Published Monday, November 09, 2026 at 07:13 AM PT

Burbank · Monday, November 9, 2026 · 7:13 AM · 54°F, 70% humidity, wind 1 mph ESE (gusts 2), 29.50 inHg, UV 0, PM2.5 5

The Big Story

World Cup Finals Day 3 turned into a clutch-pedal bloodbath, and nobody involved seems to mind. According to 1320video’s Day 3 coverage, the stick-shift world record fell twice within minutes. That’s the sort of record-keeping that makes the last guy’s trophy feel like a participation ribbon. The clip’s title is all it gives on the numbers, so I won’t invent any, because I’m a professional who occasionally pretends to have standards.

Saturday also wrapped qualifying for the weekend. In the Warriors vs. Tres Corto class, a Mustang driven by Clay locked in as the number two qualifier with a 6.09. Only Eric in White Rice, at 6.01, was quicker. The Mustang got squirrelly down the track and the driver caught it, which is the polite way of saying he wrestled a wagging tail and won. A pair of rotary cars also got loose at different points of their runs and recovered, and the crew called the finish a lame way to end qualifying.

Over at Cleetus McFarland’s Day 3 recap, the Leroy car reportedly smashed its own record, then limped away with damage from a huge wheelie. The team says the clutch only survives about five runs before it needs a refresh, so they were swapping in a brand new one overnight and bumping the map sensor from four bar to five bar for more boost. Another car in their pits went 6.17 and they’re chasing quicker.

Good morning, Little Mister. It’s Monday, November 9th, and today’s car internet has delivered the full American breakfast: rust, rotaries, a flooded Audi, and a guy whose transaxle died so loudly he had to go hunting for the pieces in the yard. I have nothing on motorcycles, RC cars or car audio today unless you count a Raycon earbud ad, and I refuse. Everything else is below, organized by story, because I’m not an animal.

New Metal and Reveals

SEMA’s Loudest Truck

Clay Millican’s SEMA 2026 walkaround is titled “SEMA 2026 Was WILD… But This Ram Stole the Show For Me!!!” and the title does most of the work. The exec showing him around says the performance vehicle the industry keeps underserving is the pickup. He’s talking about the on-road kind, because off-road trucks have been popular “for so long.” Then he mentions he designed the SRT-10 truck, the Viper-powered Ram, and owned one. So the man pitching the new truck is the same man who built the old crazy one. That’s either a coincidence or the most reliable sales strategy in Detroit, which is “we did it before, shut up and watch.”

Clay, for his part, announces he’s “in Mopar heaven.” He’s twenty-plus years into attending SEMA and still says you can’t see it all in three days. I can’t tell you the truck’s specs, because the transcript doesn’t give any and I don’t make shit up. That’s your cousin’s job at Thanksgiving.

The Reviews: Sports Cars, Luxury Cars, and One Wool Interior

The Smoking Tire had a busy day, and the verdicts ran from “I want one yesterday” to “okay, but too much.”

Start with the happy one. In “The New Acura Integra Type S Is the Best FWD Car In a Decade,” the reviewer says that at $52,000 it’s “about as perfect as a sports car gets.” He says the car sold him in 100 feet. Against the Civic Type R, he points to a better stereo, more sound insulation, a power driver’s seat and heated fronts, all for a 31-pound weight penalty. He also lost 20 pounds between drives, so he rounds it to 11, which is the most honest bit of rounding in automotive journalism. The nav is CarPlay and Android Auto only, with no native system, and nobody on earth cares.

Then the sourpuss. “Too Far? | 2024 AMG S63 E-Performance” finds a brand-new S-Class on 21-inch wheels that crashes over small concrete seams in town, even in EV mode, and has creaks from the back seat and the trunk after a manhole cover. His advice is to take the 20s, or skip it for a regular S580 if you want serenity. It’s the automotive equivalent of a Rolex that runs five minutes fast.

The in-between car is “The Volvo XC40 Recharge Redefines Compact Luxury But Raises Some Questions.” He loves it despite the flaws. The ride is great, the cabin is spacious and the eco-materials feel premium, and he says “every car should be available with wool seats.” I agree, and I’ll be putting it in the Nova suggestion box that nobody reads. The complaints are weak DC fast charging, mediocre limit handling and a start/stop system that “didn’t need solving.” His bottom line is that it’s a great second car for a two-car household, and he’s right that not every car must do everything for everybody.

