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What Should I Buy? - The Ultimate 1980s Hatchback Debate · BREAK/FIX the Motorsports & Vehicle Enthusiast Variety Show

0:00
Our panel of break fix Petrolhead are back for another rousing.
0:03
What should I buy?
0:04
Debate using unique shopping criteria.
0:07
They're challenged to find our first time collector, the best vehicle
0:10
that will make their friends go.
0:12
Where do you get that?
0:13
Or, what the hell is wrong with you at the next cars and coffee?
0:19
Heralded as one of the greatest decades in history when greed was good, Jordash
0:24
jeans were worn above the belly button, hair stood on end with aid from Aquanet.
0:30
Bands like Depeche Mode ushered in a new generation, and a next
0:34
generation of sci-fi was also born.
0:36
Cars were seen also as superheroes.
0:39
This.
0:40
It's the only time where there is a juxtaposition of both analog and digital.
0:46
While a generation of Petrolheads were both living their best lives and early
0:50
adopters simultaneously, the malaise era might have been the start of the square
0:54
bodies and round headlights movement.
0:56
Oh, the eighties.
0:58
That was the era of M T V Killer Bees body kits and a massive evolution in the
1:03
automotive industry where arguably some of the iconic cars of our generation
1:08
were born and carry on through today.
1:10
That's right, Brad.
1:11
And like all good, what should I buy?
1:13
Episodes.
1:14
We have some shopping criteria.
1:16
This time we're gonna settle a long standing argument about hot hatches.
1:20
What is the actual difference between a shooting break, Liftback
1:23
hatchback wagon, or a sports coupe?
1:25
Our panel of Petrolhead are challenged to solve that mystery as well as
1:29
find our first time collector, the best econo box that will make their
1:33
friends go, where'd you get that at?
1:35
The next cars and coffee?
1:37
Picking up where we left off The year is 1983 and there is no Corvette, but
1:43
instead, the world is introduced to G T I.
1:46
Joining us tonight, our veteran, what should I buy, panelists, our
1:49
nineties expert, mark Shank, Don Weiberg from Garage Style Magazine.
1:54
William Ross from Exotic Car Marketplace.
1:57
Bow Tie Man and Square Body Historian Mountain Mandan.
2:01
And returning guest Jeff Willis, along with our executive producer Tanya.
2:05
Welcome to the show, everyone.
2:07
Let's go retro.
2:08
This is the real eighties on eight.
2:11
Thanks, Brad.
2:12
All of us here either have lived with, enjoyed, or still
2:16
own an eighties vehicles.
2:17
Let's set the mood with a little bit of a round table talking about
2:21
our favorite personal eighties vehicles and maybe in our fleet.
2:25
And Dan, you're limited to only one fair warning that you gotta pick your favorite
2:29
square body out of all those years.
2:30
So why don't we kick it off with newcomer Jeff Willis.
2:35
Well, thank you for having me.
2:36
I'm excited to be here in my fleet right now.
2:38
I've got a 1980 Porsche 9 28.
2:42
It's straight piped.
2:43
It's totally got the race livery on it, but it's all road legal pretty much.
2:49
So I'll leave that to whatever you want to think about that.
2:52
We'll have to scrub the recording.
2:54
Yeah, right.
2:55
California officials are on looking for you right now.
2:58
The eighties are my jam.
2:59
My very first car was a 1986 Camaro, and I know that we're not supposed
3:03
to talk about those, but other than that, I have a whole list of wish
3:07
cars that I'll be talking about at some point during the podcast today.
3:11
Another man of the eighties.
3:13
Mr.
3:13
William Ross.
3:14
What you got for us?
3:15
Well, I, anything in my current fleet that's from the eighties, but I'm
3:18
a big fan of the Fox Body Mustangs, but I like the five liter notch back.
3:23
My man.
3:24
My man.
3:24
Nice undercover, you know, low key doesn't have all the flares, that kind
3:27
of stuff on the GT version of it, but just a nice five speed, five liter notch.
3:31
Back.
3:32
A little birdie told me you also owned a Fiero at one point.
3:36
Heck yeah, I did.
3:36
I had a fi, here's how it started in my eighties.
3:39
My first car was a Mazda G l c hatchback.
3:42
Beat the living crud outta that thing, jumping over railroad
3:44
tracks and stuff like that.
3:46
Then I moved to my firo gt, loved that car.
3:49
I think it was great, you know, a little go-kart.
3:51
And then I had my Mustang GT had an 85 GT free, you know,
3:54
all the flares and stuff on it.
3:56
So it was kind of nice hatchback, but had that through into college.
4:00
So yeah, I had my fair share of fun stuff in the eighties.
4:03
Tanya, my eighties car is in the photo right there and in my garage at the
4:06
moment, 1985 Audi Coop gt, well maintained and fully restored on the exterior.
4:12
And the interior is a pretty immaculate, too great car.
4:15
Tanya, I gotta say, when you popped up and that little gt was sitting back
4:19
there, my heart literally did stop for a second because I was practically
4:23
raised in one of those things.
4:24
My uncle was horse Audi dealership owner, and he liked the Audis 'cause
4:29
they were a little more conservative.
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And so he always drove these gray or dark silver Audi four-door sedans.
4:35
And then one day he shows up with that.
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The year is 1987, the month is April and Uncle Howard is getting
4:43
down in his seventies and he's feeling youthful again and he wants
4:47
to relive his second childhood.
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And that was the car.
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He was, by God going to do it in, couldn't get out of its own way
4:53
thanks to an automatic transmission and being completely bone stopped.
4:57
But yours truly a fan of anything with two doors red.
5:01
I was all over that car, like a cheap suit.
5:03
So your car really stopped my heart for a minute.
5:05
It did.
5:05
And that's number seven I think that we've owned of Audi coops in total.
5:11
Between you are Quattros and the regular front wheel drives.
5:14
So Don, since you went there, you are our resident DeLorean expert.
5:18
You've got an eighties car in your fleet right now.
5:20
Yeah, I have this little DeLorean.
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It's kind of the king of the eighties in my opinion.
5:24
There's a lot of cars out there quicker, a lot of cars faster,
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maybe even better looking.
5:28
That's debatable.
5:29
I disagree with all of you.
5:31
But anyway, yeah, that would be my perfect eighties car.
5:36
It helps a lot with clearing by sinuses up once in a while, you know,
5:40
it helps a lot, so it's good stuff.
5:42
Then I guess the only other eighties thing I might have you guys be the judge.
5:47
It's a 79 Caprice, and then there's a 79 Fiat.
5:50
Both of them teeter the Fiat because it came from the sixties really.
5:54
That car started in 66.
5:56
It's a 1 24 spider, but then you've got the Caprice, which started life
6:00
really in 77 because it's a brick.
6:02
It's one of the square caprices, but it spanned the eighties all the way to
6:06
1990 until it was put out of production.
6:08
So it was the choice of cops and cabbies.
6:12
Everywhere in the eighties.
6:14
Yeah.
6:14
I'll give you that.
6:15
Don, I thought of you.
6:16
I called my dad in preparation for this episode and I somehow, that sounds bad.
6:20
I don't know.
6:21
Well, no.
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I said, dad, if you could buy any classic car from the eighties, what would you get?
6:25
Mely outta his mouth.
6:26
DeLorean.
6:29
Well, you've had a couple eighties cars yourself, right, mark?
6:32
Yeah.
6:33
Really just one worthwhile one.
6:34
I had an 85 Porsche nine 11 Carrera.
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I had a ton of money put into it.
6:39
I got it from someone who was in a bad spot in 2009 in the,
6:44
you know, financial crisis.
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They were in the mortgage business.
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He had almost 60 grand in receipts and I bought it off him for 20,000.
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I put some money in it, and I loved that car to death.
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I'm a damn fool for forever selling it.
6:55
Well, Dan, did you pick a square body or you got something better?
6:59
Well, are we talking about favorite of cars in my fleet from the eighties?
7:03
Either what you own or what you've owned, or what is your favorite of the eighties?
7:07
Y'all know that I'm a sucker from my square body Chevy trucks, and I have one
7:11
from almost every year of the eighties.
7:13
But I would say of my trucks, I'd have to say my 82 is probably my
7:17
favorite because when my brother was killed, he helped me build that one.
7:21
And as you saw, I finally got that back up and running recently.
7:23
So I'm super excited to be driving that again.
7:26
But the problem is, is it still drags the whole way out the
7:28
driveway 'cause of how low it sits.
7:30
But it sounds so good.
7:32
It does.
7:33
It does.
7:34
She's pretty.
7:35
Other than that, I would have to say my Grand Prix, because I've owned
7:38
that since I was in high school.
7:40
Soon the engine would be getting put back in her and she'll be back alive as well.
7:43
I would say have my fleet.
7:44
It's between those two of my favorites.
7:46
So Bradley, you know I, I thought about your 37 different cars you've
7:50
owned over your lifespan and I think you just had a brief flirtation, just
7:55
like a one night stand with an eighties car, proper eighties car, didn't you?
7:59
No, I am completely out of my elements.
8:02
I was looking back at my list of 250 cars I've owned in my lifetime and not
8:08
a one is an eighties car, not an 81.
8:11
Is that what you said?
8:12
Oh, wait, O okay, now I know where you're going.
8:14
I was gonna say, I do not own or nor have I owned an atheist car,
8:18
but that apparently is wrong.
8:20
You just reminded me that for a brief twinkle in your eye,
8:24
owned an 81 horse, 9 24 turbo.
8:28
9 31 Turbo.
8:29
Can I take partial ownership of that since it resided here for a little while?
8:34
That's the case.
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And possession is nine-tenths.
8:36
Then I never owned the car because it either resided at
8:39
Matt Yips house or your house.
8:41
In that case, I never owned a Porsche, but I owned it long enough to join P C A.
8:46
You had tax the titles, ounces ownership.
8:49
There you go.
8:49
Yes.
8:50
A brief flirtation with that 9 24 Turbo.
8:52
So there you go.
8:53
Yes.
8:53
Ran when parked.
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Ran.
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When parked.
8:56
Never ran again.
8:57
Well, like I said before, we've had tons of cars from the eighties
9:01
over the years and whatnot.
9:02
My personal favorite was actually the car drove college.
9:05
I was the second and fourth owner of this car.
9:07
I had an 83 UR Quattro.
9:10
They only brought 627 of those cars to the United States to begin with, and I was a
9:15
stupid college kid that drove one every day and people were like, what is that?
9:19
With the jackknife fender flares that kind of set the E 30 M three, the 9 44,
9:24
the RX seven, all those cars of that era copied that style that everybody wanted,
9:28
those jackknife flares from the r Quatros.
9:31
I will say that like all the other eighties heroes that I've driven,
9:34
like R five Turbos and Camaros and things like that, you know, they sort
9:38
of just don't live up to the hype.
9:39
And we're gonna talk more about homologation cars.
9:41
I'm sure as we go through this, you know, that's our trip down
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memory and lane for the eighties.
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But like all what should I buy is we're here to shop and
9:49
spend other people's money.
9:51
So how do we do that?
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You all know the drill at this point.
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We've got these weird buckets of money that don't make much sense, so I think
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we're just gonna ditch those all together.
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'cause eighties cars have gotten pretty pricey.
10:00
So the 50 a hundred, 150 is just whatever.
10:03
But we gotta put some limitations around what we're talking about.
10:06
We've said before.
10:07
We can't pick the obvious choices.
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9 44 is out 3 0 8.
10:11
Ferrari is out.
10:13
Iroc, Camaro is out.
10:14
All that stuff is out the window.
10:16
We gotta find the oddballs.
10:18
We gotta find the fun cars for our collector.
10:20
We also have to settle this debate about I.
10:23
The body styles of these cars because I think the eighties had
10:26
one of the most diverse pallets in terms of body types to choose from.
10:30
And we gotta figure out what the hell is a liftback, a hatchback,
10:33
a fastback, a sportback, a shooting break the station wagon.
10:38
Like what is the difference?
10:39
Somebody explain it to me.
10:41
I love arguing over the definition of a shooting break.
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I think that is one of the best to ridiculous argument to get in.
10:47
I mean, Mercedes calls their wagons shooting breaks.
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In Europe, they don't even call 'em wagons or estates.
10:52
They're just a Mercedes shooting break.
10:54
Have you ever looked at the definition of a shooting break?
10:57
I have a personal definition of a shooting break, which is, it's a
11:00
hatchback with no C pillar, right?
11:02
If it's a hatchback with no C pillar, it's a shooting break.
11:05
It's got the A pillar on the window, it's got the B pillar on the door.
11:08
It's got no C pillar and then obviously the D pillar, 'cause it's hatchback.
11:12
Like that to me is a shooting break.
11:13
But isn't that a lift back then?
11:15
'cause a Rocco is technically a lift back and not a hatchback.
11:18
So if you want to get into the concave, convex nature of the hatch.
11:23
But yeah, when it flattens out like that, I look at at it as the
11:27
angle of the body line itself.
11:29
So for me, I think a wagon is a three box design with a D pillar.
11:33
A hatchback is a shortened version of that, but the rear hatch is straight.
11:37
It's 90 degrees.
11:38
I think we can all agree on that.
11:40
But the controversy comes into your point about the shooting brake,
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the lift back, the fast back, and William mentioned the notch back.
11:46
And then you have a car like Tanya's, a GT coupe, which is technically
11:50
not a hatchback, a liftback, it's got a funky little trunk.
11:53
So it's considered a sports coupee, but so is a 9 44, which is a
11:58
liftback, like a Corvette, a cama.
12:00
So it gets really blurry really fast.
12:02
Well, the notch back was just a sedan.
12:04
It just had a trunk.
12:05
But what's the other funky one with?
12:07
That's the hatchback.
12:07
That's the G D T hatchback.
12:09
So how is that?
12:10
Or liftback?
12:10
Yeah, I was gonna say right.
12:12
When people talk about the notch, they talk about the sedan.
12:14
It had a proper trunk.
12:16
The rear glass did not live well.
12:17
Isn't a sedan, isn't it four doors?
12:19
No.
12:20
Yeah.
12:20
See it gets the eighties.
12:21
Everybody was high on cocaine.
12:24
Oh man.
12:24
Right on.
12:25
So, so, but with the examples you're pointing out, they don't because Rocco,
12:29
I'm looking at these old Rocco's, so it's like a 9 44, you know, it doesn't
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really have a D pillar, it's just kind of moved forward and pulled down a Rocco.
12:38
Does there have to be some roundness on the back to make it a shooting break?
12:41
I don't know, but that's the beauty of this particular decade in automotive
12:45
history, is that there's so many different body styles to choose from.
12:49
We've never had that type of proliferation again.
12:52
We've actually consolidated down and there's less and less wagons
12:56
today than there ever has been.
12:57
Hatchbacks are sort of going away in lieu of SUVs, which are just giant hatchbacks
13:01
on stilts and you know, things like that.
13:03
So we have a lot to choose from.
13:05
It really depends on what you're into.
13:06
And then obviously we can go pick up trucks, trucks, all that kind of stuff
13:10
was also available at this time period.
13:12
It's like a smorgasbord of different cars.
13:15
So the question is, where do we take our prospective buyer?
13:19
We only talking hatches.
13:21
Oh no, I just wanted to clear up an argument.
13:22
'cause one day, oh, Brad and I at the office we're going back and
13:26
forth about is a Camaro a hatchback?
13:28
And I'm like, no, that whole glass lifts up in the back.
13:31
But it's not a hatchback, it's a liftback.
13:33
Just like a 9 44 is a liftback.
13:35
When he says, we got into an argument, it was because we were trying to
13:39
iron out details for a spec race in This is true in Forza, this is true.
13:43
And we were trying to decide if we wanted to allow cars like the Camaros
13:47
and the Mustangs in this spec race.
13:50
The determination was no, because they're not hatchbacks.
13:52
They're lift backs.
13:53
I, I guess the question is though, is, is this gonna be their only car?
13:55
Is it just gonna be a fun car?
13:56
I mean, utilitarian aspect of it.
13:58
I mean, they're gonna have to use this for all their daily activities
14:01
or is this just gonna be, you know, something they can go have fun with?
14:03
I think anybody that's buying an eighties car today is definitely buying it as a
14:07
either showpiece or a tool around car.
14:10
I don't think anybody's really buying an eighties car as a daily driver anymore.
14:13
You know, not without considerable amounts of money.
14:15
Talk to Daniel.
14:16
Well, I love that you said Eric about the crux because on my list
14:20
I've got the iconic Dodge Rampage.
14:22
Oh my god.
14:25
Yes.
14:25
And I'm telling you, Dodge Ramp is just like the old crappy
14:28
little brats that were so popular.
14:30
I love the heck out of those things.
14:32
Those are utilitarian, right?
14:33
They are.
14:34
Yeah.
14:34
Well, and remember too, Volkswagen had one too.
14:37
The caddy, the rabbit.
14:38
Yeah.
14:39
What's cool about the rampage was on my list of forgotten.
14:43
I have a lot of Dodge on my list today, but, so Don, you know, as a,
14:48
as a closet Chrysler nerd yourself.
14:50
You know, we talk about the TC a lot, which is on the Q platform.
14:54
We've talked in the past about the K cars, which started in the
14:56
seventies and things like that, but the rampage, although it looks like a
14:59
K car, is actually on the L chassis.
15:02
It's like its own beast, but the parts are interchangeable
15:06
with the Omni and the Shelby.
15:07
Mm-hmm.
15:08
Which gives you this kind of little hot rod that you can build
15:11
out of it, which is pretty cool.
15:12
And that was my number one.
15:14
I'm glad that you went that way because the Omni, obviously there's one that had
15:17
the Shelby badge on it and that's, you know, something that's collectible now.
15:21
But my number one that I would want right now in that same category
15:25
would be the late eighties Dodge Shelby charger with the manual turbo.
15:30
I had the uh, the Shelby Dakota g l h s and the charger on my list as well.
15:35
Is the Daytona Z in that list too, or is that just into the nineties?
15:39
No, the Z was an eighties car.
15:41
The Turbo Z came out in 84.
15:43
That was their very first hot Rod.
15:44
Daytona was the turbo Z, and then you had the Chrysler Laser
15:48
X SE I think was their version.
15:51
And that car only lasted for two years, and it went out of
15:54
business and the Daytona took over.
15:56
They had the Chrysler Conquest.
15:58
Yep.
15:58
Kit Conquest tsi, which was the same as the Mitsubishi ion.
16:02
Those were cool.
16:04
That was the RX seven competitor.
16:06
It was 180 horsepower or something stock.
16:09
If you guys love that car.
16:11
I know a gentleman down in Virginia up on his hill, he's got acres and
16:15
acres of land, but he's got probably 120 of those cars just in various.
16:20
Rusted out state.
16:22
He is got a couple of the race cars that did in that little celebrity race series.
16:25
With those, he is just got 'em all over.
16:28
If everybody's looking for one, let me know 'cause I can set you up this guy.
16:30
'cause he is just got hundreds of 'em sitting out in the field just in
16:33
various stages of the k I was shocked how cheap they were on bring a trailer.
16:37
What are they going for?
16:38
So like the G L H S, the last year that Shelby Charger, they only
16:42
made a thousand of them sold for 12 grand like a couple months ago.
16:46
The Chrysler C S X, which same drive train, they made their
16:50
version of that under 10,000.
16:52
The Omni G L H S, the collectible one is still under 20 easy.
16:57
Some transactions at 15 grand.
16:59
That was an over 200 horsepower car too, which back then is like,
17:03
there's a lot neck breaking.
17:04
Yeah.
17:05
Yeah.
17:05
Front wheel drive and kind of insane.
17:07
And lots of torque steer too.
17:08
It's beautiful.
17:09
It's a good thing.
17:10
Well the partnership with Mitsubishi for the engines was what benefited them.
