Porsche Financials, the 911 GT3 Cabrio-Debate Redo and Porsche 'Sonderwunsch' lets you build your own 'Homer'

Porsche has released a new update on its finances and business strategy and, somehow, managed to talk about Porsche without really talking about cars. Bold move. So naturally, James and Andy are here to overreact responsibly.

This month on Curb and Canyon, we dig into Porsche’s latest corporate brain dump: what it says, what it doesn’t say, and whether anyone in Stuttgart remembered that the whole point of Porsche is usually the cars.

Then we climb back into the GT3 convertible / “SC” debate, because apparently James’ opinions escaped into the Porsche community and caused a few people to spill their espresso. Were his takes fair? Was the reaction fair? Is a roofless GT3 genius, madness, marketing sorcery, or all of the above?

We also get dangerously carried away with Porsche’s Sonderwunsch program, which sounds like a fantasy factory for people with unlimited money and very specific childhood dreams. So of course we ask the important question: if Porsche handed us the design team, the paint booth, the parts bin, and a completely irresponsible budget… what would we build?

And finally, we have another Video of the Week. Andy picked it. So yes, obviously, it features an air-cooled Porsche. Try to look surprised.

Fast takes, strong opinions, questionable financial analysis, and just enough Porsche nerdery to get us in trouble again. Tune in, kick back, welcome to Curb and Canyon.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:06

Andy Gaunt back for another episode of Curve and Canyon.

SPEAKER_03 0:10

James McGrath, my god, look at us.

SPEAKER_00 0:13

This is good. Wait, do you know what? How upset are you with me right now? About what? Because the size of your quiff right now tells me that it's really early and you're maybe not massively happy with me getting you out of bed at six or seven in the morning on a Saturday.

SPEAKER_03 0:29

I I don't quite recall what um what I said in my message to you earlier, but I think it was along the lines of F off.

SPEAKER_00 0:37

It was rather short. It was rather short and curt. But I d I don't take offense because you know winding you up is just my my way of telling you I love you.

SPEAKER_03 0:47

Wow.

SPEAKER_00 0:47

Thanks for getting up early on a Saturday to talk to me.

SPEAKER_03 0:50

I've missed you. I've missed everyone. Welcome to Kirbin Canyon.

SPEAKER_00 1:13

I love it. I love it. What are you drinking? Uh I'm drinking a spindriff. Do you have spindriff? A what now? It it's basically it's a sparkling. That sounds made up. It's a sparkling water with a little bit of squirt of real fruits. And it's not just the marketing. Apparently, it really is real fruit. It's rather nice. It's it's not diet soda like I usually have. Um and that's only because I ran out. So I'm now plundering Ruthie's side of the fridge.

SPEAKER_03 1:41

Okay. Okay, that's good. Well, do you know I didn't have time to make my normal latte, so I'm having. I mean, this this would be my version of let's call it Melbourne brown. Oh god. And uh I I'm sure I've told you, I've had friends say to me, it makes them really sad when they hear you say Minnesota brown. It just there is it that really sounds like the coffee that gave up to die. It's like where good coffee goes to die.

SPEAKER_00 2:08

Yeah, it's yeah, I'm sure it's even worse than that. It's it's it's the coffee that went somewhere to die that got eaten up by the cattle and shut out, and then the farmer thought, oh, I'm gonna make coffee out of that. It's terrible.

SPEAKER_03 2:21

Might as well put it in a cup. Hey, hey, so we've got some good stuff to get through today. There's a little bit of Porsche news, the great strategic alignment. So excited to speak about that. Quarterly results and such. That's that's right in our wheelhouse. We I want to revisit, we've got to revisit the GT3SC. It's been controversial. I've had some comments. I've had some comments, so I want to revisit that.

SPEAKER_00 2:48

You know, after the last pod, I I always listened to our pod at least once. I listened to that one a couple of times, and it was because I was I was really concerned that I was maybe a little bit too lively, a little bit too maybe aggressive, definitely a little bit too sweary in places. But then I went on the configurator the other day and I saw the I saw the car again, and I just immediately went back to all that rage. So I I'm I'm I'm excited for that. Let's talk about it.

SPEAKER_03 3:16

Okay, well, okay, we're gonna revisit. We've got some car updates. I want to hear about Bluey Tooie, got some news on Little Green, want to talk about Porsches and pancakes, which I gotta be honest. You you gotta convince me it's good. Because it just sounds like a bunch of dudes sitting around eating pancakes. And then we're gonna talk about the mega loop rally, and then we have a really fun, quick, easy video of the week. So yeah, we've got a bit to get through. Let's do it. Um let's do it. So should we should we talk about what I'm calling cancellation watch? Because apparently, apparently it does come up a little bit in our pods who cancelled on who last. I I am gonna take a proper tally, but I can confirm that it was I cancelled last. I did, I did. And to be fair, to be f in my def in my defense, it was because we had agreed, don't aha me. Don't, don't, I don't want you patronizing aha as you sit there with your fancy sparkling water and you you you um your beautiful drew photography behind you. That's right. Um so to be fair, we'd we'd agreed to record at 6 45 a.m. my time, and I think it was I don't think I cancelled last minute on you. I think it was Friday night. I said after 6 45.

SPEAKER_00 4:42

I think we I think it was like on a Tuesday. We record on a Friday my time, and I'm pretty sure on the Monday you were like, Are we gonna record this week? And I was like, Oh yeah, totally, totally cool. And then quite literally 24 hours, you're like, actually, you know what? I'm just I'm not doing it. I'm not getting up that early.

