Latest / BREAK/FIX the Motorsports & Vehicle Enthusiast Variety Show / ZF, Drifting Tundras, Baja Adventures & the Shocking Quad Mishap

Transcript

ZF, Drifting Tundras, Baja Adventures & the Shocking Quad Mishap · BREAK/FIX the Motorsports & Vehicle Enthusiast Variety Show

• 0:00
  John Summers is the motoring historian.
• 0:02
  He was a company car thrashing, technology sales rep that turned into
• 0:06
  a fairly inept sports bike rider.
• 0:08
  Hailing from California, he collects cars and bikes built with plenty of
• 0:12
  cheap and fast, and not much reliable.
• 0:15
  On his show, he gets together with various co hosts to talk about new
• 0:18
  and old cars, driving, motorbikes, motor racing, and motoring travel.
• 0:32
  Good day.
• 0:33
  Good morning.
• 0:34
  Good afternoon.
• 0:35
  It is John Summers, the motoring historian and a miracle of functional technology.
• 0:41
  We have Mark Newton and Mark Gammy all on the line with us.
• 0:47
  I've an agenda, but of course I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna stick to it here.
• 0:52
  Let, let's, um, let's begin.
• 0:56
  By, uh, uh, saying hello to Mark Gami, who unexpectedly joined us.
• 1:01
  Thank you, Mark, for making the effort.
• 1:03
  No worries.
• 1:04
  Gami, great to see you.
• 1:07
  And, and hello to Mexican Mark, Mark Newton, who is joining us from,
• 1:14
  where are you joining us from Mark?
• 1:18
  Uh, Todos Santos, BCS, Southern Baja, Mexico.
• 1:22
  Bueno, buenos dias amigos.
• 1:27
  I'm sure Mark knew, Mark Gami, you're not aware.
• 1:30
  Mark, what are you driving now?
• 1:32
  What vehicles do you own in Mexico?
• 1:35
  What's sitting on the driveway at the moment?
• 1:38
  Well, here you have a tendency to, uh, gear yourself towards things that
• 1:43
  actually work, that won't leave you stranded, um, that you can get parts for.
• 1:48
  Um, you know, we're not in the, uh, spoiled, uh, hub of California where
• 1:53
  we have access to everything within hours at our fingertips, regardless
• 1:56
  of what it is, what it's for.
• 1:58
  How much it costs.
• 1:59
  So, um, 97 Ford F two 50 heavy duty power strokes, diesel four wheel drive,
• 2:07
  manual transmission, pre runner off road truck with a big utility bed.
• 2:12
  That, that, that, that's the, uh, that's the number one girl on the list.
• 2:16
  And then, uh, I recently bought a short bus.
• 2:20
  Nothing more appropriate for the dog rescue than a, uh, Let's see,
• 2:25
  this one's an 01 E450 V10, um, Ex Napa Valley Wine Country Tour Bus.
• 2:35
  And it's one of my favorite new vehicles I've ever had.
• 2:40
  Why?
• 2:41
  Why?
• 2:42
  I love the, I love the V10.
• 2:44
  I love it.
• 2:45
  I've never had one before, and I love it.
• 2:47
  Compared to my turbo diesel that I also love.
• 2:51
  It just does what it's supposed to do, you know, it's making
• 2:54
  it makes a ton of horsepower.
• 2:55
  It makes a ton of torque The mileage isn't horrific It's an e450.
• 3:00
  So I've I've spent my whole life towing with my f 250 and Working that thing
• 3:06
  to death for like I've put over 200, 000 miles on that truck It's sitting
• 3:12
  at I think we're 375, 000 miles on that thing currently And it's probably
• 3:18
  got another half million left in it.
• 3:20
  But when I bought the four 50 nice being that it's a dually and that
• 3:26
  it's a heavy duty, you know, one and a half ish, let's say two ton.
• 3:30
  I put a trailer behind it.
• 3:32
  It doesn't even know it's there.
• 3:34
  It, it just.
• 3:35
  It does everything better than my F two 50.
• 3:38
  And I hate to say that , you, you sent me a short where you were like, this thing
• 3:44
  is absolutely the future because you were like, stood up in the back of it.
• 3:49
  And for context, we'll put a, we'll put a link for, for, for the viewers.
• 3:54
  But the idea is gamy.
• 3:55
  This is like your airport bust.
• 3:57
  This is like your airport, like hertz rental bust where
• 4:01
  you can stand up in it, right.
• 4:03
  But it's like, so it's a short chassis, but it's like dual wheel, heavy duty.
• 4:09
  So you're a fan of the V 10.
• 4:11
  I thought that V 10 didn't have a great reputation.
• 4:16
  I dude, you know what the guys that have them that, that run them that I have
• 4:19
  come across now, and you know, I did my diligence before I bought this thing.
• 4:23
  I was trying to find a.
• 4:24
  5.
• 4:24
  4 truck, you know, or something like that.
• 4:26
  You know, my last van was a 96.
• 4:28
  So it was the last year of a pushrod 351, our good, but that venerable 5.
• 4:31
  8 liter that we love so much.
• 4:34
  And I loved it, but I popped a head gasket on it and I didn't feel like
• 4:38
  fixing it last trip to California.
• 4:39
  So I hunted around on Craigslist and found this van for 4, 100 bucks,
• 4:44
  paid 3, 800 for it out the door.
• 4:47
  And the lovely part of them, because of what you said, Summers,
• 4:49
  they're like, Airport shuttle vans, handicap vans, you know, they use
• 4:54
  them for a multitude of things.
• 4:56
  They're all fleet maintained.
• 4:58
  So, kind of regardless of price, they've got new tires, good brakes,
• 5:03
  well serviced, regardless of miles.
• 5:05
  They're great vehicles, so, you know.
• 5:08
  I mean, I jumped in it, welded a rack on the back, welded a trailer
• 5:13
  hitch on it, swung my car trailer off the back of it, and drove it
• 5:17
  2, 000 miles, you know, to Mexico.
• 5:21
  So I, I, I love it.
• 5:24
  I'm convinced it's the greatest thing ever right now, or the, like I said to
• 5:28
  you, the greatest tool for me here, you know, um, I've usually got dogs in it.
• 5:33
  I had 12 dogs last trip, go to new homes in California.
• 5:36
  So I'm down to only 15 now, which is nice.
• 5:39
  So just like, let's just pause for the audience here who
• 5:44
  might not have grasped that.
• 5:46
  Just, just repeat what you just said.
• 5:48
  How many dogs and why do you have all these dogs?
• 5:53
  I run a small dog rescue in Mexico called Baja Street Dogs.
• 5:57
  So, BajaStreetDogs.
• 5:59
  org if you're online or BajaStreetDogs on Instagram.
• 6:02
  Um, it's just kind of something I do in Mexico to try to help out here.
• 6:06
  You know, instead of just being a gringo that takes advantage of a cheap, wonderful
• 6:10
  country and, you know, lives like a king.
• 6:12
  You know, I work with the local kids, with the dog rescue, try to
• 6:16
  educate these guys, run clinics.
• 6:19
  Um, you know, I'm also, I never had kids or got married, so I'm Uncle Mark, you
• 6:23
  know, and I'm a mechanic, so you need new tires in your bicycle or a chain for your
• 6:27
  bike, you know, you go see Uncle Mark, you know, maybe, maybe the dogs chase you,
• 6:31
  maybe they don't, maybe you get a tire, maybe you don't, but we're in Mexico,
• 6:36
  nobody gets too wound up about anything here, you know, it's like, yeah, whatever.
• 6:40
  And just for and just for some for some context, this is the bit of
• 6:45
  california This is the bit of mexico that they call baja california.
• 6:50
  This is a long peninsula so john You basically have you know, you have
• 6:58
  the northern state of baja in the southern so bah Just baja california
• 7:02
  or baja california, sir south or lower.
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  So we're we're bcs california, sir i'm about uh I'm a little over 900 miles
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  from the California border right now.
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  Um, and how wide's the peninsula?
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  At its widest point we're barely over a hundred miles.
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  So that's, that's a thousand miles long and a hundred miles wide.
• 7:29
  Yes.
• 7:29
  Um, you sent me a short or a video or something of, of, um, uh, an off road
• 7:36
  race that just came right past you.
• 7:40
  Yep.
• 7:40
  Just reprise that for, for Mark Gami here.
• 7:44
  Gabby, I'm coming home.
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  So I've got a ranch about 10 miles North of town, a little dog rescue ranch.
• 7:49
  So I go out there and walk the dogs and take my composting dog poop out
• 7:53
  there and do the right thing with it.
• 7:54
  And, you know, smoke a joint and have some fun and just get out of town for a minute.
• 7:59
  Well, the Nora race got redirected and came through Toro Santos.
• 8:04
  So about 11 o'clock at night, I'm coming home in my van at
• 8:09
  20 miles an hour, quiet dirt.
• 8:12
  Mexican Road.
• 8:13
  Nobody on it.
• 8:14
  Nobody.
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  No streetlights, no nothing.
• 8:16
  But I heard some cars earlier in the evening, and I
• 8:18
  thought, ah, they're all done.
• 8:20
  So I'm coming back on the highway, and there's people
• 8:22
  on the sides of the highway.
• 8:23
  Bonfires going, still partying, you know, I'm like, huh,
• 8:26
  must be some trucks left out.
• 8:28
  So I look at my rearview mirror, and I see some awfully bright off
• 8:31
  road lights coming, coming up on me, but you can't tell how fast
• 8:35
  these lights are coming up on you.
• 8:36
  You have no idea.
• 8:38
  Well, he was doing north of 120 when he went by me.
• 8:42
  Miles an hour by you.
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  And, uh, maybe a foot off me, two feet max.
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  Cause we're on a narrow dirt Mexican highway.
• 8:54
  Needless to say, he blew my head off as he went by me and I just chuckled
• 8:59
  and giggled as he went by me peppering me with rocks and dust and dirt.
• 9:07
  That's why I live here, because that exists.
• 9:11
  It makes me giggle, not piss me off, you know.
• 9:15
  Mark, I, uh, I called you on your birthday a couple of years ago,
• 9:19
  and, uh, I said, What are you doing?
• 9:21
  And you said, Oh, I'm, I'm up in LA at the moment.
• 9:24
  I'm buying WR450s.
• 9:26
  And I said, What?
• 9:28
  And you went, Well, about the biggest, meanest, most
• 9:32
  fuck off off road motorcycle.
• 9:34
  I'm buying them.
• 9:35
  And I said, How many have you got?
• 9:37
  And you said nine.
• 9:39
  Now, why, why the nine bikes?
• 9:42
  What are you doing with the nine bikes?
• 9:44
  Can you still have them?
• 9:48
  Kind of the, kind of the point I made, Summers, of you use what works
• 9:52
  here, you use what lasts here, you use what functions here the best
• 9:56
  and you can get parts for, Yamaha.
• 9:59
  Hondas are good as well, but down here, for instance, our,
• 10:02
  our, our, uh, our marine.
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  Uh, the marine world around here.
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  Obviously we have the Sea of Cortez and the Pacific Ocean.
• 10:10
  We essentially sit on an island down here surrounded by water.
• 10:12
  So, a lot of water activities.
• 10:14
  Everyone runs Yamahas, and I mean everyone.
• 10:18
  So I like the WR450s, they hold more oil than the CRFs, they're more reliable, we
• 10:24
  can get parts for them, so I just kind of tackled mid 2000s, aluminum frame,
• 10:30
  carbureted, you know, good suspension WR450s, electric start, headlight, you
• 10:35
  know, and keep everything the same so I can buy one set of parts and keep these
• 10:39
  things running, because, you know, we're running them in the Mexican desert, and
• 10:42
  this place isn't nice to anything, so, and yeah, we had basically a small rental
• 10:48
  business down here, Um, I brought them down in January, right before COVID, set
• 10:54
  them all up, COVID hit, and that was that.
• 10:58
  Here I sit on a bunch of WR450s.
• 11:00
  Uh, I'm down to two.
• 11:03
  I, I've got, I've, I've offed them all, and I'm down to, uh, two WR450s,
• 11:07
  and they, uh, I still have my XR650R Honda Supermoto, which is Really
• 11:14
  fun That's my favorite bike of late.