17:14
'cause if it wasn't for that, that car would've been crap if they would've
17:16
used one of their off the shelf engines.
17:18
Well the best part is the base Omni was using a rabbit engine,
17:21
so they were also partnered with Volkswagen to develop that car.
17:24
So it's sort of a weird marriage of three companies to make the omni work.
17:28
Yeah, I, I spent a lot of time riding around in one in high
17:30
school 'cause my cousin had one.
17:32
We beat the living hell outta that car.
17:34
Before we go a little bit too far down the path and why I wanted to talk
17:38
about the Daytona Z and, and there was an IROC version of that and a bunch
17:41
of other stuff later, you know, just like there was the IROC Camaro is
17:44
how far into the nineties mark are we allowed to take some of these cars?
17:49
'cause if we've argued before, some of the best nineties cars started
17:53
in the eighties and some of the best eighties cars started in the seventies.
17:56
Do we have a sort of grace year that we can cut off for this discussion?
18:00
Just for clarification, I think one of the best nineties cars you
18:03
could have bought in 2017, are we talking about the Dodge fiber?
18:07
Yes.
18:08
If it were entirely up to me, there would be a fair amount of leeway.
18:11
Right?
18:11
Like so for example, I would say a 19 89, 300 ZX turbo is
18:17
obviously a nineties car, right?
18:18
Just culturally identifies as a nineties car like a rado would or,
18:23
or a Supra or something like that.
18:24
Yeah.
18:25
And like I would say a a 9 6 4 for me, a 9 6 4 Porsche would be a
18:29
nineties car, but came out in 89.
18:32
But on the same side, it's like some great models were made towards
18:35
the end in the early nineties.
18:36
Right?
18:37
So you've, you know, you got your Shelby Fox body, we had
18:40
the GT 40 heads and everything.
18:41
They made 91 through 93.
18:43
There are definitely cars that kind of stretched out into the early nineties
18:47
that I think identify as eighties cars if I can keep leaning on that language.
18:51
And so I would tend towards setting a cutoff around probably
18:55
93 as like the last model year.
18:58
And that's when many of 'em transitioned to new body styles
19:01
around the 93 94 timeframe anyway.
19:03
Yeah.
19:03
At least on, yeah, for a lot of things.
19:05
Should we continue to pull on this Dodge thread just for a moment longer?
19:09
Don, do you wanna talk about the Miranda?
19:11
Is that, is that on your list of vehicles?
19:13
You're not being arrested.
19:14
It's not the Miranda, it's the Marada.
19:16
What?
19:16
Or is it the Marada Mar?
19:18
No, it's the Marada.
19:19
Which was the Cordoba.
19:20
Because remember the Cordoba has the Corinthian leather.
19:24
Yeah, the Marada had vinyl.
19:26
Terrible, terrible, terrible.
19:28
They were wonderful cars.
19:29
As long as you didn't wanna go, you know, anywhere, they were fine.
19:34
Hey, I'll tell you so down.
19:37
You got prostitutes walking by you.
19:40
You've got their attention.
19:41
Trust me, they know that this is a classic car right here.
19:44
So since we're pulling that Chrysler Plymouth Dodge Thread still for a
19:48
moment, I wanna touch on something that I've mentioned before, which
19:51
is the A M C Eagle four by four.
19:53
I still think that's an interesting choice.
19:56
It's still in that weird period.
19:57
They built that car into the eighties, even though it started in the seventies.
20:01
But there's another car that is just kind of classically eighties.
20:04
And Brad, what do we think about the Jeep Cherokee xj?
20:08
I've always loved the Xjs.
20:10
They're, I think they're good.
20:11
They're a great hatchback.
20:14
The Xjs one of those things that if you're not a truck person, you
20:17
could kind of go the other way.
20:18
Lower it, do some stuff.
20:20
Blasphemer.
20:21
No, no, never.
20:23
No way.
20:23
Why not?
20:24
Why you could make a low rider Jeep though.
20:26
Lifted.
20:26
Lifted on 30 sevens.
20:28
Take the doors off and send it.
20:30
That's the only way those trucks live.
20:32
'cause the only way those hatchbacks live well with that generation of Jeeps.
20:36
They weren't really good until when they started putting the four
20:38
liter in 'em in the late eighties.
20:39
Yep.
20:40
That's what we're talking about here.
20:41
But I'm saying they made 'em earlier in the eighties, I believe, but it
20:43
wasn't until later eighties when the four liter became the powertrain
20:46
and that four liter was bulletproof.
20:48
Yep.
20:48
So Jeff, we're gonna play the great Carac here.
20:51
Can you think where I'm going with the xj?
20:54
I'm wondering if you're going in the direction of something
20:57
that's a little more rare.
20:58
The Dodge Raider.
21:00
Oh no, I was gonna go down the Comanche path.
21:03
So yeah, Dodge Raider being the, what was it?
21:06
The copy of the Mitsubishi something or other.
21:08
It looks like a little, an affordable version of a defender almost.
21:11
I love 'em.
21:12
I like the Comanche 'cause it's a XJ with a bed on it.
21:14
And those are also super rare.
21:16
They didn't make a ton of those either.
21:17
And then you could slam it down on the ground on bags and stuff.
21:19
Brad, I'm not gonna lie.
21:20
That would be cool if we're going down this four by four Ss U V Pickup.
21:26
Ridiculousness road.
21:27
I cannot watch the fall guy now without thinking of you.
21:31
Okay.
21:31
I watch the Fall guy every night.
21:33
There you are with that big truck.
21:35
Okay.
21:35
Anyway.
21:36
Can we get off the Jeep thing for a minute or are we still on there?
21:38
Sure, sure.
21:39
Okay, because I want to go someplace really, really weird.
21:42
This thing popped in my head late at night during my insomnia attack, and when it
21:46
came out I thought, my God, this is the.
21:49
Ugliest thing that's ever hit four wheels, but it was so ugly.
21:53
I fell in love with it.
21:54
I had to have one someday.
21:56
I just had to, and then I found out it was made in Italy and had a Ford Drive
21:59
train, and I thought, this is for me.
22:01
This is perfect.
22:02
Then I found out it was designed by Tom Sharda, who also designed
22:06
my 1 24, and I thought, I've gotta have this thing someday.
22:09
Ladies and gentlemen, I'd like to bring up to the board for potential consideration.
22:14
The la what is that?
22:16
Oh, LA yeah, the u v for SUVs for the people who are tired of Range Rovers
22:22
and Jeeps with wood on the side.
22:24
Wow, that is ugly.
22:26
Jesus Christ.
22:27
That was ugly.
22:30
I rock your world.
22:31
Do I not?
22:31
You gotta love that.
22:32
The Wikipedia image, all the paints all jacked up, like they couldn't even find
22:37
a good one for the image on Wikipedia.
22:40
I'll tell you, growing up where I grew up, We had a dealership.
22:44
It was a Porsche Audi dealer, and they took on the La Forza franchise.
22:49
I remember riding down there with my bike.
22:52
They had four or five of 'em sitting down on the lot and I, I think
22:55
the saddest part about the whole thing was about a year later they
22:58
still had those same four or five.
23:01
Oh no.
23:02
It was sad.
23:03
Nobody was buying these cars.
23:04
Cars and bids.
23:05
Got the monitor as being ultra rare and rare and what, 50 bucks.
23:09
I mean, what do they want for these things?
23:11
I'm like, wait.
23:11
Ultra rare.
23:12
It has a speed hump though.
23:14
Look, look, it has a power bulge on the bonnet.
23:17
It's like an eclipse packing weight.
23:19
It can lay some pipe.
23:20
Oh, that's terrible.
23:22
Notice all the colors of the paint.
23:25
That is awful.
23:26
See in the back door?
23:27
The front door, the hood.
23:28
They're all different to the kind of car I would buy to tow my UO around with.
23:33
So since we're still talking about trucks, straight out of the Trias period
23:37
is the gwa, you can't get any more.
23:40
I don't know what decade that thing is.
23:42
Can we bring that up in the eighties?
23:43
Because that damn thing dates back to the forties, right?
23:46
I mean that you stretch back.
23:47
That thing really goes back.
23:49
It has not changed.
23:50
They still make it the same way today.
23:52
I know, I know it's the same thing, but is it a forties car?
23:55
You can't buy the same one.
23:56
The thing about the GWA is it still screams eighties.
24:00
In the same way that like the Lincoln Mark VII is the banker's hot rod.
24:03
You know, the kind of thing, it's like it's got this certain span
24:07
about it that it is timeless, but it's also kind of at that height.
24:11
It's got that like bourgeois about it that makes it eighties, that it just
24:15
fits in with the rest of the landscape.
24:16
Right.
24:17
And you can't say that it's not, you wouldn't see a GWA in an eighties movie.
24:21
I mean, it's like, all right, cool.
24:22
I, I think it fits.
24:23
No, I think it works.
24:24
I do.
24:25
I, I don't know.
24:25
I have trouble with goes
24:30
ire.
24:32
I hated them.
24:32
I did.
24:33
I gotta be honest, I hated those things because for me, the height
24:37
and the width of me, when you sat in that truck, that was it.
24:40
You were not going to slouch and get more comfortable.
24:43
And I'm sorry.
24:43
Back when I worked for MotorTrend, I drove a lot of Lincolns.
24:46
I was used to slouching all the time.
24:48
So this whole upright position thing, which is great for certain
24:52
German people, it didn't work for me.
24:54
It just couldn't stand it.
24:56
I couldn't get it outta my head that this thing just reaches
24:58
all the way back to the forties.
25:00
It represents, you know, the war and yet they still keep building the stupid thing.
25:04
Yep.
25:04
And it is the worst thing in the world, off road.
25:06
I don't care what anybody says.
25:08
I'll put it to you this way.
25:09
Never ever did we get one of these cars at MotorTrend that did not have
25:15
that stupid little yellow triangle with the inflammation mark in the middle.
25:20
Every single Mercedes, SS u V, doesn't matter if we're talking about the
25:24
G wagon, the ml, any of them, they all had that stupid thing on there.
25:29
We were always calling Mercedes, what is this about?
25:31
What is it?
25:32
Don't worry about that.
25:33
Just, you know, just, just don't write about it.
25:35
Don't mention it.
25:37
It's a brand new car.
25:38
It has less than 300 miles on it.
25:40
This thing is on, and we're not gonna write about.
25:42
You sure.
25:42
Don't wanna just send us another one to prove that, oh, I don't know.
25:46
Maybe you built one that the light doesn't come on.
25:49
Sorry, you hit something here.
25:50
I guess because I'm getting pretty emotional about this, I'd
25:53
much rather talk about my Lata.
25:55
My lata is much better.
25:57
So the La Forza though, can anyone else look at that and not see a
26:00
predecessor like the a Suzu Rodeo?
26:02
Because I see that, oh yeah, it looks like a weird Isuzu trooper.
26:05
Like no power bulge on a rodeo.
26:07
Did Tom Arda have anything to do with any of those Jesuses?
26:11
'cause Sharda designed that Laa, I guess the understanding was he had to use a
26:15
lot of existing parts to make it work.
26:17
So it was sort of like putting together like a Lego set
26:20
from what a A lot of factory.
26:22
I mean, that thing looks like it's out of the Eastern block.
26:25
Yeah, I know.
26:26
I remember those stupid things were like 50 grand.
26:29
What?
26:29
I mean, they were insane.
26:30
They were cheap.
26:31
No, and they were built on a Bronco chassis, which, hey, I'm a resident
26:35
Ford guy here, but I love Broncos.
26:37
Come on.
26:38
When I came to Bronco for 18,000.
26:40
Why not just get the Bronco?
26:41
I will say that yes, the Mercedes is definitely an eighties vehicle,
26:45
but it just reaches back to the forties and I just don't get it.
26:48
I can't comprehend it.
26:49
Will it make you feel any better, Don?
26:51
That I almost burnt one of them gwas to the ground in
26:53
Albania when I was down there.
26:56
Do you have video?
26:57
I'd love to see video.
26:58
No, I don't have video unfortunately.
26:59
Alright, draw me a picture.
27:01
Someday the battery broke loose and like fried all the wires on Hood and smoke just
27:04
started going everywhere and it was epic.
27:06
Oh no, that's weird because a friend of mine literally just bought a brand
27:09
new S some big shot four door, $500,000 Mercedes driving home from the dealership.
27:15
The battery exploded under the hood.
27:17
That's what the bulge is for on the La Forza.
27:19
Okay.
27:20
Baboo the room absorbs the blast.
27:23
Don's not happy with the G wagon, but I have an alternative for you.
27:26
I had a feeling you weren't gonna like that as an option, but think
27:29
about our, our perspective buyer.
27:30
You wanna buy something totally eighties, maybe it looks like a matchbox car
27:34
has off-road potential and you don't wanna get into the Jeep cult lifting
27:39
and big tires and all that kinda stuff.
27:41
What about.
27:42
The Suzuki Samurai, they're getting hard to find in decent shape.
27:46
They are.
27:47
If you don't have to go on the highway, you're all right.
27:49
The geo tracker.
27:50
Yes.
27:51
Yes.
27:52
Jeff, you hit it.
27:53
That is my dream.
27:54
SS U V.
27:55
I'm not kidding you.
27:57
Oh, I love the geo.
27:58
I was gonna say, I raised you a geo tracker, but Jeff just blasted
28:02
straight through it like a G wagon.
28:05
So Jeff is the GWA of the group, but yes, the samurai is fun.
28:08
Just don't turn quickly.
28:10
Well, the same is true, the trooper.
28:11
Right?
28:12
It remember the motor week tests had to put the bars on
28:15
it so it wouldn't roll over.
28:16
Yes.
28:16
You know another one that liked doing that with the Bronco two, which is.
28:20
Absolute eighties.
28:21
I don't think that thing made it to the nineties.
28:23
I don't know.
28:24
Had those weird side windows.
28:26
Yeah, the side windows go up into the roof a little bit.
28:28
Yeah.
28:28
Yeah.
28:28
Kind of like the The Land Rovers.
28:30
Yeah.
28:31
Yeah.
28:31
They were terrible.
28:32
They loved tipping over.
28:33
Now I would love to have a Suzuki though.
28:35
I would.
28:35
And I think their very, very eighties.
28:37
I had a friend who had a girlfriend who had one.
28:39
It was like a jungle gym on wheels.
28:41
You were always just a little terrified when that thing was going down the road.
28:45
No, I loved it.
28:45
I thought it was great.
28:46
Well, Don, lemme ask you this.
28:48
Do you remember the Suzuki X 90, the one that came later?
28:52
Yeah.
28:53
Yes.
28:53
That was just more rounder.
28:55
Yeah.
28:55
Yeah.
28:55
And it was more of a sedan looking thing, wasn't it?
28:57
Yeah.
28:57
Is that the one you're talking about, Jeff?
28:59
Yeah.
28:59
But they touted it.
29:00
They put pictures of it in front of big cat machines on the construction site.
29:05
Oh Lord.
29:05
Yeah.
29:06
Terrible.
29:06
Yeah, that thing was goofy.
29:08
There were a lot of goofy SUVs that came out at that time.
29:11
I can't remember too many of 'em, but that Suzuki was one of 'em.
29:13
It was.
29:14
It was pretty weird.
29:15
Bronco too.
29:16
That was almost the same chassis as the Rangers at that time.
29:18
Right?
29:19
I don't know what it was with the engines.
29:21
Ford put 'em in that time, but like from the factory, they came with a tack
29:24
to them and it's like you start it up and it would sit there just tapping
29:26
and Ford was like, oh, that's normal.
29:27
That's like the check engine light on the G wagon.
29:29
Like they, Todd, I was talking about.
29:31
But I, I wanna finish out this thought on trucks because then
29:35
we can move on to really obscure stuff, because I think trucks are
29:38
an important part of the eighties.
29:39
We all fell in love with the fall guy and the square bodies and all
29:42
that kind of stuff, and I, I don't want Dan to take us on a three
29:44
hour tour on the SSS Square body.
29:47
There's two more that are on this list and I'm glad Mark allowed me to walk
29:51
into the nineties just a little bit.
29:53
I hope I'm on the same wavelength as some people here.
29:56
I'm thinking G M C Cyclone.
29:59
Oh, there you go.
29:59
The Cyclone and the Typhoon.
30:00
Those were awesome.
30:01
Feels nineties to me.
30:03
It does 91.
30:04
It is, but culturally it feels nineties.
30:07
It but eighties SS 10 though.
30:09
That's true, isn't it?
30:11
I agree with Mark though.
30:12
'cause I, I, believe me, I was thinking about the Cyclone
30:14
and the Typhoon, both of them.
30:16
I love both of those vehicles.
30:18
I resisted, I thought, no, I'm not gonna bring this up because it's a nineties car.
30:23
To me, that thing kind of kicked off nineties performance.
30:26
It really did.
30:27
'cause to come into the nineties, oh my God, they built this
30:30
little pickup that will spank a Corvette with the right driver.
30:33
That thing is mind blowing.
30:35
It really, really is a great thing about it.
30:37
It held the record for Fastest Truck for one of the longest spans.
30:41
Well, up until recently, as a matter of, but zero to 60 time
30:43
was something like 25 years.
30:45
Yeah.
30:45
So I have one final one.
30:47
This is how we get into obscure stuff.
30:49
Does anybody know what the abbreviation, R E P U stands for?
30:55
Mazda produced something called the Repo, which is the Rotary Engine pickup.
30:59
So it's like a Mazda 2100 Ford Ranger, but rotary powered
31:03
with the RX seven 13 B in it.
31:05
So that's kind of a neat thing.
31:07
They do exist.
31:08
You can import 'em from Japan.
31:09
So if you wanna do something really off the wall and have a kind of interesting
31:13
pickup truck, I think the Mazda repo would be something really cool to look into.
31:16
Are you pronouncing that right?
31:17
Repo re repo repo.
31:23
My repo got repoed.
31:24
Yeah.
31:25
Yeah.
31:25
You know the nice thing too about the rotary Mazda pickups, they do go
31:29
back to the seventies, breaking away from our eighties only discussion.
31:33
That little pickup was around in the seventies with that rotary motor.
31:36
If you're gonna import one from Japan, you've got a big span to look for.
31:41
But how many of those things survived, especially living in Japan?
31:44
Yeah.
31:45
I mean, that's a harsh, harsh environment for cars over there.
31:48
That really is.
31:49
Exactly.
31:49
If individuals look of the repo, they could also go for like
31:52
the Toyotas of that generation.
31:54
'cause some of those small Toyota pickups had that similar look to them.
31:57
Oh, the tacos?
31:57
Yeah.
31:58
Mm-hmm.
31:58
You have that 22 re and the 22 R.
32:01
Those were fantastically powerful, high revving, little four cylinders.
32:06
They love, love, love to go.
32:08
The Toyotas were fantastic.
32:09
Well, the nice part about this time period and why I bring up a truck like the Mazda,
32:14
is that we are outside that time limit.
32:17
We can really start looking at importing cars from Japan and from Europe, right.
32:21
That we weren't able to buy, let's say 10 years ago.
32:24
Right.
32:24
We're past that.
32:25
So now they're not even really gray market anymore.
32:26
You could just bring 'em in for historic when they get here, that kind of thing.
32:30
So it really opens up where the nineties, they're still like on the
32:33
verge of some really cool cars being able to come over outside of like
32:37
Nissan GTRs and stuff like that.
32:39
So pretty much the pallet is wide open here.
32:42
Mm-hmm.
32:42
In terms of what we can bring to the United States from the
32:44
eighties, which is pretty slick.
32:45
One of the cars that was on my list, been a dream car of mine for a long, long time.
32:51
Alpine G T A.
32:52
It was on my list.
32:53
Anyone remember this car with the big headlights up front?
32:57
The one that says, I'm better than you because I'm French.
32:59
It was on my list.
33:01
It was on my list.
33:01
Was it?
33:02
Yeah.
