The Grey NATO – 237 – Thomas Holland of 'Throttle House' On His Watches, Cars, Diving, Climbing, and More
Published on Thu, 04 May 2023 06:00:00 -0400
Synopsis
This is a podcast episode featuring a conversation between Jason Heaton, the host, and Thomas Holland from YouTube's Throttle House channel. They discuss a wide range of topics including cars, watches, diving, mountaineering, and driving in Ontario. Thomas shares details about his car history, favorite vehicles he's driven like the 918 Spyder and Ford GT, as well as watches in his collection. They explore the overlapping interests of car and watch enthusiasts. The episode provides insights into Thomas's background, the Throttle House YouTube channel, and their recent ambitious road trip video project.
Links
Transcript
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| Jason Heaton | Hello, and welcome to another episode of the Graynado. It's a loose discussion of travel, adventure, diving, driving gear, and most certainly watches. This is episode 237, and it's proudly brought to you by the ever-growing TGN supporter crew. We thank you all so much for your continued support, and if you'd like to support the show, please visit thegraynado.com for more details. So this is a special episode, as I'm sure many of you would have guessed from the title, which usually gives these things away. But this was recorded while Jason was away in Scotland, and we're joined by a very special guest host. He's a new voice to the show, but if you love great car content, he's quite likely not a new voice on your YouTube or Instagram feed. Please welcome a new friend of mine, WatchNerdHotShoe, co-host of The Throttle House on YouTube, Thomas Holland. Hello. Thank you for having me. How are we doing? I'm doing excellent. You know, I think this is the first time I've ever recorded an episode in my living room. |
| Thomas Holland | Really? Yeah. This is a nice place to sit. We were just chatting about this, actually, like it's very well decorated. It's eclectic. I feel inspired. |
| Jason Heaton | I have. Yeah, we have one one room that's suitable for guests, for sure. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. The other one you saw the office, which is a lot of watch boxes. |
| Thomas Holland | I had a rowing machine. That's all I need. It's just a room with a rowing machine. |
| Jason Heaton | Right. It has that, too. Yeah. And it's also a dining room. Multifunctional. |
| Unknown | That's the name of the game. |
| Jason Heaton | You got to do you got to do. Yeah. It's a pleasure to have you here. We've we got to know each other just like in the last Six months or so. |
| Thomas Holland | Yeah. Yeah. I think it was just like, I don't even remember who did I, did I reach out to you and be like, poke, poke. Hi. |
| Jason Heaton | I think I was, I think I was probably commenting on, on some of the stuff you guys were posting. |
| Thomas Holland | Yeah. We started chatting on Instagram. Yeah. Like there's so much crossover between our worlds. I was like, I started listening to the podcast before I was speaking to you because like you guys kind of capture, I don't know what the word is. It's like this thing that everyone kind of that does these things, they all like all of the things. Like we all like camping, we all like gear, we all like watches and cars. It's just this, my wife laughs at it because she's like, wait a second, they all like all of the same things that you like? And I'm like, yeah, I don't know. It's a thing. Like you literally have a Reinhold Messner book down there. Oh, yeah, for sure. So yeah, it's this bizarre thing that when you like gear, it just spreads. a cars and what other stuff you're like it's the same like it's cars it's also it's the same planes yeah cool elevators like i don't know you tell me like oh my god literally like i like a good bridge too like it doesn't have to be anything too like no like anything anything that is mechanical or whatever i'm interested in right like there's literally an sr-71 blackbird sitting on top of your audio receiver right there and i can't stop looking at it it's fun because it's just like the coolest looking |
| Jason Heaton | thing ever made. It is the best human creation of all time. |
| Thomas Holland | It honestly might be. Such an expensive camera. But yeah, I don't really know what it is. I think it just stems from an interest in science and engineering, I suppose. |
| Jason Heaton | I think it's also design and personal style. We still live in a world, even way more than watches, where the car that you drive or the car that you choose to drive still says something about |
| Thomas Holland | you know, whether you like it or not, it does. And a lot of people don't even realize that they buy a car that fits them in their lifestyle by the car that you've chosen. I can usually tell you what your lifestyle is, right? I can profile the person that drives a certain type of car. So yeah, whether you like it or not, a car is part of the image of who you are. |
| Jason Heaton | And in a similar way to watches, and I've brought this up before using the Miata as a, as an example, there's also layers of, like how enthusiasm relates on the product. Like if you ask a Corvette guy about Corvettes, you get an entirely different answer than if you ask a generalist car, deep car enthusiast who bought a Corvette for specific reasons, right? That car, the same car for entirely different reasons than its core audience. Exactly. And you know, the Miata for some people, certain generations, people who are only tendentially in or understand cars is, you know, a lady's car, a hairdresser's car, whatever kind of misogynist thing would have been said 20 years ago. |
| Thomas Holland | That's the classic thing that, you know, I grew up hearing from every adult male that I knew, right? They're like, oh, that's a hairdresser's car. Yeah, exactly. But it's just, once you get into it, as you say, once you get into the enthusiast group of it. |
| Jason Heaton | And then you realize, oh, it's the most raced car in America on any given weekend. It's essentially a perfect platform for learning to drive dynamically. Yep. It is really funny to see how enthusiasm in a given topic also relates to the way that you assign baggage to like, like, and it's a different layer. It's cause it's not the product's baggage, but it is. |
| Thomas Holland | Yes. |
| Jason Heaton | Right. Like certain watches might say something about somebody. Yep. Obviously there's, there's some great Tik TOK and like Instagram real stuff of people saying like what your watch says about you, what your car says about you, this kind of stuff. And there's, it's all hilarious because it touches on some point of a truth. Yep. but very seldomly the whole thing. And of course, then you're also putting a personality or anthropomorphizing to some extent, like the, the baggage, the, the sort of ethos of a vehicle or a watch or a pair of shoes or whatever. |
| Thomas Holland | And it's funny, like, especially in the car enthusiasm world, people, the most car enthusiasts will recognize what the, what the, the generalizations are about the car that they drive and the ones with a sense of humor. will make fun of themselves for that, right? Jeep is great for this. Yes, exactly. Right. So, but, but that, that's the fun thing about car, as you say, car enthusiasts within a certain group, you'll have every different type. It'll be the people that rebel against it. Like that's not what the image is. There'll be people that accept it and joke about it. There'll be the people that are that thing for real. But yeah, when it comes to the Miata, speaking of that, like I'll never admit to my co-host James, shout out James, not, not, not this co-host James, but other co-host James. Yeah, the Miata is still to this day, I think one of the only and best pure little driving experiences that you can get, essentially. |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah. I think they're rad. But, but like a Corvette, like we were just talking about Mustang before we started recording. Yeah. All of these cars have their own sort of ethos. And so, and like, they absolutely do for watches too. And there's a whole level of people who like, you could love the sort of watches we talked about on TGN are an easy example, and then not have the, the like, cultural pin that I also wouldn't have for something like knowing what one Patek Philippe says versus another one, what one signals to your taste or your connection to the brand or the rest of it. All of that kind of stuff is kind of hilarious and really silly, but to circle back to the idea that, you know, your wife's saying like, is everybody into these things? Yeah. I mean, maybe not, not everybody. We even, we got a Q and a recently. where So watches for me, thinner and thinner slices. |
| Thomas Holland | Yeah, exactly. Yeah. I'm not, I'm not sure that I don't want superficial is not the right word, but like, you know, I obviously read a lot about watches and listen a lot about watches, but when it comes to watches, I have my very own particular personal interest and requirements that don't necessarily, you know, line up with what I suppose would be the, the general accepted kind of like, Oh, you know, that's the type of watch that this type of person would wear for that type of occasion side sort of thing. Right. Which is the reason I'm wearing this thing on my wrist right now, actually. We'll get to that in a moment. Oh, okay. Okay. We do a wrist check? Yeah. Oh, I'm so excited. I get to be here for a wrist check. |
| Jason Heaton | Oh, this is amazing. Well, before we get to what's on your wrist, why don't you give people a little bit of like a background in, in your, we're going to get into the YouTube stuff cause I'm fascinated and you've done a couple of things, even just recently. There's some stuff in the past I want to chit chat about. And so there's some incredible channels. There absolutely are. And, and the competition I'm sure is very fierce and, and, and the rest of it. Uh, but it feels like the YouTube side of the car world has really matured in certain ways. |
| Thomas Holland | It definitely has. Yeah. I mean, weirdly when we started, we thought it was saturated and we were like, this is, there's probably no chance that this is going to work. |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah. That could be like a business that would, because you have several people now. |
| Thomas Holland | Yeah. Yeah. We have, we have a handful of employees. We have about four or four employees I think now. And uh, and of course myself and James. But yeah, when we started, we were like, you know, okay, there's, like there's Doug DeMuro and there's Car Wow. And you know, like there is like a lot of, a lot of competition and Motor Trend, obviously, but we're just like, you know, let's just do something really different and see if it sticks. And so that's actually when James come up with the idea to do the sketches right at the beginning of the video. |
| Jason Heaton | And those are, I think those are the ones that I see reflect beyond the car core. Yes. Like they hit Reddit, Yes. You know, the helmet getting into the I-8. |
| Thomas Holland | Yeah, the get-in helmet. |
| Jason Heaton | Bing, bing, bing, whatever you like, that sound. |
| Thomas Holland | The sound, for some reason, everyone loves the sound. It's such a funny sound. It's the greatest noise. |
| Jason Heaton | So for those of you who haven't watched the Throttle House video, one of the defining features, along with excellent cinematography and great voiceover and a genuine perspective on the cars, like if the car doesn't hit you guys well, we all know that by the end of the video. |
| Thomas Holland | Yeah, we try and tell a story. |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah. but they also all open with some sort of a skit, which could be sometimes it's four or five words. Sometimes it feels like you guys put a ton of time and effort into walking out into the middle of some field. That's because we did. |
| Unknown | Yeah. |
| Jason Heaton | And, uh, and they're always like very funny and silly and lighthearted. Um, but there's a couple that have really stood out, you know, especially this one, this sequence from one where James, your cohost and shout out James, if you listen to this episode, is getting into an i8. And because it does have, it is a weird process if you're tall-ish or more to get into an i8 without hurting yourself. And he's wearing a helmet and he pings it off of the door sill, the bottom of the door and then the front of the window frame. And it makes such a funny sound. |
| Unknown | And a lot of people will say it's difficult to get in and out of, but owners will agree with me that there is a special knack to it. First of all, you put on your get in helmet, And voila, it's as easy as that. |
| Thomas Holland | People like ripped it off and they put it on TikTok and they did this and they did that. And we eventually got around to posting it on in a vertical format. Right. But we're way too late. There'd be like 50 bajillion views on it. Right. But yeah, every once in a while, well, those those little tiny bite sized moments are just kind of like spur of the moment ideas usually. Right. The full sketches at the beginning of videos usually take a lot more a lot the G-Wagon wave. Did you see that one? Of course. Okay, that went like, well, we posted it on Instagram, and it's got like 10 million views or something like that. |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah, I'll put it in the show notes. It's so funny. |
| Thomas Holland | Yeah, yeah. I think, well, I think James came up with it. And he's like, why don't we do a G-Wagon wave? And I was like, what do you mean? He's like, you're just gonna throw cash, just throw it. And then we happen to be borrowing that G-Wagon from a dealership. And the manager there was a really great guy. And we're like, do you want to go to do the opposing G wagon? So he grabbed another G wagon and went over to the public road. He threw cash at the window. Um, yeah, no, like those little moments. That's what, that's what we love to do. That's our favorite part for sure. |