SPEAKER_03 5:00

Okay, no, so I'm just looking. It was Thursday. Uh yeah, been a massive week and starting that early ain't cool. That's all right, mate. Yeah, I mean, to be fair, by Tuesday by Tuesday, I'd already thought to myself, I can't face this dude first on Sunday morning. Because it is, I mean, it's it's seven, it's 7.23 my time as we sit here. I can I can manage that, but yeah, 6.45 on a Saturday. That's um that's that I I don't know how I how did I agree to that?

SPEAKER_00 5:30

You're an absolute soft lot.

SPEAKER_03 5:32

So, what have you got for me on Pusha AG resolutely pushing ahead with their strategic alignment, James? I'm I'm ready. I'm ready for your detailed analysis of the financials of our favorite brand. Let's go, hit me up.

SPEAKER_00 5:46

I let's I just think it's a a whole bunch of nonsense. I mean, did you get anything from it? We've got a clear ambition to be a press release. It's fair. We've got a clear ambition to be a leaner, faster company, which means we're in the shit, we're firing people. Um, first quarter.

SPEAKER_03 6:06

Oh yeah, but they're aligning the product portfolio even more consistently with customers' wishes.

SPEAKER_00 6:11

Fantastic.

SPEAKER_03 6:12

I mean, it sounds great to me, doesn't it?

SPEAKER_00 6:14

So they're gonna make I don't know, what are the customers' wishes? Did they did they say? Are they justifying more electric cayans? Oh god. Yeah. Um we're gonna listen to the uh, I don't know, the the the the moron influencers. That that's you and I, by the way, and uh do what they say. We're gonna build the Homer car. Is that is that what you just said a few seconds ago? I just just clicked.

SPEAKER_03 6:40

It is oh my god. I did, I did. But it's funny, the moron influences, which is you and me, I think the moron part perhaps, I'm not sure we're that influential. I mean it's interesting because it talks about operating profit of 595 million euros, which is in line with expectations and supports forecasts for the full year. So it's they've done a really good job of presenting some some rather grim numbers with that little lovely smattering of positivity.

SPEAKER_00 7:07

It's a meaningless statement to me, to be perfectly honest. I mean, it's it's a bunch of financial corporate bollocks with absolutely no insight whatsoever into actually what they're going to be doing. Well, and and the fact that their little infographic, which summarizes the key figures, has a freaking cayenne in the background.

SPEAKER_03 7:30

Yeah, that did make me laugh too. I thought the same thing.

SPEAKER_00 7:33

It's hopefully not the message that we're getting. Um but good Jesus.

SPEAKER_03 7:38

So actually one thing that did strike me um was that the proportion of battery electric vehicles fell to 19.8% versus basically the better part of or 20%, basically the better part of 26% the previous year. So this is good. That means in uh what's that left? In in in four years' time at this rate, there'll be no Porsche EVs.

SPEAKER_00 8:03

Uh one can only hope.

SPEAKER_03 8:05

Yeah. It is interesting. Have you seen I I still keep seeing spy shots of uh Kamen and Boxter EVs? You do? Is this thing happening or not?

SPEAKER_00 8:14

You know, to be honest, there's so much AI trickery out there at the moment that it's it's really hard to believe anything you see unless it's on a corporate website. Like how many yeah, how many TikToks or Instagram reels have you seen recently that have said that um Zack Snyder is gonna pull out Henry Cavill and Ben Affleck and and relaunch the Snyderverse or something about aliens. I just I mean, I'd be all about that actually. I would too, I would too.

SPEAKER_03 8:46

I I do not not to go completely off topic, but I think Henry Cavill could have been the best Superman if only he'd had a decent script.

SPEAKER_00 8:55

Yeah, let's not open that can of worms. I want the Snyderverse to return. What I really want to return are the glory days where Porsche made loads of sports cars that people wanted and not all of the rest, blah de blah.

SPEAKER_03 9:08

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Alright, let's not let's not do this. Let's not do this. You and I have been so doom and gloom about this brand the last little while, and we we you know, we're sounding honestly. We're gonna have to start meeting up on your front porch to record these so we can sit there, wave our fists at parking kids, passing kids, and really get shitty about things. Because do you know what? There's still there's still some good stuff. I would take a brand new GT3 very happily. I would take a brand new in fact, I was at a Porsche dealership a few weeks ago, and they had a a gorgeous new Carrera tea in manual, and I thought man, what a what a good looking package that is. The wooden shift knob, just I thought that that I reckon that would do everything I need it to do.

SPEAKER_00 10:00

Yeah, yeah. Actually, my uh good mate um Mr. Nick Murray, other Porsche YouTuber, uh he did a video recently on the uh the 992 uh Carrera T. And uh to him it's the perfect car, I think. I don't want to I don't want to tell any lies on his behalf, but I'm pretty sure he said it was the perfect car, and and I would agree. I think it's absolutely gorgeous. That and the GT3 touring, give me those two in my stable and I'll be happy forever. Kinda.

SPEAKER_03 10:26

Well, I saw he was on he was on a let's call it a rival podcast uh just last week, I think, and was talking about he's like, you know what, every time I drive a GT3, I love the car, but I would never want one. I'd much rather have a Carrera, Carrera S, Carrera T, because they're just a more usable car on the road, which I thought was an interesting perspective from a man who has driven many of them.

SPEAKER_00 10:51

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Totally. I've heard that a lot. You know, the GT3 is your it's your it's your special unicorn touring car, it's not your daily driver. It's it's you know, I think his position on the on the whole range is that the Carrera is the best, most exciting car. And I am happy to subscribe to that because I've only ever owned Carreras or Carrera 4s. I've got the best car, Andy. I've got the best car in the range.

SPEAKER_03 11:15

Hey, I'm not I'm not arguing. I only have a Carrera 4.

