Curb and Canyon: A Porsche Podcast
Curb and Canyon: A Porsche Podcast
Pickleball, Porsches, and People Who Actually Drive Their 911 STs
The perfect sports car should look incredible, handle with precision, and sound like it means business—but do modern Porsches deliver on that final criterion? In this episode, Andy questions why a Cayenne GTS sounds more aggressive and exciting than the flagship 911, sparking a debate about whether sound is even essential to the sports car experience.
James shares his recent journey to Amelia Island for the annual Werks Reunion event, including an impromptu meeting with Porsche icon Magnus Walker and a hilarious story about a friend who arrived at the gathering an entire week early. Meanwhile, Andy describes his DIY adventures fixing a deteriorated shift boot on his 964 and troubleshooting a mysterious steering noise before his upcoming Alpine Range Rally.
Between pickleball victories, car show encounters, and debates about whether they'd choose a GT4 RS or Spyder RS given the opportunity, James and Andy celebrate what makes the Porsche community special: its ability to embrace diverse approaches to enjoying these iconic machines, from purists to modifiers and daily drivers to weekend warriors. Tune in, kick back and welcome to Curb and Canyon.
james, can we do this? Can we do this fucking podcast? Can we press?
Speaker 2:come on, I've been waiting for you all afternoon like always waiting for me.
Speaker 1:If you could send an invite that was at the time we agreed this wouldn't happen.
Speaker 2:Welcome to kirby canyon oh, beautiful, what a great way to start a podcast and I will say this week andy gaughan, I'm very grateful for the uh, the show notes that you sent. Thank you, you did it properly this week. Instead of just sending me a couple of characters for me to interpret in a text message, you actually took, took the time to put it on the curbing Canyon letterhead and in a document and attach it to an email. I'm feeling very taken care of.
Speaker 1:I'm sorry that when I do all of the prep sometimes it doesn't meet your standards.
Speaker 2:Well, just you know, keep that in mind for the future.
Speaker 1:Well, you know, I was quite excited about recording this one and I think you'd sent me a few articles. I knew there was a few things happening that we could talk about and so, while they were top of mind, a couple of days ago, when we agreed to do the pod, I thought you know what I'm going to make the show notes now. So I don't forget anything. And what I'm really excited about is I'm certain you will have watched the video of the week. I have no doubt of this.
Speaker 2:Oh, certain you will have watched the video of the week. I have no doubt of this. Oh, I have, I have, I have, and you know that I've already given you shit. For why? Well, I've given you shit for picking the video of the week, because let's you know, let's just get straight to it. Spoiler alert andy's chosen another video with a 964. We've got a beautiful 964. The video comes second, but it's coming up soon.
Speaker 1:Yeah, do you know what I know? And I am trying I'm trying to not post just 964 content. I'm aware of this. I don't want it to seem as though I'm biased, even though I am. But hey, you know what? We don't just have video of the week to talk about today. We've got some updates on our own cars. You just have video of the week to talk about today. We've got some updates on our own cars. You've been to a car event. I've been to a car event. We're going to talk about that. We're going to talk about what is going on at porsche. What is going on with the ev thing? Job cuts yeah, it's. Is this the end of our brand? Is this, is it good night for porsche?
Speaker 2:I don't think it's just that bad you know, porsche and my car and our friendship and this little bubble that we live in. It's the last thing that's keeping me sane, with all the shit that's going on around the world, and especially in this country, and by this country I mean America. It's the last holdout, it's my sanctuary, and if that starts going to shit, oh God, I might as well just ask if I can join him on the, the next rocket that's going to go to mars well.
Speaker 1:The good thing is, though, this is starting to feel like a segue to the new political podcast we're going to be launching in just a few weeks, I do think. I do think just on that very quickly. And on the EV thing, I think it's really interesting, or let's say ironic, that the people who bought Teslas as the ultimate form of virtue signaling are now getting rid of their Teslas as the ultimate form of virtue signaling.
Speaker 2:Yeah, right, right, or setting them on fire.
Speaker 1:Hey, now what's going on? You don't have, uh, there's no minnesota brown uh on set.
Speaker 2:No, no, there isn't um. What I do have is uh an iced tea, which I've got right here, good okay uh, and I've got some water over here. You know what I did this morning. I uh joined the hipster crew and I played pickleball. Do you have pickleball in Australia?
Speaker 1:I know Exactly when you say the hipster crew, if you're referring to people in their mid-70s as hipsters.
Speaker 2:Oh my God, dude, this place. It's called Chips Pickleball Club. Come on, dude. Inside it looks like hipster paradise. You've got people with odd matching clothes, shaved hair and giant beards playing pickleball, and on the side there is a bar where you can get one of 20 different craft beers and frothy vegetable-topped coffees. And there's a gentleman in the corner with a laptop bag that looks like a bassoon case. It's, but I did, I played. I played pickleball this morning. Ruthie and I are trying to, you know, come up with new dates, new exciting things to do.
Speaker 1:I'll be honest. How did that work as a date? Was it just you yelling at each other the whole time?
Speaker 2:No, it was funny on the way there. On the way there, she was like well, you know, you've had this heart problem and I'm a little bit worried about your health and I don't think you're wearing shoes that are supportive enough and I'm I'm just worried about you and and I've been playing pickleball recently. So you know, just let's, we don't have to play the whole hour if you don't want to Dude. Within about 30 seconds she discovered that I'm awesome. I am so good at pickleball. It is.
Speaker 2:I don't want to blow my own trumpet, but I used to play a lot of tennis as a kid. Growing up, like in the summer, play loads of tennis, used to play squash and you shouldn't get this excited about smashing your wife around metaphorically, uh, but I did. I absolutely thrashed her. When we got to 20 points to one, she stopped counting and went very quiet and I tried to let her play and I just tried to, you know, have a bit of back and forth, but every now and again I just had to show who's boss do you know what, as I'm looking at you, i'm'm seeing a kind of a Boris Becker kind of vibe there.
Speaker 2:Well, it's the only time I can get to be boss, I guess, to be perfectly honest. So it felt good.
