Latest / In Wheel Time Podcast / The Return of the HEMI: Ram Trucks' Customer-Driven Revival

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The Return of the HEMI: Ram Trucks' Customer-Driven Revival · In Wheel Time Podcast

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Welcome to another In Wheel Time podcast.
• 0:02
  Speaker 1: This is your place for all things automotive, the award-winning In Wheel Time Car Talk Show Coming up.
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: Nick Cappa, the voice of Ram Trucks, joins us if a truck has a voice.
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: Jeff has the racing calendar, mars has this Week in Auto History and I'll get you caught up on the stories making automotive news headlines this week.
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: Howdy, along with Mike out of this world, mars.
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: We always need more.
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: Jeff Zekin, I'm Don Armstrong, so glad that you could join us on this Saturday for our live broadcast.
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: If you're listening on a podcast, yeah, we do a live broadcast of this show every Saturday from 10 to noon Central Time.
• 0:41
  Speaker 2: My girls are driving out to Sealy, they're going out west for a little ways this morning and I told them to listen to the podcast and they said they do their best.
• 0:49
  Speaker 2: The podcast, you mean the live broadcast?
• 0:51
  Speaker 2: Yeah, live broadcast.
• 0:52
  Speaker 2: You said podcast, it's stuck in my head, never mind, they're traveling.
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: They're traveling.
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: Okay, Well, hopefully that you're listening, Because joining us right now is an old friend not old, but an old friend Nick Cappa, Ram Trucks Communications Manager.
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: Nick, it's great to see you, my friend.
• 1:16
  Speaker 2: How have you been?
• 1:17
  Speaker 2: Oh God, oh boy, Are you there?
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: you go?
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: Have you muted yourself?
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: Are you unmuted?
• 1:22
  Speaker 3: No, he's not mute.
• 1:24
  Speaker 2: He's not muted.
• 1:24
  Speaker 2: I think it's at.
• 1:27
  Speaker 2: Let's go back to this way.
• 1:28
  Speaker 2: Mike's checking it, Come on.
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: Really, there you go.
• 1:33
  Speaker 2: The problem lies with your set and not this radio station.
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: All right.
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: Well, while you guys fiddle with that in the meantime and we check now.
• 1:44
  Speaker 4: How about that?
• 1:44
  Speaker 4: Is that better?
• 1:45
  Speaker 4: That's much better.
• 1:46
  Speaker 4: What happened?
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: Was it on your end or our end?
• 1:49
  Speaker 4: No, I think it's on my end.
• 1:51
  Speaker 4: I have my own little microphone here, similar to what you guys get to use.
• 1:54
  Speaker 4: You know, real cool.
• 1:55
  Speaker 4: It was one of those things I bought during the COVID thing.
• 1:58
  Speaker 4: We got work from home and now I got to make sure that I always change it depending on what platform we're using for these virtual meetings.
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: Gotcha Well hey man, it's great to see you.
• 2:07
  Speaker 4: You too, it's been a while.
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: I like your set.
• 2:11
  Speaker 4: That's pretty slick back there.
• 2:12
  Speaker 4: Thank you very much we appreciate that.
• 2:15
  Speaker 1: I don't remember the last time I saw you, but this show has been in existence since 2011.
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: Yes, and I'm getting younger by the day, as you are, but it's good to see you.
• 2:27
  Speaker 1: He's shaking his head, yeah it's good to see you, my friend, and great news coming from Ram Trucks the hammy's coming back.
• 2:36
  Speaker 4: Gosh, you know the whole month of June has just been a wildfire right of news that we put out.
• 2:41
  Speaker 4: That was just the beginning of it, right along with entering the truck series in NASCAR and then, of course, the warranty information and a new advertising campaign.
• 2:51
  Speaker 4: So it's been pretty busy.
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: I can imagine, yeah, so let's start with the Hemi news.
• 2:59
  Speaker 1: Tim Kaniskas came back and we are all grateful for that Great guy.
• 3:04
  Speaker 1: Tim Kaniskas came back and we are all grateful for that Great guy.
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: I remember when he wasn't the American head of the company and he was just a regular guy and we loved him and he had his way with the press because hey, let's face it, it's all about PR and he was always very approachable, very knowledgeable about all of the products.