SPEAKER_00 11:19

So now, can we get off let's get off the corporate Porsche topic because that that will maybe sour the conversation somewhat. I I want to hear about we don't need to talk about this right now, but like what I would have hoped to have seen was here's the new lineup of sports cars, here's what's coming. There is an exciting um one of one model dropping at some point this year, I understand. Have you heard about this?

SPEAKER_03 11:42

One of one of one? No, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 11:44

Porsche are gonna make this big deal of um I I now I can't pronounce it, but the the the the the the translation in German is basically um Wunderwish or something along those lines. Where Porsche the Wundersarch, the yeah special wishes for the right amount of money you can basically act as the designer and go and uh have visits to the factory and meet with a design team and go through this experience which takes months and months and months to either build your dream car and or what a lot of people do is take existing builds and have the factory rebuild them. So add options and packages that they've they wanted but didn't have, uh and you can do quite literally anything.

SPEAKER_03 12:37

I'm not sure that's entirely true, James. Alright, so you it just just l let me be clear. You're saying that with Porsche's Sonderwatch special request program, you could basically go in there and have them build the Homer.

SPEAKER_00 12:54

I think they would have a I mean they they literally have a team of designers around you advising you. Um but for example, if you wanted to have your engine rebuilt, um, they would do that for you. If you wanted to have um, you know, the PSE added, if you wanted the body redone, if you wanted to take out the seats and put in, you know, kind of like the heritage package, whatever it might be, um, they take you through the whole design process and then actually do the retrofitting or or in in many cases actually build it, you know, kind of from scratch. It's it's it's like there's all there's almost no limits. This is how I'm gonna get my 993 or my 964 built to the dimensions of a 992 so that I can comfortably fit in it. Now I need a couple of million dollars if you'll help a brother out, but I can I can get that through this program.

SPEAKER_03 13:49

All right, so I'm looking at this, so yeah, there's this allegedly there's three tiers, right? There's the factory commission, which is tailoring a vehicle currently in production with special requests, custom colours, and unique interior materials. Okay, cool. I can see how that works. Factory re-commission, which is customizing or completely redesigning a Porsche you already own. Yeah, that could be quite cool. I like that idea a lot. And then in this, the factory one-off, the ultimate tier, where you collaborate directly with Porsche designers and engineers to create an entirely unique, one-of-a-kind vehicle, aka the home.

SPEAKER_00 14:30

AKA the home. That's right, that's right. I I don't know if there's any pricing available online. I think this is all, you know, definitely one-to-one kind of bespoke pricing. Um, but this is this is the type of thing if you were Jerry Seinfeld, you would be there doing this. If if you were, you know, an oil baron sitting on billions of dollars, this is what you'd be doing in your spare time.

SPEAKER_03 14:52

So here's my question for you then. If if you had that endless money, because yes, you could go uh theoretically, I'm not sure whether I'm not I'd be interested to interested to know how far that ultimate tier goes, right? So if for example you could go in and have them build a 10% bigger everywhere 964 James spec. So would you do that? Tampa. You'd f you'd fit in one easily. Uh so would you do that, or would you just go straight to roof and get a CTR, which looks like a 964 anyway, but is bigger and is more like the current dimensions of a of a modern day 911. It's probably 997-esque, I would say.

SPEAKER_00 15:44

I I think I'd do the former. I I I I think I would enjoy the experience. And not to completely bastardize and rip um what I heard at the uh the nine works awards and and the speech that was given there, where they where they sort of talked about this. From his point of view, this is a really special program because i it it's not sort of the destination, it's the journey, you know, kind of concept. And so the idea of actually being at the factory, working with a bunch of designers and being a part of that entire process soup to nuts, from concept to you know wireframe or digital wireframe, I guess now, um, and then actually seeing it through all the way through the factory process. That I mean, again, if you've got that much money to spend, you don't have to worry about a day job. Could you imagine flying out to Stuttgart, you know, every couple of weeks and just sitting down being part of that design process and seeing a one-of-one come out of the end of it? I I think I think I'd probably choose that.

SPEAKER_03 16:44

Um yeah, I mean it sounds incredible. I could just I'm just picturing you walking in there in your cargo shorts with your big gulp and you know after after three weeks saying, This is shit, start again. You'd be like putting supercharges on it, doing all sorts of things.

SPEAKER_00 17:03

I want deviated stitching on the rubber around the edges of the tires.

SPEAKER_03 17:08

Yeah, perfect. That's so you. So you. Do you know what? I do hear you. I think that would be pretty sweet, right? Like, exactly that. If you're at this point where you had the super yacht, the super model, all of the things, and it's like, what am I gonna do with my time? Yeah, yeah. Every couple of weeks I'm gonna fly to Germany, go visit with the factory. Imagine, I wonder how detailed the process is, right? Like, for example, you talked about digital wireframes before. I wonder if they do a clay model. So you can get to see the thing, right? I bet you how cool would that be?

SPEAKER_00 17:43

That is not off the table. I bet you that's not off the table. And I and actually think of it in in other terms, like I'm I've always been a big, you know, kind of movie buff. I've always been into cinema. Um could you imagine one of the studios offering this kind of thing where you can go and s go on a journey with Martin Scorsese for his next movie, or or maybe a mini-movie that he's making, and you can be his production assistant and you get you know kind of an input on the script and and be part of that that creative process. Could you imagine?

SPEAKER_03 18:16

I just imagine you you on sit knocking shit over.

SPEAKER_00 18:22

I'd also like to see how big Martin Scorsese has stood next to me. That would be a hilarious photo.

SPEAKER_03 18:29

Yeah, that would be actually that that'd be hilarious. So it has to be, right? I'm just thinking this through. There's no way this is you you can't go to Stuttgart and build the Homer car, right? You you you you can't do that. It must be still that you are going and building a 9-11. It's it it it's not yeah, it's not gonna be some I think there'll be some boundaries and parameters they put around it.

