body.

Speaker 1:
[77:29] Yeah. The BlueTech? Was that the first year of the BlueTech?

Speaker 2:
[77:32] No. There's... I don't know the engine code for it, but that particular diesel is the most desirable one that people build from what I know. Again, I'm not much of a diesel guy, but I mean, they're pulling 600, 700 horsepower out of those engines, which is incredible.

Speaker 1:
[77:48] That's crazy.

Speaker 2:
[77:49] But as far as upgrading, I would probably, you know, swap it with like a newer style diesel and turbo it, you know? And that would be the best.

Speaker 1:
[77:59] Yeah, just a newer diesel.

Speaker 2:
[78:01] Yeah. Yeah, but definitely beef up brakes and suspension on that.

Speaker 1:
[78:06] 390BulletInTheHead says, What gives you more gray hairs? Finding a missing piece of a 40-year-old Konig fiberglass or trying to explain to a purist why a classic Mercedes needs 600 horsepower?

Speaker 2:
[78:20] I mean, gray hairs, just, you know, dealing with Mercedes parts and finding parts and locating parts is probably the toughest part of getting gray hair. But, you know, the purists guys, you know, with Mercedes, the guys that are the purists are mainly the people that are driving the Gullwings and the 300SLs.

Speaker 1:
[78:41] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2:
[78:42] You know, anyone that has a Mercedes from the 70s and 80s, because being a tuner was accepted back then for Mercedes, it's not really the purist, but it's just finding the parts for these things is the toughest part.

Speaker 1:
[78:56] Sure. LL. Cartier says, if you were to acquire a decent 210 E55, that's like what we bought, right?

Speaker 2:
[79:06] Right.

Speaker 1:
[79:06] And wanted to make it the ultimate mile munching hot rod, what could be done and at what budget?

Speaker 2:
[79:12] I would manual swap that car. I mean, I've always wondered why Mercedes didn't manufacture something to compete with the M5, because that automatic transmission is horrible.

Speaker 1:
[79:23] Yeah.

Speaker 2:
[79:24] I mean, it's just a slush. If you're going to cruise it around, it's fine. But they were an AMG meant for the wife. They were something, as a grocery getter, the shifting is smooth. So something four-door, naturally aspirated V8 manual would be the most desirable. And that's what really wakes that car up.

Speaker 1:
[79:43] Every early 2000s Mercedes that I've driven that came with an automatic that I drove that had a manual swap was much better. I drove a CLK 430 with a manual swap that was lovely.

Speaker 2:
[79:56] The black one?

Speaker 1:
[79:57] No, the fourth. Oh, the color of it? Maybe.

Speaker 2:
[80:01] That's my cousin, David. Yeah, you did a review on that car. So he manual swapped that himself.

Speaker 1:
[80:08] He did it himself.

Speaker 2:
[80:09] Yeah, but it made the car better. Yeah, and he still owns that car.

Speaker 1:
[80:13] Crossfire gearbox.

Speaker 2:
[80:13] Crossfire gearbox. And it totally changed the whole driving experience of that car.

Speaker 1:
[80:18] Yeah, and then we drove a SL55 that had a manual swap that a guy in Vegas did.

Speaker 2:
[80:22] That's right. I saw that. Yeah, I saw that episode too.

Speaker 1:
[80:24] Also good.

Speaker 2:
[80:25] Very good car.

Speaker 1:
[80:25] Yeah.

Speaker 3:
[80:26] It's what they need. The transmission is so terrible.

Speaker 2:
[80:29] Yes.

Speaker 3:
[80:33] Okay.

Speaker 1:
[80:37] Actually, I like Duffel Shuffle Retirement Club says, what is Mercedes up to with the door-to-door screen in the C-class?

Speaker 3:
[80:43] Dude, did you see the new design that came out today?

Speaker 1:
[80:44] The most aggressive use of screen. I've seen an interior so far. No, I didn't. What news came out today?

Speaker 3:
[80:49] I'll find it real quick.

Speaker 1:
[80:51] Is it good news or bad news? Bad news. Zack is shaking his head. It is bad news?

Speaker 3:
[80:58] It's the 2027 CEV.

Speaker 1:
[81:02] Okay. The C-class.

Speaker 3:
[81:04] What? Wow. I mean, there's a couple of problems with it.

Speaker 1:
[81:07] I can think of one.

Speaker 3:
[81:09] There's so many.

Speaker 1:
[81:10] One is that front grill. Two is that is egregious screen.

Speaker 3:
[81:15] It goes beyond the frame of this photo, Matt. The screen literally goes... There you go.

Speaker 1:
[81:20] Oh my gosh.

Speaker 2:
[81:21] That's crazy.

Speaker 1:
[81:21] Wow.

