Latest / BREAK/FIX the Motorsports & Vehicle Enthusiast Variety Show / Drive Thru News #69 - From Le Mans to Lemons-ade

Transcript

Drive Thru News #69 - From Le Mans to Lemons-ade · BREAK/FIX the Motorsports & Vehicle Enthusiast Variety Show

• 0:00
  Welcome to Brake Fix's Drive Thru News, your monthly recap for everything fast,
• 0:04
  fascinating, and usually four-wheeled.
• 0:06
  We're serving up a fresh batch of automotive headlines, motorsports madness,
• 0:10
  and car-adjacent curiosities, all with zero wait time and maximum flavor.
• 0:15
  From Formula 1 drama to concept car debuts, with garage-built legends to
• 0:19
  the quirkiest stories rolling out of the state of Florida, we've got your fix.
• 0:22
  So grab your coffee, buckle up, and let's cruise through the latest in the world
• 0:26
  of wheels with a side of entertainment and just a dash of tire smoke
• 0:32
  Ayatollah rock and rolla Is that how this month goes?
• 0:36
  Sure.
• 0:37
  Are you working on your new number one hit single?
• 0:40
  Recognize.
• 0:41
  Yeah.
• 0:41
  I make those songs up for my girls.
• 0:43
  They don't like them very much, and then they're like, "Dad, where did you
• 0:45
  come up with… Where, what is this song?" And I'm like, "I made it up.
• 0:48
  I'm an aspiring artist.
• 0:50
  What are you talking about?" Yes.
• 0:55
  We'll have that audio recording somewhere.
• 0:58
  A number one hit single.
• 1:01
  Yeah.
• 1:01
  My, a- a- Adam is always telling me to stop singing or stop
• 1:06
  dancing, and I said, "I can't.
• 1:08
  I got the music in me." They're gonna remember all these shenanigans
• 1:13
  that we did when we were- Yeah … considered old to them.
• 1:16
  When they look back, they'll be like, "Your dad, you know, your dad was pretty
• 1:19
  g- He was a fun guy." A- and then they start doing the stuff that you did
• 1:22
  because it imprinted on them, right?
• 1:24
  Mm-hmm.
• 1:24
  And they don't even know why they did it.
• 1:26
  Exactly.
• 1:27
  Just wait till each school drop-off.
• 1:29
  And I'm dropping 'em off in a, in a, in a blue-ish purple Beetle.
• 1:32
  You know what?
• 1:33
  And what's gonna happen is one of your sons later is gonna be like, "My dad
• 1:36
  had a Bug. I've always wanted a Bug. I'm gonna get one," blah, blah, blah.
• 1:40
  Yeah.
• 1:40
  And that Mark 4 Bug, to him, is gonna be a classic, just like your grandfather's
• 1:45
  Bug is a classic to you, see?
• 1:46
  Yep, yep.
• 1:47
  That's how it works.
• 1:47
  Exactly.
• 1:48
  That's generational automotive enthusiasm right there.
• 1:52
  I thought you were gonna say generational autism.
• 1:57
  Well, you know, some of that goes with the hobby, too.
• 2:00
  Yeah.
• 2:01
  But in all seriousness, well, maybe not, because if we don't
• 2:04
  laugh, we'll probably cry.
• 2:06
  Because the month of June should be a celebrated month.
• 2:09
  The month of, the month of June is amazing.
• 2:11
  Did you know that today, the day that we're recording this episode,
• 2:15
  is the exact six-year anniversary of our very first episode?
• 2:20
  Really?
• 2:21
  Yes.
• 2:22
  I did not.
• 2:23
  Today is the day.
• 2:24
  So there we go.
• 2:25
  Happy birthday to us.
• 2:27
  Okay.
• 2:28
  But June is also the month where we celebrate the high holy holiday of
• 2:33
  Motorsport, the 24 Hours of Le Mans.
• 2:37
  Did you watch the race?
• 2:38
  I ask you this every year.
• 2:39
  Did you watch the race?
• 2:41
  Who are you asking?
• 2:42
  Both of you.
• 2:42
  Did you watch the race?
• 2:44
  I watched what I could, having two children climb and jump all over me.
• 2:49
  I had it basically, it was on my computer screen for the entire 24 hours.
• 2:55
  I got to watch probably about an hour of it.
• 2:58
  Which of the boring hours did you watch?
• 3:01
  I got to watch the start and a couple of the, the first laps, and
• 3:05
  I w- I did watch some at night.
• 3:07
  A- and then I watched the ending to, and then I got to see Toyota win.
• 3:11
  You did the Formula 1 thing then.
• 3:13
  You watched the beginning, you watched the end, you skipped it, you napped
• 3:16
  through everything in the middle.
• 3:17
  Yep, so I missed if there was any drama about Ferrari, uh, or- No.
• 3:22
  No … I think when I started, wasn't, uh, Cadillac wasn't winning.
• 3:26
  Was BMW winning the Hypercar?
• 3:28
  Cadillac was in the front row, and so was BMW, and Cadillac's reign
• 3:33
  at the front was very short-lived.
• 3:35
  Toyota qualified, like, 14th and 15th.
• 3:38
  They were way back.
• 3:39
  Like, you're talking Genesis is in front of them.
• 3:41
  Like, everybody's in front, and we're like, "Man, this new car is terrible."
• 3:45
  And then we have a Cinderella story at the end.
• 3:48
  No spoilers if you haven't seen it.
• 3:49
  Because somebody's gonna go back and watch it two weeks later?
• 3:53
  No, of course not.
• 3:54
  Ah, forget it.
• 3:55
  You can watch the highlight reel in about 20 minutes.
• 3:57
  How about you T- how did you watch the race, Tanya?
• 3:59
  Who did I say had the streaming?
• 4:01
  Was it Hobo Max?
• 4:03
  I, maybe that's what it was.
• 4:04
  It was on, it was on, uh, yeah, I think it was supposed to be on Max.
• 4:07
  It was on, it was on Max.
• 4:09
  So I tuned in and out throughout the day.
• 4:13
  I went to bed like a normal human being, 'cause I'm old.
• 4:15
  That's all of us.
• 4:17
  And then the next day, I tuned in, and in and out, and then I caught the last hour?
• 4:25
  Basically And what did you think of the race?
• 4:27
  Well, I mean, I don't think I watched enough of it to see excitement.
• 4:32
  I heard when I came back in, even the announcers, like, the next day
• 4:36
  were ta- commenting that they, like, the first race was not exciting
• 4:39
  until, like, sometime in the middle of the night or something like that.
• 4:42
  Because it's a Toyota, and it's reliable.
• 4:46
  Because the first 12 hours were super boring and subject to basically perfect
• 4:50
  driving conditions and pit rotations.
• 4:52
  So wherever you started the race was basically where you
• 4:56
  were for the first 12 hours.
• 4:57
  It was incredibly boring for the first half.
• 5:00
  And then we got a little sprinkle of rain mid-morning, kind of as the sun was com-
• 5:05
  And then it was like, okay, so that kind of made things different and interesting.
• 5:08
  A couple cars, you know, broke or behind the wall, came back out.
• 5:11
  A bunch of cars were laps and laps down, and that's the typical race.
• 5:14
  But it was just, there was something about this year's Le Mans that was
• 5:18
  just like ho-hum, mm-mm, meh, meh.
• 5:22
  It just, I don't know, it, for some reason it just felt like any other year.
• 5:26
  Boring.
• 5:27
  Well, a- and th- that's the s- and that's the weird part because GTP was
• 5:32
  packed full of brands, just packed.
• 5:35
  Three Ferraris, two Toyotas, two Hyundais, the Astons, the BMW.
• 5:41
  I mean, you have the list goes on and on and on, and it's like, how is this
• 5:44
  r- is it because Porsche wasn't there?
• 5:46
  Is that what makes it that much more interesting?
• 5:48
  I will say, unless you're in the know, there was very little
• 5:54
  marketing and pomp and circumstance- Yeah … leading up to the race.
• 5:59
  I mean, they, the only reason I knew the race was happening is because I actively
• 6:04
  sought out, okay, when is Le Mans?
• 6:06
  When am I gonna to watch?
• 6:08
  How am I gonna watch it?
• 6:08
  It, there was very little online about it- Yeah … until race day.
• 6:12
  And even then, there was, th- there's just not a lot of coverage.
• 6:15
  This is a sign, as you know, the race was super boring.
• 6:19
  They gave LMP2 tons of TV coverage this time around.
• 6:23
  Maybe they listen to our show.
• 6:24
  Maybe that's, 'cause we've been complaining that LMP2
• 6:26
  doesn't get enough TV coverage.
• 6:28
  And then I was shocked by how many times they would actually stay on the LMP2
• 6:32
  cars, and we'd watch them go around and battle it out, which was kind of exciting.
• 6:36
  But that speaks volumes to Le Mans fans, right?
• 6:40
  You know what was funny to me is I was watching the LMP2 cars, and
• 6:44
  I was like, "Why does LMP2 exist?"
• 6:47
  Are they just trying to fill the field?
• 6:49
  Are there not enough hypercar manufacturers to wanna do this, so
• 6:53
  they have to fill it with the Delaras?
• 6:55
  They pay for the race.
• 6:57
  That's what LMP2 does.
• 6:59
  I don't know.
• 6:59
  There was, they did feel a little bit less- A little blasé.
• 7:03
  And it was, I guess, the first year to see not Dunlop.
• 7:08
  Right?
• 7:09
  But it's weird.
• 7:09
  I, we talked about that.
• 7:10
  It's very strange.
• 7:11
  No Porsche, no Dunlop.
• 7:14
  It just felt off.
• 7:15
  And to make matters worse, this is the first Le Mans in a long
• 7:19
  time that wasn't on Father's Day.
• 7:21
  Yes.
• 7:22
  Correct.
• 7:23
  That had trickle-down effects, because we went, as a family, to
• 7:27
  Simeone for the museum overnight camp-out thing, you know, the viewing
• 7:31
  party and all that kind of stuff.
• 7:32
  Which I will say, mad props to Simeone Foundation Museum.
• 7:35
  They stepped up their game.
• 7:36
  I wrote a whole article about it.
• 7:38
  It's on the website.
• 7:39
  All the TVs were, like, everywhere instead of relegated into one corner.
• 7:42
  They had a family fun zone.
• 7:44
  They had simulators.
• 7:45
  The ACO had its own lounge at the museum.
• 7:47
  All this kind of really cool stuff.
• 7:49
  But attendance was less than half of what it was last year.
• 7:54
  And, you know, we were just chit-chatting and speculating about it, and I ran
• 7:57
  into some guests of the show, and other people that we know from the
• 8:00
  Society of Automotive Historians, and we're, we're sitting there talking.
• 8:03
  People just couldn't put their finger on it.
• 8:04
  The race was kind of meh, attendance was down, and I said, "I think it's because
• 8:09
  it's not on Father's Day." Because Father's Day, you get that hall pass.
• 8:13
  What does Grandpa wanna do?
• 8:15
  What does Dad wanna do?
• 8:16
  You know, we're gonna go to the museum.
• 8:17
  We're gonna watch the race.
• 8:18
  We're gonna buckle down and watch Le Mans.
• 8:20
  It's always been on Father's Day.
• 8:22
  And to shift it up to the same weekend as the Spanish GP, which we're gonna
• 8:26
  talk about maybe some speculation as to why they did that in the other
• 8:30
  episode, it just was, everything was off.
• 8:33
  It's like that weekend when the time changes.
• 8:35
  Yeah … and you just kind of feel neh for like, three days.
• 8:38
  It was like, the same thing.
• 8:40
  It just, it was wrong.
• 8:41
  They need to go back to the way it was.
• 8:43
  I think any year Toyota wins, it's kind of a boring race.
• 8:47
  But you gotta hand it to them.
• 8:48
  Either they were sandbagging like crazy, but to come from the back of the GTP
• 8:53
  pack, basically, and end up winning it, I mean, that's a hell of a feat.
• 8:57
  Because there weren't a lot of GTP cars, LMP1, whatever you
• 9:01
  wanna call them, that were out.
• 9:03
  The Peugeots were still there.
• 9:04
  The Ferraris were all still there.
• 9:06
  A couple of the Cadillacs.
• 9:07
  BMW basically stayed in second place for the entire race.
• 9:11
  Made no sense.
• 9:12
  It was like, okay.
• 9:13
  I mean, they did lead for the first while in the first half, but eventually
• 9:17
  they gave up the goat on that too.
• 9:19
  But still, it was just, where the hell'd Toyota come from?
• 9:22
  It's very bizarre.
• 9:23
  And I gotta go there.
• 9:25
  We gotta take a bite out of this 900-pound elephant in the conversation of Le Mans.
• 9:30
  Did I or did I not say last year Ferrari needed to stop?
• 9:35
  You might have.
• 9:36
  It was embarrassing.
• 9:38
  I don't think it was embarrassing, because, okay, they started somewhere
• 9:41
  at the t- they got all the way to the bottom, and then they came back up
• 9:44
  to the top, so I mean, that's good.
• 9:46
  I mean, they didn't even podium.
• 9:47
  They didn't even podium.
• 9:49
  I mean, considering how terrible they were doing at one point,
• 9:51
  to almost be close is not bad.
• 9:54
  Uh, did they switch teams?
• 9:56
  Did the Formula 1 guys go to Le Mans this year and Le Mans went to Formula 1?
• 9:59
  Is that, is that what's going on?
• 10:00
  Possible, 'cause didn't they say last year that they were gonna try and get help
• 10:03
  from the Le Mans team for the Ferrari?
• 10:06
  Right?
• 10:08
  Maybe they were all at the Spanish GP trying to help them, and not in France.
• 10:13
  That would make a lot of sense to the results of the Spanish GP, then.
• 10:16
  Well, we're gonna talk about that, too.
• 10:18
  But it was just, it was so disappointing.
• 10:20
  And now, if Ford comes in next year with their car, name yet to
• 10:24
  be determined, let's call it the GT 2027 Ferrari needs to stop.
• 10:29
  They either need to redesign the car, because that chassis's already old
• 10:32
  at this point, or they need to stop.
• 10:34
  They need to get out, just like Porsche did.
• 10:36
  Because it just, it doesn't- I don't think they- It doesn't make
• 10:38
  sense … abandon everything.
• 10:40
  But who knows?
• 10:40
  Maybe it's one of these off years where they are doing that.
• 10:43
  Next year they're gonna have the new car.
• 10:45
  Yeah.
• 10:45
  How, how embarrassing would it be to not be there the same
• 10:50
  year Ford comes back, given the history between Ford and Ferrari?
• 10:55
  In 1967, '66, all those, '68, all those years where they were doing those
• 11:00
  battles, it was Ford and Ferrari neck and neck, going at it, you know, as
• 11:05
  dramatized in the movies, et cetera.
• 11:07
  But if they just kind of show up and throw up, like, a seventh place
• 11:11
  finish, and Ford ends up, like, on the podium, that's not Ford versus Ferrari.
• 11:14
  That's Ford versus Toyota.
• 11:15
  It's still better for them to show up than to not show up, because then you'd
• 11:19
  be saying, "Oh, they couldn't even get their act together and get a car
• 11:22
  to Le Mans," or they, they chickened out, and they saw Ford was coming, and
• 11:26
  then they, they backpedaled and decided they didn't want any piece of that.
• 11:30
  You know how the Ford fanatics are.
• 11:32
  That's true.
• 11:33
  And Porsche lost three years in a row, so… And then they stopped.
• 11:36
  I kind of looked at it the other way and said, "Ferrari won three years in
• 11:39
  a row. They should have stopped." Do we see the 499P for two more years?
• 11:44
  But stop and then what?
• 11:44
  That's it.
• 11:45
  They're done.
• 11:45
  They never run in Le Mans again.
• 11:47
  Porsche will come back with something.
• 11:49
  But it's not gonna be the 963.
• 11:51
  I mean, I'd be curious to what the development plan and the strategic plan
• 11:55
  was when they put the car together.
• 11:56
  I mean, did they… I mean, we obviously weren't in those meetings.
• 12:00
  Could they possibly have said, you know, I'm speaking about Porsche, "Okay.
• 12:03
  We're gonna do this for three years, and then we're gonna back out and
• 12:06
  do something else." If they were just executing on the plan that
• 12:09
  they originally created, so be it.
• 12:11
  Then the results are the results.
• 12:13
  Yeah.
• 12:13
  Yeah.
• 12:13
  Could be the same with Ferrari.
• 12:15
  I mean, Ferrari probably said, you know, "Win, lose, draw, we're gonna do this
• 12:19
  for five years, and then after that, we're gonna go back to the drawing board.
• 12:22
  We're gonna focus on something else.
• 12:24
  We're gonna focus on fixing the entire EV debacle that happened,
• 12:27
  and then we're gonna come back." Oh.
• 12:29
  We're gonna talk about that, too.
• 12:30
  My God.
• 12:31
  Which I just, I just saw.
• 12:33
  The CMO for Ferrari was fired because of that launch.
• 12:39
  Well, let's put a pin in that and come back to it.
• 12:41
  So let's kind of go down the rungs a little bit.
• 12:44
  So, you know, we know what happened in GTP.
• 12:46
  LMP2, if you can tell them apart, that's great.
• 12:49
  There was some good racing, though, in LMP2, I will say.
• 12:52
  Let's talk about GT3 for just a second.
• 12:55
  Did anybody else see what I saw happening in GT3?
• 12:58
  I saw Corvette won.
• 12:59
  Corvette won, but who was in second place, and who was leading for most of the time?