33:02
I've always loved those cars, you know, and I used to read of those
33:05
British magazines back in the day.
33:07
There were sometimes full page ads for dealers over in England and France, and
33:12
they would specialize in these cars.
33:14
And I remember thinking, my God, that is the coolest looking car in the world.
33:17
I just loved them.
33:18
And they had a couple different variants.
33:20
I don't remember what they were.
33:21
I remember the G T A though fit in the eighties.
33:23
The next one was more of a nineties car.
33:26
That's why I stayed away from it.
33:27
You have opened Pandora's box.
33:29
You have crossed the threshold into my territory.
33:31
We're talking about French cars now.
33:33
Well, in that case, I'm gonna do a filibuster all about TC all night long
33:38
because it doesn't get better than tc.
33:41
That is an obvious choice.
33:43
We're not allowed to go there.
33:45
Oh no.
33:46
It's been boycotted good.
33:48
If you're gonna bring French cars into my generation, having driven
33:51
one, when I was stationed in England, that one of my troops had picked up.
33:54
The 2 0 5 G T I ambuja.
33:56
Those were quick, powerful little cars and fun to drive.
34:00
1.9 liter, not the 1.6 liter.
34:02
They had two.
34:03
Correct.
34:03
And Mark, you're right on the money.
34:04
I just talked to one of my guys recently.
34:07
He's trying to import a 2 0 5 rally, which is the one six, which is
34:11
the one nobody really wants, but it's still a heck of a lot of fun.
34:14
It's again, outside of that statute of limitations.
34:17
And then you can hot rod it because it's a eo.
34:19
So why not?
34:20
If you love that body style and you can't obviously afford a T 16,
34:25
why not go with the base model?
34:26
Right?
34:27
The eight valve G T I is just as fun as a 16 valve sometimes.
34:30
Yeah, I mean it was a surprising number of transactions on Bring
34:33
a trailer for those 2 0 5 GTIs.
34:35
I was looking at them as well, and I think the last one, it was in good shape.
34:38
It went for 14 grand for 1.9, and you don't have to deal with
34:42
importing or bullshit like in the United States transaction.
34:45
$14,000.
34:46
That's not bad.
34:47
I know there's one that Tanya and I appreciated from a really early episode
34:51
We did way back when when we reviewed the movie Lost Bullet and in that
34:55
they featured a Renault 21, and if you don't know what that is, it's sort
34:59
of like competitor to the EO 4 0 5.
35:02
Really neat looking sedan, sort of hopped up, does have a turbo
35:06
2.1 liter, all that kinda stuff.
35:07
So that's a neat car.
35:08
It's been on my radar for a while.
35:10
In the United States, there's a Renault that people often forget about.
35:14
I'm not talking about the LA car, which definitely screams the eighties.
35:17
Does anybody remember the Fuego?
35:20
I love the Fuego.
35:21
The Fuego is a wonderful car.
35:23
It's another fine car to be broken down on the side of the roadway.
35:27
It's a car is ugly, don't hold back.
35:30
Let us know how you really feel.
35:32
Yes.
35:32
But, and the reason the Fuego is an interesting candidate is the fact that
35:37
it was used for a Rene Spec series in S C C A in the eighties and Andy Pilgrim
35:43
drove one of those cars and you can actually still find some of those X Reno
35:47
Cup cars and they're all Reno Fuegos because they were sold here in the States.
35:51
So it's kind of interesting if you want something that isn't completely
35:54
mainstream but was available stateside.
35:57
Yeah.
35:57
But the problem with that, and we've said this multiple times with
36:01
other subjects, cars from foreign countries that make it to the US are
36:04
normally their crap versions of cars.
36:06
A hundred percent.
36:07
That's the great thing about this, is now we can start bringing their decent
36:10
cars in without all the headache.
36:12
One final French car.
36:14
Okay.
36:14
And this is the only time that we'll say this on the show ever about a Ciro end.
36:18
I really like the bx.
36:20
I think the BX is super cool.
36:22
You know how I feel about French cars?
36:24
I'm all over them.
36:25
I think they're wonderful.
36:26
I think they need to come here more frequently.
36:28
It's like Citroen's attempt at making the Audi coop or the Rocco.
36:32
It's got that like boxy sportiness to it.
36:35
That's very eighties.
36:36
But without the round headlight kind of feature of the BMWs,
36:39
you need to specify that you're referring to the four TC because
36:42
the Citro and BX is a heinous wagon.
36:45
You're absolutely right.
36:46
That's true.
36:47
The four tc.
36:48
For some reason, whenever I see cars, like they have like that rear fender skirt type
36:52
thing, it just makes me have flashback.
36:53
'cause the eighties versions of that looked ugly.
36:56
But when they did it in the fifties and the forties with the
36:58
fender skirts, they looked good.
36:59
Is this the car from Ronan that the 6.9 liter was chasing
37:03
down the brown 6.9 liter?
37:06
Yeah.
37:06
Was chasing down a four door citra and.
37:10
They were duking it out and I gotta tell you, bullet be damned, that could have
37:14
been the best car chase ever because you hear the throaty rumble of that 6.9 liter
37:20
and you hear that screaming high-pitched opera coming from the Citro end.
37:25
Oh my god.
37:26
They were both fantastic, but I don't know if that's the car you're talking about.
37:29
No, the Citro and Zanio was in Ronan.
37:32
That's the big car.
37:33
Yeah.
37:33
He's talking about the Citro and BX four tc.
37:36
Notice how the rear end of that car looks like the Chevy Bolt.
37:40
You ever see that?
37:41
I mean, with those gills in the C pillar, it reminds me of
37:43
the coupe in the u r Quattro.
37:44
It's got the same vent back there.
37:45
Does.
37:46
Okay.
37:46
Yeah, it's ugly, but I can see it.
37:48
It's a cool car just because it's so ugly.
37:50
It's kinda like the La Forza, you know?
37:52
They're so ugly.
37:52
You just gotta love them.
37:53
And I gotta give it to the French.
37:55
They did a lot of hatchbacks and because we didn't get a lot of French cars here,
37:59
we tend to kind of forget that because you look at the R four and the R five and you
38:03
look at all the ciro ends and the PEOs.
38:05
Every model almost came in a hatchback or liftback.
38:08
Mm-hmm.
38:09
At that period.
38:09
And then the wagon version.
38:10
So they kind of like, were the kings of that sort of thing.
38:13
Mm-hmm.
38:14
But we relate to the G T I because that's what we got from Germany and
38:18
the Honda C V C C and stuff like that.
38:20
The Civic and the c r s and all those.
38:21
Yeah.
38:22
But the French really just, they leaned into the hatchback scene hard.
38:27
So when I think hot hatches, my brain goes there again, as a first time
38:32
collector, something to think about is maybe start looking at French cars and
38:35
you're not gonna see very many of them.
38:37
No.
38:37
At your next cars in coffee, that's for sure.
38:39
It looks so good.
38:40
In black, it looked like shit in white, but in black.
38:43
Oh yeah.
38:43
Much better.
38:44
Much better.
38:44
In black.
38:45
I actually even like those wheels.
38:46
They're so bizarre that they're awesome.
38:49
And again, I won't say that often about a ciro end.
38:51
So we can come back from France.
38:53
We can put our brie and our baguettes and our burgundy aside.
38:56
What else have you guys got on your list?
38:58
'cause I, I do have some weird ones.
39:00
Going a little bit to the left of the French, if I may.
39:03
Two Alphas G T V six.
39:05
That always won my heart back in the eighties.
39:07
One I thought was horribly ugly growing up, but today I absolutely
39:11
can't get enough of them.
39:12
The Alpha GTV six and uh, the sedan, the 1 64.
39:17
The 1 64 is a really good looking car, especially if you can deal with that
39:21
two-tone thing that it has going on.
39:22
Yeah, yeah.
39:23
We, we had a guy back in again, that dealer I told you about.
39:26
They were the weirdest dealer, but they also sold Alpha to Mayo.
39:29
So we had a lot of alphas in the town and one of the guys got it and
39:33
actually he got rid of that two-tone.
39:35
He actually painted it all one color.
39:37
So much better looking, so much better looking.
39:40
But what I thought was funny was during that time, and here we go with the king
39:43
of the eighties, I think basically any Mercedes sedan from the eighties is
39:48
gonna be the king, but they too had that plastic body bottom and then this
39:53
painted on the top in the town I grew up in, all because of that one alpha.
39:57
All the Mercedes onlys ran and they painted their bottoms to match their tops.
40:01
They looked so much better.
40:02
They really did.
40:03
But yeah, the G T V and the 1 64, I just thought they were fantastic cars.
40:07
And like you're saying, you know, they were plentiful back in the
40:10
day, but today, not so much.
40:13
You show up to a car and coffee, you show up to any car show, it's gonna
40:16
be kind of the oddball of the bunch.
40:18
Not as weird as a French car, but it'd be up there.
40:21
Well, if we're going obscure, one on my list that was really obscure
40:26
that I found actually recently was a Ford Mustang McLaren M 81.
40:30
Kind of one of those ho allegations that I think they
40:32
only made like 10 or 15 of them.
40:34
They were road legal.
40:36
It was kind of to showcase the race team.
40:39
Those flares are really interesting.
40:41
Mm-hmm.
40:42
Yeah.
40:42
So that was almost like the start of the wide body almost right
40:46
before the wide body got popular.
40:48
Yeah.
40:48
And if you remember Jeff building on that car, and it's on my list here,
40:51
spraying the A S C McLaren Capri.
40:55
Mm-hmm.
40:55
Oh yeah.
40:56
Yep.
40:56
And then just a little later, because the Capri was not selling very well, Ford slid
41:00
it over to Mustang and it became the A S C McLaren Mustang that sold much better
41:05
three years that they had it as Mustang, and two that they had it for Capri.
41:10
But those two cars, they sprang from that car that you're talking about.
41:14
That was the father of these cars that I had on my list.
41:17
Because the Capri, the RS was basically like a hatchback Mustang.
41:20
Right, exactly.
41:21
They were the same car.
41:22
Just one had a domy glass, a bubble hatchback.
41:25
That was the Capri.
41:26
Yeah.
41:26
And a blunted front end.
41:28
It was a very blunt front end, whereas the Mustangs kind of leaned a little bit.
41:31
It had a little bit of a rake to it.
41:33
Same car.
41:33
Yeah.
41:33
No, that's a good pick.
41:34
That really is.
41:35
My list is kind of organized here.
41:37
That's how crazy Swedish I got about it.
41:39
But where I have the ASC McLaren that you brought up right below that,
41:44
if you remember in the eighties, Eldorado, todo, and Riviera Yeah.
41:49
Were all offered in a converted convertible.
41:52
They were done by a s C.
41:54
Now the Cadillac, there were 200 of them that were actually built
41:57
by Cadillac, and for some reason Cadillac turned it back over to a s c.
42:00
They didn't wanna do it.
42:01
Those are really fun.
42:02
Now, right below that, You've got the Elante, the Riata, the
42:06
tc, where I'm going with this.
42:08
Your A S C McLaren, the El Dorado Todo Riviera convertible, the
42:12
tc, the Elante, or the rta.
42:14
Those are all fantastically cheap.
42:17
Yeah.
42:17
For what you're getting, the Elante and the TC.
42:20
Are going up in value the quickest, from what I can tell, the A S c McLaren Capri
42:26
are stupid cheap for what you're getting.
42:28
Really the Mustang is worth a lot more.
42:31
If you're just starting out and you want some odd, weird car that's actually
42:35
kind of easy to get ahold of and extremely easy to service, you're not
42:40
gonna go wrong with any of those cars.
42:42
You're really not.
42:43
And this is a really cool pick that Jeff has brought up about this M 81 Mustang.
42:47
And obviously that's gonna be what people want, especially if
42:49
you're in the Mustang community.
42:51
The people that know about it, it's got that particular orange
42:53
color, all that kind of stuff.
42:54
But that Capri version, what's really neat about that is it harkens back
42:59
to the TransAm days and Lynn St.
43:02
James drove a TransAm Capri, so if you wanted to deck it out and go back to
43:08
the eighties, you could make a replica of her Ford Motorsport Capri, right?
43:12
Stuff like that.
43:13
With those flares and that wide, I really is aggressive.
43:16
That's a cool car.
43:17
I mean, I, I hate to say I almost like it better than the regular fox body,
43:20
although you could probably take a fox body and build one of these if somebody
43:24
makes the flare kit and all the parts.
43:27
That's what I was gonna get at too, is actually they do.
43:30
Oh, you can still get all the flare kit.
43:32
You can get the interior, which had Ricardo seats, you
43:35
know, these were two seat cars.
43:36
The convertibles, I don't know about the M 81.
43:38
I'm assuming that was a two seater car, because it was a racing car.
43:41
You know, these convertibles I'm talking about, they were a little more relaxed.
43:44
They were a little more for the boulevard, you know, they were a Mustang.
43:46
They could move, but they were converted to be more like the sl.
43:51
So you have the two seats, and then that little package area behind the two seats.
43:55
They were full convertible.
43:56
They had beautiful carpet.
43:58
The Ricardo seats, they were upgraded in a lot of different ways.
44:01
The Damnest thing, to me, again, the TC and the alte of this genre.
44:06
Are the ones going up in value the fastest out of all of 'em.
44:09
And yet they built a lot fewer McLaren A S C cars.
44:12
Yeah.
44:12
Than either the, especially the Alante.
44:15
They built quite a few of those.
44:16
But the tc, they only built roughly 7,000 of them.
44:18
What?
44:19
What did they build?
44:20
I mean, I just saw the sheet because I was looking at it, it was low.
44:24
I wanna say 2000 is all that was built of the Mustang and then the Capri was even
44:29
lower than that because even though it was in production, it just didn't sell Well
44:33
you know Jeff, you hit a winner there.
44:34
You really did.
44:35
And I never thought about bringing the M 81 into it because that
44:37
was just too extreme for me.
44:38
But yeah, that is a kick butt car.
44:40
Technically.
44:41
The M 81 was from 1981.
44:43
Yes.
44:44
Oh.
44:45
And if you look at the style, it really is build off that kind of seventies Mustang.
44:50
It's kind of crazy to think they're charging 25 grand with inflation in 2023.
44:54
Something like $90,000 for a car with 135 horsepower.
44:58
Oh, that hurts.
45:00
That hurts that.
45:01
It was the eighties.
45:02
It was all about flash, pizazz style.
45:05
Look at the TransAm.
45:06
Seriously.
45:06
It just gets no flashy or no better than a TransAm of those days.
45:10
The GTAs, those Oh perfect.
45:13
Cars just perfect.
45:14
Alright.
45:14
Night rider.
45:14
All right.
45:15
Michael Knight.
45:15
Chill out there a second.
45:17
Didn't have, hang again.
45:18
The cars were super heroes then too.
45:20
The, what you saw on tv, like can you name a show?
45:23
That didn't have a chase scene or the hero or heroine drove
45:27
some sort of car that you wanted.
45:29
It was like a rolling advertisement every week between Magnum and Fall Guy and
45:32
MacGyver and Falcon Crest, and you know, heart to heart and all there was, oh geez.
45:37
The list goes on and on and on on these shows.
45:39
Well, the ETE made me want a Corvette.
45:41
I mean, I always fancied myself as face.
45:43
Could I have the blonde hair?
45:44
And I just had to have that.
45:45
The 18 makes you wanna buy a Vandora van?
45:48
Come on now.
45:48
Oh yeah.
45:49
Oh, that too.
45:49
I want 'em both.
45:50
I'm greedy.
45:51
Are you kidding me?
45:52
I'm a child of the eighties.
45:53
I want it all, and it's all about me.
45:54
But you talked about sophistication and all this kind of stuff, and there's
45:58
another car that was featured in a show every week, and kind of to go back
46:02
to Magnum PI for a second, Higgins.
46:04
Drove an Audi 5,000 and the 4,000, the big one, the 5,000
46:09
was always like their test bed.
46:11
We're gonna put the most experimental stuff we can come up with in this
46:14
land yacht and then subject it to the people and if it breaks, then we'll
46:17
figure out how to fix it from there.
46:18
You know, it was kind of Audi's thing back then, but the 5,000
46:21
is sort of underappreciated.
46:23
And what's cool about the 5,000, which became the 200 later and things
46:27
like that is a V eight fits in there.
46:30
Just wanna let you all know it was used in TransAm and in touring car
46:34
and D T M and all that kind of stuff.
46:35
The 5,000 can be turned into a beast.
46:38
If you want to build a hot rod, but if you want a nice, luxurious and
46:42
most aerodynamic car of the eighties, the 5,000 is an interesting choice.
46:47
And since you're a wagon guy, Eric, I was just looking it up.
46:49
They actually came in wagons.
46:50
Yeah.
46:50
The 200 avan dude, it's like a unicorn for me.
46:53
That's the top.
46:54
Wasn't the 5,000 also available as a wagon?
46:56
Yeah.
46:56
Yes, there was.
46:57
Yeah, there was.
46:57
But the 200, the 200 is what you want because you get the bigger motor and the
47:01
turbo and Yeah, all the fun stuff that, that was the one my mom was actually
47:04
interested in the Audi 5,000 wagon.
47:07
I remember that.
47:07
And that, that was a terrible day in my family's history because my dad and
47:11
his anti foreign cars, all that stuff.
47:13
And we went, me and my mom alone secretive.
47:16
My dad couldn't hear about this.
47:17
We went to drive the Audi 5,000 wagon, and I'll never forget
47:20
the look on my mom's face.
47:22
She drove it around the block and put it right back on the dealer
47:24
lot and thanked the salesman.
47:26
And we were leaving and I thought, okay, I don't know what that's all about.
47:30
I said, we get in our car, which was a 78 Ford Country Squire, l t d boat.
47:35
And so I asked her, what do you think?
47:36
What do you think?
47:37
You know, I'm all excited.
47:37
I'm hoping she's gonna buy a new car, you know?
47:39
And she said, that was the most dreadful car I've ever driven in my life.
47:43
I said, you're kidding me, but Uncle Howard.
47:45
He goes, yeah, I don't know how Uncle Howard tolerates those pieces of junk.
47:48
I really don't.
47:49
Wow.
47:50
I said, what was wrong with it?
47:51
Well, it was terribly slow.
47:52
It drove really nicely.
47:54
But you know the window and then that back end the way the rear rakes in like
47:59
that, you lose all that cubic footage and the head room and your father with
48:03
his height and there's no way it's gonna work out and blah, blah, blah.
48:05
I was blown away how badly she hated that car.
48:09
I just, sorry.
48:10
Well, you know what she needed instead was a Nissan Pulsar nx.
48:16
That was a cool car.
48:17
Yeah.
48:17
The Inspector Gadget car, right?
48:19
Yeah.
48:20
You could take off that rear end and have the little hatchback or put it
48:23
back and you've got a wagon and No, those were fantastic little cars.
48:26
I never understood that car.
48:28
If I can really go boldly, We're only the stupidest ever go.
48:34
I'd like to go there now.
48:36
Join me.
48:37
You're going to Britain?
48:38
No, Germany.
48:40
Oh, okay.
48:40
Because there are certain cars that came from Germany in the 1980s that defined
48:45
the 1980s, and I'm talking Crockett and Tubs shook 'em down every week.
48:50
The drug, Lord, with their AMGs, their als, their Lorenzos,
48:55
there's bottles and their resco.
48:57
Mercedes-Benz.
48:59
I'm glad you brought that up because I know we talked to Mark about the 500
49:03
E, which was the Porsche collaboration for Mercedes, but I found a little
49:07
gem that predates the nineties car.
49:10
Yeah, but I found the eighties version of it that predates it called the Hammer.
49:14
Yes, the hammer was the a m G version.
49:18
That was the beginning of it all.
49:19
The hammer.
49:20
That thing was incredible.
49:21
I would go so far as to say any a m G car from the eighties is the balls.