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: And now that he's back, we were so excited to hear that he was coming back.
• 3:32
  Speaker 4: So it's interesting too the way this has come about.
• 3:35
  Speaker 4: And with him comes the Hemi and back to Ram trucks.
• 3:38
  Speaker 4: And that was we've always offered the 6.4 liter V8 for the heavy duties, but on the half-ton trucks, the Ram 1500, we pulled that out to push through with the new Hurricane engine and now it's a three liter inline six twin turbo and it's no slouch.
• 3:55
  Speaker 4: I mean, for three liters we're punching out 540 horsepower, an iOutput version which is a lot for a three-liter engine.
• 4:02
  Speaker 4: But a lot of people still said I want the Hemi, I want the V8.
• 4:07
  Speaker 4: I want that back.
• 4:08
  Speaker 4: I like the way it sounds, I like the way it drives, I like the predictable torque, and so with Tim comes back to Hemi and yeah, we're going to have that launch this summer.
• 4:18
  Speaker 4: I'm actually ordering the trucks for a media drive program right now.
• 4:21
  Speaker 1: That's awesome.
• 4:22
  Speaker 1: Does the Hemi still have the same horsepower output and all the stuff that it left with?
• 4:30
  Speaker 1: No, he's shaking his head.
• 4:31
  Speaker 1: No, it's got to be bigger and better.
• 4:33
  Speaker 1: It's the same, is it the same?
• 4:35
  Speaker 4: Okay, pushing 400 horsepower out of that same thing, able to do the same amount of torque and everything else, and the capability as well.
• 4:41
  Speaker 4: In fact, we're launching it right now with the eTorque system on it.
• 4:44
  Speaker 4: So it has the mild hybrid system integrated into it.
• 4:48
  Speaker 4: Not only that, the additional value to get a tuned exhaust system that, of course, some of the sound is why people like the V8.
• 4:54
  Speaker 4: That launches with it, as well as a 33-gallon fuel tank.
• 4:58
  Speaker 4: All of that's all combined in one package.
• 5:01
  Speaker 1: Very nice, yeah, and what package is that going to be called?
• 5:06
  Speaker 4: Oh, just grabbing the 5.7 liter Hemi V8.
• 5:09
  Speaker 4: That just comes with the motor Gotcha, yeah, and pushing through that eight-speed transmission which, as you guys know, shifts like butter, it's really nice.
• 5:17
  Speaker 4: So it's a great package and this is absolutely a customer-driven initiative.
• 5:23
  Speaker 4: Bringing back the Hemi was something that our customers wanted.
• 5:26
  Speaker 1: Anyway, we were talking about the Hemi engine in the Ram pickup truck, and so you're going to have them at the dealers by when Early fall.
• 5:36
  Speaker 4: Summer man this summer, oh, this summer.
• 5:38
  Speaker 4: So they're cranking them out already.
• 5:40
  Speaker 4: Same amount of capability, but they have the e-torque.
• 5:43
  Speaker 4: Combine it with a 33-gallon fuel tank value packaged, and then also a tuned exhaust, because everybody loves the sound of a Hemi.
• 5:50
  Speaker 1: Yeah well, there's no doubt about that.
• 5:51
  Speaker 1: Now are you still going to offer the Hurricane engine?
• 5:54
  Speaker 4: Absolutely.
• 5:55
  Speaker 4: It's available in two versions, so you get the high output at 540 horsepower and the standard output, which is no slouch either, at 420 horsepower.
• 6:02
  Speaker 4: And that's a lot for a three liter twin turbo inline six.
• 6:07
  Speaker 4: So it's a great engine.
• 6:08
  Speaker 4: We also have the v6 pentastar on the entry level, so it's a full power train of choice.
• 6:13
  Speaker 4: Offering that's what customers like is the choice of types, of different types of engines for whatever need they have now the ram classic went away.
• 6:23
  Speaker 4: Yes, yeah, that was that was that was the, that was the dds platform and it was a great.
• 6:28
  Speaker 4: It was a great truck and it worked really well and I think the fact that it stayed in for so long after we launched the new, all new ram 1500 is a testament to how good the truck was and and so.