• 13:05
  It was Lexus, wasn't it?
• 13:06
  Yes.
• 13:06
  In their, like, 10-year-old car.
• 13:09
  Yes.
• 13:09
  I thought Aston came in second.
• 13:11
  No, Lexus came in second, and Lexus was leading for a really long time in
• 13:16
  GT3, which begged the question, 'cause I asked some other people, I was like,
• 13:19
  "Do you think they BOP'd everybody else to the slowness of the Lexus?"
• 13:25
  'Cause the Lexus has always been reliable, but it's never been fast
• 13:29
  compared to the Corvettes or the Mustangs or the Porsches or the Fra-
• 13:33
  like, they're always sort of just there.
• 13:36
  To Tanya's point, that chassis's old, that car's old, that layout's old.
• 13:40
  All of it's old, and here they are leading GT3 at Le Mans.
• 13:44
  You don't wanna tell me that they basically put potatoes up everybody's
• 13:48
  exhaust pipes and restricted them so that Lexus stood a chance.
• 13:52
  You know, apparently that's only the third time that Lexus has showed up.
• 13:55
  Yeah.
• 13:56
  Once they got the rules right where they could cross the IMSA cars to Le Mans a
• 14:00
  couple years ago, I think that was 2024, the Lexus showed up, and it's been there.
• 14:04
  But you forget about it, because just like when it runs at Daytona,
• 14:07
  you just sort of forget about it unless all the other GT3 cars break.
• 14:12
  The Lexus is always in the, the lowest class.
• 14:16
  It's always in the GTD class.
• 14:17
  It's never in the GT Pro.
• 14:20
  Or whatever.
• 14:21
  At least on the, on the IMSA side So according to the interwebs- Oh, boy
• 14:25
  they had consistent pace.
• 14:27
  Consistently avoiding unforced errors, mechanical issues, and capitalizing
• 14:31
  on track restarts, the Lexus stayed at the front of the highly
• 14:34
  competitive GT pack for 24 hours.
• 14:36
  Their fuel efficiency.
• 14:38
  The team's calculated fuel strategy allowed them to stretch their
• 14:40
  stints, giving them the edge to stay out on track longer while
• 14:43
  preserving both tires and engine.
• 14:45
  They're still out there with a Camry.
• 14:47
  So basically, it's Toyota being Toyota.
• 14:50
  Exactly.
• 14:51
  Exact- exactly.
• 14:52
  Exactly … reliable, not the fastest, but fast enough, and- And
• 14:57
  dependable … will, will run forever.
• 14:58
  Reliable and dependable.
• 14:59
  I mean, that's the Toyota motto.
• 15:01
  Yeah.
• 15:02
  It was just shocking.
• 15:03
  But as we know, and having talked to Mark Raffauf and other people that are in the
• 15:08
  know and, and write the rules, especially Mark, the BOP exists, and if Toyota
• 15:13
  lobbied, you know, maybe it was a thing.
• 15:15
  Like, if we can lobby the Lexus, then if Toyota ends up winning,
• 15:19
  maybe they were sandbagging.
• 15:20
  Again, conspiracy theories, put your tinfoil hats on.
• 15:22
  Then it's a double win for Toyota, right?
• 15:24
  It's a win at the top, and it's a win in GT3 for the brand.
• 15:28
  So who knows, right?
• 15:29
  So they don't do that.
• 15:30
  No, there's no politics in racing whatsoever.
• 15:33
  No, no, no, no, no, no, no.
• 15:35
  There's no sort of, like, BOP in the upper classes.
• 15:39
  I mean, uh, definitely not in, uh, Prototype 2, because
• 15:42
  they're all the exact same car.
• 15:43
  They're spec cars, yeah.
• 15:44
  Yeah.
• 15:45
  But, but in the, the Hypercar class, the top class, they don't do a BOP.
• 15:50
  It's basically run what you brung, right?
• 15:51
  Kind of.
• 15:52
  They build to a- With- within the parameters that they have.
• 15:54
  Correct.
• 15:55
  There's a limit that they build to, but GT3, because the cars are so
• 15:59
  disparate- Yeah … 911 is not the same shape as a Lambo, is not the same
• 16:03
  shape as the Lexus, so they have to figure out how to make them all equal,
• 16:07
  hence the balance of performance.
• 16:09
  Right.
• 16:09
  And then what ends up happening there is, and Mark came on and talked about
• 16:13
  this on a Evening with a Legend episode, the manufacturers literally lobby to s-
• 16:18
  figure out the BOP, and in the end, they sort of squeak ahead or behind, and then
• 16:23
  it's all the s- the typical racing stuff.
• 16:24
  Cheat until you get caught, and then it's not cheating anymore.
• 16:27
  It becomes a rule, right?
• 16:28
  It's all that kind of stuff that's been going on forever.
• 16:30
  But there is a lot of lobbying and a lot of politics in the GT classes, for sure.
• 16:34
  Right.
• 16:34
  But in the Hypercar classes, basically run what you brung, and that's where all
• 16:38
  the innovation and, and technology- Yeah.
• 16:40
  And that's where you see all the diverse engines, too, where the- Yeah, yeah
• 16:43
  the Magma is running, like, a six-cylinder, and the Valkyrie's
• 16:46
  got a 12, and the Toyota's got a four-wheel drive hybrid, and
• 16:50
  it's all this mix-match of stuff.
• 16:52
  I think we determined the, the Magma was running a small V8.
• 16:55
  That's right.
• 16:56
  I had also heard rumor in testing, when they were testing the chassis, they were
• 17:00
  running the Rally four-cylinder in it.
• 17:02
  Yeah.
• 17:02
  Testing all kinds of stuff, yeah.
• 17:04
  Yeah, but I was impressed with them.
• 17:06
  And we'll talk about this later, but BOP is kind of what
• 17:09
  they're doing in F1 right now.
• 17:11
  Like, allowing teams- Yeah … to do either one upgrade or two upgrades.
• 17:14
  But we'll, we'll get into that Well, overall, Le Mans has come and gone.
• 17:19
  I worshiped at the altar like I do every year.
• 17:21
  You know, now I just gotta wait for Petit, and then we start all
• 17:24
  over again with Daytona and Sebring and just keep going down the line.
• 17:29
  But there's the other side of this that everybody's been anxiously waiting for.
• 17:32
  June was gonna be an extremely busy month.
• 17:35
  We were gonna go from lemons to Le Mans.
• 17:39
  I think we gotta make some lemonade out of this lemon that we have.
• 17:44
  Did that work out as planned?
• 17:46
  No, it did not.
• 17:47
  We gotta fill our audience, and normally we would do this
• 17:49
  as the GTM Trackside Report.
• 17:51
  You gotta make it to the track to make it a trackside report.
• 17:53
  Right?
• 17:54
  Hey, now.
• 17:55
  Hey, now.
• 17:56
  The starting line is half the battle.
• 17:58
  It's like G.I. Joe with this thing, okay?
• 18:00
  And it's funny because it's sad.
• 18:02
  Dave Lowe from Enduroverse called me the other day and, you know,
• 18:05
  he's like, "So how'd you guys do?
• 18:06
  How did it go?" And I'm like, "Dave, I got bad news for you.
• 18:08
  We never made it to the starting line." He's like, "What happened?" So here's
• 18:13
  the deal, as Tanya knows, Memorial Day weekend, we are wrapping the car up, like
• 18:19
  literally put stickers on it, getting it all done, trying to get it ready,
• 18:22
  going through all the final tech stuff, just making sure this is done, and we
• 18:27
  gotta go move the car out of the garage.
• 18:29
  It had rained over the weekend.
• 18:31
  It's fine.
• 18:31
  It stayed in the garage.
• 18:32
  We're like, "Whatever." It's all clear now.
• 18:33
  We're gonna take it outside, we're gonna park it, it's gonna
• 18:35
  be ready to go racing no problem.
• 18:38
  What did I go, like 50 yards from the house?
• 18:41
  I stopped to take a picture of it with the stickers on it so I could send it
• 18:45
  to our sponsors and say, "Hey, look, we put your stickers on the car."
• 18:47
  I just let it sit there in idle.
• 18:49
  I put it in reverse to back it into its spot, and it went into limp mode.
• 18:53
  And now, oh, I don't know, a month later, it's still in limp mode.
• 18:58
  It will not come out of limp mode.
• 19:00
  So to make a very long and sad and expensive story short, I
• 19:04
  gotta give mad props to the guys over at Benchmark Motors.
• 19:07
  I threw my hands in the air after doing a bunch of diagnosis, asking
• 19:11
  everything under the sun to include ChatGPT, like, "What the hell's
• 19:14
  wrong with this car?" Changing parts.
• 19:16
  Yeah, replacing all sorts of parts, throttle body, pedal assembly, pigtails
• 19:21
  on the wiring harness, like all sorts of stuff that is, you know, indicative
• 19:25
  of the issue that we were getting with it, and apparently these are known
• 19:29
  problems with the Ford Focus, and we're like, "Okay, fine, whatever."
• 19:33
  Wait, wait, wait, did you try unplugging it and plugging it back in?
• 19:37
  So many times.
• 19:38
  Let me tell you- Did you try rebooting it?
• 19:40
  Yeah, well, that too.
• 19:42
  Oddly enough, in a fly-by-wire system, the car runs better right now with
• 19:48
  the throttle body disconnected than it does with the electrical system intact.
• 19:53
  So we can move it around a little bit.
• 19:55
  Again, sob story.
• 19:56
  Shout out to Benchmark.
• 19:57
  We took it over there and I said, "Look, guys, we're running out of time.
• 20:00
  We have a week to go.
• 20:02
  I need a legitimate diagnostic tool to figure out what the
• 20:05
  heck is going on with this.
• 20:06
  I've maxed out everything I have, all the research I've done.
• 20:09
  Can one of your mechanics look at it?"
• 20:10
  They said, "Sure, bring it in. No problem." And I said, "Here's
• 20:13
  what we've done. This, this, this, this, and this and this." Granted,
• 20:16
  they're gonna do their due diligence.
• 20:17
  They're not gonna trust everybody.
• 20:19
  So they went through and retested everything that we did, and they
• 20:21
  got to the point where they're like, "Look, man, there's a problem
• 20:24
  with the computer itself, the ECU."
• 20:26
  And I'm like, "Oh, God, this is gonna be painful." And to make matters worse, on
• 20:31
  the Ford, the ECU is hidden in the fender liner behind the driver's side front
• 20:38
  wheel, which in my opinion, is like the dumbest place in the planet to put it.
• 20:43
  I sort of scratched my head 'cause I'm used to the Volkswagens and I'm like, "I
• 20:46
  know where things belong," I'm gonna say it that way, and they don't belong there.
• 20:50
  So again, researching the Reddits and the forums and talking to ChatGPT and Copilot
• 20:55
  and whatever, and it's like, oh, yeah, you know, they get wet there, and then the
• 20:59
  wires, like, go bad and stuff happens and shorts out the computer and okay, fine.
• 21:04
  Our car's got high mileage.
• 21:05
  It's in really decent shape.
• 21:06
  It doesn't have any rust or anything like that, so- We end up ordering a new ECU,
• 21:10
  which costs a fortune, from Ford, because we have to get it coded at a dealership.
• 21:16
  And then there was a big old goat rodeo between Benchmark and the local Ford
• 21:21
  dealership saying, "Well, it's a race car," and they're like, "No, it's not.
• 21:25
  These guys have been really good about not touching any of the electronics.
• 21:28
  It's actually just a bone stock Ford Focus.
• 21:31
  Hook your OBD thing to it, reprogram the ECU," blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
• 21:35
  Again, a bunch of rigmarole.
• 21:37
  Coming down to the last day before, the morning of, we're supposed to be at
• 21:41
  Tech, and the car is still not running.
• 21:44
  So I go over there Friday morning, and they're like, "Look, man. They
• 21:47
  tried to program the new ECU. The ECU doesn't wanna talk to the throttle
• 21:51
  body, which means that the programming is technically incomplete, but that
• 21:54
  stage of the programming you could do yourself, you know, blah, blah,
• 21:57
  blah," all this back and forth.
• 21:58
  "Let's try a couple other things." So I brought them the original
• 22:01
  throttle body, all these other parts, and they're messing around.
• 22:04
  And I'm like, "Guys, I don't want you to spend any more time on it, because
• 22:06
  the more time you're spending on it, the more aggravated I'm getting and
• 22:09
  the more expensive it is," right?
• 22:10
  Because they're not gonna do it for free.
• 22:12
  Although, they've been keeping in touch with us.
• 22:14
  Like, one of the head guys there just reached out to me the other day.
• 22:17
  He's like, "What's going on?
• 22:18
  Did you guys get the car running?
• 22:19
  It's been a month, basically." And I said, "Look, this is where we're at.
• 22:22
  After a couple failed attempts, we finally got a brand-new, from
• 22:29
  Ford, engine wiring harness.
• 22:31
  We're gonna replace all the electronics on the engine side and move the ECU.
• 22:36
  We're gonna relocate it.
• 22:38
  Since the battery's out of the way, we're gonna move the ECU into a better
• 22:40
  location, not where it can get wet, and hope to God that that solves
• 22:44
  the problem." 'Cause if it doesn't, the next move is a Molotov cocktail.
• 22:48
  What are you gonna do?
• 22:50
  What are you gonna do?
• 22:51
  I- I- I've researched other options too.
• 22:53
  People are like, "Oh, yeah, yeah, buy programmable fuel injection.
• 22:56
  Put a Haltech on there." By the way, Haltech doesn't support that motor.
• 22:59
  "Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, Motec." Motec's $15,000 because it's a direct
• 23:04
  injection engine, 'cause it's modern.
• 23:06
  That's out of the Lemon's budget, folks.
• 23:08
  There's a carburetor option.
• 23:10
  There's even another option.
• 23:11
  I talked to these guys in England.
• 23:13
  They're like, "We'll sell you a computer. It'll run the motor, but it
• 23:17
  doesn't interface with any of the other electronics in the car." So you're on
• 23:21
  the hook to figure out how to make, like, the tachometer work, and how to
• 23:24
  make all the other stuff work that Ford will basically neuter the car, right?
• 23:28
  Like, if you don't hit the clutch and turn the car on, like, all… They're
• 23:31
  like, "Yeah, none of that stuff works. You gotta figure out how to bridge it."
• 23:33
  And I'm like, "Who invented this system? This is ridiculous." Plug and play.
• 23:37
  We're gonna put that in air quotes, right?
• 23:39
  I'm like, "Oh, my God." That's that British electronics.
• 23:41
  I, I, I will say, to make this a little bit more palatable for us, if
• 23:47
  anybody at Benchmark is listening, we are accepting sponsorships.
• 23:51
  Uh, yeah, yeah.
• 23:52
  We're accepting.
• 23:53
  So if anybody wants to help sponsor this, I mean, we, we could
• 23:57
  start a GoFundMe if we have to.
• 24:00
  Dude, we're gonna have to, because I'm gonna have to sell
• 24:01
  a kidney at, at some point.
• 24:03
  This thing, we're just hemorrhaging money on it at this point, and
• 24:07
  it's been the stupidest stuff, and this is just, like, ridiculous.
• 24:10
  And, and you know what's funny?
• 24:11
  I was talking to Greg Stanley recently.
• 24:14
  He came on the show and we did an interview, and he quoted Jay Leno.
• 24:17
  It's so true what Jay has said.
• 24:19
  He's like, "Mechanical things break, and they can either be remade, remanufactured,
• 24:24
  or repaired, but electronics degrade."
• 24:27
  And that's why there's not gonna be classic cars of this era, because 50 years
• 24:31
  from now, when all the electronics rot out and- There's not gonna be a classic car
• 24:35
  Tesla that everybody's- Going to go get?
• 24:39
  No, that, and that's just it.
• 24:40
  Once all the wires corrode inside of that loom and nobody makes the loom anymore,
• 24:44
  are you gonna sit there in your garage and take it apart and make a new loom
• 24:48
  that's only gonna last 10 years, and then the car's gonna be a brick again?
• 24:52
  I mean, we're gonna have a bunch of museum pieces.
• 24:54
  So what you're saying is we should start collecting Mark IV looms now.
• 24:58
  I am already working on that.
• 25:02
  That is the next thing, right?
• 25:04
  Because Mountain Man Dan came to the table and says, "I got this shop in
• 25:07
  Pennsylvania, little $200,000 machine. They'll hook up the car, and they'll
• 25:11
  tell you down to the inch where the break is in the wires," which
• 25:14
  apparently this is also an issue with the Ford, the way they split the wires.
• 25:19
  Rather than what the Germans do, which is we're gonna home run a wire to its
• 25:23
  location, but we're gonna make it two inches too short so there's no slack
• 25:27
  if you ever have to go mess with it.
• 25:28
  It is, like, exactly exact to save money.
• 25:30
  What Ford did is they said, "Hey, look, we're gonna put a branch here, and then
• 25:34
  we're gonna put some chewing gum and some bailing wire and a wire nut from, like,
• 25:38
  your home, you know, electric system, and that's how we're gonna hold it together,"
• 25:41
  and that's gonna rot and then fall apart.
• 25:43
  If you look at the schematic, there's like 10 of these branches where they soldered
• 25:47
  wires together in, like, a Y shape, and apparently any one of those can go bad.
• 25:52
  And then suddenly the whole system is a cascading failure.
• 25:56
  Rather than haul the car all the way to this place, you know, a couple hours
• 25:59
  away or whatever to deal with it, I'm just gonna hand the loom to Dan and
• 26:04
  say, "Take it to the shop," and if they can fix it, then we have a backup
• 26:08
  using the original that's repaired.