• 11:16
  Oh, and I brought the Harley the shovelhead down the old suicide ship
• 11:19
  bike down, too So, um mark GAMI has been hope has been harboring some You know,
• 11:26
  I wouldn't say off road fantasies more sort of soft road Desert riding fantasy.
• 11:33
  Um, so talk to me about the riding conditions.
• 11:39
  What would it look like?
• 11:40
  What would, uh, if, if we're, if we're with you now in Togo and
• 11:44
  we're like, we're eager to be able to ride, you know, we're hydrated.
• 11:48
  You know, we've, we, uh, you know, firstly, how good, I mean, I'm a
• 11:52
  shitty rider, as you know, like, am I, am I just going to fall off?
• 11:56
  Am I actually going to, is this an experience I'm going to be able to enjoy?
• 12:01
  Well, Summers, if I could judge the future from the past and you want a dirt
• 12:05
  bike with gravel, I can almost guarantee you, you're going to grab a handful of
• 12:10
  front brake at least once and dump it.
• 12:14
  And I'll tell you, I teach a lot of guys how to ride down here.
• 12:18
  And coming from where you and I came from, whether you rode dirt or not, Northern
• 12:23
  California, California in general, we're generally used to riding single track,
• 12:27
  mountainous, tight, hilly, up, down.
• 12:30
  It's a very different environment to be on this very loose,
• 12:33
  decomposed granite, riverbed, sand, beach, gravel road down here.
• 12:37
  You don't touch the front brake, you don't steer with the front
• 12:40
  end, you do everything off the back wheel, and I mean everything.
• 12:44
  So, You learn real fast if you don't, you know?
• 12:49
  So when I had my, when I had, when I had my rental bikes, I would get these kids
• 12:53
  from LA down here that had, you know, two years on a motorcycle on the street.
• 12:57
  And, uh, I would, I would tell them, don't touch the front fucking brake, dude.
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  Don't touch it.
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  Forget it's there.
• 13:07
  I'll take the lever off if I have to don't touch it.
• 13:10
  And inevitably I'd say at least 60 percent of them within five miles would
• 13:15
  You know, come into a gravel turn, touch the brake and down they went, you
• 13:19
  know, and luckily they're low sides.
• 13:21
  It wouldn't hurt anybody real bad.
• 13:22
  Nobody was, you know, it scared the shit out of them.
• 13:25
  Maybe they went into a cactus or into a barbed wire fence, but didn't kill
• 13:29
  anybody, you know, so, but yeah, that, that, once you get used to that, once
• 13:36
  you get used to that summers, that it's just a different style of writing.
• 13:43
  The other thing to remember is, At our respective ages, at 54, I'm not trying to
• 13:49
  do breakneck speeds through the desert.
• 13:51
  I'm trying to have some fun, end up at the beach at the taco shack, have a
• 13:55
  beer, you know, kick back for a minute, and just enjoy the day, you know.
• 14:00
  I mean, we have 8, 000 foot peaks right here within 50, well, within 30 miles.
• 14:07
  So I can ride from the beach to an 8, 000 foot Southern Sierra Nevada peak and back.
• 14:13
  So I can get every kind of terrain you can imagine.
• 14:16
  For whoever wants to come ride and play.
• 14:18
  You know, we we're really blessed with the terrain down here.
• 14:23
  Uh, my thought was gonna be, I, I really would need to unlearn the
• 14:28
  whole, I only use the front brake.
• 14:31
  I mean, not, not for nothing.
• 14:33
  I mostly my bikes, it's hard for me to get my foot over the rear brake
• 14:37
  to cover it properly any, anyway.
• 14:39
  So I, I, I, they would be . Um, yeah, I would really need to discipline myself.
• 14:46
  Um, with, with that, that's interesting.
• 14:50
  Yeah, you're, you're, it's just, it just takes it.
• 14:52
  Luckily here, everything's pretty soft here.
• 14:54
  You know, if you, if you dump it in a river bed, it's, it's
• 14:56
  eight inches deep of decomposed.
• 14:58
  Granted, it doesn't, if you dump it on the beach, it doesn't hurt you real bad.
• 15:01
  You know, you're not going to break anything real bad.
• 15:03
  It's going to, it's going to scare you a little bit and teach
• 15:05
  you a very valuable lesson.
• 15:07
  I'll tell you, Gammy, I'm more into having you guys come down.
• 15:10
  I'll pick you up at the border in these two, uh, road, road
• 15:12
  race Mustangs we both own.
• 15:14
  And, uh, let's run this thousand miles.
• 15:17
  It's.
• 15:18
  unbelievably beautiful, perfect coast to coast, two lane twisty,
• 15:23
  not a cop on it, no rules, no laws, no speed limits, no one cares.
• 15:30
  Have fun.
• 15:32
  Yeah, no, I mean, I'm bang up for that man.
• 15:33
  I mean, my, in terms of training for the bikes, um, I did the BMW off road skills
• 15:37
  course a few years ago and only badly injured myself at the end of day one.
• 15:41
  Um, so that that's a good omen.
• 15:43
  And, uh, I'm CRF two 50 rally probably just to Get um, do some green laning
• 15:49
  around here just to get used to it and um, Get my eye in with it again because
• 15:53
  yeah, you forget all the stuff Um, so but if I do a bit of winter riding
• 15:58
  and late summer riding and then i'll be up for it Probably by next year.
• 16:03
  Yeah me that that's a great bike to actually it's good You trained at bmw
• 16:07
  on those big heavy bikes because you go jump on a nice properly prepped
• 16:11
  250 Dude, it's it's it's like riding a really well prepped mountain bike.
• 16:16
  They're light.
• 16:17
  They're quick.
• 16:17
  They handle well They do everything.
• 16:19
  Well, the brakes work, you know those big bikes You don't ride those big
• 16:22
  bikes down here on the slippery gravelly shit, dude You end up you end up
• 16:25
  trying to pick them up half the time.
• 16:27
  I'm a heavy buggers.
• 16:29
  Oh God, they're they're they're terrible.
• 16:32
  You know, they're they're just they they serve a purpose You know, like when we did
• 16:36
  the ride through Chile and Argentina with those guys we had 12 different bikes You
• 16:42
  know, I was riding an XR650R Supermoto.
• 16:44
  No, no regular wheels on that one.
• 16:47
  Frank had a KTM 625 SMC Supermoto.
• 16:50
  Everyone else was on a KTM 950 Adventurer or a BMW 1100, 1200
• 16:56
  GS's, you know, all big bikes.
• 16:59
  And you guys understand, one, there's not one tool for every job.
• 17:04
  So the tight twisty stuff, the mountain stuff, the single
• 17:07
  tracks, we were having a ball.
• 17:09
  You know, the big open gravel, fast Argentine roads that run
• 17:13
  along the backside of the Andes for, you know, thousands of miles.
• 17:17
  Those guys on those 1200s had a cocktail, a cigar, and cruise control
• 17:21
  with heated grips just giggling at us, freezing our asses off.
• 17:25
  Miserable.
• 17:27
  You know?
• 17:29
  That's one thing old Garcia always says about BMWs is when you've ridden a bike
• 17:34
  with heated grips, you never want to go back to a bike without heated grips.
• 17:40
  I've never had a car with heated seats, so I wouldn't know.
• 17:42
  Yeah, I've never wanted a car with heated seats until I bought
• 17:45
  an Outback with heated seats.
• 17:46
  And I'm like, how did I live with these, without these?
• 17:48
  What's wrong with me?
• 17:49
  Yeah.
• 17:51
  Yeah, no, I, I love the, the, the heated seats.
• 17:55
  Ollie is campaigning for us to get a car that has hot stone massage.
• 18:00
  And I'm like, dude, like, because I made a mistake of saying to
• 18:05
  him of differentiating an E63.
• 18:07
  And in S65 by saying that the S65 had hot stone massage as
• 18:13
  well as like the Viterbo V12.
• 18:15
  He didn't care about the Viterbo V12.
• 18:17
  He was just interested in the uh, in the hot stone massage.
• 18:22
  I'm going to change direction completely at the moment, Mark, and pick up
• 18:25
  on something you said um, ages ago.
• 18:28
  I said Mark then, neither of you know who I'm talking to really, do you?
• 18:33
  NASCAR.
• 18:34
  You said you've been enjoying NASCAR.
• 18:37
  I nearly fell off my seat and then I thought, I'll save it for the pod.
• 18:41
  You said, and we have been discussing contemporary NASCAR, or at least
• 18:47
  in terms of this fellow Ross Chastain and the wall running.
• 18:51
  And in the recent Uh, you know, like in a computer game where you just put the
• 18:54
  car against the barricade against the wall, took your hand off the steering
• 18:58
  wheel, Jesus take the wheel, held the throttle flat, and he like crashed his
• 19:03
  way into like the chase or the playoff or whatever it is they call it now.
• 19:08
  So, so Old Dale Jr.
• 19:10
  Then there was this race a couple of weekends ago where
• 19:13
  he punched Noah Gragson.
• 19:15
  Afterwards, which is a good name.
• 19:16
  Noah Gragson.
• 19:17
  It's like a character, a name in a, in a fantasy novel, isn't it?
• 19:21
  But either way, Gragson was the victim of this punch and, and I
• 19:25
  don't know the ins and outs of it.
• 19:27
  I've not watched the film of it, but I did know that Dale Jr.
• 19:32
  On his podcast said that he felt that there was a marketing opportunity
• 19:37
  here, but just like his father had grown into the intimidator.
• 19:42
  As a personality, Ross Chastain had the chance to grow into a personality.
• 19:48
  So here and now, Mark and Mark, what should Ross
• 19:53
  Chastain's nickname persona be?
• 19:59
  Punchy.
• 20:03
  Do you like him or is he, do you think he's too much?
• 20:06
  You know what's funny, John?
• 20:09
  You talk about personalities in racing now.
• 20:12
  It used to be, especially in NASCAR, The personalities were just there.
• 20:19
  These men were giant personalities.
• 20:20
  That's why they did what they did.
• 20:23
  They were moonshine runners.
• 20:24
  They were mechanics.
• 20:25
  They were poor, lower class, just forgotten about people that had
• 20:28
  nothing better to do than run cheap shit cars fast on back country roads.
• 20:33
  So those were the personalities.
• 20:35
  And now it's funny.
• 20:36
  We speak of essentially manufacturing a personality from these generally wealthy.
• 20:44
  You know, entitled, not entitled, wealthy privileged kids that get to go race now.
• 20:48
  This is no longer a poor man's sport, you know, so It's, it's odd to me
• 20:52
  that we're talking about building a personality around someone that
• 20:55
  really doesn't have one other than the fact that he likes to fucking punch
• 20:58
  people off the track or into the wall.
• 21:00
  You know?
• 21:02
  Um, you know, like I think back to, you know, my dad when he was young, like I've
• 21:07
  been watching IndyCar as well, you know, Indy 500's 28th, um, practice days in
• 21:12
  the last couple of days, you know, these guys are out here running 229 miles an
• 21:16
  hour, you know, around that oval and, you know, I remember my dad worked for,
• 21:22
  worked for, um, AJ Foyt when he was young, they used to go out to Indy every
• 21:26
  year in the 50s and early 60s and, uh, It's fun to watch those guys as well
• 21:33
  now because I haven't watched indie for years because they they fucking ruined
• 21:37
  it You know, and it's, I just want to say for an European perspective on Indy,
• 21:43
  David Hobbs says about the Indy circuit.
• 21:47
  It's not an oval.
• 21:49
  It's basically, the way you want to think about it as a European
• 21:53
  is, it's like four corners at Spa.
• 21:56
  joined up.
• 21:57
  Yeah, they're all left handed, but each of them has its own personality.
• 22:01
  It's not that banked and it's goddamn fast, but you're gonna have to slow down.
• 22:07
  That is the well, you get guys like you get guys like Grosjean
• 22:12
  coming out of F one that think I'm gonna go kick everybody's ass.
• 22:15
  I think he or I think he's practice time yesterday was
• 22:19
  somewhere 27th or 28th out of 34.
• 22:24
  It's like, yeah dude, shit changes real fast at 230 miles
• 22:28
  an hour non stop in traffic.