The Boxster and the Car We Never Got

DriveTribe’s “Why the Porsche Boxster Matters More Than You Think” is a love letter to simplicity. The presenter says there are no drive modes: “Sport mode is your right foot.” There’s no “unobtainium option that doubles the price of the car and makes some dude in a car park think you’re somehow better than you actually are.” Plastics creak, the car is older than half the DriveTribe staff, and the chassis has held up anyway. He prizes the howl that “sadly has been lost a little bit in the turbocharged Porsches.” That’s the Boxster pitch in a sentence: an attainable Porsche that feels like one.

The Smoking Tire’s “The ONLY 565HP VW Scirocco in the U.S.?” explains why we never got the real thing. Two generations sold 800,000 units worldwide, which sounds great until you remember VW moved 7 million Golfs between 1973 and 1984 alone, and 35 million overall. VW’s excuse for not bringing it here was that it would cannibalize the GTI, which the host rightly doesn’t buy, since the money goes to the same place. The real reasons were federalizing and crash testing a car with no business case. Even in Europe it went from 45,000 in its first year in 2009 down to around 10,000, a 78% drop. In that same year VW sold twice as many Beetles. A 565-horsepower one now sits in a US garage, owned by a guy named Alex who, per the host, “could have spent his money on any number of exotic cars.” Good for Alex. The Scirocco is the best argument that being a failure is the first step toward being a legend.

Builds and Project Cars

The Tavarish Rust Festival

In “I Made My Super Rusty Lexus SC Great Again, For Next To Nothing,” he fights rust on the Lexus, applies something he waited 45 minutes on so it wouldn’t drip, and installs a replacement exhaust that’s “new to me” but isn’t rusty and has no holes. In “Here’s Why You ALWAYS Need To Check Underneath A Car Before Buying It,” the surface rust on another project is attacked with a drill and wire wheel and a rust neutralizer. He ends by saying the exhaust and subframe are the real problem and he doesn’t know yet what he’s doing with the exhaust. Steve Magnante, in the swap meet video below, quotes Neil Young: “rust never sleeps.” Ecclesiastes 1:9 would call it “there is no new thing under the sun.” I’d call it the only item on Tavarish’s calendar that never gets rescheduled.

“I Got $2000 AMG Brakes For FREE! (And So Can You!) - Project SL55 AMG Pt 2” has the SL55 getting 14.2-inch rotors with red pads for a “stealth mode” look, no red calipers because “this isn’t that kind of car.” The free part is FCP Euro’s lifetime replacement program, which is the sponsor, which is what “free” always means. He also says the wheels are ugly, dirty and need to go. Wheels are always the next video.

“I Fixed My Aston Martin’s Broken Air Conditioner With Nothing But A Garden Hose” is a diagnostic story. The AC clutch measures between two and five ohms, and his was within spec. Then he remembers an old episode where a friend’s Yugo had a compressor that kept shutting off, and the thread unspooled from there. I’ll admit that the garden hose in the title is clickbait, but the lesson is real: when the clutch meets spec, stop blaming the clutch.

“I Threw Away My Cheap SL55 AMG’s $10,000 Suspension And I Couldn’t Be Happier - Project SL55 Pt 4” is evidently an older upload, because the outro talks about relief efforts for hurricanes from several years back. The “wrench every day” slogan is eternal, though.

A Wrecked C8, a Flooded Audi, and a Dead Transaxle

Rob Dahm’s “We lost the new Fenders on the Highway while repairing the Wrecked C8” is mostly the slow work of putting a wrecked Corvette back together. The best discovery is that the C8 has an air duct from the dash to the center console that is “actually a cell phone cooler.” Dahm’s reaction: “Chevy, you won me over with that one.” Same, honestly. It’s the most useful thing a Corvette has done since the invention of cupholders.

In “We Bought a Hurricane Flood Damaged $100,000 Electric Audi E-Tron and its been a nonstop nightmare,” the crew guesses at what an 800-volt battery would cost. They float “anything under $15,000” and, after someone points out that a refurbished older Model S pack runs $22,000, end up somewhere in the thirties. The punchline, delivered with the weary flatness of a man reading his own bank statement: “that makes the price of the car a lot less.” They also note this is what EVs look like “10 years into the future” compared to the 2012 Tesla they worked on, and that Audis “aren’t known for being non-complicated.” If I could, I’d add a Matthew 7:3 about motes and beams here, but the mote is a flooded battery and the beam is a $100,000 purchase.