Speaker 1:That's amazing. Well, do you know what? I'm glad you don't have Minnesota Brown. My good friend Steve, who I would say is he appreciates the finer things, has great taste in everything. He has said to me that every time you use the phrase Minnesota Brown it makes him quite sad.
Speaker 2:He's like it just sounds so sad.
Speaker 1:I'm like I cannot argue with that, yeah it is pretty sad. So shall we stop talking about pickleball and shit coffee? What is happening in the world of Porsche, particularly what is happening with your car, my friend? Anything New?
Speaker 2:exhausts. No, nothing has happened with the 991 in the last month, unfortunately, apart from me driving it back from Amelia, which we'll talk about in a second. But what I can say is that it performed amazingly. It was so good and I drove back from florida in one shot. I did about 1400 miles and it took me no, maybe 1300 miles and it took me 21 hours and it was just non-stop gas stations, toilet breaks, gas stations, toilet breaks for 21 hours. But it was fantastic and actually it sort of proved to me that the SportCats that I've got, with the valved X-pipe, are going to work long term. There was no uncomfortable noise, no drone you know, cruising, ripping it on and off of exit ramps. Uh, it performed fantastically, uh, but I haven't done any mods since I've gotten back. In fact, I haven't even washed it I would say that is.
Speaker 1:That's the ultimate test of an exhaust, not in terms of will it do the loud thing you want it to do in the twisties, but in terms of can I just live with it? Yeah, doing 1300 miles of freeway, highway, nothing but constant sitting at two and a half thousand revs, that's the ultimate test for whether an exhaust is going to be comfortable and tolerable over over that sort of travel. So that's, that's a great test and a good result by the sounds of things yeah, yeah, phenomenal.
Speaker 2:Um, and it was after a absolutely cracking weekend in florida and and actually before that, in south carolina. Uh, I got to you know, fill my cup with you, you would have been impressed. There were so many beautiful 964s there like on display. Yeah, just gorgeous, every variety you could possibly imagine, lots of different, fantastic colors. Um, I, of course, was more excited by the water-cooled variety, and there were lots of those on display. But I got to meet magnus walker. I just did you randomly bumped into him and almost knocked him over.
Speaker 1:What a massive thrill for him.
Speaker 2:You know, it's absolutely no surprise that he had no idea who I was, nor had heard of my YouTube channel. But I didn't volunteer. Those things Hold on.
Speaker 1:So did you say? Do you know who I am? No, have you not seen my youtube channel?
Speaker 2:no, no, no, no, no. But what? What was funny was, as so I clocked magnus walker, like walking across this part of the golf course, uh, where all the cars are laid out, and I thought I can't see him properly. But he's a guy in a floppy hat with a beard. It's got to be magnus walker. And I'm doing that while this other guy is talking to me because he likes my youtube channel. He just like wandered up to me and was like, hey, it's james, how you doing? And he was talking to me about my youtube channel. So, as he started to say goodbye to me and had not clocked magnus walker, magnus walker walked kind of up to me and I looked up and I was like, oh, wow, uh, magnus walker, and he said, yeah, who are you? And I said, well, uh, I'm, I'm james, and I've got like a youtube channel and some people you know, have recognized me and he's like, oh, good for you. But we had no, we had a nice little chat, you know, um, he's a.
Speaker 2:He's a yorkshireman, I guess I found out, um, I was born in yorkshire he's from sheffield, no uh, maybe, yeah, sheffield yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm pretty sure so we had the yorkshire connection to talk about and uh, and then he, you know, discovered that I'm I'm really a scouser, uh, you know, a little five, five-minute chat, very nice. He wandered off and I felt really good for myself. I felt like, wow, that was a really special moment. And then I met up with my mates about an hour later and all three of them had selfies with Magnus Walker. So it sort of brought me down a peg again and put me back to where I belong, just with everyone else.
Speaker 1:Isn't that great that? Yeah, magnus is at this event. And what's he doing? Yeah, he probably wants to do his own thing.
Speaker 2:But anyone who wants a selfie, anyone who wants a chat, yeah, no problem yeah, yeah, absolutely just like he just seemed to be a really down-to-earth, genuine, just totally chill guy, I was very impressed why do you think?
Speaker 1:because magnus seems to be a somewhat polarizing figure, right like. Some people seem to like him, some people less. So what? Why do you think? Why do you think that is because my view on it is, uh, whether you uh agree with all of his stylistic choices or not, you know, he's this guy who visually and famously kind of broke the mold of what a Porsche driver was supposed to look like and be and, in a way, kind of established this counterculture argument or version of what we imagine Porsche guys look like. I've got nothing but good things to say or think about Magnus.
Speaker 2:You know I'm on the same side of the fence. I had absolutely you know nothing negative to say about him before I met him. I thought of him as an artist and an influencer and somebody who is obviously very passionate about what they do.
Speaker 2:Um, I knew sort of less about his success, frankly, other than he was just a guy that appeared in the total 9-11 magazines every now and again, with an absolutely epic car collection um and and and now, now I've met him, I you think, yeah, just validated what I assumed he was going to be like really, and, to be honest, I don't think I've come across really anybody in real life that has anything negative to say about him. Are you aware? Is there? You know, for every lover there's a hater out there. For Magnus Walker.
Speaker 1:Look, do you know what? That's a really interesting point because I've heard people you more hear people talk about that. Others don't seem to like him, but yeah, I agree with you. I'm not sure I've ever met anyone that's had a bad word to say about him. Now that I think about it. But yeah, I read his book a few years ago. Super interesting story. His whole journey to LA and how he built himself up over there, you know, with his fashion label and all of these things is is really pretty cool.
Speaker 1:I remember hearing about him back before I had sort of gotten back into the porsche world. A friend of mine bought a 996 and we were going mountain biking together and in the car on the way home he was telling me he'd seen Magnus' film the Urban Outlaw, which was quite a bit of a game changer. And so he's telling me about this guy in LA with dreadlocks and a beard and all this stuff. And I was trying to picture this cat right. And it wasn't until years later that I started getting bitten by the bug and started hunting for Porsche content on YouTube that I came across that film and I was like, oh, this is that guy that my mate was telling me about and yeah, I think his story is really interesting. His car collection's rad. I mostly picture him with either that 277 car or any of his 930s.