49:26
Oh yeah, pre-acquisition, they're all very low volume.
49:29
I don't care what a m g you have from that era.
49:32
And even the Alpena BMWs, they were much more sport.
49:35
Any, everybody thinks of the B seven, which in my opinion kind
49:39
of ruined the Alpena brand.
49:40
But if you go back to the eighties and nineties, they made some cool stuff.
49:43
If you get like a B six, E 30 B M W, Alpena B six, like
49:48
that is a very cool car.
49:49
Any A M G from the eighties is a very cool car going through the roof price wise.
49:54
Now, those AMGs from the eighties, I mean, they're just getting obscene in value.
49:58
Crazy money.
49:59
Yeah.
49:59
I mean, if you remember back in the day, not too long ago, you could buy those.
50:03
There was one in Palm Springs used to drive me crazy on the way into or
50:06
out of town by the welcome center, which used to be an old gas station,
50:10
and the guy was a Mercedes guy.
50:13
He had.
50:14
A three 80 SL or a four 50 SL A M G, and it was the real deal.
50:20
It was all black, had the hard top still on it, had this black
50:23
interior decked out dashboard.
50:25
It was incredible.
50:26
You know, when I was pumping gas, I went over just to look at it and one
50:29
thing that really got my attention, you know, you think to yourself, oh
50:31
my God, look at this ridiculous thing.
50:33
It's a blacked out sl.
50:35
How ugly.
50:36
When you get close to those things and you start looking at the
50:38
details that they use to make those cards, for example, that blackout
50:42
treatment, it's not all gloss black.
50:44
If you look at the grill treatment, if you look at the little Mercedes
50:47
emblem, you look at all that, it's actually more of a matte finish.
50:51
It's kind of a satin finish.
50:52
Yeah.
50:53
They differentiated how they were gonna black out that car.
50:56
And then when you look on the inside, people say they're white.
50:58
They're actually a light, light, silver color material on
51:02
the gauges that set it apart.
51:03
You had your alpine stereo system, you had all this crazy stuff.
51:07
They were really highly detailed, but then of course you had the handling suspension
51:11
and if you could get 'em to modify the engine, you had all that much more.
51:14
They were something else.
51:16
But my point is, I remember that guy at the Shell station.
51:18
He wasn't selling, wasn't selling, wasn't selling.
51:20
And then finally one day he said, yeah, he was interested in selling.
51:23
He said, well how, how much do you want for it?
51:24
You have five grand.
51:25
Yeah.
51:25
I said, okay, well what's wrong with it?
51:27
He goes, well, you gotta rebuild the engine.
51:29
You gotta rebuild the transmission.
51:30
You gotta rebuild everything.
51:31
And because it's not straight Mercedes, you gotta find a
51:34
specialist who can rebuild an A M G.
51:36
They're thinking, oh, so that's where the money's gonna go on that car, you know?
51:41
And now it's gone.
51:41
Somebody did buy it.
51:43
It's worth it now.
51:44
It wasn't worth it.
51:44
Then the market value will pay for the repair.
51:46
Yeah.
51:47
Yeah.
51:47
It's crazy.
51:48
And that's a really good question.
51:49
'cause William, you do deal in Mercedes as well.
51:52
So I'm wondering, Don left one of the tuners off the list and that's
51:56
Braas and at that time, mm-hmm.
51:58
Braas was a big deal in the Mercedes community.
52:00
So if you look at the market value there, would you rather have an early
52:04
A M G or a Braas from that period?
52:06
Me take the a M G.
52:07
Quality wise, Buildwise A M G was a step above vis, I think Vis was more aesthetics
52:14
really than the kind of like motor net.
52:15
So I'm not saying it was a bad car, but I would steer someone towards a m g.
52:19
Now vis is obviously gonna have a little more rarity to it than a
52:22
m G 'cause there weren't so many.
52:24
Yeah, I'd steer towards a m G for Brava.
52:26
Really can't go wrong with either of 'em.
52:28
It just depends on your taste.
52:29
You know, they were, I would say two distinct ways of encroaching
52:32
it, doing those cars, but I'd say a M G all day long.
52:34
And the rarity thing is relative, like the A M G volumes from that
52:38
time were really, really low.
52:39
Right?
52:40
Oh yeah.
52:40
You're talking hundreds or thousands for those models and
52:44
many of them are under a thousand.
52:46
Yeah.
52:46
I mean you could be in single digit production on some of those.
52:48
A lot of 'em are only double digit.
52:50
I mean, some are only a couple hundred.
52:51
That was where it was taking them weeks to build a car.
52:55
It wasn't like they were cranking these things out by the day.
52:57
Took their time, building those things correctly.
52:59
So there had the volume, you know, it was very low, kind of going back
53:02
like Don saying about the guys saying, well, okay, it's only five grand.
53:04
Oh you're gonna have to go through the motor transmission.
53:06
That stuff.
53:07
A lot of those cars, they weren't taken care of.
53:09
They were at first.
53:10
Then they used Mercedes that, you know, had a kit.
53:12
So people didn't take care of it.
53:13
It drove into the ground.
53:14
No one would take care of 'em.
53:16
It got to the point, well I'm not gonna put in 15, 20 grand into a
53:20
car that's only worth five grand.
53:21
So they just let 'em rot.
53:22
It's worth it now.
53:23
But, and here's a case in point.
53:25
There was a company, they actually changed the trunk emblem, you know, it's say
53:28
500 SELs and they changed it to 1000 s.
53:32
Mercedes asked them politely stop using our s e l logo.
53:35
So they used 1000 and it was the initials of the guy who owned the company.
53:39
I think that's what that was.
53:40
And these 1000 SELs, you gotta think, we're talking 19 83,
53:44
19 85, somewhere in there.
53:46
They were $250,000 to start.
53:49
This is crazy money They, and that's why only the people who could afford
53:52
them were the sheik and the drug lords.
53:54
To what you are saying, William, I've got a friend who collects these cars and one
53:59
of 'em a tragic story, it broke my heart.
54:01
He gets a call, there's a man in Beverly Hills, he just bought a house.
54:05
They're gonna tear it down and build a whole new house.
54:07
But in the garage, there's this stupid freaked out looking.
54:10
Mercedes.
54:10
Mercedes, do you want it?
54:12
And he says, well, yeah, yeah, I want it.
54:14
I want it.
54:14
Well, he couldn't get it.
54:15
The state made him junket and it was one of these 1000 SELs, so they gutted it.
54:20
He went over there with his team.
54:22
He took everything he could off that car, paid the junk man for it, just
54:27
in case he could get the state to change its mind and say, yeah, yeah,
54:30
okay, we'll give it a salvage title and you can put it back on the street.
54:33
They never did.
54:34
The car ended up going to the junkyard, but he still has all those parts.
54:37
But these cars had literally gold plated interiors.
54:41
Mm-hmm.
54:42
The leathers were completely switched out from what Mercedes used, and
54:46
they were totally chained up.
54:47
You had a TV and you remember back then they didn't have the
54:50
flat screens that we do today.
54:51
They had these big tube driven with glass front end, but they were
54:55
positioned right between the driver's seat and the passenger seat, so
54:58
the rear passengers could watch tv.
55:00
They had two phones in some cases.
55:02
I mean, it just went on and on and on.
55:05
Literally the sky was the limit.
55:06
And then the company.
55:08
And I forget if it was Barro or Trico.
55:10
One of the two took the S E C Mercedes and they turned them into Gullwings
55:16
and those were the ones to have.
55:18
Those were the cars that were just mind blowing because what's more
55:22
mind blowing than a Gullwing door?
55:24
I mean, yeah, okay.
55:25
That's come from the DeLorean guy here.
55:26
But seriously, when you put a 500 s e c out there and you've got Goaling
55:30
door, believe me, you are gonna let everybody know you are the last one.
55:34
Next up, Don tries to sell us all a bricklin.
55:38
We'll just put a pin in that with these goaling doors for a moment, shall we?
55:42
I like this topic 'cause they're an American version of this, right?
55:45
So we've talked about Alpena, we've talked about, you know, a M G and vis, and let's
55:51
just say we talked about roof and move on.
55:53
We all acknowledge bringer trailers the easiest thing to search by price.
55:57
'cause they actually give you good statistics.
55:59
It's also the high, probably the most overpriced market, but you
56:03
can get some really cool C four Callaway twin Turbo Corvettes.
56:07
The sledgehammer.
56:08
Yeah.
56:09
Yeah.
56:09
I mean, okay, so the actual car and driver car that did the 255 miles per hour
56:15
sold for 500 grand on bringer trailer.
56:17
But the other Callaway Corvettes sell for like 50 grand and that's
56:22
kind of a pretty damn cool car.
56:24
For 50 grand.
56:25
It's still crazy fast and very tuneable, very well set up.
56:30
If you don't want a Callaway, you can get a Lincoln filter.
56:32
There's like a bunch of different options.
56:33
I mean the eighties, I was thinking about it, there are so many names
56:36
that pop into my head in terms of tuners or body ca manufacturers.
56:40
You start looking at Zender and Rieger and Chem A and I mean it's, the list
56:44
goes on to lean and Roche and all these really cool on and on and on
56:48
and it's like everything was like bespoke in the eighties in a weird way.
56:51
It was like, what are we doing here?
56:53
I wanna roll this back because we're still talking about Mercedes and I
56:56
know there's one that Tanya and I have talked about quite a bit and I'm
57:00
gonna take this back to Magnum pi, hence the whole get up this evening.
57:03
It's the two 80 S l.
57:05
Rick drove one of those on Magnum.
57:07
It's like this timeless Mercedes.
57:09
It's understated but classy but also not super expensive like an A M G.
57:15
He actually had a three 80.
57:16
Tell me the difference other than the motor, it's all the same body, right?
57:20
Uh, the two 80 ssl, that was a whole different car.
57:22
That was, you're going back to 1971 with that car.
57:24
I mean unless there's something in Germany I don't know about.
57:26
But to your point though, and this is where I'll take your three 80 S
57:30
l, I was always a fan of the three A D S L raised in the eighties.
57:33
Matt Houston drove one.
57:34
The hearts had one that was the car to have.
57:37
The beautiful thing about the three 80 is this engine.
57:39
Now everyone's gonna laugh at me and say, oh Don, you don't know anything
57:42
about cars, because that was the weakest.
57:44
Of the SLS ever except for, you know, the six cylinder cars, the four
57:49
50 SL could clobber a five 60 sl, please light years ahead of its time.
57:54
The three 80 was sort of the little kid who, you know, is the ugly stepsister that
57:59
everybody kind of overlooks that today.
58:02
For someone buying a first classic collectible car
58:05
could be your strong point.
58:07
You get in a manual too.
58:08
Yeah, it's really rare that Mercedes had a manual and I think it's
58:11
one of the few, like a one 90 E.
58:13
Anyway, my point is because everyone poo-poos the engine and rightfully so.
58:17
I get that the values are really, really cheap.
58:19
Now hear me out, think of Ferrari.
58:21
Porsche, they always tend to lead the pack on this.
58:24
Well, I, I really want an 89, 9 11.
58:27
I really want an 89 9.
58:28
It's gotta be the turbo.
58:29
Gotta get the turbo.
58:30
Well, all of a sudden, everybody had the same thought, so
58:32
they all started buying 'em.
58:33
So the value started going up.
58:34
So the next thing you know, all I can do is afford a nine 11 sc.
58:37
Oh my God, I gotta get my sc, I gotta get an I S C.
58:39
The next thing you know, the nine 11 SC is a $60,000 car and I can't afford it.
58:45
So now I'm looking at what I think these SLS are gonna do the same thing.
58:49
Your four 50 and certainly your five sixties are stratospheric at this point.
58:53
I think the three 80 is your safe bet.
58:55
You're gonna grab one of those and they will go up in value.
58:58
Because everybody wants that body style.
59:00
It gets to a point the engine and the performance don't
59:02
really matter after a while.
59:04
People just want the look, they want the enjoyment, they want all that stuff.
59:07
I think you'd pick a really, really good winner by going with
59:10
a three 80 s l if of course you don't want a DC No, what can I say?
59:14
You know, obviously I had the three 80 on the bottom end of it, but the one that
59:18
I kinda like to step up, but it's going into the four 50 S L C, you get the coop.
59:22
That's a great car because it's a hard top coup.
59:24
I mean, it's a gorgeous looking car.
59:26
I mean, I really like those myself.
59:28
I think it's great.
59:29
And you know, William, back when the SLCs were new, that was
59:32
Mercedes's most expensive model.
59:35
Yep.
59:35
Was that SS l c?
59:36
Yeah.
59:36
That was the most premium car that you could get from Mercedes.
59:39
And today they're, they're cheap.
59:41
Oh yeah.
59:42
I think they're sharp.
59:43
That one almost probably didn't have a manual on those, but do an engine swap.
59:46
To do a transmission swap.
59:47
I mean, it's a fun, sporty car.
59:49
It's, you know, it's small.
59:50
It's tight, you know.
59:50
But I know, I dig.
59:51
I think they're great.
59:52
Well, a big thing to Don's point is people looking to buy these cars.
59:56
It's not always about the performance aspect of it.
59:58
It's more of like the nostalgia.
59:59
'cause it's the memories of those times, and it doesn't have to
1:00:03
be the fastest sportiest car.
1:00:05
A big thing for any car buyers getting up in their forties and older.
1:00:08
A lot of these cars.
1:00:10
We couldn't afford his kids when we saw 'em.
1:00:11
So, you know, you saw 'em on TV shows and stuff you could've never
1:00:14
dreamed as a kid of owning it.
1:00:16
And now it is a possibility.
1:00:18
That's why the performance isn't what matters.
1:00:20
You know, Tanya has one right behind her and, okay, Tanya, all fairness.
1:00:25
I don't know what's been done to your cars.
1:00:26
Probably freaked out to hell in high water, but like I was saying
1:00:29
about Uncle Howard's Audi, it couldn't get out of its own way.
1:00:31
It really, really couldn't.
1:00:33
But man, I loved looking at that car.
1:00:35
I did.
1:00:36
And I actually liked driving that car.
1:00:38
It was just a nice car to cruise around in.
1:00:40
You know, look at the Ferrari 3 0 8 in its day.
1:00:42
Damn nice performer.
1:00:44
Really nice performer.
1:00:45
But it was just five, six years later, the Corvette had run circles
1:00:48
around it, and that's just it.
1:00:49
The eighties was weird because if you were making.
1:00:52
200 horse.
1:00:53
You were like a God.
1:00:55
And then it was like the Porsche had 2 25, right?
1:00:58
You're like, oh.
1:01:00
And then yeah, Corvette comes outta left field with like 300 and change
1:01:03
in the ZR one and all that stuff, and you're like 300 now, dude, your
1:01:07
grandma's Camry has 300 horsepower in it.
1:01:09
It's freaking nuts to Dan's point.
1:01:12
But the VR six was around since the late eighties when it was developed.
1:01:15
The VR six made 172 horsepower.
1:01:18
It was a hot rod in the Colorado when it came out.
1:01:21
That's all you need.
1:01:22
I can merge with no problem with 125 horsepower.
1:01:25
You know what I mean?
1:01:26
It's like why Miatas are fun.
1:01:28
They make a whopping like 102 wheel horsepower.
1:01:31
They just give you so much.
1:01:32
Feedback.
1:01:33
They're so analog and I think that's what's cool about eighties cars is like we
1:01:38
talked about in the intro, there's a lot of really whizzbang electronics because
1:01:41
we were embracing the second space age, but the cars didn't have any nannies.
1:01:46
They didn't have any assists, could still get a manual transmission.
1:01:50
They were far fagan.
1:01:51
Right.
1:01:51
The whole campaign and the, the joy of driving, that's what I look forward to
1:01:55
every time I get into, you know, I'll mark two G T I or I get into an old
1:02:00
Ferrari or Porsche or whatever it is.
1:02:01
It's just, it brings me back to when driving was driving.
1:02:04
You can't be talking on your cell phone and ordering DoorDash going down the road.
1:02:08
You gotta drive.
1:02:09
Well, and yeah, you really do.
1:02:11
And you hit that 200 horsepower mark.
1:02:13
And isn't it funny that Corvette, if I remember correctly, the, even
1:02:17
the 82 Corvette was still, I think at one 90, or was it at two 10?
1:02:21
Had it broken 200 At that point, that was like breaking the stratosphere,
1:02:25
getting to those numbers.
1:02:26
Not even close in 82, right?
1:02:27
I think it was 180, 1 70.
1:02:29
They said 200 horsepower at 4,200 RRP M in 1980.
1:02:32
Out of how many liters, Dan?
1:02:34
The three 50 at that time was the standard engine had 200 horsepower at 4,200 rpm.
1:02:38
Okay, and is that the crossfire or is that the standard four barrel?
1:02:41
Do we know?
1:02:42
That would've probably been in 82.
1:02:43
That was the first year for the crossfire, the cross failure.
1:02:46
They were only failures if you messed with them who didn't
1:02:49
mess with 'em or drove them.
1:02:50
Yeah, or drove.
1:02:51
Yeah.
1:02:51
I was gonna say, well, yeah, that's up to you in the warranty
1:02:55
if you're gonna drive it.
1:02:56
If you turned them on, they had maintenance issues,
1:02:58
just don't turn 'em on.
1:02:59
Then there's the opposite of all this, obviously, like you're saying,
1:03:03
Eric, the eighties was iconic for dial and the right smell of a car and
1:03:09
the feel of it, but towards the late eighties, one of the last on my list.
1:03:12
Is something that's a sleeper.
1:03:14
It's like the exact opposite.
1:03:15
It's kind of ugly.
1:03:16
Four-door sedan, 89 Dodge Spirit rt.
1:03:20
Oh man, you just lit up Don.
1:03:23
Here we go.
1:03:24
229 horsepower.
1:03:26
Did the quarter mile in 14 and a half seconds.
1:03:28
It was the fastest four door in the entire country and nobody knew it.
1:03:33
So that made that cool.
1:03:34
Yeah.
1:03:35
And the funny thing about that car Dodge tried to promote it.
1:03:38
They tried to sell it.
1:03:39
They tried to get it out there.
1:03:40
And who was its number one enemy?
1:03:41
The Taurus.
1:03:42
S H o.
1:03:43
Oh yeah.
1:03:43
And for some reason everybody loved the S H O, but not so much the spirit.
1:03:48
And yet the spirit was a hair quicker.
1:03:50
A hair faster.
1:03:51
Well, and the Ford Escort also had that, the RS Turbo something or other.
1:03:56
The cozy, yeah.
1:03:57
That was a four door too that, I mean, it looked exactly like the regular four door
1:04:01
escort, but it would blow your doors off.
1:04:03
Princess Diana drove one of those, by the way.
1:04:05
I did not know that.
1:04:06
Cool.
1:04:07
Should a black one.
1:04:08
It's awesome.
1:04:09
Yeah, just full plate.
1:04:10
80 grand.
1:04:11
Yep.
1:04:11
At auction.
1:04:12
Yeah.
1:04:12
And everybody goes crazy over the Rs.
1:04:14
Zizi, hatchback, Liftback, whatever you wanna call it.
1:04:16
The Homologated car.
1:04:17
Yeah.
1:04:17
But that little sedan that Jeff is talking about, that's a hot ticket item.
1:04:21
And you can get those from England.
1:04:22
Now, nobody wanted them, but if you wanna get a little weirder, Jeff, walk
1:04:26
with me into the weird Hall of fame.
1:04:28
Oh no, here we go.
1:04:29
88 Nova twin cam.
1:04:31
That's where he's going now.
1:04:32
'cause we have to have something from GM in there.
1:04:34
No, no.
1:04:36
It's another Chrysler.
1:04:37
It's another Chrysler.
1:04:39
Okay.
1:04:39
The Leber G T S.
1:04:41
Oh, I remember those.