• 22:30
  We're just not for nothing.
• 22:31
  And that wall comes at you real quick.
• 22:34
  It's not for nothing.
• 22:34
  Let the record show that I particularly do not rate Grosjean.
• 22:40
  I don't know what you think, Cammy.
• 22:42
  I don't want to slay anybody who can get to Formula One, but I personally
• 22:47
  thought Grosjean, like, the records show that Grosjean, for me, sits with Jarno
• 22:52
  Tulli and Andrea De Cesaris right in the bottom echelon of Formula One drivers.
• 22:58
  That's probably fair.
• 23:00
  He's quick, but like, and he would qualify quite quickly on occasion.
• 23:04
  But there would always be a fuck up.
• 23:05
  There would always be something that fucked up.
• 23:09
  Agree, Gammy.
• 23:10
  Exactly.
• 23:10
  You know, he couldn't, you have, the problem is now I think in
• 23:13
  racing and I have kind of a problem with this across the board.
• 23:16
  It's become so tight and so close and there's so much money involved
• 23:20
  that there's just no room for anybody that's not absolutely fucking world
• 23:26
  class with all the support they have and all the money in the world.
• 23:30
  It's very difficult.
• 23:31
  For a grassroots person to come up in any racing series, I don't give a shit what it
• 23:37
  is, you know, and that, that, that, that bugs me, you know, and it's, and guys like
• 23:42
  him can go from F1 to anything they want.
• 23:45
  Well, Magnuson, for example, the Haas, Danish Haas guy, you know, he
• 23:48
  went running, running LMP cars and kicked ass, you know, and I think
• 23:55
  a guy like him, because he's with Haas, he's on a handicapped team,
• 23:58
  essentially, what are you going to do unless you really get lucky?
• 24:02
  You know, you're gonna, you're gonna bring up people like Schumacher, you're
• 24:05
  gonna have, you know, um, you know, Niko Hulkenberg come back, which I love
• 24:09
  him, I'd love to see that, but if you can't field a decent car or something
• 24:15
  close, I mean, oh, sorry, I'm, I'm a hundredth of a second off, loser.
• 24:19
  Yeah, F1 drivers does, F1 circuit does have a habit of making really quite
• 24:24
  quick guys look shit by, by dint of the fact that they've got a crap car
• 24:28
  and therefore they're running into teams and, you know, It always did.
• 24:34
  I mean, we mentioned David Hobbs.
• 24:36
  He was somebody who looked at Formula One and was like, this
• 24:38
  is just not the environment.
• 24:41
  But for me, I want to make a living as a racing driver.
• 24:44
  Not, you know, die or fail in short order.
• 24:53
  When you're next over, like, let me know and we'll go to the, um,
• 24:56
  the Goodwood members meeting, mate, because you'd love it.
• 24:59
  Oh, I, I, dude, good, going to Goodwood would be my, it's like my life's dream.
• 25:02
  If I can get tickets, like, come on over, yeah?
• 25:06
  But the difference is though, Gammy, I want to ship my
• 25:09
  Mustang over and do it in that.
• 25:10
  That would be cool.
• 25:15
  Is it all back and sorted again now?
• 25:19
  Is the car all back and fixed because half of that chat slid into it?
• 25:23
  Yeah, no, no, it's, it's, uh, it's, it's perfect again and it's shoved
• 25:27
  in a shipping container along with my 51 Ford F1 pickup, Scott's truck.
• 25:31
  They're just sitting in a shipping container and in the LA desert, just.
• 25:35
  Waiting to get here.
• 25:37
  So, you know.
• 25:40
  But yeah, I'm trying.
• 25:41
  That's my logistics right now, Gamby.
• 25:43
  I'm trying to get my Cobra track car, the old Mustang, my F1 pickup, and I've got
• 25:49
  a couple early 60s, uh, I've got a 63.
• 25:52
  5 Mercury Meteor, or um, excuse me, 63.
• 25:55
  5 Mercury Comet Wagon, and then I've got a 72 Comet.
• 25:59
  Um, and then John and I have been working on, uh, the background of
• 26:04
  putting his, uh, 63 and a half Meteor, um, building it into our drag car.
• 26:08
  I've got the 428 Cobra Jet out of the 66 T Bird.
• 26:11
  Him and I have been communicating about a Big Block, Big Block Toploader 4 speed.
• 26:15
  We've got the narrow 9 inch for it.
• 26:17
  I've got the Thunderbird seats, uh, or the Mustang seats for it.
• 26:21
  So, we're kind of roughed in, you know, of, of building that
• 26:25
  thing, and I want to do that car.
• 26:26
  That's kind of my priority, honestly.
• 26:28
  That and my truck.
• 26:29
  He's doing like, cool, because he keeps pussying out about when I, when I try and
• 26:32
  close him into when it's gonna be ready.
• 26:34
  He's like, meh, meh, meh, meh, I don't know, like, don't hold me to a date.
• 26:37
  He's got a wife and kid, dude, I understand.
• 26:41
  Yeah, but it's still, it's still pussy ass.
• 26:43
  I've got fifteen dogs looking at me that I can just tell to shut the fuck up.
• 26:51
  I, I'm really I'm really in a place where at the beginning of the
• 26:55
  year, I was like, what do I want?
• 26:57
  If the slate was blank, if I had like as much money as I, what would I want?
• 27:03
  And the thing I most want is my own cars.
• 27:08
  And by working, I'm, I'm, that's, that's why I am possessed and
• 27:14
  I've stopped trying to prioritize and do this one and that one.
• 27:17
  I'm now, I've looked at, I just have a list and I just go down the list and knock
• 27:21
  things off and I try and do it every day.
• 27:23
  And I'm at the point where, you know, if, if I, I'm, I'm going to.
• 27:28
  I'm not going to turn the screen because I'll f k it up, but right
• 27:30
  next to me here is this goddamn gixxer that I've had for a year now, and I've
• 27:36
  not ridden it because it was a drag bike, so it only has brake rotors on
• 27:39
  the front, and the rotors are loose.
• 27:42
  And I said to my tutor at City College, like, should I replace them?
• 27:46
  And he went, yeah, I would.
• 27:48
  Like, the last thing you want is them failing, especially if it doesn't happen.
• 27:51
  So I'm like, you know what?
• 27:52
  I've not, I've just like, I said to myself, I do that.
• 27:55
  The last time Garcia was over, he was like, you could just write it like that.
• 27:57
  I mean, you don't write it very hard.
• 28:00
  You know, if you just, you know, if you're just like first or second gear
• 28:04
  around here, you could do that for it.
• 28:06
  And I'm like, why don't I just do that?
• 28:07
  I need to, there's a level of urgency that I'm looking to, to
• 28:12
  build into, uh, what I'm doing.
• 28:14
  Those, those floating rotors are supposed to do that, Summers.
• 28:18
  It's fine.
• 28:18
  You never nose wheelie that thing anyway.
• 28:20
  I, well, exactly.
• 28:22
  Right.
• 28:22
  Exactly.
• 28:24
  Um, well, to drive your point though, home summers, you and I have talked a
• 28:28
  lot about this in the last couple of years, we've both sort of motivated
• 28:31
  each other to narrow our focus a bit, you know, cause I'm similar to you.
• 28:35
  If I come across a 600, you know, that comet wagon, it's all there.
• 28:40
  It's a beautiful 63 and a half comet wagon, white, red and white interior.
• 28:44
  It was 600 bucks.
• 28:45
  How do I not buy it?
• 28:46
  And that's the thing.
• 28:47
  Through the pandemic, those things have all risen in value, and I don't think
• 28:52
  they're going to repeat afterwards.
• 28:54
  They've all risen significantly in value.
• 28:58
  Well, you're, let's use your Bonneville for example, or excuse
• 29:01
  me, your Grand Prix, for example.
• 29:03
  I mean, you know, you, you couldn't really even barely justify paying, what,
• 29:07
  3, 300 for that car back in the day.
• 29:09
  And I'm like, you're fucking stupid.
• 29:10
  Buy that thing.
• 29:11
  Buy it now.
• 29:12
  Just hang out for a minute.
• 29:13
  It'll be fine.
• 29:14
  You know?
• 29:15
  What, what's that thing worth today and you haven't done shit to it other than
• 29:18
  drive it But here's, here's the thing with, with, with that car particularly,
• 29:22
  uh, 1963 Grand Prix that I have.
• 29:25
  That car particularly, right, it, it's the, you don't see, at least not at shows
• 29:32
  or in the, on the places that I look.
• 29:36
  You just don't see cars like that one.
• 29:38
  Because that one had sat for 20 years before we got it and it
• 29:42
  had just been taken off the road.
• 29:44
  So it's a original car that hasn't had pain and hasn't been restored.
• 29:50
  and hasn't been customized, that's unusual now.
• 29:54
  So use the other 63 Grand Prix's, but they're basket cases, or
• 29:58
  they're cars that have been done.
• 30:00
  There's not that many that are in this middle of the road kind of, of state.
• 30:05
  And, and that, I don't know, that, that to me makes it, it, it, you know, because
• 30:11
  Ollie's not into it, not least because it's sat in the corner of the garage here.
• 30:15
  For like decades not taking up, you know, so he's like he's like do the Camaro.
• 30:20
  You should do the Camaro I've just got too many cars.
• 30:23
  That's literally the the thing is that I need I like kind of where we're at
• 30:31
  though and you know being in mexico has somewhat made me thin my herd
• 30:35
  and I I've got those toyota chinooks.
• 30:37
  I sold one of those I got off the other one, you know I made good money on 'em.
• 30:41
  I'm fine with it.
• 30:42
  You know, hold on here.
• 30:43
  I was looking at a video where people, British people were getting
• 30:48
  all excitable about Chinooks.
• 30:51
  I, I dunno, I think there may be a market for them, um, certain in Europe for
• 30:56
  like campus because people, you know, you might have been ahead of the curve
• 31:00
  with that when you were buying those.
• 31:02
  I was like, why the fuck are you buying these?
• 31:04
  No, I, well, there are early Toyota trucks, just the doors and cabs are
• 31:10
  worth a small fortune, you know, um, and again, I'll kind of go back to my
• 31:16
  point of like, like the comments, the meteor, dude, they were 500 bucks.
• 31:22
  I got a storage yard.
• 31:23
  . Yeah.
• 31:24
  Like I off the last one for 2,500.
• 31:27
  So I, so I spent 200 bucks storing it and made two grand on it.
• 31:30
  Big.
• 31:30
  That, that I, that's fine.
• 31:31
  I can do that.
• 31:32
  You know.
• 31:33
  Um, but I think you and I are on the right path.
• 31:35
  Summers where we're prioritizing a bit better, what works and gave me to kind of
• 31:41
  bring you into the conversation as well.
• 31:42
  I've been telling Summers the Arrive and Drive program that we all talked
• 31:46
  about, and you being a team principal Summers, I like all that, but the
• 31:48
  reality of that isn't really reality.
• 31:52
  It's a better reality to me and a more grassroots enjoyable thing is You've
• 31:57
  got a Mustang track car caged safe.
• 32:00
  I've got one caged and safe.
• 32:02
  We've got the drag car, the, the gasser that we're going to build.
• 32:07
  I've got a couple other things to create somewhat of a little
• 32:11
  kind of arrive and drive thing, but in a different sense, like.
• 32:14
  Hey, Gammy, Denz, jump on a plane.
• 32:16
  I'll meet you in San Diego.
• 32:18
  We'll have both the cars ready.
• 32:19
  We're going to go to Tijuana for dinner, have a, have a cocktail and, um, we're
• 32:24
  going to jump on the road and make it to a San Felipe tonight, you know, which,
• 32:28
  which route you want to take, who who's driving first, like just you're basically
• 32:34
  on a thousand mile track through some of those beautiful terrain in the world.
• 32:38
  You know?
• 32:38
  Oh, and at the end of it, there's a bunch of WR450s sitting that we can go play on.
• 32:43
  So, to kind of do a, to kind of do a, you know, a grassroots, something
• 32:49
  different, arrive and drive gearhead trip through Mexico, you know, LA and Mexico,
• 32:53
  because I know Europeans, everybody wants to play in LA and see the sights
• 32:57
  and do their thing and go to San Diego.