SPEAKER_00 18:54

Like it's gotta be true to the design language, it it's gotta be something they're actually able to readily produce. It's it's gonna be something that doesn't complain.

SPEAKER_03 19:02

Yeah, and has their name on it, dude.

SPEAKER_00 19:04

Well, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. Um, but you know, it sounds like like from the story I heard, the guy wanted his car to be the colour of his Labrador. Who doesn't? And so they Who doesn't? I know, right? That's why I'm painting mine black and turned it into this golden and yellow car, which at some point will be will be available um through the uh the PTS program. But yeah, I think that that that there really will be, I imagine, a whole bunch of boundaries that you can't you can't cross, but it sounds like there's an awful lot of flexibility, uh like a hundred times more than what you'd expect to see on any version of the configurator online. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 19:42

So it's funny because I was just talking a moment ago about adding a supercharger to it. I want your view on something. There's currently there's a 964 for sale here in Australia right now. Um it's a great colour. I think it's lava red? No. Fire red, I can't remember. It's it's this incredible red that looks a little bit like arena um with a mahogany interior, which is stunning, and by mahogany I mean the colour, not the wood, but it's got a supercharger on it. Now they're asking silly money for it, uh, which which I don't think they'll get, but the colour combination is unique and stunning. Yeah. Stunning. I think it's maybe kiln red. What are your thoughts on that? Would you would you say, yeah, because you modify cars, you put different things on cars. Would you be comfortable buying a car that had that level of mechanical modification on it? Something that the factory would never have done. Yeah. Something that very few people actually do?

SPEAKER_00 20:47

Um, I think I think it depends. Like it I'd probably try and get some level of validation from an expert that the car isn't going to fall apart, you know, within a couple of hundred miles. Um, I'd I'd probably want to gauge how easy those modifications are to back out and remove. And and and I think about that with every kind of modification I make to my car. A slap of decal on the side, that's really easy to remove. Uh these uh exhaust modifications that I've done, you can just take them off in a couple of hours and go back to stock really quickly. So I'd probably want to understand that because as much as I might like the rest of the car, if I actually don't like the way the supercharger performs, or you know, I think that it's for whatever reason I want to get rid of it and I can't, that would probably stop me buying it, frankly. I'd I just want to understand as much as I could about it before making a decision.

SPEAKER_03 21:38

Okay, which you know, I've got a little more information. Uh so it was actually done by Ninemeister. Now and the colour is called velvet red. Uh so it was done by 9meister. Now NineMeister are great, and in fact, they did uh my Motec upgrade on my 964 is from Ninemeister. Um, I've found them mostly good to deal with. Um Ninemeister upgraded the car with their 964-993 supercharger kit, including engine rebuilt with new piston rings, barrels, valve guards, tensioners, recut valve seats, refaced heads, rebuilt heads, and new tinware. Then it has Motek engine management, RS clutch kit, rear drive only, limited slip diff. So it's a pretty good um it sounds like a pretty cool setup, but as you say, I think I think what I'd be thinking about doing is can I remove the supercharger and then still successfully run the car?

SPEAKER_00 22:36

That all sounds pretty permanent to me.

SPEAKER_03 22:38

It does a bit, doesn't it?

SPEAKER_00 22:40

Obviously not an expert, but it kind of does, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, so then I guess it would come down to reliability. One thing that I've discovered through um tuning the 991.2, and I've tuned a few of them now, um, and is that you can add more power, but a lot of the perishables are more at risk. Um the valves, the hoses, you know. Um the the cooling at some point isn't gonna be enough, and so you've got to start thinking about non-factory intercoolers to to make sure that you know that that's taken care of and you can mitigate that kind of risk.

SPEAKER_02 23:16

Um yeah, gotcha.

SPEAKER_00 23:18

And so one thing leads to another, to another, to another, and then you're in a situation where it's it's almost impossible to go back to stock.

SPEAKER_03 23:24

Yeah, I I will say, I'm gonna show you this. I will say the kit itself, it it it sort of looks I don't know if you can see though.

SPEAKER_00 23:35

Oh yeah, yeah, I can see that.

SPEAKER_03 23:36

That's it looks pretty ghetto, right? It's just it just it looks like somebody's taken some roof tin and uh yeah, really kind of jammed it in there.

SPEAKER_00 23:47

It's not terrible. We'll we'll we're gonna need to drop that on Instagram so people can see what we're looking at. I I've seen worse. Like if if you've seen the um the uh the the the the supercharger kit you can get for the 991.1 that looks like people have taken a bunch of tinfoil and just shoved it in the back, even more so than that.

SPEAKER_03 24:06

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 24:07

Um at least you can still see the main fan in the middle and you can still see the the sort of the heart of the engine bay, but yeah, that's a lot of shit.

SPEAKER_03 24:14

It is that I mean there's not there's not a whole lot of space in a in a 964 engine bay.

SPEAKER_00 24:21

I I I think one of the things that sprang to mind for me when you uh asked me that question was like, what is it gonna sound like? Is it gonna sound like one of those um you know Ford Escort Cosworths or whatever that make the uh the the gushing sound every time you come off the brakes or you go from shifter to shifter? Is it gonna sound like one of those?

SPEAKER_02 24:41

Yeah, I don't know. But I will say, look at that interior.

SPEAKER_00 24:44

Yeah, that's pretty nice.

SPEAKER_02 24:46

And actually, I'll show you the exterior. It's I mean, that's a killer colour, right?

SPEAKER_00 24:52

It's very nice. In fact, it looks pr it looks relatively similar from my view here to the one that was in video of the week.

SPEAKER_02 24:58

Which one?

SPEAKER_00 25:00

That one. Isn't it video of the week a red 993?

SPEAKER_03 25:04

Well, first of all, this is a 964. Try and keep up with it.