1:04:42
I haven't even heard of that.
1:04:43
And that my friend was a hatchback and a four door, so it fits right
1:04:48
in with this whole hot hatch thing.
1:04:50
Wasn't that the same as the Lancer or whatever they had come out with,
1:04:53
which was the Plain Jane version?
1:04:54
Yeah, I think they shared a lot of the same body.
1:04:57
Yeah, we're talking 1984 ish, 85 ish.
1:04:59
Chrysler had the G T s, and it was this little hatchback, 2.2 liter,
1:05:04
you know, the four cylinder turbo, like everything on a K car chassis.
1:05:07
It was really, really amazing to watch this car, zero to 60 quarter
1:05:11
mile top end, hanging onto Crown Victoria's, hanging onto Caprices,
1:05:16
hanging onto the Grand Furies, all those cars, and yet it's doing it with.
1:05:20
28 miles to the gallon.
1:05:21
Especially if John Voight was driving it.
1:05:24
John, there we go.
1:05:25
John Voight baby.
1:05:26
Do we have any Seinfeld fans in the house?
1:05:29
Yes, right here.
1:05:29
I know exactly what you're talking about.
1:05:31
And the funny thing, it's not really a hatch.
1:05:33
It's like the original Audi A seven or something.
1:05:37
Is it actually a trunk?
1:05:38
I'd never heard of it.
1:05:39
I'm just looking at the pictures.
1:05:40
It's got that kind of stretched kind of lift back slash hatch type.
1:05:45
It's the lancer body.
1:05:46
They shared that and they called it a LeBaron and they beefed it up.
1:05:49
I remember as a little kid, and I think Tanya was a little too
1:05:52
young to remember, but we actually went to the local Dodge dealer.
1:05:55
He went and test drove a lancer At the time they were looking for a
1:05:58
car for my mom or whatever, and he came back and he hated it so much.
1:06:03
And I don't know what possessed the salesman.
1:06:05
And I'll never forget this.
1:06:06
He put my dad in a minivan.
1:06:09
The Chrysler minivan was a big deal at the time by Coco's thing.
1:06:12
Right.
1:06:13
And my dad was like, get me the F out of this.
1:06:15
And we went straight to the Volkswagen dealership and then bought the gray
1:06:19
Rocco that we had like forever.
1:06:20
I remember such a vivid thing.
1:06:22
'cause my dad was so like explicitly upset about being put into a minivan.
1:06:27
It was just like, no way.
1:06:29
No how?
1:06:30
Right.
1:06:31
Well, you know, going on the four door hatch, one car I've always
1:06:34
wanted, and you'll be happy, Eric, it's not a Chrysler product.
1:06:37
Nowhere near it.
1:06:38
Oh Lord.
1:06:39
The Sterling 8 27, oh, and there was the 8 25 and the 8 25 sl.
1:06:44
There was a bunch of ones that came here to the states that everybody forgot about.
1:06:48
I like that because it's the British Accord.
1:06:51
It's literally a Honda that they Reba as a sterling.
1:06:54
I remember seeing those running around as a kid.
1:06:56
They were neat.
1:06:57
They were different.
1:06:57
As one owner put it to me, everything Honda lasted forever.
1:07:01
Everything sterling fell apart.
1:07:03
The one thing I will give the sterling credit for is ushering in the Integra
1:07:09
and the legend, because it opened the door for Acura once Sterling sort
1:07:13
of failed here in the United States.
1:07:14
Then you notice right after the Acura showed up and everybody's
1:07:17
like, wait, wait, what is this?
1:07:18
What's, what's this thing?
1:07:19
I thought they both came over right around 87 and I think that's part of
1:07:23
what killed the sterling was Acura sales were so much higher Yeah.
1:07:27
Than Sterling thought.
1:07:28
That was how it went down.
1:07:29
But yeah, customers like the one I'm talking about who praised everything Honda
1:07:34
or Acura and then poo-pooed everything.
1:07:36
Sterling is a regular consumer.
1:07:38
You're thinking to yourself, okay, so the message here is just go buy
1:07:41
the Honda and get it over with, or go buy the Acura and get it over with.
1:07:44
It's a quality car.
1:07:45
But yeah, and, and even that, I mean, if we're gonna go down that direction,
1:07:49
the legend or the uh, Integra, either one of those car to be fantastic,
1:07:54
what should I buy candidates?
1:07:56
And one of 'em is a hatchback.
1:07:58
And in that same realm, the original Eagle Talon, you know, since we talked about
1:08:02
the conquest early on, that was another early all-wheel drive production car.
1:08:08
Yeah.
1:08:08
And they were hot turbo, you know, shared with the rest of the
1:08:10
Chrysler platform and all that.
1:08:12
They're neat cars.
1:08:13
The later generation Eclipse Eagles are a lot nicer, but those
1:08:17
early ones are still kind of cool.
1:08:18
And when you see one, you're like, as long as it's not a Plymouth laser,
1:08:21
you're just like, oh, that's really neat.
1:08:22
You know?
1:08:23
Yeah.
1:08:23
We had a friend who owned a Honda dealer, so of course everybody in the
1:08:26
family except the mother who drove a Mercedes, everybody else drove a Honda.
1:08:29
And I remember his daughter was my sister's best friend.
1:08:33
They're still best friend, and they had a cabin up in a place
1:08:36
called Big Bear, which is up in the southern California mountains.
1:08:39
And the road up there, there's two main roads to get up there, and one
1:08:42
of 'em is just kind of a switchback back and forth and back and forth.
1:08:45
It's really annoying.
1:08:46
The other one is the old more curvy road.
1:08:49
That one's a lot more fun.
1:08:50
And I remember her going up there one weekend.
1:08:53
She had a five liter on her butt.
1:08:55
She said, it was so close that in my mirror I could barely see the
1:08:59
tops of the windshield wipers.
1:09:01
So that's how close these guys were.
1:09:02
And so she just kept pushing the little Honda, pushing, pushing, pushing.
1:09:06
And she said it was kind of funny because you'd hit those curves and
1:09:09
the Mustang would really back off.
1:09:11
But the Honda, no problem.
1:09:13
It just charged right through it.
1:09:14
The Mustang had to back off a little bit and then regain
1:09:17
ground on the straightaway.
1:09:18
Typical David and Goliath situation, but that's another great one.
1:09:23
The Honda Prelude, if you can find one from the eighties, it
1:09:26
hasn't been completely trashed.
1:09:28
The Honda Prelude was a really, really nice car or wheel steering baby car.
1:09:32
Yeah, that was steering.
1:09:33
Yeah.
1:09:33
Now I found one of those, and I don't remember where, but it was gorgeous.
1:09:37
It was a four wheel steering, five speed red black interior.
1:09:42
Si absolutely gorgeous.
1:09:43
And yeah, it went for 60 grand.
1:09:45
That's insane.
1:09:46
Obviously there is some eyes open to look for these cars, but
1:09:50
like we were all saying, do you really need the high performance?
1:09:53
Do you really need the hot?
1:09:54
Find one that's just clean.
1:09:55
Find one that's been preserved, go preserve it some more and enjoy it again.
1:10:00
Show up to cars and coffee in a Honda Prelude.
1:10:02
I can almost guarantee you'll be the only one there.
1:10:04
One thing that was big about the eighties is like you were mentioning, like they
1:10:07
had options, like four wheel staring like the eighties I think was a time
1:10:10
when they were trying to push boundaries with technology and concepts and stuff.
1:10:14
A lot of what we do is what should I buy?
1:10:16
But I'm gonna throw out one of what you shouldn't buy.
1:10:19
During the eighties, the Cadillac had the 4.1 liter V eight in their
1:10:23
cars that at that time had the cylinder deactivation, which, oh yeah.
1:10:26
When you mentioned Honda, that was one of the things, probably like five,
1:10:28
10 years ago, Honda was promoting this variable cylinders type stuff
1:10:31
thing like it was something new.
1:10:32
I'm like, Cadillac did that back in the eighties and it was horrible.
1:10:35
'cause the computer technology just wasn't efficient at that time.
1:10:38
And I worked on one, but it was like in so many of the different cars they had.
1:10:42
My thing is if someone were to buy one of those cars, I would say
1:10:44
yank that crap out of it and just throw naturally aspirations there.
1:10:47
Car on there.
1:10:47
Yeah.
1:10:48
It was a nightmare to deal with and trying to fix it.
1:10:50
I spent weeks trying to get one fixed one time and when I finally got it running,
1:10:53
it still didn't run as good as it should.
1:10:55
My B M W does that now just all by itself.
1:10:58
That's a story for another day.
1:11:00
Four at a time though.
1:11:01
You know, the 4 6 8 was bad when Cadillac themselves ditched it and they
1:11:07
thought, we're not going back to this.
1:11:08
And what did they bring out after that?
1:11:10
The 4.5 liter I think was after that.
1:11:12
And then after that was a 4.9 liter and then after that was a 4.6
1:11:16
liter, which was the North Star.
1:11:17
I'll tell you, I got a buddy who is to ante or actually Cadillac,
1:11:22
what I am to Chrysler tc.
1:11:23
He just loves these cars and what he is always told me is, yeah, the North Star
1:11:27
is the sexy sister but she has more mental problems than you can shake a stick at.
1:11:32
She said, really?
1:11:33
The one you wanna do is get that 4.9 liter.
1:11:35
He said that 4.9 liters absolutely bulletproof.
1:11:38
But the four six is almost as bad as you're four one.
1:11:42
And I've met a lot of North Star guys and they swear by these things, but
1:11:46
they also tell me that we, yeah, when they break, bring your wallet because
1:11:50
it's gonna put your B M W to shame.
1:11:52
I wanna go back to the Honda conversation for a second 'cause there's some
1:11:55
interesting splinters here, especially 'cause you started with Sterling and
1:11:59
we didn't go down Merx or four Ti Ford, Sierra, Cosworth, that whole thing,
1:12:04
which I find those cars fascinating and you can do vi eight swaps on 'em
1:12:07
and all sorts of fun stuff there too.
1:12:08
And the Sierra Chassis's great.
1:12:10
Is there anything you can't do a V eight swap on Ella's Swap the world, my man.
1:12:14
And if you can't Ella's swap a JAMA V six in it.
1:12:16
That's the answer.
1:12:19
But you talked about Honda and the obvious choice is A C R X.
1:12:25
But that's the obvious choice.
1:12:27
So where my mind goes from there, and William hit on it, he said the 3 23 G
1:12:31
L C, which a buddy of mine had a Mazda 3, 2, 3, and obviously the king of them
1:12:36
was the G T X, the all-wheel drive.
1:12:38
Those things are super cool.
1:12:39
They're super rare, all that.
1:12:41
But you can import them now from Japan if you want, right?
1:12:43
We have all these options, but it takes me down another road.
1:12:46
It takes me down the road of Toyota and we can begin to talk about the starlet.
1:12:51
We can talk about the Corolla, FX 16.
1:12:53
We can talk about even the second generation m mr two, which came out in 87.
1:12:58
Not here in the US but it started coming out in 87, even though it's
1:13:01
a quintessentially nineties vehicle.
1:13:03
But the m R two is in this camp.
1:13:05
There's a lot of really interesting things from Toyota that I think get overlooked.
1:13:08
Everything from Toyota in the eighties was better than Honda.
1:13:11
Just like today, everything from Toyota is better than Honda.
1:13:14
Oh wow, man.
1:13:15
Oh.
1:13:16
Sway.
1:13:17
You had the Corolla G T S, you had the AE 86, you had the M R two, you had
1:13:22
the nine other things you just listed.
1:13:24
And what did Honda have?
1:13:26
Turx and the Prelude and a civic.
1:13:27
Woo.
1:13:28
The civic wasn't that great.
1:13:29
Yeah, the Integra, they had the Celica.
1:13:32
That's true.
1:13:32
And the Celica Supra.
1:13:34
Yep.
1:13:34
It's a lot in that Toyota camp to look at.
1:13:36
And for the longest time, Toyota got boring and there was
1:13:39
nothing that was interesting.
1:13:40
And now they're interesting again.
1:13:41
They seem to flip flop with Honda, where Honda got interesting
1:13:44
and now Honda's boring.
1:13:47
And there's also some really cool Toyota vans that you can
1:13:51
import from Japan right now.
1:13:53
Like the high ace, the high lux on the pickup side.
1:13:56
There's a lot of really neat stuff in Toyota.
1:13:58
And remember Toyota reliability?
1:14:00
They're not burning the world down in terms of performance.
1:14:03
But a Toyota from the eighties, I'd hop in and drive it tomorrow.
1:14:06
No issues.
1:14:07
Let's not forget the Toyota pickup from back to the future.
1:14:11
That thing is sick.
1:14:12
It's still awesome to this day.
1:14:13
I hate to say it, but being a Toyota pickup guy myself, I almost, almost
1:14:19
would rather have that than the DeLorean.
1:14:20
That's how much I like that truck.
1:14:22
That truck is a, I think the Roman votes, it's all the thumbs up on that truck.
1:14:26
That thing, those are still awesome today.
1:14:28
22 re four wheel drive extra cab.
1:14:30
You show up at cars of coffee and that that thing will get swamped.
1:14:33
Over a lot of things there.
1:14:35
That thing is gorgeous.
1:14:36
Designate are sweet.
1:14:37
It is interesting though what Tanya was saying.
1:14:39
It's interesting how Toyota and Honda always flip flop.
1:14:42
I would like to throw out an idea.
1:14:44
I have my background on an R 32 gorgeous car.
1:14:47
It's entire production run.
1:14:48
89 to 94 is almost entirely in our window here.
1:14:53
They had two other generations that launched in the nineties.
1:14:56
Your R 33, your R 34, or your more quintessential nineties car.
1:15:01
So even though most of these were made in the nineties, if you look at it,
1:15:05
it kind of looks like an eighties car.
1:15:07
Just styling wise.
1:15:08
It looks like an eighties car.
1:15:10
I think that an R 32 and everybody knows that's the one you actually
1:15:14
want to take to the racetrack if you're gonna do it, would be a really
1:15:17
interesting entrant into this category.
1:15:20
I mean, right.
1:15:21
I mean, Nissan had three generations of this car in the nineties, but this
1:15:24
one I think I would argue, even though the 19 89 300 zx, I would argue was a
1:15:29
nineties car, I could argue that this is kind of the king of the eighties
1:15:33
that just kind of came out right at the end and defined the decade.
1:15:36
The poor man's 9, 5, 9.
1:15:38
Here you go.
1:15:39
This is what you do.
1:15:39
Obviously it wasn't for sale in the us but Mark is one of those.
1:15:43
The Sylvia, is that one of those?
1:15:45
The Sylvia is like the later two forties.
1:15:47
Don might know this for the G T R, you know the great grandfather
1:15:51
of that, the Japanese princes?
1:15:52
Yeah.
1:15:53
Those were very, very nice cars.
1:15:54
My mom had the first and only Japanese princes in California.
1:15:59
It was a 67 Japanese prince, and she said it was just trash.
1:16:03
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
1:16:05
They, they really were kind of recycled beer cans.
1:16:07
I mean, that was always the joke about old Japanese cars.
1:16:10
I think that's why today whenever you see one, it's almost like, take
1:16:14
off your hat and give it a salute, because this little guy survived
1:16:18
and they were not meant to survive.
1:16:20
They were, I don't know what the Japanese were thinking.
1:16:23
If it was, they literally wanted them to fall apart or if they were thinking,
1:16:26
oh, we gotta get 'em together as cheaply as possible to beat the Americans.
1:16:29
I grew up with 19 71 2 40 Z in the garage that, I mean, we replaced
1:16:34
every body panel on that car.
1:16:36
Over time, just like in a 10 year period, it was kind of, yeah, they,
1:16:40
they rested coming off the assembly line and the dashboards cracked
1:16:43
coming off the assembly line.
1:16:45
I mean the ones that survive.
1:16:46
That's why I say whenever you see a Japanese car you're like, holy
1:16:49
cow, where did that come from?
1:16:51
That's pretty cool.
1:16:52
Jeff, your mom had a prince.
1:16:53
That's pretty awesome.
1:16:54
I wanna speak to the R 32 G T R.
1:16:57
Go for it.
1:16:57
I have instructing experience in one at Pocono and so I spent a couple
1:17:01
days coaching one and I will say I was always in love with the R 32.
1:17:06
I think it's a fantastic car.
1:17:08
It's just every angle you look at it, to Mark's point, it's a little quirky.
1:17:13
It's got that eighties feel to it, but it's sort of
1:17:15
nineties, but it's sort of not.
1:17:16
You look at the interior and you're not really sure what period it's from, but
1:17:20
when you get in it, it's a performer.
1:17:22
It's shockingly fast, like it's deceptively quick and it's very agile.
1:17:27
A point and shoot.
1:17:27
It's super analog.
1:17:29
It's screams eighties from a driving perspective and it was one of
1:17:33
those moments where I could say I got in my hero and I walked away.
1:17:38
Completely satisfied.
1:17:39
Versus a lot of other hero cars, which have been just terrible disappointments.
1:17:43
The R 32 was amazing, but everybody wants a G T R I.
1:17:47
And I looked into getting one of these a long time ago.
1:17:49
'cause there's companies here in the States, like in Florida and whatnot
1:17:52
that import these cars all the time.
1:17:54
But if you turn your eyes to the uk, you can get the slightly tuned down
1:17:58
version and then modify it later and get a G T S out of Britain.
1:18:02
It's all the same stuff.
1:18:04
It's all the same appearance package, slightly de-tuned motor, and they
1:18:07
sell for a lot less and they made a lot more GTSs than they made GTRs.
1:18:12
Something to consider there.
1:18:13
I also wrote in a four-door version of one of those, which was kind
1:18:16
of funky, imported from Japan.
1:18:17
Again, had some experience with these cars.
1:18:19
If you can afford A G T R do it, they're fantastic.
1:18:23
Now to your point, mark, the joke is, The R 32 is the one you take to the track.
1:18:28
The R 33 is the one you buy, your wife and the R 34 is the
1:18:31
one you take to the car show.
1:18:32
That still, I think, holds true even today.
1:18:35
The R 32 is the best performing out of the bunch.
1:18:38
Going a little down Nissan Lane again, if I may, if there was a car when Infinity
1:18:43
first came out, and I've always liked it.
1:18:45
I always thought it was a cool car, but unfortunately not too many people did.
1:18:49
And I believe it was called I 30.
1:18:52
It was a little convertible four seater and it was a coop four seater.
1:18:56
Yeah, I dunno if you remember those.
1:18:57
I remember the I 20, but not the I 30.
1:19:00
Oh, I remember the I 30.
1:19:01
Me and daughter we're the elder statesman here.
1:19:03
So you are not talking loud enough.
1:19:07
I can't hear you.
1:19:08
Is anyone in there?
1:19:09
I don't see you.
1:19:11
They're a decent car.
1:19:11
But man, they had some great motors in those.
1:19:13
They were quick cars, you know?
1:19:15
Was it the um, Q 45 was the large one.
1:19:18
The I 30 was your, yeah, so I mean they had some decent stuff.
1:19:21
It's funny, Eric, you know, you bring up driving your heroes and
1:19:24
you're gonna be disappointed.
1:19:25
I'll tell you, they had the Q 45 T, which gave you the special wheels and
1:19:28
the little arrow kit and whatever.
1:19:30
Anyway, I remember I got to drive one of those cutest priests.
1:19:33
That thing was insane.
1:19:34
It was one of those cars where you step on the gas and you're gone right now,
1:19:39
very spirited for a 4,500 pound car.
1:19:42
But what got me about that car, and this is where it gets weird, it shifts
1:19:46
into second and just as about to go into third, I floor it 'cause I'm stupid.
1:19:51
I couldn't believe it.
1:19:51
You know, you hear about this, these hot rodders talking about, oh, I broke
1:19:54
the wheels loose the second year.
