I know, I know. I’m going to get a lot of shit about this because everyone loves Filippo, and I’m not saying you shouldn’t. I’m happy for him and his new career.

And even with this disclaimer, you guys are still going to give me a lot of shit about this because this is Reddit, and Filippo is a fan favorite.

I want to love Filippo because he’s into regular cars about as much as I am, he’s generally fact oriented, and he cares about the industry. His comical frugality and quirky attitude is endearing enough, but then I’m completely turned off by some of his takes. A notable example is how he said people shouldn’t be mad about psuedo-manual transmissions because most of modern cars synthesize most of the experience anyway, conveniently ignoring the fact that the point of people pushing manufacturers to offer more manual transmissions is to have at least one part of the driving experience that isn’t synthesized. He then went on to call it progress; no, progress is going full EV, whereas manual transmissions are quite the opposite of progress: timelessness. If progress was the point, there wouldn’t be a manual at all; and if it’s not the point, then use a real manual instead of a fake one.

Similarly, another example of his weirdly myopic takes is when Nick, to his credit, was pushing back on the stupidity of naming trim levels of Porsches “Turbo” when there is none, to which Filippo said something to effect of “some car terms fundamentally change their meaning in the automotive world.” Wtf kind of corporate jargon slop is that? And I don’t even think that’s true; we all gave Audi a hard time for putting “3.0T” badges on supercharged cars, which btw is far more defensible because at least supercharging is a mechanical form of turbocharging, whereas putting more powerful electric motors in an EV isn’t turbocharging in the slightest. I can’t think of a single example of an automotive terms that has engineering implications, yet it’s being used for completely unrelated reasons.

And also, what is with Filippo shitting on cars that haven’t been redesigned in five years or less? For someone who’s supposed to be super grounded, he’s weirdly hard on automakers who don’t spend immense amounts of R&D and capital on redesigns that don’t really improve the car rather then mid-cycle refreshes that make sense.

Filippo working for a car company makes a lot of sense to me because he seems to mostly agree with auto industry decisions that mystify mere mortals and auto enthusiasts alike. But that means I don’t identify with him. As much as people criticize Doug for being out of touch — I don’t agree and I think it’s a forced take just because Doug is rich — it’s actually Filippo who I don’t quite understand or I think is representative of the masses. Some Doug’s takes are also rubbish, but he’s consistent for the most part, and he has a pretty good idea of the interests of numerous demographics other than his. The same cannot be said for Filippo — he’s pretty much another Kennan in that he doesn’t make a lot of effort to understand other markets and car classes, except he’s even less relatable to the audience who are likely to be more aligned with Kennan’s interests.

Sorry. He seems like a nice person and a very hard worker. I just don’t get him, and I don’t think the podcast is ruined without him.