Magnus Walker and Alex Ross geek out over Alex’s SharkWorks-modified Porsche GT2 (800 hp, 200+ mph) and its brutal rev-limiters, debating why lightweight air-cooled Porsches—like Magnus’s 1972 STR—outcorner modern PDK-equipped GT3s despite safety regulations. Alex praises the 991 GTS manual, while Magnus defends older Porsches’ raw driving feel over tech-heavy muscle cars, citing Jack Olsen’s dominance with a 272-hp 1972 911. They lament Porsche’s shift away from true manuals and authenticity, comparing it to the visceral thrill of Isle of Man TT racing or UFC fights—like Diaz vs. Silva—where skill clashes with danger. Walker’s Urban Outlaw documentary and SharkWorks’ rare modifications bridge car culture’s past and future, proving passion still beats mass production. [Automatically generated summary]
We're live with two fucking psychopathic car fanatics here in the lovely valley of Los Angeles.
Magnus Walker and, of course, my friend Alex Ross from Shark Works, who I drove his car yesterday.
I know you've driven his new creation.
That was, without a doubt, the scariest car I've ever driven.
It wasn't the best environment for it, because it was on the canyons, and it's got so much power, you can't really use it on those canyons, because it's just so, by the time you hit the gas, you're hitting the brakes.
Like, you hit the gas, it's like something around 800 horsepower.
So it's probably got to be close to 200. Oh, it goes over 200. Actually, the way that kit works, it's already, just in a turbo car, it already does about 202 in the mile.
So in a lighter two-wheel drive car, it's above that.
You know, there's always this thing about cars where people always want to add more power.
And as you guys both know, we're in this weird horsepower war now in the world where every year cars have to, if you have a car that makes 400 horsepower, next year it's got to at least make a little more.
I describe it as like Mad Max meets Burning Man on steroids, and it's essentially a DIY drift fest, but essentially these guys, 800 to 1,000 horsepower in a Volvo wagon, and they're drifting sideways around the whole track.
So yeah, the days of 400 horsepower sort of being a benchmark are gone, but I'm sort of the opposite.
Yeah, well that's why I thought it was interesting that you take these really cool, old classic 911s, and if you haven't seen the documentary, Urban Outlaw, you gotta check it out.
Yeah, I mean, most of my cars are small displays, you know, for those that don't know my collections, basically early 911s from 64 through 73, you know, and that really just covers two litre up to 2.4.
Unlike this mad dog and Englishman right here, Alex, where, you know, too much is never enough.
My background was sort of the opposite, you know.
It was more the sort of giant killer trying to chase down the cars with twice as much power.
It was, to me, a bit more exciting rather than just sort of, you know, flooring it in a straight line.
And you can still get a lot done if a car's set up pretty well, because 277, that's a car I've tracked on and off for 12 years, done a lot of club racing stuff, and it's so dialed in that 220 horsepower is pretty usable in a car that only weighs, let's say, 2250. Weight is such a key thing.
That's what I call a flat foot car.
You can keep your foot planted all the time.
Unlike the GT2, as great as that is, you've got to roll into that amount of power.
It's not just traction, it's a stability management.
It was the first time on a 997 that it had, well, on a GT car.
So your car, being an 07, 08 Mark 1, it actually has a more simple traction control system that you can turn off, but it doesn't have stability management like the GT2. So it actually has two buttons.
This orange light comes on, you know, and, yeah, you know it's sort of like...
It gives you a chime as if you've got a problem with your engine.
You know, that same, like if you have a check engine light on a car, you know, it's got this ding and you're like, you know, you're driving and you have this like, you know, orange amber, you know, warning sign.
Yeah, but if you leave a valet guy with a 500 horsepower car, he could kill himself for wrapping around a tree just as easily as he can in a 700 horsepower car.
Yeah, it's probably just a throttle map controller and obviously it doesn't allow you to dig deeper and go higher up to 700. There's a lot of rev limitations too.
I've never let any valet touch my GT3. Well, I had a valet key with one of the first cars I had, which was, you know, like, at the end of 99, it was a supercharged Jaguar XKR. And it was a convertible.
But even in the South, you know, if you said, you know, to your school counselor or career person, you know, I want to be a fucking astronaut, they'd be like, tone it down a bit, you know, or I want to be a baker.
You know, where the guy takes his hat off and he's like completely bald on top.
It'll be like that.
But I think the point I was making is England is a sort of class divided country, whereas coming to America for me at 19, you could sort of do whatever you want.
Imagine going to the biggest, you know, gaming magazines or whatever, if you're a nerd.
Gaming magazines and PC magazines back in the 90s and saying, hey, there's this really cool new technology that I'm playing with, and it's sort of early on, I know, but it's going to make all these video games better.
And then, you know, the editor-in-chief, you know, who's been there since, you know, 1985 just goes, no, that's not going to fucking work.
I'm not doing that.
And so you've got nowhere to, like, express, you know, something cool and new.
So, yeah, the Internet was pretty freaking amazing for me.
You know, I just threw it up there, and then people start reading it, and...
You know, then what's funny is that same company, the publishing company, tried to buy my website like fucking four years later and I said, nah.
We're seeing something similar in America where the Midwest and there's a lot of parts of this country that don't have urban centers and don't have, you There's a lot of people that are there that have, like, really limited ideas of how people should act, how people should dress, what people should do, what religions you should follow.
And because of the internet, there's, like, this embedding of, like, a new culture in all of these areas.
Like, you could go to anywhere.
You can go to the Midwest, you can go to Kansas, you can go...
And you'll find really fucking cool kids who are on the ball, who understand what's going on in the world.
But it is amazing that the internet offers up all these opportunities, and the internet is essentially how I found out about both you guys.
I found out about you because of the Urban Outlaw documentary, which is, look, how else would you have ever watched that documentary if it wasn't for the internet?
It's the sort of classic Porsche go-to online forum and parts supply place.
I had a thread going there called Porsche Collection Out of Control Hobby.
And to me, it was a Canadian film director who was sort of dissatisfied with doing Bud Light commercials.