Speaker 2:He had that minerva bloom 930 that's in one of his one of his early films where he's banging around the streets of la at night, you know it's like three o'clock in the morning it's yeah, yeah yeah, it's cool, it's really cool yeah, yeah, he's just uh, it's another corner of the Porsche community which just has its, you know, its own following, its own kind of ethos, its its own mentality, and it can just live there and that's something I just love to continue to talk about, my love for this Porsche community. But you can, you can have a corner over here that's all about outlaw cars and doing what you want with them. You can have a corner over here that's just about performance racing and then tracking, which maybe fits sort of alongside it adjacently. And then you got the purists over here that just want to buy stock cars and drive stock cars and, and you know, collect them or not. And then you got everybody else in between and everybody just really seems to allow everybody to exist. You know, there's not one way there's, no.
Speaker 2:There's no one way of being a porsche person. There's no one way of loving the brand and loving the cars, because there are so many well-established and proven you know corners to this culture that you can spend all your time in, or some of your time in, and nobody really cares where. You're, just there to enjoy yourself.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's so true. There are a lot of different, let's say, tribes within the Porsche community. Right, and you find your own that you connect with, but, equally, that doesn't mean you can't connect with the others. I always find that interesting when you go to a, let's say, an event and you talk to someone whose experience or lived experience with the brand is so completely different to yours. Yeah, that's not the basis for an end to the conversation, it's actually a catalyst for the beginning of a conversation. Right, right, why do you do this? Why did you make that decision? Tell me about why you chose this. How do you use your car? You know all of these things that you can get into a conversation with a person with. And, yeah, you've got this one common theme in the middle of it, which is, yeah, I love the brand and I love the cars.
Speaker 2:Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, love it, which is, yeah, I love the brand and I love the cars. Yeah, yeah, so cool. So what? What is amelia island? I hear about amelia island all the time. It's some sort of event, just for for the real, for the people who are not in the states and and don't know what it is.
Speaker 2:Just just tell me a bit about it well, for one, it doesn't really feel like an island, it's just a stretch of land is it an?
Speaker 2:actual island. It is technically an island, but it's just a stretch of land. Is it an actual island? Besides it being on the ocean, just like the whole of the East Coast of Florida is on the ocean you wouldn't really think, oh hey, I'm on an island. You know, you go to the Philippines or you go to Hawaii and be like, oh yeah, I'm on an island, but it's a pretty affluent. I would call it a retirement community. That's maybe a little harsh. There are a lot of retirement communities there and a lot of people that you know retire and move to the coast of Florida, and Amelia Island is one of them.
Speaker 1:Hold up, hold up. So when I asked what Amelia Island was, I probably wasn't quite looking for the geography lesson, the makeup and the demographic profile of the residents. I was more asking based on what is Ameliaelia island as an event?
Speaker 2:but actually it's really honestly, I think it's relevant, I think it's important okay, carry on because because of the affluent nature of the population.
Speaker 2:It attracts people that have high-end cars right so I see if, if you've got, if you've got a ferrari or a porsche or a Lambo and your hair's going gray and you fancy a bit of golf, most likely you'll know where Amelia Island is. And so it attracts the car shows, it attracts major car auctions, and this one particular weekend, porsche Club of America, on the Friday, hold a Works Reunion event, and that's an all-day thing.
Speaker 1:Works Reunion, that's what it is right. Works Reunion, that's right.
Speaker 2:Soday thing works, that's what it is right. It's works reunion, that's right. So when I say I'm going to amelia it's really to attend that works reunion event. But over the saturday and the sunday there's a concord de elegance uh car event with you know all the high-end old-fashioned classic cars you can imagine and everything else um. There's a local cars and coffee which is essentially like you're standing in a porsche and ferrari dealership. The cars there are phenomenal and people come from all over and will park up to a couple of miles away on some dirt road to walk to these events because the amount of cars there are so, so incredible.
Speaker 2:And then you've got the auctions as well. So you go to cars and coffee. You go check in auction. You see these three million dollar vintage mercedes or 10 million dollar vintage you know ferraris that are about to go on auction. You get to look at them and maybe not touch them. And then you decide to go and sit on the beach for a little bit and then you go to the next car show and the next car show. And I've been three years in a row now and it's it's. It's a really great weekend.
Speaker 1:It's really cool, whether you're a porsche fanatic or any other car brand, but primarily porsches amazing and I assume people uh sort of congregate there from all over the country, right like whether they fly over, drive yeah there, as you did well, you got.
Speaker 2:You know people like magnus walker flying in from California. I drove in. There were people there that had driven in from Western states, from New York. Jay Reid was going to come in from Connecticut there's a story about that, I'll tell you about it in a second From Maine, vermont. There were even people from Canada there. Can you believe it? The Canadians came to America. We put an extra tariff on their air ticket, but they still paid it nonetheless. So get this.
Speaker 2:Jay Reid introduced me to this event and it was his idea originally. Hey, let's go down there, we'll meet up and, you know, we'll do Tale of the Dragon and then six months later, we'll do Amelia Island. So Jay and I have been three years and this is now maybe our fourth year. We've had the Airbnb booked for months. We've had this in the calendar for months.
Speaker 2:I'm getting text messages from Jay pretty early. We're talking like over a week away from the event, saying, like you know, he's getting geared up and he's starting to pack. And well, good for you, jay. You know you're a pretty organized guy. Good lad, get on it Thursday.
Speaker 2:The week before we got a photo of jay taking a selfie with his son, having just gotten off the car train in florida being like so, chaps, are we going to meet up for lunch? Oh my god. We're like oh, that's really funny, jay, yeah, yeah, we'll see you next week. And he's like what do you mean next week? Gone there a week early, he got the date wrong and actually packed up, missed all the social media, missed all the banter, forgot the dates. He arrived in florida on the car train with his son, to no event a week early, and he that is amazing, I couldn't believe it. Honestly. There were, like it was like five or six of us in our, like you know, amelia island porsche chats and and the last guy to get involved was like wait a minute, we're doing it. I've just been going back to 100 messages that have just been blowing up my phone. I don't understand what's going on, like it just it took about an hour for it to really sink in that.