SPEAKER_00 25:07

Oh, sorry. You know, you know what I mean.

SPEAKER_03 25:12

No, the video of the week there is an air cool. Video of the week is a 72.

SPEAKER_00 25:16

This it's an it's a red air-cooled Porsche, which I'm not seeing pixelated.

SPEAKER_03 25:20

Tangerine 72.

SPEAKER_00 25:22

Is it really? No, it's not.

SPEAKER_03 25:25

It's oh man.

SPEAKER_00 25:28

Oh god, this this has just gone from an interesting conversation to off the rails. I on my screen, oh no, fair enough. It is tangerine. I'm now looking at it. Yeah, okay.

SPEAKER_03 25:38

Um, it's just this note to self, never give James a topic to talk about without notice. Good lord. Um, actually, what's interesting on the on the spec of this car is it's running cup twos on the rear and then pilot sport fours on the front, which seems an odd combo.

SPEAKER_00 25:53

Buy it. Anywho. Buy it, find it, replace little green. Now let's talk about little green. What's going on with Little Green? Did you fix it? Well, hold on, hold on, hold on.

SPEAKER_03 26:01

I want to talk about this GT3SC.

SPEAKER_00 26:04

Oh yes, let's talk about this. Please tell me there are people out there that agree with me.

SPEAKER_03 26:11

Uh look, I had a f I had a few messages, and and I must confess, I don't uh I I no longer um admin the Kirbin Canyon Instagram, so I'm not sure whether there's been any DMs via that or not. There have been a few. Um but I I've I've had a few DMs directly from people first up saying to paraphrase uh what the hell is James talking about? The GT3 is not a track car.

SPEAKER_00 26:39

Interesting.

SPEAKER_03 26:40

I've had a lot of people say that yes, it that it is a it is a highly focused road car that is quite good on track versus a GT3 RX, which is absolutely their track car. Now, I I don't think we need to get quite that pedantic about it, frankly. But the way I hear Poinninger talk about the GT3 is that he he positions it as the ultimate get up on a Sunday morning blast through your local mountain passes vehicle. He doesn't seem to speak about it quite so much as the ultimate track weapon.

SPEAKER_01 27:22

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 27:23

Um and so if the from my perspective, if the man who is, let's call him the godfather of the GT3, if his view is that's the use case for it, then I feel like the SC is absolutely uh absolutely meets that use case. So yeah, I I had a lot of people coming out saying they basically thought you were about shit content.

SPEAKER_00 27:51

Well, they're not wrong. They're not wrong. When so when you when you think about it in those terms, that there's the GT3 and there's the GT3 RS. The GT3 RS is the the track car you can drive on the road, or sorry, the whatever. It's it's more track focused.

SPEAKER_03 28:14

Yeah, the track car you can drive on the road. I think that's right.

SPEAKER_00 28:16

Right, right, right. And and the GT3 is then lesser. The road car you can drive on the track. Yeah, yeah, exactly, exactly. Let's put it in those terms. I still am personally upset that they've turned that into a convertible. I I just I just am. There's just something about the fact that the GT3 has never been optioned in a convertible to this point in the last 27 years or whatever since the GT3 was introduced. I think that's kind of where the shock value is for me, frankly, because I thought, all right, well, you know, it's been like this for 20 odd years, nearly 30 years. It's it's that's what it is. That's all and that's all it's ever gonna be. Um, so maybe at some point I can get behind the notion of a convertible GT3, but no, I'm still completely against it.

SPEAKER_03 29:06

It's funny though, isn't it? It's like being against I don't know, Victoria's Secret bringing in a new supermodel. Like, what's the difference? You're never gonna have it. So did you configure one? Did you configure one? Is that what you said before?

SPEAKER_00 29:18

I was on the no, I was configuring my dream GT3 touring, which is now the um, in fact, and I'm now gonna show you, it's now the uh the desktop of my laptop. And it's Oslo blue, yeah. And it's so good, it's Oslo blue, and it's got carbon fiber wing mirrors, and it's got um all of the stuff that I'm never gonna wear. You know, of course it does. It's got the yellow deviated stitching. Uh of course it does.

SPEAKER_03 29:48

I'm just gonna say to everybody that the picture I just saw was a GT3 that has been that is, I think, an absolute picture of restraint um when it comes to it's got stripes on it, it's got every decal you could put on there.

SPEAKER_00 30:07

Oh no, no, it's just got the roof and the hood decal. It doesn't have the door decals. Yeah. No, that looks it looks good. Yeah, don't patronize me now. Uh I love it. No, but yeah, I I was on the uh I was on the configuration the other day making a GT3 Turing, and um I of course I saw the convertible GT3 and I I won't even configure one. I just I don't I don't want to know about it, I don't want to see it. I'm just that's it. I hate it.

SPEAKER_03 30:34

Alright. I want you, you have homework, I want you to configure your ultimate GT3 SC. I want I want to see if you can like make the make the one that is the the the best you can make it that is the closest to one you might actually like, and let's see if you can convince yourself that maybe you're about this thing.

SPEAKER_00 30:56

I just maybe maybe it's beyond the maybe it's beyond the SC. Like I just I do not like convertible 911s. I just I don't like the way they look. I don't like I just I don't like them at all. Uh just at all. Do not like them. And I've owned one of them and I hated it. So did you hate it? I I yeah, yeah, I did. I hated the way it looked uh with the hood up, you know, with the roof up. I I I started to dislike the way it looked with the with the roof down. I hated the cabin noise.

SPEAKER_03 31:29

Which which model was it?

SPEAKER_00 31:30

It was 996.2 Carrera 4.

SPEAKER_03 31:33

Yeah, okay. I I have to say, prior to the 991, they did not look good with the roof up. Yeah. The 991, they finally actually worked out how to make the shape of the roof work.

