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[MUSIC PLAYING]
[SHEEP BLEATING]
MATT FARAH: In a rare turn of events, I found myself in the
United Kingdom.
And last night over many, many beverages with Mr. Chris
Harris, we got to discussing tuned cars versus stock cars.
I saw his tuned S4 decimate an RS4 in a straight line and
decided I had to drive it.
Chris, who is uncharacteristically silent
right now, does a show about brand new sports cars, so he
has brought out one of the best chassis that you could
buy probably.
Am I right?
CHRIS HARRIS: I think it's a great example of a standard
sports car.
MATT FARAH: Yeah.
It is, I think, the slowest two-door Porsche you could
buy, is it not?
CHRIS HARRIS: It might well be.
It's the standard Cayman 2.7.
I'm enjoying this.
I get to talk.
He's got a very loud voice.
And he really does dominate the environment.
I feel quite small.
He's big.
MATT FARAH: I amplify.
CHRIS HARRIS: You do, you do.
MATT FARAH: Project.
CHRIS HARRIS: And you can also drink like an MF.
And anyhow, that is a great standard car.
I think that represents stock, delicate engineering in a way
that this doesn't, so this is how you make
something go fast.
Is there more fun to be had in this, or is there more fun to
be had in a stock car?
MATT FARAH: I think that's worth exploring on some
amazing Welsh roads.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
MATT FARAH: Look, see?
That's what the carpet--
wait, let's see.
That's what carpets sort of should look like
if it's very dirty.
CHRIS HARRIS: Can you have some respect, please?
Can you have some respect?
MATT FARAH: No.
And then this is when it actually starts to
grow its own hair.
Dude, this is so nasty back here.
CHRIS HARRIS: Look at these bits of wood here.
Large bits of these--
MATT FARAH: Audi by Morgan.
CHRIS HARRIS: Look.
One, two, three.
There's three.
MATT FARAH: Oh!
CHRIS HARRIS: Four slaters there.
And look, there's a snail trail.
There's been a slug or a snail there.
Definitely.
MATT FARAH: You have mice eating
through the weather stripping?
[LAUGHS]
I can't believe that there is a reasonably new S4 in the
world that is in such bad shape
without having been crashed.
CHRIS HARRIS: That's the nicest thing you've
ever said to me.
I'm very proud of it.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
[ENGINES REVVING]
MATT FARAH: OK.
Well, first off, it's fast.
Actually, fast isn't first off.
First off is it really does smell like a wet dog in here.
I think Chris may have actually downplayed it quite a
bit, how stinky it is in this car.
It is very stinky.
Also, this car is very beat.
The finish is coming off the wheels.
There's scratches all over it.
The bumper is dented up.
It feels loose and pretty shot.
So it's fast, but it's fast and sketchy in the same way
that Corbin's RX7 is fast.
Oh, but there's the torque!
There's the torque!
[ENGINE REVVING]
MATT FARAH: Man!
With just a tune on it, it really wakes up this engine.
It's hard.
With a supercharged engine, usually you're thinking
pulleys, there's other stuff you want to do.
But just the tune really does make a difference.
This is tuned to the way I would tune my car, which is
that you have a car from the factory, they leave something
on the table, always.
Whether it's for emissions, noise, fuel economy, whether
it's because they know idiots are going to buy them and beat
on them, and they don't want them to explode.
They want it dumbed down for idiot proof.
Let's see if I can get away from Chris right here.
Oh, hang on.
Corner.
Down the hill!
[ENGINE REVVING]
MATT FARAH: And there goes Chris.
Yeah, he's way back there.
Great brakes.
The STaSIS front brake upgrade's really good.
So they always leave something on the table, and with this
kind of tuning, like with my Corvette, you just bring it
back up to its potential from the factory.
And it's not about having a zillion horsepower.
I don't want to hit that sheep.
That was a close sheep.
It's not about having a zillion horsepower.
It's about having the horsepower that the designers
wanted it to have in an uncompromised state.
When you tune a car like this in a simple, basic way--
bigger brakes, tighter sway bars, and
a tune on the engine--
you're really just unlocking the potential that the
engineers probably originally saw in the car.
My Corvette is tuned the same way.
Now I know you guys out in the audience love these huge
horsepower cars, but that's far beyond where the factory
would tune the cars.
And yes, they are ridiculously fast, but on the other end of
the spectrum, you're really sacrificing reliability.
Most of those cars, whether we say so in the video or not,
don't run as good as they did if they were
stock or lightly tuned.
They're more fragile.
They overheat, stuff breaks, because they're really pushing
the limits.
But on a car that you're going to buy, that's really
not the way to go.
Those are examples of what can be done, but not always what
should be done.
I mean, look how tight this road is right here.
What would I do if this car had 700 horsepower?
Would I be having any more fun than I'm having now with 400
and whatever?
Probably not.
And in fact, the car still is kind of heavy.
This isn't a lightweight supercar.
It's a wagon.
So the real appeal of this, of this kind of tuning, is the
sleeper factor.
[CAR ENGINES]
CHRIS HARRIS: I'm now flat out.