Speaker 2:No, actually he's there a week early oh my god so he decided to go to disney world with his son for the weekend and stay in orlando, which is where the train drops off, instead of going to the car event. We tried to convince him to stay there for the week and meet up with us later, but but alas, no, he couldn't do it planned, so we were minus, uh, one glass wearing ginger head knobhead there was just one that is quite hilarious.
Speaker 1:I mean, I hear disney world is quite good oh, just shoot me.
Speaker 2:I've got no interest with disney world. You, would, you, would you give it a go?
Speaker 1:I did disneyland in oh gosh 25 years ago, uh, with kath. It was that's good. Yeah, I'm not a big theme park guy. If I'm honest, I'm not that interested in rides. So yeah. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. No, I've got to bite that bullet at some point and take the kids to Disney World.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you do. Yeah, the kids want to do it. Of course it's a rite of passage.
Speaker 2:Anyway, so that that was Amelia Island.
Speaker 1:Sounds good. Sounds good. Did you? Did you manage to drive any twisties in, either on the way there or back?
Speaker 2:On the way there for a little bit. I actually had my car shipped to Charleston, south Carolina, to meet up with my friend Christian. I was doing some other stuff in the area so it was convenient to do that. So from from South Carolina down to Florida, and Mark and his son matthew were there as well. They're two guys that go on the tail of the dragon with us. They live in north carolina. For the first half of that trip we were sort of I wouldn't call them twisties, but they were more interesting country roads, yep, um. On the way back, um, for the first four or five hours I was on really pretty cool twisties going through florida and into georgia, and then it was boring, boring, boring for like 12 hours, and then the last four or five hours going through iran and um, uh, wherever, whatever it is, what is it? Where's chicago, illinois? Uh, illinois and iowa. It gets a bit interesting again. But but honestly, nothing really super exciting. And yeah, fair enough it was. It was a hard 21 hours really yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:That's, um, that's quite a test of of the 911 as a grand tourer. At the end of the day, it's it's still a sports car. They're amazingly comfortable and they can munch miles well, but it's not a.
Speaker 2:It's not a Bentley yeah, yeah didn't see a single cop for a thousand miles, which is pretty incredible really, statistically, I think. Yeah, on on highways, off highways, you don't really see a lot of them on on the roads, really, especially driving through the middle of nowhere.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but that was good, that was pretty good yeah, yeah, nice, nice, well, I have been, I've been doing some work on little green I have. I have a rally coming up and we may have spoken on the last pod. I've had this kind of groaning noise coming from somewhere in the steering and uh, I'm reasonably, yeah, associated with the steering. You know the front end of the car. I don't want to be thinking about that when I'm tipping the car into a tight right hander at speed with a sheer cliff face facing me if I don't make the turn. I don't be thinking about. Is there something amiss? The car went to nine auto they've. They've looked over it. Uh, nothing wrong. But uh, the other problem was when I took it to them. I, I think I said last time, I had one of those really annoying experiences where the day I took it to them it wasn't yeah so of course they couldn't diagnose it, but it's actually been really noisy the last few times I've taken it out.
Speaker 1:So I'm taking it back next week with the hope that they can at least hear it, in which case there might be a chance of diagnosing it. Having done some research and a bit of a deep dive on RENLIST, I'm not convinced that it's not the steering rack. And if it is the steering rack, I'll be really frustrated because I actually replaced that steering rack in 2022. So it certainly shouldn't have failed, but anyway, let's see. So it certainly shouldn't have failed, but anyway, let's see. And then the other thing is I've had this very specific vibration through the shifter, and when I say very specific, I mean if I'm sitting at, well, let's say, four and a half 5,000 RPM in third gear while going around a right-hand bend.
Speaker 2:That's pretty specific.
Speaker 1:And I'mhand bend. That's pretty specific and I'm not kidding, that's the specificity of it. There's this like just this kind of rattling vibration through the shifter. So last weekend I thought maybe I'll take a look and see if there's something amiss down there. So pulling off the 964 center console is quite an easy job. It's just a bunch of screws anyone who's worked on that 964 center console knows they are very prone to.
Speaker 1:There's one bracket that always snaps. Mine has snapped many times, and both obviously before I bought it and since I bought it. So there's there's about 27 different layers of glue where this thing is snapped and it still doesn't hold together, anyway. So then you take off the leather shift boot and then beneath that and beneath the center console there's a rubber shift gator, or boot or bellows if you like, that sits over the shifter and that's actually quite tricky to remove. And then there's actually a second one that sits below that. So two rubber gaiters that I think largely exist to prevent for NVH purposes, right?
Speaker 1:So the second one, the one that sits underneath the main one, was just torn to shreds, like just absolutely. Oh no, yeah, it was just absolutely, absolutely destroyed, and I think what had happened was because I've got a sleepers short shift kit and the. The original uh, this original bellows thing won't fit over that properly, so clearly it's been modified to go over that, but it's been done in such a way that it's just deteriorated over time anyway. So I've got all that back together. I'm not I'm yet to drive it, so I don't know whether that uh, third gear four and a half thousand rpm, right hand bend, uh vibration has been resolved, but we'll see. But anyway it goes in monday and hopefully we can find out what the hell is wrong with the steering, because I've got a rally coming up in two weeks so I'd really rather not start the rally with that in the back of my head is this another alpine range rally or is this a different rally?
Speaker 1:it is now alpine range rally 11. Um, this one's come up really quick. The last one was november and this one's just suddenly here, so really looking forward to that. Typically, I throw a lot into the organization of these things.
Speaker 2:You know we do merch.