SPEAKER_00 31:48

Yes.

SPEAKER_03 31:48

Because they didn't have that weird kind of hump back, which was always just yeah.

SPEAKER_00 31:53

I like I re I think I agree. I think they nailed it with the and and certainly with the 992. Um, they've they've nailed the the the convertible. But then in that respect, I'm happy with it because when it's up, it looks like the silhouette, but it's still a convertible. So yeah, yeah. No thanks.

SPEAKER_03 32:12

No thanks. Fair enough. Fair enough. Fair enough. So, what's happening with our cars? Who wants to go first?

SPEAKER_00 32:20

Well, there's not a lot to update on Blue E2E, other than I've had Bluey Tui out on a few drives with our friends at Porsches and Pancakes. And we're gonna talk about that next. So let's talk about Little Green. Last we heard you had a um an issue with your clutch and the pin. Is anything else broken since? You surely have you been out driving?

SPEAKER_03 32:41

That's all cool. Clutch is fine, it's been out driving. I I had heard that um when I'd had it the car serviced before my trip, my ill-fated trip to Tasmania, or the non-existent trip to Tasmania, uh, I'd been told that one of the KWV3s had a bit of a leak and that it wasn't problematic, but we'd we'd probably need to look to have it uh serviced sometime soon. And I'm gonna talk a little bit about Megaloop Rally uh in a little bit, but let's just say that by the end of Megaloop Rally that shock was very much in need of a service. Yeah. And there was uh there was no getting around it. So that's it's nothing catastrophic. It just means uh Little Green is in it with my good friends at 9 Auto, currently with no front wheels on it, as the uh as the front shocks uh are being serviced, they have to be taken off and sent to Sydney. Uh and yeah, we needed to wait a little while for them to get the the parts in because it is a full rebuild basically. And importantly, they do both front shocks. Oh right. So that so that you're not getting this weird kind of imbalance of one having been rebuilt and the other not. Um now it's interesting, right? Because this is the second rebuild I've had on my KWV3s, and and you know, a few people have said to me, gosh, you know, that that's a that's a bit of a reliability issue, no. Um they've done 63,000 kilometres, and I'm averaging a rebuild every 30,000 Ks, which I I don't know if I'm naive, stupid, uh or just trying to console myself, but I don't actually feel like that's that bad for a super high performance coilover that drives on the absolutely disgusting roads that we have here in Australia that are full of potholes and takes huge impact. And I just to preempt the the mega loop conversation, there was a stretch of road where I had so many impacts that were like teeth shatteringly bad. And by the the kind of drive home where I was just on the highway, the steering wheel was turned, I don't know, 10 degrees clockwise while I was driving straight. Oh, yeah. So the alignment had just been destroyed. Yeah, yeah. So so you know, they take an absolute pounding. But um anyway, whatever, they're off. Um, so I'm sure they'll be back in a week or two. And yeah, other than that, it's fine.

SPEAKER_00 35:37

How much does uh an a realignment cost in uh Australia for a car like yours?

SPEAKER_03 35:41

That's a couple of a couple of hundred bucks. Yeah, it's that the alignment's not expensive. Uh the the the shock service is quite expensive. Uh but yeah, an alignment itself, no, that's easy. And uh we've we've really got our alignment specs really good now. So I know that when I get the these particular specs met, the car is just absolutely on rails, particularly that front end. So uh no, it's uh it'll be back hopefully next week. And uh yeah.

SPEAKER_00 36:13

So what you're saying is if if I experience that in one of my cars where I've got to hold the uh the steering wheel off 12 o'clock, um I should not just take the steering wheel off and straighten it. I should actually go and get a realignment.

SPEAKER_03 36:29

I'm I I yes, yes, I am suggesting that would be an appropriate course of action.

SPEAKER_00 36:35

I've never done that. Done that once. No.

SPEAKER_03 36:42

Um so really nothing's happening with Bluey Tooie?

SPEAKER_00 36:45

No, not really. Um, I still haven't got to those goddamn lowering springs that are sat in my garage and have been in there now for two years, Andy. Um uh no, not really. Um we just we've been on a few drives, um, and actually I'm gonna take it out tomorrow. We've got uh an event called Cars and Caves, and so we've got one of those fancy um garage condo cards.

SPEAKER_03 37:07

Any events where you just drive? Yes, no, absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 37:10