And more importantly, he was a Porsche owner.
And sort of connected with my story and figured maybe there's a little bit more to it than had been told through my post.
And talking of the Internet, shot me an email, and a couple of emails later, we had a sort of online verbal handshake, and he flew down on his frequent flying miles to L.A. Hired a sort of very talented crew for nothing.
And from my point of view, it was like, what's the worst that can happen here?
I'm going to drive around for four days and get some great footage.
We didn't know what was going to happen with that film.
You know, and we released a trailer, probably...
We shot it in 2012, January.
Released a trailer a couple of months later that got picked up by Top Gear.
And that thing sort of went viral and exploded.
and then the film came out October 15th online and got into the Raindance Film Festival.
And it just sort of went from there, you know, and it's amazing how global that thing became, 'cause I think people connected to the story.
You know, the film Urban Outlaw is not purely about Porsche.
It's about my story of following my dream, which everyone can relate to.
And we touched on it a little bit growing up in England and then coming to America as a 19-year-old Not knowing anybody, but just sort of following your passion.
And my theory is always the same.
How bad can it be?
And that's ultimately the great thing about America.
And I think that's what Tamir captured in the film Urban Outlaw was my sort of spirit, which is a common spirit of trying to follow your dreams and do what it is you like to do without taking no for an answer.
And the past two years since that film came out, It's just been a whirlwind of travel for me and meeting great people.
And I've realized this sort of common bond with all car guys.
It doesn't matter whether you're driving an 800-horsepower GT2 or building a VW in your backyard or you're a Mopar guy.
We all share that same common bond of Loving to tinker with cars, getting out and driving and basically trying to express yourself through the styling of the car and the passion of the car and everything that evolves.
And it is a language, you know, I say Porsche is a language, but I think all car guys share that same common bond.
And I think that's the connection why people sort of related to the film.
He used to have a regular job, and then I think his company's called Brooklyn Cut, and he just started, like, you know, he was like in a funk, and he started making knives almost as a hobby, and then it became his job.
But as he's making these knives, it's like you're really interested in the craftsmanship and his passion and enthusiasm.
That's so addictive.
I don't have any desire to make knives.
If I kick a knife, I cut a tomato, and the knife's done.
I think passion goes further than street smart, than book smart.
So I often describe myself as a street smart guy because I left school early without a lot of education.
You were talking earlier on about the path people go down where they're in school, university, college, you know.
They come out when they're 22, 23, and they've got no idea what they want to do, but they've got all these degrees in education, and then sometimes they just sort of float around.
For me, it was the complete opposite, but just always trying to enjoy life and find things that you enjoy doing.
But the key is never give up.
You know, it's like the guy with the knives, you know, turns what seems to be a hobby passion into what sounds like a pretty successful business.
You know, instead of having like 30% throttle or a 3 out of 10 on the volume knob, you know, he was more at 7 or 8. And he's like, yeah, this needs some time, you know?
It must be something that you also have to get accustomed to when you're coming from these cars that are essentially most of your cars are somewhere around 200 horsepower.
And then all of a sudden you're driving I mean, that thing's almost got four times the amount of power, so I'm used to sort of getting in these 277 type cars and you just keep your fuck planet all the time.
I call them flat fuck cars where pedal to the metal is sort of my slogan.
GT2 with almost 800 horsepower, you can't do that.
Yeah, well, gradual pedal to the metal, you know, to me, it's a lot about variety, and the challenge with that car is trying to get comfortable with it, where you feel confident, where you can push it more and more, and, you know, brake later, get on the gas earlier type of thing.
And it's a challenge to be able to modulate and try and get the most out of that car.
The flip side to it is, you know, driving around town under 4,000 RPM is Pretty docile, just like any other car.
From the first time I met him, really it was about a year ago with the blue car, to the point where I'm crazy enough, I guess some people think, to just go, hey man, can I leave the car with you for a month?
Some guy that's got a video like that up in the canyons.
You see, for me to clarify, I've owned a lot of early 911s, a lot of them.
But my collection's my own collection.
I don't build customer cars.
I think there's a bit of this misinterpretation that people think I'm a tuning shop or a performance shop building customer cars.
I get these emails all the time from guys wanting me to build cars for them or can they drop their car off and I've had quite a few people approach me wanting to do collaborations with other tuners.
So, you know, just to clarify, I'm a collector and I like to get out and drive.
I don't build customer cars.
I've helped my buddies out occasionally.
So when Alex approached me with the car and just sort of left it and he gave me the classic line, like what I think is going to become the all-time classic line for me, he goes, just treat it as if it was your own car and do whatever you want to do with it.
You know, so now I'm down with what I call OPP, other people's Porsches.
You know, for me, this was just a real fun collaboration to be able to put my sort of artistic, stylistic interpretation of the 60s and 70s sport purpose era onto a new car, which is something that hasn't really been done.
You know, no one's really took that 60s, 70s styling and put it on a new car.
And the Porsche world is a little bit black and white, in a sense, just to sort of be real broad.
You're either an air-cooled guy or you're a water-cooled guy.
You know, in a generic term, the two don't necessarily mix, even though they really do.
We'll start there, all the way up to 98. Literally, people that were Porsche guys wanted to jump off a cliff because they thought it was over because Porsche announced they're going to water-cooled, and they were just like, that's the end of Porsche.
If you looked at it, you would laugh because you're thinking like, A hundred and, you know, whatever, $30,000 car, and it's got this plastic piece of shite, basically, linking the floppy, you know, shifter to the cables on the transmission, and that thing would break on cars from 97, because it's the same part in a bog-standard boxer to a turbo, and yeah, we always had to make, like, a billet part for the early cars.
We were up there yesterday at the other side of it.
I had a reception.
It's such a masterpiece.
When I drove it, I was like, this is better than any ride at Disneyland or Six Flags.
I got to the bottom.
That when you drive a car like that on a crazy, windy canyon road with no one anywhere near, that's when you really understand what those cars are all about.
