“Where horsepower meets conversation…”
By Tim Harris, Blair Smith & Shinoo Mapleton · June 26, 2026
🎧 Check out our latest podcast!
🎧 You can also stream us on Apple Podcasts & Spotify!
The Concorso dispatch from Puerto Rico
Tim is back in Puerto Rico this week, and the dispatch lands exactly where you'd hope.
"Concorso update from Puerto Rico. I've spent the last three weeks preparing the Miata for judging — paint correction, detailing, tire dressing, the whole process. The presentation was exceptional. Unfortunately, best of show went to Ricky Martin's beachfront property. In hindsight, I may have misunderstood the event. See you next time." — Tim Harris
This episode is what Blair called at the top "an eclectic set of topics" — and it is. Heavy BMW thread running through it, the daily driver question front and center, the new M3 EV and the Ariel Atom 4 in the news, the best-and-worst OEM wheels debate, and a closing listener Q on the one car every enthusiast should drive once. Let's get into it. 👇
🏁 What We Did In Cars This Week
Shinoo hosted Callaway Cars for a tech seminar. Pete Callaway came out — son of founder Reeves Callaway, now running the company. The conversation got historical fast. The 1988 Callaway Sledgehammer hit 255 mph, a record that stood until Bugatti broke it in 2010. Pete's point on the era: tire technology at the time wasn't up to the speed. They were running flat-out hoping the tires didn't explode. The shop is now seeing steady Callaway-conversion work flow through — a C7 Grand Sport finished last week, a Camaro currently getting the supercharger kit. The slow drumbeat continues for Blair's dream C7 Aero Wagon build.
Shinoo's heading to a Lotus road rally in Ohio. Auto Europe (Lotus Detroit) is hosting roughly 30 cars for a drive down to Marietta, Ohio, and the Hocking Hills area — and yes, Hocking Hills is genuinely one of the great underrated driving regions in the eastern U.S. Shinoo grew up in Detroit ("there's not a turn to save your life") and four hours south is a different world. He's bringing both a V6 manual Emira and an Emira Turbo as the rally cars, the same back-to-back format as last spring's outing. Report and pictures incoming next week.
Caterham Project V update. Caterham is now releasing more on the Project V electric sports car — fairly conventional curvy design, estimated ~3,100 lbs, ~250 mile range. Shinoo's full take on Caterham's Japanese-owned future will land in a future episode after more conversations.
Blair drove a Jaguar F-Type — and was reminded how underrated it is. A buddy with a 996 came over to drive the Mitsubishi Bravo (because of course he did), and brought his Jaguar F-Type along. Blair parked the F-Type in his own garage hoping his wife would come home, see it, and think he'd bought it. She did come home, did see it, did not ask whether he'd bought it (she's been married to him long enough), and then said:
"I like that car. Why didn't you buy one of these instead of the Lotus?"
The F-Type screams from factory — Audi R8-with-an-exhaust-loud. 500 horsepower. The single-clutch auto upshifts quickly but the downshifts are slow. It's a proper GT — not a twisty-road weapon, but a beautiful one. And here's the part that hurts: Blair's buddy took it to a Lotus dealer to look at an Emira and the dealer offered $12,000 in trade for a 50,000-mile F-Type that was originally $35K. Shinoo's read: the F-Type is the best-looking Jaguar since the E-Type. The fact it never sold well is one of the great pricing tragedies in the segment — and one of the better used-market value plays in 2026.
Blair almost traded one car for three at an independent dealer. This deserves its own section. See below.
The week in automotive news
BMW officially unveiled the M3 EV
The car Shinoo had teased a few episodes back as the BMW Vision Neue Klasse concept landed as the actual M3 EV this week. Quad motor, 800V architecture, 100+ kWh battery, claimed 560 mile range on the WLTP cycle (read: probably 350–400 EPA, which is still excellent). And BMW confirmed they're doing both EV and ICE versions of this generation — the right play, in both our views.
The story isn't just the powertrain. BMW is calling their new central control system the Heart of Joy — a unified compute architecture integrating drivetrain and braking on a wheel-by-wheel basis. The claim: the EV won't just be fast, it'll be engaging and precise. If anyone can make an EV feel like a proper enthusiast car, it's BMW. Shinoo is interested in this car for his next daily. Blair is interested in seeing whether engaging is actually true once people drive it.