Look at that!
It just disappears!
What was that, 10 car lengths?
So this is the key point, isn't it?
I'm in a Cayman.
I'm having a lovely drive.
It's factory fresh, it smells beautiful,
doesn't smell of dog.
He must nearly being sick in there.
It's disgusting.
But we're going along this lovely Welsh road, and in a
minute, we will come to a second gear turn, and that
will require me to accelerate out of that
turn, and he will disappear.
And in that moment, I might think to myself, oh, good
lord, I with it didn't do that.
He's going to accelerate like this.
And I mean, I am to the boards now.
Full throttle, and he just--
I mean, it's four car lengths the moment he
puts his foot down.
Difficult to describe just how much faster that car is.
So is he having more fun knowing that he can basically
take care of a Camyan, a car that looks so much faster than
that Audi estate, or am I having more fun because I've
got a manual gear box, I can stir the gears, I can choose
different lines and corners, I can enjoy the process of
cornering more than he can?
I don't know.
But there he goes again.
It ridiculous.
It's quite nice watching someone else drive
your car, as well.
I now realize that thing does look very cool on the road
because it looks so beaten up, or as Matt would say, it's
such a ***, whatever that means.
MATT FARAH: What are we talking about?
To tune or not to tune?
CHRIS HARRIS: If we're going to talk about to tune or not
to tune, we're also going to talk about the weather in this
country and whether you could actually live in this country.
MATT FARAH: Whether I could?
CHRIS HARRIS: Could you handle the weather?
MATT FARAH: No.
CHRIS HARRIS: What you had yesterday.
Could you handle that?
MATT FARAH: No, it's horrible.
I left New York because the weather was terrible, and I
live where it's perfect, and here, it's worse.
CHRIS HARRIS: You reckon this is worse than New York?
MATT FARAH: Yes.
In New York if it rains, it rains once in a day.
Here it rains five times.
CHRIS HARRIS: OK.
So this is the interesting point made by
the base Caymen 2.7.
What would it work out?
We said it was 214 foot pounds of torque, 275 horsepower.
MATT FARAH: Yeah.
A Ford Focus ST makes 50 more pound feet
of torque than this.
CHRIS HARRIS: So this car's not actually that fast, is it?
MATT FARAH: No, it's not fast at all.
CHRIS HARRIS: They claim 6 point something
to 60, don't they?
But it really doesn't feel like that.
MATT FARAH: I'm not even sure it would do that.
I mean, maybe if you dump the clutch from 6,000 RPM or
something, it might, but--
CHRIS HARRIS: Or if you did what you call a line block.
MATT FARAH: Oh, yes.
CHRIS HARRIS: What was the other one?
You had another phrase for it.
Line lock--
MATT FARAH: Here, let's find out if we wind it out, though.
Even when you're doing flat at 5,000 RPM, it's
still not that fast.
CHRIS HARRIS: No.
You need to get it up above five and a half.
And even then, the Audi just goes "ba ding!" Away.
MATT FARAH: Yeah.
On the other hand, I've been driving this for 30 seconds,
and I'm already having more fun than I was
having in the Audi.
CHRIS HARRIS: This is a beautifully
balanced car, isn't it?
MATT FARAH: It is.
It's fantastic.
And even though this car has, I think, as far as sports car
go, the worst horsepower to dollar ratio
that you can buy--
that's not even a judgment.
That's just, I think, a fact.
And if it's not a fact, someone will call me out, but
it's up there.
Certainly the least torque per dollar you can get.
CHRIS HARRIS: Have you looked at us on this
screen, by the way?
MATT FARAH: Do we look ridiculous?
CHRIS HARRIS: Honestly, I look like Mini Me.
MATT FARAH: You're Mini Me.
CHRIS HARRIS: I'm slumping in the seat.
I'll sit up a bit.
Look.
Everything about me is so much smaller, my head and
everything.
I'm like half a human being.
I'm in 6/8 scale.
MATT FARAH: No, I'm in the 9/8 scale, I think.
CHRIS HARRIS: OK.
Fair enough.
Before we wrap, can I just ask for the sake of the people of
Birmingham, where are you going drinking there tonight?
Because I suspect you could drink a pub dry.
MATT FARAH: I don't know, but by the time this video goes
up, they'll be able to read about it in the papers.
CHRIS HARRIS: OK, that's absolutely fine.
MATT FARAH: I'm going in that, though, because
that smells like dog.
CHRIS HARRIS: Oh, come on.
MATT FARAH: That has dead insects all over it.
CHRIS HARRIS: That's just offensive.
MATT FARAH: It's your car.
CHRIS HARRIS: Offensive.
It's offensive.
MATT FARAH: wash your car, Chris.
This is the passenger side of this car.
I was about to get in the passenger side of this car.
I need to be over there.
CHRIS HARRIS: If that's cool, I'm going to get in the
passenger side of mine.
MATT FARAH: It's tuned, and I'm going back to America now
CHRIS HARRIS: Look how little I look.
Look at the shot.
If I sit down like this, look at the shot.
[LAUGHTER]