Speaker 2:
[81:22] I mean, at this point, it's just... You're not driving a car anymore.

Speaker 1:
[81:25] That's crazy. This is the C-class. So you're telling me it's cheaper to make screen than just dashboard?

Speaker 3:
[81:35] I mean, but this is literally screen from one end of the dash to the other, only bookended by two vents.

Speaker 1:
[81:42] You see, Lincoln has a curved... Dude, pull up the Lincoln Navigator.

Speaker 2:
[81:48] This just doesn't make it seem like you're driving a car anymore. You know what I mean? It takes away from the driving experience. The grill is just horrible now.

Speaker 1:
[81:57] I see what they were trying to do, but it doesn't work. In order to have it work, you have to have the vertical bar in the middle and then a hood ornament on top. They're combining two styles here.

Speaker 3:
[82:10] It's like SilverSau plus the newer stuff.

Speaker 1:
[82:15] Go back up to the tail lights, though, because those looked kind of decent.

Speaker 2:
[82:18] This is what BMW did.

Speaker 1:
[82:19] Other than the Mitsubishi stars in the middle.

Speaker 2:
[82:23] This is what BMW did, too, with the grill. It's not working.

Speaker 1:
[82:28] Mercedes showed a concept that had the shape of a grill, but had the divider in the middle.

Speaker 2:
[82:34] It looked more like the original chrome Mercedes grill. This is just, you know...

Speaker 1:
[82:41] Yeah, that's weird. That's not great.

Speaker 2:
[82:43] And what's with all the Mercedes signs on these? You gotta let them know. They're everywhere.

Speaker 1:
[82:47] They must know.

Speaker 2:
[82:49] Like the Maybach SL, it's all over the hood, the interior, the convertible tub. It's like the Louis pattern. It's overkill, man.

Speaker 1:
[82:55] Yeah, they're trying to have their own pattern. Yeah. Tim A says, what's your opinion on MB-Tex and its reputation for being indestructible?

Speaker 2:
[83:04] It's fantastic material.

Speaker 1:
[83:05] Yeah.

Speaker 2:
[83:06] I mean, it's durable as hell. It doesn't crack. It just doesn't color. You know, it doesn't fade. I have my 300E 86's original MB-Tex, and it looks like it's brand new.

Speaker 1:
[83:17] Yeah, you see low to medium mile ones, and it just looks great.

Speaker 2:
[83:22] It's incredible what they've created with that MB-Tex. I mean, the Mercedes leather is leather, but eventually leather cracks, you know, especially on the convertible cars. But the MB-Tex stuff is just unreal. I mean, my 300E, it literally looks like it's brand new.

Speaker 1:
[83:38] Yeah, I like MB-Tex. It's good. We already got to Darian's question earlier. Can you notice these nuts? Why do automakers not prioritize driver seating position when designing a cabin for non-specialized cars? I would disagree with the sentiment. I think they, for the most part, do prioritize driver seating position.

Speaker 2:
[84:02] I mean, now they do.

Speaker 1:
[84:04] Sure. The Ferrari 512 Boxer did not.

Speaker 2:
[84:08] 348. My 348, my feet, my hips are after I drive it.

Speaker 1:
[84:13] Now they do.

Speaker 2:
[84:14] They do.

Speaker 3:
[84:14] Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[84:15] I'd like to hear why this commenter thinks that, because the vast majority of cars I sit in have a pretty decent-

Speaker 3:
[84:25] They do. I think they used to put packaging first. So then they go, oh, the person's legs will aim a little over here, or the seat will be off-center, because we have to fit engine trans in these hard points.

Speaker 2:
[84:36] I mean, the Italians were famous for that.

Speaker 1:
[84:40] Oh, yeah. They don't give a.

Speaker 2:
[84:41] 80s and 90s Italian cars, they didn't give a shit about your seating position, whether you could see out the back window or just-

Speaker 1:
[84:47] Same with the Germans when they were forced to build right-hand drive cars.

Speaker 2:
[84:51] Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[84:51] They built them shits out of spite. They didn't fucking make them. But I mean, look, I drove, my friend had an 88 Corolla or something in high school that he inherited from his grandma. And I thought it was okay. Hanna, we've got the Delica, the Mitsubishi Delica 91.

Speaker 2:
[85:15] Very comfortable.

Speaker 1:
[85:16] I mean, it only goes up and down and back and forward, but the seats aren't that bad.

Speaker 2:
[85:20] No, they're not.

Speaker 1:
[85:22] I'd like to hear what the basis is of that comment, because I think most cars actually do a reasonably good job.

Speaker 2:
[85:28] They do.

Speaker 1:
[85:29] Merkin Ball Run, out of curiosity, and maybe you don't know the shot. What could I expect could be the cost of a manual swap for an SLK 55?