• 26:10
  That way we… It took us weeks to find one because a lot of people were saying,
• 26:13
  "It's no longer available. You can't get a wiring harness for it." And to make
• 26:17
  matters worse, the highest percentage of Focuses sold are not manual transmissions,
• 26:22
  and the wiring loom is different.
• 26:24
  So even if you tried to find one in the junkyard, you're taking a
• 26:27
  risk, but you're not gonna find one.
• 26:29
  We've looked.
• 26:29
  There just, there aren't any out there.
• 26:32
  bonkers.
• 26:32
  So I put my hands together and pray to our benevolent motorsport overlords
• 26:39
  in the name of the duct tape, the WD-40, and the nighttime that we
• 26:43
  make it to Summit Point in October.
• 26:46
  That is the plan at this point.
• 26:47
  We have no other recourse.
• 26:49
  Cross our fingers, and if we don't blow up the motor, hopefully maybe
• 26:52
  we can do Road Atlanta after that.
• 26:53
  But our season is not even started yet, and it's halfway over.
• 26:58
  If there are any listeners out there with a rental car for us to borrow,
• 27:02
  a spare track car, we might, we might need your contact information.
• 27:06
  Former guest Mike Carr, if you're listening, I know you
• 27:08
  got, like, 15 of them, dude.
• 27:09
  Come on, now.
• 27:10
  I did listen to…
• 27:11
  I say listen, 'cause I didn't really watch it.
• 27:14
  Glanced.
• 27:15
  I did listen to a video on somebody doing this, quote, "repair." Uh-huh.
• 27:20
  Taking the harness out and putting a new one in.
• 27:22
  It does not seem, famous last words, that complicated.
• 27:27
  The loom isn't that big.
• 27:28
  The Volkswagen loom- Yeah … is actually bigger, and I've done that one.
• 27:31
  I was very surprised.
• 27:32
  I was like, wow.
• 27:33
  And it's all just laying on top of everything.
• 27:35
  Yeah, that's what it looks like.
• 27:37
  Apparently.
• 27:37
  Like, there's a couple that run down in the front, but then, like, uh,
• 27:40
  it's all just, like, laying on top.
• 27:42
  Yeah.
• 27:42
  And I'm like, okay, this isn't that bad then maybe.
• 27:45
  The loom sits on top of the engine for the most part.
• 27:47
  It's, like, right there in front of your face.
• 27:49
  Mm-hmm.
• 27:49
  So other than pulling it out of the fender well and sealing that hole-
• 27:52
  Yeah … 'cause we have to seal the hole.
• 27:54
  And coming through the firewall, which should be a lot easier, 'cause
• 27:56
  the battery's not there anymore.
• 27:57
  Correct.
• 27:58
  And the, and, and the plan is also to relocate the computer, right?
• 28:01
  The ECU.
• 28:02
  Correct.
• 28:02
  Put it right on the hood so, I mean, you just bypass all the extra bullshit.
• 28:06
  The race, right on it.
• 28:07
  Right there.
• 28:08
  So it just- Right on it … it just hits it im- like, immediately.
• 28:12
  Well, I'm going to move it probably where the battery used to be, because
• 28:16
  there's a big open space there now, and then we can put it in a box or,
• 28:20
  you know, get a box for it or some, waterproof it or something like that.
• 28:23
  My other plan is actually to make sure that when we relocated the battery,
• 28:26
  that I rerun a brand-new ground from that location back to the battery,
• 28:33
  just to make sure that we didn't break a loop in the circuit somewhere.
• 28:37
  I've got cable on the way.
• 28:39
  I have cable.
• 28:40
  You have 12 feet of battery cable?
• 28:42
  Probably.
• 28:43
  Oh, I ordered it, so.
• 28:44
  Yeah, 'cause we bought all that stuff to do the battery in
• 28:46
  the Audi, and we never did it.
• 28:48
  Oh, shoot.
• 28:49
  Okay.
• 28:49
  Well, I ordered it today.
• 28:50
  Okay.
• 28:50
  So it's no big deal.
• 28:51
  But yeah, only because our local battery place had a fire
• 28:56
  incident not too long ago.
• 28:58
  And that's a real shame, 'cause they've been an awesome sponsor over
• 29:00
  the years, just getting us everything we ever needed for the race car.
• 29:03
  Well, seems like they're rebuilding, so.
• 29:05
  Yeah, hopefully they bounce back.
• 29:06
  Because that's a tremendous fire.
• 29:07
  When a battery place goes up in flames, that's a hard fire to control.
• 29:12
  Almost like a Tesla.
• 29:15
  Yeah, it's been a really weird month.
• 29:16
  Unfortunately, we're gonna make lemonade out of these lemons.
• 29:20
  We're gonna keep going.
• 29:21
  We're past the point of no return.
• 29:22
  Mm-hmm.
• 29:23
  Nobody wants a car that doesn't run.
• 29:24
  That's the age-old story.
• 29:25
  Whether it's a classic car or a race car or even a lemons car, if it doesn't
• 29:28
  run, nobody's gonna buy it from you.
• 29:30
  You know what I mean?
• 29:31
  So it's not like we can get out from underneath of it.
• 29:33
  And it would be disappointing to go through all of 2026 and
• 29:36
  not turn a lap in this car.
• 29:38
  Mm-hmm.
• 29:39
  Time will tell.
• 29:40
  Time will tell.
• 29:41
  Mm, mm, mm. We should probably just take it to a DE to shake out the
• 29:44
  leg, shake, shake out the- Oh, God.
• 29:46
  Oh, God.
• 29:51
  Don't get me started.
• 29:51
  You wanna see me go zero to 7,000 RPM.
• 29:53
  Let's keep going, Rand.
• 29:55
  And then as you say, my voice, start escalating my voice.
• 29:59
  What's this about, uh, Volkswagen Audi news?
• 30:02
  Uh, yeah, let's, let's switch gears, shall we?
• 30:05
  Ah, Volkswagen Audi news.
• 30:08
  We know that it's a bridge over troubled waters at Volkswagen, but
• 30:12
  I don't understand the hokey pokey.
• 30:14
  We literally had episodes where we said goodbye to cars like the two-door GTI.
• 30:19
  We said goodbye to the Passat.
• 30:21
  We said goodbye to the TT.
• 30:23
  They said, "No more. It's not gonna happen. We're only gonna sell e-Golfs and
• 30:27
  ID.Buzzes and ID.4s and all this other stuff." And now they're talking about a
• 30:32
  successor to the TT, and this particular test mule is built on top of the Boxster.
• 30:39
  Isn't it terrible?
• 30:40
  I mean, it looks like a Porsche.
• 30:42
  Who cares?
• 30:42
  Why are we calling this a TT?
• 30:44
  It's also mid-engine.
• 30:46
  Bingo.
• 30:47
  That's not TT either.
• 30:48
  Bingo.
• 30:49
  So that's what's interesting about this.
• 30:51
  Is the new TT going to be the budget Boxster?
• 30:55
  Because if it is, this actually goes back to the concept R that they had
• 31:02
  in 2003, which was a Boxster with a VR6 engine instead of the Porsche
• 31:05
  Flat 6 with the EOS nose and its own unique rear end or whatever.
• 31:10
  So this is not a new idea for Volkswagen.
• 31:13
  They're going back 20-plus years and rehashing this.
• 31:17
  But what it does is it sort of ushers in the idea that if we're gonna build
• 31:21
  the TT with this mid-engine platform, supposedly with Quattro, right,
• 31:26
  'cause they always do a Quattro.
• 31:27
  They don't do front-wheel drive or rear-wheel drive
• 31:29
  only Audis really anymore.
• 31:31
  Does this mean its big brother is coming back, too?
• 31:35
  And that's the R8, 'cause as you guys know, the R8 and the TT in the later
• 31:39
  generations, they look very, very similar.
• 31:41
  Well, I think the answer to that question is look at Lamborghini.
• 31:44
  Is there a new Lamborghini coming?
• 31:46
  Well, there's always a new Lamborghini coming, unless Volkswagen decides to sell
• 31:50
  that company, too, along with Bugatti and Rimac and everything else they've been
• 31:54
  scuttling over the last couple of months.
• 31:57
  I guess Bugatti didn't sell enough Baby IIs.
• 32:00
  Well, I mean, what else did they sell?
• 32:02
  All right, Tanya, what do you, what do you think about this TT
• 32:04
  other than you don't like it?
• 32:06
  It's ugly.
• 32:07
  I mean, I hope it doesn't look like this.
• 32:09
  It, it looks like a Porsche, right?
• 32:11
  Is it gonna look like this thing, whatever they're calling this thing now, the new
• 32:14
  Volare or Concept C or whatever it is?
• 32:16
  I mean, I hope not either, because that looks like a cartoon drawing.
• 32:20
  It belongs in Batman: The Animated Series Original.
• 32:23
  So is this gonna be mid-engine?
• 32:25
  Who knows?
• 32:26
  You see how they parked the Mk1 next to the Concept C?
• 32:28
  The TT has become something like the Beetle.
• 32:31
  Its own iconic design, love it or leave it.
• 32:36
  The TT's a particular shape, because it was the Carmen Ghia or whatever.
• 32:39
  Yep.
• 32:39
  The Carmen Ghia was its own particular shape.
• 32:41
  And it's just a weird hodgepodge, that Porsche thing.
• 32:45
  To make it look like a Porsche is stupid.
• 32:48
  It's badge engineering again.
• 32:50
  If you're not gonna pull the thread and keep it looking like a TT,
• 32:53
  I don't know what we're doing.
• 32:53
  It'd be like saying, "Oh, we're making a new Beetle," and it's
• 32:57
  a fucking four-door sedan.
• 33:00
  They call that the Panamera.
• 33:01
  And then be like, "Ooh, the new Beetle." I'd be like, "No, that
• 33:03
  has nothing to do with the Beetle." It'll, it'll be the Beetle Clubman.
• 33:07
  Yeah.
• 33:07
  Oh, my God.
• 33:07
  Exactly.
• 33:08
  What Audi should do is they should take the RS 3 chassis and
• 33:12
  put a redesigned TT body on it.
• 33:15
  And then boom, you're done.
• 33:16
  But the problem with the Jetta is that it's not sporty enough.
• 33:21
  The chassis?
• 33:22
  The R- you're telling me an RS 3's not sporty?
• 33:25
  Not if you're targeting that particular market.
• 33:29
  If you want something to go into that convertible market, into that
• 33:34
  sport coupe market or whatever, a sedan chassis is not gonna do it.
• 33:38
  Because the RS 3 at the end of the day is a Jetta.
• 33:40
  I mean, the older Jetta, but still, it's, it's a Jetta with all-wheel
• 33:43
  drive, and a lot of horsepower.
• 33:45
  Let's get real.
• 33:46
  And not only that, if they're going to do what they said they're gonna do, which
• 33:50
  is come out with the new ultimate Golf R with the RS3 engine in it, why would
• 33:56
  you build something inferior to the GTI?
• 33:59
  It has to be drastically different than the GTI.
• 34:01
  So for my money, a rear-wheel drive, mid-engine TT, Boxster, whatever you
• 34:07
  wanna call it, kinda makes sense.
• 34:10
  As long as it doesn't look like a Porsche.
• 34:12
  Well, that's just it.
• 34:13
  If it ends up looking like this concept car that we've seen renderings
• 34:16
  of, looks aside, if it's pinned on top of a Boxster chassis, at least
• 34:22
  you kinda know what you're getting.
• 34:23
  Yeah.
• 34:24
  It's the interior that kills me, though.
• 34:25
  This interior is God awful.
• 34:26
  Like, what is this?
• 34:28
  Wow.
• 34:28
  It's very utilitarian.
• 34:30
  I mean, there's spartan and then there's this dentist
• 34:32
  office that I'm looking at here.
• 34:33
  I mean, this is- Yeah.
• 34:34
  Where do you shift the gears?
• 34:36
  You don't shift the gears 'cause it doesn't have any.
• 34:39
  I bet you this thing'll be electrical, too.
• 34:41
  I don't even wanna know.
• 34:42
  The TTEV?
• 34:43
  The TTEV.
• 34:44
  Yeah, exactly.
• 34:46
  All right.
• 34:46
  Well, Tanya, you brought us this next article.
• 34:49
  Again, some more Volkswagen hokey pokey.
• 34:52
  Well, this article annoys me tremendously- Oh, do tell … for various reasons.
• 34:58
  Basically, they're saying the base Golf hatchback is gonna come back to the
• 35:02
  US soon, 'cause Volkswagen is moving Golf production to Mexico, and if the
• 35:07
  tariffs are lowered, the base model could soon be imported to the United States.
• 35:10
  So first of all, they're, like, contradicting themselves in this article,
• 35:14
  that it's moving to Mexico, but then it really depends if the tariffs get lifted
• 35:18
  whether or not we get it in North America.
• 35:21
  And then there's the, "While the Golf has been built in Wolfsburg,
• 35:25
  Germany for more than 50 years, production of the hatchback will shift
• 35:28
  entirely to Puebla, Mexico in 2027."
• 35:30
  Excuse me.
• 35:31
  Golfs have always been m- also made in Mexico.
• 35:34
  And Brazil, yes.
• 35:36
  Only the special Golfs were made in Wolfsburg, and the last Golf to be
• 35:40
  made in Wolfsburg was the original R32.
• 35:43
  The person writing this article is clueless, for one, and two, I just…
• 35:49
  Maybe they're moving more production there 'cause they're gonna sell them
• 35:52
  there, but I don't know how they win if the whole tariff thing isn't- Right
• 35:56
  then what can of worms opens up?
• 35:58
  Because there's also supposed to be everything made in America.
• 36:01
  How is that gonna work?
• 36:03
  Who's gonna shine a favorable light on Volkswagen for doing this?
• 36:07
  I wanna know what motor it's gonna be in, and I wanna know
• 36:09
  about these lies on the price.
• 36:11
  Under $30,000.
• 36:13
  Apparently there's a Jetta that's 25 and a Taos under 30 also.
• 36:19
  There's no way that Jetta's 25 grand.
• 36:21
  Who's selling a car for 25,000 right now that isn't used?
• 36:25
  I don't know.
• 36:25
  Probably Kia.
• 36:26
  Well, that's not true.
• 36:27
  We do know who's selling a car for $25,000 right now, but we'll get to that later.
• 36:32
  Oh, Lord.
• 36:32
  Slate All right.
• 36:34
  Did you guys watch this video?
• 36:36
  Look at this.
• 36:37
  I think I might have posted that.
• 36:38
  I watched this.
• 36:39
  This is the most bonkers thing I've ever seen.
• 36:42
  I don't know what the point of this is, other than it's an engineering feat.
• 36:48
  I mean, I feel like I could watch that all day, just going back
• 36:51
  and forth and back and forth.
• 36:52
  I mean, this looks like somebody's, like, Lego Technic set.
• 36:56
  This is the most important sentence in the whole thing.
• 37:00
  If you didn't read the article, this is the only part that matters.
• 37:04
  The reason this weird scaffolding where the wheels can move back and forth on
• 37:08
  this Audi is to help get it unstuck.
• 37:11
  What?
• 37:12
  Pardon my idiocy, but we just made this A8 front-wheel drive- … so
• 37:20
  it's less capable, and you're telling me with all this stuff, as soon as
• 37:24
  that gets stuck in the mud, that the front wheels are gonna pull it out by
• 37:27
  jerking these wheels back and forth?
• 37:29
  Are you kidding me?
• 37:30
  The front's still gonna sit and spin regardless of what these rear Lego
• 37:35
  Technic wheels are doing back here.
• 37:37
  I mean, I'm not a scientist, but, like- I don't understand what that's doing because
• 37:43
  the other big deal of this car is that apparently it runs on compressed air.
• 37:49
  Where's your compressed air tank?
• 37:52
  I don't get any of this.
• 37:53
  Which apparently that is stroking the air tank.
• 37:59
  What?
• 38:01
  Oh my God.
• 38:04
  I don't know.
• 38:04
  So they're like pistons now.
• 38:08
  So terrible.
• 38:10
  I mean, how far do you go, five miles with this thing?
• 38:12
  Like- The first turn you take in this- I don't even know how this thing…
• 38:18
  This must be someone's capstone project at school or something.
• 38:22
  It has to be.
• 38:23
  It has to be.
• 38:24
  Where they found a totally blown car that they got for, like, 200
• 38:29
  bucks, and they said, "Hold my beer. I've got our senior project."
• 38:34
  Well, I can tell you it's overseas because this Jetta- Yes … station
• 38:38
  wagon- … has European bumpers on it.
• 38:40
  That's how I know.
• 38:41
  A Euro license plate holder is probably an indicator as well.
• 38:45
  Again, I'm more interested in this 25-year-old station wagon in the
• 38:48
  background of this picture- … than I am of this entire piece of
• 38:52
  junk that I'm looking at here.
• 38:54
  Science fair project.
• 38:56
  So, you know, we've talked a lot about Audi wasting their time on doing things
• 39:01
  like this TT, and doing things like bringing back the Golf, et cetera.
• 39:06
  But I, I brought this up on Discord the other day.
• 39:09
  I found out what they've really been wasting their time on, and I
• 39:11
  wanna, I wanna talk about this again.
• 39:13
  The new Audis have projector turn signals where it shows the arrows on the ground.
• 39:21
  Why?
• 39:21
  Nobody uses turn signals.
• 39:24
  What a waste.
• 39:25
  That's the first thing I thought too.