Two notes on the design: the front nose wears classic Neue Klasse styling cues that finally look like a BMW again, and the mesh wheel echoes the E30 M3 (BMW released the press shots with an E30 alongside the new car, in the same color). The rear end is — fine. Not Bangle-butt levels of polarizing, but not the best surface on the car.
Lewis Hamilton wins his first F1 race for Ferrari
A long-anticipated result finally arrived: Lewis Hamilton won the Barcelona Grand Prix in his Ferrari — his first victory in Ferrari colors. Shinoo's a Lewis guy and had quietly given up on a Ferrari-era win after a frustrating start to the season. Blair is more of a Max Verstappen camp guy and is open about it.
The bigger conversation under the win: the V8 hybrid rules changes this season have introduced more setup variability than usual, and Verstappen has been vocal about it. The result is that finishes feel less driver-determined than in past seasons. Both Shinoo and Blair agreed: Kimi Antonelli is the long-haul driver to watch — strong team, clearly fast, and likely to be in title fights for the next decade. Both also still hold that the 2021 championship was a heist.
The Ariel Atom 4 cleared $140K on Bring a Trailer
The new segment Blair has been threatening to add — interesting auctions worth talking about — debuts with a real one: a 2025 Ariel Atom 4 with 129 miles just sold on Bring a Trailer for $132,500 hammer, which with BaT's $7,500 fee lands at $140,000 out-the-door.
Context: Shinoo has been an Atom dealer since 2010. He owned an Atom 2 in 2007, an Atom 3 (the 300-hp K20A supercharged Civic Type R motor revving to 9,000 rpm), and a Spec Race Atom. TMI in Virginia has been building Atoms for the U.S. since 2010, and current order wait time is two to three years minimum.
The Atom 4 is the most thoroughly developed version of the car — turbocharged Civic Type R motor (current generation), and the push-rod bell-crank suspension geometry is finally sorted in a way the earlier cars weren't. On a tight track it accelerates like a bat out of hell and goes corner-to-corner faster than just about anything. On a fast circuit with big straights, it's drag-limited at ~130 mph and a 991 GT3 or a 718 GT4 will catch and pass it.
Shinoo's read on the BaT number: only roughly $10K over MSRP, which is rational given the wait list. If you want one, paying to skip the line isn't crazy.
The Daily Driver Dilemma: A $10K E46 or a $70K M340i?
Blair has the itch. He admitted to it last week. This week he acted on it — and almost traded one car for three.
The mission was simple: he wants to replace his 2021 BMW 330i daily with something more interesting. He's commuting a lot of miles. He's not excited about what new BMWs cost or how they feel. He'd rather spend the money on toys. So he drove to a small father-and-son independent dealer to look at a 2004 E46 330Xi automatic.
He liked the E46 immediately. While he was on the lot, he spotted a Jeep Wrangler he thought would work for his soon-to-be-16-year-old daughter. Then the dealers — once they got Blair talking about his Lotus and his other cars — said, "You have to come see our NA Miata." Off to their house three miles away. There, in the garage, was a Merlot M Edition NA Miata, cherry condition.
Blair wanted all three. The plan he floated to himself: trade his 330i for the E46, get the Jeep for his daughter, and add the Miata. He took a breather and didn't pull the trigger that day. But the conversation got serious about whether he could really make this work — and whether older BMWs are actually better daily drivers than the new ones for the money.
The numbers tell a story. A clean 2006 E90 330i with the M54-era N52 naturally aspirated motor (the one-year-only six before BMW went twin-turbo with the N54) just sold on Bring a Trailer for $9,700 at around 100,000 miles. A new M340i with the B58 is $70,000 — and even the used market puts well-cared-for ones at $50K. The new car is automatic-only. The older E46 / E90 cars can be had with a manual.
Then Blair drove the E46 back-to-back with his own 2021 330i and the difference floored him. "You go over a railroad track and I feel like I'm in a bank vault." The E46, with 85,000 miles and a stack of records, felt put together. The 2021 felt — assembled. Built to a cost, in a different country, for a different market.
