By Tim Harris, Blair Smith & Shinoo Mapleton · July 2, 2026

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Tim's dispatch this week is a career update. And it's the best one yet.

Now — the real question this episode kept circling. What does fast actually cost? Blair drove two BMWs, Everyday Driver published their long-awaited review of Blair's 111 RS, three auction results landed in the same 24 hours, and Heidi wrote in with the perfect listener question. It all lands in the same conversation. Let's get into it!

Something got lost when BMW went from naturally aspirated to turbocharged. Then he drove a black E90 M3 four-door with the S65 V8 and BMW's first-generation dual-clutch. Blair had almost bought an E90 or E92 M3 several times before — always as a weekend toy. This time he considered it as a daily. The hydraulic-ish, weighted steering. The dual-clutch that felt like an actual dual-clutch. Most comfortable seat he's ever sat in. The daily-driver camp has shifted squarely to the E90 M3 — even with 15 mpg looming, and the well-known rod bearing and VANOS concerns. Shinoo's read: Blair is quietly becoming an automatic-transmission enthusiast. Nobody is surprised. The X5 remains the practical alternative on the board. The M3 keeps pulling.

Three auction results landed this week that between them tell a full story about value in the current market. Two are legitimate cases for the buyer. One is a $40,000 cautionary tale.

The one that keeps coming up on this show. A 991.1 GT3 with 3,000 miles just hammered on Bring a Trailer for $152,500 — call it $160K with the buyer fee. This one had the specific history that matters most for this generation: the original engine failed (the well-documented finger-follower issue), and Porsche replaced it under the ten-year extended warranty. The replacement was an E1-series motor — an updated version of the same-family engine. If you can find one with a full G-series replacement engine (post-2016 revision), that's the target. This one is close.

Blair's math: a new 992.2 GT3 is roughly $300,000 — if you can get an allocation, and if you're willing to fight for one. The 991.1 is half that. It's PDK-only, which is right up Blair's alley. And it has, in Blair's read, a more visceral and emotional character than the increasingly refined newer cars — with Blair's favorite modern Porsche interior. If you're not stretching financially, the argument for the 991.1 at $150K over a new GT3 at $300K is very hard to refute. It's the best value play in modern 911s right now, provided you can accept the engine risk (or find a car with the replacement already done).

The one people aren't talking about enough. A 2012 base 991.1 Carrera with 94,000 miles just sold for $44,000 on Bring a Trailer. Seven-speed manual. Black-optioned. Naturally aspirated flat-six — the pinnacle of Porsche sound, in Blair's read. Around 350 horsepower. Modest but tasteful modifications: a Numeric short shifter (the same one Shinoo runs on the shop's 996 RR), a FabSpeed exhaust, and some aftermarket wheels.

Context: a new Carrera T starts at $150,000 and lands optioned somewhere between $175K and $190K sticker. Same silhouette. Similar power (the T makes more torque, but the base 991.1 has the naturally aspirated character the T no longer offers). This car is roughly a quarter of the price of a new one, gives you the manual, gives you the naturally aspirated soundtrack, and lets you drive a 911 without worrying about the depreciation cliff you're always standing on with a new one.

Shinoo's practical addendum for anyone tempted: get a pre-purchase inspection. Any sports car. Every time. And set aside 15–20% of the purchase price in cash reserves for immediate maintenance — new fluids, alignment, whatever the inspection finds. He tells the story of a client who bought an Evora GT from someone out east; the clutch failed as it rolled off the delivery truck. A 40-hour job. $7,000–$8,000 out of pocket before the client had even driven the car. Have that reserve ready.

This is the cautionary tale. A 2024 BMW M2 manual, 6,000 miles, sold for $66,000 on Bring a Trailer. Base sticker for that car is $63,000. So how did it end up with a $106K price tag? $43,000 in dealer-installed M Performance parts. M Performance suspension. M Performance exhaust with the giant rear diffuser tips ($10,000 for the exhaust alone — which, on an M2, has Blair asking whether BMW was trying to copy Lexus).

The car had roughly one year and 6,000 miles on it. The owner ate a $40,000 loss on the options alone. M2 manuals in general have held value very well. This one didn't.

The lesson we keep coming back to: be careful with the option sheet. That's where the manufacturer makes their money and where you lose yours. Shinoo's nuance: if the car is your dream build and you're keeping it for 10 years, amortize the loss over a decade of joy and it's fine. If you're the type of enthusiast (like Blair) who cycles through cars every 18–24 months, do not option the halo model. That's how you set $40K on fire.

The big editorial moment this week. Todd Deacon and Paul at Everyday Driver published their long-awaited review of Blair's 111 RS — the very same car Shinoo built and Blair now owns. If you haven't seen it, go find it on YouTube. The production is beautiful. The review is fair. And the review's final line is worth engaging with directly.

What Blair agreed with:

Where Blair pushes back:

The summary line from the review — the one Blair wants to have a conversation about — was that the 111 RS is "maybe fractionally" better than a stock Elise.

Blair's case for why that framing undersells the car:

The number that keeps coming up in the review — $80,000 on top of a stock Elise — is a lot of money. Blair concedes that. But the framing question is what that $80K actually buys. If it buys fractionally better, it's not worth it. If it buys the ability to run with Cayman GT4s — which cost $150K+ new and would themselves get taken out to the woodshed by a properly built 111 RS — then the math looks very different. Speed costs money. Shinoo has said this on the show twice in a month. It's true for a stock GT3 vs. a stock 911. It's true for a Carrera T vs. a base Carrera. And it's true for a 111 RS vs. a stock Elise.

The genuinely useful practical note from Shinoo: you don't have to do the full RS build. Inocinetic sells the parts individually. You can do just the suspension. Just the shifter. Just the supercharger. Pick the upgrade path that matches your budget and how you actually drive. The RS is one endpoint on a curve — not the only entry point.

