Maruns here, let's give him a clap. We do this now, Yes, yeah.
You don't have to clap yourself, no one else will.
I'll clamp myself just when the waiter brings me pancakes. That's sort of fun. That's where I'm at. You're a really interesting character, man. I'm really excited that you're in because I wanted to hear a little bit about your backstory. You growing up, how you got into cars. Obviously you're the owner of Street Effects and you've been pretty much fronting the biggest car club in Australia as well, amongst
other things. Tell us a little bit about you man, growing up and getting into the car scene as a as a kid.
Yeah, well, I think it pretty much came down to the fact that my parents didn't like cars, and I you know, when I was seventeen eighteen, first I got p plates.
In Victoria right, Warren Dite that is the sticks Well, not wrong with Warren dar I'm looking at Warrendar right to buy a lot of that.
It's beautiful.
I love it. It's beautiful there. So yeah, if my parents went away, so I had like a toy t E and Corolla and my idea of automotive excellence back then was probably not quite all there. So my idea of modifications was, I mean, the car had drum brakes, and I would take the break drums off and painted them yellow because I was proud of my I didn't realize that that wasn't a cool thing, so I had I painted my my wheels black and bought chrome like caps.
The outer rims, you know, the clippin out of it had those and yellow drum brakes.
Can I just tell you it's so funny because I feel like we're from the same era because I remember when Fast and Furious came out, the amount of mates that did just terrible things to like Hyundai Excel, whether it be like stabbing the bloody muffler with like a show driver so it sounds like it's going to turn out or whatever. Yeah.
Yeah, I really had no idea. I just didn't. I mean, fifteen inch weeks, I got to set fifteen's and I sat back and looked at the CaCO. Man, they are huge. They looked big on the car, but I remember thinking that is impressive and now, yeah, and I'd sit there with like my parents, like super eight video camera and strap it to the seat to try and work out
what the zero one hundred time was. So I'd use it to video the dashboard because phone cameras didn't have they weren't a thing, yes, so and go pros went any thing. So I had like this this tape camera strapped to the seat and like like like zooming in on the speedo. And then I'd go home and I'm like, oh, I did like fourteen eight zero one hundred. So that
was that was my idea of a quick car. And yeah, I think that the reason I got into it is because my parents were really not a fan of it, and so I'd wait until they go away and then I'd just go buy wheels or something and hope they didn't notice. And it got to the point where my old man, I think his favorite story and like it was kind of legendary and warrendtyed at the time. So I had three Toyter t dns because I didn't learn
with the first one being in a shipbox. I had three Toweter Ti dans and two Starions in the.
Front yard studions.
Yeah, and one of them had one of that someone had put the previous owner had a I think it must have been a thing in like the eighties and nineties to like put canvas roofs over metal. Yeah, right, so they'd put a canvas roof on top of the stadion's metal roof to make it look like it was a convertible, and so of course that causes rust.
Oh god.
So I had this gold starion with a black canvas roof, two red Ta dans, a half cut of a Toyter Truno a eighty six, and a white toward t ning as well, all in the front yard. And my dad came home one day and I wasn't home, and he just cracked it. And I didn't know that he'd had enough, Like apparently there's so many times that he can tell you to get your shit out of the yard before this is the front yard just scattered everywhere. And I came home.
You made hisse looked like like the house of Nelson Mutts from the Simpsons.
Oh it was. Yeah, I can now in retrospect, I could see where the frustration came. But at the time I thought, what's wrong, Like this is perfectly normal. Anyway, I came home and I remember just sitting down, I started eating chips or something, and I remember thinking, what was that weird red thing near the bin? And I went back outside and it was a half of an A eighty six bonnet I cut up, and then I looked around the corner. The rest of the A eighty
six half cut was gone. I'd only just bought. It was like a four thousand dollar hard cut, which now would be worth an absolute mint because I had to pop up headlights and everything, and like the engine, the gearbox, the whole lot all gone. And then I've come back to the house to go, why is there half a
body near the bin? My dad goes, because I ran out of angle grinder bits and or discs, and he'd sat there cutting it all up, and he just because I think the warre and I had been put on town water, so they got the sewage a bit of the septic tanks, so that was all cracked open, and he'd started pushing all my cas st up into the septic tank and then buried over it. And so I've got like a four a G motor, half of a eighty six, bits of thad and rear end like Sileika stuff.
And yeah, the only reason that more stuff didn't go in the binner is because some the septic tank was full and the bin was hit that he couldn't cut up any more pieces to fit in the.
Rubbish, so he Jeffrey damage your car.
Yeah, so that was probably why I got into cars, because I was trying to rebel.
Yeah right.
My parents were always into the Toyota full drives. That's where my Twitter roots came from.
Yeah. Right, so you've always been into jdm's Yeah.
I think the twiter thing was just because my parents told me that was the best car in the world. Yep, and then gladly they got rid of their Volvo. Before that part of my life, before that part my brain developed.
Yeah.
Yeah, and when did when did street well what is street effects and when did it officially start to become you know where it is today, which is like ten million followers on Facebook and other social platforms.
Yeah, well that started because I was kind of living halfway between Melbourne and Brisbane and I had a drift car, just one Ady SX with the SR twenty six speed, and I was doing the super cheap Auto drift competition and I on the practice laps, I hit the wall, rolled the car on the roof, skipped along on the roof, because at the track they had put the tires on a forty five degree angle and made it like a ramp.
And I mean, obviously talent came into it as well, just a bit, you know how, like everyone likes to run the wall. That dragged the rear corder along, and I didn't care about the car, so I try and tap the wall, and I hit the wall just a little bit too hard and it flicked the car right back around. Because I was on full lock left, it ended up driving up the wall and then ended up on the roof, skitting along on the ground, which was actually it didn't feel as impressive as it sounds like.