Speaker 2:
[85:39] That would be a Matt Quick question.

Speaker 1:
[85:41] That is a Matt Quick question. You don't really do the power trans.

Speaker 2:
[85:43] I don't deal with the mechanical. I mean, you know, and again...

Speaker 1:
[85:48] I think the fucking guy from Vegas...

Speaker 3:
[85:50] The SL he drove, he was about 20 something. I think he was 25 to 30 for the swap, wasn't it?

Speaker 1:
[85:56] No, he said he was into the entire car for 42 grand.

Speaker 3:
[86:00] Oh yeah, he bought the car for like 25.

Speaker 1:
[86:03] Yeah, I think it was maybe 20, but he also did a major service while he was in there.

Speaker 2:
[86:08] Yeah, it sounds about right.

Speaker 1:
[86:09] It was around 20.

Speaker 2:
[86:10] Prices of parts have gone up because everyone's kind of woken up to what's going on. So I can tell you, now, to try to find the manual gearbox for a Mercedes or out of a Crossfire, people know what they have. Before, you could buy the whole Chrysler Crossfire for 1,500 bucks and just pull everything out of it, pedals and all, but that would be a mad quick question, for sure.

Speaker 1:
[86:35] Yeah. Chubba Red Bar Cheddar. Have you ever considered producing a watch without limiting the number made, or at least producing more so that they reach the public? We do these and we make limited numbers of them. Well, so we can't, really, because we are limited by the number of, the amount of, or I shouldn't say we can't, we could. We haven't so far, because this watch that we've made uses the Le Jus Perrette Swiss Movement. They will only sell us 250 of them a year.

Speaker 2:
[87:14] Wow.

Speaker 1:
[87:14] That is the maximum that they will sell us, period.

Speaker 2:
[87:18] Now, is that face color matched to your Porsche?

Speaker 1:
[87:20] Yes.

Speaker 2:
[87:20] That's beautiful.

Speaker 1:
[87:21] And in fact, this is the prototype of the one that we're releasing next. In fact, it is painted with my Porsche face. That's how we got it right, with the gilt dial and everything. Sorry, gilt hands and indices. That's beautiful. Isn't that cool? So these are going to be 1200 bucks.

Speaker 2:
[87:38] That's not bad at all.

Speaker 1:
[87:38] Yeah, we're doing 100 of them. So we're limited by... We will have sold every movement that they will have.

Speaker 2:
[87:45] And that's the combination that's coming in?

Speaker 1:
[87:47] This is the sixth color we've done. We did the mint green, the orange, the dark blue, the British racing green, the Tahitian black pearl, and now this one.

Speaker 2:
[87:59] Very nice.

Speaker 1:
[88:00] That is gorgeous, man. And then we have an all-new watch we're coming out with later in the year. That one will... That other watch, we are less limited by movements, and so we're going to make more of them regardless. So that's why they were so limited. We literally couldn't make more. So if you're a patron, I hope you got one. If not, I hope you join and get one now. Okay. I don't know if... Okay, Pearl Love Bone of the Mad Green Dog may be slightly different from the question you answered earlier. Okay, sidebar. They are good to reschedule to load tomorrow before noon. Can you get that other car down here? Absolutely.

Speaker 2:
[88:46] Okay.

Speaker 1:
[88:47] Thanks, Hubbibie. You're the man.

Speaker 2:
[88:50] Is he a Hubbibie?

Speaker 1:
[88:52] No. He's the whitest dude ever. I just bug him out. He doesn't like when I talk like that.

Speaker 2:
[88:59] Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[89:02] Okay. What unique project would you most like to have a well-funded customer bring to him? Meaning, what is your cost no object build?

Speaker 2:
[89:12] That I've done so far or that I would want to do?

Speaker 1:
[89:14] Or that you would want someone to bring to you?

Speaker 2:
[89:17] Geez. I mean, that's kind of a hard question because there's so much you can do. I mean, I would love to build like a V-12, stroked V-12 powered, just badass, you know.

Speaker 1:
[89:30] Build your own Zonda motor kind of thing?

Speaker 2:
[89:32] Basically, you know, in a six-speed and a custom. Basically, what Harten was doing to the Sledgehammer would be like my dream build, you know what I mean?

Speaker 1:
[89:41] There was a fairly decently substantiated rumor that every time an SL60 or an SL73 came up for auction, it was fucking Horatio buying them back to strip them from motors.

Speaker 2:
[89:52] Really? That's interesting.

Speaker 1:
[89:54] They were paying a lot of money for them too because he turned one into a Zonda.

Speaker 2:
[89:57] Sure. What did he do with the parts?