| Jason Heaton | And that has to be something that, that does cause the videos to kind of like to attribute these kind of ladder steps in growth, right? Because otherwise YouTube can be a very slow grind until you hit a moment, right? |
| Thomas Holland | Yeah. To some degree. I mean, our, our general idea and plan was always to just kind of, make the best video we can every time and make the video that we're doing be relevant, basically, right? And that seems to have worked. But yeah, there's certain things that you'll hit and things that you'll do that will cause a huge spike in growth, right? Just because they hit a wider audience, whatever it is. |
| Jason Heaton | And we got to a couple of those. I'm sure we'll get to a couple more. Obviously, I started this whole point by saying we would get to cars. So let's do the wrist check. Yes! |
| Thomas Holland | Thomas, my co host, what have you got on wrist today? I have my Zen that I just picked up. It's the 105 STSA. Yes, there's the 105 STUTC, which is the GMT version. But this is the one with the with the day and the date and a black dial and a black dial. It has the tegmented bezel. Did I say that right? I believe so. |
| Jason Heaton | Okay, I've only read it. I don't say anything correctly. So it's all good. |
| Thomas Holland | Um, and it's, it's, I've actually, this is the only watch I think I've worn on the bracelet that it came with for more than one hour before I switched it to a NATO. Yeah. It's all the beads. |
| Jason Heaton | So it's the black dial, the 12 hour bezel, which kind of makes the UTC version irrelevance. And I know that back when you were first kind of hunting this down, you wrote me and you said a certain water, it was like 200 meters water resistance and a day and date. Can you think of any others? And I was like, not really. |
| Thomas Holland | There's not really that many. you could do the Seiko, was it SKX007? Sure. Yeah. I have one of those and I like it, but I've had it for 10 years. Yeah. I just wanted something new and fresh and whatever it was. |
| Jason Heaton | And you're a whole different vibe between a 7S26 based Seiko and a modern Zen. |
| Thomas Holland | Yeah. Oh, exactly. And so basically the reason I picked up this watch is because I wanted something that I could dive with, travel with, Um, and I am pathologically incapable of remembering what day of the week it is. Cool. So I, I literally was just like, I just want to, and it's not a very common complication, honestly, especially in dive watches. Right? So I wanted the day I wanted the date. And I think that the 12 hour bezel with the sub numbers to actually time a dive as well is just the best thing ever. It's the coolest. It's just so easy. Like I absolutely love this thing. It does every single thing that I need it to do. And it actually is a bidirectional bezel too. Yeah, which is pretty common with 12-hour. Yeah, it's just really nice. I've only ever had dive watches, right? So to have it go both ways is cool. |
| Jason Heaton | I rambled on recently about the T50, which I got to see when I was in Switzerland. It's really nice. I really like it. It's fantastic, but it's a whole price point above a 105. And I know that we had talked about my Pelagos when I got it, and I'm not sure that you're necessarily... That titanium would have been a buying selling point for a watch like this. |
| Thomas Holland | Make sure |
| Jason Heaton | My apologies to the audience if you can hear the leaf blower outside. Yeah, this is the classic joke of suburbia. It's not actually quiet, is it? No, never. It's never quiet here. But when I come to power, they will be illegal. That's my promise. |
| Thomas Holland | Be prepared for the platform. |
| Jason Heaton | Use a rake. |
| Thomas Holland | Leave them on the ground. The bees need them for homes. Come on. Yeah, exactly. I tried it on and it felt too light. The titanium was just a little bit too light, right? And it removed the fact that it cost a thousand dollars. I was like, this doesn't feel expensive enough. But then I recently tried on like the full fat Pelagos and it has enough heft to it. So good. I just love that watch to pieces. And I, it's just slightly out of the price range. You know what I mean? Blue, black or LHD? A hundred percent black. Just the, the, I love it. I just like the simple Pelagos on the bracelet. Go back and try and get a two liner? Maybe, but I actually, I think I'm on my own in this. I really like the look of the multiple lines. I think the additional text. Yeah. It just, it's cool. It's like, Ooh, what does it say? I want to look at it. I mean, I know what it says, but it's just, it's, I don't know. I love that watch and I, I've tried on yours and I, the smaller size is honestly quite nice. I really do like it. |
| Jason Heaton | It's been difficult. I have a bunch of really interesting watches in that we're recording this the day that the new marathon navigator in steel officially dropped. So you'll, would have heard about it on the last episode, but I have that on the table in front of us. And it's just a great watch. 41 millimeters wears really nicely. It's nice and thin. I've got the new Seiko GMT, the SPB 381. Oh, that's really cool. I just got that in. So we'll talk about that on a, on a future episode. And we're going to do some video, like we'll do a full coverage for that for Hodinkee. It's a very cool watch. That's very nice actually. Yeah. It's a, it's pretty good. So I'm definitely kind of spoiled for choice these days. Yeah. And I keep just going back to the Pelagos. |
| Thomas Holland | Well, cause there's something about them, right? There's just something about like the way the titanium looks, the way the bezel looks. I just, I, I adore almost every version of them, honestly. Yeah. |
| Jason Heaton | The FXD is so much fun. It is really cool. Too long lug to lug for my wrist. I just don't have the wrist for it. Yeah. Yeah. And, um, and I think if I was going to make the exception to wear a bigger watch and have the big watch experience, I might want a standard blue Pelagos, which I adore with the great bracelet, the incredible buckle, the, the self-adjusting clasp, the rest of it. But this gets me like 90% of the way there and it's a watch I can wear absolutely like every day that I want to. The only thing this one doesn't do really well is travel watches, which I'm just chock-a-block with otherwise. Right, exactly. |
| Thomas Holland | I'm not short on travel watches, so I'll be okay. Well, yeah, the reason I like the Pelagos and the reason, I mean, I like this Zen is because I'm a fan of... This extends past the watch world, honestly. I'm a fan of a thing that looks like it can go through the ringer. |
| Jason Heaton | Oh, sure. |
| Thomas Holland | Like I love the idea of something that's insanely durable, right? So or just even purposeful. Absolutely. Yeah, exactly. So I mean, I had a I had a Certina DS action diver that I got in actually bought it in Switzerland years ago as kind of like a souvenir of a trip. And I use that I was a caving instructor and I use that for caving. I just like committed myself. I'm like, OK, this is my watch that's just going to get beat up. And I love that about it. Did it survive? It did. Absolutely. I smashed it off so many rocks. I was going through like constrictions and stuff in the cave, right? And I could feel it scraping against the rock. And I was like, Oh yeah. And I looked at it with my flashlight. I'm like, so good. Moving on. Okay. But no, I just, I love that. I love that about it. I just, and it was a, it was a durable watch. It never let me down. I've done like 50 dives with that one. But I don't wear it anymore primarily because I hate the way it looks. |
| Jason Heaton | Well, I mean, that's a great reason to stop wearing a watch for sure. |
| Thomas Holland | And that's kind of the downside of certain watches for me is that I'm such a sucker for a watch that just looks cool, right? So you could give me the best designed and most amazing thing in the world, but if I don't like the way it looks, I don't care, I'm not gonna wear it. |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah, I mean, that gets me into all sorts of things in my life. The aesthetic of it is absolutely important. So important. And with a watch, I figure you have to check a few boxes Yep. To get me on board and the rest is sold by how it looks specifically how it looks on me. Exactly. Or on the type of person that I see myself as in my mind. |
| Thomas Holland | Yes. |
| Jason Heaton | This is the James Bond effect, right? You see the Seamaster on Bond. You have a Bond Seamaster. I do. Yeah. You see it and it's not that you want to be James Bond. I actually think if most people were like, do you want to actually be James Bond? |
| Unknown | Like |
| Jason Heaton | He has almost 30 movies of him having a pretty tough time. Oh, it's a horrible life. |
| Thomas Holland | Why would you ever actually want to be James Bond? |
| Jason Heaton | His lady's constantly dying. Constantly dying. That's bad. Notoriously bad thing to have happen to you. |
| Thomas Holland | Yeah. Yeah. |
| Jason Heaton | He's constantly getting hurt, hit by cars. |
| Thomas Holland | He has to jump. He has to jump off really high stuff all the time. |
| Jason Heaton | Jump off high stuff. I assume he spends an unbelievable amount of time on airplanes. Can't be good for you. They never show it. |
| Thomas Holland | Oh, yeah. He's in the Bahamas and then he's in Switzerland and then he's in, you're just like, that's like a, 23 hour flight. That's horrible. Why would you want to do that? And he's like, Oh, I'm here now. And I'm looking awesome with my sunglasses. |
| Jason Heaton | It's a tough life. He's never looks jet lagged or tired. |
| Thomas Holland | No, I, yeah. Well, I think he's just always tired. |
| Jason Heaton | Perpetually. Oh, maybe that's it. That's been my secret for years. |
| Thomas Holland | Exactly. It's like the Hulk, right? He's just always angry. You just, you, we don't know the, the, the rested James Bond. We only know the super diver. |
| Jason Heaton | I mean, they go to a lot of liberties with how quickly he could move around the globe, but conceivably he could be on a special plane, somebody else, like, The other one that I laugh at is, I was talking, we were talking about this because I've been trying to see John Wick 4 unsuccessfully due to Toronto's traffic. I keep getting, you know, going to be there eight minutes late or whatever, and I'm not missing the first couple of minutes. I don't like movie theaters to begin with, but, but there are sequences in John Wick 3 where he's in Morocco in the middle of the desert. Yeah. Or whatever. And then the neck, they cut to him in New York city. Yeah. Seemingly nobody had waited for him, right? Like he's just there in a motorcycle with a sword and you're like, I'm in let's go. |
| Thomas Holland | Yeah. Let's do it. |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah. Tough life though. Those guys lead for sure. I didn't want to do it. Like, but the, the accoutrement of being a bond, whether it's the watch, the suit, the car, anything, the gambling, right? I don't know if I've ever necessarily seen Bond with a hangover, right? It's not possible. Or at least he suffers through them with such a, you know, a chip on his shoulder. Yes, exactly. |
| Thomas Holland | Yeah. He just, no, it's true. And it's like this, this lifestyle that the Bond lifestyle, obviously, which is its own genre of thing, right? There's like, there's podcasts and YouTube channels and everything. And I am absolutely a sucker for it, right? I have to be, I just, but I'm, I'm, it's just, cause I like to have an imagination, right? Like I, I eat, I equal parts want to be James Bond and a ghost buster. Right. So you know what I mean? So like, it's not, it's not this James Bond's life's particularly, I just, I'm a sucker for like, I want to be a Mandalorian tomorrow. That's probably what I'll, that's, I'm going to put the armor on and this is the way, you know what I mean? But yeah, when it comes to James Bond stuff, it's more applicable to, you obviously can't, I can't go to work dressed as Din Djarin from The Mandalorian. It's not a thing. True, yeah. But I could go to work. |
| Jason Heaton | This episode comes out May 4th. Oh, there you go. I know you're a real Star Wars guy. You went down and did one of the Disney experiences. Yeah, yeah, I did. |
| Thomas Holland | Did you buy the lightsaber? I didn't. I didn't buy a lightsaber because I stood there and I looked at them. And you know what I did buy? I bought a $200 head-to-toe Jedi costume, though. |
| Jason Heaton | That's gotta be in a skit sometime soon. At some point, yeah, yeah. Just write it off. |
| Thomas Holland | A hundred percent. Yeah. Actually, I talked to my accountant. I'm not allowed. Try it. Trust me. The James Bond thing. Like I have, Oh, I have the jacket that he wears in, um, no time to die. Sure. The, the, the cool, uh, uh, waxed cotton one. Right. And you know, wear that on camera. And some people will recognize the jacket because they are also Bond enthusiasts, right? Yeah. It's just cool because obviously like they've got the best people in the world that are dressing him. for designing his costume. So he's going to look cool. |