It just was like kind of like a slow oh dear, that was not ideal, And I pushed the car out onto the street. I had no money at the time, so I pushed the car out onto the street little bit away from the drift track and called RACQ and said, my car won't start because like when you started, it like oil would like it was full of oil because down and I couldn't drive it in the condition it was in. It wasn't actually even registered. I think I
was driving it there on temporary permit. And yeah, I pushed it like one hundred meters away from Archfield drift Track and caught RCQ. They came out and they're like, has this been an accident?
I'm like, nah, no, what makes you think that?
Yeah, there's like the windscreens cap and it had a rollcage, so it wasn't too bad. And then they put it on the truck and took it home and all that, and then I'm like, what am I going to do with this car? I got like this car, so I rewind just a little bit. They'd said in order to take it into the super cheap drift comp the car
had to be presentable because of the shipbox. They said that wasn't acceptable, and I had to put some to get some money together, I had to put some stickers on it, and everyone was charging a fortune for stickers, so I bought a sticker printer. It was like twenty eight hundred bucks for a roll and stick a printer that could print and cut. It was a very basic thing for the time. And then that was cheaper then because it was going to cost four grand to get
the car stick it up. So I'm like, well, I've paid to spend twenty eight hundred bucks and then so I just bought this cheap sticker printer, and that's where after I buggered the car up, I'm like, I got to make some money because I got I got to fix the car. And then I'm like, well, I got this printer, what can I do with it? And I started making like little break tail light decals that stuck over the top of the third brake line, so if you hit the brakes, it would show the make of
the car. So you'd put like one eighty sex and you'd put it over the one out your sex third brake lin and so you'd hit the brakes and then that would glow that color. And then I just posted them all eBay and they was selling for like twenty bucks each and they were costing like sense, so literally I was making I was printing twenty dollar notes with this thing. So within probably three months I paid the printer off. Also I had enough money to repair the car.
I then went I bought I didn't. I didn't end up reheading the car that time. I ended up buying bigger printer YEP, that was like like a twenty thousand dollars printer instead. And then that's just where they come and he started from just from that.
On eBay basically.
Yeah, it was kind of like a little spark like that and it just started everything.
Yeah, it was all just because I had a printer and I rolled the car and I needed to do something to try.
And get some time and an empty bank account.
Yeah yeah, I mean my bank acount is still empty, but now I've got more cars.
So because this is the thing a lot of people, they kind of don't really understand I guess the quantum of what you can earn online. So you kind of went from selling stickers with street effects. You then started a Facebook page and it sort of grew from there. Ye without sort of talking exact numbers, if you were to put a number on how much you were able to earn off the internet that is stickers, Facebook and
doing all that sort of stuff. For some of the people that are listening, I think they will be blown away with like the amount of money involved in all this.
What kind of number would you put on it.
Well, we've moved from stickers now we're more doing car parts, so we can be doing anything from supercharger kits, wheels, exhausts, all that sort of stuff on body kits and everything. But in e commerce you'd be I mean the company I'll be speaking on the spot seen years or so. It's got to be close to one hundred mil by now. In turnover, I.
Mean that that all right, I'm gonna do that.
Later.
Yeah, that's it, just an EPSOM forty one six. Yeah, that's the thing.
A lot of people don't understand that that the Internet. It's a little different today because today it's much harder to monetize stuff. We're seeing on YouTube as well that they just take so much money. But back in the day, you could earn money off selling things off online. You could earn money off content, you could earn money off buying page.
Any money off that.
If anybody knows about e commerce, it's friend Paul here. I mean, I don't know if you're familiar with his only fans, but it's it's basically called pavlanismeal dot com.
And his meal.
Oh wait till he gives him a sugar cube. Wow.
But yeah, online is absolutely huge. So you've got an audience now of ten million followers on street effects, you're still selling parts out of Brisbane here. Yeah, you've obviously blown most of that money on useless things.
But yes, I mean yeah, well, I mean that none of the things that I've bought work anyway, so they're all just pretty much in garagees Bustard.
Well tell me you you also have have had relationships and still obviously do have relationships with a lot of the big YouTubers overseas, And I think the big difference between Autralia and overseas is you hit a cap in Australia pretty quickly on what you can do and what you can achieve, but overseas it's a different story. You're friends with Cletus McFarland. Can you run everyone through his backstory?
And if you don't know who he is, he's a massive YouTuber that but hopefully he's currently alive because there was the hurricane was like running through the Freedom Factory and who knows where there's his third time that's gone under water last year. Yeah, can you run us through his background as well? Hanging you him because he he kind of has a character.
Right, it's a bit of a persona.
Yeah. Well I met him through Kyle from thirteen twenty video. They've come over to Australia and hung out with us and we've done some videos together. He was the one that shot the video of the lambeo versus GJ. I think I'm not getting it. I'm burying myself for getting back to that. So, yeah, he was one of their staff members. I think, just help. I don't know if
he did videos. I know that he worked for thirteen twenty and then they kind of just I remember one day Kyle said, Hayking, you promote this clean to sect. I watched the mate. I didn't get it, Like, what is he talking about? I didn't really understand what, Like it was a whole persona from the start. They had a plan right in place, and honestly, I just didn't get it because like it must have been American thing, but it was a bit of cultural difference. So I
shared this. I still didn't understand what their point of this guy was. But yeah, it just grew from that, and then he went out on his own and now he's got he owns a racetrack. I think he's bought a helicopter.
Yeah, he's got like a pilot's license.
Yeah, because there's a lot of those YouTubers over there that and we've seen that blow up recently with everyone leaving Donut Media, everyone leaving all the other established sort of companies at all going out on their own. And it seems to me like they have different degrees of success with it. A lot of them who relied just on YouTube revenue or realizing that it sucks and you don't.
I think the most I've ever made on YouTube is maybe six grand US a month, Like it's not enough to I mean, I spent them more than our camera gear. Yeah.
Yeah, it's not a career.