Todd Deacon has agreed to come on the show and continue this conversation. That episode will be worth watching for.

Porsche adds simulated shifts to the Taycan. Porsche has followed Hyundai's Ioniq 5 N into simulated dual-clutch behavior — software-generated shift feel, synthesized sound, and a rev limiter that will stall the car if you don't upshift. Blair's take with the caveat that he still has to drive one: this is either a gimmick or the EV performance sound problem finally solved. Shinoo's take: he wants his EVs to be EVs. His Model 3 is a utilitarian tool and he prefers it that way. Blair notes he's already owned a Golf R and BMWs with fully synthesized engine sound piped through the speakers, so the ship on "faked feel in performance cars" sailed a decade ago. This is just the next iteration.

The Chevrolet ZR1X set a new production-car record at Pikes Peak — beating the previous 992.1 Turbo S record by roughly 22 seconds. The critics' line — "it did it with twice the horsepower" — is valid but beside the point. Shinoo's response: only the result matters. Blair's addendum: the ZR1X is the car people actually want to drive, whereas the 992.1 Turbo S has always felt a little distant. Also at Pikes Peak: the Ford Super Mustang Mach-E took overall — a 1,400-horsepower, six-motor EV that makes 6,900 pounds of downforce at 150 mph. For context, a 992 GT3 RS makes roughly 1,400 pounds of downforce at the same speed. The Mustang isn't a road car. It's a category of its own.

Polestar is leaving the U.S. market in 2027. Publicly the story is about Chinese-owned software (Polestar is under Geely) and U.S. security concerns. But Volvo is also Geely-owned and has managed U.S. software approval, so that framing is incomplete. Shinoo's read: Polestar simply isn't selling enough cars. The strategic mistake was launching Polestar as a standalone brand rather than positioning it as Volvo's performance division — the way M is to BMW or AMG is to Mercedes. That would have given Polestar the Volvo dealer network, the Volvo software pipeline, and the Volvo cost basis. As a standalone in the U.S., the math never worked.

Slate finally announced pricing on its EV truck — just under $25,000. Only one battery option (the standard-range was cut), 205-mile range, first deliveries end of this year. Shinoo attended the accessories-vendor focus group for the truck a few months back and is expecting his allocation by March if he places the full deposit. At half the average new-car transaction price in the U.S. and matching the 40-mile average American commute several times over, this is a genuinely interesting product if the execution holds up.

Porsche revealed a 911 GT4 race car to fill the customer-motorsport gap the discontinued Cayman GT4 left behind. The question that immediately followed: will Porsche do a 911 GT4 street version? Porsche also announced a strategic pivot toward lower volume and higher margin — more special editions, more Paint to Sample, more bespoke work. Shinoo's prediction: yes, they'll do it, and if they do it right it should be a stripped-out, hardcore lightweight below the GT3 in the range. The engineering challenge is not building a good one — Porsche can do that in their sleep. The engineering challenge is keeping it below GT3 performance so it doesn't cannibalize the range above. Blair's addendum: the "Ferrariification of Porsche" is very much underway. Get comfortable with paint-to-sample or six shades of silver, gray, and white. There is no middle option coming.

Heidi wrote in with the perfect question for this week:

Shinoo went first with a driving mistake. Years ago at Spring Mountain, on a cool-down lap — the lap where you're supposed to slow down — Shinoo's mind wandered. He entered a corner at three-quarters the speed he'd been taking it the entire session. Just enough that he ran out of road, put two wheels off into the rocks (which used to be a fixture at Spring Mountain before they redesigned that section), and shredded the fiberglass down the entire side of the car. He didn't lose control. He just lost focus. Expensive body work. A lot of rocks vacuumed out of the interior. This is the exact reason both Blair and Shinoo love track days, though: for the time you're driving, the mental focus required is total. You cannot think about work. You cannot think about home. The one lap where Shinoo forgot that rule cost him a fortune.

Then Shinoo's second-most-expensive mistake — the first exhaust he ever installed. A B&B Triflow on his E36 325i. Glorious under load. Drone at cruise so severe his wife could hear him coming from six blocks away. He replaced it eventually with a Supersprint system from Italy that was — and is — perfect. Lesson: audit the drone before you commit to an exhaust.

Blair's answer went philosophical. His most expensive mistakes come from being what he called "a malcontent" — constantly turning over daily drivers. Every time you cycle a car, you're taking a loss, spending money to sort the new one, and eating dealer margin somewhere. He estimates he'd be meaningfully wealthier if he'd just picked one modern car and stuck with it.

His follow-up question, though, is the one worth sitting with: are these mistakes, or are they just the price of the experience? The other hobbies people pursue at this level — golf, fishing, racing, collecting — are not free either. Cars are the same. The mistakes are how you learn what you actually want. Blair's only real rule: nobody should be reaching beyond their financial limits for a car, especially not when NA Miatas exist and are, on any given weekend, more fun than 80% of what's parked next to them at the concours.

Blair is flying out to see Shinoo next week and the plans include seat time in the Drakan Spider (Blair's first proper open-wheel single-seater — Shinoo will set it to the tall guy setting). If the logistics work, we're going to try to record a live, in-person episode for the first time. Watch this space.

And the reminder on Monterey Car Week in August: we're putting together a Full Throttle Talk community meetup, including a boutique manufacturer showing a car with us. If you'll be there, hit us up on Instagram — Shinoo at @inokinetic_group and Blair at @shifterfeel

🎙 Listen to the full episode here: https://youtu.be/PyJVm4PvXaQ?si=BGfKXxDy9mXOVM9T

– Tim, Blair & Shinoo

🏁 The Full Throttle Talk Team

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