So, you know, I'm a big fan of messing up interiors in cars, but Porsche had been putting plaid interiors or Tartan interiors in these cars since the 70s.
I was just there for the tartan fabric, but I managed to find this tartan that is almost the same colours that are on the car, so I couldn't resist just putting the inserts into the seat just to give it a little bit more character on the inside as well.
I like those three color combos, you know, and just sort of trifecta, I call it.
And like I say, it's an acquired taste, but it's sort of a late 60s, early 70s, race-inspired livery interpreted onto a new car, which is, I don't think you'll see another car like that out there on the road.
That to me is the glory days of Porsche, because 911 came out in 64, they won Le Mans in 1970, so that first 10 years, you know, Porsche just started winning everything in the 911, 917, and that's just like the iconic sort of era, the beginning of everything.
It's become this automotive legend that has gone on for 50 years, and there's only two other cars that have been in production as long as the 911, the Corvette, which got there 10 years before.
Yeah, I've got a 65. Well, you know what I'm talking about then.
And everyone's favorite, the Mustang.
And I'm always floored that people don't do more Mustang-Porsche sort of comparisons because to me...
I mean, just look at all the Parnelli Jones, the Shelby's, the Boss 302's, you know, these factory conversions on the Mustangs.
It's just never-ending.
The 911, in a sense, is sort of a similar thing, and I think the owner and enthusiast of the two cars share that common bond of the cars are easy to sort of upgrade from a performance point of view, personalize them from an aesthetic point of view, and they've both been in continuous production For 50 years, and they're both icons.
You look at Ford, and I think you identify Ford with the Mustang.
You look at Ken Block and what he just did with his Gymkhana 7. That thing is ridiculous.
And I think what this did for Ford, in a way, is bring a whole new fan into Ken Block's world and also the Ford world through this Mustang, which to me just looks like Darth Vader meets Mad Max on steroids.
How come I can't get a manual in 991 GT3? They just ripped the soul out of the GT3 program when they, you know, said it's PDK only.
You know, I get that they have to compete with, you know, the Nissan GTR, the M3s, and all these cars that are basically, you know, automatic, and you just push a button and it does everything for you.
The 991 GT3 is honestly the first GT3 ever that I've been sort of bored in.
You know, it's a GT3 that I've been bored in, and I'm, like, pushing buttons because I see, oh, it's got some new buttons.
What does this do?
Instead of, like, actually going...
You know, wow, I'm really engaged.
Don't get me wrong, it's a great car for a first-time Porsche buyer, I suppose, but that's who's buying them, usually, and not the hardcore GT3. Well, it's rich guys who don't really know how to drive a manual.
I think, ultimately, it doesn't matter what car you drive, but what matters is being engaged and involved in that experience, which covers sight, sound, feel, touch, you know, two hands and two feet.
You know, in the canyons, once you get bored, just all you would do is put, because you probably not even push buttons anymore, but you just push the gas and you're going around and it's like, okay, now what?
We had three channels and then I think it was 82 or 83. BBC One, BBC Two and ITV. They went with, now we're going to unveil Channel Four.
And literally the entire country stopped as if it was a royal wedding, right?
And the very first program was this thing called Countdown, which was like a game show where they'd pick letters and you'd go, I'd like a vowel, please, or I'd like a consonant, please.
And they'd put it up and you'd sort of have to fill in the blanks.
And they'd have celebrities and stuff and they'd go, okay, well, give me an A, give me a letter, and you'd make a word out of it.
And that was the first program to launch Channel 4. And you're like...
You know, my thing growing up was, I'm from Sheffield, so Sheffield was sort of, I portray it grim northern steel town, but it was also a great music town.
You know, Joe Cocker, who recently passed away, was from Sheffield.
But when I was a teenager, you know, late 70s, early 80s, Sheffield was known for its new wave bands, Human League, Heaven 17, ABC, Cabaret Voltaire.
But the flip side to it was Def Leppard, Saxon, heavy metal music.
So Sheffield's always had a great musical vibe.
I guess the current pinup band from Sheffield's Arctic Monkeys, which are sort of really big and popular.
Love those guys.
These northern environment towns, Manchester, Sheffield, Leeds, Liverpool, I think they breed creativity because people are just looking for a way out, something different.
Back then in the 70s, it was pretty depressed, steel mills closing down, coal mines closing down.
So in London, and, you know, they were activists and they were thinking, well, nobody's taking us seriously, but we have something in common with these miners in the middle of Wales.
But they are, you know, being beaten on a daily basis and, you know, just...
We're penalized for being, you know, gay.
And they're like, well, we have a lot in common with these coal miners right now.
What we're going to do is we're going to form this coalition called Gays and Lesbians for Minors, you know, coalition.
And we're going to raise money for them.
And so what happened is, you know, they would raise money since all these miners were out of jobs and striking, you know, on the streets.
So you can imagine in, you know, the 70s, sorry, in the 80s, the early 80s, you know, gay people on the streets going, hey, would you like to donate to the miners of Wales for gays and lesbians?
You know, we're gays and lesbians, would you like to donate?
And the kind of looks and things were like...
Yeah, that's an interesting thing.
Yeah, it's really cool.
So then, you know, they get all this money, and they end up actually getting a lot of money for these miners, and they go visit them in Wales.
They get in a bang bus, basically, and go visit them.
And when they get there, you know, you have to realize that, you know, these are coal miners.
There's probably homosexuality there underneath, but...
I remember that Top Gear episode where he's testing one of those weird-looking TVRs with the paint from the mid-early 2000s, and the windshield wiper actually just flies off.
And then along with that, they listed the desire to live and be accepted as a member of the opposite sex and people who wear clothes of the opposite sex in order to experience temporary membership of the opposite sex.
No, but she got kicked out of the former Soviet Union.
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I remember seeing that Fear Factory episode you did down at the American Apparel facility down there in downtown LA. Speaking of which, our t-shirts are made by them.
Well, the cool thing is actually about that company is that on the labels, you know, we can specify what we want.
So, like, you know, that blue, that bright blue thing, you know, it's not that one, because that's a demo, but we're going to have labels that say, you know...