Speaker 1:
[90:00] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2:
[90:01] I don't know. He had some shady e-mail accounts over. Out of like Russia. I mean, listen, I wouldn't doubt it because it's probably cheaper for him to do that than to develop the motor from scratch. The M120, I think, is what is based off of the V12. You can't find them anymore. It is a fantastic motor, by the way. It's just everything else around it, the wiring harness and the support is horrible. The engine itself is a badass engine. I just actually got on someone's Instagram. I don't remember the name, but he's actually like turbocharging these things, twin turbocharging them, putting them with the manual, and he did an SL600. Dude, it's wicked.

Speaker 3:
[90:45] I bet it's nasty. That's a good time.

Speaker 2:
[90:48] It sounds amazing.

Speaker 3:
[90:49] I bet. So fast.

Speaker 2:
[90:50] They are nuts. So at the time when these were new, my buddy bought one in 96, 95 or 96. It was a purple special-colored SL600, which he took to CEC, and he had it supercharged, and he drove this car, and then he ended up selling it, and now he wants to buy it back. So he has no trace of the VIN number. He has no trace of anything on the car. So I told him, listen, what month did you sell it? And he kind of remembered the month and year, and he remembers putting it in the DuPont registry.

Speaker 1:
[91:31] And you found it.

Speaker 2:
[91:32] So we went on eBay, and we bought the month to see, because sometimes they put the VIN numbers in there, and it wasn't there. But he's still trying to look for that car.

Speaker 1:
[91:41] Anyone out there who's got a Purple SL600?

Speaker 2:
[91:42] Purple SL600 with a Lorenzer Supercharged, yeah.

Speaker 1:
[91:46] From CEC.

Speaker 2:
[91:48] Back then, I mean, it was kitted. Lorenzer body kit, the RSK wheels, supercharged. It was a pretty wicked SL.

Speaker 1:
[91:54] I did the bull run with Klaus Ettenberger a few times. He is not a bull.

Speaker 2:
[91:58] He's a riot.

Speaker 1:
[91:59] Not a normal person.

Speaker 2:
[92:00] Not a normal person.

Speaker 1:
[92:02] Klaus is crazy.

Speaker 2:
[92:03] Is he? I mean, I've met him a few times, but.

Speaker 1:
[92:05] I've never in my entire life. He. I respect him a little bit. No, I do respect him. And I respect him as a businessman and as a fucking crazy German.

Speaker 2:
[92:17] Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[92:18] He did. He did one of the most dangerous things I've ever seen anybody do. He had a. He did bull run in 2009, I think, with us. And he drove a C63 with some other lunatic fucking German friend of his. And he had a smoke screen in it. Like he put a legit. Yeah, he installed a smoke screen. I've never seen anything like that used in real life.

Speaker 2:
[92:41] That's pretty crazy.

Speaker 1:
[92:43] And he hit the smoke screen on the highway. And it was just instafog. Like instafog. I couldn't. How many lanes? The whole highway.

Speaker 2:
[92:56] Wow. Why would you do that?

Speaker 1:
[92:58] Because bull run was stupid. It was long distance endurance street racing effectively. It was deeply irresponsible.

Speaker 2:
[93:05] That's pretty dangerous, dude.

Speaker 1:
[93:06] Well, because these guys would outdo each other in the crazy land. It was like him and fucking Richard Rawlings and these.

Speaker 3:
[93:16] Did he ever use it while running from police or did he make it because like this is a fun gimmick to have?

Speaker 1:
[93:21] I personally witnessed him use it the one time. And I was like, oh, I am out of my league.

Speaker 2:
[93:26] Was it like those DJ Foggers he had maybe?

Speaker 1:
[93:28] No, it was apparently it was a very simple system that just dumped baby oil into the catalytic converters.

Speaker 3:
[93:37] Jesus.

Speaker 2:
[93:39] Are you serious?

Speaker 3:
[93:40] Yeah. Oh my God.

Speaker 2:
[93:43] That's nuts, dude.

Speaker 1:
[93:44] That was crazy.

Speaker 3:
[93:45] That's Puff Daddy injection.

Speaker 2:
[93:46] That's Puff Daddy injection.

Speaker 1:
[93:47] Yeah, and he fucking hit the smoke. And I was just like, I just, I couldn't believe it. It was one of the most unbelievable things I've ever seen on a boat road. I mean, one of the most unbelievable things I've ever seen on a boat road. Yeah, it's super dangerous, too.

Speaker 2:
[93:56] I'm pretty sure, like...

Speaker 1:
[93:58] Everything about this was dangerous, by the way. This was the most dangerous thing of...

Speaker 2:
[94:03] So was it an actual race for time or was it just a run?

Speaker 1:
[94:06] It's not, but like, tell these fucking psychos that. All these guys, including me at that age, were out of their minds. But some of these guys were out of their minds and also like insanely rich.