Speaker 1:Last time I had everybody got obviously the t-shirts, but then we had like bags for everyone with goodies in them and stickers and decals and all sorts of stuff. That's fancy, yeah, which is really cool At this time. I sent a message to the group about a week ago and I said, hey, lads, I've not even done T-shirts, I just haven't had the time and I'm kind of liking just doing one where we can just sneak out and do the drive, and then the next one I'll do all of the bells and whistles. But I took my car to. We had a big.
Speaker 1:There's kind of this two-week period in Melbourne where we have a long weekend. I think it's Labor Day. I don't know what the long weekend is for. It always creeps up on me. I'm always like, oh wow, no one's working next Monday, cool. And then the weekend following is the Formula One Grand Prix. Those two weekends in Melbourne are just like a party.
Speaker 1:Melbourne just is popping off and so on the long weekend there was a Porsche event called, imaginatively, porsches and Coffee. I think that's what it's called. I think that's the name. It's the most uninspiring name ever. That's what it's called. It's it's some. I think that's the name. It's the most uninspiring name ever in a world of luftkult, art neun. Uh checked out, like all of these cool names porsches and coffees. Not the most imaginative name, however, however, uh, massive credit to the organizers.
Speaker 1:The way this event works is they block off the main street in south mel, which is just a couple of kilometres south of the CBD, and it's just Porsches on a Sunday morning in this main street and because it's just all parked on the street. It's an area where there are shops, there are cafes, there's a market nearby, so you have so much foot traffic and the event just's. I think the third year they've run it and it was so busy, so many people there, and it really struck me as I looked at the cars that were, that were on display parked. You know you had everything from old air-cooled cars to, you know, a line of literally three, three or four current day gt3rs's and everything in between.
Speaker 1:I don't think there's another brand that could pull this sort of thing off and I think one of the reasons being that, you know, if you think about uh, you know other other brands in the category. There's no, there's no entry-level ferrari or aston martin or mclaren or lamborghini. Do you know what I mean. You can't buy. There's not the twenty thousand dollar boxster equivalent for those brands that make them therefore accessible to a broader range of people. Who can then? Who can then display the cars and you know it was so busy in terms of the turnout of cars and people who wanted to have can then display the cars, and you know it was so busy in terms of the turnout of cars and people who wanted to have their cars featured in there that some of the cars couldn't get in and I was there with my mate out, my mate al, from flat six affair, and he said, hey, you got to come around some of these side streets and him and my other mate, fraz, had been walking around the side streets.
Speaker 1:And you go down this one side street and there's three 964s, a 911R, and then you go around a corner and there's an ST like just parked in the middle of these tiny little side streets.
Speaker 1:So that was super cool. I mean, you know you talk about different, let's say, subcultures within the Porsche culture or Porsche community. I always think it's interesting to see some of these really heavy hitter cars that that you can tell have. You know, you look at the front of the car and it's. It's never seen, course, chip asphalt. It's never seen leaf litter on the road, you know never. A lot of them you can tell have been driven to Cars and Coffee.
Speaker 2:So Cars and Coffee and that's sort of it.
Speaker 1:You know they are just so immaculate. But there were some really cool cars there, some great old air-cooled cars. To be honest, one of the cars that really stood out, I just I love the Spiders Spider, rs or even just a regular Spider. They just there's something about the way those cars look. The more I see them, the more I think that's a car I would love to have a go in. I think that would just be such a fun car to drive.
Speaker 2:let's come back to that in a second um, because I got a question for you. But uh, that made me think of a car I saw in Amelia. It was the first ST that I've seen in the flesh and it was the release color, whatever that light kind of sign Is it shore blue, I think it's called.
Speaker 2:Whatever it is, yeah, it's like that silvery, shimmery kind of blue color. I just happened to park a few cars down from it in the stretch in the corral. Got talking to the owner owner and he's the exact opposite. He's put like 10 000 miles on that car in about six months and he drove down to florida from I think it was somewhere in the midwest and then he's about to drive it over to the rockies and out to california and then he's planning on driving it back to the east coast and he's like I'm gonna have 50 000 miles on this by the end of the year.
Speaker 1:Amazing.
Speaker 2:I drive my cars and he's probably retired. His wife was there with him and she told me on the side that he's got another three at home which probably aren't seeing the light of day, but at least that car. He was there and you could see that there was a rock chip on the front. You know it's. It's a car that's been driven. There are dead bugs all over it, you know he just didn't care he was. He was there to see every everybody's else, everyone else's car.
Speaker 1:You know, that was pretty phenomenal that is so cool, you know I'll never forget. My mate anthony said, uh, when the st came out and we were really excited about them.
Speaker 1:I remember you know that launch there was that, yeah, that light blue, and then there was just the black one and I remember seeing just I just remember seeing that black one thinking it's so simple, so classic, that would be my spec, I would just get that. And I remember talking with him about it and he said we will never see one of these in the twisties at home. We'll never see one up reefed and spur or one of these other roads we drive.
Speaker 1:And I thought he's right, you won't and it's such a shame, because because you know, I just think and you know, hey, to each their own right. We've all got our own way. We experience these cars. But you know, you think about, if you had the opportunity to buy an st, what would you do with it? You'd be like all right, I am planning my tale of the dragon journey. Yeah, specifically, so I can spend four days tearing around the twisties in this thing and experiencing it, the way it's meant to be experienced.
Speaker 1:Like I say, it's. Um, I'm not saying one way is right or wrong, but one way is right and one way is wrong, yeah definitely.
Speaker 2:But you know, that's one of the reasons why I've got so much respect for my mate, Chris. You know, whether it was his 991.1 Turbo or his GT3 Touring, he takes good care of that and it's always spotless and he wants it to stay looking factory fresh. But he's driven it to tell the dragon and back and he's going to do it again, and he's going to do it again and again and again. And he just wants to. He wants to experience that car on a road the way it's supposed to be driven, even though he doesn't. You know, he doesn't really want to put too many miles on it, but it's the experience, ultimately, that I can.