• 39:27
  I mean, BMW will never have this option.
• 39:30
  And the door that opens itself.
• 39:31
  I mean, this is just ridiculous stuff that nobody needs, right?
• 39:33
  I mean, this is like Bentley, Rolls-Royce level kind of automation stuff.
• 39:37
  But here's the thing.
• 39:38
  Aren't we always taught, at least in racing we're always taught to look up,
• 39:43
  look ahead, be situationally aware.
• 39:46
  Why would I wanna divert my eyes to the ground to be able to see your turn signal?
• 39:50
  Who does this benefit?
• 39:52
  'Cause I mean, if you have your nose in Instagram while you're driving like
• 39:54
  everybody else I see on the beltway, they're not gonna see this either.
• 39:58
  So I'm wondering, I'm gonna pose the question to you, Brad.
• 40:00
  Do we think this system is actually for autonomous self-driving mode 38,
• 40:07
  where the cars flash each other and indicate that they're gonna change lanes?
• 40:10
  Is that what this is for?
• 40:12
  This is the thing that gets you to the next thing.
• 40:14
  The next thing is the cars are going to announce- Oh, God … turning left,
• 40:20
  moving left, moving left, flashers-
• 40:24
  flashers.
• 40:25
  Please mind the gap.
• 40:26
  Slow-moving car, slow-moving car.
• 40:29
  But they're gonna talk to each other in binary.
• 40:31
  Awful.
• 40:32
  We're all gonna drive down the road and it's just gonna sound like we're
• 40:34
  all trying to log on to AOL Online.
• 40:37
  Well, I got a shout-out to Chrissy Crutchfield, one of our GTM-ers.
• 40:41
  She was on the show many times in the early seasons.
• 40:44
  She found how Volkswagen is going to solve all their financial woes.
• 40:50
  They're gonna sell everything.
• 40:51
  Nope, they're gonna sell everything at Costco.
• 40:54
  You can now buy VWs through Costco.
• 40:56
  I mean, you can already buy a lot of cars at Costco, and allegedly it can often
• 41:02
  be cheaper than going to the dealer.
• 41:04
  They have a whole dealer, discount dealer- Yes
• 41:07
  partnership network.
• 41:08
  Mm-hmm.
• 41:09
  This isn't, like, anything new to Costco, but I suppose it's new that
• 41:13
  now Volkswagen is in their lineup.
• 41:16
  Actually, let's, let's see.
• 41:17
  Costco autos.
• 41:18
  I bet you can buy a Mercedes at Costco.
• 41:20
  And that begs the question, do the Germans now feel like they are debasing
• 41:25
  themselves by having to sell their cars through a discount bulk store like Costco?
• 41:32
  Okay, it's not like it's nothing, but so limited time special deal right now on
• 41:37
  an Atlas, Atlas Cross Sport, a Tiguan.
• 41:40
  Now till August 31st, 2026 if you're looking.
• 41:42
  $1,000 incentive if you're a Gold Star or business member.
• 41:47
  $1,250 if you're an executive member.
• 41:50
  There's also a limited time special on the Chrysler Pacifica.
• 41:54
  Ah.
• 41:54
  Chrysler Voyager You can buy Volvos through Costco Are we sure about that?
• 41:59
  We're gonna talk about a Volvo subsidiary here shortly.
• 42:03
  We might not be able to buy Volvos from anywhere soon.
• 42:05
  We'll leave that dormant for the time being.
• 42:12
  Let's stop talking about Volkswagen, because one of the greats now
• 42:16
  has a blemish on its report card.
• 42:19
  There's been some ugly concepts in the past.
• 42:22
  There's been some weird designs.
• 42:23
  There's been Pininfarina pushing the envelope of what they could
• 42:27
  do with bright red sheet metal.
• 42:30
  But now that Pininfarina is gone, Ferrari has lost their freaking minds.
• 42:35
  I would never say Ferrari.
• 42:38
  I wouldn't say Apple either, and I know Jony Ive was involved in the design.
• 42:42
  What is this?
• 42:43
  I don't even know who to say automaker that belongs to.
• 42:47
  It's better looking in blue than it is in that God-awful yellow.
• 42:50
  Have you seen the people on Instagram that are redesigning it, making
• 42:55
  it lower, a little bit longer, changing the dimensions a little bit?
• 42:59
  Basically creating a whole new car?
• 43:00
  Yeah, their- Yeah … their cars look significantly better- Yeah, you don't say
• 43:04
  … than what Ferrari actually is putting out.
• 43:06
  And why is it a million dollars?
• 43:08
  $640,000. Oh.
• 43:11
  Somebody said to me, jokingly, but I don't think they were wrong, "This is
• 43:16
  Ferrari's checkbox." There was a rule somewhere that said they have to build
• 43:21
  some sort of EV, so they built this.
• 43:23
  Did they have to make it look like ass?
• 43:26
  Yes, because they don't actually wanna sell them.
• 43:29
  So then they can say, "Our EV program was a failure, and we're gonna destroy
• 43:33
  all these," like GM did with the EV1 back in the '90s, and then nobody
• 43:37
  will ever talk about it again except when they're laughing about them.
• 43:40
  'Cause they're terrible.
• 43:41
  'Cause who's gonna buy this?
• 43:42
  How many Teslas can you buy for $650,000?
• 43:47
  More than you should.
• 43:48
  Right?
• 43:48
  I like how Teslas have become the Miatas.
• 43:50
  Like, how many Miatas can you buy for $640,000?
• 43:53
  I mean, I'd rather drive a 30-year-old Miata than drive this.
• 43:57
  I'm not trying to throw stones or throw shade at the Miata, 'cause I
• 44:00
  like them, but this is horrendous.
• 44:02
  This even starts to make the Fiat Multipla look good.
• 44:06
  Wouldn't that kind of backfire?
• 44:08
  Because if you're a collector and you have inside information, and you know
• 44:12
  that Ferrari only built this 'cause they don't wanna sell it, and they
• 44:15
  wanna kill the program as quickly as possible, as collectors, you're gonna
• 44:19
  wanna get one of these to say that you have one of the only Ferrari EVs ever
• 44:26
  made before the program is killed.
• 44:29
  There's gonna be some twat that buys that.
• 44:31
  Yeah.
• 44:32
  It's gonna be some YouTuber or whatever.
• 44:34
  It'll be WhistlinDiesel or somebody, you know, 'cause they wanna light
• 44:37
  it on fire or something like that.
• 44:38
  That's for sure.
• 44:40
  But $640,000 is a huge pill to swallow, even for a
• 44:43
  footballer, even for a YouTuber.
• 44:46
  Ain't no footballer gonna fit in that.
• 44:48
  Yeah, but smart collectors, they're not gonna spend nearly
• 44:52
  three-quarters of a million dollars on something that looks like that.
• 44:55
  It's terrible.
• 44:56
  They'll end up in a museum somewhere to say, "Look.
• 44:59
  Look at this concept car that we built that never went anywhere." You
• 45:02
  know, you read these press releases on the Ferrari website, "A new
• 45:06
  chapter for the Maranello marque."
• 45:07
  I was like, "Oh my God, what ChatGPT wrote this?" I was like, "This is terrible."
• 45:12
  All this, like, pomp and circumstance about this car, it's, it's just heinous.
• 45:17
  And then at the same time, the market responds and the
• 45:20
  Ferrari stocks take a hit.
• 45:22
  They just plummet because people are like, "What the hell are you doing?"
• 45:26
  And the whole month, social media was just exploding about how terrible this car is.
• 45:31
  And my favorite one, 'cause I was following the Italian social media
• 45:34
  as well, and they had Montezemolo on there, who's the former CEO of
• 45:38
  Ferrari, and he goes, it was so great, translated to English, "It's so ugly,
• 45:44
  even the Chinese won't copy it."
• 45:46
  Damn.
• 45:46
  I mean, that's savage.
• 45:49
  And he's not wrong.
• 45:50
  It's terrible.
• 45:51
  Th- this was my favorite part of the month.
• 45:55
  Did you guys see this when it came out, where Nissan was trolling Ferrari by
• 46:00
  showing pictures of, like, the Leaf?
• 46:02
  I did see that, but the Mazda doubles down.
• 46:04
  What's that?
• 46:05
  Oh, yeah.
• 46:06
  Mazda apparently did the same thing with their car.
• 46:10
  They had another one that they showed, and they were pestering Ferrari-
• 46:14
  Oh … about their car as well.
• 46:16
  But it does look very Japanese, I will give it that.
• 46:19
  It looks like something that belongs in a video game.
• 46:22
  So another quote I read was, "Cyberpunk Fiat Multipla." I was
• 46:26
  like, "Yeah, that's not wrong either."
• 46:28
  There's not one redeeming thing.
• 46:30
  I don't even like the wheels.
• 46:32
  Like, there's nothing I like about this.
• 46:34
  Okay, if you had built this out of Legos and put it at Legoland,
• 46:38
  I would've been okay with it.
• 46:39
  Then it's acceptable.
• 46:40
  It looks like a Playmobil.
• 46:42
  Yes.
• 46:42
  Fisher-Price, this would've been perfect.
• 46:45
  Well, since we're still talking roughly about Stellantis, Chrysler's gonna
• 46:50
  save itself by re-badging some Fiats.
• 46:53
  Look at this thing.
• 46:54
  The Chrysler Aero and the Aero Cross will be re-badged versions of Fiat's
• 46:59
  latest SUV, which is called the Grizzly.
• 47:02
  But the Grizzly was supposed to be one of the Pandas, I thought.
• 47:07
  And this sorta looks like the successor to the little Jeep Cherokee as well.
• 47:11
  I mean, they're all very, very similar.
• 47:13
  Call it a Chrysler, though?
• 47:15
  Chrysler Aero and Chrysler Aero Cross, which is probably
• 47:18
  the all-wheel drive version.
• 47:20
  Mm. Oh, no.
• 47:20
  I'm sorry.
• 47:21
  One is a lift back and one is a hatchback.
• 47:23
  There's the difference.
• 47:25
  The gold one's the lift back, right?
• 47:26
  Yeah.
• 47:27
  Look, they even say Fastback on there.
• 47:29
  Mm. It's got that Corrado shape to it.
• 47:32
  It looks like the Polestar 2 or whatever.
• 47:35
  It's not great, but it's not terrible either.
• 47:37
  I mean, it looks better than the Luce.
• 47:38
  I mean, I'll give it that.
• 47:40
  The colors are fucking heinous.
• 47:41
  Um.
• 47:43
  The wheels are awful.
• 47:45
  These could be improved with better colors.
• 47:46
  I don't hate them for Fiat.
• 47:49
  I think they're gonna look stupid with a Chrysler badge.
• 47:51
  100%. Why are the gas doors getting so big?
• 47:55
  You notice that?
• 47:55
  Are these electric or actual gas?
• 47:57
  It says right here, "Expected to utilize Stellantis' familiar turbocharged
• 48:02
  1.2 liter three-cylinder engine." Right above that, they'll be able
• 48:07
  to choose between gasoline, mild hybrid, and full electric powertrains.
• 48:12
  So that's why it's got the big flapper.
• 48:14
  So you can put the charging port there.
• 48:15
  But they look awful 'cause they're so big now.
• 48:18
  Like, we were at a point where they were trying to make the gas doors
• 48:20
  as small as they possibly could.
• 48:21
  Now we've gone the other way.
• 48:22
  They've supersized them.
• 48:24
  But they're claiming sub $30,000.
• 48:26
  Would you buy this for less than 30 grand, Brad?
• 48:29
  I wouldn't buy that for $20.
• 48:32
  God.
• 48:33
  With a 1.2 liter motor, it's gonna go zero to 60 in 25 days.
• 48:38
  You say that, but all those Ford Bronco Sports that are out there have
• 48:42
  three cylinder turbo engines in them.
• 48:44
  I've never seen one moving particularly fast.
• 48:47
  That's 'cause they blend in with all the other high top SUVs that are out there.
• 48:51
  Let's see what else we got here in the news.
• 48:53
  So this actually dovetails with a later issue too, technically.
• 48:59
  So political world turmoil issues.
• 49:03
  I did not know this.
• 49:04
  Because Mercedes-Benz is technically, has Chinese shareholder- Oh, come on
• 49:11
  … and we do not want Chinese in the US, basically this new bill in the auto market
• 49:19
  industry would make it that Mercedes-Benz wouldn't be able to be sold here anymore.
• 49:25
  Okay.
• 49:25
  How many lobbyists from GM are on this particular bill to try to get more people
• 49:31
  to buy Cadillacs instead of Benzes?
• 49:33
  I don't know.
• 49:34
  I'm just gonna throw it out there.
• 49:36
  It's wild.
• 49:36
  I mean, I did not realize that Mercedes-Benz's largest individual
• 49:41
  shareholder is a Chinese-owned automaker, so that was news.
• 49:46
  But also it would be wild to suddenly be like, "Mercedes aren't sold in the
• 49:52
  US anymore." I mean, Volkswagens won't be sold in the US anymore either because
• 49:56
  nobody wants them, so you know, it doesn't matter if they get Chinese funding or not.
• 49:59
  I don't think I've heard that, uh- … how large the Chinese
• 50:03
  stakeholder is in Volkswagen.
• 50:05
  But it's okay 'cause the Volkswagens are being made in Mexico now, so.
• 50:08
  Whatever happened to if you want somebody to buy your car, you
• 50:13
  actually just make a better car?
• 50:15
  Nope, can't do that 'cause all the cars look the same now.
• 50:18
  You can still make a better car.
• 50:20
  No, it's not possible.
• 50:21
  Toyota's been making better cars for decades now.
• 50:25
  But they're boring, you see.
• 50:26
  They're still better cars.
• 50:27
  They still outsell anything General Motors ever sold.
• 50:31
  That is true.
• 50:32
  They are, like, they're number three largest company, or
• 50:34
  are they number one again?
• 50:36
  I don't know if they're number one.
• 50:38
  They're definitely on the podium, that's for sure.
• 50:40
  Always.
• 50:40
  Quality over quantity for me.
• 50:42
  Yeah.
• 50:42
  Reliability, dependability, that is Toyota's middle name for sure.
• 50:47
  This dovetails with a later article which I think makes sense to talk
• 50:49
  about now even though it's EV, is the Polestar for the same reason because
• 50:55
  Polestar is owned by a Chinese group.
• 50:58
  They too are now being shut out of the US market.
• 51:01
  So what does that mean for Volvo, the parent designer of Polestar
• 51:06
  before they split them off?
• 51:07
  Because the Polestar name even comes from Volvo.
• 51:10
  Remember they had the Polestar series cars.
• 51:11
  They were all blue.
• 51:12
  They were the hot Volvos and everything, and then they spun up this company.
• 51:16
  Volvo's owned by Geely, Jeely, Giggly.
• 51:19
  What, what was that movie?
• 51:20
  Geely.
• 51:21
  Jenny From the Block, was it J.Lo?
• 51:26
  At any rate So this is the weird thing, and I, I don't know the
• 51:29
  reason yet, but apparently we're allowing Volvo to stay Lobbyists
• 51:35
  … which doesn't make any sense.
• 51:37
  Because they aren't direct competitors to Cadillac.
• 51:39
  No.
• 51:40
  There you go.
• 51:40
  They aren't direct competitors, or they are competing against Tesla.
• 51:45
  There you go.
• 51:45
  So Elon's got his lobbyists trying to get all the competition out of the way.
• 51:50
  I mean, I doubt they're selling as many Polestars as a Tesla, but- I haven't
• 51:54
  seen one in… They, they sell about as many of these as they sell Fisker Oceans
• 51:58
  I haven't read in enough into this new legislation or bill that they're trying
• 52:02
  to pass that would make all this happen.
• 52:04
  I don't know why we would exempt Volvo of the same Geely as Polestar.
• 52:12
  And if that's the case, if they're successful in pushing Polestar
• 52:15
  out, it's only a matter of time before the other shoe falls,
• 52:18
  and then Volvo will be no more.
• 52:20
  But it could also be that Volvo's dealer network is mature enough now,
• 52:26
  robust enough, that maybe the US can't get rid of them versus maybe there's a
• 52:31
  couple pop-up Polestars here and there.
• 52:33
  Instead of too big to fail, too big deport.
• 52:36
  Yeah, pretty much.
• 52:37
  The problem part of it, too, is their software- In the cars, and that's
• 52:43
  also a reason to create this ban.
• 52:47
  Again, I haven't read deep enough into it, but it's like if you've got software still
• 52:51
  being put in these cars that's originating out of China, and that's part of the
• 52:56
  reason to have this bill or whatever, then I don't understand, still don't
• 53:00
  understand how Volvo gets away with it.
• 53:01
  I don't know.
• 53:02
  Maybe there's more Bosch stuff in a Volvo than there is in a Polestar.
• 53:06
  Unless they're changing the stuff in the Volvo so then it, it makes it compliant.
• 53:10
  Look at it this way.
• 53:11
  The tin foil paranoia hat says you park a Geely car in a garage somewhere
• 53:18
  in the District of Columbia, I'm sure it's designed to do nefarious spy
• 53:25
  versus spy type of things, right?
• 53:27
  That's what that car is doing all day long.
• 53:29
  It's sitting there pinging and trying to capture packets in the air from the
• 53:33
  White House wireless system or something.
• 53:35
  Like, this is the kind of stuff I deal with on the regular, so it's
• 53:38
  probably not far from the truth.
• 53:39
  Well, that's what it… So here we go.
• 53:40
  The rule, so the rules included a ban on most Chinese-developed and maintained
• 53:44
  software that took effect in March 26 for the 2027 model year and covered companies
• 53:49
  with significant Chinese ownership.