• 6:39
  Speaker 4: But in time we were able to do a lot of the things that we wanted to with the new platform.
• 6:45
  Speaker 4: So really kind of like replace the things that we were doing with that the classic truck, meaning like the tradesman trim level, the low end time, the work truck.
• 6:54
  Speaker 4: We're able to do that now with the new platform added into a level price that's really compelling.
• 6:59
  Speaker 4: So it made sense just to push everything now on the new platform.
• 7:02
  Speaker 1: Where's the Ram 1500 built?
• 7:05
  Speaker 4: Sterling Heights Assembly Point in Michigan.
• 7:07
  Speaker 4: Okay, there you go.
• 7:08
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 7:09
  Speaker 1: Good.
• 7:09
  Speaker 1: So we don't have to worry about tariffs, we don't have to worry about coming across the bridge over there in Canada, we don't have to bring it up from Mexico.
• 7:18
  Speaker 1: It's going to be built right there at Sterling Heights, sterling Heights that factory's been there forever.
• 7:22
  Speaker 2: Yes it Sterling Heights, sterling Heights, that factory's been there forever.
• 7:24
  Speaker 4: It's been there forever.
• 7:25
  Speaker 4: They're hustling right now.
• 7:26
  Speaker 4: We got a lot of trim levels coming out of there the new RHO, obviously, the performance off-road truck.
• 7:37
  Speaker 4: There's a new push for sport trucks, really.
• 7:38
  Speaker 4: So we've got this great lineup of modified and custom trucks that you can get with an off-road bias or street bias, that just have a great look and we build them on the tradesman trim.
• 7:48
  Speaker 4: Some of them actually have the high performance engines and some of them have nicer interiors.
• 7:54
  Speaker 4: So let's play up through the whole ranks.
• 7:56
  Speaker 4: You got the Warlock in the 1500, then you got the Rebel and then you got, of course, the RHO, which has that 540 horsepower hurricane engine.
• 8:04
  Speaker 4: So it plays all the realms up there and we do the same thing in the heavy duty.
• 8:07
  Speaker 4: So chap's been pretty busy trying to keep up with all the different product launches that we're doing right, I assume rho stands for when I say chap, I mean sterling heights assembly plants yeah, no, I, I hear you.
• 8:18
  Speaker 4: I understand that rho is ram high output well, some people say that, but I know if you set pull up the center console cover, you'll see a picture of a little rhino that the interior designers had fun putting in there.
• 8:30
  Speaker 4: So we've never really defined exactly what rhl stands for, but it sure is fun having people you know the power wagons up.
• 8:40
  Speaker 4: The power is the part did you mention the power wagon, power wagons on the heavy duty side.
• 8:44
  Speaker 4: Okay, so on the heavy-duty side.
• 8:45
  Speaker 4: So on the heavy-duty side we also play into that sport truck realm.
• 8:48
  Speaker 4: So you have the Rebel HD and you have, of course, the King of the Hill for off-road, the Power Wagon, which I think some of you have done some winching demonstrations with me in the past.
• 8:58
  Speaker 3: It was a lot of fun too.
• 8:59
  Speaker 3: Well, was it a lot of fun?
• 9:06
  Speaker 4: watching me running up and down the hill, dragging that line or a lot of fun running the winch.
• 9:08
  Speaker 3: Well, there's a lot of fun both of them.
• 9:08
  Speaker 3: You know you get a kick out of both.
• 9:09
  Speaker 3: I mean, unfortunately I've never had the need to do that, but you know, pull a seven thousand six, seven thousand pound vehicle up the side of the hill with a cable is a rather interesting thing stand back exactly get out of the way that's it.
• 9:26
  Speaker 1: Are the dealers going to make a big deal out of this?
• 9:30
  Speaker 4: The Hemi, the Hemi.
• 9:32
  Speaker 1: Yeah, the Hemi.
• 9:34
  Speaker 4: Absolutely.
• 9:34
  Speaker 4: They were absolutely part of this decision-making process as well.
• 9:38
  Speaker 4: They are listening to their customers, just like we are, so, yeah, they're thrilled.
• 9:43
  Speaker 4: When we first announced it, the amount of orders that came flowing in were astronomical.