This was made by, you know, people over the age of, you know, 12, you know, that didn't, you know, earn one cent a month, you know, it wasn't exploited, you know.
No, but when, so 1998, you know, I'm out of university, 97 actually, I'm out of university and I'm doing this website thing and I'm going to, you know what CES is right now?
And there's all these rather nice factories in Taiwan, but you're sort of looking there and going, this isn't made in Taiwan.
They're not actually doing anything.
All they're doing is taking these things and boxing them, and there's like dust that thick on the equipment and on the tables, and you start to realize actually what they're doing is they're making it in China for way, way less.
Well, I feel bad for, you know, 12-year-old kids or whatever in Honduras or wherever it is, you know, earning a dollar a month, you know, to work 20 hours a day to make a t-shirt that I can sell for, you know, whatever, 30 bucks.
You know, I flew into New York, took a trailways bus from New York to Detroit, worked on a summer camp with kids, that was how I got to America in 1986, and then spent some time in Detroit, which looks great from Windsor if you go across the, you know, into Canada.
I will say, though, just for the record, the first car I ever bought, I bought it here in L.A., passed my driver's test in L.A., I think in 1987 when I was 20, at the Santa Monica DMV in a 1977 Toyota Corolla 2TC that I paid 200 bucks for.
No, Matt sort of got it towards the end of the day too, because at first he was like, holy shit, holy shit, this thing's like, you know, and then I said, just ease in, just ease in, and the more time you spend with that GT2, such as a month...
Ease in pretty quick, because before we got to the Canyon, I was in the passenger seat when he was driving, and we did do the 147. Well, he's also like...
I ran into him at the LA Auto Show not long ago, the opening day, and he just happened to be parking in the same spot underground at the convention center, but he pulled into the handicap zone.
He didn't park there, but he pulled into there.
Opened up the door and I took a photo and of course I had to put it up online and of course within like three minutes is all this hate of, why is that asshole parking in a handicapped zone in the DeLorean?
It didn't take long for that to sort of get punchy.
So I take the green card back to them, the original one, and then I'm supposed to come back in three months and pick up the second version of the green card.
I don't get to the appointment on time because, you know, I'm supposed to make an appointment within six to nine months, and I'm so busy with SharkWorks that I don't.
So I come there, the officer there, you know, eventually is like, hmm, well, we're never going to find it.
I mean, you're here like a year late.
So you could either start this process again, or do you want to just become an American citizen?
Have you ever thought about doing something like what Sanger's doing, but doing it with, like, the actual classic shape, you know, 1970s, late 1960s car, and, like, No, you know, I think I touched on that earlier on about I don't build customer cars.
I know you don't, but goddamn what a demand there would be for your car.
There's a demand there for sure, but you know, then it goes for me from being a hobby and a passion to a job and a business, which means responsibilities.
It's like if you come to me and say, hey, I love your car, but...
All of a sudden, it's not my car.
It's your interpretation of my car.
It might have some tweed on it, and it might be pumped up.
All of a sudden, it's got your personality, which is fine.
But then I'm sort of under the pressure, I believe, to make you happy, to build the car to your expectations, your timeline, your deadline.
You know, last year was the 50th anniversary of the 911.
So you could not escape hearing about Porsche and the 911, 50th anniversary issues.
And I think from a story point of view, the builds that I were doing were quite interesting.
But I also think not being your typical Porsche-looking guy, because truth be told, there is a stereotype, especially in L.A., of doctor, lawyer, Beverly Hills guy driving around, never taking his car to the canyons, you know, just more of a status symbol situation.
So I was a complete opposite of that.
So I think from a story point of view, why I got a lot of sort of momentum was a couple of things.
Timing, not looking like your typical Porsche guy.
And also the cars that I build, instantly recognizable as 911s, but just slightly tweaked.
You know, it's the little details that I think separate my builds from the countless other people building cars.
And the one common thread between the fashion, the clothing, and the property and the filming that we do is just putting our own little style on it, which became personality.
And for me, I never set out to say, okay, Here's the 1973 RSR that left the factory, the Porsche factory, and everyone that replicates that car just duplicates exactly what the factory did.
Actually, the only thing he's gotten out of me was a 1-18th scale white GT2, which I just happened to send him the day I got the car.
And the funny story is that Dan, who was here last time, him and I, the first day we got that GT2, we're like, Well, it's not as pretty or flashy or crazy as that blue and orange car.
What the hell?
What we need to do is make a sketch of his 277 car.
So we used Photoshop, or he did, because I suck at it.
And he did a five-minute job of a tribute car to the 277 and emailed it to him.
And I texted him, and he's like, how's the horsepower coming?
Basically, that's an English subtle way of saying, don't quit your day job.
For me, it was really exciting to put my interpretation on a new car.
I'm sort of moving forward in the Porsche years.
I often talk about variety and wanting to experience more of what Porsche's got to offer.
So for me, my original goal was having one of each year from 64 through 73, which covered short-wheelbase and long-wheelbase cars.
Now you need one from 2007. No, my new goal now is to have one of every generation, the seven generations of Porsche, you know, through the G series into the 993, 964, 996, 997, 991. So I want to experience everything that Porsche has to offer in the 911 range so far.
I've covered sort of...
I've driven all those cars, but I've never owned them.
You really love those old cars, and one of the things you love about those old cars is the tactile feel that you get when, you know, you're dealing with a car that weighs 2,000-plus pounds.
You know, and that's one of those things that unless you, you know, I've got really big bolts or really talented, I think you've got to grow into that.
So to me, that's the challenge of trying to get the most out of that car.
You know, and I've sort of been lucky through these guys to be able to drive various variations of the GT3. You know, I've driven in stock form.
I've driven the 3.9.
I've driven the 4.1.
I've driven that GT2. This year, I got to drive a lot of my dream cars, the 911R. I drove a 74 RSR, but I drove three of Porsche's iconic super hyper cars, the 959, the Carrera GT, and the 918. And they all offer, I keep going back to variety because they all do the same thing differently.