Speaker 1:I can so relate to the way chris goes about it, because one of the things I think there's a narrative that emerges sometimes around people who wash and detail their cars that oh yeah, you, you don't actually drive it, you're just detailing it all the time, which is such horse shit like I've, you know I think about. Do I wash and detail my car a lot? Yeah, I do. I love doing it. I love the car to look absolutely as spectacular as it's possible for it to look, but at the same time, I don't think I know anyone who's put as many miles on their 964, I mean, at least, or their Porsche in general, at least in my group, as me, I drive the thing all the time, all the time.
Speaker 1:So yeah fuck the haters. If you're washing your car, that's totally okay with me.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, well, and I am definitely not one that washes my car all the time, but I do appreciate when it is. I like you know you, everybody knows that I like to tinker with my car and get the exhaust on it and get the exhaust on and off, and that sort of thrill of. This is my car, this is my setup. There are cheaper cars, there are more expensive cars, but this one's mine and it's it's going to be driven the way I want it to be driven and I'm actually just going to get it out and try and get the most out of it as much as I can, whether it's yeah, whether it's the sound, whether it's the setup, the look, whatever it is. But that's actually a good segue onto our next agenda topic, which is sound yeah, okay, so it is a great segue.
Speaker 1:I was we've had a lot of hot weather here in Melbourne and I went out for ice cream with my family and I was sitting there having ice cream and this dude pulls up in a new KN GTS and he runs in, grabs ice cream with his girlfriend and then they jump back in the car and drive off. You should have heard this thing. It sounded so good. Right, and it's yeah, sure it's a V8. It sounded incredible. And then I saw another Cayenne GTS a few days later, same thing, and it got me thinking. Right, you have, porsche has a luxury SUV in their stable that sounds better than the 911. Now, granted, that car's a V8, right, I get it. A V8's always going to sound terrific. It's why AMG C63 sounds so good, because they've got a rumbling V8.
Speaker 1:But I look at what you've done with your car, the experimentation you've done to find a combination that is usable on a daily driver kind of basis. Where you can, it's comfortable and nice to be in, but that is also loud when you when you want a sports car and, let's be honest, the 911 is a sports car. So I know there are limitations, I understand that and I know that there's there's there's rules and regulations in europe, the particulate filters, all of these things that that make it difficult. But it seems to me that other brands, be it audi, bmw, mercedes, all somehow managed to make cars in their range have a sound, whether it's good or bad, but are able to deliver volume in that sound. And Porsche are able to do it with other cars in the range. So surely the flagship 911 as a sports car, if you get the PSE, if you get the Porsche sports exhaust, should be loud enough that it sounds like a sports car. Discuss.
Speaker 2:All right. Well, I think the later generations of 911 with the PSE even mine the 991.2, that factory PSE, arguably, is good enough. It's awesome.
Speaker 1:It's not, it's not. No, it's not, but it is. For me it's not no way. No, it's not, but it is. For me it's not no way. No, I've driven the GTS, I've driven the Carrera T. You drive those cars in anger. You can't hear it.
Speaker 2:You just can't hear it. So let me go back to where I was headed, which is what was the 911 designed for? It's designed for driving. It's designed for performance. Okay, so that talks to the aerodynamics, that talks to the setup, that talks to the power the engine puts out. None of that necessarily translates directly to it's got to be loud.
Speaker 2:Now, I think the flat six engine whether you've got that in the porsche, flat six, whether you've got a factory exhaust without valves or you've got, you know, a custom setup the sound of a flat six porsche is unmistakable, just like a v8 and a v10 are unmistakable. But I guess my question is when did sound become really important? Because I don't think sound is directly relevant to the first couple of objectives of why the 911 is even here in the first place, which is about driving experience and quality and power and performance. Sound, I don't think, is directly linked to any of those. Sound is something that the fanboys have added on because the F1 cars sound great, or sound has been added on because the Porsche Le Mans car sounds a certain way, and now I've got to have my car sounding like that.
Speaker 1:Where did sound become important?
Speaker 2:Hold on If you're trying to derail my highly emotional argument with facts, logic and intelligently put points.
Speaker 1:I'm very disappointed at that. Someone's got to do it. Okay, you make good points. Let's say one of the reasons for the enduring success of the 911 is that it is the genuine daily driver sports car. Right, it, it, it's, it's a, it's a sports car that, and, in fact, most people who buy a 911 daily it, they buy it to daily it, right? So, unless they're buying a GT product and let me just let me categorically state GT department cars are irrelevant to this conversation, because, yes, if you've bought a GT3, that sounds fantastic. So that's one thing.
Speaker 1:Well, I'm not talking about that. I'm talking about Carreras, carrera Ts, et cetera. So, yes, they are supposed to be able to be daily driven and even that means that there is only so much you can do with with, with volume, because it's got to be usable on a daily basis. But I think about, for example, even the na991, so the first gen 991s. If you have the factory sports exhaust on that, I think that's actually sufficient. You could sufficient, it could be a little bit louder if you're an enthusiast, but for most people the factory sports exhaust is enough and I understand that once they move to the turbocharged engine that is harder to extract some level of sound out of it. But the reason that sound is important is that you're looking for, or I think, a sports car is about a visceral experience. It's about creating an experience that has a link, be it strong or otherwise, to the motorsport heritage of the brand.
Speaker 1:Now, a lot of these other brands I talk about, they don't have the motorsport heritage that that that porsche does. They may do to a to a lesser extent, but you know, the 911 is a sports car that has won in every category, from rally to endurance racing. It. It is this, you know, this incredible, storiedied, successful motorsport car. I just think surely part of the process of building and designing those cars he said from the comfort of his study, having never built or designed anything should include hey, how do we make the Porsche sports exhaust, the person who ticks that box, who looks for that option? Let's give them that option. Let's make it that when you hit the binoculars button. Yeah, it's a significant difference and I don't think it's enough. And I think it's interesting that other cars in their range, I think, sound better than the flagship sports car.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I can get on board with a lot of that, but I think culture is a big part of it as well and I think if porsches were italian and that sort of more flamboyant, that more sort of flamboyant um, I'm not saying it has to be lamborghini- no, no one wants.
Speaker 1:No one wants to turn a regular 911 into Lamborghinis, right Some?
Speaker 2:people do.