1:19:55
Lemme tell you something.
1:19:56
That thing Fishtailed for a quarter of a block trying to catch itself.
1:19:59
I was blown away how much power that car had.
1:20:03
Now obviously that wasn't what Infinity meant, that car to do, right?
1:20:06
It wanted it to have some guts that wanted it to be comfortable,
1:20:09
effortless moving, et cetera.
1:20:10
And those early infinities from the late eighties, early
1:20:14
nineties were fantastic cars.
1:20:16
Now a contender for that, and in my opinion, is a better
1:20:19
car, is the SC 400 by Lexus.
1:20:22
Mm-hmm.
1:20:23
Which I'm not sure exactly what year those came out.
1:20:26
So it might break our 89 90 barrier, but somebody said something
1:20:30
about going all the way to 93.
1:20:31
So I'm.
1:20:32
Banking on that for saving me.
1:20:33
I see where you're going there.
1:20:35
And then in Japan, they had the Soer, I think it was called, which
1:20:38
was like the same car and all that, which was available earlier.
1:20:41
But going back to the Infinity for a minute, I kind of look at it and you
1:20:44
know, you talked on other episodes about being a posr and stuff like that.
1:20:47
And the problem with those early infinities is I'd rather have a Maxima,
1:20:51
because the Maxima, when I show up with a Maxima, it goes, yeah, yeah, yeah.
1:20:54
I show up with an Infinity.
1:20:56
And you're like, what?
1:20:57
What is this?
1:20:57
It's like a ripoff, Maxima, Altima, whatever.
1:21:00
It just I, I don't know.
1:21:01
It doesn't speak to me in the same way that it does for you.
1:21:04
So for the maximas of that generation, I don't know why, but it became like
1:21:08
everybody I hung out with, we used to call 'em the crack maxis because it
1:21:11
seemed like all the crack heads and crack dealers would drive Maximus.
1:21:14
Mm-hmm.
1:21:14
No, last we just started calling 'em Crack Maxis.
1:21:17
Yeah.
1:21:17
You know, the Maxima was a great car.
1:21:18
It was very powerful.
1:21:20
It was called the Four-Door Sports Car for a reason, if I'm not mistaken.
1:21:24
I think it was the Maxima that actually encouraged Honda to decide, fine, we'll
1:21:29
build a V six and put it in the Accord.
1:21:31
And the Accord quietly cleaned the Maximus clock.
1:21:34
Yeah.
1:21:35
In everything.
1:21:35
And it never said we're a sports car.
1:21:37
It never said we're performance oriented.
1:21:39
It never said anything to that degree.
1:21:42
But it was quieter.
1:21:43
It was more comfortable.
1:21:44
It had more features to it.
1:21:46
It was more expensive, but it was a better car all the way around.
1:21:49
Even in handling, which is hysterical because everybody knows those V six
1:21:54
accords especially want a nose plow.
1:21:56
They, well, Eric, what do you call that?
1:21:58
Is that called under steer?
1:21:59
Mm-hmm.
1:22:00
When you turn the wheel and the car's still going forward.
1:22:02
Is that what that's called?
1:22:02
So they understood like crazy.
1:22:04
That was my fear, Eric.
1:22:06
You were there.
1:22:07
When we raced that Corvette in Pennsylvania with my wife's accord, my big
1:22:11
fear was it's raining, the road is wet.
1:22:13
If we gotta turn that wheel, we're screwed.
1:22:15
'cause this Honda's just gonna keep going straight.
1:22:17
That's all it wants to do.
1:22:19
So I see what you're saying about the Maxima, but I don't know, I mean,
1:22:22
I think we'd have to put that to a test because I think the Infinity
1:22:24
would especially, again, consider you are a little older than maybe the
1:22:30
demographic we're trying to talk to.
1:22:32
Yeah.
1:22:32
What should I buy?
1:22:33
I've got my first little bit of money here.
1:22:35
I can buy something.
1:22:36
If you tell to buy a Nissan Maxima, guess what?
1:22:38
You've got a 20, 25 year old.
1:22:41
Nissan Maxima.
1:22:42
Okay.
1:22:43
Kind of cool in its own right.
1:22:44
But when you got the Infinity, you've got something rare, unique,
1:22:47
but there was really nothing on that car that was Maxima.
1:22:51
It had a bespoke V eight, it had a bespoke transmission, it had a bespoke interior.
1:22:56
It was all infinity.
1:22:58
The Q 45, not the I or M 30, the M 45, I like, that's like the Brutus.
1:23:04
Yeah.
1:23:05
De M 45 was good looking.
1:23:06
I can't let the Q 45 comment go though.
1:23:09
Like obviously that car just needed a new tire.
1:23:11
Like if you're, yeah, if you're like, if you're breaking loose into going
1:23:14
into third gear, I mean, yeah, right.
1:23:16
Well that thing was insane.
1:23:17
I could not believe the power that car had it.
1:23:20
It was insane.
1:23:21
They had three 40 or something like that.
1:23:22
Yeah, it had 300 plus horsepower in that thing.
1:23:25
I mean, not back then.
1:23:26
More like two 60, but fair enough.
1:23:28
Well, they were all 2 47 on paper for a long time.
1:23:31
Especially in the nineties.
1:23:32
Right.
1:23:33
So well remember whether if some guy said, if horsepower tells you how hard you're
1:23:36
gonna hit the wall and torque tells you how far you're gonna push it, push it.
1:23:39
Yeah, exactly.
1:23:40
Yeah.
1:23:41
I, I gotta tell you, if that infinity hit a wall, it's gonna push pretty damn hard.
1:23:44
That thing had nothing but torque.
1:23:46
Tanya's point earlier about, you know, Toyota and Honda Flip-flopping,
1:23:49
Nissan is in bed with Renault and they have been for now 20 years.
1:23:54
I sometimes wonder when I see an infinity on the road, I'm
1:23:56
like, oh, they still make cars.
1:23:58
Like they're still doing that whole luxury thing of Nissan.
1:24:01
But I feel like Maxima.
1:24:03
Is due for a resurgence.
1:24:05
The Maxima has been around.
1:24:06
You can buy a 2023 Nissan Maxima.
1:24:09
Wait, they still make them?
1:24:10
Yeah, they're still in existence.
1:24:12
My stand corrected.
1:24:15
I think they have a branding problem.
1:24:17
They have a branding challenge.
1:24:18
They never stopped production.
1:24:20
And they haven't stopped production since the first one in 81.
1:24:23
I thought it disappeared.
1:24:24
It's like the eighth or ninth generation are up to now of 'em,
1:24:27
but it looks like the Centra Ultima, they all look the same now.
1:24:30
So thats why I don't look, I don't even notice they're doing the German
1:24:33
model sausages of different lengths.
1:24:39
That's really good.
1:24:42
Mark is absolutely right.
1:24:44
Nissan has a major branding challenge and unfortunately so does Infinity.
1:24:48
Infinity.
1:24:49
When they got rid of that Q 45, that first generation, that was it.
1:24:54
They sort of slipped into obscurity.
1:24:55
There was nothing left.
1:24:56
It was like that comedian who has one joke and that's it.
1:24:59
You know?
1:24:59
It was crazy.
1:25:00
It really, really was one of the best Nissan uh, sales pitches ever.
1:25:04
Was the fact of the one where dogs love trucks.
1:25:06
Yes, absolutely.
1:25:08
Only on the whole Japanese thing though, if we can get off the Nissan train, the
1:25:12
Lexus SC 400, the SC three hundred's, the cool one, that's the one with the two jz.
1:25:17
No one cares about the 400 what?
1:25:18
Four hundreds a dog.
1:25:19
The 300 has the two JayZ.
1:25:21
That's all anybody cares about.
1:25:22
And a manual.
1:25:23
Yeah, get manual.
1:25:24
Yeah.
1:25:25
If you can find one.
1:25:26
If you can find one.
1:25:27
Yeah.
1:25:27
Fair enough.
1:25:27
You can swap it though.
1:25:29
You could.
1:25:29
But my point is though, the SC whatever, 400, 300, whichever one you prefer,
1:25:34
that was a very, very nice car.
1:25:36
Very, very nice car.
1:25:37
First day.
1:25:37
And you talk about cheap, once again, you're getting a car that's gonna
1:25:41
go three, 400,000 miles no problem.
1:25:43
And you're not paying very much to get into one.
1:25:45
They're fine, fine automobiles.
1:25:47
And of course they got the big brother.
1:25:48
If you want that mafiaa look, you've got the LSS 400, but we can
1:25:51
go the complete opposite of that.
1:25:53
If you wanna spend a shit ton of money, look like you're going a thousand
1:25:56
miles an hour and the car never runs, you can buy a Maserati by turbo.
1:25:59
Did they make it after 83?
1:26:02
It was 81 to what?
1:26:03
85 I thought.
1:26:04
Or 86, something like that.
1:26:05
That was 86.
1:26:06
That's an eighties car if there ever was one.
1:26:09
Fair enough.
1:26:10
Yeah.
1:26:10
It really is.
1:26:10
I'll, I'll give you that.
1:26:11
Many of you have never heard of this car and I forgive you for it.
1:26:15
Don't say zuzu impulse.
1:26:16
We're not talking about the impulse.
1:26:17
It's not happening.
1:26:18
You mute yourself there, boy.
1:26:20
Now we are going to talk about another Toyota.
1:26:23
Oh, now you have my attention.
1:26:25
Finest Toyota ever built.
1:26:28
It's all built by hand.
1:26:29
Don't say starlet.
1:26:30
The hot chi.
1:26:31
Go no.
1:26:32
Toyota Century.
1:26:33
Oh yeah.
1:26:34
That's like the precursor to the Lexus that thing's massive.
1:26:38
They still make it.
1:26:39
And in fact, over in Japan, they are still considered the ing of Japanese cars.
1:26:45
They, they blow Lexus on it reminds me of the old Mercedes, like the
1:26:48
grocers or wherever they were called.
1:26:50
The four 60.
1:26:50
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly.
1:26:52
Mirrors out on the winglets, the diplomat machines, right?
1:26:56
Those, yeah.
1:26:56
Well, the funny thing is, if you look at their history, they had V twelves, they
1:27:00
had v eights, they had inline sixes.
1:27:02
They had all these crazy engines.
1:27:03
But what I always got a kick outta these cars is the Americans, especially,
1:27:07
I don't know about the Europeans, but the Americans especially,
1:27:10
we love our leather interior.
1:27:12
Man.
1:27:12
You give us a leather interior and we got ourselves a luxurious car till the
1:27:16
end of time right there, the Japanese, if you want leather in that car,
1:27:21
you not only pay a premium for it, you've gotta wait because they have
1:27:24
to get the material, because otherwise you're gonna get a cloth interior.
1:27:27
In fact, that cloth is not just cloth.
1:27:29
No, sir, it is wool.
1:27:31
Now why is it wool?
1:27:32
Why even do cloth?
1:27:33
Because it's quieter.
1:27:35
When you do the leather in that car, they only put it in the back because the
1:27:38
person riding in the back doesn't wanna have to hear the driver squeaking on their
1:27:43
leather getting into the driver's seat.
1:27:45
That's right.
1:27:45
It's, it's actually pretty awesome.
1:27:47
Cars are amazing.
1:27:48
In fact, there's a great article, and I forget who wrote it, it was Car and
1:27:51
Driver or somebody, but they toured the Century Factory and it is, you know, you
1:27:56
talk about Bentley building their cars and Aston Martin and they're in these
1:27:59
little shops and they got these little hammers and they're hammering away.
1:28:02
That is seriously the Toyota Century factory.
1:28:05
You've got people who have been working there for 30 years.
1:28:08
You've got people who have been apprenticing there for 10 because
1:28:12
they want to work at Century.
1:28:14
It is such an honor to work there.
1:28:16
Their paint guy, oh, the paint is incredible on their cars.
1:28:19
But again, going to that 25 year, we can import it over here.
1:28:23
Now the century falls into that school.
1:28:25
It really does.
1:28:26
I actually agree.
1:28:27
I think that'll be a really cool, cool damn import to grab would be one.
1:28:31
I think I have a picture of one somewhere that I took in Texas on the road.
1:28:35
Yeah, I remember that.
1:28:36
Yeah.
1:28:36
In.
1:28:37
There's a guy in California, he imports those things.
1:28:40
Brings in a couple a year or something like that to resell 'em.
1:28:43
That would be a fun car to have.
1:28:44
And if you could find it from somebody who's already specializing
1:28:47
in importing it, that'd be fantastic.
1:28:49
Right.
1:28:49
So let's take this another way.
1:28:51
Let's go back to Jeff.
1:28:52
Jeff, what's on your list?
1:28:53
I know you got a list.
1:28:54
Honestly, I've exhausted it there.
1:28:56
Oh.
1:28:57
Oh dang.
1:28:58
'cause I got a couple more.
1:28:59
The other stuff that I had on here, everybody already mentioned and I've
1:29:03
gotten through the, the whole thing.
1:29:04
The only thing that I haven't talked about is kind of the more obvious when
1:29:08
you and I have talked, you know, I'm a Porsche guy and so the 9 6 8, the
1:29:12
9 2 8, the 9 4 4 turbo, if anybody mentions a 9 1 4, a 9, 2 4, I will
1:29:18
poop in my hand and give it to you.
1:29:19
'cause those things are trash.
1:29:21
Wow.
1:29:22
Well I actually, Jeff, I'd like to see that.
1:29:24
So nine 14, it's like monkeys at the zoo.
1:29:29
It's like, for instance, the 9 4 4, you can still get a very decent 9 4 4 turbo.
1:29:34
10, 12 grand.
1:29:36
Oh yeah.
1:29:37
I think you're better off.
1:29:38
As we've talked about with Kevin Duffy, a 9 2 4 s or a base 9 44.
1:29:43
The 9 44 turbos are just plagued with problems.
1:29:46
But I agree with you.
1:29:47
They are, they're a beautiful body.
1:29:49
There's the whole rivalry between the second gen RX seven, the 44 turbo.
1:29:52
If I had my druthers and I was gonna pick a 9 44 turbo, I would get the last of the
1:29:57
last and get a Cabrio lay and really just spend the money because they're so cool.
1:30:04
And they were so limited production, and I think they're better
1:30:07
looking than the 9 68 convertible.
1:30:09
9 68 is a beautiful coop.
1:30:11
It doesn't make it work in the convertible realm.
1:30:13
And the 9 44 turbo look really, really slick.
1:30:15
And it's just so different.
1:30:17
But if we're gonna go that way, kind of talk about convertible sports COEs.
1:30:21
There's a couple British cars we've forgotten about.
1:30:23
We could go down and venture X js.
1:30:26
Well, not even that.
1:30:27
No, I got a thumbs up from Don that we're on the same wavelength there.
1:30:30
You, you know me, I'm always, I'm always itching for warm beer
1:30:34
and a lot of troubles, you know?
1:30:38
No way I can get a warm beer.
1:30:40
I'm happy.
1:30:41
Well, if you like that, then you'll definitely like the Triumph t R seven.
1:30:46
No, my dear boy.
1:30:47
No, those are rubbish.
1:30:49
Oh, okay.
1:30:49
Then if you don't like that.
1:30:50
What about the T V R Tasman two 80 I, is there a way to turn off his microphone?
1:30:58
Yeah, I got to drive a Tasman two 80 I, they're really neat.
1:31:03
They are cobbled together, you know, Handbuilt and black
1:31:06
pool and the whole nine yards.
1:31:07
It's a part spin car.
1:31:08
Some of it's Mercedes, you know, it's a Ford Corina engine.
1:31:11
The suspension is some borrowed thing from Lotus.
1:31:14
You know, all this kind of stuff.
1:31:15
They're so unique.
1:31:17
It's a super light car.
1:31:19
They're actually kind of fun to drive.
1:31:20
Again, very analog.
1:31:21
If you like that wedgie convertible look and you want something
1:31:25
different, the Tasman two 80, I don't sell for a whole heck of a lot.
1:31:29
I know the guy that sold the one that I drove, it was like a dark
1:31:32
metallic brown, which was a super interesting, very seventies color, but
1:31:35
I think he sold it for like 10 grand.
1:31:37
He want something unique, something British and Ford powered, which
1:31:41
means it'll actually run T V R is something to consider.
1:31:44
So for British cars, I know it's not rare, but the Austin Minis
1:31:49
were made through the eighties.
1:31:50
Yeah.
1:31:50
And they started then went way after.
1:31:52
And if you want to talk about a car that's plentiful for parts because there's
1:31:56
plenty of 'em out there, a bunch of my British friends hate the fact I always
1:32:00
called it the British Volkswagen Bug.
1:32:02
'cause in my opinion, it's what it was.
1:32:03
It was, you know, easily built and everything.
1:32:05
The cool thing about those cars is they've got such history and prestige
1:32:08
to 'em with the rally racing that they did, as well as the fact that one point
1:32:11
in time, I don't know if they still do or not, but I wanna say it was late
1:32:14
eighties, early two thousands, they were still holding the fact that those cars
1:32:18
could hold some of the highest GSS in corners for the uh, how well it gripped
1:32:23
the ground of all manufactured cars out.
1:32:25
So something as cheap as that, being able to pull more Gs in some of these supercars
1:32:29
and turns is amazing and having owed many of them and driven them, I can vouch
1:32:33
for the fact they will hang in turns.
1:32:34
Very well see.
1:32:35
He made all his friends angry by saying it was the British bug.
1:32:39
You should have told him it was the British Fiat 500 and
1:32:41
see how they got really upset.
1:32:46
We would be remiss not to talk about, I mean, if, I guess if you love maintenance
1:32:50
the eighties through this 93 cycle of Aston Martin, some of that stuff
1:32:55
looks so much cooler than it once did.
1:32:58
Yes.
1:32:58
I mean, at least to me, the barrages and Vantages of that era, when
1:33:04
I was younger, I thought that they looked like hot garbage.
1:33:07
And the DB seven was, you know, the first good looking car that Aston
1:33:10
Martin had made since the sixties.
1:33:12
But as you know, grown up and times change or whatever, like I think they
1:33:17
look pretty damn cool, pretty muscly, like really kind of sophisticated muscle cars.
1:33:21
A very kind of niche of their own.
1:33:23
And you can pick 'em up even just using bat as pricing in the 50 ish grand range.
1:33:28
And well then, then if we're going on bridge, what about,
1:33:31
you know, uh, Lotus, which one.
1:33:33
Ri the ultimate eighties cocaine car.
1:33:36
Yeah, the Lotus Esprit.
1:33:37
Is the esprit turbo.
1:33:39
Really?
1:33:39
An eighties car.
1:33:40
It was designed to build the seventies.
1:33:42
I think so.
1:33:42
Culturally.
1:33:43
Culturally, it's, it was, and it was made until 2004 or something,
1:33:47
but culturally it's an eighties car.
1:33:49
Yeah.
1:33:49
I put it as an eighties car.
1:33:50
It's the Dodge Viper of the eighties.
1:33:54
You drive that around and someone's gonna look at, especially someone
1:33:56
that's not a car, they're gonna like go, wow, look at that.
1:33:59
You know?
1:33:59
It's got very unique styling to it.
1:34:01
I mean, it didn't change much over its whole span of its life.
1:34:04
I dunno, I'm a fan of them.
1:34:05
I, I think they look great.
1:34:06
Even four cylinder, it still has got a little pep to it.
1:34:09
I feel like there is a clear generational separation in the espree, and I'm
1:34:15
not talking about the V eight esprees 'cause obviously they rounded them up.
1:34:18
They made 'em very nineties looking, you know, all those kinds of things.
1:34:20
But the early cars, up until like 84, 85 with the turbo
1:34:24
esprees, they really changed 'em.
1:34:26
I think they got better as they got older until the VAs came out.
1:34:30
There's something weird about the early, let's call it the James Bond Lotus with
1:34:34
those kind of like ragger wheels that it came with and, and all that stuff.