• 9:50
  Speaker 4: It was very Really.
• 9:53
  Speaker 1: Somehow, I don't know why that surprises me, but apparently there was some bent up, pent up, need, want, desire for that.
• 10:01
  Speaker 4: Hemi.
• 10:02
  Speaker 4: Yeah, we hit allocation rather quickly.
• 10:07
  Speaker 1: Now the engine isn't assembled at Sterling Heights.
• 10:10
  Speaker 1: I assume, nope, that's in Saltillo, at Sterling Heights.
• 10:14
  Speaker 1: I assume Nope, that's in Saltillo, mexico, it is okay.
• 10:16
  Speaker 1: So the engine is built down there and I guess it has been for quite some time.
• 10:23
  Speaker 4: Yeah, along with the 6.4 liter V8 that we also build for the heavy duty segment.
• 10:28
  Speaker 4: So yeah, both HEMIs are built down there.
• 10:30
  Speaker 1: Yeah Well, I'm excited to start seeing advertising on the television that the hemi is back.
• 10:37
  Speaker 4: um, well have you have you seen the latest?
• 10:39
  Speaker 1: no, oh well, you're gonna have to check that out.
• 10:43
  Speaker 1: Well, you know, you're gonna have to send it to us where you got it?
• 10:46
  Speaker 3: well, we ran into a little technical problem with playing that stuff while we were talking to you after the power hit, but we'll get it, we got it.
• 10:55
  Speaker 1: Because I told Mars.
• 10:56
  Speaker 1: I said be sure and download some pictures, ask Nick to give you some pics and stuff.
• 11:01
  Speaker 3: And so he downloaded some stuff, we had, it, we had it, but we ain't got it, no more.
• 11:07
  Speaker 4: One of the things that you guys like about Tim Gniscus, the CEO of Ram, is his honesty on a lot of these topics and how to go in, and I think that commercial describes it really well.
• 11:18
  Speaker 4: Well, good.
• 11:21
  Speaker 1: Well, we all will have to.
• 11:22
  Speaker 1: We'll have to look for it.
• 11:22
  Speaker 1: Yeah Well, what other kind of news do you want to tell us about it?
• 11:25
  Speaker 1: I mean, you know well we.
• 11:28
  Speaker 4: we launched the new heavy-duty line as well recently.
• 11:31
  Speaker 4: So you know Texas loves their heavy-duty trucks and so we've got the 1,075 pound-feet of torque that was always available on the high-output side.
• 11:42
  Speaker 4: So if you had a Ram 3500 Dually and it's all set up for towing, you could get that high-output engine in the past.
• 11:49
  Speaker 4: But what we did for 2025 in the heavy-d duty is we made that engine standard across the board.
• 11:58
  Speaker 4: So even if you get the three quarter ton truck, you get the high output engine.
• 12:00
  Speaker 4: Every Ram heavy duty with the diesel gets the Cummins six, seven high output with 1075 pound feet of torque.
• 12:06
  Speaker 4: That's it.
• 12:07
  Speaker 4: So a lot of those three quarter ton folks out there that didn't really have the need for a 3,500, one ton now get all the power and it's a.
• 12:14
  Speaker 4: It's a quick beast.
• 12:16
  Speaker 4: No, doubt.
• 12:18
  Speaker 3: Yeah, he's smiling when he says yeah.
• 12:20
  Speaker 1: Are you driving?
• 12:21
  Speaker 1: One Are you driving.
• 12:24
  Speaker 4: I do once in a while.
• 12:25
  Speaker 4: You know, one of the great things about my job is having access to the press fleet and trying out some of the different vehicles and I just whenever I push on the throttle of that truck I just feel like it wants to just cut loose.
• 12:36
  Speaker 4: We recently did a drive program with some journalists out at davis dam and, as you guys probably know, davis dam grade is the proving grounds for anyone who wants to claim a towing capacity or payload capacity on a pickup or vehicle, whatever else.
• 12:50
  Speaker 4: You have have to run davis dam, be able to hold a certain amount of speed and do it in greater than 100 degrees with the air conditioning full blast at full capacity on the truck, and it has to hold that without derating.