• 32:59
  I get all that, you know, but for me You know, the happy places.
• 33:02
  The second I get over that border, it's like, woohoo, here we go.
• 33:06
  You know, I can see the appeal, man.
• 33:09
  Definitely.
• 33:10
  Well, and it's just, it's obtained.
• 33:12
  It's attainable gammy.
• 33:13
  It's not.
• 33:14
  You know, it's normal gas prices.
• 33:15
  I'm not buying race fuel.
• 33:16
  There's no trailers involved.
• 33:18
  I mean we could run a chase I can bring the the the short bus with a car
• 33:22
  trailer behind it We have a place to stay extra parts fuel water somewhere to
• 33:26
  lay down when john doesn't eat And he's fucking he's gonna pass out, you know
• 33:34
  It's like you've met him before bro I told Dana years ago, he's a fucking,
• 33:40
  she was bitching at me because he fucking almost passed out one day
• 33:43
  and I said, Hey Dana, he's an adult.
• 33:45
  If he doesn't eat that shit's not on me.
• 33:46
  And I'm not his wife.
• 33:47
  Fucker needs to eat.
• 33:51
  It's a fat boy.
• 33:52
  He also needs to learn how to roll a joint that'll stay lit.
• 33:58
  I gave up on that one, but I loved that one.
• 34:01
  Me too.
• 34:01
  And dumping my XRs.
• 34:03
  He's dumped all of them.
• 34:05
  I, I, I That's why we love you, Summers.
• 34:09
  That's why we love you.
• 34:10
  I, uh, I, as I was preparing my little talk track here, I, uh, I thought
• 34:16
  of, of standout memory, um, of this.
• 34:20
  And, and my actual quad into the electric fence is one of my favorites.
• 34:27
  Yeah.
• 34:28
  Yeah.
• 34:28
  The, the, the, the quad that didn't launch straight and, and got me
• 34:31
  tangled in the, uh, the electric fence.
• 34:34
  Yeah.
• 34:35
  Yeah.
• 34:37
  And then the whole bike became electrified and you were grabbing the.
• 34:41
  Pull bar to pull it out and get shocked every time.
• 34:48
  Yeah, that was a long time ago now, but that was a funny, uh, a funny thing.
• 34:52
  I never realized that electric fence was pulsed like that before.
• 34:57
  I'd never actually been, I, I, I mean, I was shocked enough that
• 35:01
  day to, for the rest of my life, but I'd never been shocked by an
• 35:04
  electric fence prior to that day.
• 35:08
  So I'm going to change the subject.
• 35:12
  I visited.
• 35:15
  I was invited as a, as a journalist.
• 35:18
  So perhaps it's my duty as, you know, since I was invited on this PR day as a
• 35:23
  journalist, I felt in this public forum, it was my duty to talk about the fact
• 35:28
  that I was invited to the opening of ZF.
• 35:33
  As in ZF transmissions as in the people who built the transaxle for
• 35:38
  the four G4 and built transmission.
• 35:42
  The transmission in my Ford F two 50.
• 35:44
  My favorite shifting transmission on earth, aside from my top loader, four
• 35:49
  speed in the Mustang, John, I've got 375,000 miles in that transmission.
• 35:54
  It's never been apart.
• 35:55
  It's never had a clutch in it.
• 35:56
  And you know, I'm not nice to, yeah.
• 35:58
  I don't know how.
• 35:58
  Yeah, well let that underscore what I said to the, to the ZF people was
• 36:04
  that was exactly, was exactly that.
• 36:07
  But what emerged.
• 36:10
  was, was a different picture.
• 36:12
  You see, I was billed, what was billed?
• 36:14
  It was billed as the launch of their fly by wire steering.
• 36:21
  Interesting.
• 36:22
  Now, now, that means more than when I turn the steering wheel, there's no direct.
• 36:30
  The whole, like, disappearance of the steering column means we can engineer
• 36:35
  the car in a completely different way.
• 36:38
  And, and the videos that they had, because, because the thing of it,
• 36:44
  we don't need, there's no physical connection now needed between the wheels.
• 36:48
  So not only can the wheels swivel far more than a mechanical steering
• 36:52
  rack would allow them, allowing crazy parallel parking and things like
• 36:56
  that, but, but also inside the cabin.
• 37:00
  The video they had showed the steering wheel folding itself up and sinking
• 37:05
  into the dashboard as the car takes, you know, as you're on the freeway
• 37:10
  and the car's driving itself.
• 37:12
  So that was, was how they positioned it up.
• 37:15
  There was a simulation, which I didn't do because I, the Wall Street journalist
• 37:20
  girl did it and I was good next to her and she was like, Oh, I feel sick.
• 37:23
  And I was like, That is everything I need to know about that simulation.
• 37:28
  Like, thank you.
• 37:29
  I've always felt that the Wall Street Journal was accurate and direct and
• 37:33
  you've just, uh, just helped me with that.
• 37:35
  But then there was a panel, right?
• 37:37
  And the panel was really interesting.
• 37:39
  It was the first question the moderator asked was about getting staff and
• 37:45
  hiring staff and how the fact that, so it was clearly no coincidence
• 37:50
  that this electronic product was at the same time as this office
• 37:55
  was being opened in Silicon Valley.
• 37:59
  And the long and short is that the way in which ZF are going to scale within
• 38:08
  the space is based upon how, whether or not they can get the right staff,
• 38:13
  because literally they used to make gears.
• 38:18
  Like cogs, and now they're simply not anymore.
• 38:24
  Now it and what was interesting to me was I talked the guy I talked
• 38:29
  most extensively with was a German business guy and he said he'd come
• 38:33
  from it was some three letter acronym.
• 38:36
  I can't remember the name of it, but they were a software house, basically,
• 38:40
  and ZF bought that software house.
• 38:43
  Outright.
• 38:44
  So they bought the software house outright.
• 38:46
  And then the guy that I was talking to, it was like the
• 38:49
  sales director, VP kind of guy.
• 38:52
  He was, uh, the, the guy who they had, uh, put, um, you know, so, so in other
• 39:00
  words, what that said to me was that this company has completely pivoted from
• 39:06
  what they were to, to what they are now.
• 39:10
  Your thoughts, Mark Gammy.
• 39:13
  Um, well, I mean, look, I've been driving computer game wheel sims for a while and
• 39:19
  the feel on that has improved immeasurably with force feedback and rumble and all
• 39:24
  that sort of stuff, and they're able to simulate surface changes really well.
• 39:29
  I'm not even playing on one of the two or three grand sort of, um, uh, fantech
• 39:34
  wheels with the full sort of, um, geared motors and stuff, but, um, belt drives
• 39:37
  and stuff, but they are amazing in doing it, so it doesn't hugely surprise me.
• 39:42
  That would be the next thing coming from an engineering standpoint It makes a huge
• 39:45
  amount of sense and you didn't mention security Like it's difficult to make a
• 39:47
  car if there's no steering wheel gone into the gone into the uh, the dashboard
• 39:51
  So there's there's you know, that's that sort of thing is another huge advantage.
• 39:54
  Um, One wonders whether or not it is ultimately going to be a solution for most
• 40:01
  people of the driving experience not least but also, uh feel will inevitably go but
• 40:08
  then on the other end we said that with um non manual racks with electronic steering
• 40:14
  and it's come back and come back and he's better and better and better and better.
• 40:17
  So I don't know, it's inevitable.
• 40:20
  Gammy, what, what do you use for a, for a wheel and a setup?
• 40:23
  Cause I just got into the Gran Turismo this last year and I've got just a,
• 40:26
  um, one of their PlayStation, you know, um, Logitech wheel, I think.
• 40:32
  And I'm quite impressed with how, like you said, the feedback, the, the terrain,
• 40:38
  the way It, it, it's pretty shocking how good it is from, from somebody like
• 40:42
  your and my perspective, I'm surprised.
• 40:43
  And like you said, it's not a 2000 wheel, it's a 300 wheel.
• 40:48
  Yeah.
• 40:48
  So I mean, uh, but my buddy's um, my boss's, um, son like is, um, is a, um,
• 40:54
  journalist for Canadian Hockey Magazine.
• 40:56
  Um, and he also does sim racing.
• 40:58
  Uh, um, it might be his other son.
• 40:59
  I miss misspeak.
• 41:01
  But, um, anyway, he, he bought.
• 41:03
  Uh, a Phantek set of pedals, and a Phantek wheel, and a whole bunch of iRacing,
• 41:09
  um, so he subscribes to it and then goes on there and does all the coursing.
• 41:12
  I think he's like, being like, he's not, I don't think he's in the Premier
• 41:15
  Division, whatever the ranking system is, but he's pretty high up, he's rac
• 41:18
  he's racing races against, like, NASCAR drivers and stuff, so, so, and he reckons
• 41:23
  you can, you're like, you know, for a middling, PC Gamer recommended their
• 41:27
  wheels of 2023 recently, and for about 350 to 500 bucks, you can get a really sexy,
• 41:34
  And then, you know, don't get me wrong.
• 41:35
  That's just the, the, um, the steering wheel.
• 41:37
  And then you'll buy the pedals and you buy the other bit separately, but you
• 41:40
  know, cause the pedals I've got, I've got no resistance in the, in the, um,
• 41:43
  in any of them, so they, there's not, they're not probably sprung, whereas
• 41:47
  the later ones have proper sort of progressive spring resistance in the
• 41:50
  brake pedal and it changes based upon surface and all that sort of stuff.
• 41:54
  So you can really go to the nth degree with it.
• 41:57
  Um, but if you pair that up, especially on a PlayStation five with.
• 42:00
  Their new VR headset, the VR two one for stationary gaming.
• 42:05
  Fucking amazing.
• 42:06
  Um, yeah, I mean, you know, it's funny you say it about the pedals.
• 42:10
  The pedals are my biggest disappointment.
• 42:11
  And I bought the stick shift as well.
• 42:13
  I don't even use it.
• 42:14
  I just use the paddle shifter because the pedals, the clutch and the
• 42:17
  stick shift feel so unnatural that I don't like using them exactly.
• 42:22
  So, and that's, that's, I haven't really been doing much in racing
• 42:25
  for a while, but when I get back into it and I'm trying to get my
• 42:28
  buddy's got grand Turismo seven, and.
• 42:31
  Um, the PS5 and, uh, it's, it's one of those ones I've been hung,
• 42:34
  holding off on VR for a while.
• 42:35
  And if the VR, when the VR 2 headset arrives and I'd see some full reviews
• 42:39
  in it, it looks pretty awesome.
• 42:41
  And for that sort of game, um, you know, me and my mate Steve did a few years ago
• 42:45
  on, I think it was on the, on the previous PlayStation, um, and GT 5, uh, or 6.
• 42:51
  Did the full 24 when you were able to do it.
• 42:54
  Did like three or four hours saved it and then you could come out.
• 42:57
  But then as long as you didn't play any other game in the game, you
• 42:59
  could then go back in and resume it.
• 43:01
  And it was fucking brilliant.
• 43:02
  You know, you were doing like eight laps before the tires are off and
• 43:06
  you've gotta be so fucking careful.
• 43:07
  'cause if you're not, you've gotta go on like ultra hards anyway.
• 43:10
  'cause otherwise you only do about two laps.
• 43:12
  So all that tire management was, was great.
• 43:15
  And he had, he, he had, um, the first like eight hours was in the rain.
• 43:19
  So, um, yeah, so it's so that being able to do that sort of
• 43:23
  simulation is just great fun.
• 43:25
  And I love the idea that potentially.
• 43:27
  On a digital platform, you know, we, for example, if we all have the same
• 43:31
  PlayStation, we could like log in at two or three hours stints and take
• 43:35
  over from each other and race that.
• 43:37
  So, I mean, I, I'd love to do that.
• 43:41
  I'd love, I'd love to race you guys.
• 43:42
  That'd be really fun.
• 43:43
  Or if we can just do races together as well, cause I, we
• 43:46
  finally have Starlink down here.
• 43:47
  So, um, I'll, I'll be back up and running next week.
• 43:50
  And, uh, I actually have, yeah, we, I finally have real wifi down here.