And that's sort of what's great about the GT2. It does the same thing, but it just delivers it in a different form.
You know, and the challenge there is, truth be told, that car is done by 7,000 RPM. You're on the limiter, you're bouncing off the limiter at 6,800 RPM and it's done.
Step into 277 that's got a quarter of the horsepower, that thing will rev over 8,000.
Step into the GT3 3.9 or 4.1, those things go to, what, 86, 88?
We're kind of just talking about numbers here, but what my point is is like there's two different schools of thought and two different philosophies that you're dealing with.
You're dealing with, in one school of thought, the cars that you are famous for, which are these really lightweight cars that are very tactile and there's some sort of a strange character to those cars.
Like even when that Urban Outlaw video, when you get into that silver car and you rev it and you're looking at the gauges, it has a feel to it that you just do not get from a modern car.
You know, it's a little heavier, it's a little more modern, it has a cup holder, but it's still got that, that's why I said the golden era is 2007 to 2011, those GT cars, they have, they're all manual.
They still have that link to the real 911. That's why that car has gone up in value so much, you know, all the GT cars, because people that know, and there aren't many of them, unfortunately, and that like to drive, they get it, and they've had older cars, or they want older cars, you know, or their parents have had older cars, and they drive these new ones, and it's like, you know what?
Okay, it does all that stuff a little more comfortably and has nav and all that shit, but it's still a 911. I think the GT3 up to what you've got, the 997, is the connection to what I've got from the 6s and 7s.
Yeah, it's like a baby GT3 because that throttle response, the lightness, the way it feels the road, the way it turns in, it's back to that, I keep talking about it, the five senses, the connection, the sight, the sound, the feel, the smell.
The GT3 has that.
You know, and that's what's great about those cars.
I've yet to own one.
I'm trying to get a 996 GT3, so I think that's the most bang for the buck.
I mean, truth be told, I've been collecting these early 911s for over 20 years when you could find them in auto trader.
I bought 277 at the Pomona Swamp Meet in 1999, and it's the second Porsche I ever owned, and it's evolved into what's become, I think, the car that I'm most connected with.
You know, all my memorable moments and everything you talk about, that tactile feel and the connection and sort of what I think to me got across in Urban Outlaw, the documentary, is it's a common thread that everyone relates to.
You've always got your favorite car that you go back to.
And I describe that being like my old favorite pair of beat-up jeans or your old shoes because you're just comfortable in it.
There's no surprises.
And it's funny, you know, you spoke highly about Matt Raven about the car.
You know, he got comfortable in that car.
Within half a mile where, you know, he was pushing that car.
So the limits are not that high where, yeah, the car's fast, but it's not GT2 fast where, you know, you're not going to get way over your head really quickly.
I think that's the difference.
And that, to me, is the challenge of driving these early cars is, yeah, they're antiquated by today's standards, but it's...
Every time you get in, I talk about driving for me is freedom, because I don't commute.
I walk to work, so 80% of my drives are pure pleasure.
It's like you working out in the gym.
No two experiences are the same, I don't think.
But there's that rewarding satisfaction, I assume.
I don't work out, but to me...
I often say some people like to go to gyms to work out.
I like to get in the car and drive.
That's my physical and mental workout is behind the seat of that car because nothing else matters when you're there.
You're not thinking about what you might be pissed off about or something that's sort of bugging you.
When you're behind that wheel, it is this sort of almost out-of-body sensory type of expression of man and machine on the open road in the simplest form.
When I go surfing, I mean, there's better things to do with your time that are less risky, probably.
Because it is kind of risky to do that.
So driving a crazy, weird, low production car that doesn't make a lot of sense, it's challenging.
But then, you know, why do people, you know, I mean, not to make it sound glamorous, but, you know, why do people bungee jump or why do they You know, I want to do something that's sort of challenging and takes time and it's rewarding.
I remember I got it before Amelia Island last year.
So Amelia Island I think is March.
So barely had the iPhone two years and that's sort of how my life changed in two years was never on Facebook, wasn't on Well, he's still not on Twitter.
Dude, I fell asleep last night on like literally that my iPhone hit my forehead three times and I finally gave up because I was like, what the fuck am I gonna post?
Yeah, another concussion.
I'm looking, and I don't think it's spelled correctly, and it's probably a bunch of weird, winding characters or something.
Well, it brings me back to what I was going to say.
What were we going to say?
There's senses.
There's something about iPhones that drag people in, right?
There's something about being able to look at videos, and you're interacting with your phone.
The interaction that you get with those old cars, the feel that you get, the addiction that you get to getting in those things is very different than the new cars.
And is there, and I wanted to ask you this because you're the expert on those older cars, is there like a point where it crosses this line and it's not the same experience anymore?
And was there like a sweet spot in the production of cars?
Is there a spot where All the technological advances and all the advances in suspension, although they may allow you to get around a racetrack a little bit quicker, especially with like PDK transmissions with dual clutches working at the same time, they do allow you to get places faster.
Is it missing all the stuff that gets people excited about cars?
I mean, because I know that driving an automatic car is fun, it is satisfying, but I also know it's not as satisfying as shifting your own gears, as the feel that you're going to get from a car like yours.
I think ultimately, moving forward, The manual may become a lost art, because you look at kids growing up today that don't know how to drive manual cars.
So their point of reference is completely different.
Most of us here, I think, learn driving a manual car.
And everything you said is perfectly true, that it's the interaction between man and machine which gets you down the road differently in a manual than what it does in a new car, in a PDK or automatic.
And as to trying to nail down a real answer to what is that sweet spot, I don't really know what the answer is to that question.
I've driven almost every Porsche out there.
I've driven the new turbos.
I've driven the new Cayman, which is a phenomenal car.
I've driven the 991 in manual and PDK. And the new manuals are not the same as the old manuals.
It's hard to heel and toe the way the pedals are set up, especially if you've got ceramic brakes.
Well, it's sort of an odd thing when you're downshifting, you know, you want to be basically on the brake and ripping the throttle at the same time, doing it with one foot, so covering two pedals with one foot.