• 13:01
  Speaker 4: So we went out there with a bunch of journalists, a bunch of haulers and and ran that hill and it was really good to see those trucks run hard and give people a chance to run it right out of Laughlin to the top of the grade and back.
• 13:16
  Speaker 1: Love it, wish we were there.
• 13:19
  Speaker 3: I've been to Laughlin.
• 13:20
  Speaker 1: Have you, yeah, gambling or what?
• 13:24
  Speaker 1: Yeah, there's nothing else there.
• 13:28
  Speaker 4: Oh come on, there's probably another story.
• 13:31
  Speaker 4: You kind of hesitated on that.
• 13:32
  Speaker 4: He did, didn't he?
• 13:33
  Speaker 3: Well, I told my son to be sure and listen to this segment, because his truck got rear-ended.
• 13:37
  Speaker 3: I was telling you about that this week so that he could hear firsthand what all the new stuff is going to be.
• 13:44
  Speaker 2: And the discount he's going to get.
• 13:47
  Speaker 1: Right on Hardy har har.
• 13:49
  Speaker 4: There's another topic too, and that's interesting, Mard, that you talked about that.
• 13:53
  Speaker 4: So I'm looking to get a new truck.
• 13:54
  Speaker 4: One of the pieces of information that we've had more recently we've been looking at is how long people are hanging on to their pickups.
• 14:00
  Speaker 4: Yep, it's reached an all-new record.
• 14:18
  Speaker 4: In fact, like 85% or more of the loans that are out there right now when you go buy a new truck are greater than seven years on the pickup truck segment.
• 14:20
  Speaker 4: So again, 85% of the loan periods out there for brand new pickup trucks are greater than seven years across the pickup truck market and everywhere.
• 14:23
  Speaker 4: So if that's the case, you want to make sure that you're covering the customer, and the one thing that hasn't changed in all of those years is that prices have gone up.
• 14:31
  Speaker 4: The payment periods have gone up is the warranty.
• 14:34
  Speaker 4: So Ram's now introducing America's best full size limited powertrain warranty on the Ram, on the Ram 1500, the Ram 2500, Ram 3500, the chassis cap and our vans.
• 14:45
  Speaker 4: So you can get a full powertrain warranty 10 years or a hundred thousand miles on the original purchase of the truck.
• 14:53
  Speaker 4: So now, if you've got payments that are carrying through seven years and something goes wrong, we got you covered.
• 14:59
  Speaker 3: Very nice, that's very nice.
• 15:01
  Speaker 1: Wow Well, so lots of reasons to go shop Ram again.
• 15:05
  Speaker 1: Well it is.
• 15:07
  Speaker 3: And I really think that the way you're launching it, with all the excitement about the NASCAR and everything, I think that's going to bring a lot of people back.
• 15:15
  Speaker 1: Well, no, we didn't even talk about that.
• 15:17
  Speaker 1: So let's talk about NASCAR, let's talk about the truck series, let's talk about that for just a minute well.
• 15:25
  Speaker 4: Well, we got to open that up with my personal experience with it.
• 15:28
  Speaker 4: So some time, some time ago, I had a chance to to run pr for um for dodge.
• 15:34
  Speaker 4: It was then dodge and the cup and it was.
• 15:36
  Speaker 4: It was 15 years ago.
• 15:37
  Speaker 4: I actually had hair back then, so.
• 15:39
  Speaker 4: But now we're running with the truck series and we have this launch and I get a chance to be able to tool tool around in the nascar nascar truck that we have the concept and I get a chance to be able to tool around in the NASCAR truck that we have the concept truck in the parking lot to do these rehearsals that we're doing for the reveal of it.
• 15:54
  Speaker 4: And I got to tell you guys, man, that thing is just angry.
• 15:58
  Speaker 4: I don't know if you've been in a race car like that, but man, it's a four speed, it's rolling, probably 600 horsepower and it weighs almost nothing.
• 16:05
  Speaker 4: It just wants to go.
• 16:06
  Speaker 4: So that was a neat experience.
• 16:09
  Speaker 4: I don't know if anybody got a chance to watch the reveal that we did at Michigan National Speedway when we finally came out telling everybody we're going to jump back in the truck series next year, but we built a trailer that actually folds out and looks a lot like a helipad.