It might be worth it if you're getting endorsements, but it's not worth it from the views.
That's where it all comes from.
And I can see with him, he's he's earned enough through endorsements and doing other stuff to.
Be out with guy fan base and he can do merch and that's where merches, good bank comes from.
That sort of yea, yeah, merch. Merch is absolutely huge.
Some of the other characters overseas that you may have met early on that have made it big now, any others that you sort of popped to mind?
Oh, Like, like I said, Kyle, he's had a great business model doing his thirty and twenty video stuff, probably a little bit more professional than the cleadest thing it's more like that they've got their core. It's not like fun as such. And then there's like Rob Duhmond Robbed built.
Was he the one that built that that crazy rota that was it like a.
Ten hours old drive he put the oil drive road. Oh no, there was that one that you're talking about, the twenty six Leader that was built. But that was one of the biggest stories that we did back in the.
Old car all those days that one's been through the ringer off.
Yeah, like the golden the gold.
Yeah.
The funny background here is that that I've known Mark for a while and I think we're probably exceeded the the.
Statute of them.
But we used to to kind of in months where we needed extra traffic to the site, we would come to Mark for any viral stories he had, and there was that gold gtr was like a source of almost infinite gold rows of traffic for us, closely followed by Old Mat with the twenty six Roader.
The twenty six liter Rotary and yeah, the twelve Roader. Yeah.
It's it's crazy because you could basically write the story, share it on social and like on Reddit, and you would get.
Go nuts again every time you recited. We just had like that, they just were part of the rotation. We just just it just refreshed and then you just change the words a little bit, like you'd never guess what she did this time.
That's probably a lot of stuff.
Yeah, speak of speaking of YouTubers, I love there's a guy in the UK, mattter Armstrong, who I'm sure you're familiar with, the guy who would take like ridden off like Lambeau's roles. He's done a really impressive thing with their roles lately. He's been getting a lot of influencers like ridden off cars and fixing those.
But like that cock head the other day, mcclar, that guy, he's such an idiot. He's the one that picks fights with people. Think it's security a step in.
Did you see that Gordy He was driving he's McLaren something like streaming and he was it was like seventy miles an hour in the sopping wet and he aquaplane, hit a wall, continued live streaming while someone extracted him from the car, but then he shut off. Yeah, but is in the car with his head bleeding and he's like, oh my god, my car, my car, my car, His mate gets out, He's like, oh you okay, it's like.
Hands in the camera. He goes, hey, keep video.
He has just absolutely copped it online.
And he lives off the hate. Like I don't understand he makes money because nobody likes that clown. Everything I've watched of him, I just want to punch him in the face.
Yeah, but I bet you'd go back and watch it again, do you know what I mean? Like people love watching that shit.
It's especially people love watching negative stuff. Yes, it's just I mean back when we used to have to make up articles before those fact checking stites came in. Do you remember that Ty Lopez guy that was always going on about like here in my garage, you got my Lamborghini. Knowledge is more important than Lamborghinis that if you ever want to spend a little bit of time looking through look up Ty Lopez crashes Lamborghini.
Oh this is so interesting because he's coming up in my feed recently for his podcast or something.
So I unded a company previous to a lot of this stuff called Epic Media, and we used to just just the whole thing was just to get viral traffic in order to make ad clicks, right, and then ninety percent of what you see on the net is all fake stuff, like, so we just make up news articles that looked like they could be realistic that everyone wanted to click on, like man gets Dick stuck in ATM for the fourth time, just start following me, all right.
And then there was this picture of my mate Scottie South and I put him on all of them. He was always the guy getting his junk stuff in something. He also he started a flab in the bow and mango like when it got when it disappeared, like there was just all these news articles had his face on them.
So anyway, we made these ones where because tyler Pez was spending mad bank on YouTube, it's like I think he just dumped millions of dollars to be the intro to every car or lifestyle video in that period of time. Would have been probably when was this shit, Probably circa twenty sixteen something like that, And so we just made
articles that were bouncing off other popular keywords. So at the time tyler Pez was was popular, and so we we just sort of said tyler Pez crashes car while reading a book on in the Beverly Hills, because that's what he'd always says, he goes here in Beverly Hills in my Lamborghini, and so we goes he crashed while reading a book, and then, like his interview, we made a fake interview. It was just like, yeah, but I
absorbed the knowledge. Look, so we made this article. And then nine day I woke up and I see him doing a podcast going I didn't crash my way again. I'm like, yes, he had to do a media release. It wasn't him. And then we did one justin Bieber crashes Bagatti Veyron and we just found random pictures whatever stuff like this. Yeah, there's great times. That's so good.
I don't wish his celebrity to crash a car at all. But me, I mean, I hear.
He's really nice, but I just don't like his voice.
He's nice in a kind of well. I graduated off the university and then I owned a medical waste company. Now I earn a this rare Bagati. Anyway, the museum. He's my impression of SMI. I've got the half zip. This is great for an audio format. Anyway, shut out to all our Here you go, got my jumper rolled up. Welcome to the museum. Please don't look into my finances on the Camon Island. Shout out to Smid please come into the podcast. That'd be great.
So tell us modern day Mark, what are you driving at the moment?
What's in the garage? So you rock up in a nice sounding Mercedes down there?
Yeah, that's the Daily's the S sixty three probably the I'd have to say it's one of the best cause I've ever bought. Yeah, I love that thing.
Well, you know what's funny those cars that were like half a million dollars when they were in.
Year twenty or four thirty.
Yeah, they're now so cheap. Yeah that it's almost like, you know, you could donate them to the homeless.
There's they're that cheap.
But I'm going to wait for these text messes come in.
But yeah, it's yeah, they're they're they're calling what have you done to it?
Down? Pipes tune and I think that's it. It's got a lowering module as well, and twenty two's but I broke the busted for like all four wheels when I went and did Bathurst.
That'll do it. Yeah, what else is in the garage.