• 43:54
  It's hysterical.
• 43:55
  It's funny to have it here when I can't get it in L.
• 43:57
  A.
• 43:58
  Yeah, but that'd be, that'd be cool.
• 44:00
  And I mean, I know the iRacing stuff has, um, has the ability to do that
• 44:04
  sort of team based event because they, they screen them, but you can watch
• 44:08
  them streaming on YouTube and Twitch.
• 44:11
  You know, I, I'm so enamored by the online thing now because that
• 44:20
  first, I've got a PS4 and that.
• 44:22
  Was so impressive to me when I initially got it, the tracks, like to go run, you
• 44:28
  know, Sears Point or to go run Laguna Seca or go run tracks I've actually run before.
• 44:33
  I can see how it's a legitimate way to train without jumping
• 44:36
  in a car to go do it.
• 44:37
  It's, it's pretty incredible to know where to set up and where
• 44:40
  your braking zones are and where the apex is and to learn all that.
• 44:45
  I really wanted to go jump in my Cobra after that and go,
• 44:47
  okay, does it feel the same?
• 44:49
  Does it help?
• 44:50
  But I know it helps, you know.
• 44:53
  Yeah, for lines and breaking points and all that sort of
• 44:55
  stuff, it's, it's, it's awesome.
• 44:57
  Um, and yeah, it's getting better.
• 45:00
  I mean, I haven't done the latest gen stuff, so I'm a little bit
• 45:03
  out of date on what the simulation stuff, but I did the last one of the,
• 45:06
  um, the VR rally ones on my chums, um, uh, Oculus setup a while back.
• 45:13
  And, you know, apart from a little bit of motion sickness, because you still
• 45:17
  get, which is why I've been waiting, because I want a higher red screen so
• 45:20
  that you lose that, um, but Yeah, exactly.
• 45:24
  And the peripheral vision stuff, I sort of felt a bit like I was
• 45:27
  moving after I'd finished the race.
• 45:28
  But on the other hand, what I will say about it, if you accept that,
• 45:32
  you know, by the time I buy in that technology issue, won't be an issue.
• 45:36
  The actual simulation of the racing was absolutely brilliant.
• 45:38
  The sensation of speed through the trees when you're doing a proper sort of full on
• 45:42
  um, Welsh rally stage kind of thing in VR.
• 45:44
  And they're like five minutes long, it's not a long thing.
• 45:47
  But god damn it, it's fucking intense.
• 45:49
  Because, you know, you're playing it on like no aids, everything off.
• 45:52
  And the guy's barking the goddamn instructions at you.
• 45:54
  It's, it's, it's cool.
• 45:55
  The rally part of it, I've tried.
• 45:56
  It's hard, dude.
• 45:57
  It's no joke, you know, and I know how to drive sideways on dirt.
• 46:00
  I'm real comfortable with shit loose under me.
• 46:02
  You know, John always laughed about that.
• 46:04
  You know, he's like, I've never been comfortable with something loose under me.
• 46:06
  And Mark, you seem like you're not comfortable unless
• 46:08
  your shit's loose under you.
• 46:10
  You know, Summers, what, what, what's the status of your SN95 right now?
• 46:17
  Is that thing kind of ready to go?
• 46:21
  Yeah, with the proviso, the, so, so what I've been trying to do with that
• 46:27
  car is, is it's a, you remember Jason, it's at his place at the moment.
• 46:33
  And we had been shaping to do Wednesday night drags with it.
• 46:38
  Yeah.
• 46:40
  And, and so that's a two stage process, right?
• 46:43
  One is a Wednesday night that he and I are free and, and then the
• 46:48
  week before I have to go and test the car in a meaningful way, right?
• 46:55
  And I know enough now to know that i'm not gonna He and I aren't going to take
• 47:00
  wednesday to drive all the way up to the circuit to find that it you know It
• 47:05
  has some problems straight away So and it's not enough for me to go out in the
• 47:09
  car and just drive it around a little bit You know, you need to go out and do
• 47:14
  some wide open throttle running in it before I'm going to take it to a track.
• 47:19
  So it's like a two day process and one way and another between, you know, I've
• 47:24
  been over there and done the testing and then we've not, we plan to go and
• 47:28
  then didn't and then there's been some.
• 47:31
  You know, I, I guess, uh, what might happen to, to Jason's wife and, and
• 47:38
  that meant the, the, you know, we just, there's, we just failed to do
• 47:43
  anything constructive, but the real shtick with that car is the, the,
• 47:49
  I dare say I could fiddle around with it and make it run better.
• 47:52
  And make more power, but it fundamentally isn't that fast in a straight line
• 47:57
  now and that I need to to sort of fix that and that becomes about about, you
• 48:03
  know, how much power should it have?
• 48:05
  And how much power do I want it to have?
• 48:08
  And that's about, you know, there was a time where I was like, I want to spend 10,
• 48:13
  000 and put a 500 horse Ford Motorsports.
• 48:16
  Small block in it.
• 48:17
  Um, but now I'm like why I'm never going to go.
• 48:21
  I don't want to go out to Bonneville and do 200 miles an hour in it.
• 48:23
  And that was my original thought, but I'm just too old in this
• 48:26
  brain with those high speeds now.
• 48:30
  So, you know, I, I, uh, yeah, so it's, so it's over in, so it's over at,
• 48:35
  uh, um, Jason's place and, you know, and I'm frustrated by my own lack of
• 48:40
  mechanical skill with it if I'm candid, you know, the dipstick keeps falling
• 48:44
  out, we've, between us, we've had three tries to keep the dipstick holder in
• 48:48
  the side of the block and we've, we've failed, you know, and it's just like,
• 48:53
  you know, it's just really, yeah.
• 48:55
  You know, as my wife said the other day, you're a historian, not a mechanic.
• 49:02
  We all have our strong points.
• 49:03
  So I, Hey, you sent me the link to the fast Johnny.
• 49:10
  Um, Harley, tell me what was appealing about that.
• 49:14
  I don't know, dude.
• 49:15
  I, you know, what's funny, man.
• 49:16
  I've been.
• 49:17
  I've been looking at a couple of the bikes Harley, Harley has done
• 49:19
  lately and I'm impressed by them.
• 49:21
  I like where they're going, you know, I, I, I never liked the V Rod, you
• 49:26
  know, that was a Porsche, you know.
• 49:29
  Uh, partnership that I get why they did it, but it just never did a thing for
• 49:34
  me, you know, and let's face it, you go ride one of those things, they're,
• 49:37
  they're not that fun to ride, you know, you know, I mean, I want to, I want
• 49:41
  to, I want, I want to get on my, you know, 20 year old supermoto and go slide
• 49:45
  through shit, you know, it's more fun.
• 49:47
  Um, that being said, though, I've seen some guys down here cause we get a lot
• 49:52
  of adventure guys down here and I've seen a couple of those Harley's set
• 49:54
  up and I was really impressed by them.
• 49:57
  Just the looks alone on that thing, there's something about it
• 50:01
  that just made me go, Ooh, okay, I'll give you a shot, you know?
• 50:06
  And I know they're getting a little better as far as technology goes, and I
• 50:09
  know they're better to ride, you know?
• 50:10
  They're probably not, still not as good as a, you know, Africa Twin or,
• 50:15
  you know, something along those lines.
• 50:17
  It's a little too street y for me down here, to be honest.
• 50:20
  But, I just, there's something intriguing about it, man.
• 50:22
  It's nice to see Harley go down a different path, you know?
• 50:24
  Because if they don't, they're fucked.
• 50:26
  They're done.
• 50:27
  Again, you know, they've been saved by World War One and World War Two.
• 50:31
  And, you know, every doctor in the nineties and attorney that was buying
• 50:35
  them, they saved them, you know, when I worked for them there at Golden
• 50:38
  Gate Harley, and, you know, they need to do something to be relevant
• 50:42
  and to keep up with this thing.
• 50:44
  And I think they are.
• 50:47
  I couldn't believe when I, I was in France over the summer with my
• 50:51
  family and I couldn't believe the way sports bikes are just extinct.
• 50:56
  They're just gone.
• 50:58
  The leader of sport bike just, Oh, on the streets of Paris, no sports
• 51:05
  bikes at all in the Loire Valley.
• 51:07
  No sports bike.
• 51:08
  When we went to the mall for the 24 hour bike race, Oh,
• 51:11
  the fields were full, right?
• 51:13
  Sure.
• 51:13
  Uh, but.
• 51:14
  And, and it's so, so it's not like they've disappeared completely, but
• 51:19
  the people at that event are all, you know, our age, you know, well, I think
• 51:24
  summers, I, I think it's the crowd.
• 51:27
  It's you who has a garage full of old jigsaws weird shit that he doesn't ride.
• 51:34
  But with a couple of bucks, you're going to go buy that Harley or
• 51:37
  an adventure bike or something.
• 51:38
  That's a little more easy to ride and upright and comfortable and
• 51:40
  has saddlebags and that's what you're going to ride to the event.
• 51:44
  That's why that's what you're going to ride through through downtown or whether
• 51:48
  it's london or paris or san francisco You know, that's going to be your daily
• 51:53
  real quick If you got a bunch of 20 plus year old leader bikes sitting in your
• 51:57
  garage Yeah, you know, that's it's called getting older Yeah, no, well i've i've
• 52:05
  i've even found that i've have that.
• 52:07
  Um, I i've uh, i've three that zoomer when it'll run the k5 Cause
• 52:16
  it's just so comfy in comparison and the fueling just works properly.
• 52:20
  And, you know, and the other one I've been riding is the Ducati because
• 52:26
  it really around town, like second and third gear, that's all you need.
• 52:31
  It's just like absolutely lovely around town.
• 52:35
  Oh, it's short shift happy place, dude.
• 52:37
  That's that, that's why I like the XR 650R, the super motors, dude.
• 52:41
  I just love that.
• 52:42
  Short shift, grunt, just, you know, front wheel comes up every time.
• 52:46
  You just roll on it a little bit and it's fun, you know, it's, it's enjoyable.
• 52:50
  I don't want to have to wrap something up to 15,000 RPM, you know, to get
• 52:53
  it, to do what I want it to do.
• 52:55
  You know, that's why I like diesels, , you know, hang a turbo, oted.
• 52:59
  It makes 1100 pounds of torque at 2000.
• 53:02
  Rrp m you know, , um, mark Gammy, you sent me pictures of this, uh, alpine beater.
• 53:13
  The Lancia 037 Restomod.
• 53:18
  So Mark, this is a Group B rally car.
• 53:21
  No, no, no, no, no.
• 53:21
  It's the, it's the, the, the, the Alpine, um, Beta thing is,
• 53:27
  um, a Renault 5 Turbo electric.
• 53:31
  Oh, really?
• 53:32
  It looks just like it looks just like a modernized version of the Renault 5 Turbo,
• 53:37
  but they're making it as a mass market electric hatch as far as I understand it.
• 53:41
  Um, and, um, the, um, I'll let me find a picture of it for you.
• 53:45
  I thought I'd send you a picture of it.
• 53:47
  You know what?
• 53:48
  No, I elided it in my mind with the, because these people have
• 53:52
  done a replica 037, haven't they?
• 53:54
  Like a modernized 037.
• 53:57
  So in my mind, the one was the video.
• 54:01
  rendering like a, uh, uh, of, uh, eighties car.
• 54:06
  Then, you know, I just, I'm not sure what I think of it.
• 54:10
  I'm like, I definitely don't want one.
• 54:14
  You know, it's funny.
• 54:15
  Summer's I I'm, I'm very, as a mechanical guy, I'm very enamored by
• 54:21
  the electric thing, just the amount of horsepower it makes, you know, that
• 54:23
  ridiculous fucking Tesla plaid shit or whatever else you get in problem
• 54:28
  is they're just kind of soulless.
• 54:30
  I don't.
• 54:31
  I do.
• 54:32
  I can't watch.
• 54:32
  Okay.
• 54:33
  We talked about me getting into it.
• 54:35
  I'm into NASCAR a little more now.
• 54:36
  I'm into India a little more now.
• 54:37
  Mind you, I like NASCAR a lot because they fucking crash a lot and drive
• 54:40
  like a bunch of fucking animals.
