In today's increasingly digital car culture, only the most radical and eye-catching cars earn the clicks and views to justify their insane costs—at least, so says the cast of Sorted, a YouTube series starring Matt Farah, Rob Ferretti, Emelia Hartford, and Tanner Foust that puts tuned and modded cars to the test.
I was lucky enough to interview the cast of Sorted at Farah's Westside Collector Car Storage facility shortly after they wrapped up shooting the first season, so I got to ask them how, exactly, the show came into being and what kind of vetting process led to the lineup of mind-blowing cars that appeared on the small screen. But even vetting the selection as much as possible, Sorted featured plenty of failures, blow-ups, and no-shows.
In some ways, as the cast generally agreed, the magical middle-ground car that's truly "sorted" wouldn't even make it on the show and wouldn't stand out on the screen even if it did—everyone, including the show's sponsor AutoTempest, wanted the cars that would attract eyeballs. But once the table was set, a few of the cars clearly stuck in the minds of Farah, Ferretti, Hartford, and Foust. In Part 2 of my interview with the cast of Sorted, they reveal which cars truly proved what it takes to win at tuning and modding—and why.
Struggling To Keep Up With Tanner Foust On The Track
The problem that most of these cars faced came in the form of professional driver Tanner Foust, who has experience in everything from rally racing to Hollywood stunt work. And when it comes to the all-out intensity of track time in the hands of Foust, most tuners and modders just don't realize the stresses their cars will have to endure.
"Being on a race track and driving a car in a place where you can be 100% all the time is very different than people realize from just doing a pull down the road," Foust explained. "Going fast on the street, it doesn’t have time to kill the car in a lot of cases. When you get on a racetrack and you’re at full throttle or full brakes, using 100% of the tires’ grip at all times, you can fry brakes, motors, everything super fast. I think it was usually about a lap and a half."
"The one standing lap, the one flying lap, then it was Tanner calling in on the radio because something failed," Ferretti agreed. "That’s about where we were at."
And plenty of cars didn't even make it to the track for Foust to play with, having broken down just being driven by their owners or by the three YouTubers while testing for daily driveability (if their owners even showed up at all). The most outlandish moments of hilarity that Farah, Ferretti, and Hartford brought up surrounded a Toyota Supra with four-figure horsepower stats—and plenty of problems to go with, especially regarding the rear differential.
"It felt like there were marbles in the diff," said Farah. "All three of us were like, ‘This thing is super broken.' But then the owner would get in it and be like Gymkana. Like nothing!"
"It felt like something was smashing the back of the trunk with a bat while you were driving," Ferretti riffed.
"I got out of it laughing," Hartford remembered, "Because I knew Matt was going to get in the car and I laughed as I gave him the keys to get in it."
"I think he thought it was fine," Farah explained. "I think it had gotten to that point slowly over time and his body and mind adjusted. He exited the parking lot like he was auditioning for Formula D—and was exceptional at that."
"And then we had the car from Canada," Foust recalled, almost haunted by the memory. "The guy put it together with a twin-turbo LS in an all-wheel drive Audi. But parts were just shedding off the car."
"Most of the major failures on the show weren’t even us," Ferretti laughed. "Like the engine blowing in the Subaru was that guy driving in a straight line."
The Crazy Cars That Performed Potently
While a handful of the most hardcore builds couldn't handle the punishment that Sorted asked of them, the ones that did manage to hang also became the stars of the show. And it takes a lot to impress this crew of four experienced automotive aficionados.
"I will say that when people ask me what’s the craziest car I’ve ever driven," Hartford admitted, "It was two of them from this show. It was the Viper AC and the Supra with 1,300 horsepower that just spun the tires in fifth at 100-something.
"It went to 10," Farah mused. "It really did go to 10..."
Perhaps one of the wildest admissions from the crew during our chat was about that very Viper, which was apparently down on power for most of the show because it had a gnarly tendency to lose oil pressure while turning right. And yet, the raw acceleration of torque-by-gear tuning left everybody in awe after driving it. Same went for the Supra, which was clearly built for one purpose.
"That guy in the Supra, he knew why he was there," Ferretti said, low-key impressed by the owner's no-frills attitude. "He was there to just throw tire down the straight and make everybody giggle. He had no intention of winning, because that car was not going to corner, it was not going to brake, and the engine was incredibly well built."
Doing One Thing Well Vs Building A Truly Sorted Car
"If I was somebody coming to those tracks the next day," Foust imagined, "And seeing the black lines just winding their way down half-mile straightaways, I would have been like, 'I have to know what did that.' Was it a trailer with the brakes locked, just pulling? Because there’s no way they’re burning tires the whole way."
"There was so much about that car that was just a life-altering thing," he laughed. "It was all right-foot racing because it would slide around so much with those big balloon tires on the back."
"They just make you giggle," Ferretti shared. "That Viper, it’s like The Fast and the Furious when they hit that NOS button and everything just blurs. Like, holy shit, am I at full throttle or not? And half the time, you’re not."