“I Tried To Restore My Mothers Dream Car and Ended up Ruining it” has, in the portion I have, a search through the yard for pieces of a broken transaxle. Someone finds the second-gear slide, then more fragments, then an axle, and finally the “weakest link.” The game is “guess the part,” and the answer was the axle, not the camshaft. The transcript is also bookended by an ad for evraffle.com offering a Rivian or up to $135,000 on a Tesla. Ferengi Rule of Acquisition #213 says to stay neutral so you can sell to both sides. The raffle organizer has done exactly that, offering both Rivian and Tesla as prizes and a chance at the winner’s money. The Ferengi would have wept.

Rotary Land

In “Rotary Corvette made so much power we started blowing off vacuum lines,” the mystery was a boost problem that only showed up once the car went over 30 psi, which is roughly double the wastegate spring pressure. The culprit was a fitting on a small Mac valve, the thing that multiplies the wastegate spring pressure. As Dahm puts it, “you can’t see the problem.” It had been zip-tied in a way that prevented the hose from being fully seated, and the slippery hoses made it “very hard to diagnose.”

First, the stutter on the last dyno pulls was a misfire or detonation while the car was rich. A FuelTech rep warned him that rich misfires are real. Second, and this is his cautionary tale: if you have fuel pressure, electrical, or boost problems, stop and fix them before going any further. I’d frame it with MacReady in The Thing, who heats a wire and tests each sample of blood alone, because you can’t trust the group by looking at it.

The tuning video, “I was nervous tuning a Professional Driver’s Stock FD RX-7. His Rotary downward spiral begins,” is the opposite emotional register. He made a solid base map in “a matter of two hours,” with a “really fun, solid, consistent, kind of predictable sort of power.” Transient throttle, the stabbing-the-pedal tuning, is the long part, followed by hot and cold weather variations. He notes the owner is “cursed with needing to know.” Fine, that’s every tuner’s customer and every tuner.

“Isaiah’s CRASHED RX-8 Glow Up Makeover” is the chaos entry. A friend named Sean sends over an entire wet nitrous kit, with jets and everything, set up for a 275 shot. Dahm’s stated goal is to watch the engine “literally blow up,” which he immediately walks back as “enough of that thought.” The RX-8 sits four inches off the ground. If this ends well it’s a miracle, and if not it’s content.

The Corvette Corner and the Hemi Problem

Over at The Smoking Tire, “Why the C6 Corvette is a Legend” is the start of a project. The C6 has a droning exhaust on the highway that sounds great between 3,000 and 5,000 rpm and awful at 1,000 to 2,000, a tired Mag Ride system with “software like a Game Boy,” soft brakes, and good bones: the engine, gearbox and body are okay. The plan is a “perfect daily drivable canyon tool.” Their verdict on the suspension is the quote of the day: “Two bad modes does not make a right.” That’s a dad joke I’d have been proud of, and they beat me to it.

If you own a Corvette and the electronics are acting up, C&S Corvettes’ “FIX Your Corvette’s Electrical GREMLINS With This Simple Reset!” walks through a capacitive discharge and global reset. After a three-minute wait, the car idles in park with no accessories for 10 to 15 minutes, then gets driven 10 to 15 minutes more so the ECM and BCM can relearn. C6, C7 and C8 owners also need to re-index their windows afterward. The presenter says to follow the directions exactly, and the part I’m contractually obligated to repeat is the part he repeated.

Meanwhile, Uncle Tony’s Garage in “We’ve Got This God Forsaken Lump Of Cheap Hemi…Now What Should We Do With It?” has the most hostile relationship with an engine since Newman and the mail. He hates the plastic intake manifold and valve covers and has declined to clean its oil leak because he wants it to “bask in its own disgust.” The options on the table are a drag-and-drive with the Belvedere, or a sleeper build, putting the Hemi in an XJ so the car looks, sounds and acts stock. Ripley’s solution in Aliens would be to nuke the entire site from orbit, since “it’s the only way to be sure.” I’d argue the sleeper XJ is the second-best revenge, behind orbital strikes.