| Jason Heaton | I know that this is this is really dating it. But back when he probably between Casino Royale and Quantum and way back in the day with the Nerdist podcast, he was on and Daniel Craig was on and one of the co-hosts, Matt, had a real thing for Bond and especially Bond's wardrobe. Right. That he was saying that most of the wardrobe was his. Oh, that's so cool. Oh, it's so cool. And then I'm sure you know the story from Skyfall with the gloves. I don't actually. Oh, it sounds like a story I should know, though. I don't know if we've told this on the show. I'll keep it to the two or three minute. I'll attempt to make it a two or three minutes. OK, so there's famously a scene in Skyfall where he's in the casino with the Komodo dragons. Yep. Right. And he gets in a fight in the Komodo dragon pit. Yes. And in that sequence, he draws a weapon. it gets knocked away from him. And the weapon previous in the movie, you find out it's like thumb printed. Yeah. It's like palm printed or whatever. Yeah. So when the bad guy picks it up, he can't fire it. He then gets eaten by a Komodo dragon. Yes. So if you go back and watch that sequence now, you'll notice that Daniel Craig's hands look super weird. Oh. And it's because when they were making that movie, when he wasn't needed, he would just go to, I guess they were in Macau or whatever. And he would go shopping. Oh, He just goes shopping. Okay. I know one parent, and this is, again, this is all something I heard through podcasts and such. So not directly from either him or, uh, Sam Mendez's mouth. Uh, but apparently Mendez is in the middle of like one of the most hectic, troublesome, difficult shoots out there, right? Just shopping around. This is an experience that Daniel Craig would later say he would rather crawl through glass than make another Bond movie. Of course he did make another Money Helps, but yeah, I guess during some very stressful times he showed up just to show Sam some gloves that he bought, cause he thought that Bond would really wear these gloves. Right. And he said, I'm going to wear them at the casino scene. |
| Thomas Holland | Okay. |
| Jason Heaton | And they were like, yeah, fine. But the gun is hand printed. And so then it goes all the way, they make the whole movie and it goes all the way to the point where they hire people like entry level people at MGM or whatever to watch the movie for continuity problems. Right. And somebody goes, but he's wearing gloves in this sequence and the gun is hand printed and he fires the gun. it like unlocks when he picks it up. Right. And apparently like that caused a phone call chain that went all the way up to the top. And then, then they called, you know, whoever did the special effects and they said, um, or, or they called the production people and said, okay, so if we have to reshoot everything in Macau, what does that cost? Right. And it was like $140 million, $20 million or whatever it was. Yeah. And so then they called the special effects people and he said, you know, Can you, uh, can you remove gloves from somebody's hands? I'm sorry. You want me to make the gloves skin? And I think they said like, well, we can make the glove look like a hand, but it won't be removing the glove. It'll be the, the hand will be glove sized. And they said, how much will that cost? And they're like 5 million, like whatever the number was fraction. Yeah. |
| Thomas Holland | And they're like, all right, get to it. Oh my God. Those are the most expensive gloves in history. It has to be the most expensive gloves in history. That's actually, that's like when they, uh, when Henry Cavill was the famous mustache scene. It looks horrible. |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah, they talk about that on Corridor Crew and they show it every now and then because his lip moves in a way that it shouldn't sometimes. So funny when they have to do stuff like that. |
| Thomas Holland | I know it seems absurd to charge millions to make someone's gloved hands not gloved, but as an editor, I could tell you how an insane amount of work that would be. Oh yeah. Like an absolutely absurd amount of work. A key framing every single shot and like overlaying like the, you know, doing this. |
| Jason Heaton | I mean, this is also why Lord and I bet they didn't for Skyfall cause it's kind of new. So like motion capture is now called performance capture. Right. And performance capture includes 3d scanning. Yes. Everything. Everything. All the time. Yeah. Your people, your spaces. So theoretically if that same problem came up now, they would have a digital version of Bond take his glove off at some point. That's crazy. And drop that into the scene. |
| Unknown | Yeah. |
| Jason Heaton | at most, they would have to do like a face map or something. You could even just have another person do it and map Craig's face over there. Yeah, like the deep fake technology. Yeah, that kind of stuff. So yeah, it's crazy to see some of that. It is a funny, funny story for the Bond nerds out there. |
| Unknown | That's great. |
| Jason Heaton | I love that. Obviously, we're still on wrist check somehow. So let's get into, okay, let's get into my wrist check, which is today I'm wearing the Aqualand It's a bright sunny day. I've been wearing the Pelagos quite a bit and I wanted kind of something in a similar vibe, but a whole different wrist sort of experience. Yep. And so I've got on the Aqualand. So this is the loom dial from the last couple of years. It's the JP 2007 17W. It's a JDM model. Uh, not currently available in the States, but stay tuned. |
| Thomas Holland | It's a great look. It's a great look. I'm just looking at it from a distance. It's got like this really like chunky military vibe to it that I really dig. |
| Jason Heaton | It's a huge watch that doesn't actually wear that big on my wrist because it's a big square. Yeah. Yeah. And then the dial's incredible. And I love analog digital. |
| Thomas Holland | No, it looks, it looks great. I also love looking at it from the side and seeing the edge of the bezel. Yeah. That just looks awesome. |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah. It's fun. Fully graduated bezel, which I like. Lume dials are the coolest things ever. Yeah. I took this on a very unsuccessful dive in Monastery Bay during the road through America series for watches in the wild. Oh, you totally. And I had, I had this and the, the Garmin Descent Mark II on my right wrist, and the two of them next to each other, just super fun. That's cool. Yeah. It would have been fun to have seen it, you know, kind of glowing from a flashlight hit or something in the kelp, but my mask did not cooperate. |
| Thomas Holland | That watch is like, use me, use me more. |
| Jason Heaton | Oh yeah, definitely. This is a watch that definitely wants to get wet for sure. Yeah. So with wrist check out of the way, I'd love to go back into your background on some of the TGN topics. You talked about diving. Are you still a fairly avid diver? |
| Thomas Holland | Uh, yeah, but very recreationally as recreationalism, like my dad grew up diving is his thing. It's his favorite thing. Right. So basically as soon as I was old enough, which I believe in Canada is what, 16, uh, 10. |
| Jason Heaton | Now you can get ready junior. |
| Thomas Holland | Oh, I didn't know that. |
| Jason Heaton | But yeah, I think like when I got, when I went through Patty, um, a decade, more than a decade ago now, is that really it? Yeah. |
| Unknown | Yeah. |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah. Yeah. Uh, it was, I think you had to be 16 or |
| Thomas Holland | 15 maybe? Yeah, same as me, same as me then. Yeah, so I did PADI, you know, over 10 years ago. And, you know, he at this point was doing like a yearly or bi-yearly trip to the Caribbean. And so he just kind of tagged along on a lot of those. So growing up, I just did a lot of recreational diving in the Caribbean. And I've done some diving in Nova Scotia and in some lakes, you know, Great Lakes around here and stuff like that. Yeah, mostly recreational Caribbean diving, right? Like nothing past 100 feet, you know, just like fun. And I got really into underwater photography. Oh, nice. Right. So I got into photography in general, and it just, you know, evolved into underwater photography. But yeah, no, I was I was always very much into diving as long as I can, as long as I was allowed to be it and do it, but I don't get out as much as I like to anymore. |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah. I feel that as well, but maybe we should, uh, we should form some sort of an alliance, get up. Yeah. Yeah. |
| Thomas Holland | We should protest our lack of diving and just go. |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah. And then I know that you've, uh, cause you know, we've, we've hung out a few times, we get lunch, uh, every now and then. And, uh, you've also done some like mountaineering as well. How did you get into that? Cause yeah, not the easiest thing to train for on this side of Canada. |
| Thomas Holland | No, not really. How did I get into that? I, in university, there was a rock climbing gym and, uh, I just went there. I go to the the gym and lift weights, then it's pretty cheap. It's like, it was like 10 bucks a month or something. So I'll just go here. And then it evolved very quickly. Oh yeah. Basically. So, and I, um, uh, my friend Larry, who, uh, who also is really into watches just bought a Seamaster. He's very proud of it. It's very nice. |
| Unknown | Shout out Larry. |
| Thomas Holland | Shout out Larry. Um, he, uh, him and I were, were climbing partners for, for years and we, it just, I don't really know how it ended up. We ended up getting into mountaineering particularly. I think it started with ice climbing actually. Oh, okay. We were just like, how do we, How do we make this more badass, basically? So, you know, we started learning as much as we could about like the tech of climbing, you know, read Freedom of the Hills back to back 52 times type of thing, right? And learned all the systems and everything. And then we really got into ice climbing, right? So we did a lot of ice climbing, Adirondacks and all that. And then we branched into mountaineering and, you know, we took a couple of courses and we eventually climbed Mount Rainier. How long ago was that? I think 2012. It is. So a long time ago, but, uh, but yeah, I was in better shape then. |
| Jason Heaton | I mean, yeah, you have to be for mountains certainly. And if you're not, it's, it's the one, it's the kind of shape that goes away very quickly. Really does mountain fitness. Yeah. I always remember the first two, three hikes in Vancouver when it was like nice weather again, we're the worst. And then you start to get your legs back and you're like, Oh, I'm, I am, I'll, I'll survive this. Yeah. |
| Thomas Holland | And just even like training, like I was in great shape then for climbing specifically. And even training for Rainier, You know, I would go to the gym with my double plastic mountaineering boots and a 60-pound pack and do two hours on the treadmill all the time. And people thought I was crazy because I was wearing... It was a little crazy, but it's cool. |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah, fair enough. Climbing a mountain just to get to the top is crazy. |
| Thomas Holland | As a concept, yeah. And you do it because it's there. And that's the only explanation we ever get. It's good enough. |
| Jason Heaton | It's fun. |
| Thomas Holland | Yeah, exactly. It's a nice walk. Yeah, exactly. But even still, Rainier nearly killed me. Seriously. Oh, my God. We live in Ontario. Our altitude is zero. So for the most part, maybe a couple hundred feet. And when we went, all of a sudden, we had, I think, five days total to acclimatize to do the thing. So it was just so challenging. It's just the altitude. By the time you're at 13,000 feet, you cannot get enough air in your lungs if you're not acclimatized. It's a bizarre feeling, honestly. And I was on the verge of altitude sickness when I actually did it. Out of the eight rope teams that went up, I think our team, myself, Larry, and a girl named Rebecca, we were the only ones that made it, actually. Oh, wow. Okay. Yeah. And there was one other rope team And I'm very proud of this fact. The other rope team contained two guides and one other guy who managed to not get so sick from the altitude they had to turn around. And he was a U.S. Army Ranger and he lived in Flagstaff. So he had a nice head start and he was obviously a machine. And he made it. I'm like, yes, OK. But it was it was an incredible experience, honestly, like climbing a proper mountain is just it completely upends your understanding of what this planet is. Like when the sun comes up and you are at whatever thousand feet, you're like, what is happening? You do not feel like you are on planet earth. It is the most incredible thing ever. |
| Jason Heaton | And it's a really like, um, personally gratifying experience just to, just to be like, I'm not going to work today. I'm a guy that walks up a mountain today. It just feels good. It's kind of like diving in some way. It gives me the same sort of thing where you go like, Yeah, there is more to this than just like work, even if work is great and you have a great job. We both have like arguably two of the best jobs in the world. Yeah, I can't complain about my job. No question. But goodness sakes, is it, is it such a special experience? I would love to one day do another mountain, you know, and, and I got lucky because, uh, I was used to a little bit of altitude in Vancouver and I could train on real steep climbs. And Baker's only like 10, eight at the top, which is like not, really high enough to get the bad part of it? |
| Thomas Holland | No. Well, it depends on where you're from, but for me it's going to be about 13,000. But 10,000, 100%, you can feel the altitude if you're not used to it. |
| Jason Heaton | I found sleeping at where we started, which was part way up just before the glacier, Um, I found sleeping to be the difficult part is weird, isn't it? Yeah. I just, it wasn't great. And I probably, the, the whiskey that I brought with me didn't help. |
| Unknown | I probably could have skipped that. Yeah, exactly. |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah. Um, but the, the, I had trained so hard for that. Yeah. I w it was not a physical, in the end it was not an especially physical event, but it was also that it's a much chiller mountain on a July day. Then Rainier is Rainier. |
| Thomas Holland | We, we did Rainier in the spring. We were the first, group that went up. So there was a lot of snow, which only makes it 50,000 times harder than right. So we did we weren't breaking trail. Thankfully, one of the guides up front was right. But, but it was still like enormously in it is still to this day, I think, by far and away the most difficult thing physically I've ever done in my life. Like, I think by quite a large margin, actually, for me, it was training for Baker was the hardest. |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah, exactly. |