• 53:51
  Lawmakers have proposed making the rules even tougher.
• 53:54
  Quote, "Given our ownership, Volvo Car USA was required to follow a process
• 53:59
  with the US Department of Commerce to obtain a specific authorization for the
• 54:03
  continued import and sale of connected cars in the US," the company said.
• 54:07
  "With this specific authorization, Volvo Cars can continue its growth
• 54:11
  plans in the United States."
• 54:12
  Like, that doesn't tell me anything.
• 54:14
  No, what it says is Volvo is now TAA compliant.
• 54:17
  That's what they are.
• 54:18
  I guess.
• 54:19
  This is courtesy of CNBC.
• 54:21
  Volvo filed the correct paperwork.
• 54:22
  Basically, and Polestar didn't.
• 54:24
  But they only did it for Volvo because I think they were planning
• 54:27
  on shutting down Polestar anyway.
• 54:29
  So instead of saying, "We're pulling out because we're not selling enough
• 54:34
  Polestars," they're using this as kind of a scapegoat to say, "Well,
• 54:38
  we're not allowed to sell them in the US anymore." So the end of
• 54:42
  this article says that Polestar continues to, quote, "work with the US
• 54:47
  authorities to meet the requirements of the announced regulations."
• 54:50
  Trying to get their authority to operate.
• 54:52
  No, I get it.
• 54:53
  I get it.
• 54:53
  It's all very DOD-esque at the end of the day.
• 54:57
  Who knows?
• 54:58
  Maybe Polestar will be able to continue once they meet
• 55:01
  whatever the requirements are.
• 55:03
  Yeah.
• 55:03
  Nobody's buying their cars.
• 55:04
  Nobody's gonna buy them then either Oh, so as we wrap out this segment that took
• 55:10
  a left turn at Albuquerque somewhere, but we're still in Lower Saxony, I wanna
• 55:15
  talk about the hottest piece of BMW news that was all over the month of June.
• 55:19
  This is the only thing there was to talk about, right here.
• 55:23
  How many ways can you say the same thing over and over and over again?
• 55:29
  Well, you also missed that the new M3 is gonna be an EV.
• 55:33
  No, I didn't miss that.
• 55:35
  I just choose to ignore the fact that that car even exists, because it's terrible.
• 55:41
  No, the M2 is really the M3, right?
• 55:44
  The M3, I don't know what that is now.
• 55:46
  We talked about it before.
• 55:47
  It's big, it's huge, it's the size of a 5 Series, blah, blah, blah.
• 55:50
  The M2 sort of eclipsed the M3 in terms of, like, I can get it with
• 55:53
  two doors, and I can take it to the track tomorrow and go have fun.
• 55:57
  And now it's like, "The first ever all-wheel drive M2 has a button that
• 56:01
  makes it rear-wheel drive," and, you know, blah, blah, all this stuff.
• 56:04
  And I'm like, "What?
• 56:05
  That sounds really complicated.
• 56:07
  I don't want any of that.
• 56:10
  None of it."
• 56:17
  All right.
• 56:17
  Well, let's talk about domestics before we talk about Japanese cars.
• 56:22
  A little note here from General Motors.
• 56:25
  Yes, which follows on to another note that we had in a previous drive-through
• 56:31
  about, I think it was Volkswagen- Yep … getting into the munitions
• 56:36
  business- Oh, my God … as, I guess, a way to help them sell their Costco cars.
• 56:43
  It was recently announced from Lockheed that they have a
• 56:47
  collaboration to strengthen America's manufacturing defense industrial base.
• 56:52
  And working under a memorandum of understanding, Lockheed Martin and GM
• 56:56
  Defense will explore opportunities to accelerate the delivery of critical
• 57:00
  capabilities and innovation by combining Lockheed Martin's defense production
• 57:04
  expertise with General Motors' advanced industrial capabilities and high-rate
• 57:09
  commercial manufacturing and engineering, courtesy of Lockheed Martin's webpage.
• 57:14
  It comes as no surprise that General Motors is involved with the DOD, DOW,
• 57:19
  whichever acronym you wanna use these days, because they've been supplying
• 57:23
  Hummers to the military for how long?
• 57:25
  Well, that's the thing.
• 57:26
  Here's what I just learned with this article that I had no appreciation
• 57:30
  for, 'cause why would I care?
• 57:32
  GM Defense, the subsidiary of the parent company, General Motors,
• 57:37
  has been around since 1914.
• 57:40
  Yep.
• 57:40
  So this really isn't news.
• 57:42
  I don't even know why this is newsworthy.
• 57:44
  It's old news.
• 57:45
  This is something they've already been doing for over 100 years then.
• 57:49
  Yep.
• 57:49
  Now, maybe specifically munitions hasn't been- That's different
• 57:54
  what they've been focused on, but supporting military vehicles and
• 57:59
  software and things like that, they must have been doing with the
• 58:02
  Hummers for the last 100 years.
• 58:03
  To that end, there's a difference between building the thing that
• 58:07
  carries the things that go boom and building the things that go boom.
• 58:11
  That goes boom.
• 58:12
  Right?
• 58:13
  Apparently now they're going to add the thing that goes boom.
• 58:17
  All right, let's play a little fact or crap.
• 58:19
  Fact or crap?
• 58:21
  The Subaru headline here is Subaru is building three new manuals,
• 58:25
  and one of them is a hatchback.
• 58:27
  I believe that is fact.
• 58:29
  Is that before or after they settle the massive class action lawsuit- What?
• 58:33
  they have against them right now?
• 58:35
  Or is this a result of the class action lawsuit so they can try to make up
• 58:40
  lost ground for making nothing but cars that look like refrigerators
• 58:43
  with plastic cladding on them?
• 58:46
  Dude, that last Forester looks like an industrial oven.
• 58:48
  Tell me I'm wrong.
• 58:50
  No, they're pretty ugly.
• 58:51
  And whatever that WRX thing is really heinous looking, whatever
• 58:57
  their latest one is, or sedan, whatever one it is, it's really ugly.
• 59:02
  I, I don't know.
• 59:03
  I mean, this is coming from a reputable source more or less, so it's a tease, so
• 59:08
  who knows what is actually gonna happen.
• 59:10
  I think that market is past.
• 59:11
  I think Subaru has changed their brand to align itself with REI and Clif Bars.
• 59:20
  No, they're more, I think they're more L.L.Bean.
• 59:26
  But no Eddie Bauer.
• 59:27
  That's Ford.
• 59:28
  You can't have a Eddie Bauer edition Subaru.
• 59:30
  Eddie Bauer's gone.
• 59:32
  Oh, that's right.
• 59:33
  That's sad.
• 59:34
  Imagine a Eddie Bauer edition Bronco today.
• 59:37
  Those were cool.
• 59:38
  Eh, they- Brett's like, "No."
• 59:43
  Despite the fact that the images of these cars under these covers are
• 59:46
  fake, they're AI generated, and one of them's supposed to look like a BRZ.
• 59:50
  We don't have to assume, they said it.
• 59:52
  Okay, fine.
• 59:53
  And then WRX hatchback and WRX sedan.
• 59:56
  Those are the obvious choices.
• 59:58
  I mean, they said it would be a WRX STI, a Brezza, and an Impreza hatchback.
• 1:00:03
  Again, Brad, would you buy any of those cars?
• 1:00:05
  If it was a BRZ STI, maybe.
• 1:00:08
  Which will never exist.
• 1:00:10
  Well, there you go.
• 1:00:12
  I think you have your answer.
• 1:00:13
  I don't want a Subaru, but if you told me I had to buy a Subaru, I would
• 1:00:19
  probably go for the Impreza hatchback.
• 1:00:22
  But I would want it to be the STI, to Brad's point.
• 1:00:25
  So if it wasn't, then probably the Brezza.
• 1:00:27
  Okay, okay.
• 1:00:28
  Let's make it equal.
• 1:00:30
  Well, STI versions.
• 1:00:31
  STI hatchback, Golf R, and I'll give you the five-cylinder
• 1:00:36
  turbo, or a Mazda 3 Speed.
• 1:00:39
  Why'd you leave off the GR Corolla?
• 1:00:41
  All right.
• 1:00:41
  We'll add the GR.
• 1:00:42
  That's fair.
• 1:00:42
  That's fair.
• 1:00:43
  Of the four, these are the four hot hatches we have to choose from
• 1:00:47
  in the United States, assuming that this Impreza comes back.
• 1:00:50
  Which one would you buy?
• 1:00:52
  What's the price point?
• 1:00:53
  It doesn't matter, 'cause the price point, as we know, is all over the map.
• 1:00:56
  You might as well just throw darts at a sandbox.
• 1:00:59
  It makes no difference.
• 1:01:00
  Well, at that point, I would buy whatever fits my price point.
• 1:01:04
  So if I can't afford a $75,000 Golf R with the RS3 motor- Yeah, yeah.
• 1:01:09
  There we go.
• 1:01:10
  There it is … then I'm not buying a $75,000 Golf R with the RS3 motor.
• 1:01:15
  I mean, the, my bank account has already dictated to me what
• 1:01:18
  I'm going to be able to buy.
• 1:01:20
  But a GR Corolla at the $40,000 mark is much more palatable and much more
• 1:01:26
  friendlier to my finances, so I would probably end up with the GR Corolla.
• 1:01:31
  No, no.
• 1:01:31
  You see, now you're just falling into the Toyota thing.
• 1:01:34
  Dependability, reliability.
• 1:01:36
  I'm gonna go with that.
• 1:01:37
  They're not that dependable and they're not that reliable, those GR
• 1:01:40
  Corollas, as we've come to find out.
• 1:01:41
  So let's stop thinking with our brains and start thinking with our hearts.
• 1:01:46
  Brad, what makes you go boom, boom, boom?
• 1:01:48
  The Golf R with the RS3 motor.
• 1:01:50
  I mean, duh.
• 1:01:54
  Tanya's like, "Mazda 3 Speed with a power pack is faster than the Golf
• 1:01:58
  R," so that's what you'd pick, right?
• 1:02:00
  Well, we haven't seen how fast a Golf R with an RS3 motor is.
• 1:02:05
  How fast is an RS3?
• 1:02:07
  Because it's never gonna happen.
• 1:02:08
  How fast is an RS3?
• 1:02:10
  An RS3 is pretty wickedly fast.
• 1:02:14
  I read some articles, though.
• 1:02:15
  If you hop up a Mazda 3 Turbo, they're faster than the Volkswagens are.
• 1:02:20
  I don't doubt that, but you had me at five cylinder.
• 1:02:23
  Yes.
• 1:02:24
  See?
• 1:02:26
  Okay, so if we took the five-cylinder off the table and said-
• 1:02:30
  Golf Fahrenheit edition, the top of the line regular GTI
• 1:02:35
  Then you can buy two Mazdas.
• 1:02:39
  I'd get a GR Corolla.
• 1:02:40
  Okay, that's fair.
• 1:02:42
  So no love for the Subaru from anybody, basically?
• 1:02:45
  Like, "Nah, STI, I'm over it." Here's the reality.
• 1:02:48
  You'd blow it up.
• 1:02:49
  That's it.
• 1:02:50
  That's all you have to say.
• 1:02:51
  You'd blow it up.
• 1:02:52
  Boom.
• 1:02:53
  How many people do we know that have Subarus that are tracking them that
• 1:02:56
  are still on their original motors?
• 1:02:59
  I'll wait.
• 1:03:02
  That's a nah, dog.
• 1:03:04
  No.
• 1:03:05
  There's none.
• 1:03:06
  Zero.
• 1:03:07
  I mean, I know- Exactly.
• 1:03:08
  Exactly.
• 1:03:08
  How, how many Mark 4 Volkswagens are still on their original motors?
• 1:03:12
  That's true.
• 1:03:13
  There's a lot of them.
• 1:03:13
  I think pretty much all of them.
• 1:03:14
  There's a lot of them, yeah.
• 1:03:16
  To that end, you don't even have to be tracking your Subaru.
• 1:03:18
  The Subarus are sort of like Volvos in the sense that if you leave them the way
• 1:03:22
  they came from the factory- They're fine
• 1:03:24
  they'll probably run forever.
• 1:03:26
  But the minute you go to go touch them, the tolerances are
• 1:03:29
  such that they're grenades.
• 1:03:31
  That's it.
• 1:03:32
  Boom.
• 1:03:33
  Drop in the comments what motor you're on in your Subaru.
• 1:03:38
  I don't think anybody's gonna answer one.
• 1:03:41
  All right, so switching gears- This is your favorite.
• 1:03:43
  I, I put this especially for you, 'cause wasn't there a whole What Should I
• 1:03:47
  Buy episode where this was the answer?
• 1:03:49
  This was the answer, and I just saw one of these today, as a matter of fact.
• 1:03:53
  I have a feeling when nuclear holocaust comes, there will be two things on this
• 1:03:59
  planet, cockroaches and Honda Elements.
• 1:04:01
  They will just outlive everything.
• 1:04:03
  They don't die.
• 1:04:05
  The Japanese Fiat Panda.
• 1:04:07
  Dude.
• 1:04:08
  You know, and when you sent this, I was like, "This is the right time
• 1:04:12
  for Honda to reintroduce the Element.
• 1:04:15
  It really makes sense." They had a good thing going, and then they got rid of
• 1:04:20
  it, and people are nostalgic for them.
• 1:04:22
  And the people that still have them, their Elements are getting old enough
• 1:04:25
  that they're probably in a position to consider, "I would get another one." So
• 1:04:30
  now they can do, like, a tech refresh, and they can get a new Honda Element.
• 1:04:34
  God, I kinda want one now.
• 1:04:37
  I mean, they're not the prettiest thing on the planet.
• 1:04:39
  No.
• 1:04:40
  Better than an Aztec.
• 1:04:41
  Better than that Ferrari.
• 1:04:43
  Better, better than a Luce.
• 1:04:44
  Everything's better than the Luce.
• 1:04:46
  Good Lor- That is now the lowest of the low.
• 1:04:49
  I gotta put the Luce on the uncool wall.
• 1:04:51
  I mean, it, it nominated itself.
• 1:04:53
  It's like, "This thing is fugly." End of story.
• 1:04:55
  I mean, the people have spoken, so.
• 1:04:57
  How can a car manufacturer make arguably the best-looking car in the world next
• 1:05:02
  to the worst-looking car in the world?
• 1:05:04
  You know, if you think about it from an art class perspective,
• 1:05:07
  what do they call that?
• 1:05:08
  The dichotomy, the imbalance between the perfect and the imperfect.
• 1:05:12
  It's a showcase in the ability for them to perfect ugly and perfect
• 1:05:17
  beauty all in the same design.
• 1:05:19
  They were able to do it.
• 1:05:20
  Do you have Copilot up?
• 1:05:22
  I do.
• 1:05:22
  I want you, I want you to take a picture of the Luce, put it in the
• 1:05:26
  Copilot, and say, "Redesign this car as if Pininfarina designed it." Yeah?
• 1:05:32
  And I'd be really curious to see what it comes back with.
• 1:05:35
  Let, let's see.
• 1:05:35
  Okay, here's Copilot.
• 1:05:37
  Please redesign the Ferrari Luce into a car that people actually want.
• 1:05:54
  I feel like that's a dangerous- It would be funny if it just
• 1:05:57
  showed, like- Look at this.
• 1:05:58
  Look at this.
• 1:05:58
  These are so much better.
• 1:06:00
  Look at this.
• 1:06:01
  These are so cool.
• 1:06:03
  Oh, that is sick.
• 1:06:05
  What is this?
• 1:06:06
  That's, like, the redesign of a 575.
• 1:06:09
  That looks amazing.
• 1:06:11
  But it's gotta have four doors.
• 1:06:12
  No, it doesn't have to have any of that stuff.
• 1:06:16
  Well, and I love how it gives me a picture of a Porsche.
• 1:06:20
  Yeah, it's not actually, it's not actually redesigning anything.
• 1:06:24
  Eh, no.
• 1:06:25
  I'd have to feed it some pictures.
• 1:06:26
  But whatever that is, that's hot.
• 1:06:29
  All right, enough of that.
• 1:06:31
  Let's talk about EVs and concept cars.
• 1:06:33
  It's here, people.
• 1:06:34
  You can put your order in.
• 1:06:36
  No.
• 1:06:37
  You can put your order in for the Slate truck.
• 1:06:40
  In time for Prime Day?
• 1:06:42
  Which is funny, because this article is showing them at 27 to 30,000.
• 1:06:48
  However, the big hoopla that's been being said is that
• 1:06:52
  they're starting at 24- Really?
• 1:06:55
  … 595 or something like that.
• 1:06:56
  And the, the news keeps talking about how it's starting there, but the
• 1:07:01
  thing we haven't been told yet is what the destination fee is going to be.
• 1:07:05
  $20,000. Yeah, exactly.
• 1:07:08
  Here it is.
• 1:07:08
  24,950. I had my numbers at the end mixed up.
• 1:07:12
  But a heretofore unknown destination price.
• 1:07:15
  With an estimated 60 mile an hour time of eight seconds.
• 1:07:20
  So is Amazon, is Amazon going to buy all of these cars that they're making so that
• 1:07:25
  they can use them as delivery vehicles?
• 1:07:28
  Oh, yeah.
• 1:07:29
  Of course.
• 1:07:29
  They're gonna get high on their own supply.
• 1:07:31
  Man, the EV range sucks, though.
• 1:07:34
  200 miles?