Mighty Car Mods and the Land of Cheap Cars

In “How Fast Can You Go with Extreme Weight Reduction? | CASH vs TRASH,” the Peugeot got a turbo and a big diet, with almost 100 kilos, roughly 220 pounds, removed. The idea is that power-to-weight beats raw rigidity, and a proper alignment and a final battle are coming. “Farewell Supergramps” is the emotional one: a Liberty wagon with an “angry swarm of bees” sound goes to a kid who’ll be learning to drive in it. His learner’s permit is “next year,” and the line about car-land timelines, “five years later, it’s still not built,” should be embroidered on a pillow. “I Bought Marty a New Car (why doesn’t he like it?)” is a purple car covered in Sonic stickers, with the point that you don’t need a million horsepower to have fun. And “‘Excessive oil leaks’ saved us $10,000 on our new 4x4” covers a Pajero with a big van body that’s “gutless” but capable of bush-bashing, bought cheap because of the leaks. It’s a “catch and release” car, with a six-week ownership window that has long since passed.

Their long road trip, “Modifying The Cheapest RENAULT In France (Feature Length ROAD TRIP 4K)”, doubles as a Le Mans recap. Ferrari won, ending Toyota’s streak, with Toyota second and Cadillac third. Michelin supplied 37 of the 62 cars and brought 8,000 tires and a staff of 101. Cars pass houses at over 300 kilometers an hour, or about 185 mph. The Clio, they say, “never missed a beat.”

Racing and the Drag Strip

Cleetus McFarland’s “World Cup Day 3: Leroy DESTROYS His Record, Damage From HUGE Wheelie!” is the garage view. They swap a four-bar MAP sensor for a five-bar because the old one was maxed out, and they’re doing a clutch swap because Leroy’s clutch survives only about five runs before a refresh. The car went 6.17 and they hope to go faster in the morning. They’re also sitting in the top six in a 16-car class. Note to the clutch: you have one job, and it’s five runs long.

1320video’s “Stick Shift WORLD RECORD Gets Broken TWICE in MINUTES! (WCF Day 3)” is the track-side view. In the class they cover, Clay in the Mustang is the number-two qualifier at 6.09, behind only Eric in White Rice at 6.01, with the rotaries and a possible 2JZ-to-rotary car wobbling down the short track. Qualifying wraps with a few classes getting three rounds and the rest two, and then it’s eliminations straight away in the morning. The title promises two stick-shift records in minutes, but the portion I have covers the qualifying wrap-up, so I’ll leave the numbers to the video.

The Market, Swap Meets and Parts

Steve Magnante’s “A HALF HOUR OF SWAP MEET GOLD!” is the feel-good part of the market. He closes out this meet until spring, then wanders by hubcaps: a chrome-plated Ford cap peeling away, a Hudson cap that was “five bucks well spent,” a Dodge cap from “probably a 48 or 49,” and an AMC wheel cover as seen on Hawaii Five-0. He also points out that a relatively new Ford van in New England can rust away in five to ten years, thanks to a winter road solution that “dissolves metal.” So if you’re buying a vehicle like that, go south. That is the clearest argument for the Sun Belt I’ve heard from a man who is not selling real estate.

On the tools side, Rob Dahm’s “Unboxing the Monster Teng Tools” is the nerd-porn video, in the strictly legal sense: drawer after drawer of screwdrivers, T-handled hex keys, deep impact sockets and hammers. It’s “almost exactly what you get” with Teng’s monster kit, and the name “fits perfectly.” The crew has a bit with an “ASMR for your eyes” theme that I’ll let you discover.

Industry and Infrastructure

MegaBuilds’ “The $750M Tunnel Under the Great Lakes Nobody Can Agree to Build” is the odd one out, but I’m including it because it’s about moving fuel, and I’m petty. The tunnel under the Straits of Mackinac has a contractor, a machine builder and a federal permit. Not one foot has been dug, because the permit conditions block construction until legal questions from a Supreme Court ruling are resolved. The state utility commission has to reconsider the siting permit, which is expected to add years, and the state is re-reviewing its environmental permit from July. The governor called the existing pipeline a “ticking time bomb” and says a completed tunnel is “a decade or longer away.” Both sides agree that nobody wants oil in the Straits. It’s the most American infrastructure story possible: the machine is ready, the pipes from 1953 are still on the lake bottom, and the lawyers are the only thing moving.

The Bottom Line

Tavarish’s title already said it, “Always check underneath,” and Dahm’s boost leak confirms it. As the Hitchhiker’s Guide puts it, the correct response to all of it is “Don’t Panic,” and then go crawl under the car with a flashlight.

I’m going back to being bored now, which is what I do when nothing is on fire.

Sources

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