Dude, no, no, seriously, absolutely. Um so the uh the idea, so we're let's talk about Porsches and pancakes. So the idea was when I first bought my 9-11, my 996 back in whenever it was 2017 time frame, um I went to a couple of Porsche Club of America events, and our local membership here is called Nord Stern. Um and the first one I went to, it was just a bunch of guys sitting around listening to some dude with a clipboard talking about the upcoming season of meetings, and it was just death by clipboard. It was it was just so boring, and there was it was like a quick informal chit-chat over a cold cup of coffee. Everybody had to put on their name tags, and uh, you know, so everybody knows each other's names. I know, and then and then we got to sit inside uh the the the shop floor of this wonderful uh place called Imala Motorsports, where all of these beautiful Porsches were up on you know the the lifts being worked on, and we were lined up in chairs facing away from the cars, so we weren't even looking at the cars, listening to some dude talk as for an hour with his clipboard going through oh this season we're gonna be doing it anyway. So a couple of us met for the first time and thought, hey, should we just leave and go on a drive? Should we go and do that? And that's exactly what we did. And then the next weekend we went to a similar um Porsche Club of America event, and it was all just again very dry, all about standing around talking, no cars, no driving, no, just just basically dudes stood around in an empty garrison. It was terrible. Now, to be fair to them, they do some amazing track event days, they do some other really good events that um where you go and park, kind of like cars and coffee, but it's like Porsches and Pints and a few things like that. Um, so there are there are a sprinkling of those throughout the year, but at the time, they were the first two things that we did with Porsche Club of America, and they were so dull that a bunch of us just decided to break off and create a Facebook group and let's go driving. Saturday morning, who wants to meet up for a quick bite to eat and then we'll go for a drive? It was that kind of thing. Um, and so it's grown, and we now have like 600 people within the Twin Cities area um as a part of Porsches and Pancakes, and when you put that in comparison to Nord Stern, I don't know what their total membership's like, but they've only got about a I don't know, 1.2,000 or you know, 1,200 Facebook members. And we've got like nearly 800 Facebook members. Now we don't, and many of them are parts of both groups, and and we certainly don't try and compete with Nord Stern at all. But a lot of people that are Nord Stern members are also Porsches and Pancakes members, and they just like the very kind of spontaneous, informal thing that we've got going. So usually once a month at least, we'll meet up at eight in the morning, one of four or five different spots around the Twin Cities, and most of the time we'll just go for a drive and we'll break the drive up and we'll have a coffee midway, and then we'll kind of meet up again at the end, and then we'll depart. Um, and that's been the case very much since the pandemic. Pre-pandemic, we either had breakfast together at the start or breakfast together at the end. But I promise you there is driving. Now, most of the driving in the Midwest is dull as shit because it's just farmland and it's straight roads. But if you if you look at the map and you look at Minnesota um from uh from the north of Minnesota south, basically the the Mississippi River and the St. Croix River carve this this channel and this um this valley almost through the state, and all the roads that follow the river and go off the river are twisties and turnies. Now they only run for a couple of miles at a time, but when you string, you know, like ten of them together, you've got, you know, 30, 40 miles worth of twisty-turney driving. Um but you can imagine if you've got a river road that goes north to south, you're basically driving for a couple of miles, turning right, twisties, turnies, turning left, twisties, turnies, back to the river road, and then you drive another few miles south, and then you go off and back and off and back and off and back. So you're kind of driving this sort of fishbone diagram almost.

SPEAKER_03 41:31

Um I just want to back up a tiny bit. Why is it twisties and turnies? Is it just not just twisties? Uh I don't know. What's the difference between a twistie and a turnie?

SPEAKER_00 41:44

I don't I've got no idea. The twisty, a twistie is I don't know, is a twistie where you just, you know, you gotta do a little left and right and a turnies where you're doing a hairpin. Oh, okay. Yeah, I think a turnies are hairpin, and the twisties are just the the rolling roads. But that's what I'm saying it is from now.

SPEAKER_03 42:04

I always laugh when people in Australia talk about a car being a canyon carver, and it's like, this is not LA. We do not have canyons. It's like I get it, but that makes me almost as angry as people saying outlaw all the time.

SPEAKER_00 42:19

Oh, that's funny. That's funny. I I listened to that one again the other day, and I thought, no, but that sounds that sounds good.

SPEAKER_03 42:25

It is, it is really that sounds good, like that sounds better than I thought. Because I because I literally imagined you drove from one side of the Twin Cities to the other, went to a Denny's, and uh sat down and had a grand slam.

SPEAKER_00 42:40

Oh, you know my lingo. No, you know, it's been so many years since I've actually been to a Denny's. Um but if I was there, I would have moon over my hammies, which is a cheese and ham sandwich.

SPEAKER_03 42:52

Anyway, I've we we don't have Denny's here, but uh I I had a grand slam at Denny's in San Diego at three o'clock in the morning one time. Nice. That was that was a good thing. That was a very good thing.

SPEAKER_00 43:06

Many of them are 24 hours. So do you have something? I mean, you guys go on your alpine range rallies like a couple of times a year, but and you do cars and coffee every now and again, but you have like a driving group, you just random Sunday morning, yeah, get together with a few mates.

SPEAKER_03 43:20

So we'll yeah, we'll we'll yeah, definitely. We'll we'll drive every we at the moment it's probably once a month, and yeah, just meet up on a Sunday morning because the the thing that's so good for us and where we're so lucky, I mean I literally have I have a I have twisties. I mean I have a short twistie that I can drive before my car's even warmed up, literally five minutes up the road. But beyond that, uh the twisties are they start fifteen minutes from my house. So we can yeah, we can meet up in a place like Emerald, which is not far from home. Yeah. And do a Sunday morning drive and and drive in that drive, drive a road like Mount Onabuang or Reefton Spur. Reefed and Spur is one of the best roads in this state. If not the country. It is it is an excellent, excellent road. Now it is a little bit it's getting a little dicey these days because more and more people are driving it. And you know, we did come across a really bad accident there uh oh nine months ago maybe. There was uh there was a Mustang on its roof.

SPEAKER_00 44:34

Oh no. And uh you're describing Tale of the Dragon to me. An amazing road which is getting busy, and then people just a decades and drive off the road because they're not paying attention.

SPEAKER_03 44:45

So there is a little bit of that. But then then oftentimes you you you don't see a single car up there. And we we leave really early on a Sunday anyway. So no, we we drive a lot. I I don't get much enjoyment out of a cars and coffee, to be honest. Uh occasionally I'll go to them, but then I usually end up leaving pretty quick. Uh I I I've got I've got a good, really good group of friends, and they're a lot of the people that we that we do the Alpine Range rally with. And yeah, we just try and meet up and I'll call a drive and just say, hey, anyone around this weekend, the weather's looking good, and and we'll do it. We're we're extremely lucky to have such good roads nearby. And and it's how we're able to make the the mega loop rally work because the idea behind that rally is rather than doing three days of being away, you know, two nights away from home and three days, which is it's just a lot in terms of time away from family, and yeah, and people in the group are at different life stages with young kids and that sort of thing. So mega loop is kind of the idea to combat that, and the idea being that you can basically leave work on on a Friday afternoon, Friday night, drive to Bright in northern Victoria, and then we have this Saturday where we do this insane big loop, this big single-day rally, yeah, and then you're home by Saturday night. And then Sunday you're you know, you're home and you're doing stuff with the family. And so this year we actually a few of us took the Friday off and actually retraced the steps of the Alpine Range Rally one and two, which which is a d a row uh a direction we don't usually go anymore. And that was just great. I mean it was bucketing rain, of course, as is always the bloody way.