• 1:07:34
  I mean, I guess it's good for an around town runabout if you're doing, like,
• 1:07:38
  little deliveries and here and there, and just going around and around.
• 1:07:40
  Yeah.
• 1:07:40
  If I, if I owned a delivery k- Like, if I w- was a florist and I delivered flowers
• 1:07:44
  or some shit, I'd have a couple of these.
• 1:07:46
  Do you see it's got roll-up windows?
• 1:07:48
  Yes.
• 1:07:48
  It's very basic, and it's, like, all, I think, plastic
• 1:07:53
  poly I don't know which one.
• 1:07:54
  Propylene, ethylene, something.
• 1:07:55
  Like, it's all plastic, basically.
• 1:07:57
  So is Tanya putting in her order for one?
• 1:08:00
  I was gonna say, like, this is right up Tanya's alley.
• 1:08:03
  This is her kind of thing.
• 1:08:05
  If Lex Luthor wasn't in the front seat here in this picture, I would
• 1:08:09
  have told you that these pictures are actually a 1/18 scale model
• 1:08:12
  car, 'cause it looks super chintzy.
• 1:08:15
  It looks really plasticky.
• 1:08:17
  But once I saw, you know, Mr. Clean up here… This is only, quote, "up
• 1:08:22
  my alley," because it is basic AF.
• 1:08:26
  And it's cheap.
• 1:08:27
  It would be perfect to throw bags in the back of and, like, drive to the dump.
• 1:08:32
  And, and bags of what, Tanya?
• 1:08:34
  Bags of yard waste.
• 1:08:35
  Oh.
• 1:08:35
  But you could also buy bags of mulch from the store.
• 1:08:38
  Ah, that's what, that's what I was getting to.
• 1:08:40
  Or just, you know.
• 1:08:40
  Notice the build quality here.
• 1:08:42
  I just wanna point this out.
• 1:08:43
  Hey, it's, uh, he's friends with Elon probably, so.
• 1:08:47
  You get what you pay for.
• 1:08:49
  They say that.
• 1:08:49
  Do- Are they using parts that they get from resellers in China that
• 1:08:53
  they s- use on their platform?
• 1:08:55
  This is all Temu and Alibaba.
• 1:08:59
  I mean, there's nothing.
• 1:09:00
  This thing is, like,
• 1:09:03
  basic Well, if it's all plastic, does it melt in the sun?
• 1:09:06
  Does it, like, start to warp?
• 1:09:08
  Some sort of composite material.
• 1:09:09
  I mean, no.
• 1:09:10
  I mean, that's not fair to say because, you know, there's lots
• 1:09:13
  of plastic on cars, on all cars.
• 1:09:16
  I haven't seen a rivet on a car in, like, 70 years.
• 1:09:19
  What is this?
• 1:09:20
  That's fine.
• 1:09:21
  You can't take that off.
• 1:09:22
  You can drill that out.
• 1:09:25
  Well, it's all, they're all customizable 'cause you can convert that.
• 1:09:28
  Remember, you can get the cab on back that turns it into an SUV.
• 1:09:31
  This is hot garbage.
• 1:09:33
  Look at this interior stuff.
• 1:09:34
  I mean, it's not great.
• 1:09:36
  Not great.
• 1:09:36
  This is so ba- … The gapping is- Might be intentional.
• 1:09:39
  No, it might be the glove box.
• 1:09:40
  I don't know.
• 1:09:41
  Come o- look at this.
• 1:09:42
  That's pretty bad.
• 1:09:43
  They could've at least touched that up AI.
• 1:09:45
  This is so bad.
• 1:09:47
  Ah.
• 1:09:47
  But so great.
• 1:09:49
  I love this gray.
• 1:09:50
  I don't know why I like this gray so much.
• 1:09:51
  You know what?
• 1:09:53
  This is still better looking than a cyber dumpster.
• 1:09:57
  That's better looking than the Luce.
• 1:09:59
  At least it's proportioned.
• 1:10:00
  That, so that one's cool.
• 1:10:02
  Oh, the Range Rover-looking one?
• 1:10:04
  Yeah.
• 1:10:05
  Yeah, I kinda like that too.
• 1:10:06
  It needs wheels, though.
• 1:10:07
  These wheels are garbage.
• 1:10:09
  They're steel wheels, baby.
• 1:10:10
  Cut down on cost.
• 1:10:11
  Why can't I have these Jeep wheels on there?
• 1:10:14
  Sure, you can.
• 1:10:15
  This is, this is a la carte, buddy.
• 1:10:16
  You can buy, mix and match all the parts and pieces.
• 1:10:18
  This is all the pickup truck that they're just adding body panels onto.
• 1:10:22
  This is like a budget Rivian.
• 1:10:23
  Look at this thing.
• 1:10:23
  Yes.
• 1:10:24
  That's- There it is.
• 1:10:26
  There's the winner.
• 1:10:27
  There it is.
• 1:10:27
  Number 77, racing slate.
• 1:10:30
  Look at that.
• 1:10:31
  That is awesome.
• 1:10:32
  That's the Baja edition right there.
• 1:10:34
  Good lord.
• 1:10:35
  Wow.
• 1:10:36
  Look at this.
• 1:10:36
  Is it, is it too late- That's a choice
• 1:10:39
  to scrap the Ford and get this for Lemons?
• 1:10:42
  This would be hilarious for Lemons.
• 1:10:44
  The problem is, we would run for about 20 minutes, and then we would spend the
• 1:10:48
  rest of the seven hours and 10 minutes- Charging … recharging the batteries.
• 1:10:52
  Yeah.
• 1:10:53
  Well, since we're talking about EVs and concepts, Tanya, you
• 1:10:56
  brought another one to the table.
• 1:10:57
  What is this?
• 1:10:58
  Can you imagine Toyota's filing a patent that simulates an engine
• 1:11:03
  stall in an electric vehicle?
• 1:11:07
  What?
• 1:11:07
  Why?
• 1:11:09
  This is another article where I'm, like, questioning sanity.
• 1:11:12
  If the driver operates the vehicle in a, quote, "unfavorable way," such as
• 1:11:17
  selecting the wrong gear at the incorrect engine speed, the car stops the motor and
• 1:11:23
  applies the brakes, simulating a stall.
• 1:11:26
  This also recreates the harsh, jerky motion drivers experience
• 1:11:31
  in a conventional vehicle.
• 1:11:32
  I'm sorry.
• 1:11:34
  You don't stall a car once you're already moving.
• 1:11:38
  Right.
• 1:11:39
  You can't stall by going from second to third or third to
• 1:11:43
  second or fourth to fifth.
• 1:11:44
  It does not work that way.
• 1:11:45
  Yeah.
• 1:11:46
  It's only when you take off, only- It's only on takeoff.
• 1:11:49
  So to say that selecting the wrong gear at the incorrect engine speed, you're gonna
• 1:11:53
  suddenly have the brakes slammed on you.
• 1:11:57
  It's gonna be like that race at Suzuka with Colapinto, where it drops anchor
• 1:12:02
  in front of everybody and suddenly everybody on the beltway is going
• 1:12:05
  every which direction because your Toyota decided to shut itself off.
• 1:12:09
  Because what you're really trying to simulate there is a money
• 1:12:12
  shift, and that isn't going to slam the brakes on in your car.
• 1:12:15
  That's just gonna go pop, and then you're gonna keep rolling and catch fire.
• 1:12:19
  So this is just wild.
• 1:12:20
  Like, really?
• 1:12:22
  Why do you need to simulate that?
• 1:12:23
  We can just drive a GR Corolla and do it for real.
• 1:12:26
  I mean, what the hell's the point of this?
• 1:12:28
  Maybe this is the next transmission for the GR Corolla Oh, my God.
• 1:12:32
  Don't solve the motor problems they have.
• 1:12:34
  Invent this garbage.
• 1:12:36
  Also, for stalling, I mean, you can, you can stall out in any gear.
• 1:12:40
  It's not just when you're starting.
• 1:12:41
  It's if the RPMs go low enough- I have never- No
• 1:12:45
  stalled No … outside of first gear takeoff.
• 1:12:47
  You haven't, no, but theoretically, you can- Theoretically, yes.
• 1:12:51
  If you- You can be in second.
• 1:12:51
  The, the reason you stall is 'cause the RPMs go low enough.
• 1:12:54
  Yes.
• 1:12:55
  That, this is true.
• 1:12:56
  The only time that would happen- You're coming to a stop … if you have a
• 1:13:00
  carbureted motor and you don't have the butterflies set right for idle,
• 1:13:03
  or on a fuel injected car, the idle speed motor isn't working, because
• 1:13:07
  it's always going to catch itself.
• 1:13:09
  No, you could do what he's saying, and the only way to do what he's
• 1:13:12
  saying is you are coming to a stop, and you do not take it out of gear
• 1:13:16
  or downshift through the gears.
• 1:13:18
  I guarantee you- You clutch in … you get in your, you get in your wagon-
• 1:13:20
  Yeah, yes, yes … uh, you put it in fifth, you get up to fifth gear, and
• 1:13:24
  you just let it coast down, you don't shift, you don't do anything, your RPMs
• 1:13:28
  are gonna go low enough that you're gonna stall the mo- stall the motor.
• 1:13:31
  That's impractical driving.
• 1:13:33
  This makes- Yeah, nobody drives like that … no sense.
• 1:13:34
  Well, of course it is.
• 1:13:35
  I'm, I'm just saying- But yes … to say you can only do it at start is incorrect.
• 1:13:38
  Okay.
• 1:13:39
  Theoretically, technically, yes.
• 1:13:41
  Technically, yes.
• 1:13:41
  All right.
• 1:13:41
  Yes.
• 1:13:41
  Whatever.
• 1:13:42
  Whatever.
• 1:13:42
  Well, I don't want Mark Hewitt to say, No, Mike Crutchfield to say it instead.
• 1:13:47
  "Well, technically…" Well, Volkswagens don't stall.
• 1:13:50
  Volkswagens are the greatest cars ever.
• 1:13:51
  Mm-mm.
• 1:13:52
  And Hoover's are the best vacuums, too.
• 1:13:53
  I mean, what, it's like, who cares?
• 1:13:57
  You can stall your Hoover.
• 1:13:59
  You could, actually.
• 1:14:01
  Too much, stop clogging it.
• 1:14:03
  Too much sucking?
• 1:14:04
  Too much- Well, no lost and found.
• 1:14:08
  We already nominated the Luce for the Cool Wall.
• 1:14:10
  We don't have any Tesla news.
• 1:14:11
  I didn't even look it up.
• 1:14:14
  We're gonna jump to lowered expectations.
• 1:14:17
  What we call Seriously, What Could Go Wrong?
• 1:14:19
  And this one is a seriously what could go wrong.
• 1:14:22
  California proposal aims to regulate after-market tires.
• 1:14:27
  Aren't all tires after-market because car manufacturers aren't making tires?
• 1:14:32
  I think what they're trying to say here is you will only be able to buy the tires
• 1:14:37
  that the manufacturer contracted with the tire manufacturer to put on your car
• 1:14:43
  when you bought them from the dealership.
• 1:14:45
  So for instance, Porsche for years has come with Michelins, and Mercedes has
• 1:14:50
  come with Continentals from the factory.
• 1:14:53
  If this rule passes, whatever tire your car is supposed to have, you only
• 1:14:58
  have one channel in which to buy it.
• 1:15:01
  It's not forcing you to buy the same tire, but it's forcing
• 1:15:05
  you to buy an equivalent tire.
• 1:15:07
  Yeah, but they're gonna limit what's considered equivalent.
• 1:15:09
  The way I skimmed this article, you're buying all seasons.
• 1:15:13
  You're not buying a summer, ultra high performance, low tread wear
• 1:15:18
  that you're changing them more often.
• 1:15:19
  You're not buying that track tire disguised as a street tire.
• 1:15:25
  Right.
• 1:15:26
  That's the crux of it.
• 1:15:26
  'Cause if you look at an all season, an all season, honestly, what's gonna
• 1:15:30
  be the difference between a Michelin and this and that and the other one?
• 1:15:32
  They're all turds in every- Right … condition.
• 1:15:35
  They're all gonna last long, and I think that's the crux of this,
• 1:15:38
  is don't go get stickies and ride around them on the street, 'cause
• 1:15:41
  they're not gonna last long.
• 1:15:42
  According to the bullet points of this probably AI-generated article,
• 1:15:47
  California's proposed replacement tire efficiency program would set standards
• 1:15:50
  requiring all after-market tires to be at least as efficient as the tires that
• 1:15:54
  were sold on the car when they were new.
• 1:15:56
  And you got all seasons.
• 1:15:58
  The second bullet point says, "While the proposed regulations could improve fuel
• 1:16:03
  economy figures, they could also impact the lifespan of the replacement tires."
• 1:16:08
  Okay, the only thing that affects the fuel efficiency when you switch tires
• 1:16:14
  is the overall diameter of the tire.
• 1:16:17
  If you go to a taller tire, it makes your gearing longer.
• 1:16:20
  If you go to a shorter tire, it makes your gearing shorter.
• 1:16:23
  That's gonna impact your fuel economy.
• 1:16:25
  If the overall diameter of the tire is the same, the rolling
• 1:16:29
  resistance really doesn't matter.
• 1:16:31
  The tire is the tire is the tire.
• 1:16:32
  The motor and the transmission are gonna operate at the same speed that they were
• 1:16:36
  operating at with the factory tires.
• 1:16:38
  I mean, next they're gonna tell you that you can only use factory crap
• 1:16:42
  brake pads, too, because it's illegal to make your stopping more efficient,
• 1:16:47
  because that is less efficient for fuel economy if you have better brakes.
• 1:16:50
  That's gonna be the next thing.
• 1:16:52
  This is all to make sure that we put the collector car and enthusiasts
• 1:16:58
  in motorsport communities under the thumb of the government.
• 1:17:02
  Tire shops in Nevada, and Oregon, and Washington State, and all
• 1:17:06
  surrounding states of California are about to get a bump in business.
• 1:17:09
  How do we do an economy of scale here?
• 1:17:12
  'Cause if I'm driving around in an old car, which they already
• 1:17:15
  wanna try to ban, what's the efficiency of the tires back then?
• 1:17:18
  I might as well get sticky tires, 'cause the tires back then were garbage.
• 1:17:22
  They don't make tires that bad today.
• 1:17:26
  So where do you draw the line?
• 1:17:27
  Where is the statute of limitations here?
• 1:17:29
  Where's the cutoff to say all cars after 2020 abide by this rule?
• 1:17:33
  Because it doesn't make sense to impose it on a 1965 Ford Mustang
• 1:17:38
  convertible when the tires back then, you could get bias-plys or
• 1:17:41
  you could get potentially radials.
• 1:17:43
  They don't make those kinda tires anymore.
• 1:17:45
  If you got an old Packard, what tire are you gonna put on there?
• 1:17:48
  Th- this is ridiculous.
• 1:17:50
  I don't know what to say.
• 1:17:51
  This is right up there with the CEO of Ford basically saying, "We make the cars
• 1:17:56
  overly complicated on purpose so that people can't fix them." Like, that's
• 1:18:00
  their way around the right to work thing, is they're, like, intentionally
• 1:18:03
  making the cars harder to work on so you have to take it to a dealership.
• 1:18:07
  Let's go back to simple stuff.
• 1:18:09
  Stop cutting corners.
• 1:18:10
  Build cars that are reliable, that can be fixed, because at the end of the day, when
• 1:18:15
  a car breaks, it breaks not when you're 10 feet from the dealership and you can just
• 1:18:19
  push it in there and, you know, whatever.
• 1:18:21
  It always breaks in the worst of places, at the most inopportune time, in the
• 1:18:25
  worst conditions, and it's like, why can't I do like an old Land Rover and fix it
• 1:18:29
  with a broken spoon and a screwdriver?
• 1:18:31
  I gotta be a space shuttle scientist now.
• 1:18:34
  But it's like every time you turn around, every consumable piece of the car is
• 1:18:38
  suddenly gonna be government regulated.
• 1:18:39
  It's insane.
• 1:18:40
  You're taking all the fun away.
• 1:18:42
  Cars are fun.
• 1:18:43
  Am I wrong?
• 1:18:44
  No.
• 1:18:45
  Brett says no.
• 1:18:46
  Brett says no.
• 1:18:47
  You're not wrong.
• 1:18:48
  They're not supposed to be fun, though.
• 1:18:50
  Oh.
• 1:18:50
  Just like music and dancing's not supposed to be fun.
• 1:18:53
  America was built on driving freedom, I'm telling you.
• 1:18:57
  Just getting away from this, 'cause it's just raising my blood pressure.
• 1:19:01
  Don't say.
• 1:19:02
  I'm trying not to get on my soapbox.
• 1:19:04
  Good thing we live on the East Coast.
• 1:19:06
  You know as well as I do that California is the head of the snake.
• 1:19:10
  If it gets approved in California, it's five years, and then
• 1:19:13
  we're gonna see it over here.
• 1:19:14
  It's just a matter of time.
• 1:19:16
  Anyway, I have a recommendation for this month's book club.
• 1:19:20
  Shout out to guest of the show, friend of the show, and Target Singer Symposium
• 1:19:26
  presenter many times over, Preston Lerner, has a new book, The Deadliest Decade.
• 1:19:31
  It is now officially available.
• 1:19:34
  You can actually hear part of the book in an excerpt from a symposium
• 1:19:38
  presentation he did in the past.
• 1:19:40
  Preston was on the show back in the winter, along with Matt Stone,
• 1:19:45
  talking about their careers and their past and working together at
• 1:19:47
  MotorTrend and things like that.