| Unknown | Yeah. |
| Jason Heaton | I mean, do you know, you know, Vancouver well enough? You have you ever done the gross grind? No, I haven't. So if you look right across at the North shore mountains, yeah. And you know what, the top is, um, the ski, uh, like there's a gondola that goes up to, um, gross mountain. |
| Thomas Holland | Okay. |
| Jason Heaton | There's a stairway that goes up that and you just, I put 40 pounds in a backpack and just went up. Love it. Those are the most I ever sweat. And I think it took me an hour and 10 minutes. Like, I mean, people run up that in 17, 18 minutes is like some of the world record. She's But it's 1700 meters, like almost straight up. That's a significant amount. Oh, yeah, it was the absolute way to train for that. That's crazy. Yeah, that's what I couldn't it was the only time where I was sweating so much that like it there was no way to wipe it. It was just in my eyes. I couldn't it was like I was crying sweat. Yeah, exactly. I might have been crying. I don't know. Nobody was with me. I was alone. Yeah, yeah, that kind of so there's definitely some some days where I was like, this better pay off. I better not get there and be incapable of getting up the mountain. I was so worried. |
| Thomas Holland | Oh, that's exactly why I trained so hard. Because, well, it's a, it's an expedition, no matter how you look at it. It's a thing. You've got to go there. You get on a plane, you bring your gear, you do all this stuff. Right. It's a, it's a lot of hugely expensive. It's hugely expensive. Right. So you're just like, I got to make sure that I can do this. And so I just, we just put everything we had into it. Basically we were, we were training every single day, but yeah, anyway, sorry, in general, back to climbing. Yeah. That's, that's just kind of how it just evolved from there. Right. And then after we did Rainier, it's not that we're like, okay, we're done. I also did Athabasca and some stuff in the Rockies, right? Actually, sorry, I didn't make it to the top of Athabasca. We turned around because of avalanche risk. We ended up climbing Boundary Peak. |
| Jason Heaton | Man, it's endless what you can do out there in a day, a weekend, a week. |
| Thomas Holland | Oh, it's amazing. Oh, it's incredible. For sure. I love it. And yeah, the ice climbing was like definitely the top of it. I ended up working for One Axe Pursuits, which is a local guiding company around here. That's where I did the caving as well. And so I taught some climbing and ice climbing and took people out and set up the ropes and all that stuff, which is a great like weekend job. Honestly, it was I loved it. I haven't been climbing a lot recently. And I think that's a combination, especially ice climbing. That's a combination of lack of time. And I already probably have too much risk in my life. Sure. It does not matter how safe you are with ice climbing or mountaineering. There is objective hazard object and you cannot control some of it, right? You can be as cautious as you want and know how to read avalanche packs and know how to assess conditions of waterfalls and stuff. But no matter what you do, like stuff happens. Yeah. Right. Yeah. So I just, I think I, I'm not done. I definitely want to go out and do it. If you know, I try and I have a couple of different, my friend, Dan is a, uh, an avid ice climber as well. And he's always, uh, always bugging me to come out. But I, It's a combination of I literally don't have the time. Yeah, you're a busy guy. Yeah. And also I'm like, what if I broke my leg or something? Concern, right? I could shut down the company. Do you know what I mean? So I just, I gotta be careful. |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah. And it's funny because the other thing that I've now become aware of as I've gotten older, even just in the last few years, is there was a turning point, and I'll explain what it is in a moment, but there's a turning point in my mind where I realized that the breaking your leg when you're 16 or 17 and you're in a cast for three weeks and then you go back to normal life. Yeah. That doesn't happen. It doesn't happen now. You break a leg in a car accident or climbing. That's, that'll be a debilitating probably thing for the, like you look at like, I don't know if you're Tom Segura fan necessarily, but he had that whole thing where he attempted to do like a basketball layup or a dunk or something and slipped, looked like a very normal fall. And I think the recovery was like two years. Exactly. Any of that kind of stuff can happen. And sure, it looks like this has been a nice turning point for Mr. Segura, and he looks very fit and healthy. He does now, yeah. Huge car and watch guy as well, which is super fun. He's on the demand train via Matt Farah and some crazy stuff. I would love to drive one of those boxers. This is a Tangent within a Tangent, but those 4.5 liter Cayman or GT4s and such. Yeah, I start to think about the injury thing as well. And I don't even need to do something like you have to do something on camera for a living. Yeah. Or like even when I get out on my bike, like I want to bike in a certain manner. And I dial it back 20%. Exactly. Because if I fall and break my wrist, like what happens? |
| Thomas Holland | Yeah, you can't type on a laptop. |
| Jason Heaton | It's not even a serious injury. Yeah, exactly. No, that's not going to get you a priority at a Toronto ER. |
| Thomas Holland | No, it's definitely not. |
| Jason Heaton | If I walk in with a floppy wrist. |
| Thomas Holland | Oh, just the ER visit alone is enough to make me go, I don't want to die. I'm not spending 47 hours sitting there waiting. It's horrible. Yeah, you have to be literally like bleeding from a femoral artery. Right, to be able to actually get immediate treatment in the ER, right? |
| Jason Heaton | Considering putting pennies on my eyes, that's when you can take me to the ER, for sure. |
| Thomas Holland | Yeah, but yeah, anyway, I don't know how we got on. |
| Jason Heaton | No, it's all good. I think the next thing to transition, because I do want to do a little bit more about Throttle House, but we did an episode just recently, Jason and I, talking about kind of our driving history. Okay, yeah. So I've got a few questions from that. Sure. What was the car you learned to drive on and who taught you? Cause driving's now like a big part of it. Not just for the, the, the YouTube series. Like you love driving, you do racing. Oh, a hundred percent. Like this is, this has become, you're now into the sim life. Like it's a whole thing. |
| Thomas Holland | No, my, so interestingly, my, my obsession with cars and the world of cars, I'm, I'm a late bloomer. I was always interested in them, but in a much more like casual capacity, like, like growing up, I, you know, like I had car models and I liked cool cars and I, you know, as you do as a young boy, whatever. But I, I was never like obsessed with them until university era type of thing. |
| Unknown | Okay. |
| Thomas Holland | And, and, and that's where I really got into cars. But when it comes to my first car, I, the only interesting story from that, other than, you know, I went to young drivers just like you did actually. And I sure, but the, the car that they had was a Mustang. Did you roll the Mustang? I didn't, I didn't roll the Mustang. I was an amazing story by the way. I was at that just the other day. Um, yeah. The way you describe you did like from the movies when you fall onto the ceiling, it's great. |
| Jason Heaton | It was a life moment. It's amazing. You just hear the valves floating on that 2.4 liter upside down. I guess we'll shut this off. |
| Thomas Holland | Yeah, the only interesting thing to come from that is that I learned to drive on a on a bright yellow Mustang, which was a bizarre, I think, young drivers use that car for promotion for the driving school. Like, come learn to drive with us. You get to drive a Mustang type of thing, right? Probably impounded from some drug dealer. Probably, yeah, exactly. But as a young driver, literally, not branded, young driver trademark, it was terrifying. Like, I remember getting onto the highway and that thing, this was a, what, this was like a, oh God, I don't remember the name of the era of Mustang, but it was before they went to the classic looking body style, so like- The S95. Yes, that's right, yeah. So- Like the year that had the Cobra. Exactly. Yeah, that one. So is that body style. And I mean, the car is objectively crap, in many ways, especially in the suspension driven one. |
| Jason Heaton | Well, oh, yeah, well, and live rear axle, live rear axle and everything, right. |
| Thomas Holland | So I remember emerging onto the highway and accelerating and the front would come up so much is like they teach you to get on the highway, you put your foot down, you click the little thing and you go into the passing gear and you should get on the highway at highway speed. But I remember accelerating going like I can't see Like the suspension was so soft and horrendous that I literally couldn't see it. I was like, this is not, this doesn't make sense. It's a car to learn on, right? Sure. It wasn't on plane yet. It wasn't on plane yet. Exactly. Um, I remember not liking that car at all. I remember the steering was so numb. I had no idea what the car was doing. It felt massive parking. It was impossible. Um, and then they switched to a Toyota echo and it felt like the best thing ever. I was like, I can learn to drive. |
| Jason Heaton | So what was the car in university then that, that like flipped a switch a little bit. |
| Thomas Holland | So this is a bit of a story right. Near the end of university, I got a job as a private investigator, which I believe probably warrants a small explanation. |
| Jason Heaton | Pretty cool job. Yeah. At least on paper. Did you get to do like the one more thing? |
| Thomas Holland | The Columbo? No, I didn't. I didn't. |
| Jason Heaton | I wouldn't be able to fight that urge. |
| Thomas Holland | I very rarely did any sort of- Excuse me, just one more question. Just one more question. It was mostly mobile surveillance, right? For insurance related things and or the occasional classic you know, cheating type of thing, right? |
| Jason Heaton | Um, so you're looking for guys that are on workers comp, but they're helping their friend move fridges. |
| Thomas Holland | Exactly. Yeah. And I, I know that sounded like hyperbole, what you said there, but that is literally trying to keep the working man down. Literally what happens is what is what people, yeah. But you know, I don't even like insurance companies. I don't know why I helped them, but, but basically that was my job. It was getting, getting surveillance footage of people absolutely lying, um, about their claims anyway. So, As a result of that, I needed a car that blended in. I'm justifying this because the car's horrendous. And so you'll see why. |
| Jason Heaton | You heard what the cars I had? |
| Thomas Holland | I had two Aleros. Yeah, but that's a good PI car. It is, but it's also like charming in its crappiness. This one isn't. Okay. So I needed a car that blended in. It was fuel efficient. It was small. So I had a Nissan Versa with a CVT. It really was. It was bad. It was a bad era. I had a Versa briefly. Yeah, it's not a great car. The CVT was horrendous. |
| Jason Heaton | We can get into the Nissan of it all. There's a rant there from me. Okay, okay. But that couldn't have been the car that flipped the switch for you. No, it wasn't. |
| Thomas Holland | So at this point, I was interested in cars, right? But the thing was, and this was the kicker, and this is actually directly related to watches as well, is that I had every day, I mean, I was just doing 15 hour days of work, Right. I would get there before the sun rose and do surveillance until the sun went down. So I had so much time to sit there and listen or read or whatever podcasts, listen to a YouTube video, slash half watch it and potentially miss the person leaving. So I just learned about cars and watches at the same time. I sat there on, on my phone and I, you know, I ordered, I bid on watches on eBay and ordered like some, I got a bunch of vintage, uh, uh, doxes and, and, uh, Sertinas and stuff, just like cheap things that are just fun. But at the same time, I really got into cars. And I was like, okay, I kind of want a faster car than this for two reasons. One, I was chased down by a guy in an F-150 once, and that was terrifying, and I was in a Versa, and he was, well, he caught me. Tough to get away. Yeah, it was genuine. I was like flat out, and he was just like on my bumper. I'm like, is this how I die? It might be. So I was like, I want a faster car. In a Versa? Yeah, yeah, it was bad. It was like, that was the least cool car chase ever. horrible, right? It's just like, yeah, I didn't roll an Aston Martin, right? I may have crashed a Nissan version. Like, oh, there he is. He's dead. It's horrible. It's just not, it's not a cool way to go. It really isn't. So I didn't upgrade much. I got an Ultima, but I got the coupe and it was the 3.5 liter V6. And it was quite quick. Still CVT. Also had a CVT. Yes. So that, that part didn't improve. Tough. But dang did it was, it moved. Yeah, no, they hustled for sure. It was, uh, anyway, so after that, I was very much into cars and I ended up getting a, when I finished being a PI. I got a Saab 9-3, a manual. A recurring theme on TGN, the Saab. The Saab, it's great. Mine was a GM Air Saab, so not nearly as cool as the 9,900 that he had. But yeah, that was cool. That was my first manual, and it was quick. |
| Jason Heaton | Absolutely. |
| Thomas Holland | Everything with a manual feels quick. It's true, yes. But yeah, this had a turbocharged V6, and it was smooth, it was nice, it was different, it was interesting. And then it just blossomed from there. I got into BMWs and then I started, you know, racing them and all that. Right. |