I've got the thirty five g DR that's pushing around fifteen hundredheel horsepower nice, which is broken. I got a toy A eighty six with the pop ups yep with a Panda initial d paint scheme with a SR twenty six, also broken. I had a thirty four g DR baside blue vispect to broken, but it's actually not broken. It just got a busted exhaust manifold gasket and that bought Simples. That one's an easy fix. But I bought sight unseen. It came up. I think some Lebo owned it in Sydney.
It's so good, yeah, and it turned up. It was because like that. I bought it when they were expensive during COVID too, and so I felt sick when it turned up because it looked good because they'd done an engine out paint job right, because like I mean, the base side is such a pretty color, and I saw the photos of it. I'm like, I got it for a reasonable price because I knew it would have had Is it real? Do you know?
It's real?
It's got some history behind it, like back in Japan, but it's for my purposes. I didn't want to be paying six hundred thousand dollars, which is what the going rate was at the time, so I got it for a good price and then it's still I think it still.
Cost me more than my merk.
But when it turned up I felt physically ill because like the interior, whoever had put the car back together had just slapped it. All the clips were snapped, the TV didn't work like, it was all lines through the screen, the steering wheels all rady, and so it just yeah for an old Dat's and I just thankfully it's the cost has been forgotten now and then I stand probably sixty grand on buying just the interior, trims and everything to redo.
So you fixed it all.
I fixed it. Now it's mint, but it still makes me feel pained. I remember that feeling of turning up and like they put like stuff in backwards at the gearship and it's one wrong and yeah, it was just all half after that didn't have like the accelerated pedal was zip tight on and like all particular stuff. So yeah, like that that's that's now it's all beautiful and mint. Now it just sits in the garage, So what not
the point of buying that thing was? And now of course they've dropped like one hundred grand.
Yeah, cars have just yeah, yeah, great, that's gone. That that honeymoon period's done. I'm going to ask you what's your favorite Japanese kutter to modify. I mean, it seems like the Toyota eighty six is a brilliant blank canvas in a lot of ways, as.
Long as you don't do what I did, Like it's just a waste of money. Yeah, I'd never start with anything like the open the box of motor. It just can't get the power. You just know, whether it's a Soubreu or a Toyter with that box of motor. I don't think that you're going to ever get reliable power out of a boxer. Just in my personal experience, it's like dicing with when you get an R seven, you know it's going to make you upset one day.
Oh yeah. RX seven's a beautiful look.
At just terrible like the engines will make you cry.
Yeah. I had a friend of mine that had one that he started off stock and then he gradually did more and more work to it to the point where it was it was using so much or every time you drove in it you smelt like oil and petrol, no matter how much money he put into it. You always stank it sounded unreal though, like that wrote of sound is so cool.
Yeah, I love like I want to buy a triple Beer, a triple Roader twenty big one a mate Scott that I've got Marne, which I'll do one day. But yeah, I wouldn't go down that path of the road or again unless it's that specific one.
Yeah.
Yeah. Aside from that that supers got a bit of a super collection. I had the Mark five have sold that now. That remark FI is probably my favorite modifiable modern car yep like that on the track was blisteringly fast.
But they stopped being modifiable, didn't they because we bought ours at the same time. Then they did the slight update and they changed the ECU didn't know.
I think that's fixable now. I think ECU to the States, I don't know enough about it. I got out of it after so I got one of the ones that was modify and then but Tyta, they don't sponsor you, do they No? Okay, So I got the first one available in Australia. I was very lucky to get that, and then I had a brilliant track season in it like I did two three, seasons in it car only had fifteen thousand k's on the It was all very basic mods like just exhaust, intake, suspension, brake pads basically
is all I did. And I thing out of tune and run a eighty five or not even flirty five like e fifty because the injector aren't big enough to
run flirty five. And then that it just started misfirring at the track one day and wouldn't run, and the the variable cam timing it snapped the thing that holds the rockers on YEP, and then it lost all pressure to the very cam timing, and that went into like Toya basically said, we don't know what's wrong with it, but you'll have to per hour to figure it out, because they didn't have a book to say what was the issue, and so they expected me to pay an
open check book, and I said, well, do you want to learn what's wrong. You've never even looked at one of these motors before, and effectively ended up going to a BMW specialist SSCC. They popped it apart. It turned out that it was just this one bearing cap had actually cracked, and it had cracked because the bolts weren't done up tight from factory. Oh wow, so they were all loose finger tight.
Wow, the whole row of them. Unbelievable.
And then Toyota just said, nah, bad luck, it's been on the track. I'm like, you literally flew me to Melbourne to drive one of these on the track.
You know what.
That's the shit thing with Toyota. They burned customers in the States recently with gr Corollas because they were claiming that they were overdriven track all that sort of stuff. Actually had one or two of them burned to the ground because they just spontaneously combusted while people were driving them, and they just denied all those warranty claims. Yeah, I just think they need to be more like Yeah Day, where.
They have such a great company to work with as well foundays like yep, if you take it to the track, can and they'll do a day two for you. It's like a free track day with hyn Day. And if something goes wrong then they will still warrant it.
That's proper confidence in the car.
But I remember back when the thirty five GDR came out, there was the track day that they ran on saying it might be in Melbourne, and then they denied warranties for any of the cars that turned up for the track day and they said, now your brakes aren't covered.
Unbelievable, a peculiar thing to like offer to the market a track car or a car that's effectively like a track car and then not honor the warranty because you've taken it to the fucking track.
So that's what they wiped their hands of it and said it's been on the track and in their terms. Because I remember you were at that track day at Philip Island, someone specifically asked I don't know if it was somebody asked, what is the track warranty on? This guy was really very dicey about it.
It was something like we always support our customers.