SPEAKER_01 46:41

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 46:41

Uh but that was that was it was still a great day, the the Friday, very easy day. And then yeah, we we stayed in Bright Friday night and then up early, early Saturday, so on on the road at 6.45.

SPEAKER_01 46:55

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 46:56

And by uh I don't know what time, uh quarter past seven, we're climbing up Mount Hotham, which is just this incredible road, an act genuine alpine, uh, one of the highest peaks in in in the country and certainly in the state. And we got to the top of Mount Hotham, and I think you'll have seen the photos, it was just this epic, epic morning sunrise. And um, you know, if I if my my desktop right now is a photo of of my car and Al, my my good mate from Flat Six Affair, you know, yeah. It's our cars at the top of Mount Hotham, and it's just so nice, it was just spectacular. So yeah, just an incredible, incredible day, and and you cram so much in. And I mean, actually driving down the other side of Mount Hotham, I was following my pal Gerard in his career tea, and he had two very, very near misses with kangaroos.

SPEAKER_00 47:58

I was gonna ask about the ruse.

SPEAKER_03 48:00

Oh man, it it was the first one sort of bounced across the road from the right hand side, he hit the brakes and swerved, it changed direction last minute and jumped out of his way. Oh my god. And then I don't know, a couple of minutes later, and I was right behind him, so I saw this all happen. And then a couple of minutes later, another one came from the other side of the road, which he thought he hit, uh, but I I could see it it he didn't. He just he like inches this uh this bloody kangaroo then turned and bounced the other way. Bloody hell. So we took it very easy for the rest of that portion of the drive, uh, down into a little town called Omeo, but we stopped there for breakfast, and then after breakfast, you know, it's a little bit later by that point, so they they kind of they stopped moving around so much, and and then we you know we drove the road between Omeo and this place called Mita Middle is just incredible and intense, intense, like high speed, technical, just relentless as well as twisties and twisties, twistees and turnies, just relentless. And I was actually leading and uh had it had Gerard and and Daz uh breathing down my neck, so I felt like I had to really get on it, and uh so I so so I so I did, and at least for the first half of that of that section, and uh it was just incredible. And then later on, when you leave when you leave Midamitter, this is unfortunately where all of the potholes were. Victoria's just there's just so many of them, and I I I seem to hit every one. But I was following uh my mate Rocco in his uh GTS, his Cayman GTS four liter. And this this stretch of road's incredible where you're kind of blasting across uh these this beautiful valley, and it's it's autumn here, right, at the moment, so it's just red and orange leaves everywhere, and then every 10Ks or so, or no even less, every five Ks you get into a little twisty and turny section where it's like three kilometres of twisties, and then poof, you blast back out into the into the valley. Nice, it's just magnificent, and then yeah, I was home by 5 30, took Kath out for dinner that night, and uh, and felt like I'd been away for three days.

SPEAKER_00 50:25

You're a good husband. Good job. Take the wife out for a date after a nice long drive. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 50:31

Yeah, yeah, 100%. Last time I did it, the next day we actually Kath and I drove up to um up to a winery for lunch in Little Green. So yeah, it's a it's a good way to do it. It's a really good way to do it.

SPEAKER_00 50:43

Very nice.

SPEAKER_03 50:44

Now you've got family homes. Well, let's let's wrap this up.

SPEAKER_00 50:46

They're coming soon. We're not leaving before we do video of the week. Video of the week. We've got a red slash tangerine non-964. I can't believe how badly I screwed that one up.

SPEAKER_03 51:00

Do you know? I do occasionally come across someone who'll who'll see a long hood or something similar and say, oh yeah, cool 964. And it's like anyway. Hey, look, this one is a really simple one because it's it's two two minutes, and in fact, it's a it's 60 seconds long. It's just worth watching. It's uh it's been around for nine months, apparently. I didn't know that. Uh, on a channel called Bid2Own, 72911 Hot Rod. They haven't called it an outlaw. Well done. Yay! And it's and it's just cool tracking shots. It's a rad looking car. I just yeah, I love it. It's it's do you know what? It's it's well worth a watch. And hey, James, before we um before we wrap this up, look what I've been building while we've been chatting.

SPEAKER_00 51:44

Oh, you asshole. That I suppose that has to be the cover for this this month's pod. Just look at it, and you not not only this is we're gonna talk about this on a future pod, not only is it a convertible, why have you got the black door sill guards there?

SPEAKER_03 52:00

Um, can I tell you how hard I tried to get rid of the door sill guards? Really? I can't look so good. Because on the config I I have been sitting here for the last 20 minutes going, how the hell do I get rid of that stupid black shark fin? I cannot get rid of it. It's driving me insane.

SPEAKER_00 52:21

We need to circle back to Porsche and tell them to stop focusing on the financials and do more of what's good. A better configurator.

SPEAKER_03 52:28

Would you know what is out as well? I can't I can't remove the roof in the configurator.

SPEAKER_00 52:33

Well, that's just another reason why you shouldn't be configuring that car in the first place. On that bombshell, friends, this is it for another episode. I've been James, he's been Andy, and we'll see you in another pod soon.

SPEAKER_03 52:44

See you gang. See you on the next one.