| Jason Heaton | So let's do a few of the, uh, the quicker ones then maybe, uh, what's the biggest slash funniest ticket you've ever gotten? |
| Thomas Holland | Okay. Uh, the fun, the funny, okay. The funniest, the bit, the funniest is not the biggest. The biggest was I was passing someone on the highway and you know, as you do, I was trying to be safe and the guy was coming up behind me. I just wanted to get out of the fast lane and then a cop pulled me over. Very boring. But, uh, The funniest was, what was that over the limit? How many? I don't actually remember. It was like enough. It was enough that it was like, I should probably fight this because yeah, but it wasn't within the stunt driving realm, thankfully, which is very harsh now in Ontario. 50 over in Ontario. Yeah. So it's 40 now. 40. Okay. It was 30 in BC. Yeah. The funniest was I just had bought my Alfa Romeo Spider, 1972 Alfa Spider spaghetti. I love that little car. It's not quick at all, but I had, I just kind of tuned it up and I took it out onto a back road and the speedometer doesn't work and it's in miles per hour. So a double whammy of not, not knowing what the heck speed I'm going basically. Right. And so I just turned onto a road and I, it's literally a back road in the middle of nowhere. So clearly it should be 80. Right. Um, but it was 50 as it turns out. And I, you know, I just like foot down the minivan behind me was keeping up. Right? It was not a very fast experience, but the cop pulled me over, waved me down. He's like, what are you doing? I'm like, is this a 50 zone? He's like, yes. And he explained to me, I don't even know why he told me this, but the person that lives, like the one person that lives on this back road complained enough about people driving by, you know, going about their business and living their lives and got the speed limit changed to 50 on their back road. And then they call the cops all the time and ask them, say, do you want to do radar on my road, you can use my driveway. So the cops just speed trap it. And I'm like, I'm in an out, this is the slowest car on earth. It doesn't it has 103 horsepower, right? He's like, Oh, you're going pretty quick. I was like, God's sake. And then he gave me a ticket. He's like, it looks like you've had other tickets before. I'm like, yeah, but just shut up and give me the ticket. There's so much talking. Just stop wasting my time. Yeah. So I fought that one. And I |
| Jason Heaton | Do you ever... Any talent in getting off of tickets, getting out of tickets? |
| Thomas Holland | No, I know. I got a great story with that too, actually, once. I went to get a ticket lowered. You know, you can... There's an initial meeting, right? You go up and they... Sometimes they'll just drop the ticket or whatever it is. They're like, she's like, I'm not dropping this. It's like, you'll have to fight it. I'm like, you know what? I'm fighting this. I'm going to fight it in court. And so the ticket was like for 300 bucks, right? And I was like, I've got nothing to lose here. I mean, other than $300. It's already gone though. |
| Jason Heaton | It's already gone. |
| Thomas Holland | It's on the table. Exactly. Yeah. So I'm not going to like pay a lawyer or anything. That'd be stupid. So I'm just going to go in. So I went in, I went on the stand and I defended myself so badly. It must've been hilarious from their perspective. I bet you it is. I was like, listen, this is, I didn't do, I didn't do it. And the cop was like, but you did though. I was like, do you have proof? He's like, yes, I literally have it right here. I was like, okay. What color was my car? And I'm grasping at straws. He's like, it was a white Honda HFP. It was a press car. And I paid the full amount, very much paid the full amount. I was like, that was a great learning experience for me. Yep. |
| Jason Heaton | Added the benefit of added time and effort and the money for sure. It's a complete waste of everyone's stuff. It's tough, man, for sure. Of the stuff that you've owned or do own, What are a couple favorites? And then maybe we'll jump into some Throttle House stuff. |
| Thomas Holland | Yeah, a couple favorites. Well, my alphas right now are, I think, the most special things that I have. After I test drove an Alpha GTV, I was like, I need this era of Alpha. I need a late 60s, early 70s Alpha. They're super high on my list. There's just something about them. So I bought Spaghetti, which is a 72 Spider, and I love that thing. And then I finally found a for a decent price, a GT 1300 junior, a 1970, right? So it's got like the, the Pertoni body and you know, Shijaro, it's just beautiful. So that's currently being restored a little bit of body work on it. But I, those are my favorite cars. However, I've recently had a new love, which is my, which is Schnitz, the GTI that I drove in the road trip video, which I believe will be out now that we are, I think it comes out May 1, the 30th. |
| Jason Heaton | Okay. So it'll be out by now. Hit the show notes. Yeah. So I guess that's a good, good intro. Why don't you walk us through? Cause that's a big project. Something you talked to me about a couple of times. |
| Thomas Holland | Yeah, that, that's a, that was bigger than anything we've ever done by, by a long shot. Um, you know, for the most part, the videos that we film, the people see are, you know, single day filming car reviews, right? Whether it's a track test or a drag race or just a road back road test of a, of a sports car or something like that. Right. those take a day to film and there's lots of B roll and editing and music and all that stuff. Right. But we had, we had been wanting to do some sort of an adventure for a long time. Right. So we just were like, let's buy a couple old cars and do the people in bugging us forever to do some sort of a road trip. It's like, let's just do it. Let's just, let's go on a thousand mile road trip. And so we did first episode is out now. And it's, uh, there's three episodes. There'll be three episodes. Yep. Coming out weekly. Yep. I believe, well, the plan is they're going to come out every Sunday. for three weeks in a row. And yeah, it was probably the most incredible thing I've ever done. Honestly, like take the filming aspect away from it. Just the experience of driving through, you know, Arizona and Nevada and California in like these 80s hatchbacks was just the most incredible thing. I love it. And as a result, I have completely fallen in love with my rabbit GTI. But yeah, I I won't spoil what happens in the in |
| Jason Heaton | No, it's really not. People should watch it. |
| Thomas Holland | But yeah, but it's it's really awesome. Like we got ourselves into a bit of trouble, which was genuine. And it ended up being just perfect. And the whole thing just felt perfect from start to finish. Everything. I don't want to say everything went right because it didn't. But that's kind of part of the fun, right? Yeah, that's why you do it. But yeah, people have been bugging us for a while to do something like that. And it was a huge undertaking. And I'm incredibly proud of our team for pulling it together. And, you know, we had two support cars. And the rest of our crew obviously was there and we all went on the venture together. It was great. It's cool. It's this mobile moving band of filming documentary style stuff. It was dream come true. It was amazing. It was an 80s rabbit GTI. Yep. And a Sprinter Trueno AE86. |
| Jason Heaton | AE86. Killer. That'll be super fun. I'm very excited to watch that. We're recording this about a week and a bit before that comes out. It will be super fun. And then the other one that will be out by the time this episode comes out and you sent to me and then I neglected to watch, if I'm honest. I forget about things that are in text messages, especially like a YouTube video, because it's not in my feed. |
| Unknown | Yeah, exactly. |
| Jason Heaton | But you recently got to drive a car that has remained on my curiosity list for years. A huge Carrera GT fan and something I've always kind of thought was fascinating. And then the next evolution of that being the 918. Is that the first time, only time you've driven one? |
| Thomas Holland | It is the first and only time I've driven one. And it's the first and only time I've driven what you would consider a hypercar. Right. And that was an absolutely eye opening experience. Like I love Porsche. Don't get me wrong. But sometimes their cars are very boring and clinical. Right. And I don't want to sound jaded by saying that, but that compared to certain types of other cars that are in the similar price bracket or thereabouts, Porsches are occasionally so good, so capable, so capable that they just delete corners. Right. You go in a corner like, wow, the car did that so perfectly. I was barely involved. Do you know what I mean? I happened to be coming along for the ride. I was a passenger in that corner. And other than things like the GT3 or the GT4 RS, the modern kind of turbocharged Porsches I find to be quite clinical on a straight line. The sound isn't what it used to be. It's not as visceral. It's, you know, that whole thing. But the 918 was just, the engine is outrageous. And I feel like, I said this in the video, I don't think everyone is talking about that car enough still. It is shocking. The engine is a naturally aspirated V8 that revs to like 9,100 RPM and it screams. |
| Jason Heaton | Do you think that maybe some of, some of the, like that there's going to be a longer tail on the enthusiasm for that car because of what it came out against? With the LaFerrari and the P1, you know, obviously we all remember Harris's, you know, same tires, same tracks, same cars with Frank Hede and was it both Frank Hede? Oh, Tiff Nadal. That's right. It was Tiff and one of the Frank Kitty brothers. My apologies. It's been a little while since I watched that one specifically, but we all remember that video. And I think that it even got less airtime in like it was that video wasn't divided into thirds. The Ferrari got a lot of attention. The McLaren gets a ton of attention. And then I think maybe the maybe the Porsche was the least exciting of the three kind of visually or on paper. Yeah. But then you never hear somebody say that the thing's anything less than like a next generation missile. |
| Thomas Holland | It's insane. And that's the thing is that it's, it's always compared next to the wild P1 and the insane LaFerrari. Right. Which is just so unfortunate because if in completely in isolation, you take that car, it is beyond a legend. It is so incredible. I haven't driven the other two and I'm sure they're amazing. Almost certainly. Yeah. Right. But I, we fully did not expect it. We took the roof off and those exhausts come right out right behind your head. Right. And the way that the hybrid fills in the gaps, it is so mind-bogglingly quick, that car. And it's sharp and precise, and the whole thing feels special. It's the steering, like... Very good. Yeah. Genuinely very good, yes. I honestly can't say enough good things about it. And when you're in its presence, it feels so special. |
| Jason Heaton | Like the CGT, like you just like it's a car that has a magnetic sort of... Exactly, yeah. almost quietness to it. It's like you want to get a step closer to it. Yes, exactly. You want to see some of these details. I mean, Porsche does that really well with any of their special cars. Like if I see a 991 Speedster, I'm stopping. Yep. I just want to take a peek around. I want to see what the spec is. Does it have the gold, you know, badging for the anniversary? Yeah, exactly. I get the meatball on the door, like all this kind of stuff. And they do that really well. And for me, I think it'll always be the CGT, but I'm just so very curious as to like what that car, what does that car do that a turbo doesn't, that a GT3 Touring doesn't? Because it's a multiple in value, of course, but it's also a multiple in complication. |
| Thomas Holland | Yeah, well, that's what we're talking about. I think James brought it up in the video. He wrote that bit at the beginning, which was, by the numbers, the Turbo S is pretty much as quick. Right. |
| Jason Heaton | Without, without any hybrid tech or the new sport classic might be, might be something then hugely expensive to gain. |
| Thomas Holland | Yeah. And, and yeah, I, it's, it's more, it's more than that. There's more to the experience. There's more to everything about the car. |
| Jason Heaton | It is like, is that where the Porsche thing becomes a supercar? Like the poster quality style supercar, because like a nine 11 doesn't matter how fast you make it. Yes. It doesn't feel like a super car to me. And maybe that's being unfair. |
| Thomas Holland | When you get to Carrera GT, when you get to nine 18, when you get to, yeah, that must be what it is. Right. There's just something, Yeah, honestly, it's an almost an unquantifiable. |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah, you have to experience it to things that expensive often are right? |
| Thomas Holland | Exactly. And, and I hate I hate even saying it because like, like this just in the million dollar car is really great. Right? So of course it is. But but at the same time, it's one of those cars that I truly believe it transcends certain aspects of it's more than the sum of its parts. Sure. Right. that that's almost maybe not even fair to the engineers. It is exactly the sum of its parts and they put a lot of work into it. Right. Do you know what I mean? It is, it is an insanely well thought out machine. |
| Jason Heaton | But the other side of this is like, you drive a lot of stuff and maybe not hyper cars, but pretty much everything else. You guys have some seat time in and like the cars in the price bracket two down from that. So if you think that's a slow, very low seven figure car, probably between one and two right now, or are they a little more? |
| Thomas Holland | The, uh, the nine 18. Yeah. Oh, they're going for, uh, for two us. |