• 54:42
  I love that.
• 54:43
  That's why I like it.
• 54:44
  That's why I got back into it.
• 54:45
  Everybody likes the car crash summers with the EVs, right?
• 54:51
  These are are soulless.
• 54:53
  And you can tell that, you know, we did for my, uh, yeah.
• 54:57
  For my class just a couple of weeks ago, the, the, one of the guys in
• 55:01
  the class has a Taycan Turbo S.
• 55:05
  So he was bringing his Taycan and the class were going to look at it.
• 55:09
  So I said, did the class want to look at one of my Mustangs as a contrast?
• 55:13
  So my bullet car sat on campus as a comparison talking point
• 55:19
  with this Taycan Turbo S just, uh, just a couple of weeks ago.
• 55:24
  I got a photo of every, of nobody looking at the Taycan and everyone
• 55:28
  looking under the hood of the Mustang.
• 55:30
  I love it.
• 55:33
  Well, the point of this, the point of this LP, the point of
• 55:37
  it is that it's super light.
• 55:38
  It's 220 horsepower and the whole concept, the whole, the whole thing that
• 55:43
  they're going for is uh, steering, feel, excitement and handling perfection.
• 55:49
  Allegedly.
• 55:49
  Actual drivability.
• 55:52
  But moving towards lightweight is a great goal.
• 55:57
  Yeah, and I mean, look, and don't get me wrong, yeah, and a long distance
• 56:01
  hauler, it's gonna have like a couple hundred miles of range, but like, you
• 56:04
  know, if, you know, or maybe a bit more, who knows, but if they're super
• 56:07
  light, then it can have a bit more.
• 56:12
  But California has already said no more diesel trucks after
• 56:19
  2040, because it prompted me.
• 56:23
  It prompted me to want to buy an 18 wheeler, and I thought it was a great
• 56:28
  idea, and sent Gammy this freightliner, and all he could do was talk about
• 56:33
  drivers jerking off in the sleeper.
• 56:35
  And what amused me about it was, I showed that image to my class, and that
• 56:44
  was the first thing they said as well.
• 56:47
  How many hoes are you had in the back of your truck?
• 56:53
  How many notches are on the headboard?
• 56:58
  Yeah.
• 56:59
  Yeah.
• 57:00
  Yeah.
• 57:00
  I was like all excited about the fact that I'd found this freight liner that
• 57:04
  had done two and a half million miles and Gannett was like, yeah, how many like.
• 57:09
  Crackles in the, uh, sleeper.
• 57:11
  Yeah.
• 57:11
  Thanks, Mark.
• 57:16
  That's really, that's funny you say that, John, because I'm actually working
• 57:19
  with my attorney here in town where I'm trying to figure out transportation.
• 57:22
  I need to get these finished cars down here.
• 57:24
  I've got shipping containers full of aircraft parts and tools and machinery and
• 57:28
  stuff I need to get down here to my shop.
• 57:30
  So him and I have been speaking of, uh, I've been looking at a freightliner.
• 57:33
  A buddy's got one.
• 57:34
  It's 12 grand.
• 57:35
  It's got, uh, it's got a measly 700, 000 miles on it.
• 57:40
  A spring chicken.
• 57:42
  Oh, it's not.
• 57:43
  He bought it new, took great care of it.
• 57:44
  So we're looking at, uh, shipping container chassis, and then I'm
• 57:47
  working on logistics to, uh, to basically have that thing running
• 57:51
  back and forth between LA and Cabo.
• 57:54
  Now let's, let's move from the lowest of the low to one of the lowest of
• 58:00
  the low there to pay tribute to, uh, My next little topic on my talk
• 58:09
  track here is, is to pay tribute to somebody, Mark Gammy, who Mark
• 58:16
  Newton and I both met independently.
• 58:20
  Um, and a bloke who wouldn't.
• 58:22
  Really grow himself up at all and that is steve.
• 58:28
  I'm gonna tell you a story about steve Did you know at pebble beach last year?
• 58:35
  There was a ford model a clar on that ford model a clar There was a car which
• 58:42
  i'm no expert on hot rod model a's In the Hot Rod Model A class, there was one car
• 58:49
  which, just reading about the thumbnail on them, it was obvious that that was
• 58:53
  going to be the best car in class.
• 58:56
  Um, Steve Beck prepared that car.
• 59:01
  For pebble beach and I was like, wow, Steve Beck model.
• 59:07
  A Ford I, my other Steve Beck story was we were on the lawn, uh, uh, uh,
• 59:12
  pebble one time do in there, like, let's decide what we're going to talk about.
• 59:16
  Like, does anybody know anything about any of the cars around a kind of thing?
• 59:21
  And Beck was, we talked about this Cobra that was the development
• 59:26
  mule for the big block car.
• 59:30
  And, uh, Steve had a million little things that it had been done and I'd
• 59:36
  never seen him so, um, it was, it was, it was as if like a book had
• 59:41
  opened and all the knowledge just flowed out, you know, he just, uh.
• 59:46
  His happy place, John.
• 59:48
  Yeah.
• 59:49
  Yeah, very much.
• 59:51
  100%.
• 59:52
  He, it's funny.
• 59:53
  I just talked to his front office guy, Tim, the other day about,
• 59:56
  uh, about, um, Bill Thomas, the transmission guy, the top loader guy.
• 1:00:00
  And, uh, I had to call him and get reminded who it was, but he, he said,
• 1:00:05
  Steve's doing that restorations now.
• 1:00:07
  That's his primary thing.
• 1:00:08
  That's all he's doing.
• 1:00:09
  He's got two, two great kids working on the BM BMW side of things and
• 1:00:13
  he's kind of shut the gate and he's doing, he's doing a a 66 GT three 50.
• 1:00:18
  That's an early number car right now that is just gorgeous, gorgeous, gorgeous car.
• 1:00:23
  This guy's had for 30 years, so Darren, so yeah, he's kind of going, the front office
• 1:00:28
  business he has is late model BMW repairs in, it's in Santa Monica, isn't it?
• 1:00:34
  The shop.
• 1:00:36
  Uh, um, Venice technically, but then Venice, well, Culver City, the back of
• 1:00:42
  office is all of this restoration stuff.
• 1:00:44
  And I, I guess I, I hadn't realized just what, uh, uh, died in the Wolf Ford guy.
• 1:00:50
  He was, 'cause I knew about the BMW stuff, so it's, it's really interesting.
• 1:00:54
  Oh, well you walked back in that quantum hut with Herbie Hancock's
• 1:00:58
  original Cobra that he bought when he went platinum on his first album,
• 1:01:02
  he went and bought himself that.
• 1:01:04
  64 early number still got AC badges on it.
• 1:01:08
  I think it's car number six.
• 1:01:10
  Wow.
• 1:01:10
  Sitting in that corner of that shop.
• 1:01:12
  His original Model T's model a's is 30 twos, all from high school shit.
• 1:01:17
  The last time I was there, I think there was three, I
• 1:01:20
  think there was one big block.
• 1:01:21
  Cobra Car number four, Cobra small block, AC car.
• 1:01:25
  Herbie's car, I mean.
• 1:01:28
  The stuff in that back shop is just world class, you know, and it just sits
• 1:01:33
  back there in that forties Quonset hut.
• 1:01:35
  Like nothing special, you know, so yeah, he, he, he is a wealth of
• 1:01:41
  knowledge and a wonderful human.
• 1:01:43
  I love that guy.
• 1:01:44
  He's so helpful and willing to just impart knowledge and educate people.
• 1:01:49
  I just love it.
• 1:01:50
  I'm glad you got summers.
• 1:01:51
  I'm glad you have a relationship with him outside of me in L.
• 1:01:54
  A.
• 1:01:54
  You know, that's really neat.
• 1:01:55
  Yeah, no, I, I do the, the Pebble Beach does continue with him and he's
• 1:01:59
  been on the team for great years.
• 1:02:02
  His partner, she's on the team as well.
• 1:02:05
  And, and, you know, I was, I was going to say the other thing on my little talk
• 1:02:09
  track was he, uh, We did a little like afternoon thing for the docents like
• 1:02:15
  at one of the docents houses and it's a really cool kind of warm up because
• 1:02:19
  like one guy arrived on a vintage Indian and, and you know, another guy's got a
• 1:02:23
  brand new top of the range Genesis and, and the guy whose house we were at.
• 1:02:29
  Um, I mean, he's really interesting.
• 1:02:31
  Actually, his name is Mike Perchetti.
• 1:02:33
  And he does these bikes that he calls Procetti Speciales, but they're basically
• 1:02:39
  like custom built little bikes, the kind of thing that people put around their
• 1:02:44
  house rather than that you actually ride.
• 1:02:46
  Everything is like delicate and, and, and he has a definite aesthetic.
• 1:02:51
  So whether it's a Yamaha or a Honda or a Ducati that he's
• 1:02:55
  done, it has a certain kind of.
• 1:02:59
  Uh, really subtle cool looked for it.
• 1:03:02
  He, he also, um, he was in the 70s and 80s.
• 1:03:07
  He was like back to back historic Formula Ford or Formula V champion
• 1:03:12
  for like years at a time, like five years at a time or something like that.
• 1:03:16
  Like when I was in his study, I was blown away by what a successful guy he was.
• 1:03:21
  So we were at his house and old Steve Beck turns up in a.
• 1:03:25
  Lotus Super 7 with the same engine as my dad's Morgan.
• 1:03:29
  My dad's Morgan had the Cortina 1500 motor like GT on it.
• 1:03:34
  So it's that and it's that on the carbs and he's he's towed it up and
• 1:03:39
  he's using that for Pebble Weekend.
• 1:03:42
  And I thought Steve Beck, you absolute legend.
• 1:03:46
  Um, I mean, the bottom line is he's still just an OG mechanic, you know, he's, he's.
• 1:03:53
  He's a mechanic, period.
• 1:03:54
  That's what he does.
• 1:03:55
  That's what he knows.
• 1:03:56
  I mean, he's a pretty damn special one, but he'll be the first to tell you.
• 1:03:59
  I'm just a mechanic, dude.
• 1:04:01
  That's it.
• 1:04:01
  , you know?
• 1:04:02
  Yeah.
• 1:04:03
  So, yeah.
• 1:04:03
  Well, that is the truth.
• 1:04:09
  Mark Newton a topic.
• 1:04:14
  This is, this is like what they used to say when you were a historian.
• 1:04:17
  You'd, you'd, they give you a topic and then they just ask you to discuss it.
• 1:04:21
  Here's the topic heading.
• 1:04:23
  Tundras I have known.
• 1:04:26
  I can't believe you have not owned one yet.
• 1:04:31
  Seriously.
• 1:04:31
  As much as you and I had fun in that truck and how much you loved it going
• 1:04:35
  to Bonneville and playing around out there where the where the atomic bomb
• 1:04:38
  left and those back roads, man, I It's I just sold my other one down here.
• 1:04:45
  That's that's the white two wheel drive That you just sold now four
• 1:04:52
  wheel drive king suspension limited slip diffs Like oh that that one that
• 1:04:57
  had the american racing wheels on it Yeah, you know what's funny, Summers?
• 1:05:02
  That is the identical truck to the green one I bought and knew that you and I
• 1:05:06
  were in at Bonneville so many years ago.
• 1:05:07
  It's an 03 SR5, you know, extended cab, four wheel drive.
• 1:05:15
  And, um, I just sold that thing with, I think, 265, 000 very hard miles on it.
• 1:05:24
  Wow.
• 1:05:24
  And, um, but you know, I mean, you know what's funny, John?
• 1:05:28
  I paid, I think I paid nine grand for that thing, dude.
• 1:05:32
  I drove it for over 140, 000 miles over, shit, seven, eight years,
• 1:05:39
  and I just got 7, 700 bucks for it.
• 1:05:42
  Wow.
• 1:05:44
  I mean, how do you, how do you go wrong?
• 1:05:46
  You know, other than they're underbraked, they don't really haul
• 1:05:49
  anything, but my God, they're capable, you know, and I, and I love them.
• 1:05:56
  And the motors are bulletproof.
• 1:05:57
  The transmissions are bulletproof.