Speaker 1:No, I mean I think you know Lamborghini, the guys who drive Lamborghinis, they're jet ski people right Like they go to the beach and just annoy the fuck out of everybody. So no you don't want that. But you look at what you've been able to do on your car it's 20%. It's just some volume just to hey I'm driving a sports car yeah.
Speaker 2:Well, I wonder what. How much of it is also business strategy, because I bet you porsche's business strategy has never been about okay. Well, in 10 years time, when these cars depreciate and people like james and andy buy them, they're gonna want to do something to the sound. It's. It's the people that can show up with 150,000 dollars worth in cash and buy a carrera. They are saving the sound. They are saving that visceral experience for the gt cars, because that person who turns up with 150,000 dollars in cash, with the right push or might tickle on the bum from a good looking associate, might be willing to pony up another hundred grand to go and walk out with a turbo s or a gt3 or a gt3 rs not that the turbo s necessarily has the best sound in the world, but I maybe, maybe that's part of it, which is they're being selective.
Speaker 1:We're going to save the best sound for the people that show up with 200 grand or or more to buy the gt range but look, I I think there's something in that, and I also think there's something in the idea of you know, you talk about it being business strategy. I think that's true. I think brand new carreras and carrera s's aren't actually aimed at people like you and me, right? So if the sound was louder, if it was more, quote-unquote, visceral, what they might actually do is put off their core target audience, their core target audience being the person who wants to use the car on a daily basis. I still think, though, if you look at the success of cars like the AMGs, I still think there's an argument that the person who wants it as a daily driver and is willing to tick the box to say, wants a sports exhaust, that that could be tweaked and pushed a little harder. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:Well, and so this is where we segue into the next conversation, which is what on earth is happening at Porsche? What is happening at Porsche? What's going on I mean, it's not just Porsche as well, I think in the news recently, the article that we were going to talk about was something like 3,000 or 4,000 jobs between now and 2029 are going to get cut from Porsche. Did you know that it's nearly 50,000 of the workforce that are being cut from across the VW group, which includes audi and and the other brands that sort of live there? That's 50 000 people from the workforce. What is the? Is the demand for porsches and sports cars suddenly tanking? And have I missed that memo? Like what? I don't get it no, I I mean.
Speaker 1:The only theory I can can put it down to is there's obviously a proliferation of vehicles out of China. In the last 10 years, the quality of those vehicles has rapidly improved to the point where now it's not a matter of I will buy a Chinese vehicle. Yes, it will cost me a lot less.
Speaker 1:Yes, it'll be poorer quality than what I might get out of europe, but it'll cost me a lot less, I think that is now changing to the point where the quality has improved, uh, in leaps and bounds, and so it's now a genuine competitor and and I think then there's the uptake of of electric, particularly for premium brands just hasn't met the expectations of these brands and that's I don't know.
Speaker 1:To me that's not a big surprise. I think if you can buy a chinese made ev that costs I don't know, 20 less, even maybe 20 of the price of of something out of europe, why would you not? Because you're not. I think for the most part, people who are buying evs are buying them for um, you're not a car enthusiast buying an EV Gross generalization, I know, but you're buying it from a very different mindset.
Speaker 2:I can get behind that sentiment.
Speaker 1:I would agree generally yeah, and also and think about something like the Taycan or you know if you're thinking about, say, audi, for example the e-tron GT. I'm sure these cars are brilliant, but if you look at the second hand market for them, the depreciation is insane, insane. So why would you hand over the kind of money it takes to drive one of those cars new off the lot, knowing what a depreciation hit you're going to get? And you know, I've seen there's articles about people who have bought a tycan, then tried to trade it at porsche for another vehicle and literally porsche have said we won't buy it back.
Speaker 1:And when you think about it I I, the way I see it is an ev is well, it's a, it's a, it's a piece of digital technology, right? So in a lot of respects, an ev is a device, and by that I mean in the same way that your iphone is a device. It is driven entirely by technology that will gradually, over time, be superseded and made redundant. A 3.6-litre flat-six engine from 30 years ago, or from 12 years ago, is still going to be drivable and relevant in another 20 or 30 years, as long as you can fuel it. A car driven by four lithium batteries that are past their um, their service life, what is that? I mean?
Speaker 1:you don't, you don't pull out your iphone 6 on a sunday morning and say hey, let's, uh, let's just for old time's sake get on the old ios and see how it goes. Right, like you don't well.
Speaker 2:And also, you don't try and replace the batteries in your iphone. When the battery starts going down, you go and just get a new iphone, correct?
Speaker 1:a hundred percent.
Speaker 2:So that right, right. And so I mean I. I was even looking at taikans the other day, um, because I saw one on the street and I thought what they were? I, I saw it. I think it was the four that was going for 120 000 three years ago, years ago. It's now worth $20,000. I could have got that, I mean, to be fair, I had 100,000 miles on it, but still I could be driving around in a brand new looking Taycan for 20 grand. That's incredible. But going back to the worst workforce reduction and the layoffs that I read, I think it was the same day that I sent you that article, that I also sent you the other article which talks about how porsche is going to be introducing even more cars into the lineup and there's going to be a fully electric cayenne. There's going to be additional gas fuel models now. So they they may very well reintroduce a boxster and a cayman with a petrol engine in the future.
Speaker 2:So on the one hand, you've got them laying off thousands of people and on the other hand, you've got them talking about introducing all of these new cars that are going to continue to sort of beef out the range. I don't know enough about how car manufacturers work to figure out how those two things reconcile.
Speaker 1:Neither I think.
Speaker 1:The fact is that, you know, the car industry right now is in a state of tremendous flux.
Speaker 1:The transition to EV has not happened with either the pace or in the way that manufacturers had expected, partly because of the influx of Chinese manufactured EVs, partly because of reticence on behalf of consumers to buy the premium EVs, which has left them in a difficult position.