| Jason Heaton | Oh, okay. So two U.S. Yeah. So then we have the new, the new crop of hybrid supercars that are like six and 700 SF90s, that sort of thing. Then there's the one step down from that where you still have, I guess the 720s kind of discontinued, but you would have the MC20 and that kind of stuff. As you branch up, like I've driven a lot of that stuff that, that topped out around 400 grand. And then, because when I was doing the car stuff, there wasn't, there was no $700,000 supercars. Right. that's like a relatively new concept to find the buyer. Yeah. That's what the buyer. There's a lot. Cause they sell everything. One of them. Yeah. But, and then I drove, I've driven all the Bugattis. I've done like, like some crazy stuff. Yeah. And in my mind you get, I would like the seven 20 makes more sense to me than a Chiron. Yeah. Jaw droppingly fast. Like if you just want the car that makes your hand shake when you get to the end of the road. Yeah. Seven 20 does that. Oh, a hundred percent. It does real well. Oh, they're crazy. I'm sure that you won't be able to listen to a podcast and sometimes the doors won't open. But that's okay though. But when that thing goes, it goes like crazy. And then like with a $2 million car, you drove it, you really liked it. It's such an unbelievable amount of money. You know, like, like, like when I see an auction result for a watch or whatever, and you go like, Oh yeah, that's a good result. You know, $840,000 for a 8171. And you're like, wait, if I actually think about that, like, where's, like, it's, it's so much money. So thinking of so much money, just conceptually, Would you spend that kind of money for that experience or would you go a different direction? |
| Thomas Holland | That's difficult, honestly. I mean, cause as you say, it's, we, you know, we're so disconnected to that level of wealth that there's nothing you can do to actually like, I can't, I can't pretend like, Oh yes, of course I would spend it. Right. But I mean, I think personally, just cause I'm lucky enough to drive a lot of very fast cars all the time, I would probably go for the vintage car. Right. Which is the same reason that I have to, Alfa Romeo sitting in my garage with the collective horsepower, but the same as a base Honda Civic. So I don't need the speed because I get a fix all the time. Right. However, I can totally understand. Again, I can't understand because the money is incomprehensible, but I can totally understand how one would spend that amount of money on that experience if you had the money to spend because it is incredible. Right. And as I said, it's one of those cars that. I is I feel hampered by the cars that were next to it at the time. Because it is, it is the engine itself to take away all the hybrid stuff. And the engine is incredible. One of the greatest engines genuinely, right? The noise, the way that it revs, there's like a, a very, very visceral racing feel to the engine, the way that it buzzes as you're coming down the revs, you know, it's, you know, it's vibrating on engine mounts and parts of the car almost feel like you're in a race car, right? Sure. And the engine itself is just a masterpiece, completely unrelated to the rest of the hybrid stuff. But then you add the hybrid stuff in, you get all this technology and you get all this comfort and all this stuff that the other cars don't even have, the P1 and the LaFerrari, and you have this package that's shockingly quick. And I don't know what all the tests say, very few people have lapped them in exactly the same scenario, but I think, didn't the Grand Tour show that it was the fastest of the three? |
| Jason Heaton | I don't remember. Talk about something like the price, that's as silly to me as the price. It's true. Especially like if you're, look, if you're buying a Dallara or, you know, some sort of cool radical. Yeah. I want to know the lap time on that tire at my track. I want to know what some factory development driver got out of it. It's just so, cause I'm going to spend the next 10 years trying to catch up. Yes, exactly. Right. That's the point. |
| Thomas Holland | Go to that track, see how close you can get to the lap time. |
| Jason Heaton | Exactly. But if I'm buying a 918 or 1300 junior or whatever, really care how quickly Yeah, this is what I'm in. Oh God, I'm so cool. And if I, if I bought something that was $2 million, I'd want it to be the most terrifying way to spend $2 million. Exactly. Yeah. That's what I would want. Cause you're not going to drive a car like that much. Right. |
| Unknown | Yeah. |
| Jason Heaton | So the, the 30 minutes, like the, the, the F 40 thing, like if you had an F 40, you drive it 30 minutes a week or whatever, but it would be the 30 minutes. |
| Thomas Holland | It'd be a great, great 30 minutes. Right. A real expensive 30 minutes when you factor in the cost to keep the car. But yeah, that's the thing about the 918, though, is that, as I said, I haven't driven the others, so I can't compare. But based on what I know about them, the 918, you could drive across the country in it. |
| Jason Heaton | Oh, sure. But I think, you know, it's still a Porsche, right? Exactly. |
| Thomas Holland | And the seat is quite upright, to be fair. It's not the most comfortable, but it has got creature comforts. And I think when I was talking about the lap time, the interesting part about that is that with all of those things, it still ends up being quicker than the others who went for all out performance and have doors that have nothing in them, just a sheet of carbon fiber, right? Yeah. As a piece of engineering, I can totally appreciate and understand why people spend that much money on them. So that's, what's interesting to me personally is that I don't generally get to, as I said, I like simple cars. I like my, one of my Alphas is carbureted for God's sake. Right. But I can totally understand really digging into just how much engineering went into these things. Oh, absolutely. It's the SR-71 thing that we talked about an hour ago. That's why it's cool. We sit there and we look at it and we just go, what that thing was capable of doing at its time is shocking. |
| Jason Heaton | And for me, loop back with, you're talking about crazy engineering. I can watch the video of them making Charon within the crazy factory and, and all the insane engineering and watch Henry walk around and show you the motor and the rest of this. Exactly. I love all that. And I've driven the car. And I think like in my mind, like I can imagine owning a car like that or, or like knowing where or when I would drive such a vehicle, you know, it's like around Monaco, slowly buy a plane or something like buy a speed boat or something. Like, I don't, I don't really know, but I do really like the engineering side of a lot and learning, Oh, you know, four turbos and 10 radiators. And, oh, it's crazy. And you know, when you see the motor outside of the car, you go like, wait, where did they put the car? Yes. It's so big. Yeah. So, I mean, some, some of that stuff will remain fascinating as it does for me with watches, uh, for sure. We, there's still some, a handful of other stuff, so it's gonna be a nice long episode, but I do want to make sure, cause it's something that we've never talked about, like on any of our lunches or anything. The other one I'm really curious about, and it's dissimilar from a 918, but the, a Ford GT. Which you guys had out in Mission. Which one? The old one or the new one? The old one. The old one. The 05. Yeah. The new one just looks like an absolute track toy. And it must be... It's incredible. Entirely next level. It's absolutely amazing. It looks like the kind of thing that could knock a filling loose on some curving. |
| Thomas Holland | Yeah, it's definitely stiff, but it's not actually as stiff as you think. It's just, it's more, it feels hollow and loud. It feels like a race car, right? Sure. But the old one. Yeah. That is a very uniquely special car. Right. I really, James is obsessed with it. |
| Jason Heaton | Like I've been obsessed with it since the first Top Gear. There you go. |
| Unknown | Both James's. |
| Jason Heaton | I had a buddy just years before that, that had a Lightning, a black Lightning, which was like a remarkably poorly made vehicle that really, really hustled. It was like driving a chainsaw, a huge chainsaw. And then similar motor, at least the bottom end in the GT. But I just talk about a car that for me combined the looks, the, a side of like American or North American automotive culture that wasn't just a muscle car. Yep. Like that had this European root in Lamar, crazy beautiful. Then the interior is this like minimalist sort of retro futurist thing. It had, you know, only four options. Yeah. Uh, it's never to see one of those cars is so much more exciting than even what they're worth now, let alone what they were worth. six, seven years ago. Right. But, and then of course it was a kind of a famous moment for you guys in that because you were on a wet track with some old tires. Yeah. Um, and yeah, I've driven that track. It's slippery to begin with. It is. |
| Thomas Holland | Yeah, exactly. And we were actually at the end of the, end of the, uh, the drag strip breaking zone. So all it would take is for one dragster to break down, dump some oil on the track. And I think that's probably what happened in that spot. So a combination of old tires, wet track and a little bit of oil meant that we almost put a half a million dollar Ford GT into, into a wall. Um, And yeah, and that was that was like this weird moment of like respect we gained for the car. James was driving very much gained more respect than me because he's a good driver. I've seen him catch some cars that have been very unruly, right? And this was just this moment of this is far beyond what he could do. Like there's just nothing he could do, right? And the lack of assists and like just the Because it's just ABS, right? Yes. Yeah. And the lack of assists and just how simple it is as a machine is so... You can obsess about it, right? You can get really interested and you're like, this is just pure car, period. And it's big, fast, loud, dangerous car too, right? So it's really... I could see why you get sucked into that thing. Just what a cool car. It is just so cool. And I drove it all around Vancouver because we had to take it from there to Mission Raceway. So I spent a lot of time just in traffic in it. And there aren't that many cars where you can just sit in it and feel cool. And that is one of those. Oh, yeah. Right. Just operating the most basic versions of the controls, toggle switches, even just shifting into second gear, which you don't do very often because first gear breaks every speed limit in Ontario or in Canada. But like, yeah, it's just it's just such a cool car. It really, really is. Someday. |
| Jason Heaton | So low to the ground. Yeah. I've been super fortunate the last few years, largely thanks to like friends and bosses and stuff that have incredible cars and just let me drive them. So I haven't been like, uh, uh, like in a drought since not doing the nouveau thing anymore. Yeah. But I do miss that side of like driving stuff and being like, well, that's never going to happen again. And certainly I was, I was too late to that game to, to drive the, that the first generation first series, uh, street GT. And then the, the new one, I mean, it was a very complicated buying process. It was also pretty complicated for press to get on, |
| Thomas Holland | Yeah, no, it is. It is a very special car. And I feel like I need to dwell on just how good the new one is as well. It's something else. |
| Jason Heaton | It is. It is. How would it compare to a 720? |
| Thomas Holland | More intentional, more intentional, more visceral. Harder edged. Yeah, exactly. Right. And like the steering is it's such a boring concept to talk about, especially to those poor people who like to listen to boat watches, and now I'm talking about steering in a Ford GT, maybe they're not interested, but I have to explain it. It is so good. We're in the second hour at this point. They're gone. They've left. All right. Okay. It's just the hardcore is here now. It's cool. Yeah. The steering in that is just... Something else. It is just so good. |
| Jason Heaton | You drove something else just recently that you said was like a palette changer, a 458 Pista or Speciale. |
| Thomas Holland | I drove a Speciale. Yeah. Was that the yellow one? Yeah. I drove that in the Ford GT video. |
| Unknown | Yeah. |
| Thomas Holland | That was a really special car. The 458 is my, of the world of supercars, a 458 Italia is just a red 458 Italia is absolute dream. Give me that. I love it. Even with the paddle shifter? Even with the paddle shifters, I just, there's something about it. It's so beautiful. And I just, I don't even have to drive it. I just sit there and look at it. |
| Jason Heaton | They are a great looking car. Yeah. |
| Thomas Holland | You just like, just give me the shell, not even the engine, just put it in my driveway. I just want to sit there and look at it on a lawn chair with my socks rolled up. Right. obviously driving the Speciale was a unique experience because it's just the 458 but more hardcore. And a big jump in tire, right? Yeah. I can't remember exactly what it is, but yeah, no, the car was incredible objectively. And those, those types of cars, there's, there's different things that go on when you drive them that you just don't get in a normal car because of the lack of insulation or because of the technology that goes into making them. Right. So for example, in the, in the 458, the, the mechanism to switch the gears. I don't want to say it's pneumatic. I could be completely wrong with that, but it makes, yeah, whatever it makes a noise before every gear change is like this noise and you hear it. |
| Jason Heaton | And it's just this one extra sensory input to your body that you're just like, I mean, you, you get these, like we're sitting in front of my, the stereo where I like in, like you, I'll play a track where I can hear the person's fingertips on the, on the fret string. Right. |