Speaker 3:
[94:21] Right, so there's no consequences. There were no smartphones, really, so you're not gonna get a lot of evidence filmed about you.

Speaker 1:
[94:27] Right, and Klaus, there was this unbelievable video. He did get pulled over once. And him and his buddy, who were German, you know, Klaus has lived in Beverly Hills for who the fuck knows how long. But they just start screaming at each other in German. It's on video. And the cop just like, I just, I don't even...

Speaker 2:
[94:44] The cop doesn't know what to do.

Speaker 1:
[94:45] Just doesn't even know what to do here. You know, they give him a license, but it's a German license, and he doesn't know what to. And they're just screaming at each other for like five minutes at the top of the road, and the cop just gives up and walks away. So like, they would, you know, they do shit like that. And they have 50 Gs in the glove box. If they got, they expected to get arrested. It was nuts.

Speaker 2:
[95:07] I can imagine the clientele these people had. Oh yeah. Back in the 80s and 90s.

Speaker 3:
[95:12] His client must have been exclusively, exclusively coke out psychos.

Speaker 2:
[95:18] For sure.

Speaker 1:
[95:18] For sure. People who don't hear know, ever.

Speaker 2:
[95:21] So I got a chance to meet Chris Hahn, the owner of SGS. When I went to Retro Automobile, he was there because there was a going SEC for sale. And I spent a few days with him and he was telling me the stories of his clientele, man. And he was selling like 200,000 plus cars back then, goings, which I own a couple of, and convertible conversions and all that. Dude, these people were like on a different level. Like, they were on some shit, you know?

Speaker 1:
[95:46] The drugs and the configurator?

Speaker 2:
[95:49] Yes.

Speaker 1:
[95:50] What did everything go?

Speaker 3:
[95:51] Purple interior, dude.

Speaker 2:
[95:53] And you look at some of these builds and you think you had to be a different individual to...

Speaker 1:
[95:58] 47-way seats.

Speaker 2:
[96:01] To even think about this shit.

Speaker 1:
[96:02] You have switch panels that go up, up, up, and then onto the ceiling and they're like behind you.

Speaker 2:
[96:07] Yeah, they had a tape player up here and one here and equalizers everywhere. They had, you know, clarion decks on the dash.

Speaker 1:
[96:16] I don't even know what all this shit does.

Speaker 2:
[96:18] It didn't... So I have a limo, like a little executive stretch. Yeah. And this thing is like, it's got the whole Pioneer deck in the back. It's got the TV and it's got all these gadgets.

Speaker 3:
[96:31] Yeah.

Speaker 2:
[96:32] And it's like, you don't know what the hell they do. They're just there. You know what I mean?

Speaker 3:
[96:37] Yeah.

Speaker 2:
[96:37] Yeah. It's a Carrot Du Chalet model. And it's badass. The thing's badass. But like, you sit in it and you look and you're like, you're sitting at a Circuit City and you're like, what do I do with all this shit? Yeah. What do you do with all this shit? You know what I mean?

Speaker 1:
[96:52] I need to fine tune my EQ right now.

Speaker 2:
[96:54] Yeah. Of course. So they, I can imagine. And I'm sure it builds a character.

Speaker 1:
[97:00] The Porsche, like BB and Gimballa and all that stuff with Porsche. It was not exclusive to Mercedes, but they were...

Speaker 2:
[97:08] Gimballa was doing some crazy shit. Oh, Gimballa was doing some real crazy shit. And I think they're still creating some...

Speaker 1:
[97:13] They are. They have new stuff sometimes. And there's, what's his name? The Son. Who's got Mark Philippe Gimballa or something like that. Who's got that off-road, that's called the Marzine.

Speaker 2:
[97:25] Was it Uwe? Uwe.

Speaker 1:
[97:26] That's right. Uwe. Uwe. Uwe. The, anyway. So, yeah. Gimballa GTR Evo R by Turbo. Yeah.

Speaker 2:
[97:38] Apparently, they're introducing this new Gimballa car in Monterey this year.

Speaker 1:
[97:42] Sure.

Speaker 2:
[97:42] All right. We'll see what it's all about.

Speaker 1:
[97:45] Good times. Cold Air Intake on My Soccer Mom SUV says, people often complain about the complexity of repairs on Mercs. When doing builds, do you take steps to simplify or improve some of the common frustrations?