And the early cars, it's really easy to sort of modulate the brake and the gas pedal.
You know, I've often put little blocks of wood on the gas pedal to bring it further up, so when you're all the way down on the brake, you can just sort of squeeze the brake with your right toe.
And roll over to the throttle to blip it, so you're matching the engine refs when you're downshifting.
You know, in a new manual 991, it's a little bit different, because you've got those ceramic brakes that travel on the brake pedal.
Let's say you're coming down Angelou's Crest Highway in fourth gear, you want to make a right or left-hand turn, you've got to go down, let's say, third or second, you've got to go down one or two gears, and you're all the way hard on the brakes.
The travel difference between the brake pedal and the throttle on those new cars is almost too big to roll over in heel and toe.
So, you know, they've sort of come around that with that Sport Plus mode where it automatically blips the throttle for you.
So when I first got in the car, you know, I can get it where my foot's almost on a 45 degree angle, knees sideways, where I can roll off, you know, keep my foot on the brake but still modulate the throttle at the same time.
So what I ended up doing was...
Double blipping.
I'd blip, and then almost the exact same time, the computer would automatically blip the throttle to match the revs, assuming that Porsche thought most people don't know how to heel and toe.
Yeah, there's actually the newest Porsche, which is sort of known as the We're Sorry Edition Porsche for GT3 guys.
What they did is, as I said, the 911 GT3 came out only in PDK. The GTS now has a proper manual transmission, not like the fake manual transmission with the 991. Well, it was actually, you could get a manual, a 7-speed 991 if you really, really tried, but it was essentially just a PDK box, that's all it was, with a freaking gear shifter.
I got visited by BMW, I got visited by Volvo, I got visited by Bent, believe it or not, the guy from Bugatti, but yeah, other than Porsche, no one's ever loaned me cars.
We had the first year at Cayman S. So it's personality, really.
Yeah, but we built the first year at Cayman S as a shop car, and then it got tracked a lot and went up through the canyons.
And I'll say, it's an 06 Cayman S, and we added a bunch more power, lightweight flywheel, better suspension, better brakes, tried to make better seats, tried to make it like a canyon carver.
It was easier to drive fast and it was also like anyone could get in it because it was just really well balanced and drive it fast.
But it was missing, you know, the special engine, the whole connection, you know, the steering wasn't quite the same, the feel wasn't the same.
I mean, it's really nice to have that engine over the back because it's always like tugging at you and you've got to think about it.
Whereas when you're in the Cayman, you can just drive like an idiot.
I do see in my future a space in the garage for a newer Porsche 911. Probably some form of 996 or 997 GT3. But I also just said earlier on I want to get one of every generation.
I also recently bought a 924. Let's talk about Porsche's unloved cars, 924. I bought a 1980 924 front-engine turbo.
That was Porsche's first production front-engine water-cooled turbo.
So my new goal is to have one of each of the three, let's call them, ugly duckling Porsches.
Yeah, I mean, you know, to me, it's just back to variety.
It's like I've been so focused on early, early Porsches, and I've driven, you know, 40, almost 50 of my colors have been early Porsches.
So I've sort of covered that base, you know, I've covered, I've got one of the first year, 1964, and I've driven the tail end, buck end, let's call it, the iconic 73 RS Carrera.
And they all sort of drive, in a sense, Same but different is how I describe it.
So, you know, now I'm back to variety.
You know, what is more variety than a 924, a 944, and a 928?
924, 944 spec series is phenomenally successful, just like the Boxster series.
People email me all the time.
It falls into a few categories.
Obviously, people liking the cars, but my favorite sort of category of emails that I receive is from non-Porsche people that have Maybe seen Urban Outlaw, maybe followed my builds, and all of a sudden are being turned around from being Porsche haters into all of a sudden looking at Porsche a little bit differently.
Predominantly the early cars.
And these are guys that are looking to get into a Porsche for the first time.
I believe he actually has a part, I met Jack over 12 years ago when he was first developing that car and it's gone through several phases and I remember giving him car number 277, ironically I had AC when I first got it and Jack Olsen was looking for an AC compressor and I actually gave him my compressor that I think is in that car.
But cool guy and has really fine-tuned and developed that car.
What's interesting about this is you're dealing with a car...
No, this is not it.
Yeah, okay, this is it.
Yeah, 991. Is he driving both cars?
No, no, they have a professional driver.
And what's interesting is that His car, which is a 1972 car, only has 272 horsepower.
It's very light.
It's around 2,200 pounds.
And the modern car, which is 475 horsepower, PDK transmission, the automatic transmission, the whole deal, all the technological innovation, all the suspension and traction control, and a professional driver.
But what's interesting to me is Olsen is obsessed with his one track, with his one car, and tweaking everything, constantly trying to shave seconds off of his car, trying to hit the perfect line every time.
And in doing so, He's able to drive faster around Willow Springs, which is one of the fastest racetracks in America.
And he's able to drive faster with his 1972 lightweight, low horsepower car than the most modern, most spectacular version of the 991 GT3. That is a lot of power, though, for that car.
But I've driven them enough too, and older cars, you know, because everyone at Sharkworks, everyone at Sharkworks has had, you know, either a 912, like the absolute base, base, you know, oldest model, you know, or, you know, James has had a phenomenal amount of old, you know, rusty cars.
You know, I like some bit more than others, maybe, but...
I like sharks.
I like 911s.
And there's still a connection there.
For me, driving my 1970 911T or my Speedster replica 356, it was nice.
And there's still something there that connects all the way up to the GT3. And I do get that the modern cars are losing it.
And the fact that you can have one of the best-known collector of air-cooled cars, and he pushes the button, You know, to his garage, and he's got, you know, two water-cooled cars in there.
I mean, that says something, right?
I mean, that's...
unidentified
What water-cooled cars do you have in your garage?
You know, air getting sucked in through the carbs or the MFI. It's just a different visceral, sensorial feel that the new cars, they don't deliver the same way.