| Thomas Holland | Exactly. And it's that breath. It's that it's that extra little bit of of sensory input that takes a car to a special car. Sure. Right. And whether that is the way that it drives or the sound that it makes, it's completely up to what you like. But for me, that's what that car was. It was just so much interesting noise and feeling through the steering wheel and through the chassis. Right. |
| Jason Heaton | I just so if you if things continue to go well for throttle house, sorry, the throttle house. |
| Thomas Holland | Oh, it's Throttle House. It's the Throttle House on Instagram because Throttle House was taken somehow. |
| Jason Heaton | That's how it goes. So if things continue to go well for Throttle House, is that kind of on the list of 458? Oh, I don't know. Maybe. Is that too much car for Toronto? I mean, you're driving an M2. That's also too much car for Toronto. At least it's compliant. |
| Thomas Holland | Yeah, the M2-ish. The M2 is fun. I mean, compared to a Speciality. |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah, of course. |
| Thomas Holland | Yeah. No, I don't know if I can There's no way I can afford a car like that right now. I think just the regular 458 is actually a great price for what it is. They haven't actually skyrocketed in value that much. But even then, I just don't know if I could ever spend that much on a single car. |
| Jason Heaton | I feel this way about watches all the time. Exactly. |
| Thomas Holland | There is absolutely an upper limit, I think, to what you can get back from a thing. And there's so many great driving experiences that are not because there's so many great watches that are not that expensive, right? |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah. I mean, we, we talk about it all the time and you listen to sure. So you'll, you've heard us ramble on, but like the sweet spot is not 10 or 20 grand. |
| Unknown | It isn't. |
| Jason Heaton | It's like one to five grand. Exactly. Exactly. You can get an incredible watch for two, $300. Yep. And all you're getting when you jump up higher is more enthusiasm, more enthusiasm for the person who made the watch, more specificity to your choice. It's all like this closed feedback loop. Yeah. And do I need a Pelagos? Absolutely not. I have a Serafa, which is like, it largely does the exact same thing for $250. The rest of it is the sickness. Is this a sickness? But man, like when my Explorer 2 was worth 15 grand a couple of years ago, you go like, this is not a $15,000 watch experience. No, it isn't. This is a, you know, this is, I joke five figure, five digit Rolexes should be four figure prices. Exactly. |
| Thomas Holland | Like they largely aren't. And that's the reason I don't own any Rolexes personally. |
| Jason Heaton | I just got real expensive. It's cyclical. It'll move around. |
| Thomas Holland | Yeah, exactly. But I just, you know, I love them and I appreciate them for what they are, but I just don't think that there is a limiting return to how much you get. |
| Jason Heaton | I got really lucky when I bought mine. Exactly. Right. It's just timing. But that said, it's not just the Zen. And we spoke about, you have a Bond Omega. I know you as a speedy guy from your videos. Yes. |
| Thomas Holland | How did you get to the speedy? Well, I've always loved that watch. And I think it's just one of the coolest looking watches to ever exist. It's not the newest one with the coaxial thing, right? It's the one right before that. I think I got the last year of the previous one with the hilariously gigantic box that it comes in. It is a ridiculous box. It is comically big. They delivered it to me. I was like, I don't understand. What could possibly be in here? turns out it's another box. You open that box, there's another box in that box. And then you've got like books and there's just like all this extra stuff and like four bands. It's great. It's a cool experience, honestly. For sure. But I'm like, what do I do with this? |
| Jason Heaton | And also like the Speedmaster, the whole Speedmaster experience is buying something that's more than just that product. Exactly. It's a whole story. Right. And you know, now, now one of the most collectible longstanding series of watches ever made and these sorts of things. And certainly that's, I guess, I guess that's when we started chatting when you were going to go buy that. Cause I think so. I told you to swing by, uh, uh, AD and see if they had the current gen at the time, rather than that, which is right around the time that the brand new one had been announced. |
| Thomas Holland | Exactly. Which is what I, which is what I did. And I'm picking one up, but yeah, I just, I just loved, I've always loved that watch. I love the history of the moon landings. I love the story and all of that stuff. Right. So I just, I've always wanted one. I didn't have a chronograph. So I was like, this is, I should fill this gap. Everybody needs one. Yeah. It was, it was easily the most expensive watch purchase I've ever made. And I still don't feel comfortable with how much money I actually spend on it. Yeah. Which, you know, it was actually below retail actually, cause it was discontinued or whatever, but it wasn't, uh, I don't know. I love that thing. And I, and I, and I've been wearing it all the time and I put it on a suede NATO and I love suede NATOs because within a couple of weeks, it looks like you've been wearing it for 30 years. Right. So it just looked like I've gone through jungles and stuff with this. Realistically, I'd gone to like Costco twice, but it looked like I'd traversed the Amazon. But yeah, no, I just, I love that. And I think it's, it's got a little bit of a connection to cars and racing. Of course. Very outside of it. Right. So it's just, it was a perfect little thing, but then I missed having a, at least a date complication. Right. And I want to watch that. I don't have to worry about it going underwater. True. Right. And it does have the Hesalite crystal. So it's scratches very easily, right? And it's obviously still in the rotation. I still wear it all the time. But the Zen is currently the daily, as you say. |
| Jason Heaton | And so you mentioned an SKX. We've got the Bond. Yep. The blue wavedial Bond. Yep. And then the Speedy and the Zen. What else have you got these days? |
| Thomas Holland | I've got a Yema. Oh, right. Yeah. The Superman GMT. And honestly, I think Yamaha's a great little brand. They're French, right? And in-house movements, as I say, that doesn't matter that much to me, honestly. But I think it's a very well-made watch and it's very durable. I've done lots of diving with it. And I think they're cool. I love that they have their little unique feature, which is they've got the locking bezel, right? So as you unscrew the crown, a little like bracket kind of like loosens so you can move the bezel, which does mean that if you want to adjust the bezel and you are in the water, you are unscrewing your crown. Yeah, that's not ideal, but it is cool as a feature. But I've got that. And then I've got like a smattering of, you know, non-expensive vintage things, right? Which, as I mentioned before, I bought because I was sitting in a car on eBay. But the one nice one is an Omega Geneve. It's not a Seamaster. It was the one that appeared very briefly in our Ferrari 296 review. I used it as a metaphor, right? That was a very, very quick car. That is my one nice vintage one. Well, the thing that kicked the whole thing off is that my wife bought me a Waltham pocket watch. Oh, lovely. Okay, cool. The first time I even cared about watches was years and years and years ago. I just opened up the back of it and I saw the movement for the first time. I was like, and I'm hooked. |
| Jason Heaton | What is this? I need to know more about this. Pocket watches are really silly, but also so are lots of stuff that you probably have sitting on a horizontal surface in your home. 100%. Yeah. They fit that level of silliness really good and they are so inexpensive for what you can experience in a pocket watch. You cannot go anywhere near that in a wristwatch. No, you can't. |
| Thomas Holland | It's a really cool thing. I've worn it a couple times. I went to, I can't remember what it was. It was like some sort of a garden party. It was like an event or something that a couple of friends went to as we all got dressed up and era clothes. And I wore that pocket watch. I was like, yes, I finally have a reason to wear this. But yeah, no, that was tons of fun. But that's what kicked off the whole thing anyway. |
| Jason Heaton | And then with the Zen being a relatively new acquisition from our friends in Vancouver, Roald D'oeuvre. Yep. They hooked me up. It was awesome. They were very helpful. Anything else on the radar or there's a scratch in the itch these days? |
| Thomas Holland | There's a scratch in the itch for now, but I do really want a Pelagos at some point. There's something about about how much of a tool watch that thing is. |
| Jason Heaton | I think it would suit you really nicely as well. |
| Thomas Holland | Yeah. Yeah. I appreciate that. I feel like I can pull it off. Um, yeah, no, I, I think honestly diving, but it's titanium kind of technical. It's fun. So cool. No, I love it. I think it just, I think that actually all of the Pelagoses look great. And I just, I could, I could easily be happy with any of them. |
| Jason Heaton | I think, but, uh, I'll be exactly zero surprised when I eventually get a message from Heaton that without having talked about it or had any previous conversations, he just buys an LHD. Yeah. A friend of mine, the guy had one and he's like, he, it comes up every two months. It's just going to happen. Isn't it? And he's had a, he had a black two liner. Yeah. In the, like quite a long time ago. Um, but I could definitely see him and he's like the, the difference in the, from the, the standard size to the P 39, like he couldn't care less. Yeah. Which is a nice power. Cause I mean like for me it makes a big difference. Um, having something that's more of an everyday size rather than like a tool dive watch size. Right. Uh, but super, super fun. I will not be at all surprised, but I guess same for you. If, uh, when, when I get the message from you that you've, you've scrounged one up, I'm sure we can find one. They, they, um, especially with the, the buy and sell on the TGN Slack, there's a lot, lots of motion and lots of options and that kind of stuff. But look, I want to get into final notes, but I do have, um, this will be very much, you know, the, I can't remember who the standup comedian was who always said like local jokes, get your local work. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. It'll, it'll come to me after we start recording, but I have a series of driving of questions about drivers in Ontario. Okay. Okay. Uh, and if you're not from Ontario specifically Toronto or this area, some of this will seem like a gross generalizations, but I think you'll find out, I think you'll find out from Thomas's reaction, uh, that my, my stare, the stereotyping I'm about to carry out will be very much on the money. |
| Thomas Holland | Okay, go ahead and see what you got. |
| Jason Heaton | So why are the worst drivers, always driving a white Nissan Rogue. Oh my God. |
| Thomas Holland | What happened to Nissan, man? What happened to Nissan? I don't, I don't know. I mean, many things happen. Lots of poor choices in upper management, obviously. Absolutely. |
| Jason Heaton | But there's something about like a Rogue is toast with no butter and a weak tea. Oh, easily. Exactly what it is. Yeah. Will you die by driving a road? No, no, you won't keep you alive. It'll get you from one place to another, but it does exactly nothing else. And I don't I don't know why it is that when I'm driving anywhere, highway back roads up to the cottage around here, if somebody is holding up traffic, if somebody has decided to do what I call a Toronto left, Um, which we can get into in a moment. It's always a Nissan Rogue. And I think they're like exclusively driven by people who don't care about driving. |
| Thomas Holland | Yeah. Or, yeah. Or just needed a thing to get from A to B and never actually put any thought into the act of operating a vehicle. |
| Jason Heaton | Again, I've owned a Chrysler Sebring. I understand the thinking that leads to a car so bland, but it does, it's like a pandemic on the highway of there's the only way that we're driving 80 in this 110 on the top end of the 404s because I'm close to the car in front of them anymore. Like when you're coming to a stop, you mean? Yeah, like I was on in traffic. I attempted to go to John Wick yesterday. Right. It took me 18 minutes to drive what should have been six minutes. So I turned around, meaning I had an 18 minute drive home. For a round trip, there should have been 12 minutes. Right. So I'm on Bloor, which is just a busy normal street in Toronto. And the car in front of me is maintaining, not when they're moving, you leave a gap, of course, when you're moving. Yeah, but we'd all come up to a stoplight and they would leave enough room for another car in front of them. Just pack it in. Why not? It drives me nuts. I don't know. Did somebody tell them on the news or 60 Minutes or something that like, oh, if you leave a gap and you get rear ended, you won't hit the car in front of you. I don't think that's not even the case. |
| Thomas Holland | Maybe someone told them like, oh, you should leave a gap because then you can escape. You can like, there's, you can escape now if someone's coming. |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah, I mean, sure. Maybe, maybe. I don't know. I don't know. I feel like I was behind a guy in an X1 that needed 12 feet in front of him when he had stopped. |
| Thomas Holland | I think honestly, the, the, the reason for that is it's not a news thing. It's just people are on their phones so much. Like as they come, as they come to a stop, they just pull out the phone and start to shoot a couple of texts and they just leave what they consider a safe distance. Cause they don't want to end up rear-ending. |
| Jason Heaton | Like for me, like I'm, I'm a foot. off of the car in front of me. |