• 1:05:58
  They're not a head gasket blower, like all the V6 Toyotas, you know, and
• 1:06:03
  it gets the same mileage as the four cylinder, the V6 plus that V8 dude.
• 1:06:07
  I mean, that's the Lexus V8.
• 1:06:10
  You know, they, they, they, you know, when I worked for Toyota summers, that's
• 1:06:15
  when the Lexus and Toyota ski boats came out, that's when they came up with that
• 1:06:19
  four liter Lexus motor that they put in all the ski boats, the Lexuses, the
• 1:06:23
  pickups, you know, they use that motor for all kinds of stuff and, you know,
• 1:06:30
  they're just, they're just bulletproof.
• 1:06:32
  I can't believe what I can do to those things.
• 1:06:35
  I can't believe it.
• 1:06:37
  You know, I think you are that white two wheel drive one in in L.
• 1:06:42
  A.
• 1:06:42
  about 10 years ago and in the way.
• 1:06:46
  Mark Gami, this would be on these wide LA streets when it rained.
• 1:06:51
  Mark would get the tail out, and then we'd just hold the tail out.
• 1:06:55
  This is in a column shift pickup truck.
• 1:06:59
  So on an on ramp, you just get the tail out on the on ramp, and then go all the
• 1:07:03
  way down the on ramp with it sideways.
• 1:07:06
  Or if you, like, hoofed it, you could get it so it was like a rally car,
• 1:07:09
  where it'd fishtail all the way down.
• 1:07:11
  There's no weight.
• 1:07:13
  in, in the back of them, they're, they're really, um, quite a,
• 1:07:17
  really a remarkable thing.
• 1:07:19
  A little moisture and a limited slip or a posi rear end in those
• 1:07:23
  things makes them real lively.
• 1:07:26
  What was the one you picked us up in from Vegas?
• 1:07:29
  I think that, I think that was my green Tundra, that early Tundra,
• 1:07:33
  I think that was it, yeah, yeah.
• 1:07:35
  And that was, uh, that's funny, Gammy, that's the only, that's the
• 1:07:38
  only vehicle I've ever purchased new.
• 1:07:41
  I bought that thing brand new in Napa, 03 Tundra four wheel drive and, uh, I
• 1:07:47
  kept it for a year and a half and I sold it for damn near what I bought it for
• 1:07:52
  because I couldn't stomach the payments and I never bought anything new again.
• 1:07:55
  Now, excuse me, I bought a new Harley in 96.
• 1:07:58
  That's right.
• 1:08:00
  And that was it.
• 1:08:01
  Everything else is You can't really justify buying those things new go go buy
• 1:08:05
  a six seven eight nine thousand dollar four wheel drive tundra nowadays with
• 1:08:10
  two hundred thousand on it who gives a shit mileage is a well i think that's an
• 1:08:13
  interesting point i was thinking which vehicles have i ever actually bought new
• 1:08:17
  and it's the cbr 600rr and i bought a seat leon cupra r New as well, um, and
• 1:08:26
  that's yeah, everything else has been like secondhand or px'd or whatever
• 1:08:30
  Yeah, well, I think considering what the three of us respectively do to vehicles.
• 1:08:36
  It's probably a wise thing I mean, I look after them, they get hard
• 1:08:41
  worn, but I look after them, they get everything they need I, I, I, I agree
• 1:08:46
  with you on that one I've, uh, I've I have a colleague at the Blackhawk and
• 1:08:52
  he always, he says, uh, about my cars.
• 1:08:55
  They always look like they've really been driven.
• 1:09:00
  Well loved my friend.
• 1:09:01
  Well loved.
• 1:09:04
  All right, let's move on to the little quick fire phase
• 1:09:07
  here to, uh, to, to see us out.
• 1:09:10
  Um, what's your favorite car of the moment?
• 1:09:16
  Favorite car at the moment?
• 1:09:21
  Not that I own any car.
• 1:09:24
  Yeah, just what you, just like, it's a, if I ask you your favorite car, you'd
• 1:09:28
  have like some like, you know, special Ferrari or something like that, right?
• 1:09:32
  If I say favorite car at the moment, I'm saying just what's on your mind at
• 1:09:36
  the moment, just pull it out of the ass.
• 1:09:38
  It can be, it can be a banger on Craigslist or something that you're
• 1:09:42
  dreaming about or, or just anything.
• 1:09:46
  I got to say that my Cobra track car, because it's on, it's in the forefront
• 1:09:50
  of my mind is something that I have the engine, the transmission, the car.
• 1:09:55
  It's, it's, it's so close to being running and drivable and I can get
• 1:10:00
  it here on the next trip most likely.
• 1:10:03
  That's, that one, the thing that I can have the most fun with that I own
• 1:10:07
  that's obtainable, you know, that I have every parts for, that's, that's
• 1:10:10
  the forefront of my mind right now.
• 1:10:12
  Nice.
• 1:10:14
  No, no, I, I'm not, yeah, I'm not, there's nothing fancy that
• 1:10:17
  impresses me, you know that, Summers, give me an old fuckin beater.
• 1:10:21
  You know, stick shift car with a posi rear end and I'm happy.
• 1:10:25
  Mark, do you have a favorite car at the moment?
• 1:10:28
  Um, I've been looking on the basis that if we're going to move to the south of
• 1:10:31
  France, if this ever happens, but I'm still, the end goal is still in play.
• 1:10:36
  Um, then we're going to need some sort of cross continent bruiser, um, to
• 1:10:41
  like put luggage and potentially dogs and things like that in the back end
• 1:10:45
  and then do like, you know, Pyrenees to You know, back home to Plymouth
• 1:10:51
  or whatever in a day kind of trips.
• 1:10:53
  So for that sort of thing, it's generally German.
• 1:10:56
  So I'm looking, I've been looking at some quite sexy, um, E63s, but also
• 1:11:01
  some quite nice, um, M5s and M6s.
• 1:11:05
  You get to the M6s and I'm not all that keen, but then you get to the M6 Grand
• 1:11:08
  Sport thing that will, or the Grand Coupe, you know, one that was the four
• 1:11:11
  door version of the two door version of the, I don't know, but actually looks,
• 1:11:15
  that they actually look pretty good.
• 1:11:16
  Those are sexy, those are sexy four door, dude.
• 1:11:20
  Yeah, they are really nice.
• 1:11:22
  And you can get them for like not, but not unreasonable amounts of money.
• 1:11:24
  I could basically trade the M2 for one of those.
• 1:11:27
  No kid.
• 1:11:29
  I've been looking at E63s.
• 1:11:31
  And I'm here to tell you, I think the crossover year is 2011 because that's when
• 1:11:37
  they went from the normally aspirated 6.
• 1:11:41
  2.
• 1:11:42
  M 156 which arguably they reckon some journalists reckon is the greatest
• 1:11:46
  Va ever put in a street car from that engine to the turbo v8, right?
• 1:11:53
  So the turbo v8 made more of the v8 as well.
• 1:11:57
  It had two turbos.
• 1:11:58
  It was a 5.
• 1:11:59
  made more power, but it doesn't have the character they
• 1:12:02
  reckon of the the earlier car
• 1:12:08
  Give me a naturally aspirated car any day of the week, dude.
• 1:12:11
  Yeah.
• 1:12:11
  Yeah.
• 1:12:11
  You are already struggling to find a, like a modest mileage one though,
• 1:12:15
  because they are like old now.
• 1:12:17
  So, um, but, um, yeah, I'm still on the look and if I can expect, I
• 1:12:21
  would want a right hooker probably.
• 1:12:23
  You are, you are if you're going to daily it and pack the miles on, I agree.
• 1:12:29
  Yeah, it's a, on the basis I want to right hook a one, it expands the, the uh,
• 1:12:32
  the available market to all of Europe.
• 1:12:36
  Um, what was the first car you drove?
• 1:12:45
  First car I can remember driving was a, about a 60, so this
• 1:12:54
  was in Marin County at my, Dr.
• 1:12:57
  George Mowen's house up on the mountain and Doc was a crazy doctor that was a
• 1:13:03
  heavy drinker and had a giant 600 acre ranch in Marin County on the hill and
• 1:13:10
  He had a mid 60s International was an international it was a power wagon mid
• 1:13:18
  60s early 60s Dodge Power Wagon four door Old fire truck, four wheel drive,
• 1:13:24
  long bed, stick shift, with no doors on it, no seat belts, two bench seats, you
• 1:13:32
  know, no power steering, no nothing.
• 1:13:36
  So myself and his kids, Rex and Max, and my brother Steve, we'd all
• 1:13:40
  jump in that thing, and between the three or four of us, we could muscle
• 1:13:44
  it around the mountains of Marin County and not kill ourselves in it.
• 1:13:48
  How we didn't roll it down a hillside?
• 1:13:51
  I don't know, and of course our dads didn't give two shits.
• 1:13:54
  Seatbelts?
• 1:13:54
  Ha ha ha, didn't have doors.
• 1:13:56
  No one cared.
• 1:13:57
  Yeah, they were building houses, they were building a house for Doc
• 1:14:00
  out there to replicate a train car.
• 1:14:03
  He was a weird one.
• 1:14:04
  He also owned Disney's uh, old uh, railroad on that property.
• 1:14:09
  The old original Disney mini railroad is on that property, completely set up.
• 1:14:14
  It's, Summer's off to take you out there one day when I get,
• 1:14:17
  you know, come up there sometime.
• 1:14:18
  It's a special place.
• 1:14:20
  Yeah.
• 1:14:22
  That's the earliest vehicle I can remember other than my dad's 66 Ford F250 that I
• 1:14:26
  still have, you know, the utility truck.
• 1:14:27
  I still own that.
• 1:14:29
  Um, first car we bought.
• 1:14:32
  You mentioned, you mentioned your dad.
• 1:14:34
  Um, I had a separate topic here which we sort of jumped over,
• 1:14:38
  but let's, let's come back to it.
• 1:14:40
  Tell us about your dad's 44.
• 1:14:42
  Why was that such a special car?
• 1:14:46
  Dude, he, he built.
• 1:14:48
  So they were Marin County guys.
• 1:14:49
  My dad was the mechanical side of things, old drag race family.
• 1:14:52
  And his brother art was the paint side of things.
• 1:14:54
  And, you know, interior guy, and they didn't have any money.
• 1:14:58
  So they built everything out of the gate.
• 1:15:00
  And my dad was born in 37 when he was about 15, 16.
• 1:15:05
  He found this 40 Ford coupe that was, you know, they weren't, they
• 1:15:09
  weren't worth anything, you know, five years after they came out, no
• 1:15:12
  one wanted those things, you know?
• 1:15:14
  So he had a, a 40 Ford, uh, business coupe.
• 1:15:18
  Uh, And it was a, it was a deluxe, so it had the chevron
• 1:15:23
  taillights and the little windows.
• 1:15:25
  And, uh, they were just trying to drag race everything.
• 1:15:29
  And it was one of the smallest, lightest cars they could get their hands on.
• 1:15:32
  And, uh, he put a, uh, had a blown, a blown early Cad, Cadillac motor in it.
• 1:15:38
  With a LaSalle trans.
• 1:15:40
  Um, you know, built, built rear end in it.
• 1:15:43
  And, uh, baby moons.
• 1:15:47
  And, uh, it was black, black on black, of course.
• 1:15:50
  And, uh, he drag raced that car around Marin County for years.
• 1:15:54
  It was a pretty, pretty famous little car.
• 1:15:56
  And, at the little diner one night, a guy pulls up, this is 1956, pulls up in
• 1:16:02
  a baby blue, brand new, 56 Ford pickup.
• 1:16:05
  And loved the car so much and watched my dad race it that night.
• 1:16:08
  And he said, hey, I'll give you this brand new pickup for that 40 coupe.
• 1:16:10
  My dad was like, oh, hell yeah!
• 1:16:13
  I can build another one of these.
• 1:16:14
  I can't afford a new pickup.
• 1:16:16
  So, that car got traded for that blue 56 pickup.
• 1:16:21
  And, uh I'm pretty sure that car's still floating around Marin County.
• 1:16:26
  I'd love to find it someday.
• 1:16:28
  Um, yeah, I'd love to find it.