• 16:23
  Speaker 4: Then we put that truck I'm telling you about on the trailer and we did donuts with it.
• 16:27
  Speaker 4: We had that donut trailer and then we had pyrotechnics.
• 16:31
  Speaker 4: We had red, white and blue smoke.
• 16:33
  Speaker 4: It was an amazing effort and a great way to bring us back in a way that only Ram would, in a way no other manufacturers ever.
• 16:39
  Speaker 1: There has to be video on your website of that somewhere.
• 16:42
  Speaker 4: Oh, you can bet you there is.
• 16:44
  Speaker 4: I'm happy to share that with you guys.
• 16:46
  Speaker 1: Okay, please do yeah.
• 16:48
  Speaker 4: That was one of those moments for sure, it's exciting times again.
• 16:53
  Speaker 1: Finally, that's back, and we sure do appreciate you joining us to tell us about it today, nick Capa, thank you again, my friend.
• 17:00
  Speaker 3: Thanks fellas, anytime man.
• 17:02
  Speaker 3: Thanks Nick, thanks Nick, bye.
• 17:04
  Speaker 1: Bye.
• 17:06
  Speaker 2: What a guy, yep.
• 17:07
  Speaker 1: Great guy.
• 17:08
  Speaker 1: Let's see.
• 17:10
  Speaker 1: Just ahead we're going to do the racing calendar this week in auto history.
• 17:14
  Speaker 1: We're going to try to squeeze all that in and some news headlines.
• 17:17
  Speaker 1: It's all coming up here on the In Wheel Time Car Talk Show.
• 17:20
  Speaker 1: We are back in a flash.
• 17:22
  Speaker 1: The Tex-Mex dining experience is defined by Loopy Tortilla.
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  Speaker 1: Your the Tex-Mex dining experience is defined by Loopy Tortilla.
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  Speaker 1: Start your Loopy experience with queso flammeado and guacamole, along with a classic frozen margarita.
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  Speaker 1: Dine on famous Loopy beef and chicken fajitas or pepper shrimp brochette, or a fish or vegetarian entree, and finish with a scrumptious flan for dessert.
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• 18:18
  Speaker 1: Loopy Tortilla, he's pretty good.
• 18:20
  Speaker 1: Welcome back to the In Real Time Car Talk Show.
• 18:22
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• 18:33
  Speaker 1: If you miss us, you'll be able to catch all the action on your favorite podcast channel.
• 18:37
  Speaker 1: Time now for the racing calendar sponsored by Texas Muscle Car Club Challenge.
• 18:41
  Speaker 2: Thank you for that.
• 18:42
  Speaker 2: We've got IMSA this weekend.
• 18:44
  Speaker 2: Actually, tomorrow is the six hours at the Glen Watkins.
• 18:47
  Speaker 2: Glen it's on Peacock, it starts at noon.
• 18:49
  Speaker 2: You've got the Xfinity Series.
• 18:52
  Speaker 2: They are in Pocono today for NASCAR.
• 18:55
  Speaker 2: You've got the big boys tomorrow in Pocono and then you've got the NHRA Nationals, the Virginia Nationals, coming up.
• 19:03
  Speaker 2: This weekend Started yesterday.
• 19:05
  Speaker 2: Through the weekend they're in Virginia Motorsports Park.
• 19:08
  Speaker 2: And then you've got Formula.
• 19:10
  Speaker 2: One is off.
• 19:11
  Speaker 2: They're putting stuff in their purses or something I don't know.
• 19:14
  Speaker 2: Indy is at Road America and kudos to Cadillac on the 24-hour of Le Mans they started 1-2-3 and they finished 5-8 in a DNF.
• 19:26
  Speaker 2: So a little bit of challenges for them on the Cadillac Series for the Indy racing.
• 19:31
  Speaker 2: But that's what we got.
• 19:32
  Speaker 2: Go to your local tracks, find your local circle track guys.
• 19:35
  Speaker 2: Go out there, participate and support them as well.
• 19:38
  Speaker 1: By the way, speaking of which, I got word that they're going to bring the sprint cars to Houston Motorsports.