It was like he wouldn't. And then eventually he got cornered because I've got it on video of him saying we do have a track warranty for non competitive track events. And then I think you were asking what does competitive mean? And then I think it came down to that you don't get a monetary prize or something like that, which I can't understand. Hind day is similar. You have something
that be you're not something. Yeah, but I mean if you want any of these places, if they want to, they could say it's time by who is it, by the natsoft software, by your own motive off phone like that. They've got plenty of ways out of it. But yeah, I remember him being really cagy about the response, and I brought that response up when I had my letter to TWITIS, saying can you come to the party with
this repair? And then in the end they just said, well, it's modified anyway, and so they fell back on that, even though it was not the modifications that caused it. I understand that it was going to be a battle, but I was hoping at least they would want to come to the party and maybe helping to see what the problem was, because I thought that would be invaluable experienced for them to say. Anyway, a couple of there'd been fifteen, twenty of them, these other cases the exact
same thing. Yeah, right, so I'm isolated case. I know of another one at least at the garage that does my worker's had the exact same thing, which is how they knew what to look for, because it took six months to find someone that knew how to fix the problem.
So it's safe to say that you won't be buying it toider again.
Man, it turned me off it, Like, that's why I didn't buy. I bought the j I RS, but I sold it for in Australia because the driving position and.
It was it's weird, ye horrific.
I'm looking I'm not even that at all. I'm looking down at the revision on like a plinth. It just feels so uncomfortable drive. And I knew that I was planning on putting that making an off road car. I was going to jacket up something stupid, and I just wanted to take it to Fraser Island or something, just because I had such good overhangs, Like it had no overhang so you could actually take it off road. But that was my plan for that. I wanted to jack it up, put you know, two inch left and thirty
one inch tires something. But then I just saw myself. I'm like, I got it when it was a thirty nine thousand dollars carp and then I sold it for I think forty eight Yep.
People did that, the only car I've ever.
Made money on.
But yeah, then they offered the gr Corolla, which I was considering, but I think in my defiance, I ended up saying I'm not buying another car on too, because you scream me on that. But then all I did is just probably tear up ten ground bym not buying and selling. But yeah, no, look, I don't have a
problem with the titter thing. I just it was a bit upsetting that they the way that they dealt with that that case, Yeah, don't makes sense, but yeah, that that's probably my pick of the I suppose you could argue it's not a Japanese car.
Yeah, well, yeah, it's sort of Japanese badge.
Yeah, but that's that's honestly, like we were beating GD three Arres's around the track with mild mods.
Yep, it's a highly capable card like it's very and I heard they're about to do one with the is it the s uh which BMW engine, the one out of the M three, So they're actually going to have like some proper meat under the bonnet as well, So it could.
Be interesting going to do the S fifty eight or associate.
Yeah, I think so that that.
Been rumored, that's been rumored for a couple of years. I'd be interested to see it. Although that rumor of the six speed, no one said.
Never going to happen, and again it happened.
Yeah, that was I was honestly surprised because at that thing, the guy I said not going to happen, he specifically we had an interview with him where he said auto only and it's because not just from a monetary.
Set, but it's a better box, which definitely it's like it is, but you'll still do a manual anyway.
Yeah, yeah, I didn't expect it to ever happen. Then yeah they did.
Wow. So what's a what would be historical or fairly modern? What would be a Japanese style sports car that you would be quite happy to leave alone or maybe just do a few sort of things for modern convenience to it. Like I A. I had a two sixties Z once upon a time, and I kept it like so original, like it was my thing. Everything that went wrong with it, I'd fucking spend as much money as I could to keep it o G. And the guy who ended up buying off it buying the car from me was my mechanic.
He was a young dude, and he ended up just modifying the crap out of it, like really putting flares and all sorts of things on a different engine and stuff. And I remember at the time I was like really sad and horrified, but I can looking back on it, I can kind of see why. But yeah, would there be any sort of would there be a Japanese car that you would quite proudly like leave fairly og?
I mean, does an LFA count?
Yeah, I think that works.
Yeah, that's that's probably my favorite car in all history, the sound of that. I've been lucky enough to drive one. I would, I would, Yeah, I would do some terrible things to do in one of those. But from a realistic perspective, that's probably not one i'd say. I mean, even like supers and GDRs are not a very good looking car, completely standard. They're cool, but they're not a great looking car. They look nice when they're done up, I think, but yeah, look,
I don't know, it's a tough one. I think probably one of the better looking cars. I love that nineties era. I like the GTO or the three thousand GTS a great looking car, and I don't think you need to do it because they're a terrible car on the track. They're just too heavy. They're not that fast, but they look fantastic.
Yeah. Are they reliable though?
No?
Yes, no, it just goes well with anything I buy it. Yeah, well there you you should definitely look at getting one.
If I wanted saying reliable and be decent, I'll probably go.
The super Yeah okay.
But then I want to do a body kit and then we then lower it and then maybe more power, and then it's just so you it's gone completely a throused from what you asked.
I'd like to drink out like a like a like a Toyota Century or something like that. It could be fun just to kind of the modern age would be good.
V twelve Yeah, but V twelve is reliable. I think they were pretty solid.
They were way underpower, like they were deliberately just made to like last forever. Yeah, I like the one you said, great engine.
Gordy, you've put a call out for questions on social what if we got from Mark.
Let's do it, Let's have a little let's a deep dive.
I'll ask you one more. Well, Gordy's look craziest car experience you've ever had.
There's one this weekend that I can't talk about yet. Oh in relation to Bathurst?
Interesting? Okay, So well, can you not talk about it because it's this weekend?
Depending on who wins? Ah, this one team. If one manufacturer does not win, I don't think it can never be talked about.
Okay, Well, please get back in touch with us if you.
Can talk about it later.
That's a story.
Interesting, okay, Okay that one.
Crazy car stories. Come back to me on that.
I think, Gordy, this is from Intrigued Coop. So the secondhand market is settling, but not for commodols or falcons.
Story of your life.
Yeah, not for commodols or falcons. Will they settle or do you think dealers are trying to get their money back?