Shinoo's counterargument is the practical one: an older German daily will run $3K–$5K a year in maintenance once it's your only car. Electronics will fail. Parts will need chasing. You need a good mechanic and a backup plan for when the car is down. For someone whose daily is critical to their livelihood, the safer move is a leased modern car — rack up the miles, hand it back, replace it.
Blair concedes the point and is doing it anyway. The plan as it stands: an E46 over an E90 for electrical simplicity, 80,000–100,000 miles, taken care of, ~$10,000. An E46 330 will run to 250,000 miles if it's maintained. Even with $5,000–$6,000 a year in upkeep, he's still ahead of a $70K new car at the end of two years. And he likes the car better.
If he does it, we'll have plenty to report. If he doesn't, he'll probably end up in another modern lease and write the whole thing off as a fever dream. Watch this space.
The Best and Worst OEM Wheels Ever Made
Triggered by the Neue Klasse M3 reveal, Shinoo pulled up his favorite — and least favorite — OEM wheels of all time. Blair did the same. We did not agree on everything.
The wheels we agree are bad:
The Porsche Taycan Aero wheel. Aero-optimized, dish-flat, vaguely sporty — and none of those goals reconciled. Whoever specified this wheel saved themselves the cost of the upgrade and paid for it visually for the life of the car. Take Shinoo's advice: pay for the better wheel.
The pseudo-whitewall E34 M5 Touring wheel. Aerodynamic covers over the actual wheel that made the tires look like they were running whitewalls — except the underlying wheel was painted red. BMW caught enough flak that they replaced it within the same generation with the M System II "throwing star" wheel, which became iconic. Shinoo says the original is one of the worst BMW wheels ever made. Blair, who loves 80s and 90s BMW design wholesale, will not condemn it. We will let the readers settle this one.
The Porsche 991.1 Turbo "double 10-spoke" cookie-cutter wheel. Blair's pick for the most overrated Porsche wheel of the modern era. Busy, visually heavy, and the worst part is Porsche makes so many great wheels — including the one further down — that picking this one feels like an opportunity lost.
The NA Miata Daisy wheel. Blair loves the NA Miata. Blair does not love the Daisy. He says it adds to the "hairdresser grandma" reputation the car has been quietly trying to outrun since 1989. Shinoo defends the Daisy — it was Mazda's homage to the Minilite, which lived on a long lineage of British sports cars and Italian classics. Most special-edition NAs came with BBS or other better wheels anyway. The Daisy stays controversial.
The wheels we agree are great:
The Z3 M Coupe five-spoke. Aggressive, clean, the right amount of dish. One of the cleanest interpretations of the classic five-spoke any OEM has ever pulled off, and proof BMW could do no wrong with wheels through the 90s.
The E36 M3 GT wheel — never officially sold in the U.S. but available from the dealer. Polished forward-facing surfaces, painted-silver sides, dual-tone treatment that gave it cache from any angle. Shinoo bought a set for his E36 325i and says it transformed the car.
The Mercedes monolocks (E-Class era). Blair's pick. Timeless, easy to clean (the cheese-grater Porsche brake-dust haters know), and one of the few wheels that genuinely makes you want a luxury sedan you didn't think you wanted. Shinoo owned a 2007 E350 wagon with the AMG Sport-line package and a variant of this wheel — and his wife broke one on a pothole the first month. $850 to replace. Worth it, apparently.
The Alfa Romeo 4C / Giulia Quadrifoglio "phone dial" wheel. Blair found an article calling it one of the ugliest wheels of all time, which is incorrect — these wheels are stunning, they reference Alfa's quadrifoglio cloverleaf, and yes, Tim Harris has a green Quadrifoglio with them. Shout out Tim.
The Porsche Sport Techno wheel on the 981 Boxster GTS. Five-spoke, dual-tone (silver spoke with black accent works best), and one of the very few wheels Blair says he'd buy a car around. Looks fast standing still.
The shop favorites:
The Lotus Speedline wheel on the Series 1 Exige. Magnesium, flatfaced five-spoke. The visual ancestor of the Stella Corsa wheel Shinoo specced for Blair's 111 RS.
The Lotus Esprit V8 BBS multi-spoke mesh wheel. Deep dish, proper aggression — the wheel that gives the late V8 Esprits the look that aged better than the rest of the car.