Speaker 2:
[97:59] Definitely. I mean, wiring being one of them. The wiring harness, obviously, on the mid-90s to early 2000s cars were like biodegradable wires. They did sell an upgraded kit, and if they don't sell it, we run through the wires and get all that strained out. The cars were built pretty solid. I mean, suspension-wise, braking-wise, they're pretty solid. The drive trains in them are bulletproof. It's just the support, you know, with especially the 80s and 90s with the Bosch fuel injection systems and the CIS units are becoming, you know, archaic. If there's any way to EFI, I know that they do have kits which EFI those, which they go, you know, instead of the mechanical, it's electronic fuel injection. That would be the biggest improvement, where you can actually adjust and, you know, take all the bugs out of it. But other than that, I mean, it's just mainly the fuel system and the wiring.

Speaker 1:
[98:57] If you upgrade to an EFI on like an old, on a six-liter motor or something, can you get a lot of extra power, or is it just smoother?

Speaker 2:
[99:08] Power, reliability, smoothness, support, efficiency, in every way. Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[99:14] Is that a pricey thing to swap?

Speaker 2:
[99:16] They have kits that they sell in Europe, I've seen, for like 2,500 bucks. I've never really pulled the trigger on one, but I'm tempted just to see what it does, you know. And I don't know why they went mechanical, you know, why they went with that CSI. Everybody was doing that shit at the time. Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[99:33] Everybody.

Speaker 2:
[99:34] I mean, the Japanese were doing, you know, EFI, these guys were going the opposite direction.

Speaker 1:
[99:39] Every 80s European car I've had has had the Lambo, the Ferrari, the Porsche.

Speaker 2:
[99:44] Same, it's the same system.

Speaker 1:
[99:45] It's all the same shit.

Speaker 2:
[99:46] It's the same. You don't drive it for a while, the shit gets gummy, and the fuel, too, doesn't help the situation, and the fuel nowadays is just horrible compared to back in the day, you know.

Speaker 1:
[99:56] Gotta run that non-ethanol.

Speaker 2:
[99:58] Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[99:58] That good shit, yeah. ZR1X gon give it to ya, says people in California who run Montana tags due to not being able to smog their old car. Why don't they just register it in a county that only smogs a title transfer? Alright, sorry, I should have read this before reading it out loud. I'll finish, though. We register our old truck at my parents' place in Eureka and don't have to smog it unless we sell it. We don't all have parents who live in Eureka.

Speaker 3:
[100:26] Yeah. You're right, there's two answers. One is we don't all have parents that are in a county. I've heard this before. If you don't live in a county or have a place in the county, you can't do that. The other reason some people don't do it is because registering Montana saves the taxes. Whereas I think registering in Eureka, you probably still have to pay the California sales.

Speaker 1:
[100:46] Well, I think the question is targeted at people who would register their cars in California if California provided them a path. But what you're also suggesting is buying a property in a different county specifically for this purpose, which is a far more inconvenient and headache-inducing solution than the Montana tag, which I'm not officially endorsing. But I mean, how about this? How about this? You write me a lease, and I'll rent your parents' house for a dollar a month, there you go, and I'm on the lease, baby, let's go. That's like the build, like all the Montana tags, all of them are from like one office building.

Speaker 3:
[101:31] Yeah, we could run the office building in Eureka.

Speaker 2:
[101:35] This is like that whole hospice scam going on. It's like, you know, I mean, eventually, there's gonna be another loophole. People are gonna find another loophole.

Speaker 1:
[101:44] Yeah. I mean, no, I genuinely think that if you have a car that cannot pass smog and it's a collector-grade vehicle or it's an old work vehicle or whatever, there should be some kind of a path.

Speaker 2:
[101:59] There should.

Speaker 1:
[101:59] It might be money. It might be something, but like...

Speaker 2:
[102:03] Or some sort of program where it gives you the opportunity to at least make it smog-legal or something that's gonna... Because some of these guys that have these cars, they have no choice, man. This is kind of the car they own.

Speaker 1:
[102:16] Well, that's a problem is that it's a hardship if your car that you need is not able to pass smog. And also, it represents an escaped value for the state if someone with a collector vehicle like my Countach, which has never been able to pass smog, if I can't register it in California, but I would and you could have my tax money, well, what do you want me to do? I'll give you the money.

Speaker 2:
[102:46] And that's what I'm saying. There's people that will be able to do that. And they will. And there's people that can't do that, which want some sort of a package or a program where they can at least drive this car.

Speaker 1:
[102:59] Take the money that you give me the pass for under 2,000 miles a year, and then take my money and have a program that retrofits old cars with better emissions. When I run for mayor of LA, that's what we're going to do. Until then, we roll around in red Benzos. I can't wait to actually... When I had my Silver 129, I would drive around and play Picture Me Rolling by Tupac.

Speaker 2:
[103:29] What are we doing with the sound system on that car?

Speaker 1:
[103:32] I will leave it up to you. What is important to me is that it has a car play screen, so if my wife needs the GPS and shit, that it will mirror the phone. But I don't want a whole trunk full of speakers.