Well?
Can I just offer it my two cents here?
I think that people confuse what they see on car sales with what is actually happening in the real world. You can ask for whatever price you want on car sales. But if you go look at some of the GTSRW ones that are listed for sale on car sales, car sales now lets you see price insights, and it lets you see revisions on pricing.
Some of the pricing has changed like twenty.
Times over the past three years, and some of these cars have been listed for three years. So I think that that that type of market really is driven by the buyers at the moment as opposed to the sellers. And if there was a car there that you really wanted, it really is a buyers market. You just need to find a seller that is desperate enough to want to sell. I don't think you're paying sticker price in any of that stuff. Is that your experience mark with some of that classic stuff?
Yeah?
I haven't really bought anything new and cars since the COVID craps.
Yeah.
My only experience recently has been like that thirty four GDR.
YEP, which you're overpaid on well to the Lebanese man, yes.
Yeah, I look it's settled, that's for sure. But I don't really know much about the hold and reformed. I've never looked at any of that ever.
It's because you don't have any fucking class.
Actually, this is one from Sean Launder. Did he get the blood off his floor after someone tried to break into his garage?
Yes, that's been cleaned up, okay, thankfully, Yes, and then we never found No. No, there's another one.
I don't know why we've got this one. This is from Top Good Bakery. Oh hey, guys, what's next? Does Gordy provide the guess? Well, I'm sorry, there's no socks today. We had to stop after Trevor pizzas. That is actually a true story.
Yeah.
I was like, hey, Trevor was going to go grab a piece of pepperoni, and then the fucking boxes.
Were just all empty and just strewn all over the place.
We had to put it into context. Mark, we had three pizzas. Trevor took two of those pizzas and put the other pizza in the middle and ate it like a pizza sandwich.
What like a whole pizza as a sandwich.
If you saw him, you'd understand he's a tech review.
I don't worry, we don't expect he's on the.
So now I'm now, I'm like, I'm envisaging the guy from Simpson's the comic book Guy.
Very similar. I don't know if you I don't know if you ever read Rolldale's Twits when you're a kid, But the big, fat, hairy bastard, that's pretty much Trevor Long. I could not join an episode without a Trevor Long joke.
I mean, I know, and now I'm getting into the minutes terrible. It's so insulting.
Well, he's never.
Coming back here again. I literally can't afford the fucking shopping bill for his rider.
Between that question, No, there are no snacks. Gordy does sometimes provide snacks. We're in the kub I s studios where Gordon works, and they have quite a healthy stock of free.
Things, bottles of champagne.
At the end of this desk, there's pens, pencils with the bloody stationary fucking car experts, running lows with someone else's.
Sober buck.
Wherever you can, We'll have to send you a couple of like where the real merch is a couple of drivers shows stickers baby and yeah, that's it.
Put one of those on the R thirty four. Sort of a bit of a question on social media. So you obviously earned a lot of money off social media and all of that stuff in the background, what do you reckon social media is hitting I look at Facebook and they've really clamped down on everything.
How do you think it's going to play?
If it was the way it is now, I would have made no money every on social It's just I guess unless you are like those girls doing do stuff, it seems to be the only content that throws them in my feet. Me.
No, it's just it's it's the China.
We have spent hundreds of thousands of dollars with Facebook, and I can't even get a call to somebody to find out why my accounts get blocked. So it's I basically do not spend any time with trying to make money on social anymore. Just too odd. I don't know why they've done what they've done, but I mean, back when we had fifty thousand followers, we made more sales from Facebook than we do now with ten million. And
I'm not even slightly exaggerating. We used to do so back when we were doing like small trinks like it's great for selling products that don't require so instant purchases where people aren't thinking about them. So we would post up say a sticker or like just viral products like cool key rings. It had like a turbo yeah, so we had that yeah, And they're like toys that are stuffed turbo charges and stuff. So those were like a
cool little things. I would go, I'd leave my office and then I'd post it and my little game would be between the time I'd leave my office and the time I get home, see how many we'd sell. And we'd sometimes have had thirty or three hundred individual sales in an hour, and we only I had fifty thousand followers. And now I could post something up there, we might
get three likes and zero sales. With ten million followers, it's just impossible to break through without paying and even and now I can't even physically pay because they won't take my money. So I don't know what Zuck and the crew are doing.
Suck's making Did you see the stretched kN.
Oh yeah, I saw that today, the minivan.
It's like what I think he's He's changing his Personah.
Yeah, I saw he hired a marketing company change. Did you see that that video had the audio taken away?
Oh?
Really? The audio got beat the irony fucking.
And it was like really poor quality video as well.
Yeah.
I really just don't get what's going on there. And they take so much money from advertising and they just do not care.
The more difficult part about it is they have a monopoly over it. So at least we used to do all sorts of marketing back before Facebook. Was even really a big player in the marketing side of things. We would say we used to see a lot of things like hid conversions for cars, and so the staff would spend some time looking for who uses the H three bulb. And then what we do is we go to different forums. So there's like Corvette Forum and a super forum or whatever,
and then we'd go on there. And because we were too cheap, we didn't want to be paying for sponsorship with the forum. So we just create a profile, sit on it for a couple of weeks and go, hey, guys, I've bought these headlights from the Street Effects Company. Does anyone know what they're like? Right? And so we're just like Gorilla marketing Techtics, And that way we'd get the word out, we get our site, and we'd get a bunch of sales, and then we'd eventually get banned. We'd
moved on to the next forum. Right, can't do that. You get banned on Facebook, your life's over. As far
as marketing goes, there's literally no competitors. So if you're hind your business on Facebook, which happens with like whether it be YouTube, Facebook, Google, any of these things, at least some of those Google ones are a little bit more fair because you've got ability to complain to somebody and try and get unbanned as long as you're not doing anything illegal, whereas with Facebook, the judge, jury, and executioner, there is no way judged.