• 1:16:31
  I, that was a, there's something about, pardon me, big rig, Mexico.
• 1:16:37
  Um, there's something about those 3940 Fords that they're just special to me.
• 1:16:42
  I don't know.
• 1:16:43
  They're just, they're one of the most beautiful cars I've ever seen.
• 1:16:45
  And I want one.
• 1:16:48
  So a word on that business coupe body style, what, what we're saying here,
• 1:16:54
  Mark Damian, I always found this fascinating because I was a sales guy.
• 1:16:57
  You're, you're a sales guy.
• 1:16:59
  Um, the business coupe body style was aimed at sales people.
• 1:17:04
  So not only was the thing cheap to buy, but it had enough stuff.
• 1:17:09
  It's space in the back of it for you as a traveling salesman to carry your
• 1:17:14
  stuff But what that also meant was the your samples But what that also meant
• 1:17:19
  was that you could sleep in the car and didn't need to pay for the motel Yep, and
• 1:17:25
  what that meant for the hot rodder was that if you jacked up the back a little
• 1:17:30
  not only was the thing light As Mark alluded to, but if you jacked up the back
• 1:17:34
  a little, it really looked very good.
• 1:17:37
  Well, in that car, John, that car, the business goods had no rear seat in them.
• 1:17:41
  They had two flip down jump seats on each side under the little
• 1:17:45
  rear windows that flipped down.
• 1:17:46
  So you're right.
• 1:17:47
  That was just a big open area in the back with two little flip down jump seats.
• 1:17:51
  That's all it was.
• 1:17:52
  And my dad had no money, so that not only was his drag car, that was
• 1:17:56
  their hunting car, their fishing car.
• 1:17:58
  That was, that car was for everything.
• 1:18:00
  They drove that car to the tip of Mexico to go fishing.
• 1:18:02
  That's why I ended up here.
• 1:18:04
  Those guys were fishing down here as young guys.
• 1:18:06
  Cause as soon as you, it was cheap.
• 1:18:08
  Beers were cheap, fish are free, gas is cheap in Mexico.
• 1:18:11
  You got a reliable Ford, the Fords are all over Mexico, it's the place to be in one.
• 1:18:16
  You know, it's, you didn't necessarily have a pickup and a drag car.
• 1:18:19
  You had one car.
• 1:18:23
  What's your favorite hot rod?
• 1:18:29
  My favorite?
• 1:18:30
  Hmm.
• 1:18:33
  I think that's easier for you.
• 1:18:34
  What's the, what's your favorite hot rod at the moment?
• 1:18:39
  I think it's, I think it's still be a built 42.
• 1:18:42
  You know, I, I still think that's, you know, I love the 32s.
• 1:18:46
  I love model A's that are built, you know, I love, I love 50s stuff,
• 1:18:50
  but there's something about that.
• 1:18:52
  There's something about that era, you know, um, those, those,
• 1:18:59
  those were special cars to me.
• 1:19:00
  I don't know.
• 1:19:01
  There's just, there's something about those 3940 Fords and I don't care if
• 1:19:05
  it's a sedan, a coupe, I don't care.
• 1:19:09
  They all, they have that front end that is the front end to have, you know, there's
• 1:19:13
  unmistakable when it's coming at you.
• 1:19:19
  What's the most recent vehicle that you've bought?
• 1:19:24
  The short bus, the short, the short bus.
• 1:19:28
  That, that, that's the most recent repair that you did.
• 1:19:33
  Uh, yesterday was diagnosing my Um, pharmacists 2008 Mustang transmission
• 1:19:44
  issue, an air conditioning issue.
• 1:19:47
  It ate it, it, it ate a, uh, it ate at air compressor clutch, and
• 1:19:51
  the transmission needs a service.
• 1:19:54
  Which leads me onto my next question.
• 1:19:56
  What car or park were you last surfing for?
• 1:20:03
  Part, um, for my Harley that the 67 FL Berkeley police bike I just brought down.
• 1:20:13
  I am looking for the suicide shift clutch lever.
• 1:20:18
  And that's not something you can find here.
• 1:20:22
  Talk to me, talk to me about these Thunderbirds that you
• 1:20:27
  keep sending me pictures of.
• 1:20:29
  These 80s Thunderbirds.
• 1:20:31
  Dude, you know, John, you and I talk about kind of what, again, if we're
• 1:20:36
  going to keep this hobby alive, we need to be intelligent about this.
• 1:20:40
  And, you know, to keep, and to keep yourself married, you need
• 1:20:43
  to also be intelligent about it.
• 1:20:44
  Um.
• 1:20:46
  Buying the right vehicles that are not only enjoyable, interesting, rebuildable,
• 1:20:51
  parts are available, but they're going to be worth more down the road.
• 1:20:54
  I'm not going to just dump my time and energy into something that isn't
• 1:20:57
  worth anything when I'm done with it.
• 1:21:00
  I just, the rarity of them, the uniqueness of them, you know, when that
• 1:21:04
  car came out, Summers, that was a manual transmission, turbo, four cylinder,
• 1:21:08
  rear wheel drive, that was an anomaly.
• 1:21:11
  No one wanted those cars.
• 1:21:13
  So, to me You know, Ford is working with Yamaha on a lot of those engines.
• 1:21:18
  Um, by the way, I don't know if you guys are familiar with how many
• 1:21:22
  engines Yamaha has actually built for many different car makers.
• 1:21:25
  From, you know, Toyota to Ford to Mazda.
• 1:21:28
  It's pretty incredible.
• 1:21:29
  All the good motors.
• 1:21:32
  Yeah, we're just, I'm just gonna, I'm just gonna pause here and pay tribute.
• 1:21:37
  For a black Ford Mondeo ST24 with a head that was worked
• 1:21:42
  over by Yamaha or a Duratec V6.
• 1:21:46
  That thing, that car would run at 125 miles an hour with 170,
• 1:21:51
  000 miles on it and no oil in it.
• 1:21:54
  It was awesome.
• 1:21:57
  Yep, there, there are other, the way Yamaha does that stuff.
• 1:22:02
  Again, that's why I have WRs here.
• 1:22:03
  That's why everyone uses the outboard motors here.
• 1:22:05
  You use what's good and survives.
• 1:22:07
  So yeah, those early, those Thunderbirds I'm sending, I just, from an investment
• 1:22:11
  perspective, they're interesting to me.
• 1:22:14
  They're unique, you know, so a good complete, you know, SHO,
• 1:22:20
  you know, turbo Thunderbird that's all there for 1500 bucks.
• 1:22:24
  You tell me that thing's not going to be a collector's item in five, 10 years.
• 1:22:28
  How, you know, how, how was it not?
• 1:22:32
  You know, the other one, which is lurking in the same place
• 1:22:36
  there is the Lincoln Mark 8.
• 1:22:38
  Yeah.
• 1:22:38
  Yeah.
• 1:22:39
  Like a 19 Lincoln Mark 8, like the right era Lincoln 90s Lincoln
• 1:22:46
  Mark 8, because it has the same 0.
• 1:22:49
  32 valve engine as the Mustang Cobra.
• 1:22:52
  It's like a cheap, it's like a Mustang Cobra, like pennies on the dollar.
• 1:22:58
  And no one, have you, do you follow Tony Angelo from, uh, the motor channel?
• 1:23:02
  I know it.
• 1:23:02
  Yeah.
• 1:23:03
  Love that guy.
• 1:23:04
  Yeah.
• 1:23:05
  Oh, have you seen the one he's been playing around with swinging a turbo?
• 1:23:08
  No, no, no, no.
• 1:23:11
  You need, you need to go follow him.
• 1:23:13
  He's got one.
• 1:23:14
  He's been playing around with for the last probably three wheel drive or front
• 1:23:18
  wheel drive their rear wheel drive, dude.
• 1:23:22
  It's a fucking Mustang.
• 1:23:24
  With a 32 valve Cobra motor that he swung a fucking hairdryer off of it.
• 1:23:29
  And now he's, now he's managed to push the intake, I think he blew the intake
• 1:23:33
  off it the other day on the dyno.
• 1:23:35
  He's, I think he's pushed the heads off it a couple times, like, but
• 1:23:39
  he's like, bang for your buck.
• 1:23:40
  He's like, this thing is hard to beat, guys.
• 1:23:43
  I think he paid a couple thousand bucks for it.
• 1:23:45
  Yeah.
• 1:23:46
  And it was an old man, good, well serviced, low mile runner.
• 1:23:49
  You know, come on.
• 1:23:51
  What's that fucking, what's that Cobra worth with that motor in it?
• 1:23:54
  You can't even find one.
• 1:23:56
  Oh, and, and they've fully entered the realm of collecting our VSNs.
• 1:24:01
  Yeah.
• 1:24:03
  Yeah.
• 1:24:06
  100%, you know, and that's, that's a great example.
• 1:24:09
  That falls right in, and that's why somebody like Tony Angelo picks it.
• 1:24:13
  Like, again, give me a platform that's relatively reliable,
• 1:24:17
  unique, and works well.
• 1:24:19
  That I can work with.
• 1:24:20
  That's all I'm asking for.
• 1:24:21
  I don't, I don't really care what it is, you know.
• 1:24:24
  At this point it's you know, well, that's like for me, you know going
• 1:24:28
  to work for Acura when I was 18 years old at a dealer and then Toyota
• 1:24:31
  and Honda and Subaru and all that.
• 1:24:34
  I have a heavy appreciation for you know, early MR2s, Corolla GTSs, you know,
• 1:24:40
  um, early Celicas, you know, the first Toyota Supra Turbo I drove in 1988 or 89.
• 1:24:48
  I couldn't believe what that car was capable of.
• 1:24:50
  That's the first turbo car I'd ever driven.
• 1:24:52
  I'm like, what the fuck is this?
• 1:24:54
  Jesus, criminy.
• 1:24:56
  I remember a guy coming in, coming in with that thing under warranty
• 1:25:00
  going, Hey, it's got kind of a wicked wind noise at about 110, 120.
• 1:25:06
  So I told him, I said, well, we should probably go test drive it and duplicate
• 1:25:10
  that wind noise so I can fix it.
• 1:25:12
  You know, and this, we jumped in that thing, I'm 19 years old, down highway 101
• 1:25:18
  headed for Petaluma, you know, at 120, like, oh, yep, there's the wind noise.
• 1:25:23
  You know, I just, you know, and those cars, you can't, those 2JZ
• 1:25:27
  Turbo, you know, Subaru, you can't touch them, you can't find one.
• 1:25:31
  You know, and if you do, they're a hundred grand.
• 1:25:33
  It's like buying a, you know, an R 34 skyline or something.
• 1:25:36
  They're just unobtainable.
• 1:25:38
  Well, I, I think the, we're just at the bottom of the increase in interest and
• 1:25:45
  appreciation and the value of stuff like.
• 1:25:50
  And, and skylines.
• 1:25:51
  I mean, it doesn't take a crystal ball to, to, to see that the
• 1:25:55
  younger people are obsessed by them.
• 1:25:57
  I mean, I found, um, I found an R, there's a I on Cars and Bids.
• 1:26:02
  There was an R 33 Yeah, an R 33.
• 1:26:06
  Um, and it's a V spec car in, it's nice enough.
• 1:26:10
  And you know, and I think the bid was at 40 and I'm like, wow.
• 1:26:14
  If that was at 140, I wouldn't be surprised.
• 1:26:18
  And, you know, it's not there yet, but it, you know, you can really see the time
• 1:26:24
  when, when it, when it will be there.
• 1:26:26
  And I'm sure it will get there because all the young'uns love the skylines.
• 1:26:32
  Guys.
• 1:26:33
  On that note, I just want to say thank you, um, both for your time
• 1:26:39
  and, uh, I'll see you next time.
• 1:26:43
  Summers, it was a pleasure.
• 1:26:44
  It's Gammy.
• 1:26:44
  Damn good to see and talk to you, buddy.
• 1:26:46
  Let's plan on a little Mexico road race trip in this next year or two, my friend.
• 1:26:50
  Yeah, no, that'd be wicked, man.
• 1:26:51
  I'm all for that.
• 1:26:52
  All right, gentlemen, enjoy the day.
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