• 19:44
  Speaker 2: Park.
• 19:44
  Speaker 1: Yeah, you've been talking about that and that's coming up in a couple of weeks, on July the 5th.
• 19:50
  Speaker 2: Is Rodney Rodney's doing something with that, isn't he?
• 19:52
  Speaker 2: No?
• 19:52
  Speaker 3: No, he's going up on Arkansas.
• 19:53
  Speaker 3: I believe he's doing some stuff up there Anyway so I'm going to try to go.
• 19:58
  Speaker 1: I haven't seen the Sprint cars in a while.
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: They're my favorite circle track cars, so we're going to see them on asphalt at Houston Motorsports Park on the 5th, so looking forward to that.
• 20:08
  Speaker 1: Time now for this Week in Auto History, Mr Mars.
• 20:11
  Speaker 3: Yeah, we found several things that were rather interesting this week, starting with 1903, the Ford Motor Company was founded.
• 20:21
  Speaker 3: Now we always talk about how Ford made such an impact and change, but this literally is how Ford started.
• 20:24
  Speaker 3: I didn't realize it, but he sold 1,000 shares to 12 investors and raised $28,000 to start the Ford Motor Company in 1903.
• 20:33
  Speaker 3: Wow, by the end of the year, though, he was showing a profit because of the way he was doing some things and the way they started building them.
• 20:39
  Speaker 3: Then, in 1905, was the first AAA-sanctioned American Grand Prix.
• 20:45
  Speaker 3: It was held in the Bronx in New York.
• 20:47
  Speaker 3: It was a 10-mile course that really started it and laid the groundwork for future US road racing.
• 20:55
  Speaker 2: Does it have the top speed in any of that?
• 20:56
  Speaker 2: No, I didn't get that.
• 20:59
  Speaker 3: Then, in 1928, the Cord Corporation is founded.
• 21:04
  Speaker 3: We've often talked about how the car Cord was so far advanced've often talked about how Cord, the car Cord was so far advanced with its front wheel drive, the headlights I mean there's a lot of innovation that were in that Beautiful.
• 21:14
  Speaker 3: But the corporation actually consisted of Auburn Duesenberg and the Cord Car Company and before it was all said and done, it also included the Checker Cab Lycoming, lycoming.
• 21:27
  Speaker 3: Lycoming cab, lycoming engines, stinson Aircraft Company and a New York shipbuilding business, all under that Cord Corporation.
• 21:34
  Speaker 3: Then in 1961, ford I mean, excuse me, ferrari got the victory at the 24 Hours Le Mans in a Ferrari 250 TRI 61.
• 21:46
  Speaker 3: Now this is where Ferrari started its dominance in the endurance racing community and it went along with Enzo Ferrari's strategy to build in prestige by being the winner on the track.
• 21:59
  Speaker 3: Then in 1971 was the fastest Le Mans on record.
• 22:04
  Speaker 3: Now this is a Porsche 917K covered 3,315 miles at an average speed of 138.1 during that race and it also marked the end of the original Mousselin straight configuration before chicanes were added, making the legend That'd be the Moulin Rouge.
• 22:23
  Speaker 1: I think that they did a dance there.
• 22:26
  Speaker 3: Well, the Moulin Straight may be where the Rouge was.
• 22:28
  Speaker 3: Anyway, they did away with that and it slowed the cars down so they couldn't go as fast because they added the chicanes, because they thought the speeds were getting too high.
• 22:36
  Speaker 3: Rouge in French is red, yeah.
• 22:39
  Speaker 3: Then in 1981, the film the Cannonball Run was released.
• 22:43
  Speaker 3: Now, this is based on a true event, a real story about Cannonball Baker making a sea to shining sea memorial trophy dash, and it had people in it like Burt Reynolds, Dom DeLuise, Farrah Fawcett, Jackie Chan.
• 22:56
  Speaker 3: It had a lot of exotic cars, outrageous stunts and a lot of celebrity cameos and it's a really good, fun movie to watch this week in automotive history.
• 23:06
  Speaker 1: Thank you, sir.
• 23:07
  Speaker 1: Roush Industries will soon open an assembly line dedicated to upfitting thousands of trucks with self-driving systems.