"I get spoiled a lot, get to drive a lot of cool cars and spend a lot of time at the limit," Foust said, "But that shoot day—we had chewed through a Corvette and a couple other things—but driving that car, I felt like I was 15 again and stealing mom’s car. And that’s hopefully what you get with these freakshows—talking about the cars—the absolute childhood passion, the reason why you got into cars in the first place boils to the surface. I hadn’t felt that way in a long time..."
The kind of giddy joy created by crazy cars obviously left an impression on the whole Sorted cast, but I had to ask about the financial side of things. After all, most of these memories were about cars with build receipts that probably (definitely) totaled into the six-figure range. Farah, Ferretti, and Hartford all nodded in agreement, but each had their own take on how to start out with a build.
"If you’re going to do a build of anything," Farah explained, "It really does help to start with the most expensive car you can afford. Because the expensive cars did last longer. That V10 engine in the Audi and Lambo, the six-cylinder in the Porsche, these are very strong engines. And you can turn up the wick on those engines more reliably. You put 30-40% more power and it does hold onto it better than doubling the horsepower of a Subaru engine or an S2000 engine."
Problems Emerge When Most Cars Get Pushed To The Limit
It's all a matter of personal preference, but certain considerations at the outset can save future headaches, according to Ferretti and Farah.
"You give all of us $50,000 and the same car and we’re all going to come back with something different," Ferretti explained. "It’s cool to see that and whose choices were better. Like, I’m going to put more money into brakes and handling and a little less in horsepower. She [Hartford] is going to throw two turbos on it and four fire extinguishers. Matt’s gonna have a city bus interior."
"You know what, it won’t affect the reliability of my car," Farah retorted. "I’ll have a crazy interior and just be lapping and lapping and lapping... In the original project car challenge, I brought the car with the least power and I was on the track five times more than any other car. I had a great time and coulda driven my car home, it was great."
And the truth is there are a ton of reasons people get into customizing their cars. Some want to go fast in a straight line, others want to advertise their work, and some want to corner better than an F1 racer. But the cast of Sorted seemed to want people to know what they wanted right from the get-go. The recipe for winning at tuning and modding apparently depends on figuring out those goals, visions, ideals, and purposes for the car very early on in the process.
The Most Reliable Cars Did Tend To Cost The Most, Too
And once you've figured out what you want to do with a car, the priorities fall into line to help reduce the black hole money pit. Creating a reliable car that can do one thing well is, it turns out, much easier than building something that can handle everything with the best of them. And that's where factory products seem to have an edge.
"I’ve never really been a fan of the modern Mustang," Foust admitted, speaking of the baseline GT500 on the show. "But that one was freakin' fast. It’s just driveable. Like when you’re transitioning from steering to accelerating, you’re just able to be more linear with the throttle and have the car closer to the limit the whole time, instead of surviving the corner and then hammering it like a lot of those cars. So you could just carry more speed out of it—even if it was 100 horsepower less, it might still be just as fast."
"Reliability and factory durability," Farah acknowledged, "It’s really hard to replicate."
"If you look at a rallycross car," Foust explained, "It’s a two-liter motor that can make 1,000 horsepower. Run 600 horsepower and it's rated for three races. We’ve had test engines that have run the equivalent of 15 races. So they underrate them and they have so much safety built into them. If you’re trying to get to the ragged edge the night before, the mentality is just the opposite. I still think you can have super fast, aftermarket-modified, built cars that have crazy power—but they should just have 20% less than you could get."
"And that’s exactly it," Hartford chimed in with her experience pushing a C8 Corvette to a world record, "Building it to the threshold, if not past, instead of bringing them down."
"Instead of doing a $20,000 car with $80,000 in mods," Ferretti summed it up, "Do an $80,000 car with $20,000 in mods."
Getting The Giggles Versus Living With A Car You Love
But everyone could also admit that buying an $80,000 to start with might sit outside the reach of people who are just getting into tuning and modding. Sometimes, the process starts small and builds from there. And there's also the factor of personal taste in the mix—taste that can quickly change throughout the long process of building a dream car.
"Some folks have time and not money," Farah explained. "So if they can afford the parts and put their own time into the build, they see a 'David versus Goliath' situation. There’s a guy out there who could afford the fastest 911 Turbo but he wants the fastest Subaru, not just another 911 Turbo. They feel like they’re on a team, they want to represent that and in doing so, they take it too far."
"My advice is that people should get whatever car they want to get," Hartford responded. "Get the car you want—even if it is kind of a pile—just know what you’re getting into. Don’t have these crazy expectations that you’re going to have a working car 24/7."
And yet, when push came to shove, the crazy expensive cars with balls-to-the-wall power certainly did get the giggles going—whether or not everyone else could afford to keep up.
Stay tuned for Part 3 of my chat with the cast of Sorted to hear what they took away from starring in the show's first season.
Sources: instagram.com, wccs.com, autotempest.com, and youtube.com.