1:34:37
I, I'm just not a fan of those, to Mark's point, what I call
1:34:40
the second generation spree.
1:34:42
Definitely an eighties car, but it was still holding onto that wedge look of
1:34:47
the jpa and the Kunta and like all that stuff that started in the seventies.
1:34:52
It's an eighties car sports car, but a high supercar, I guess you
1:34:55
could consider it at that time.
1:34:56
Still too disco for me.
1:34:58
Got a very unique sound to it too though.
1:35:00
Yes, that's the one thing, it's got a very distinctive sound of it and
1:35:04
it's fully submersible, which is.
1:35:07
Pretty unique if you're in a tuxedo.
1:35:09
But if I have to pick between a Lotus Esprit and a Ferrari 3 0
1:35:13
8, 3 28, and I will go as far as to give Don just a little bit of
1:35:17
runway here and say the Manal.
1:35:20
I'd almost rather have one of those than the esprit.
1:35:23
Oh, I would too.
1:35:24
I have a manal and an esprit, honestly.
1:35:26
Yeah, I think so.
1:35:27
Just because of the maintenance factor.
1:35:28
The rarity of the espree.
1:35:30
Oh, crack a windshield on Espree.
1:35:32
Good luck.
1:35:32
You gotta get 'em like made by some elf in the Midlands.
1:35:36
It's not gonna happen.
1:35:38
So it kind of scares me.
1:35:39
That's the Elfs are your friend.
1:35:40
They work for warm beer.
1:35:43
You were wandering around York being like, can anybody make a windshield?
1:35:47
Right.
1:35:47
Exactly.
1:35:48
Exactly.
1:35:50
You know, there's 1 97 year old guy who used to work for, you know, British Leland
1:35:54
that can do it, but the obscurity of the Lotus stuff has always scared me away from
1:35:58
those cars, and it's still prolific today.
1:36:00
When you look at the Elise, like you get the slightest crack in that
1:36:04
clamshell, total, the whole car.
1:36:06
That scares a lot of people.
1:36:07
You know people.
1:36:07
Oh, I love it.
1:36:08
I love the Elise because they have a problem is it's,
1:36:09
yeah, there's maintenance.
1:36:11
I love to drive someone else's lotus.
1:36:13
They're perfect that way.
1:36:14
You know what I mean?
1:36:15
Best rental car ever.
1:36:17
To Mark's point, he was saying, we've got older and look at these cars
1:36:19
the way they looked back then, it's like they're more attractive now.
1:36:22
And I think a lot of that comes down to the fact that when they came out
1:36:24
from the factory, a lot of these cars, they didn't pop very much.
1:36:27
It was kind of dull looking, but as times went on, people painted 'em
1:36:30
different colors, put different wheels on 'em, done different things to them.
1:36:33
It really brings out, I would say, like the true beauty of those cars.
1:36:36
An example, I was looking at some of the, I think it was a vantage
1:36:39
I was looking at online earlier.
1:36:41
The pictures of it from the factory were ugly, but there was one that
1:36:43
a guy cleaned up and everything.
1:36:45
I was like, it's a beautiful looking car.
1:36:46
But if you look at the factory picture of it, it was like, yeah, that's crap.
1:36:49
It's weird how just little things can make a car look so
1:36:51
much better and more attractive.
1:36:53
And I just recently had that experience with one of the weirdest cars.
1:36:57
The SOB 900 Turbo.
1:36:58
There's one running around that I've seen.
1:37:01
You know, 90% of 'em are black and the whole nine yards.
1:37:04
And I drove one of those cars years ago and I thought they were quirky
1:37:07
and weird and I just couldn't get over the, the hotdog, Oscar Meyer Wiener
1:37:10
mobile kind of styling that it has.
1:37:12
But now I look at it, I go, those are really cool.
1:37:15
You don't see 'em anymore.
1:37:16
They're actually, the design language of the 900 was kind of ahead of its time.
1:37:20
It's actually a really cool car.
1:37:23
And that's one I wanted to throw out there for people to consider
1:37:25
is kind of look at the Swedes.
1:37:27
If we give Don any more runway, we're gonna be in this weird 8 57, 42 40, you
1:37:33
know, going on about Boxy Volvos forever I, the 9,000 CD sob, 9,000 CD sob.
1:37:39
I was gonna let you go there because that's a Opal Vectra, or one of those
1:37:44
Reba, which is a sob when I was a station over, when a guy had one and I
1:37:48
used to love messing 'cause on those, the ignitions, which is in the center.
1:37:52
Yeah.
1:37:53
So we'd be going down the road and he'd come to the stop sign.
1:37:55
I'd reach down and grab the key and pull it out and throw it out the window.
1:37:57
Yeah.
1:37:58
And he used to get every time, because he'd have to pull the handbrake, get
1:38:02
out, get the key, get it back in.
1:38:04
Start out.
1:38:04
He was like, do not do that again.
1:38:05
I'm like, what?
1:38:07
But thousands as well.
1:38:09
I actually owned one of those and it was a great car.
1:38:12
The great thing about, it's like in England, not many cars came
1:38:15
with air conditioning 'cause it's not common for 'em to have.
1:38:17
That was one of the few cars when I got over there, had air conditioning.
1:38:19
I was like, I loved it.
1:38:20
So everybody used to love riding with me.
1:38:22
One of the summers I was there was one of the hottest they had in years
1:38:24
and like old people were dying off like flies because of how much heat
1:38:27
it was and they couldn't handle it.
1:38:29
And I had one of the few cars with air conditioning, so it was
1:38:31
great for long trips and everybody used to love riding with me.
1:38:34
I was hoping somebody would trip over the SOB 9,000 landmine because if you look
1:38:39
at the Vox halls and the opals that they were built on, no, he says no, it's true.
1:38:46
But if you look at Opal, which is a brand that was here in the seventies with Amman
1:38:51
and a lot of other cars, if you kind of reach back in the eighties and you start
1:38:54
looking at the Vectra, the Collibra, the Omega, there's some actually really neat
1:39:00
opals in there that you could bring over.
1:39:02
Now because we're again, outside of that statute of limitations for gray market
1:39:06
cars, looking at some of these other German and British brands, it opens
1:39:10
up some other options for collectors looking for something different.
1:39:13
Yeah.
1:39:13
And the Saab Volvo, either way you wanna go with it.
1:39:16
Going back to your cars and coffees.
1:39:19
You're probably not gonna see another one.
1:39:21
Given the current audience of let's say 20 somethings that are running
1:39:25
around in those cars and coffees, they've likely never even seen
1:39:29
a sob, 900, 9,000 or any of the numerous Volvos that have been built.
1:39:33
You're gonna have a car that's gonna attract some attention, especially
1:39:37
in the case of the 900, you've got a car that was engineered so strangely.
1:39:41
I mean the engine is in backward.
1:39:43
What they were thinking, I don't know if you've ever worked on one of their cars
1:39:47
and I haven't having seen enough of them.
1:39:50
The accessibility is absolutely incredible as long as you don't
1:39:53
have to do that water pump.
1:39:54
'cause again, that water pump is up against the firewall.
1:39:58
So if you're gonna do a water pump, the easiest thing in the world to do is do a
1:40:01
Porsche style and just drop the engine.
1:40:03
Yeah, just pull it out and do the whole thing.
1:40:05
Which unfortunately, that takes us to the maintenance regimen.
1:40:09
And as we've been talking, a lot of these cars fell by the wayside simply because
1:40:12
owners didn't want to put the effort of the money into maintaining them.
1:40:15
But God, when did they build the first 900?
1:40:18
Was that 81?
1:40:19
It replaced the sonnet, didn't it?
1:40:20
Or something like that.
1:40:22
Yeah, it did.
1:40:22
And the sonnet was a weird one.
1:40:24
You had a little V four, I mean, come on.
1:40:26
That and a two stroke in some cases.
1:40:27
Right.
1:40:28
So it all depends on the year.
1:40:29
Yes, yes.
1:40:31
There's some other weird ones on the list.
1:40:32
I'm just gonna mention 'em for people that maybe they wanna like research these cars.
1:40:36
I know Don, you and I joke about the citation, especially the X 11 is the
1:40:39
hot rod precursor to the Cavalier and all this other kind of stuff.
1:40:43
Right?
1:40:44
And then you have the Cimarron, the Cadillac version of that, you know, and
1:40:47
I mentioned these Isuzu impulse, but also I think it was Jeff said early on
1:40:51
about the Bratt, don't forget about the Subaru xt and then even the SS V X, right?
1:40:56
Because that sort of began in the really late eighties, early nineties.
1:41:02
Oh, and don't forget the Chevy Beretta.
1:41:04
That's another one that people forget about too, if you want.
1:41:06
Ooh.
1:41:07
And the Lumina.
1:41:08
Don't forget the Lumina.
1:41:09
No, no.
1:41:09
We can all forget about the Lumina.
1:41:11
But the Beretta with its 3.4 liter chain driven V six.
1:41:15
The Lumina no had a 3.4 liter with dual overhead rams, my friend.
1:41:20
No, my car didn't exist.
1:41:21
Trash.
1:41:22
They have the Lumina Z 24, 34, whatever was, yeah, the Z 34 was the Lumina.
1:41:28
The Z 24 was the Cavalier.
1:41:30
My mom had one of those.
1:41:31
The convertible.
1:41:32
Yeah, they were nice, weren't they?
1:41:33
Before we get to my final pitch here, 'cause I got a good one for you car that's
1:41:37
that's often overlooked from the eighties.
1:41:39
I wanna hear about Fiero ownership from an actual Fiero owner because Awesome.
1:41:44
That is an eighties car if there ever was one.
1:41:47
I took credit car.
1:41:47
I mean you obviously got no powers of that, but I mean it was like
1:41:49
a little go-kart, but you sat low to the ground in that car.
1:41:53
I mean, you were way down on the floor of that thing.
1:41:56
I'm six one and I had plenty of room in that car.
1:41:59
Having space, that wasn't an issue.
1:42:01
I mean, obviously you're not gonna have much luggage space.
1:42:03
You just have your passenger.
1:42:04
That's it.
1:42:05
But very short, but wide.
1:42:07
So I mean, being handled great, you know, I never had a problem.
1:42:10
I mean, of course, you know, I was in high school when I had it, so trying to really
1:42:13
kind of judge it based on other things, you know, I really enjoyed that car.
1:42:16
If I ever came across one, I'll look around if something catches my eye, you.
1:42:21
Getting there, bought one just to park in the garage to have another one.
1:42:25
But the thing is, is like do I go with the GT that I had and had the notch back?
1:42:29
But then he also got the newer one was like the, was it 87 88?
1:42:32
They had the, you know they had the GLAS back, the two M six, but they had the
1:42:36
Morero one, they had the Indy Firo GT with the head scoop on the roof and that, I
1:42:42
don't know, it was a lot of fun, you know.
1:42:43
And I've seen people here and there, they've stuffed an LSS in that would be
1:42:46
a fun little car to get up and go with.
1:42:48
And it's unfortunate 'cause I know they had it in the works to bring
1:42:52
out a whole new model with that.
1:42:54
But then they killed it off 'cause something else happened.
1:42:56
But you know, the next gen car that they were gonna come out
1:42:59
with was gonna be spectacular.
1:43:00
It was gonna be longer.
1:43:01
What?
1:43:01
It was gonna be a great car.
1:43:03
I almost gonna say a Corvette killer type situation.
1:43:05
But that's why I was killed.
1:43:06
It was gonna go too much head to head with the Corvette.
1:43:09
Yeah, that's why I was killed.
1:43:10
There was only room at GM for one two Cedar sports car.
1:43:13
And if you remember, the Fiero already had the midg engine thing going on.
1:43:16
They were adding twin turbos to it.
1:43:19
Chevrolet couldn't hear this and the next thing you know, yeah.
1:43:21
Oh well Firo has to go away.
1:43:23
You don't see that many of 'em out there anywhere.
1:43:25
I mean the whole car was pretty much plastic anyways on the outside, you know?
1:43:29
So your panels and stuff, it's all your stuff underneath it.
1:43:31
You gotta worry about rust wise that for four or five grand, you could
1:43:34
probably hunt down a pretty decent one.
1:43:36
It's gonna have mileage on it, but it'd be a lot of fun.
1:43:39
Something unique.
1:43:39
Is it true that it shared a lot of parts with the Chevette, which
1:43:42
was basically just an opal cadet?
1:43:44
Yeah, I think it did.
1:43:45
I mean that car only had pulled all the pounds off like that.
1:43:47
That thing wasn't anything special underneath.
1:43:49
Yeah, I mean it was, it was a cheap car.
1:43:50
I mean it wasn't expensive.
1:43:52
I guess you say unique about it was, 'cause it was a mid-engine car.
1:43:55
Even the six, it only had 140 horsepower.
1:43:58
138, something like that.
1:43:59
It wasn't gonna get 'em go.
1:44:00
But I mean it was small.
1:44:01
It was light.
1:44:02
It didn't need a lot of power.
1:44:03
The power to weight ratio was really good.
1:44:04
It did.
1:44:04
Yeah.
1:44:05
Again, if you're looking for something that's gonna be unique, stand out, add
1:44:08
a cars and coffee and have some fun with, you could tweak it a little bit.
1:44:11
If you want have something, you can work on it yourself.
1:44:13
Four or five grand.
1:44:14
You can have something that no one else pretty much has.
1:44:16
You're not gonna have your own Fiero section at any car event.
1:44:19
That's for sure.
1:44:20
My cousin had a firo and that was one of the first cars I ever worked on.
1:44:24
I was doing brakes for, they had to twist out caliper so it didn't go back in.
1:44:28
I had never done one like I before.
1:44:29
I'm trying to press the caliper out and it didn't not wanna press
1:44:32
out after calling some people.
1:44:33
'cause this was, you know, before internet was, you know, as easy as
1:44:37
it is now during the dialup days.
1:44:38
I reached out to a couple guys that worked at shops and they're like, yeah, you
1:44:41
gotta actually turn into Piston and as you compress it or it's not gonna go in.
1:44:44
See, you just hadn't owned a Volkswagen yet.
1:44:47
If you did, you would've already known this.
1:44:48
This is like common stuff.
1:44:52
Mark brought up something in the chat and I think it's the second
1:44:55
banker's Hot Rod, which is the M BMW 6 35 and 6 35 CI and all those.
1:45:00
I think those are, like you mentioned before, looking at them with new
1:45:04
eyes, or I guess old eyes now.
1:45:06
I think reverse aerodynamic front end and low slung rear end, it's actually quite an
1:45:10
attractive car and I think the six series doesn't get as much press as it should.
1:45:15
I love those.
1:45:16
They drive great, especially the uh, I know six five, but the M six
1:45:19
series of those are fantastic too.
1:45:22
I mean, you could get four people in that car if you needed to.
1:45:24
That's a great car because if you can get a Euro version, it's got 286 horsepower,
1:45:30
256 in the US version on the M six.
1:45:33
And even when you go down to 6 3 5, I think it's only like two
1:45:36
30 or two 20 I think horsepower in that if I memory serves me.
1:45:39
So I mean, you don't have a big disparaging, you know,
1:45:42
range that in horsepower.
1:45:43
Those, I think those are gorgeous, sharp looking cars.
1:45:46
I'm a big fan.
1:45:47
They're super aggressive looking now.
1:45:49
Yeah, like you then you're like, eh, it's a B M W, but now you know,
1:45:54
square body, round headlights and those wheels, it just looks menacing.
1:45:58
You're like, you show up at a traffic light.
1:45:59
That thing.
1:45:59
People were like, what the hell are you driving?
1:46:01
You know what's in that thing?
1:46:02
Yeah.
1:46:02
I think that the 6 35 c s I came first.
1:46:05
Right.
1:46:06
I mean that was the first car they released that had that M one engine in it.
1:46:10
Yeah.
1:46:10
And that was the big deal.
1:46:11
Like the C Ss I had the M one engine.
1:46:14
Yeah, it was the 3.5 liter in line six.
1:46:16
That car goes all the way back to the six 30 was the first one that they released.
1:46:20
And of course before that you had the E nine chassis, which is what
1:46:24
this car is basically the sun of E nine, which is your 2,800 C S
1:46:29
I and the 3.0 c s i amazing cars.
1:46:32
You, you know, when I was growing up, it's funny, Eric, you say
1:46:34
that, that they're just BMWs this.
1:46:37
Was one of my ultimate dream cars.
1:46:39
You know, my dream car list only has five cars on it, if I remember correctly.
1:46:43
And that's still one of the cars on there.
1:46:45
You know, it's funny, I love to have an M six.
1:46:47
Love, love, love to have an M six, having driven both of them,
1:46:50
the 6 35 C S I and the M six.
1:46:53
Yeah, the M six is quicker, handles better, blah, blah, blah.
1:46:56
The 6 35, there's nothing wrong with it.
1:46:58
There's no shame in having a 6 35.
1:47:00
And I've driven the five speed and I've driven the automatic
1:47:03
and there is a difference.
1:47:04
The five speed's gonna give you a lot more pep, but if you're just into
1:47:07
cruising and enjoying and having a nice little night out, there's no
1:47:11
shame in having that automatic and, and now they're fantastic cars.
1:47:14
They're well built.
1:47:15
You'll find these cars hitting 300,000, 350,000 miles despite.
1:47:19
What Eric thinks of BMWs, but that's only if they maintain them.
1:47:24
And again, BMWs are notorious.
1:47:27
They absolutely demand being maintained.
1:47:30
In fact, these cards, if you look on the dashboard, they actually have
1:47:33
this series of lights that go across and they're, they're like green,
1:47:36
green, green, yellow, yellow, red.
1:47:39
And that's your maintenance light.
1:47:40
And when that red comes on, you've gotta get it in for servicing.
1:47:43
Otherwise, it starts going absolutely berserk.
1:47:45
You have pulled up Mark, the one that I wanted more than anything.
1:47:49
The brights in a bar red.
1:47:50
With the, uh, what did they call it?
1:47:52
Lotus Interior, I think they called that.
1:47:54
Yeah.
1:47:54
And that, that is the one that I wanted one were to caution with the cars
1:47:57
that I think is still a problem today.
1:47:59
The factory wheels not the one that Mark has behind it.
1:48:03
Mark has some b b s wheels on there, but the factory, 6 35 wheels were metrics
1:48:09
sized and there was only one maker who made tires for it, and that was Michelin.
1:48:13
Yep.
1:48:13
I don't if that still holds true today, but back in the day, oh my
1:48:17
god, those tires were a fortune.
1:48:19
So most people just swapped out the wheels.
1:48:21
They just bought a b b S set of wheels and they bought some aftermarket kind
1:48:24
of wheel and they just, Put whatever they could find and put those tires on.
1:48:28
Wasn't it T R X, something like that?
1:48:30
Michelin T Rx?
1:48:31
Mm-hmm.
1:48:31
Thing was, yeah.
1:48:32
Yeah, there was, yeah, I think you're right.
1:48:33
I think it was Michelin T Rx tires and they were the only
1:48:36
ones that would fit that car.
1:48:38
That gives you an idea of how well engineered that car was.
1:48:40
Let's name another car that wears bespoke tires.
1:48:43
Oh, the Bugatti.
1:48:44
Yeah, so I mean that gives you an idea of how much thought B M W was putting
1:48:48
into these six area BMWs because they knew their target was ta-da, the five
1:48:52
60 Ss e C, the 500 s e c, those big Mercedes, that was the market they were
1:48:57
going for, and then that 9 28 showed up from Porsche and I was like, oh my God.
1:49:01
As if we didn't have enough problems competing with Mercedes,
1:49:03
now we're competing with Porsche.
1:49:05
Fortunately, the buyers kind of delineated themselves out and Porsche
1:49:09
people with, with the 9 28, et cetera.