| Thomas Holland | Yeah. Well, it, because it actually, it's courteous because guaranteed at the end of the line, if everybody does this, some guy trying to get in some poor soul is trying to just get out of the middle of the intersection. And you, as a result have made it so that they're in danger. |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah. But if you think about this, if you think about add eight feet to every car, that's a lot more card moving through the city than needs to be like, we need to pack in and fit in. It drives me nuts. That one drives me nuts. Here's the next one that drives me nuts. And I've definitely talked about this on the podcast. I think I might've cut it. I probably cut it. It was a rant. Okay. The Toronto left. Okay. So what's this? This is when the person turning left doesn't wait until there's an appropriate gap. |
| Thomas Holland | Okay. |
| Jason Heaton | They just, they just go into the next lane as they wait for the person walking the crosswalk to finish doing it. So they block traffic. |
| Thomas Holland | Oh, I have all the time. Yeah. Yeah. I see. |
| Jason Heaton | This, this is what I left is the only skilled move in conventional driving. |
| Unknown | Right. |
| Jason Heaton | There's one other, but I'm going to save that for my next question. Okay. A left turn is the only hard turn there is. Yes. It's the only one that takes timing and understanding of how your vehicle responds to the throttle. It's also the only one where you have to manage, um, what I would call three factors, which is the oncoming lane of traffic, a bike lane and the crosswalk. Yes. For whatever reason, and this doesn't happen in Vancouver, but it does happen here. People just pull into the left lane, into the lane in front of them. Yeah. And wait for the person or the bike to go by rather than, like, I understand you might lose, like, you might have to wait to the end of the light. That's turning left. |
| Thomas Holland | Well, I think, okay, the, what you just did was you explained to yourself and the audience why people do that is because you just outlined the fact that they're now required to think about multiple things at once. So by just blocking traffic, they've removed one of them. Yeah. That's what it is. That's why they do it because they can't, they can't operate more than one. |
| Jason Heaton | Like I was in a murderous rage the other day because I was driving down a little road that goes like between up in the stockyards area, there's, you know, like a Home Depot and a Canadian tire and a Best Buy. There's a little road that kind of runs between them that takes you to the back way into the Metro, which is where I'll go get a rotisserie chicken is what I was out for. Right. Right. So I needed a rotisserie chicken real bad. Yeah. Roto or nothing. And this guy, it was stop traffic because there's a stoplight. So I turned onto the road. The other lane had stopped, you know, 10 cars deep. Yeah. And a guy coming out of the Home Depot lot turned left. there wasn't any room in the lane for him to get into it. So he sat in my lane until the light went green. And then when I was started honking at him and then put my window down to tell him, that's not how you turn left. Yeah. He didn't have anything nice to say in return. That is so strange. |
| Thomas Holland | Right. I'm sure he was going to be receptive and ready to just take everything you said. |
| Jason Heaton | So that's the Toronto left, not the political alignment. the ability to cross a lane of traffic without just causing a problem for everyone. |
| Thomas Holland | I think that the main the main problem here is less to do. It's obviously to do with the people. The main problem here is that we have this problem in North America where you have to turn left at a light and you can't see and the lanes line up and you can't. It's this horrible system. If you go anywhere in Europe, it's just fixed with a roundabout, right? And there are roundabouts, obviously, but no one knows how to use them either. People just make it up. |
| Jason Heaton | Shortest distance wins sometimes. It's absolute chaos. |
| Thomas Holland | But I want to go there. It's right over the top. That's why it's there, right? I drive over the circle. It's the pickup truck crossing. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. But so that problem is usually fixed in Europe by that. But here, I mean, James complains about this all the time. Whenever we're in a car and we come up to it, he goes, here it is. This is the biggest problem with North America. is this left turn at a light. I can't see what's coming. And we sit here and all we do is back up traffic. It is actually a horrible design. |
| Jason Heaton | Do you, do you flash your lights to warn others of a speed trap? |
| Thomas Holland | Um, am I legally allowed to say this? Um, yeah, yes. I, I like, I like the camaraderie. Allegedly. But yeah, allegedly one should do this. Yeah, absolutely. Yes. But I, I, what I love about that is that it's like, everyone feels like they're on the same team in that moment. |
| Jason Heaton | You're just like, or like I do when, when I'm, I'm like, I, I added car play and everything to the old Wrangler. |
| Unknown | Yeah. |
| Jason Heaton | And all like on ways like flag it like, Oh, I always flag it on ways. |
| Thomas Holland | Yeah. Yeah. A hundred percent. Yeah. Yeah. And you get the little plus two and you're like, heck yeah. |
| Jason Heaton | I don't know what those pluses are for, but I like it. All right. Here's what we'll do for the last one. Then we're going to get into some final notes. Do you believe that the zipper merge is real or is it just a hypothetical concept like communism? |
| Thomas Holland | Do you, I believe it is one of those, it's one of those things that in theory it should work, but no one has the, like the patience or the courtesy to actually execute it properly. We got to start teaching this. |
| Jason Heaton | We really should. The other thing is the Canadian polite thing is you get, when you're on a merging laneway, you go as quickly as you can into the first lane, in the lane one of the road. Yep. That's the wrong way to do that. It's significantly more efficient to go to the end of the merging lane and merge there. |
| Unknown | Yes. Yeah. |
| Jason Heaton | But you'll see people merge like, the moment that it's available or even before. |
| Thomas Holland | And all they do is slow down traffic behind them, right? |
| Jason Heaton | It makes no sense. They're either not up to speed or they don't, they didn't understand the flow or the flow is expecting you to merge a football field to football field. |
| Thomas Holland | The issue is, is bitterness and resentment for the people who've been in traffic for like an hour. And then they see people ripping up beside them in this lane. They're like, what's that guy? Why does he deserve this? I've been sitting here for an hour and he just arrived on the scene. He gets to go in front of me. It's just anger, resentment. |
| Jason Heaton | And then lastly, in, in the scenario where it's stop and go traffic and somebody blows to the end of the, the merge lane, you let them in. |
| Thomas Holland | Yes, I do. I'm proud to say that I absolutely let them in unless, unless they were for some reason a dick as they tried to come in, they just like cut me off and gave me the finger. Then no, you're not coming. |
| Jason Heaton | He's on rogue. No, no turn signal. |
| Thomas Holland | Yeah, exactly. Right. But yeah, unless I'm in one of my like prized or classic cars, I'm you don't test me how much I don't care about this. Sure. Crap box that I'm driving. Right. Or whatever. It's not a press card. I mean, like I've had a lot of really crappy daily cars over the years. Right. Just like that's the classic thing you do in Canada. Everything's rusted and crappy. You get it back in the day. |
| Jason Heaton | There's always a little bit of math. And when you're considering possible ramming scenario. |
| Thomas Holland | Yeah, exactly. Who wins this one? You come on in. I ain't moving, son. |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah, that's funny. I mean, yeah, some of it, some of it just makes me laugh and other times like when I'm not having a great day, it doesn't make me laugh. It makes me, uh, you know, very violently. Yeah. It gives it just adds to my TMJ. |
| Unknown | Yeah. |
| Jason Heaton | But look, this, this has been a good time. It's probably going to be a pretty long episode. So why don't we dive into some final notes? And I think you'd said that, uh, you had a book on mine. Yeah, I do. |
| Thomas Holland | I'm going to, I got it written down here. So make sure I get it right. It, uh, it's a book I read recently. Um, for those people that are interested in, uh, cars and engineering, we've been chatting about that. It's called inside the machine by David Twohig. I believe I said his last name is Twohig. It's basically a story of an engineer. Um, he takes you through like step by step what it takes to actually engineer a car from scratch. Right. And he was, uh, he was the, the lead engineer on, uh, the, uh, the Alpine A110. |
| Unknown | Okay, cool. |
| Thomas Holland | Right. Um, and in there he tells a story about how it almost killed Chris Harris by catching on fire on that Top Gear episode, which is like a big deal. Right. And so he details that whole story and everything that goes on with that and the, everything from, the actual engineering, to the politics of it, to the financial side of it, to like dealing with the bosses. And it gives you so much respect for cars, even the Rogue, even the Rogue. |
| Jason Heaton | Oh, absolutely. It's my Rogue thing is like 50% teasing. |
| Thomas Holland | Only 50%. But like every single car that you see on the road had a team behind it that was either passionate or Maybe not. Maybe they were bitter and they just had to do it. They were assigned it. That's also possible. Yeah, sure. But there's still so many hoops to jump through to make a car. It's fascinating. It's so complicated. It's so complicated. So many regulations, right? |
| Jason Heaton | I was just last night watching Kamisa's video about the new GR stuff. Oh, yeah. And so he goes through like a history of hot hatches and then gets to the GR Yaris and explains why it didn't come here. Right. Because they never homologated and crash tested and the rest of it a Yaris. So just to bring the special one would have cost like hundreds of millions of dollars. Oh, this is a very expensive process. You do genuinely start to wonder like, how do you do, how do you like navigate that as a Gordon Murray or a Glickenhaus or something like that? Yeah, the small boutique manufacturers. Yeah, all that kind of stuff. You start to understand why a lot of these brands that had a certain expertise didn't try and go all the way to a car. Yep, exactly. you know, racing chassis or, you know, something like that. And it's some really fascinating stuff. I I'm very keen, uh, to, to read that. That's a great suggestion. It's a great book, honestly. Yeah. For mine this week, I have a really cool, pretty short photo essay that Patagonia put out, um, that was based, uh, done by a, uh, a photographer named Gary register. And it was shot in 1974. He was at the, um, he was at the art center college design, like probably, you know, one of the finest arts colleges in North America. And as part of his schoolwork, he did a photo essay about very early Patagonia when it was, you know, chewing art equipment and they were making metal pitons by hand and just getting into clothes and just kind of deciding what their visual aesthetic would be for their ads. And his work very much informed the sort of journalistic style to their photography that they've had for, you know, uh, Patagonia celebrating 50 years. Awesome. Uh, it's really fun. It'll only take you a few minutes. I wish it was, I wish I could tell you it was 200 images or 40. I think it's like 12. Oh, okay. And it's really cool. And it gives you a little bit of a background on how much of the early days of Patagonia was kind of a family based thing between Chouinard's family and Tompkins family. Uh, still one of my all time favorite companies. We talk a lot about Patagonia on the show. but this is really fun. Jason also sent it to me. He's like, in case you don't have a final note, this one's perfect. And I was like, I have this one. We're good. Uh, I like it a lot. So check this out. Some incredible black and white photography. And it has, uh, the photographers that has Gary's original captions. So you can kind of get an idea of like who's in the photos and what their jobs were and how they were all like family members and friends and that sort of thing. |
| Unknown | Very cool. |
| Jason Heaton | Love that. Yeah. Really, really fun stuff. All right. Well, look, that's definitely a show. Who knows how much of it I'll be able to, I'll be able to keep, but, uh, I can't thank you enough for coming on. I feel like this is a long time standing. This is also the exact thing that we do when we go and have bon me or chicken wings. |
| Thomas Holland | We literally have just recorded one of our lunch dates. |
| Jason Heaton | Exactly. Yeah. So this is an absolute treat. Uh, if you ever want to come back on, obviously if James ever wants to come on and talk about any of the stuff that we like to chit chat about, that'd be great. We do a whole Miata episode if he wants. |
| Thomas Holland | I'm sure he'd be right there for it. |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah. All my best to James and the entire team. Huge fan of the channel. And hopefully people will check out everything we chatted about in the links. As always, thank you so much for listening. If you want to subscribe to the show notes, get into the comments for each episode or consider supporting the show directly, and maybe even grab a new TGN signed NATO, please visit TheGreyNATO.com. Music throughout is Siesta by Jazzar via the Free Music Archive. And we leave you with this quote from Ken Block. |
| Thomas Holland | If you're not scared, then you're not going fast enough. |