Speaker 2:
[103:45] No, just something nice and crisp and clean. We can eliminate the ashtray and put a screen in there where you have the backup camera.

Speaker 1:
[103:53] Wait, no ashtray? Where am I going to ash these blunts? No. I wouldn't be opposed to a bazooka tube.

Speaker 2:
[104:03] Behind the seat.

Speaker 1:
[104:04] I would fuck with a bazooka tube.

Speaker 2:
[104:07] They came with straps so they don't slosh around in the back.

Speaker 3:
[104:11] I remember that.

Speaker 2:
[104:12] Those things bumped pretty good.

Speaker 3:
[104:13] They did.

Speaker 1:
[104:15] The company is still around. We can get them.

Speaker 2:
[104:16] Are they still around? Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[104:18] Oh, they're around. I'm not even fucking around.

Speaker 2:
[104:21] I remember. They bumped really well.

Speaker 1:
[104:23] And we should maybe get one. But someone had asked us on a previous show if we were to do a restomod fox body, what would it include? And I said it would have to have less rattles and a coyote motor and this and that. But it would also have to have a strap down music. You have like the leather tie downs, you know, real nice, like John Ward would make them.

Speaker 2:
[104:47] You know, those old school ones were just, I mean, they were just a simple tube with a speaker and they sound phenomenal.

Speaker 3:
[104:54] Yeah, they were great. Especially in the back of a subwoofer box.

Speaker 2:
[104:57] So my buddy had one in the back of an IROC in that crevice.

Speaker 1:
[105:01] As one does.

Speaker 2:
[105:02] And that thing used to resonate off the glass.

Speaker 1:
[105:04] Yeah, Larry had it in the hatchback of his 50. And it turned your whole hatch into a thing. Then you would have to put the sponge behind the license plate. Otherwise, it would rattle like they only make them.

Speaker 2:
[105:16] I have like a soft buffer Fox bodies. I have five of them. I love them. I love Fox bodies, man.

Speaker 1:
[105:21] It's America's 124.

Speaker 2:
[105:22] I mean, bang for the buck is just... You've seen my Dominator, the white one. The wide one.

Speaker 1:
[105:27] Yeah, yeah, yeah. That one's got like the IMSA body kit on it. Or whatever the that is.

Speaker 2:
[105:31] Yeah, yeah, yeah. Super wild.

Speaker 1:
[105:33] We could do a whole other show on all the non-Mercedes shit. You have 109 cars. But we'll come back to it when my Mercedes is done.

Speaker 2:
[105:40] Definitely.

Speaker 1:
[105:41] Thanks, Shant.

Speaker 2:
[105:42] You're welcome, man.

Speaker 1:
[105:42] I appreciate you coming.

Speaker 2:
[105:43] Thank you guys for having me. That's so great.

Speaker 1:
[105:44] CMS underscore Motorsports on Instagram. How the fuck do you pronounce your last name? I've never had to speak it out loud.

Speaker 2:
[105:52] Meshefedjian.

Speaker 1:
[105:53] Boy.

Speaker 2:
[105:54] Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[105:54] Meshefedjian.

Speaker 2:
[105:55] 13 letters.

Speaker 1:
[105:55] Yeah, it's a good thing you don't have an Oldsmobile dealership. You'd be in deep shit.

Speaker 3:
[106:00] You'd be in a big building.

Speaker 1:
[106:02] Meshefedjian, that's a good one. That is a good one. Yeah, yeah. It sounds like a delicious entree that I'm going to order.

Speaker 2:
[106:07] It does. With a side of rice.

Speaker 1:
[106:09] Get me some lahmacun like right now, bro.

Speaker 3:
[106:11] Oh, yeah.

Speaker 2:
[106:12] We got to go have some good Armenian food. I got to take you guys to dinner, man.

Speaker 1:
[106:15] 100%.

Speaker 3:
[106:15] For sure.

Speaker 1:
[106:16] I grew up eating lahmacun every day.

Speaker 2:
[106:18] Or you guys come to my place for a barbecue, then we rock and roll.

Speaker 1:
[106:22] Can you do skewers? Can we make the skewers?

Speaker 2:
[106:24] Absolutely.

Speaker 1:
[106:24] With the swords?

Speaker 2:
[106:25] Yes.

Speaker 1:
[106:26] That shit's hard.

Speaker 2:
[106:27] It's very hard. And it's just the way you line it up. And you got to use the metal skewers, and they have to be the right thickness. So when you're putting it on the fire, that metal heats up and it cooks the inside of the meat, too.

Speaker 1:
[106:39] When I've tried to do it, the meat kind of disintegrates and falls off the skewer.