Speaker 1:And so, you know, if you look at the rumors that are swirling currently about the 718 replacement codenamed the 983, which is supposed to be EV only Boxster and Cayman, that seems to have stalled, and there's all sorts of reasons being touted right, and one is actually that the manufacturer of the batteries that were going to be used, a company called Northvolt, is right now desperate for a cash infusion and is facing insolvency, which is a problem that Porsche actually had with the battery manufacturer that they worked with on the hybrid 911. So that certainly pushed things out, but you know that, just then, I think, fuels rumors around. Well, okay, a Porsche reconsidering whether only EV option for Cayman and Boxster is genuinely the way forward, or will that kill, you know, two of the most beloved cars in the Porsche history, yeah, yeah yeah, well, look, let's put the EVs to one side and let's talk about everybody's favourite, especially your favourite, andy it's the 964.
Speaker 1:especially your favorite, andy, it's the 964. Okay, all right, let's talk video of the week. Now here's the thing. Right, I didn't do this because it's a 964. I did it because I happen to think it's a really great video. And first I actually want to shout out to me and the boy and girl on Instagram who suggested a video to me a couple of days ago from the same content creator who's made this video. This, this came up for me. I mean I 964. Content on youtube always appears, but I also saw it on on ren list. It was featured on ren list or not featured, but just in the 964 chat on ren list.
Speaker 1:It's called uh, one car for it all and it tells the story of an imported 964 C2 coupe. The YouTube channel is called Car Tales and it's such a good 964. It's beautifully built. It's been made, or, let's say, rebuilt and redone by Joey Seeley at Emotion Engineering. Joey's just one of these guys who, as know, as someone living in Australia, I always think there's certain people who, if I lived in the States or if I was in California in particular, they'd be the people I would send my car to, and Joey's certainly one of those people in the air-cooled world 3.8 litre, ohlin, suspension, 993, big red brakes. It's got a carbon fibre deck, lid and wing and if you've ever seen any of the videos about joey seely's car, project nasty, he's got this same carbon fiber whale tail and apparently the mold snapped.
Speaker 2:So those, those two cars are the only cars that have these carbon fiber whale tails.
Speaker 1:it's just, it's nicely done. It's a great looking car shot somewhere in Northern California in some beautiful forests. It just I don't know, it made me want to get out and drive, and that's what I look for in a video.
Speaker 2:Well, I can get behind all of that Definitely, and you know I like a big, a good bit of carbon fiber. But it was just another video that made me feel bad about my life, andy, because's set, like you said, on these incredible twisty roads, in this beautiful mountain wilderness with the trees and the sound of nature, and I'm sat here in the cornfields of the freaking midwest with my straight roads. But no, it was. It was a really, really good video, um, but I this. This is nothing to do with the video, but the name of the video sort of gave me a bit of a lord of the rings vibe and that immediately sort of just put me off one one car to rule them all.
Speaker 1:Uh but no, yeah, very, very good you know, I agree, I think the name is a little bit yeah I'll, I'll.
Speaker 2:I'm going to be hoping for a water-cooled I'm not even going to say 991.2, but at least a water-cooled recommendation for the next one, if I don't beat you to it first.
Speaker 1:My last one was water-cooled. Yeah, to be fair, it was. It was one of the Soul Drives videos that was water-cooled.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I've actually since subscribed to that channel and I've enjoyed a lot of his content. Soul Drives.
Speaker 1:Yeah, he did a cracking video, I think, this week, where he's in because he's got a 991.1, just C4, but manual, and he's chasing a GT4 RS Again through the Black Forest in Germany. These European videos, they're just. The light is so good, the roads are so open.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, well, look, before we wrap this up, I did halfway through the show, said that I had a question for you and I want to go back to it, because you said you really like the look of the spiders. And in Amelia, going all the way back to the beginning in Amelia I saw my fair share of spiders, but I did see my fair share of GT4s and actually there was a GT4 RS there which looked incredible. So I know you loved your GT4. Let's just put the GT4s off for a second. If someone came up to you and said, andy, I've got a brand new gz4rs and I've also got this brand new spider rs, is there a spider rs?
Speaker 1:there is yeah yeah, there is.
Speaker 2:Which one would you take?
Speaker 1:I don't know, g Gee whiz. Do you know what? I think I'd take the Spyder RS. Really, I do, really, I actually do. I think you know everything I've read or seen with the GT4 RS. Obviously the sound is insane to the level of some people find it just way too much and too loud.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:So I feel like it's a car either way that you wouldn't have long term. So hey, you know what? Why not deal with that ridiculous roof and just go all out and have a Spider RS Nice? Yeah, I think that'd be fun.
Speaker 2:Nice, nice, nice and you.
Speaker 1:You'd probably need the Spider because you couldn't fit in the Cayman.
Speaker 2:I couldn't fit in either of them, so fuck you.
Speaker 1:You could fit in the Spider.
Speaker 2:You'd just be poking your head out the top like the Toys R Us giraffe. Yeah, no, that's true, that's true. I think I'd probably want the GT4 RS, For whatever reason. That just seems to be a really special car and that's an instance, I think, where Porsche listened to what the community wanted. They finally got that RS version of that car before it went EV. I thought that was such a nice thing for Porsche to do for the enthusiasts. I think I'd probably do that out of nostalgia. So listeners.
Speaker 1:I guess Just quickly, because, going back to the conversation about sound, the GT4 RS and Spyder RS are two really good examples of cars that are not insanely loud for the outside. So they allow Porsche to pass whatever those sound tests are, which get more and more stringent all the time. Right? So I know they're dealing with that, but so they've done it in such a way that from the outside of the car it's not that loud, but when you are the driver, what you're experiencing in the cabin is pure motorsport.
Speaker 2:Anyway, Good, Gotcha. Well, thank you for checking in for another episode of Curb and Canyon. You guys Let us know when we post this up on Instagram or we get it online. What would you choose? Would you choose the GT4 RS or would you choose the Spyder RS? And don't let Andy's meddling and influencer status swing you to the Spys necessarily Influencer status.
Speaker 1:I can't even influence my kids.
Speaker 2:See you in another video soon, guys, andy. It's been a pleasure, andy, at Last Rasp. I'm James from Auto Amateur. Catch you soon. Good to chat to you, see. Ya, we'll see you next time, thank you.