The early turbos run hot, but my early air-cooled cars never get above 210, 220. Let's say I'm in my turbo, my 76 turbo, and I'm driving to my buddy Marty's, who's at Roscoe and Reseda, I'm on the 101, it's 100 degrees.
That gauge is crawling 240 just because you're sat in traffic.
So the early turbos run hot.
The early sort of two-liter, two-fours that I'm running, no issues.
You know, to me, some of the parts of 277, there's nothing...
If I give you the bill sheet on what that car is, there's nothing really special about it.
But I think the uniqueness of the car is it's developed its own personality.
You know, it's not like it ever raced at Daytona, but, you know, I used to do 40, 50 track days a year in that car with the Porsche Renault Club between 2002 and 2007. But there's no real significant race history to the car.
But I think the connection people have to the car really is a real simple theme and message.
It's like, just follow your dreams.
You know, that was my dream car.
It still is my dream car.
But it evolved.
It wasn't like this.
It wasn't like I went out and wrote a check and just got a new car delivered.
That car was...
You know, I bought it at the Pomona Swapmeet.
It wasn't flared.
I... Talk about customizing Porsches.
Straight away changed the motor in that car and, you know, just made it look more like a 73 RS Carrera.
And that's the great thing about these early Porsches is they're really easy to customize.
You know, we've touched on it a little bit.
A lot of things are interchangeable.
You can take a two-liter motor out and put a three-six in if you want.
That's what Jack Olson did.
Took out his two-four and put in a three-six.
So that's the great thing about these 911s, and they get driven, they develop personality.
277's got personalities.
Jack's 72 black beauty car thing is what he calls it, is also pretty unique and got personality.
You know, the two cars are similar yet different.
That's ultimately the great thing about early Porsches, is they develop character and soul over time, just like Patina.
You know, some people like shiny cars.
I always say, dirt, don't slow you down.
I'm not worried about rock chips and scratches, because to me, Those are memorable moments that are earned over time, and they're earned by getting out there and driving the car.
You never meet a guy at a Porsche event, or sorry, at a Cars and Coffee event, and he proudly proclaims, you know, I've got 305 miles on my 2007 GT3. Quite the opposite.
Ralph has like 68,000 on his 3.9 GT3. They're built to be driven.
70 more now.
Yeah, they're built to be driven.
And that's how you get connected with the car.
You don't get connected by it by leaving it in the garage.
Sure, there's some nice sort of curves on it and it looks cool.
But every time you drive it, stuff happens, you know, if you're driving that particular car.
But they've both got personality, and to me, I think that sort of sums up everything that's great about the Porsche 911. Well, and James, you know, who was up, he's the guy that built your engine, and the other half, well, the other third of Sharkworx, he got to drive the 277, you know, when they went off in the GT2, and I was sitting with him, and he's a man of few words.
And, you know, I just slowly, like, a few corners in, you know, he starts out slowly, because it's the 277, and we're like, oh, we're in it.
It's amazing how many people want to get in that car.
His face is going like this, and I just turn around and go, you're having a good time, aren't you?
And he's like, yeah.
And he drives every day $200,000 or whatever, $150,000, $200,000, whatever they're worth, and builds GT3 RSs, and he gets back in your car, and it's set up nice, it sounds good, it drives properly.
One of my favorite cars is my Irish Green 66 911. And it's pretty much almost in stock form that it would have been in 1966. The brakes as well?
Yeah.
I've changed, you know, obviously pads are new, but, you know, the point to my story is the car's 49 years old and it's the best way that you just described it that I could step back in time to 1966, even though I was born in 1967. It's like you get in that car and it just...
It's the smell of these early air-cooled, oil-cooled 911s.
You know...
I'll go through the process.
You look at it, sight.
You walk up to it, put the key in it, turn it.
You sort of feel it and hear it.
Then you sit in it, put the key in the ignition, turn the key, you hear it fire up, and then you smell it.
And it's a time capsule right there.
Right there, that's something modern cars will never give you.
You know, we've sort of talked for a couple of hours about the difference, but ultimately if I can home it into, you know, Five sensors of sight, sound, smell, and feel.
That is the time capsule that I think you just sort of brought us full circle into what is great about these early air-cooled 911s.
And truth be told, it's probably the same thing all the VW guys experience.
Because it is like this living, breathing, time warp, time travel entity that ultimately doesn't matter really how fast you're going.
You're just in this zone that is...
Yeah, it's antiquated, but it's also pretty exciting and pretty special.
I found it really great, you know, picking up my car that was, you know, from 71, and it's like I'm on the road, you know, in rush hour traffic, you know, with things whizzing by me and a bright yellow, you know, it was like an RS clone.
And I'm sitting there, I've got no AC, no nothing, no cupholders, nothing.
And I'm just, you know, stinking up the place.
But I loved it, man.
It was just great, you know?
And then I got home, I would take a canyon road near me.
Well, that's with your 1965. But with the new with these ones that you've built yourself, has there been new technology that allows those things to be a little bit more reliable, have less issues?
Most of the cars that I've built, like the SDR or, you know, being involved in the process of these cars, I'm still sort of keeping them period correct.
You know, I'm not putting newer motors in those old cars.
You know, you touched on a little bit what Singer's doing.
You know, the difference is they're taking a 964 and sort of backdating it to resemble an old car with modern technology.
For the most part, other than updating, for what I do, torsion bars and stiffer suspension, which, yes, newer components, but yet it's still running, for the most part, the original motor that's been rebuilt, maybe at a higher spec, but it's still, if it was carbureted, then it's probably still carbureted now.
But, you know, it's still, you know, It's like right now I'm building a 67S. It's a car that I've got the louvered fenders, which is my follow-up build to the SDR. I sourced a 67S case and bought some new Mali pistons and cylinders.
And as crazy as this story sounds, I'm shipping all the components to my buddy, Matthias, who's got a shop in Hamburg, Germany.
And I'm going to have him assemble the motor in Germany and ship it back.
So it'll have new components in it.
And it's going to be punched out from 2.0 to 2.5, but it's still a 67S motor going in a 1967S. Well, isn't that something that Porsche's doing now?