Speaker 2:
[106:44] It depends how you're actually mixing the ground beef. So if the butcher I go to knows the correct fat content, versus the ratio, and it's how you kind of put it on there.

Speaker 1:
[106:54] Ali said he's going to teach me. Yeah. My other Persian friend is going to teach me.

Speaker 2:
[106:59] Oh yeah, see Persian barbecues too.

Speaker 1:
[107:01] Yeah, well he's that who took me to the spot in Glendale.

Speaker 2:
[107:03] Which spot did you go to?

Speaker 1:
[107:05] Rafi.

Speaker 2:
[107:05] Rafi's?

Speaker 1:
[107:06] Rafi's, yeah.

Speaker 2:
[107:07] Oh dude, you went to like the McDonald's.

Speaker 1:
[107:10] That's a good spot.

Speaker 2:
[107:11] No, it's a very good spot.

Speaker 1:
[107:12] I also with Twin Lama Jo in Burbank, the Lama June spot that has the special oven. That place, that's the banger.

Speaker 2:
[107:20] I'll take you to, you gotta go to the little local spots. Rafi's is like the superstar. You go to those little mom and, oh, it's phenomenal. But you go to the little mom and pop spots where, you know, they have the special cut of meat for you set up over there.

Speaker 1:
[107:35] There's also the spot in Gardena by our other store that's like next level. Board Star, if you fuck with Board Star.

Speaker 2:
[107:41] I don't know much about this. Is it?

Speaker 1:
[107:43] Yeah, Gardena's a secret.

Speaker 2:
[107:44] Is it Persian, Armenian?

Speaker 1:
[107:45] It's Persian. But Gardena is a fucking super secret. There's a lot going on down there.

Speaker 2:
[107:50] Really?

Speaker 1:
[107:50] Yeah, because nobody wants to go down there.

Speaker 2:
[107:51] I haven't been to your other spot.

Speaker 1:
[107:53] I want to go check it out. It's great.

Speaker 2:
[107:55] Are you guys going to do the events there? Are you guys?

Speaker 1:
[107:57] We're working on it.

Speaker 2:
[107:58] Working on it? Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[107:59] The city isn't happy about it. The city doesn't like you doing anything.

Speaker 3:
[108:02] They're very resistant.

Speaker 2:
[108:04] Yeah, but there's not much going on. Why wouldn't they want it? I don't know. Direct traffic to the city, and it's obviously quality people that are going there.

Speaker 1:
[108:12] I think they're nervous because the fucking, there's like takeovers down there at night, and you stay anything with cars. I understand. Cars, they're really on edge about it.

Speaker 3:
[108:20] We'd like to bring a bunch of cars to an industrial area. At night time.

Speaker 1:
[108:25] Yeah, they're really on edge about it. All right. Well, I can't wait. We've sorted this. The truck is coming to take both cars tomorrow morning to send them down to Quick Classics in Nashville. I was talking to Matt. I may, once he's got like things sort of like maximally apart, I'm going to find the right time to go down there and see what's what.

Speaker 2:
[108:46] You know what? Let me know when you're going to go. Do you want to go? All right. Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[108:49] All right.

Speaker 2:
[108:50] We'll make a weekend out of it. Actually, there...

Speaker 1:
[108:52] Do you have a white suit in my size?

Speaker 2:
[108:54] Yes. We'll walk in there with a briefcase with a couple of white suits. But I think he does his cars and coffees there.

Speaker 1:
[109:01] Oh, he does?

Speaker 2:
[109:02] Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[109:02] We'll have to figure that out.

Speaker 2:
[109:03] We'll go there one of the weekends when he's doing it, just to kind of... The car community in Tennessee is really growing too.

Speaker 1:
[109:08] It is. No, Tennessee is great. Knoxville is great. Nashville is great. And we got my boy Cameron Weiss is down there, although he's in Switzerland right now training watchmakers. How to make your shit. Wow, interesting. He's like, I can't find any watchmakers, so I'm just going to go to Switzerland and train my own.

Speaker 3:
[109:23] Cool. Okay.

Speaker 1:
[109:24] Sounds good. But we'll have to figure that one out. And then he said, I think he said two months, and then the car comes back to you for paint and interior. You finish it all out.

Speaker 2:
[109:36] Just like that.

Speaker 1:
[109:37] All right. CMS Motorsports on Instagram is basically where you find what you need to know, right? Yep. That's where they find you. Have Shant build you something. He's pretty good at it.

Speaker 2:
[109:46] I'd love to do it.

Speaker 1:
[109:47] I can't fucking wait. Thanks to our patrons for asking such good questions today. We appreciate you all. And Zack and I are going racing, so when you hear from us next, you will have the racing wrap up for you. And that's all I got. Goodbye.

Speaker 2:
[110:02] Thank you, guys.