1:49:11
I think with the eighties though, in B M W, obviously people will always
1:49:14
gravitate to anything E 30, especially the m threes and stuff like that, and
1:49:18
the 6 35 instantly recognizable classic German muscle car, but the one that
1:49:24
gets forgotten and it is an M car and I think is good value for money today.
1:49:29
Is the E 28, M five, that thing packs a punch.
1:49:33
It's understated.
1:49:34
Basically only came in black, so it's perfect for me.
1:49:37
It's one of those cars that I've personally been in.
1:49:39
Them driven one.
1:49:40
They're fantastic.
1:49:42
Again, underappreciated.
1:49:43
They just don't have the same general seis.
1:49:46
Yeah, exactly.
1:49:47
Thank you, mark.
1:49:47
People don't look at this five series, the M five in the same way they do.
1:49:51
Let's say the M six, the eight 50, or even the E 30.
1:49:55
Any rate, I think the E 28 is something to look at.
1:49:58
If you start looking at the M fives of that, the E 28, you're actually
1:50:02
finding a very, very expensive car.
1:50:04
If you find one that is cheap, always keep in mind the mantra that
1:50:09
the cheapest exotic car is going to be your most expensive one.
1:50:12
The one that might be of interest.
1:50:14
That does get overlooked, and I don't know the chassis numbers.
1:50:18
If you remember the movie Ronan, there's a little, I think it was a
1:50:21
PEO chasing an M five, that M five, but basically it's like a 91, 92.
1:50:28
It's that rounded kind of body style of the B M W.
1:50:31
Those are very underrated.
1:50:33
I think people even forget that they had the Ronan M five.
1:50:37
They didn't build too many of them.
1:50:39
They were in the shadow of the E 28 that you're talking about.
1:50:42
And then of course later they built even prettier, better.
1:50:46
M five.
1:50:47
Yeah.
1:50:47
Like the E 39.
1:50:48
So yeah, if you wanna bargain from the family, that might be it.
1:50:51
One of the things that dawned on me when we were talking about the e
1:50:54
thirties, that was one of the first eighties cars I ever had owned and
1:50:58
drive BMW was thinking ahead with that for the fact of the fuel economy.
1:51:01
'cause I had a little sweeping gauge on the back and forth, depend on
1:51:04
how much throttle you were getting.
1:51:05
The BMWs have had that forever.
1:51:07
It's never worked.
1:51:08
Right.
1:51:08
It's super inaccurate and they keep doing it.
1:51:10
It's like tradition.
1:51:11
Right.
1:51:11
You know, keep refining that bad idea forever.
1:51:13
It's fun to play with it though.
1:51:15
'cause it's like you, you just floor it and it would drop down to zero and then
1:51:18
you'd let off make it back up to like 50.
1:51:20
Dan, I'm surprised that's coming from you.
1:51:21
You're the Chevy guy of the group.
1:51:23
And even I know the Ford guy here that Mike Caprice has one
1:51:26
of those little things too.
1:51:28
It goes back and forth.
1:51:29
To wrap this up, before we do our quick lightning round, I found one car and I'm,
1:51:34
I'm surprised Don, you didn't go there.
1:51:37
And it dovetails right off of our muscle and malaise episode that we did.
1:51:41
Remember I closed that episode out talking about the Ford Fairmont
1:51:44
and how basically it was a, it was a wolf and sheep's clothing.
1:51:48
Yeah.
1:51:48
You're gonna go to the LTD.
1:51:50
Yes.
1:51:51
Yeah, that is the continuation of that thread, that car.
1:51:54
Oh yeah.
1:51:55
Understated, underrated, undervalued.
1:51:57
And you're getting a more modern fox body right underneath of that L T D lx, right?
1:52:03
That's a car I would highly consider.
1:52:05
They only built it for two years, 84, 85, and they only built just
1:52:09
a little over 3000 for the entire run where that car started.
1:52:14
I don't know if you know this or not, but that was Bob Bonderant who built that car.
1:52:17
Not Bob himself per se, but Bob's team out of his school, they had these little lxs.
1:52:23
They were trying to teach people how to drive high
1:52:25
performance, which is impossible.
1:52:26
When you got three students in the car each, you weigh roughly 200
1:52:30
pounds plus the driver, and they're trying to get this six cylinder
1:52:33
Ford that's smog, choked, et cetera.
1:52:36
There really was nothing they could do, but they realized that
1:52:38
yes, it's a Fox platform car.
1:52:40
We could take the engine out of one of our mustangs, throw it into this car, and
1:52:44
we've suddenly got a four-door hot rod.
1:52:47
And they did.
1:52:48
And for the longest time they didn't think anything of it.
1:52:50
They just had a training car that had guts.
1:52:52
And one day some of the Ford executives came out to see the bonder on what
1:52:57
was going on out there, what were they doing with our Mustangs, et cetera.
1:53:00
And Bob himself took him for a drive in that lx.
1:53:03
Before it was an lx, it was still just an L t d.
1:53:05
He is rowing through the gears and they realize this thing got a V eight and
1:53:08
five speed guys, do we build this car?
1:53:11
No, we don't build this car.
1:53:12
We dunno where this car came, Bob, where'd this car come from?
1:53:15
Well, let me tell you a story.
1:53:16
And he told them a story.
1:53:17
And the next thing you know, They're going back to Dearborn and they're coming
1:53:20
up with a plan to build a five liter lx.
1:53:23
And really what that was was a stop gap.
1:53:25
S h O and Taurus were being planned out.
1:53:29
SS h o was on the very, very back burner, but they knew they wanted
1:53:33
a high performance Taurus, but the Taurus was on the front burner.
1:53:35
They were investing billions into building the ta.
1:53:39
This was a great stop gap.
1:53:40
This was a way to show people, hi, we're Ford and we do have
1:53:44
performance four door sedans.
1:53:46
Check this out.
1:53:47
And there it is, the L T D lx.
1:53:49
But it was never marketed.
1:53:50
Less than 3,500 were built.
1:53:52
I'll say that.
1:53:53
3,260.
1:53:54
And if you look at the one mark has that that car actually lives or lived,
1:53:58
I don't know if it's still there, but that car actually lived in Long Beach.
1:54:02
That car is where that car is from, and that is an original LX, L T D, but they
1:54:09
pulled out the original carbureted.
1:54:11
3 0 2, and they put in an 89 5 liter from an 89 Mustang.
1:54:16
Gave it a lot more horsepower, a lot more torque, et cetera.
1:54:19
Then he did the suspension, he did everything.
1:54:21
That car right there, the one that Mark has behind him, is an incredible,
1:54:26
incredible reinterpretation.
1:54:28
But here's the beautiful thing, and again, we're talking to people who are thinking
1:54:31
about their very first collectible car.
1:54:33
Yeah.
1:54:33
If you're into the four-door performance, under the radar car,
1:54:36
s h o is sell for twice as much.
1:54:39
It's incredible how many people want an s h o.
1:54:41
They don't even think about this car.
1:54:43
Now, granted, the s h O is quicker.
1:54:45
The s h o is faster.
1:54:46
The SS h o handles better.
1:54:48
The s h O is more comfortable.
1:54:50
There was a lot more resources put behind SS h O than L T D lx.
1:54:55
It doesn't matter.
1:54:56
All these things that s H O can do, that this L T D can't, because
1:55:00
you know what an S H O can't do?
1:55:03
Is get a coyote shoved under its hood and you can't this true, well, you
1:55:07
could or, or you could spend $5 on that five liter and kick that SHO's ass.
1:55:11
Oh, a thousand percent.
1:55:13
A thousand percent.
1:55:13
You could, you could, yeah, absolutely.
1:55:16
Five, five, $7.
1:55:18
I'll give you $10 total.
1:55:20
It's real world drive manual transmission all day long.
1:55:23
You can beef up that V eight.
1:55:24
The SHO's downfall is that it was front wheel drive.
1:55:27
Yes, it had the Yamaha and all that other stuff, and great, it
1:55:30
would blow its doors off, but in the long run, that's a better car.
1:55:33
That's a better collector car.
1:55:35
It's a sleeper.
1:55:37
It checks all the boxes and it's right up there with that Mercedes we
1:55:40
talked about as an awesome candidate for a prospective buyer looking at
1:55:45
something from this time period.
1:55:46
That was my final thought before we go into our lightning round.
1:55:49
And what I wanna do is, I wanna pass this to Brad, who's been really quiet and say,
1:55:52
would you buy anything off of this list?
1:55:55
Um, no.
1:55:57
Uh, yes.
1:55:58
I, I would, I would buy, uh, I have a short list of cars that I like.
1:56:03
Okay.
1:56:04
A Notchback Mustang 9 2 4 Ss bar.
1:56:08
I expect that handful of shit to be mailed to Eric's address.
1:56:13
I can give it to you after the call.
1:56:16
I'll get it from him later.
1:56:18
And then the cre de la creme for me is a 1986 G M C Sierra, 3,500 dually.
1:56:25
Oh wow.
1:56:26
Very specific.
1:56:28
But it's the essential truck from the movie Lethal Weapon too.
1:56:31
Martin Riggs used it to pull down a house on stilts.
1:56:34
I want use it to haul mulch.
1:56:36
So since Brad started us off, y'all get to pick one car from the eighties.
1:56:41
Money's no object.
1:56:42
Whatever you want.
1:56:43
One car from the eighties, what is it?
1:56:45
What's it gonna be?
1:56:46
Let's go with Mount Mandan.
1:56:47
Where buddy the block.
1:56:49
Come back to me on this.
1:56:50
I gotta think about what I would buy because I already own so
1:56:53
many eighties of what I want.
1:56:54
Harlequin Square body.
1:56:56
Ooh, that's an interesting idea There you are a bad, bad man with that
1:57:00
Lotus Carlton behind you there, sir.
1:57:04
We'll get into that later.
1:57:05
So since we went there, mark, what have you got?
1:57:07
Ah, shit.
1:57:08
If I had to pick, you know I go back earlier in the conversation
1:57:11
and honestly we've skipped it.
1:57:13
We totally skipped it.
1:57:14
We didn't talk about it at all.
1:57:15
It would be hard for me to pass on like an R five turbo or no min engine hot hatch.
1:57:23
Kind of like the craziest, never should've actually been built car.
1:57:28
Yep.
1:57:28
That was ever built.
1:57:29
And if I'm thinking like a quintessential unobtainium eighties car for me as a kid,
1:57:34
and admittedly there's stupid, there's six figure cars these days, a hundred percent.
1:57:38
But you know, for me personally, That's where I'd land.
1:57:42
You know, I do think the Lotus Carlton sneaks into our, because
1:57:46
it's based off an eighties voxel.
1:57:48
Yep.
1:57:48
Right.
1:57:48
So it's, it's a very eighties platform.
1:57:51
It was released in 93, right on the edge of our barrier.
1:57:55
You know, of course, it's very distinct history.
1:57:57
It was really my money and I had to pick, I do an R five, maybe we'll do
1:58:01
an episode about the colonists and the colonies and talk about Australian
1:58:05
cars and British cars in more detail.
1:58:07
Another point, because we didn't even talk about Holdens or the Falcons or any of
1:58:11
that stuff that the Aussies had going on.
1:58:12
It's, you know, it's like three hours is not enough.
1:58:15
No, never is.
1:58:16
Well, that's why we keep doing these, right?
1:58:19
Can't cover it all in three hours.
1:58:21
So let's go to William.
1:58:23
Anything you want from the eighties, well say money's no object.
1:58:26
Whatever you want, you get one choice.
1:58:28
Just one choice.
1:58:29
But I get my hands out an F 40.
1:58:31
Money.
1:58:33
Hey, always count on William to go big money.
1:58:37
Big money.
1:58:37
William Ross.
1:58:39
And then if it was gonna come down and say I'd go to M six or I'd go that, but
1:58:43
then stepped out, I'd go to notch back, Fox Body Mustang, and then my firo.
1:58:47
Jeff, what have you got?
1:58:48
If you could buy one car from the eighties, what would it be?
1:58:51
Punta.
1:58:51
And if I was going more kind of normal.
1:58:54
I'm really on that Dodge Shelby charger, the late eighties manual with the turbo.
1:59:00
They were considered butt ugly for the longest time.
1:59:04
A lot of people still think they're dog dodoo and they're cool now.
1:59:08
All, all of it.
1:59:09
They're cool.
1:59:09
Now that a lot of those are coming in like the, the fox bodies that you
1:59:13
guys have been talking about, all that stuff that was considered kind
1:59:16
of secondary to the cooler stuff is now kind of becoming, I think like
1:59:21
Dan was saying, more nostalgic now.
1:59:23
And so some of the beauty is coming out in the nostalgia as well as what Dan also
1:59:29
mentioned, some of the customization.
1:59:31
And so when you throw something under the hood that shouldn't be there,
1:59:34
that makes it go faster, that's cool.
1:59:36
You put new wheels on it, that's cool.
1:59:38
Fancy paint, all that stuff makes it really desirable.
1:59:41
All right, Dan, he teed you up.
1:59:43
Do you have an answer yet?
1:59:44
He actually took what I was gonna say with the Tage.
1:59:46
'cause I was thinking about, I was like, you know what?
1:59:47
I was like, I really love that as a kid.
1:59:49
What are you se like, see, you would, you would go for an Italian car.
1:59:53
Yeah.
1:59:53
That because, so here's the thing is it's a hard debate between that because the
1:59:57
Kosh was awesome back in the day, but the F 40 I think is so much prettier.
2:00:01
I don't know what it was about the Kosh.
2:00:02
It was like, maybe it was just the way it was promoted back then.
2:00:05
But it was like forefront right in our face.
2:00:08
But the F 40 was more quiet about it.
2:00:10
Dude, the Kunta was the centerfold in the magazine, right?
2:00:13
I mean, yeah, it's on the Trapper Keepers.
2:00:16
Oh yeah, that's right.
2:00:20
I had the tester Rosa Trapper keeper.
2:00:22
That's all I'm saying.
2:00:23
All our young listeners are like, what's a definitely no money limit
2:00:28
would be one of those two because they were epic supercars of that
2:00:32
era, and they're just amazing cars.
2:00:35
But if I had an unlimited budget, I would definitely dump a lot
2:00:38
more into more square bodies.
2:00:39
Oh Jesus.
2:00:40
All right.
2:00:40
They, they Now you just invalidated everything you just said before that.
2:00:43
So there you go.
2:00:46
Don, over to you.
2:00:47
What do you got?
2:00:47
And don't say Chrysler tc.
2:00:52
Not like ante baby.
2:00:53
No, I'm kidding.
2:00:54
Yeah, you know, I'm gonna join the Kunta Brigade because
2:00:57
I've always been a Kunta guy.
2:00:59
I've always loved Lamborghini.
2:01:00
I love the FU attitude that comes with any Lamborghini.
2:01:05
I got very little against Ferrari.
2:01:07
I have some against Ferrari.
2:01:08
But, uh, now I'm gonna, I'm gonna go with, uh, tta and one that we didn't
2:01:12
talk about that maybe we should have because they are reasonably cheap.
2:01:15
As long as you can keep 'em on the road.
2:01:18
And that would be the Metate Quattroporte.
2:01:21
I love those cars.
2:01:22
Yeah, they were a brick of a car and if you could maintain
2:01:25
'em, they drove like no other.
2:01:27
They were fantastic drivers.
2:01:29
And then I gotta go back to my high school days, you know, dad, forgive me
2:01:33
'cause we were raised Ford, but I have got to have an 89 Pontiac TransAm G T
2:01:38
A with the bowling ball hubcaps, right?
2:01:40
Well that'd be the 82.
2:01:41
Yeah.
2:01:42
Yeah.
2:01:42
But yeah, the 82 would have the bowling balls, but the 89 would have those gold
2:01:46
mesh e b s, the remake of the honeycombs.
2:01:49
It'd have a black paint job, leather interior, the T tops and the 5.7 liter.
2:01:55
If I could have, you know, things my way.
2:01:57
I know William went high dollar, I'm surprised Mark didn't just
2:02:00
suddenly say 9 59 just to go.
2:02:02
Completely poor show on that.
2:02:05
You know, in the chat there were things popping up like Launch Rados and Delta
2:02:09
HF in Tagala and things like that.
2:02:11
Those are all awesome cars.
2:02:12
And you know what?
2:02:12
I am in the F 40 camp.
2:02:14
I've seen many of them in person.
2:02:16
I love those cars.
2:02:17
They sound fantastic.
2:02:18
It's hard to beat the F 40, but because we are talking about the eighties
2:02:22
and I still think the French are the king of the hatchbacks, you know,
2:02:25
outside of the G T I and all that kinda stuff, I'm gonna lean a little into
2:02:29
my favoritism of all things not Citron and go with the Bugatti E B one 10.
2:02:36
Ooh, nice one.
2:02:37
Is that an eighties car?
2:02:39
It is technically designed in the eighties.
2:02:41
It came out in 19 9 1.
2:02:42
I know because it fits our criteria.
2:02:45
I'm in the window right?
2:02:46
It's alright.
2:02:47
I'll give it to you.
2:02:48
It's French, it's a supercar.
2:02:50
Paint it not blue.
2:02:51
It looks like the Batmobile.
2:02:53
It's absolutely incredible.
2:02:54
The coolest, ugly car out there.
2:02:56
I love them too.
2:02:57
Those, these are great.
2:02:57
I Those are fantastic.
2:02:59
Yeah.
2:02:59
I got to see one at speed and it, it left an impression on me, that's for sure.
2:03:03
I got to see one at Goodwood sitting next to a new Bugatti.
2:03:07
It was pretty amazing and as a kid, that car made a huge impression on me.
2:03:10
I still think of it as a nineties car though, just saying.
2:03:13
Well, Brad, anything you wanna add on top of that before you take us home?
2:03:16
No.
2:03:16
All strong choices.
2:03:18
I still stick with my pickup truck.
2:03:20
Bring your garage or collection to the next level with Don Weber
2:03:23
over@garagestylemagazine.com.
2:03:25
Interested in purchasing an exotic car from the eighties?
2:03:29
And be sure to reach out to William Ross at the Exotic Car Marketplace.
2:03:32
Thanks again to Jeff Willis for coming back on Break Fix.
2:03:36
Be sure to catch him on more episodes and pick up a copy of his book,
2:03:39
human In the Machine and you're guaranteed to catch Mark Mountain,
2:03:42
man, Dan and Tanya on another episode of Break Fix in the Near Future.
2:03:46
So stay tuned for that.
2:03:47
Thanks again to our panel for another great, what should I buy to date?
2:03:50
That's right.
2:03:51
And like all good.
2:03:52
What should I buys?
2:03:53
Except for I think the Italian one.
2:03:54
We never really come to a conclusion, but we hope we left
2:03:58
you with a lot of food for thought.
2:04:00
Don't take our advice.
2:04:01
Take our advice.
2:04:02
It's your money.
2:04:03
Spend it how you like, but enjoy whatever it is that you buy.
2:04:06
And remember that if you buy a car from the eighties, it's
2:04:09
gonna put a smile on your face.
2:04:10
Well done, gentlemen.
2:04:11
Yeah, good job.
2:04:13
Thanks guys.
2:04:14
Alright, we'll see you all very, very soon.
2:04:17
Thanks guys.
2:04:18
Later.
2:04:29
If you like what you've heard and want to learn more about G T M, be sure to
2:04:32
check us out on www.gt motorsports.org.
2:04:36
You can also find us on Instagram at Grantor Motorsports.
2:04:40
Also, if you want to get involved or have suggestions for future shows, you can call
2:04:44
or text us at (202) 630-1770 or send us an email at crew chief@gtmotorsports.org.
2:04:52
We'd love to hear from you.
2:04:54
Hey, everybody, crew, chief Eric here.
2:04:56
We really hope you enjoyed this episode of Break Fix, and we wanted
2:05:00
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2:05:05
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