Yeah, and she's she's a crazy bitch.
Yeah. So I've just found that that's to be like, at least previously you just skip between platforms, and now what you go to Instagram, you can't even do that. You can't you can't go to anywhere.
So it's it's it's grim.
Yeah, I'm looking at Zack's stupid little Porscha minivan right now, the Porsche Coyne Turbo GT miniv that looks ridiculously.
But have look at his clothes.
He's got like gold chain and mate wakeboarding and stuff like that. Even when he was going to American What happened to that, to that fight he was going to have with.
Yeah, no, it was meant to be with Elon, that's it. Yeah, what happened to that?
I don't know.
I think Zack's superpower, if you like, was judo or some some martial arts.
Yeah, he was like karate or something.
Yeah, and everyone was saying like Elon's built like a re refrigerator.
It's just the weirdest ship. Two billionaires just slap each other. I mean, I'd pay to watch that, should watch that, but you would be disturbing.
Shit, who's Tyson about to fight again? That's Joe Logan, Paul No, Jake Paul yep Jake Jake Paul. Yeah.
I thought they called that off as well because he was sick.
But I think they postponed back on.
Yeah, it's happening in November. That'd be wild. I don't even know why they called that. They should really just call that. I'm not even a boxing match.
I guess it's an elder abuse.
All right. So Mark's gonna let us know what this Bathurst story is for the next episode. But if you have any questions that he can also answer for the next episode, because we put these up too late for people to ask answer question on social contact at the Drivers Show dot Com, todau where can they go to find you? On socials?
Mark like just Mark Truno on Insta has a lot of my just sort of personal adventures and stuff. Otherwise for the company just Street Effects on Facebook, Insta, and I think I'm banned on TikTok. I've got my personal one on teaktok at that company one got banned.
I think you're gott to put your tits away. Man, you're really going to stop doing that.
I mean he pays me touch.
Yeah, that's it. I mean he's only fan.
And yeah, if you're listening to this and you do have any other sort of standard car questions, contact at the Drivers Show dot com today you and if you haven't done so already, leave us a rating on whichever podcast platform you're listening to this on so that we can we can get the ratings up.
Anything else, Gordy, No.
Not really. We'll have a chat in a sack. We've got to finish the episode properly. By the way. I did see. I did see that awesome footage of the Was it the foot plate that came out of her? Was it your GTA ah.
The GDR on the on the track?
Yeah, that's crazy. That was a very fast and furious moment.
Yeah. Like, I'm glad that it didn't hit anybody because that I mean, they were already that's like I think it's I've had to spend fifteen grand to fix that little debique. That's incredible, and it's I'm not going to have the past fixed until next month November. I don't fly them in. I went to go get a car yesterday and I hope that I can at least drive it without that part. But it's all in pieces.
That is a no.
I do have one quick question, actually, just before you walk out the door. Is there something coming out coming to Australia that you're kind of intrigued by or you're excited by. Pablo's got his hands on it already, probably, but I'm looking forward to the Mustang dark Horse for instance, Like, is there something that you're looking forward to see.
I don't know if this is true or not. Paul mon't be able to tell me the the hind Day concept thing. Apparently that's actually been.
Envision seventy four.
Yeah, they keep coming in and going with the green light like it's it's a fault to drive if that was the same. Yeah, because it's an awesome car, but I don't know whether it's Yeah, really I drive it.
Well, it's it's basically an electric car.
Yeah, so it's it's it's the electricity power train, or at least similar power train to what the what is the Ionic five end?
Yeah, it's kind of different.
It's got two electric motors on the rear instead of a single motor drive yep. And then it's got two hydrogen tanks and then something like a ninety kilo with our battery. So hydrogen tanks have a like a stack, and then they supply energy to the battery system. Battery system is what's driving the rear wheels the battery.
Yeah.
So it's a fascinating thing and it goes like shit off a shovel. But yeah, being real driver wouldn't probably hold a candle to the Ironic five.
Then it doesn't.
But there's so much weight over the rear, Like all the tanks are right at the back, so you've got a lot of weight holding it down.
It's like the Mr twos were great off the line.
Yeah, yeah, you just had a lot of Yeah, I don't know. I think it'd be cool. It'd just be expensive like that.
That stuff is over two hundred.
I reckon it.
Yeah, Wow, I reckon it'd be worth every set bloody Earth.
It's so cool. Yeah, I love it and its looks of amazing.
It has a sound to it too, doesn't It actually has a sound. I remembery watching the videos. It does make like a turbine sound.
Yeah, but it's there's a lot of cooling and then stuff because it's I don't know if it was just very much a prototype that we were driving, but yeah, there was a lot of calling and.
They made more than one or is it just I think they.
Have but I think officially there's not not like a production line of them. They're all handbuilt sort of prototypes. But yeah, he was good.
Hey, my search continues for a family car under eighty thousand dollars, so I've been scouring the second hand market.
That's wrong with the Genesis?
Oh, the Genesis is great. The Gen's so supple. That leather leather. I like to feel the little quilted leather just as I hopy in and think this is supple, and then I make my way to the salon.
My own Genesis.
Actually, you know what, I'll give you a bit of an update on the Genesis, because you do get asked for that. Two things that I wanted to bring out that I remember were criticisms that you had and that I had I guess as well going in this. The first one was and the big one was the mirrors. So the mirrors cameras, what else are they in? They're in there. You get camera mirrors in.
The e Tron, E Tron five nine, et cetera.
I'm gonna say, not as shit as we first discussed. I mean, going into it, A had limited knowledge and.
You won't convince me.
I'm telling you right now, like you don't need to be convinced.
I don't care.
Fact is, there's two big things that make this make these things shine through for me, and the first one is visibility in the wet and the second one is visibility at night. So when you're driving in the wet, you're going to get rain on the side of your windows, You're gonna get rain on the actual mirrors itself. You've got to admit, Like fact is, you can't see anything. The thing is, what these mirrors do so well is effectively there's nothing that imped your vision at all with them.