Well, it's a Porsche classic restoration facility that they've actually had for some time, but what's happened recently over the past three to five years is...
You know, these cars have just escalated in value to the point where now a lot of these cars that, let's say, would have been trashed five years ago because it wasn't worth spending 50 grand to restore a car that might be worth 30, now that 50 grand car or 100 grand car could be worth triple that.
Like I said, I drove Helmet Box Prototype 959 that Brumos owned.
And really, you know, it was no different to any other 911. It wasn't this brutally just crazy car that they built, the GT2, which is just nap-snappingly, brutally fast.
The 959 is not like that.
I mean, you've got to remember how old that car is now.
So, you know, we were talking about this program called Grandstand, which, you know, on a Saturday afternoon in England on one of the three available channels, and they had this...
Have you watched any Isle of Man racing before?
Those crazy fucking bike guys.
We had a series with these sidecars where these guys would, like, trapeze off the side of the bike, right?
That's all they did.
But they would be the first ones to, like, go flying when the thing crashed.
So, you know, remember last time when we came here with the 4.1, you know, we showed up at Leno's place and Dan was wearing a Hesketh t-shirt, you know, and then we showed up right to his place.
That's how we met.
We went, you know, off to traffic.
And he's like, Hesketh.
And he's like, you guys are all right.
These guys are blue books.
Hesketh, in the movie that you're watching, Lord Hesketh, he was the financier for James Hunt.
But the funny thing about Piers Morgan again is that if you watch Top Gear a lot, he's like the butt of every joke.
Anytime there's anything nasty or disgusting, you watch Jeremy Clarkson compare a car's suspension to Piers Morgan banging him in the rear, and he's like, you know?
The thing that they did with tapping into people's phones is just awful.
Just disgusting.
And the fact that he snuck in.
But it's like, we are a weird sucker for English accents, which is why those infomercials, when they're trying to sell you something, they're sponsored.
When you're like 12, it's scary when you're a small guy and you're the last line of defense as I was and fast.
At fullback or wing.
And, you know, at 12, the differences between certain, you know, nations, because there'd be schools from Tonga and Samoa and New Zealand, and they're like big, gnarly guys.
And some of them definitely weren't 12. They'd like reset a few years.
I mean, I remember seeing you on these UFC fights.
I go around to my buddies and watch, and I remember seeing you on Fear Factor, and I've heard all about these black belts, but I don't really know your story.
About 10 years ago it took off because the ultimate fighter that was 2005 when I came along I came along in 97 I was the post-fight interviewer this is like a long before it was big we used to fly into places like Dothan, Alabama and we do these shows these little what is UFC on now fight number you know if you watch it on TV this is you we just said UFC 182 Wow so the next one's 183 I believe which is a lot of events but you've been with them since fight one No,
12. I came along UFC 12. But I only worked for them for two years.
It was a different organization, different people owned it.
Worked for them for two years, and then it was just getting too crazy.
They were banned from cable.
It was really like more of a blood sport image.
Like, people didn't understand what it was.
No, it had rules.
But it was just the public perception of it.
Like, I would tell people that I worked with that I was going to do these.
The guy that shot these photos for Speed Hunter, Sean Klingenhofer, we're actually going to be doing a photo shoot with him in about an hour in downtown LA. Oh, really?
Yeah, we're meeting him at 3. So how cool is that?
So, let me tell you my Mobile One story real briefly, or my SEMA story.
Two years ago, I snuck into SEMA on someone else's pass.
And if you go back to that, this year I got invited by Mobile One to display two cars in their booth which had three cars.
The other one was a pro-touring sort of 67 Camaro.
That's just how crazy my life had become in the past two years, from sneaking into the SEMA show in Vegas, which is the biggest sort of aftermarket specialty equipment show, to being invited by Mobile One.
I was just reading about it on the cover, blah, blah, blah.
I'm like, all right, we'll go for a ride.
Yeah, yeah, let me drive it.
So I hear him wailing around.
Well, not wailing, just putting around.
Sorry.
Yeah, putting around in the 4.1 GT3 RS. And Dan, who's in the passenger seat, you know, is telling me later, yeah, he's going like, yeah, just one more lap, just one more lap, just one more lap.
And right before he got in the car, right before he gets in the car, sorry, this is going to throw you under the bus a bit.
He's talking to his wife, Karen, and going, oh, I've just got some stragglers in.
I've been with her for over 20 years and that's why I'm the luckiest guy in the world.
First of all, she's beautiful.
She's my Georgia peach and she just allows me to be this crazy fool sort of, you know, Enjoying my life, but without her, I don't think we'd be here today.
My wife for my birthday, before I even had a shop, This is what she got me, was a set of the first Brembo GTR brakes that I could put on my really fast turbo.
And she helped me install nitrous lines when I was, you know, drag racing it.
Is there another way to take those naturally aspirated engines and get them anywhere near as powerful as that 800 horsepower that you have in that GT2? Is there a way?
I mean, have we reached the limitations?
I mean, the limitations essentially on the air-cooled cars, it gets up to like 450 and it's like, didn't Neimeister get, they got a 993 engine up to like 450 horsepower?
And then you probably need an early car in your stable, I think.
And that way you can sort of see how the less is more lightweight, smaller displacement, work a little bit harder approach to getting the thrill out of driving gears.
And then you'll probably have the best of both worlds.
Well, this is a really interesting conversation, and a lot of people, um, Probably are ignorant to the joys of these lightweight, exciting cars like what you have, and certainly to what you're building, these extreme versions of the race-bred 911s.
They're fascinating cars, and it's a group of people that enjoy them, that it generates such incredible loyalty and passion.
You know, it's really unlike most cars, in that sense.
Well, on that TV show, it was called Battle of the Supercars.
It wasn't the world's greatest show, but like I said, they shut down a stealth, you know, that's where they fly all the UAVs that kill all the terrorists.
That's where they operate.
It's Beale Air Force Base.
Like, we weren't even allowed to look in certain directions, and there were lines with people with guns that would shoot you.