• 1:19:49
  He alluded to his book coming out on that episode.
• 1:19:51
  It's finally out.
• 1:19:53
  You can buy it now on Octane Press, 39.95, and that's all about the
• 1:19:58
  deadliest decade of Formula One.
• 1:20:01
  So very cool.
• 1:20:02
  I have to order my copy still, and it's gonna be on my list of books
• 1:20:06
  to read for my summer reading.
• 1:20:08
  I don't wanna put my official Break Fix recommended read on it, but knowing
• 1:20:12
  Preston, this is a recommended read.
• 1:20:14
  I don't even have to read it yet.
• 1:20:15
  And having heard the excerpts already, I know it's gonna be good.
• 1:20:18
  So if you're a Formula One fan, definitely check out Preston's new book.
• 1:20:22
  And just as a final reminder for the summer, if you happen to be in the
• 1:20:28
  Midwest, in the surrounding Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, or Ohio areas, and
• 1:20:33
  you wanna make a run up to one of the coolest concourses in the Midwest, come
• 1:20:37
  join us July 10th through the 12th in South Bend, Indiana, for the Concourse
• 1:20:41
  at Cobbs Hill Home, where we will also be presenting Automotive History Live.
• 1:20:45
  It's a automotive history conference.
• 1:20:47
  William John Summers and I will be presenting on the Bianco Speciale.
• 1:20:51
  You'll be able to meet Don from Garage Style and a bunch of
• 1:20:53
  other personalities from the NPN.
• 1:20:55
  We'll all be there in South Bend in person.
• 1:20:57
  So if you can make it, great.
• 1:20:59
  Tickets are still on sale.
• 1:21:00
  You can go to concourse@cobbshillhome.com.
• 1:21:03
  And if you can't make it all the way out and you're interested in the topics,
• 1:21:06
  which are posted on the Concourse website under Automotive History Live, you can
• 1:21:11
  watch the live stream on our Twitch, twitch.tv/grandtouringmotorsports.
• 1:21:15
  So this is the last time we'll talk about this, because we're gonna go
• 1:21:18
  live here in about a week or two, so you'll be able to catch up on all that.
• 1:21:22
  And there will be a introductory episode to our new series, Automotive
• 1:21:27
  History Live, named after the symposia at the Studebaker Museum.
• 1:21:31
  So watch out for that.
• 1:21:32
  Andy Beckman comes on, tells us all about the history of the museum and
• 1:21:35
  South Bend, and why they started the conference, and all that kind of stuff.
• 1:21:38
  And that's gonna lead the way for some really great
• 1:21:40
  presentations throughout the year.
• 1:21:42
  So we're kicking off a whole new series as part of the Motoring Podcast
• 1:21:45
  Network, so look forward to that.
• 1:21:47
  Don't forget, if you're looking for that extra special automobilia to complete
• 1:21:51
  your garage, office, den, or man cave, be sure to check out garagestylemagazine.com
• 1:21:55
  for a list of upcoming auctions and events, along with a curated list of items
• 1:21:59
  going up for sale all over the country.
• 1:22:01
  Because after all, what doesn't belong in your garage?
• 1:22:04
  Thanks for that, Brad.
• 1:22:05
  You know what belongs in our garage?
• 1:22:07
  Ferraris, Luches.
• 1:22:09
  Well, that, but Tanya always finds the coolest stuff.
• 1:22:13
  Take my money No.
• 1:22:20
  It's almost the right color.
• 1:22:21
  I know, I know.
• 1:22:22
  I know.
• 1:22:23
  I need, like, two of them so that I can do the rallied out version, if you
• 1:22:27
  look at the pictures, 'cause it comes with, like, the lights and whatnot to
• 1:22:30
  put on the front, and the stickies, and then the regular version without that.
• 1:22:35
  I'm going to buy two, so you might as well just buy two as well.
• 1:22:39
  It's coming soon.
• 1:22:40
  No date yet, but Mattel Brick Shop is launching the '84 Audi Sport Quattro set.
• 1:22:48
  I'm just gonna say, why can't Lego do cool stuff like this?
• 1:22:53
  It's a lot nicer than that wagon.
• 1:22:55
  Yeah, it is.
• 1:22:56
  And you know what?
• 1:22:57
  As we've said in the past when we talk about them on the Christmas episode,
• 1:23:01
  they're really taking a bite out of Lego Speed Champion Series, and unfortunately,
• 1:23:06
  Lego, I feel like they're just…
• 1:23:08
  They're mailing it in with those Speed Champions.
• 1:23:10
  Yeah, they're all in on the F1 right now.
• 1:23:12
  And that's just the same design with different colors.
• 1:23:15
  Yeah.
• 1:23:16
  And then the other cars look kind of weird.
• 1:23:17
  Like, my daughter got the hot pink Honda S2000 from Fast and
• 1:23:22
  the Furious, and she loves it.
• 1:23:23
  She asked for it for, you know, like, a year, and then we finally got it for her,
• 1:23:27
  you know, one of those birthday Christmas gift type of deals, and it's just like she
• 1:23:30
  put it together and, and it's cool, but it doesn't even go together that nicely.
• 1:23:34
  I asked her, at one point, I was like, "Is this you or did they purposely make it
• 1:23:38
  look like it got into an accident?" Yeah.
• 1:23:40
  It literally looked like it was in a wreck.
• 1:23:42
  So she's like, "No, Dad, you just… The front end, they, they made
• 1:23:45
  these pieces move," and then, yeah, it kind of looks like it's smashed
• 1:23:48
  and I'm like, "Oh, looks weird."
• 1:23:49
  These are really nice.
• 1:23:50
  They're very detailed.
• 1:23:51
  You actually presented us with more than one, quote unquote, "extra value meal."
• 1:23:56
  I mean, look at this Supra compared.
• 1:23:58
  The Lego one is super chunky and blocky and just… Let me see if I can find it.
• 1:24:03
  Lego Fast and Furious.
• 1:24:06
  Let's compare these two so you guys can see them.
• 1:24:08
  Mm-hmm.
• 1:24:09
  Look at this thing, and then look at that.
• 1:24:13
  Yeah.
• 1:24:14
  Come on, Lego.
• 1:24:15
  Stop mailing it in.
• 1:24:16
  I don't know if the problem is Brick Shop Mattel has no reason to sit here
• 1:24:21
  and try to make small pieces of stuff.
• 1:24:23
  Like- Right … they made one big hood piece, right?
• 1:24:26
  So they could form it exactly as it needs to be, as opposed to be like, "Let me try
• 1:24:30
  to reuse 15 pieces to get the, the shape."
• 1:24:33
  Yeah, but the problem with Lego is if you've built any of the modern sets today,
• 1:24:37
  they make all these very special one-off pieces that- I don't know … you can't
• 1:24:42
  reuse for anything, but you can't do this?
• 1:24:45
  I don't get it.
• 1:24:46
  I don't know.
• 1:24:47
  And then finally… Oh, come on.
• 1:24:49
  Even Lego could do this.
• 1:24:52
  We're about it, baby.
• 1:24:53
  '83 Chevy.
• 1:24:55
  That's actually kinda cool.
• 1:24:56
  It's missing something.
• 1:24:58
  What, rust?
• 1:24:58
  Rust?
• 1:24:59
  Fire?
• 1:24:59
  I was gonna say leaking fuel and fire.
• 1:25:04
  It's still one of my favorite videos.
• 1:25:07
  When we went off-roading, ugh, why did I have to be his co-pilot?
• 1:25:11
  God.
• 1:25:12
  That's pretty cool.
• 1:25:13
  I like that, too.
• 1:25:14
  Good j- yeah, you're, you're always the master of these extra value meals.
• 1:25:19
  You know, I, I am at a whole new low.
• 1:25:21
  This whole month has been blah, like we've talked about.
• 1:25:24
  It- you gotta lift my spirits, Tanya.
• 1:25:26
  Lift us up where we belong.
• 1:25:29
  We gotta go down south and talk about alligators and beer.
• 1:25:50
  Well, this first one actually technically is south of the Mason-Dixon Line.
• 1:25:55
  And this one hits real close to home.
• 1:25:59
  Starts with a B. So apparently a family gifted their college
• 1:26:06
  son an $80,000 ZL1 Camaro blah, blah, blah, blah, blah edition.
• 1:26:13
  It was stolen It was retrieved, ended up at whatever dealer,
• 1:26:19
  only to be stolen a second time.
• 1:26:21
  You lost me at, "I gave my kid an $80,000 ZL1." I don't know who these people are.
• 1:26:27
  Can I be adopted by these people?
• 1:26:28
  I want an $80,000 ZL1.
• 1:26:31
  Well, he apparently was getting his third degree at the University of Maryland.
• 1:26:37
  Wow.
• 1:26:37
  Okay, well, he deserves it.
• 1:26:38
  I mean, you know.
• 1:26:39
  So I don't know if that means he deserves an $80,000 supercharged V8
• 1:26:43
  ZL1 Camaro or not, but- Maybe he's in automotive engineering, so yes he does.
• 1:26:48
  Maybe he does.
• 1:26:49
  But I don't think they found it for a third time yet, even though the
• 1:26:53
  guy at the dealer said, "I watched it being stolen. I thought it was
• 1:26:56
  just a tech taking the car into the garage for inspection." Oh, come on.
• 1:27:00
  Come on.
• 1:27:03
  I think after the first time, like, LoJack should have been installed
• 1:27:06
  on this car, like, for real.
• 1:27:08
  So I don't think they got it directly back when it was found, and so when they
• 1:27:12
  went to go get it, it was gone again.
• 1:27:15
  And Brad, remind me, this is a leftover, 'cause they don't even
• 1:27:17
  make Camaros anymore, right?
• 1:27:19
  They're gone.
• 1:27:20
  Right.
• 1:27:21
  It's still a pretty car, though.
• 1:27:23
  Ah.
• 1:27:23
  Oh, boy.
• 1:27:25
  So we're still in Maryland, apparently.
• 1:27:27
  Oh, yes.
• 1:27:28
  We have wacky Maryland people.
• 1:27:30
  So there's an Instagram video.
• 1:27:32
  Someone caught in good old Dundalk, Maryland, and if you don't know where
• 1:27:35
  that is, it's right outside Baltimore.
• 1:27:38
  This is amazing.
• 1:27:39
  This dude is in a motorized wheelchair zooming down the
• 1:27:44
  streets, and this thing is fast.
• 1:27:48
  This thing is buck wild.
• 1:27:52
  It could be the video, but he looks like he's hauling.
• 1:27:55
  He's rolling.
• 1:27:56
  He's booking down the road.
• 1:27:58
  Why is he not in the bike lane?
• 1:28:00
  It's not a bike.
• 1:28:01
  It's got four wheels.
• 1:28:02
  That has bicycle wheels on it.
• 1:28:04
  At least three.
• 1:28:06
  Pops out, whoop, whoop-whoop.
• 1:28:08
  Also, what are these wheelchair wheels that can go that fast?
• 1:28:13
  Dude, there's a Porsche right there.
• 1:28:14
  You think he was like, "Bruh, let's go"?
• 1:28:19
  But if you look at it, it's a scooter.
• 1:28:21
  Yeah.
• 1:28:22
  But I think he's actually on a scooter and tho- Yeah … and he
• 1:28:24
  attached the wheels for stability.
• 1:28:27
  I don't know what that is.
• 1:28:28
  That's awesome is what that is.
• 1:28:31
  It's illegal is what it is.
• 1:28:32
  Yeah.
• 1:28:33
  The next article would be, "Baltimore Dundalk Man Arrested On His Motorized
• 1:28:39
  Wheelchair, Evading Arrest."
• 1:28:41
  They'd never catch him.
• 1:28:43
  If this was in Florida, it would've ended up in a chase in a swamp.
• 1:28:44
  And he would've been naked.
• 1:28:48
  He would've started naked.
• 1:28:50
  Probably.
• 1:28:51
  With a beer in his hand.
• 1:28:52
  With a White Claw in his hand, 'cause that's another article
• 1:28:54
  they chose not to put in here.
• 1:28:56
  It would've been a riding lawnmower in Florida, though.
• 1:28:58
  You know as well as I do, they're not gonna mess around.
• 1:29:00
  They just get on their Stabil or their Toro or whatever and they're gonna go.
• 1:29:05
  It would've been a riding alligator.
• 1:29:07
  What are you talking about?
• 1:29:08
  Mm-hmm.
• 1:29:08
  Apparently Big Brother's got some new tech for us.
• 1:29:12
  Already existing license plate cameras are not only gonna be able to track and
• 1:29:18
  read your license plate, but apparently they'll have the added benefit of now
• 1:29:22
  being able to track any sort of electronic devices on you, such as phones, wearables,
• 1:29:27
  infotainment systems, or even your pets, depending on what sort of electronic
• 1:29:30
  tracking devices you have on them.
• 1:29:32
  Oh, how nice.
• 1:29:33
  I like this.
• 1:29:33
  This is wonderful.
• 1:29:34
  Please, I need one of those Faraday cages to put my phone in while in the car.
• 1:29:39
  This is the police state that we are turning into now.
• 1:29:43
  California's gonna buy the version that can read the type of tires you
• 1:29:46
  have- Oh, my God … and then they're gonna start mailing you tickets for
• 1:29:47
  having the wrong kinds of tires.
• 1:29:47
  No, but look at the table.
• 1:29:47
  Track devices, vehicle components, tire pressure sensors.
• 1:29:47
  Yep.
• 1:29:47
  What?
• 1:30:00
  Which means they're also tracking your E-ZPass when you're not on the E-ZPass-
• 1:30:04
  Yeah … when you're on a toll road.
• 1:30:06
  Yep.
• 1:30:06
  And asset tags, so does that consider, like- Air Tags.
• 1:30:11
  Yep.
• 1:30:11
  Yes, it does.
• 1:30:11
  This is wild.
• 1:30:12
  Wild.
• 1:30:14
  This is some Skynet stuff right here.
• 1:30:16
  This is craziness.
• 1:30:17
  Like, how is it gonna filter all that?
• 1:30:19
  'Cause I bet any given person's car literally has all of these in them at
• 1:30:23
  once, 'cause you probably have a- wireless headphones in your backpack or your purse.
• 1:30:28
  You've got a phone.
• 1:30:29
  You've got at least one wearable watch or fitness tracker.
• 1:30:33
  Right.
• 1:30:33
  You got tire pressure sensors.
• 1:30:34
  You got other sensors.
• 1:30:35
  You got an infotainment system.
• 1:30:37
  You probably have a computer, maybe a tablet, laptop, whatever, 'cause you're
• 1:30:41
  coming from work, blah, blah, blah.
• 1:30:43
  Key cards, your badge for work.
• 1:30:45
  Like, oh my God, like… Which means they're gonna, they're gonna
• 1:30:49
  know where you work, so this has gotta be a huge security risk.
• 1:30:52
  They already know that because your phone, especially if you have an Android,
• 1:30:55
  reports where you are all the time anyway.
• 1:30:58
  Have you ever noticed, like, Google Maps, it'll assume where you're going now?
• 1:31:01
  It's like, "Oh, it seems like you're on the road to work.
• 1:31:04
  By the way, blah, blah, blah, blah, do you wanna stop and get a cup of
• 1:31:06
  coffee?" You're like, "What the… Turn this shit off." So they already know.
• 1:31:10
  They already know.
• 1:31:10
  The problem is the municipalities won't be able to afford it long-term- Mm-hmm
• 1:31:16
  … because the data center charges that it's gonna cost to run this stuff is gonna
• 1:31:20
  be astronomical at the end of the day.
• 1:31:23
  So I don't see it going for too long.
• 1:31:26
  Oh, well, well, then that's where you're wrong, because how do you
• 1:31:29
  make money off people's data?
• 1:31:31
  You sell it to the Chinese, yeah.
• 1:31:32
  I know.
• 1:31:33
  There you go.
• 1:31:34
  So they're just gonna sell it to the highest bidder, and it's
• 1:31:37
  gonna be like Minority Report.
• 1:31:39
  They're gonna sell it to Bezos so then you can get Amazon- Yes
• 1:31:43
  requests or ideas in your Facebook feed.
• 1:31:46
  So they're gonna sell it to whatever that dude's name is and Bezos.
• 1:31:49
  Yeah, and we're, we're gonna start getting targeted advertisements.
• 1:31:52
  "Did you know that the batteries in your tire pressure monitoring system
• 1:31:55
  are going low? You should replace them now. Here's a set I can add
• 1:31:59
  to your Amazon cart right away."
• 1:32:01
  So Tesla was doing that, remember, where they were trying to determine that your
• 1:32:05
  tires needed to be changed, and they would automatically order you new tires
• 1:32:08
  for your car and, like, send them out?
• 1:32:10
  They were already messing with that, like, five years ago or so.
• 1:32:13
  It's crazy.
• 1:32:13
  I do it with dog food.
• 1:32:14
  I don't need to do it with car parts.
• 1:32:16
  Yeah, well, you know, the comfort war.
• 1:32:18
  You know which car isn't gonna have this problem?
• 1:32:21
  Mark IV Volkswagen?
• 1:32:22
  No.
• 1:32:22
  '65 Buick.
• 1:32:23
  You won't have any of these problems.
• 1:32:25
  Drive something like that, and you can maintain it with a screwdriver and
• 1:32:28
  a wooden spoon, and you'll be fine.
• 1:32:30
  You can even rob the sack of suds.
• 1:32:37
  Buy old cars.
• 1:32:38
  That's all I'm saying.