The lighting is really good and also at nighttime, I find they're fantastic at night time. I think you get a lot of glare from traffic lights and other cars and reflections of buildings and stuff like that. I find that this illuminates really well. And I think it soaks up a lot of light. So I think these things do have a place. I think the cameras as a side mirror do have a place because I think they do improve vision like this, there's no argument with that. Yes,
is this early days in this sort of technology. It is there are I get it. It's a clunky looking thing and then you've got to worry about the screen and if somebody knocks it when you're parking at a supermarket. I get the cons, but I also get the pros on these things too, so I don't think they're all bad. Yeah, what was the other criticism we had? Other gear stick, the Crystal in the middle crystal and the Genesis. For me,
it's neither here or there. I mean they could go to a stalk like they do on a lot of Yan day products, which I think works really well. And to be honest, I mean, I think I've been driving this thing for about four months now. I reckon, I'm about halfway through my tender. It's fine. I think it works. It's honestly, it works fine. And they do have that sort of thing on a what is it on a land range? Don't they have a circular thing on a range rover.
But it doesn't spin like a crystal.
That's right, it doesn't spin like a crystal. Mine spins like a crystal. Look, you're our two big gribes. I feel were a little bit bit hard out, and I think they're not as bad as I will say. On the looks, I can't get over the look of it. And I look and I will stand by. I think this car is not designed for people like me and you. This car is designed for somebody who has got a lot of coin. No, not someone who's on their way to the salon. They might want to go to the
nails done. This is that this is this is a car designed for a classy person. Perhaps an old lady. Tell you one thing I'm not loving. I'm not loving at the moment. On this is the parking is. It's got some work to do. It's got some work to do. It's quite a wide cart and a shortcut. It's a bit of a chod. It's a bit like you, and it's the parking really is and its big plus. I'll say that it's let itself down to that. But I think the other gripes I had I've been wrong about anyway,
family car under eighty thousand dollars. I texted you the other day, so what do you think about the X three M forty I, Because I think I was looking at a twenty twenty model. I'm not on Marrick money, can't afford a brand NEWI.
But yeah, well it was a resounding yes for mine because it is it is a weapon of a thing, and it's not anywhere near as firm as an X three M because that is just bone shattering, whereas an M forty I is just a good balance between performance and comfort as well.
What do you reckon the difference with that? And say the three Series like the Sedan, like the room.
The three Series is very small, whereas the X three feels much more spacious inside.
Yeah, but both great cars.
Though, Yeah, yeah, I really enjoyed it. Watch this space on that Dealers aren't really willing to budge too much, which is a bit of a shame, but I thought that was pretty good. Oh my god, do you know what.
I don't know if I should say this publicly because I'm going to cop a lot of crap at home, but I think I've bought I think I finally bought a Toyota Century.
Oh wow, what's why?
Quite cheap? Because it's a classy Japanese gangster car and it's a V twelve that's why.
Ah, but quite cheap and a V twelve is sounds like a bad combination.
Well, I sort of did a bit of research and when we were talking to Mark earlier, those Toyota V twelves are solid, like they really are. And when I took this thing for a drive, I mean it's a nineteen ninety four. Actually, I think it's a bit late. I think it's a nineteen ninety eight. It feels really good. Oh god, it feels good to tech in it. I'd probably update a little bit, but yeah, damn it.
They are known for being super reliable.
Yeah, watch this space.
Interesting, watch this space.
That could be a DILF very soon on the scene.
Though.
It's weird because I've been because I've been looking into the Toyota Century. I've been doing like a little bit of research, and I ran into this company. It admits to I don't know too much about them, so I contacted them and they're going to send us some product. They're a Japanese motor oil company.
Oh watch out. Yeah, a bit of lubricant, A little bit of lubricant, bit of I like it.
Japanese nanotailored oil coming our way.
I'm really looking for lubricant. Interesting.
I don't know too much about this product, but from what I know, it's it's oil tailored especially for Japanese high precision engines. So look out, we're gonna get some some oil coming our way to test you.
That'd be nice, sounds I like it.
I called you last night to tell you we're recording and thinking he's probably staying in bloody elbows spare bedroom, but you're in your cheap hotel room covered in red roosterh my god.
Yeah, and that wasn't even the worst part.
I don't want to know, actually I do, but yes.
Yeah, if you're still listening to this by some bizarre chans, oh my.
God, please put it away. Put it away.
Grim.
If you're still listening to this, contact at the Driver's Show dot com today, you shoot us a note. I spoke to Mark on the way out. He has promised. Well, he told me the thing that he wasn't allowed to say.
And it is huge. Wow, So it is crazy.
Wait till barthest is over.
Yes, because it depends on who wins. If this and wins, he's going to be able to talk about it because the story is just, yeah, some crazy stuff I've never heard before, So I can't say anything else.
Could this change if this particular car brand wins, could this change the outcome of Bathurst or perhaps no, no.
No, let's just say that if he didn't do what he did, this very big brand would not be able to do anything on the weekend, as in their cars wouldn't work. It is huge.
So yeah, watch this space, we'll see what happens.
But yeah, my plans for Bathurst Day Each year, I catch up with mates, sink a few tins, et cetera.
Lads, lads, lads.
Send a few tins.
Yeah, slap a Donnor on the barbie.
On the barbie, yes you did? She feeding everybody this year.
But yeah, so that's what I'm doing.
Couch, that's not a couch, A gigantic woman, said Dylan.
Fring with chicken.
Put your feet on the douvet. That's not a duvet, madam. If you've got some sort of feet to you, Darlan puts put your feet up on the puff.
There.
I'm sinking at this couch. I can't get out. I'm sinking, getting me down.
That's oh my god, fucking it all right.
Thank you everyone.
We will chat to you, you will hear us next time. So