• 23:16
  Speaker 1: For technology startup Kodiak Robotics, the line will operate at Roush's factory in Livonia, michigan, within a matter of weeks.
• 23:24
  Speaker 1: Now the company's told Automotive News these are over-the-road big tractors.
• 23:31
  Speaker 1: Okay, yep.
• 23:32
  Speaker 1: For Roush, the work marks the latest contract manufacturing project related to autonomous vehicles.
• 23:39
  Speaker 1: The engineering services company has previously built Google's seminal Firefly vehicle and Nero's R1 delivery bot.
• 23:48
  Speaker 1: So here they come Nobody behind the wheel Of a very big truck, yeah, of a very big truck.
• 23:55
  Speaker 1: Right now they're going to have this thing in some sort of ferrying thing just to make sure everything works, ferrying sand or something from one item to another.
• 24:06
  Speaker 2: You're going to get the Texas Hammer lawyer guy pounding on a robot truck, Jim Adler the Texas.
• 24:11
  Speaker 2: Hammer, that's him, yeah what a guy and his son.
• 24:15
  Speaker 3: I'm just imagining we're going to take this truck and put 50,000 pounds of sand in it and we're going to turn it loose without any driver.
• 24:23
  Speaker 1: There's a problem with it.
• 24:24
  Speaker 1: Hold my beer.
• 24:25
  Speaker 3: There's a problem with it, hold my beer.
• 24:31
  Speaker 1: There's that.
• 24:31
  Speaker 1: And one more story After dropping off her Toyota RAV4 at a dealership for service, a Georgia woman got a call from police saying they'd found it abandoned in a nearby wildlife sanctuary.
• 24:45
  Speaker 1: Surveillance video showed that someone had walked through an unlocked door into the service area, taken the key and driven away before apparently discarding the vehicle.
• 24:54
  Speaker 1: But it wasn't over for Eula Archie's RAV4.
• 24:57
  Speaker 1: A day after the dealership had the vehicle towed back, A person, apparently the same one as before, came with key in hand and drove it off again.
• 25:05
  Speaker 1: Wow, Archie had taken the RAV4 to Stone Mountain Toyota for a recurring problem with the battery.
• 25:10
  Speaker 1: Manager at the store told the TV station he was aware of the incident but didn't respond to calls seeking additional comment.
• 25:17
  Speaker 1: They found the RAV4 abandoned a second time.
• 25:20
  Speaker 3: Somebody's in trouble there, yeah, well, they really liked it.
• 25:23
  Speaker 1: Apparently, they liked it a lot.
• 25:24
  Speaker 1: Hey, we'd love to hear from you.
• 25:25
  Speaker 1: Shoot us an email.
• 25:26
  Speaker 1: The address here is info at inwheeltimecom.
• 25:29
  Speaker 1: We're back after a quick break.
• 25:30
  Speaker 1: You own a car you love.
• 25:32
  Speaker 1: Why not let Gulf Coast Auto Shield protect it?
• 25:35
  Speaker 1: Houstonian John Gray invites you to his state-of-the-art facility to introduce you to his specialist team of auto enthusiasts.
• 25:41
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• 25:44
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• 25:58
  Speaker 1: Curbed your wheels.
• 25:59
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• 26:01
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• 26:04
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• 26:06
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• 26:11
  Speaker 1: Better yet, stop by their facility at 11275 South Sam Houston Tollway, just south of the Southwest Freeway, and get a personal tour.
• 26:19
  Speaker 1: Gulf Coast Auto Shield is your place to go for all things exterior.
• 26:23
  Speaker 1: Call them today 832-930-5655, or gcautoshieldcom.
• 26:29
  Speaker 1: That's it for this podcast episode of the In Wheel Time Car Show.
• 26:34
  Speaker 1: I'm Don Armstrong, inviting you to join us for our live show every Saturday morning on Facebook, youtube Twitch and our InWheelTimecom website.
• 26:44
  Speaker 1: Podcasts are available on Apple Podcasts, spotify, stitcher, iheart Podcast Podcast Addict TuneIn, pandora and Amazon Music.
• 26:53
  Speaker 1: Keep listening and we'll see you soon.