• 1:32:39
  If you don't like the police state that's coming, buy old cars, 'cause
• 1:32:42
  you know what's gonna happen next.
• 1:32:43
  All this data is gonna end up in the laptop on the cop's- Of
• 1:32:48
  course … you know, passenger seat.
• 1:32:50
  Boom.
• 1:32:50
  So they're not gonna need to chase anymore.
• 1:32:52
  They just meet the person at their house.
• 1:32:54
  Yeah, yeah.
• 1:32:54
  I don't even know why we need license plates, to be honest with you.
• 1:32:57
  Who cares?
• 1:32:58
  If you have all this other da- the license plate on the car is irrelevant
• 1:33:01
  because the car eventually will just transmit its own VIN number.
• 1:33:04
  So what's the license plate for?
• 1:33:06
  Who gives a shit?
• 1:33:06
  A tax.
• 1:33:07
  A tax.
• 1:33:08
  Yeah, it's BS to pay for those stupid metal plates that are ugly as sin.
• 1:33:13
  All right.
• 1:33:13
  What do we got next?
• 1:33:14
  Now we're going to Florida.
• 1:33:16
  Oh, boy.
• 1:33:16
  And we haven't had a good chase in a while.
• 1:33:20
  Oh, boy.
• 1:33:20
  And I don't think we've ever had one involving an RV.
• 1:33:24
  Wait, what?
• 1:33:25
  This guy bobbed and weaved, trying to evade the police while driving an RV.
• 1:33:31
  No, come on.
• 1:33:32
  That's the allegation.
• 1:33:35
  Oh, there's no video, though.
• 1:33:36
  There's no video- No … unfortunately.
• 1:33:38
  It's very disappointing.
• 1:33:40
  But he racked up about eight eight charges.
• 1:33:46
  Oh my God.
• 1:33:47
  Oh, look at this.
• 1:33:48
  Driving while license revoked, fleeing to elude, lights and sirens, reckless
• 1:33:52
  driving, DUI, leaving the scene of his accident with injuries, resisting law
• 1:33:55
  enforcement officer without violence, possession of drug paraphernalia,
• 1:33:59
  possession of controlled substance.
• 1:34:00
  Glorious.
• 1:34:02
  So another person trying to evade police.
• 1:34:03
  So this one didn't make much sense, and the video is hilarious a little
• 1:34:06
  bit 'cause a wanted man leads deputy on chase around the car.
• 1:34:11
  No, come on.
• 1:34:15
  Ring around the rosy, ring around the rosy.
• 1:34:19
  What do they call that?
• 1:34:20
  A, is it Chinese fire drill?
• 1:34:22
  Oh my God.
• 1:34:22
  The best part was- It's like mice and fires
• 1:34:24
  he wasn't even driving the car.
• 1:34:26
  The lady driving the car, they got pulled over in this Camry because of an expired
• 1:34:32
  tag, and then I guess the cop asked what the dude's name was in the passenger seat.
• 1:34:39
  He said, "None ya."
• 1:34:43
  Well, when he looked up the name, that's what his computer said
• 1:34:46
  because this guy didn't exist.
• 1:34:48
  So then he found out the real name, and this dude was an eight-time convicted
• 1:34:52
  felon with multiple arrest warrants.
• 1:34:55
  Oh, wow.
• 1:34:55
  And then he tried to run around the car.
• 1:35:00
  I just wanna start playing, like, the Benny Hill music.
• 1:35:02
  Be like,
• 1:35:06
  as they're just running around the car.
• 1:35:07
  I mean, this is ridiculous.
• 1:35:11
  And then he just takes off into the swamp.
• 1:35:14
  Into a swamp.
• 1:35:15
  Oh, the body cam footage on this is amazing.
• 1:35:18
  God, look at this.
• 1:35:20
  He a fast runner, though.
• 1:35:21
  He didn't trip.
• 1:35:22
  He would've kept going.
• 1:35:23
  Oh, no, he tackled him.
• 1:35:24
  That's what happened.
• 1:35:25
  So was he faster than the interceptor?
• 1:35:28
  No, because he got pulled over, but, like, he's pretty quick here.
• 1:35:33
  Look at this Sir, what's your name?
• 1:35:36
  Dragon.
• 1:35:37
  Dragon what?
• 1:35:37
  Dragon these nuts, bitch.
• 1:35:39
  Come get 'em.
• 1:35:44
  Ah, this is so good.
• 1:35:44
  I think he tripped.
• 1:35:46
  I think he tripped before he got tackled.
• 1:35:49
  Boom.
• 1:35:49
  Oh, yeah, he, he did.
• 1:35:50
  So- He definitely did.
• 1:35:51
  He definitely did Yep You see him trip, and then the cop just, like, jumps on him.
• 1:35:55
  Oh, wow.
• 1:35:56
  That's wild.
• 1:35:57
  All right.
• 1:35:58
  Before you dive into this next one- Uh-huh … I want you to guess the
• 1:36:03
  vehicle, vehicles, they only said what one of them was, the vehicles involved.
• 1:36:09
  85-year-old
• 1:36:16
  It's not working.
• 1:36:16
  What?
• 1:36:16
  85-year-old Florida man accused of hitting triple digits in street race.
• 1:36:21
  Oh, hell yeah.
• 1:36:23
  So there's two people involved in this.
• 1:36:25
  We only know what one of the cars is for sure.
• 1:36:29
  On any given flea market Tuesday, I would say it's, like, a Buick
• 1:36:33
  Regal and an old Cadillac DeVille or something like that, right?
• 1:36:37
  With a Northstar in it.
• 1:36:38
  Chevy Lumina and Ford Taurus.
• 1:36:44
  I'm gonna go out on a limb without looking at the article and say that it's Florida.
• 1:36:49
  This guy's 80.
• 1:36:50
  He must have bought a pony car.
• 1:36:52
  It's one of those deals where it's like not only did he buy a
• 1:36:55
  Challenger, he bought a Challenger Demon 170 or something like that.
• 1:36:58
  Like, something just outrageously stupid.
• 1:37:01
  I'll give you a hint, 'cause we don't know what his car is.
• 1:37:04
  Okay.
• 1:37:05
  But the person he was racing was 57 years old, and we know what their car was.
• 1:37:10
  In an Altima?
• 1:37:11
  He had a pair of New Balance.
• 1:37:13
  Yes, he did.
• 1:37:14
  Oh.
• 1:37:14
  Oh, he's in a Corvette then.
• 1:37:16
  There's video and there's photos.
• 1:37:18
  Of him getting arrested, 'cause they caught…
• 1:37:20
  Whatever he's driving, they caught him.
• 1:37:21
  They didn't catch the guy in the Corvette, or they caught him later I think.
• 1:37:25
  This is a Z. He's in a Z. He's in a Z convertible.
• 1:37:28
  That is a 350Z door handle right there.
• 1:37:31
  Look at that.
• 1:37:31
  That's what that is.
• 1:37:33
  He's in a 350Z Cabriolet, and it's got the sloped nose with the lights.
• 1:37:37
  They just called it a gray sports car.
• 1:37:41
  I called it.
• 1:37:42
  It's a Nissan.
• 1:37:43
  It's always a Nissan.
• 1:37:44
  Whenever people are in trouble, getting arrested, it's a Nissan.
• 1:37:48
  And he said, "I was out having a ride in my favorite car."
• 1:37:53
  He's driving the Nissan Fastima.
• 1:37:55
  Trying to see if they can show from behind here.
• 1:37:57
  So who's he catching up to?
• 1:37:59
  Wow, 110 and 125.
• 1:38:02
  85 don't mean you can't still go.
• 1:38:04
  Does that say extra on the side?
• 1:38:07
  Definitely a Z. You can see the wheel as you watch the
• 1:38:10
  video just for a split second.
• 1:38:12
  That's a Z wheel.
• 1:38:13
  That's a Z door handle.
• 1:38:14
  It's a convertible.
• 1:38:15
  Boom.
• 1:38:16
  Nissan for the win.
• 1:38:20
  Boom.
• 1:38:21
  And this Florida man wasn't even in Florida.
• 1:38:24
  He was in Brad's backyard.
• 1:38:26
  They identified the Corvette.
• 1:38:28
  The question is: Who won?
• 1:38:30
  Well, not the guy, uh… Well, they both got ar- caught, so neither one.
• 1:38:35
  I'm gonna guess the Corvette technically won, 'cause he got arrested later.
• 1:38:40
  That's true.
• 1:38:41
  Granted, the speed limit was a little slow, but say they were doing
• 1:38:44
  that on a 65 mile an hour road.
• 1:38:47
  Let's just be nice about the speed limit.
• 1:38:48
  That's still reckless driving.
• 1:38:50
  Okay.
• 1:38:50
  Especially if it was in Virginia.
• 1:38:52
  Well, I mean, they would melt your license and throw you in jail.
• 1:38:55
  But I see this guy with a cigarette hanging out of his mouth and a ball
• 1:38:59
  cap on, and he's driving a, quote, "gray sports car" and he's doing a
• 1:39:03
  buck 10, I would've shaken his hand.
• 1:39:05
  I would've said, "God bless you, sir. Enjoy the rest of your life,
• 1:39:07
  what l- what little is left of it."
• 1:39:12
  I mean, come on, really?
• 1:39:13
  When was the last time you saw an 85-year-old go 110 mile an hour?
• 1:39:18
  When's the last time you saw an 85-year-old go 85?
• 1:39:21
  Into a flea market or leaving the flea market?
• 1:39:26
  Well, you knew there weren't any Mustangs involved, 'cause there were no casualties.
• 1:39:30
  Yeah, 100%.
• 1:39:31
  See, it's nice, clean street racing.
• 1:39:33
  That's what I'm saying.
• 1:39:33
  Nice, clean fun.
• 1:39:35
  Yes.
• 1:39:35
  Why we gotta take this away from this 85-year-old man?
• 1:39:39
  That's good stuff right there.
• 1:39:41
  Well, let's quickly go behind the pit wall and talk about motorsports news.
• 1:39:45
  I only have one bit of news, because we already talked about Le
• 1:39:48
  Mans and all that stuff, and I'm sure other racing was happening.
• 1:39:52
  Oh, yeah, Formula 1.
• 1:39:53
  We'll talk about that on the other episode.
• 1:39:55
  You skipped IndyCar.
• 1:39:57
  Wait, there's IndyCar stuff?
• 1:39:59
  They were at Road America this weekend.
• 1:40:01
  Okay.
• 1:40:02
  That's all.
• 1:40:03
  Thank you.
• 1:40:04
  IndyCar was at Road America.
• 1:40:05
  I enjoyed your TED Talk.
• 1:40:06
  It was great.
• 1:40:07
  The, the next race is at Mid-Ohio on July 5th.
• 1:40:10
  I still don't get IndyCars at Mid-Ohio.
• 1:40:12
  It just seems too small.
• 1:40:14
  But I just wanna point out, we just recorded our final Evening with a Legend.
• 1:40:19
  That's right, our v- very last one.
• 1:40:21
  After 30 of them, our, j- our very last one.
• 1:40:23
  That was with Nick Boulle, an LMP2 driver.
• 1:40:26
  He was really cool.
• 1:40:27
  Great interview.
• 1:40:28
  Talked a lot about what it's like to be a, a longtime LMP2 driver.
• 1:40:32
  Three attempts at Le Mans, and no, he did not meet Jackie Chan, Brad, even though
• 1:40:36
  he drove for J- Jackie Chan DC Racing.
• 1:40:38
  So that being said, it's not the end of Evening with a Legend, it's just a
• 1:40:43
  metamorphosis for Evening with a Legend.
• 1:40:46
  So starting July 1st, we are changing the format, and David Kohrt, who
• 1:40:50
  was originally on the calendar for July, is going to join us in July.
• 1:40:54
  The new format is gonna be called Voices of Endurance, and the idea is that we've
• 1:41:00
  kinda wrung out the wash rag on Le Mans.
• 1:41:03
  There's not much more water we can squeeze out of that thing.
• 1:41:05
  I mean, how many more times can you tell the same story, I hate to say.
• 1:41:09
  So what we decided to do was, under the sponsorship of Enduroverse, we're
• 1:41:14
  going to change the format to Voices of Endurance, and we're gonna expand to
• 1:41:17
  not just drivers, but we're gonna try to talk to engineers and technicians and
• 1:41:22
  folks behind the scenes at organizations like IMSA, bring back folks from SRO.
• 1:41:27
  You know, do some stuff with the ACO as well.
• 1:41:29
  But we want to expand the breadth of endurance racing and talk about
• 1:41:33
  famous races, like the 24 Hours of Daytona or maybe, you know, 6
• 1:41:36
  Hours of Sebring or, I don't know, Spa and the Nürburgring and Fuji.
• 1:41:41
  Just endurance racing around the world.
• 1:41:43
  We want to expand that whole idea.
• 1:41:45
  So starting in July, we're gonna be switching formats, and
• 1:41:49
  it is still a series where you can be part of the audience.
• 1:41:53
  And you'll be able to register on the Motoring Podcast Network site.
• 1:41:56
  Just go to Voices of Endurance, sign up, and you'll be able to sit in on the
• 1:41:59
  audience and get your questions answered by a living legend or somebody that's
• 1:42:02
  in the industry, somebody that's part of sports car and endurance racing.
• 1:42:06
  So we're excited to be updating the format after three years of Evening
• 1:42:10
  with a Legend, and being able to continue that journey and getting
• 1:42:15
  more and more folks on the show.
• 1:42:17
  So really, really looking forward to that and hoping you can join us in the future.
• 1:42:21
  That being said, our motorsports news is brought to you in part by Enduroverse,
• 1:42:24
  powered by Hyperdev, America's premier endurance racing community.
• 1:42:29
  So check it out online and become a member at Enduroverse.com.
• 1:42:34
  All right, what's left?
• 1:42:35
  Couple announcements.
• 1:42:37
  We don't have any.
• 1:42:37
  Well, Brad, that pretty much wraps up this Drive Thru episode, so… We don't
• 1:42:43
  have a trackside report, 'cause we're, we're sad and broken and- We're on the
• 1:42:47
  track, 'cause we're on the track side.
• 1:42:49
  Ba-dum, tss.
• 1:42:53
  We're here all night.
• 1:42:53
  Try the veal.
• 1:42:54
  Well, if you're not quite ready to hit the track, or your car is not quite ready
• 1:43:00
  to hit the track, don't forget that you can find tons of upcoming local shows
• 1:43:03
  and events at the ultimate reference for car enthusiasts, collectorcarguide.net.
• 1:43:08
  If you're hearing us for the first time, be sure to jump back into our podcast
• 1:43:12
  catalog and check out other programs we offer, like The Ferrari Marketplace, The
• 1:43:17
  Motoring Historian, Voices of Endurance, The Racers Roundtable, Formula Fanatics,
• 1:43:22
  Brake Fix, and of course, The Drive Thru.
• 1:43:25
  And if for whatever reason you enjoy our various podcasts, there's a great way for
• 1:43:29
  you to support our creators on the NPN.
• 1:43:32
  There's tons of extras and bonuses to explore on our updated Patreon page.
• 1:43:36
  You can learn more about our bonus and behind-the-scenes content, get early
• 1:43:40
  access to upcoming episodes, or support our 24 Hours of Le Mans team when you
• 1:43:46
  consider becoming a Brake Fix VIP by visiting patreon.com/gtmotorsports.
• 1:43:52
  As always, we'd like to thank our co-host and executive producer, Tanya, and to
• 1:43:58
  all the fans, friends, and family who support Grand Touring Motorsports, as
• 1:44:02
  well as the Motoring Podcast network.
• 1:44:04
  Without you, none of this would be possible.
• 1:44:06
  Outro.
• 1:44:10
  Man, our neighbor really, these days, geez.
• 1:44:14
  Like, what is this, this rumbling?
• 1:44:16
  It'll last, like, 45 seconds, and it's… Never mind.
• 1:44:21
  You said Le Mans team.
• 1:44:22
  There has to be a better word for that.
• 1:44:23
  Le Mans… But lemons don't have pits, unfortunately.
• 1:44:23
  That's the problem.
• 1:44:23
  Lemon
• 1:44:28
  seeds?
• 1:44:28
  Seeds.
• 1:44:32
  Our 24 Hours of Lemon Seeds.
• 1:44:35
  I'm hemorrhaging lemon juice.
• 1:44:36
  That's what I'm doing right now.
• 1:44:38
  I don't wanna hear about you lemon juicing all over the
• 1:44:43
  place.
• 1:44:43
  Oh, I need to cleanse.
• 1:44:45
  A juice cleanse.
• 1:44:46
  You know, they use lemons and cayenne pepper.
• 1:44:48
  It's perfect.
• 1:44:49
  Can we put that in the gas tank, maybe?
• 1:44:52
  Maybe.
• 1:44:52
  It'll probably run better.
• 1:44:54
  That's not the problem.
• 1:44:56
  Lemon juice-injected
• 1:45:10
  The Drive Thru is our monthly news episode and is sponsored in part by organizations
• 1:45:14
  like collectorcarguide.net, Project Motoring, Garage Style Magazine, The
• 1:45:18
  Exotic Car Marketplace, and many others.
• 1:45:20
  If you are interested in becoming a sponsor of The Drive Thru, look no
• 1:45:23
  further than www.motoringpodcast.net.
• 1:45:27
  Click About and then Advertising.
• 1:45:29
  Thank you again to everyone that supports the Motoring Podcast Network, Grand
• 1:45:33
  Touring Motorsports, our podcast Brake Fix, and all the other services we provide