Send us your worst and best lists. Bonus points for anything we missed entirely.
This or That: The New M3 EV vs an Older BMW
The M3 EV starts around $100K (estimated). At that money, what else do you actually buy?
The EV options:
The Porsche Taycan Cross Turismo — sportiest of the practical EV options, but range-limited
The Audi e-tron GT — Blair drove one in deep green a few weeks back and admitted he liked it, which surprised everyone including him
The Rivian R3 — coming next year, ~$50K, rally-esque proportions, almost certainly going in Shinoo's garage at some point
The older BMWs (if you skip EV and use the money for an analog daily plus maintenance):
The E24 M5 — Shinoo's dream choice. The original M5. Blocky, perfect, and reliability is a hopeful theory rather than a verified fact
The E60 M5 V10 — manual-converted ones running ~$50K with 60–80K miles, SMG cars closer to $30–40K. One of the best-sounding BMWs ever made. One of the least reliable BMWs ever made
The E34 M5 Touring — quintessential BMW
The verdicts:
Shinoo: the new M3 EV. Four doors, the range works, his daily is mission-critical, and he doesn't want to chase parts.
Blair: the E34 M5 Touring, with $40–50K left over for maintenance and toys. The reliability argument applies — but Blair has decided his daily needs to be something he wants to commute in, not something he tolerates.
The irony that landed in studio: Shinoo, who has spent years preaching analog cars, picked the EV. Blair, who has spent years picking new sports cars, picked the 1990s wagon. We will let this one sit.
Listener Q: One Car Every Enthusiast Should Drive Once
Hector wrote in:
"What's one car every enthusiast should drive at least once in their life?"
Shinoo's answer is a class of car, not a single model: the lightweight, open-wheel single-seater. Ariel Atom. BAC Mono. Caterham. Drakan Spider. Ariel Nomad (the second-gen version, if it ever makes it to the U.S.). The throughline: center-line driving position, exposure to the elements, sensory immersion at a level no closed sports car can match. And the visual feedback of seeing your own front wheels move with your steering inputs — first time you have to catch a slide in one and watch the wheel actually rotate, it changes how you understand cornering forever. Blair will get a chance to drive the Drakan when he visits in a couple of weeks. Shinoo will set it to the tall guy setting.
Blair's answer is more accessible: the early Miata. Specifically an NA. Not because it's exotic — because it's the ultimate palate cleanser.
"I've had so many car guys dismiss the Miata to me — and the only fix is to put them in one and have them slide it around a corner."
The NA Miata is one of the most approachable cars at the limit ever built. It's hard to spin. It'll telegraph everything. You can drive it on a public road, in any city, at sub-felony speeds, and still have a complete sports car experience. The ND has more torque and will actually bite you. The NA won't.
The combined answer: the right car to drive once depends on what kind of enthusiast you are. If you want sensory overload and a formula-car-on-the-street experience, get in something open-wheel. If you want to remember why the basic act of cornering is fun, get in an NA Miata. Either way, the only wrong answer is to never try.
See us at Monterey Car Week
Both Shinoo and Blair will be at Monterey Car Week in August, and we're floating a Full Throttle Talk community meetup — beers, dinner, talk cars, possibly bring in a couple of other content creators. If you'll be in town, hit us up:
Shinoo — Instagram: @inokinetic_group
Blair — Instagram: @shifterfeel
We'll firm up the details over the next few weeks and let everyone know.
🎙 Listen to the full episode here: https://youtu.be/GMEpYKQjZgs?si=cAb-mpyElK7Zjiqb
– Tim, Blair & Shinoo
🏁 The Full Throttle Talk Team
What did you think of this week's podcast?
💬 Join the Conversation
Got thoughts on today’s topic? We’d love to hear them. Just hit reply or share your take with fellow gearheads inside our private Facebook group.
📩 Don’t keep Full Throttle Talk a secret—share it with a friend, family member, or colleague. Let’s spread the fun!
📣 Submit Your Questions
💬 Want your question featured on the next show? DM us on Instagram or reply to this newsletter.
🧠 Got an article or market take? Send it in—we’ll feature our favorites in an upcoming issue.
